for your enjoyment.

What an amazing experience!

Being a part of HYPERBOLE: (anti) gravity has completely changed me. I feel so thankful to have worked with such a talented group of people! Coming to UCI, I thought I knew what I wanted to do. After being a part of this, I've realized that opportunities of expression and creation are everywhere. Who knew that newspaper and duct tape could be so expressive?! Not to mention that the night we closed I had a dream that I was a ninja who was fighting a battle with weapons made ony of newspaper and duct tape...which was awesome.

I am so happy that I did this audition on a whim. I am so incredibly happy that I met all these amazing people! I am really hoping to do some work with the Rogues in the future. You are all such lovely people! Seeing my cast mates on campus always brightens my day; we've had this awesome expreience that I don't think any of us will ever forget.

THANK YOU Rogues, thank you friends, thank you Tom Hanks for doing that delicious dance you did.

See you all in the future. =)

- UCI workshop participant Jenny Inman

It's been five days...

I can still remember removing my mask and placing it gently in the box. I can still remember looking at the mask lying there with all the others and thinking, "It's over." And then I remember ruffling my hair and shuffling off. I remember it all like it was just yestarday. Well it kind of was but I still can't believe my Rogues experience is all over. This two-week class on puppetry, masking, understanding body language, and of course absolute fun allowed me to dive into places I've never been before. This experience allowed me to expand on my imagination and fully use it to make art. What is art you ask? Rogues helped me understand that art is anything to do with life mixed with expression and you add a little spectacle on the side and you've got art! I'm only 19 years old so I've yet to get my feet wet with everything this industry, my life, and of course life in general has to offer, but being a true Rogue helped me look outside the box at least for two weeks. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for a very valuable lesson learned and I can't wait to do something like this again!

"I love all of you guys very much"

- UCI workshop participant Christian Taboada

We opened and closed on the same day!

We opened and closed on the same day and although the performance was not the ultimate focus of the project it was incredible and the audience was overjoyed.

Thank you to everyone again for the amazing two weeks. This has been an incredibly transformative and life affirming experience and will stay with me, in my heart, forever. I can't even describe the experience of returning back to UCI and having the chance to work with such an amazing group of artists in the creation of HYPERBOLE : (anti) gravity.
Let's definitely do this again, Rogues!

I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with all our new friends from the workshop and know that the road ahead is bright and paved with nothing but possibilities.

s.

Um...Wow.

Hello to everyone out there in the Rogueiverse!

I just got home from HYPERBOLE: (anti) gravity, and can I just get a hell yeah for the INSANE theatre art that happened on that stage today?! I know I am not alone is feeling overwhelmed by the talent and dedication of the students (and Rogues, of course) who participated in this workshop. I hereby declare the whole thing a resounding success, and I'm so excited about what this means for the future of both the Rogues and our UCI collaborators.

I'm feeling the love, guys, feeling the love.

Congratulations to all!

HYPERBOLE: (anti) gravity Tech Rehearsal

Because I've been working on another project, last night's tech rehearsal was the first time I'd been to the UCI workshop since day one, and let me just say: wow.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from last night. To see the real deal, up close and personal, head over to the Little Theater this Saturday at either 5 or 8 to catch the show. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Zombie Attack!

This is my first post here, so hi everyone!

For a while now I have really wanted to make a zombie puppet. So when the UCI workshop came around, and I found out we were going to get to make some random puppets of our own choosing, I thought this would be the perfect opporunity to fulfill this very geeky fantasy of mine. With help from Sean and Jeremy I was able to make what i think is a pretty sweet zombie. Behold!

I wish I could say that this is the first time I kissed the zombie...but it's not. What can I say? How could you say no to that face!

Here is a less creepy picture of him.

We Met Michael York!

I promised Michael York photos would be forthcoming, and here they are! (If you're just tuning in, the Rogues are collaborating with Long Beach Opera and Michael York to present a Frankenstein story this March.) Mr. York was exeedingly professional and courteous, and was very patient while the photographers took hundreds of pictures of him in the Rogue workshop. Here are some of our favorites:

That's me with the dead dog from D is for Dog on the right, and Kerry with a Visitor from the same show on the right. That classy gentleman in the middle is Michael York (!!!).

Above: Michael York gleefully holding the disembodied head of a Visitor.

There are a couple of other Frankenstein!! pictures on the project page on our website, as well as a link to buy tickets if you're interested.

UCI Masks: Part 2!

Last week, Emily and I blogged about the masks we'd been working on for the UCI workshop (which starts today...oh man!). At the time, they were just soggy piles of cloth, wire, and glue. But check them out now:

Wow! That's me on the left, holding maybe the scariest mask the Rogues have ever produced (I guess I have issues?). Emily's on the right. You can't see the detail in this photo (click it to enlarge), but she sprayed this amazing rock-texture stuff on the surface, and it's actually all pebbley like it was made from stone. It's incredible.

Crag Man

I made my first mask last night (see pics below)! I was hesitant at first, since I don't consider myself a very "artistic" person, but what the hell--it's only clay. If I did a terrible job someone else could come along and save it.

Guess what though?!

I didn't do a terrible job! I did a pretty good job (if I do say so myself--and I do). It took a while to get zen, but after I coated the face in clay and started futzing around with adding various facial features, the personality of the mask emerged in surprising spurts. I had an odd "I am god" moment when I realized that the mask had a definite personality, separate from myself (yet of myself).

While the mask did not end up where I thought it was going, I am very happy with the result. We didn't have any archetypical "strong man" masks so I was aiming for Patrick Swayze/Gaston from Beauty and the Beast (modeling, of course, from Tyler's face). He ended up more like a slightly confused, unintentionally mean Neanderthal (sorry, Tyler).

Butchering the word Cro magnon and inspired by the awesome mountainy look that he had when sculpted from marbled clay, I have named him Crag Man.

UCI Workshop: Behind the Scenes

The UCI workshop is about to start next week, so the Rogues are in full prep-mode getting everything ready before then. Last night, a bunch of us met at Rogue HQ to build a set of brand-new stock masks for the students to learn with. I took pictures.

Here's Emily building her first mask ever. It's impressive. I hear it's supposed to look like a combination of Patrick Swayze, Tyler, and a rock, but I guess only time will tell.

Sean is pinning the wire frame to the back of his mask with clothespins before he applies tarlatine and Sculpt or Coat to keep it in place. It was Tyler's great idea to use the clothespins...before that, it took ages to hold the wire in place. Now, of course, the clothespins seem totally obvious. Also, I took three pictures of Sean, and this was one where he was making the least-obvious "I'm posing for a picture" face.

Pat is working on a zombie puppet of his own design for the workshop. Here, he's contemplating its head in a very "poor Yorick" moment.

And here's me, checking out our friend Richard's mask. It's in the clay-only stage right now, but by next week it'll be covered in tarlatine and Sculpt or Coat, reinforced with wire, painted, and ready to go.

So there you have it! Mysteries of the Rogue build process revealed. Stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes updates next week when we meet with Michael York, start our UCI workshop, and more. Man, 2008 just does not quit.