Hollywood Fringe Festival video update

The folks over at the Hollywood Fringe Festival (coming this June in our own Hollywood California) have just posted a new promo video that features a guest appearance by Rogue Artists Ensemble. At around 1:20 in you can catch John and Ryan giving life to The Very Old Clerk from our recent Gogol Project and Katie manipulating the Rabbit from our traveling family show The Story of Frog Belly Rat Bone!

Thanks goes out to the folks at the Fringe for including us! Enjoy the video below!

The Sunny Side of the Street
(sorry the video doesn't support embed so you'll have to browse there!)

2009 Comes To An End....

Can it really be near 2010? Can Rogue Artists Ensemble really be nine years old? Seems like yesterday that in December of 2001 a group of University of California, Irvine students gathered, trusted each other and worked to bring The POE Play to life. Back then many of the current ensemble members starred in the show and now few of us act, preferring to design instead which has become the hallmark of a Rogue project.

Through our time together we've experienced a lot of challenges and changes and I know that good things are to come. We've got some very challenging projects and plans in the works and it will require our organization to grow and really seek out new artists to join our ranks and create as one. I'm ready for the challenge and can't wait to get started!

Sean

Rogues on Film

What's next for Rogue Artists Ensemble? Part of our top-secret planning is to infiltrate the 2010 Hollywood Fringe Festival with our next new work. Last Saturday we drove into the depths of downtown L.A. to be a part of commercial shoot, advertising the event. I carpooled with Katie and we followed the excellent directions down alleys and around firetrucks to find the studio.


Mr. Punctual (a.k.a. Ryan Maes) was already there waiting for us. Sean swooped in just in the nick of time to deliver a veritable arsenal of puppets so that we could pick and choose our participants for the shoot. Here, the Old Clerk warms up his three hands for maximum gesticulation.


And remember this friendly face?


That's right! It's Katie! Oh, and the No. 1 the mail carrier is hanging out with us, too. Or is it No. 2?

Being a theater junkie myself, it was a rare treat for me to get a glimpse behind the scenes at a film shoot. They have lights and speakers just like we do.


But they also have these strange contraptions on 3-legged stands that require a lot of staring into for some reason.


The thing about filming is that you have to deal with a lot of downtime. Thank goodness for smart phones. Here is the Old Clerk checking his e-mail.


Rabbit doesn't have a iPhone or a Blackberry. So instead he used the time to meditate on life and the conundrum of being an artist in a modern, increasingly interdependent world.


We Rogues are admittedly somewhat hermit-like among the Los Angeles theater community. You might say that it's our New Year's Resolution to put down the plastic cup of punch and come out on the dance floor. Dancing makes me so anxious, though…

I'm happy to say that we played nice with other theater companies at the Fringe shoot. Here is Rat from Frog Belly Rat Bone engaging in a nose fight with Matt from Need Theater.


Come to think of it, I know just who we should have brought along if we knew there was going to be a nose fight! Do you?

That was fun. When the commercial becomes available online, you can bet that we'll post a link in this space. You can find more information about the Hollywood Fringe Festival at their fun website.

Adios!

Happy Rogue Holiday Party!

I'm sitting here in a food and sugar and beer coma from the 2009 Rogue Holiday party. Oh man, what a fun time. We had a great feast laid out on the table and made a hefty dent in it between the lot of us. There was delectable chili prepared by chef Tyler.


There were lots and lots of video games (the New Super Mario Brothers for Wii).


There was Amy, Emily, and Estela on the couch.


Great fun. You meet many wonderful folks doing what we do. It's fantastic that we get to have so many of them in one room around this time of year. Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with us. Hope your holidays are joyful and such. Can't wait for 2010. It's going to be full of doing my favorite things with my favorite people.

Frog Belly in Fontana - Part 3

As I was loading gear into the space, a local resident asked me how much it cost to attend the show. I didn't have an answer for her and asked one of the friendly auditorium staff for an answer. I then came back and was happy to tell her that the show was free. The city of Fontana paid for us to perform as a public service to the community. And it was clear that the community appreciated the gesture very much. Knowing this, I had a warm and fuzzy feeling all day. Also, they had a Christmas tree in the house!

The staff at the Steelworkers' Auditorium were extremely helpful and friendly.


Thanks, guys! George (left) and Mike (right) got right to work running our cable and making sure that our cast was comfortable and hydrated. Speaking of…


Here are our adventurers prepping for their performance (from left to right: Miles, Tyler, Amy, and Julia). It takes a lot of Monster to fire up the Frog Belly machine. And fire it up, we did! My favorite moment of the show was seeing Amy first bring the Boy onstage in all his striped glory and hearing a parent in the audience gasp audibly, "Oh, wow…" Priceless. One spirited show later, the cast filed out into the house to meet and greet the children of Fontana. I ran out into the lobby to sell some books while my man George snapped these beauties:

Autographs, no less! Tyler later told me that he felt like Paris Hilton, but twice as beautiful. He didn't really tell me that.

There you have it. Big thanks again to the city of Fontana and the helpful staff at the Steelworkers' Auditorium. The Frog Belly crew will be back in January at Oak Mesa School in La Verne. Maybe we'll see you then!