Logan's Run

Man, I can't believe it took me all summer to use that pun as a blog post title. Anyways...

As y'all are no doubt aware from the lack of posting on everyone's part, the show happened. Once we got into the minutiae and the day-to-day Fringe stuff of running, handbilling, touting, postering, anxiously poring over reviews, seeing other shows, working and copious amounts of drinking, there simply wasn't much time to be updating a blog that, well, a rather small percentage of our audience would be reading. So we all just kinda threw ourselves into the show instead.

And now it's all over.

For all intents and purposes, we've put the show to bed. The set's been disassembled, the costumes are scattered across several closets, the venue has turned back into a loading dock, the lines are being forgotten as we speak. We've done the post-show-wrap-up, the cast party, the card exchange, the goodbye hugs. We'll be meeting up at some point to sort out cheques, but that's just business stuff. We've put the show to bed.

I can't speak for all of us, but for me, just basing off my own experience? Best Fringe show ever. Not to denigrate stuff I've done before, but there was an energy about Addition: An Unconventional Love Story that was just so present, so casual, and so easy. It wasn't work. I mean, yeah, it was work, but it didn't really feel like work. It was a simple, lovable little show that flowed out of us and onto the stage without the messiness and insanity I've come to associate with Fringetime. Maybe I was blind to a bunch of the craziness going on in the background, but I don't think so; I really feel like this show... clicked. It's a happy notch on my resume.

But we're done. 6.5 hours of show. 15.5 stars from the four papers that reviewed us. Two onstage nosebleeds, nineteen other Fringe shows seen, eight hundred handbills, not counting the black-and-white ones. Countless hours of rehearsal, three actors, two crew, more total time spent kissing/groping/caressing boys than I have girls in recent memory. Six shows, five quiches, hundreds and hundreds of satisfied audience members, one smile still on my face. You don't need to be a professional to know that these numbers make for some good Addition. (Oh jeez I am SORRY for that pun, but seriously; someone had to make it.)

We're all going our separate ways now; we've all got different arts things we're setting our sights on, some starting almost immediately. I can't shake the feeling, though, that we'll all always have the memory of an awesome summer putting together a show that, by most scales of measurement, turned out to be pretty kickass.

And when it gets remounted for the national tour, it's gonna have a couch, right?

David Johnston
Actor (Logan)