The Story Of The Play(s) Within The Play And The Play Without The Play(s)
Many scenes are not depicted below yet.

Sarah (Basey Newborg), the actress and MFCC candidate, delivers "Audition Monologue #1, Female," in which her character bemoans her boyfriend's insensitivity and considers asking him for a Salade Niçoise.	Someplace else, Doctor Nancy (Newborg) uses the SBK-40 Plasma Assault Rifle to attract and focus the attention of Captain Zinc Bushing (Tom X. Chao) of the spaceship U.S.S. Crappy Diplomatic Shuttle .  Note the elaborate "outer space" costumes.	"I lack the discipline to achieve anything of lasting value," says Crim-head Tom X. Chao in his pathetic, whining manner as Sarah (Newborg) looks on.  Note the King Crimson "Discipline" T-shirt worn by Chao.	Finally, in the climactic magical scene, Sarah (Newborg) describes the fantastic castle high above a lake to which lovers travel (in their minds), prompting Tom X. Chao to ask if it's "Like the cover of King Crimson's Absent Lovers?"

The Audience
Emulating the California Guitar Trio and Tony Levin , I took a picture or pictures of the audience at the conclusion of the show, during the curtain call.  Here you can see the audience gradually building over the course of the run (and then dropping off again).  All shows took place on Fridays at 10:30 pm.

Week 1 9/22/2000 Front: Beowulf Sheehan (show photographer) Back: (L to R) Henry Bial (lighting designer), Sophie Stewart-Madej	Week 2 9/29/2000 Many friends of Basey's appear in this photo.	Week 3 10/6/2000 The six young people in the closest row were UG Drama students from NYU who didn't seem to understand the show at all.  But who cares, they paid to get in!	Week 4 10/13/2000 The image is not centered because I was shooting into the lights and I couldn't see the audience.
Week 5 10/20/2000 (a) This night saw our biggest audience.  A full house!  They were hanging from the rafters.  Well, almost.	Week 5 10/20/2000 (b) This picture shows the additional seating area along the stage left wall.  There were even more people sitting to the left of these attendees.	Week 6 10/27/2000 (a) Our final curtain.  A smaller but very vocal audience.  The well-known downtown performer Rob Paravonian gestures wildly in the rear.	Week 6 10/27/2000 (b) This is the Colin Gumbs party of five sitting along the stage left wall.  The 3 people at the left are visiting from Hawaii.

Cast & Crew
A pictorial memento of them in happier times, captured.  

(L to R) Evan Dashevsky, Basey Newborg, and Seth Madej enjoy an arcane, obscure, theater-related joke in the St. Marks Theater before a show.  Seth holds the black cloth (used for The Negative Energy Field) that was draped over the couch (at rear) to make it aesthetically acceptable.	(L to R) Seth Madej, Evan Dashevsky, Basey Newborg, and Henry Bial in the very black "black box" theater.  They are all praying that some people actually will come to our show (and pay full price admission).	Actors have idiosyncratic pre-show rituals, and Basey's involved performing a handstand.  (This is not a free handstand; her feet are against the wall.)  This acrobatic feat was more interesting than anything in the show.  My own pre-show ritual involves hyperventilating and cursing.	Seth Madej (L) and Tom indicate the colorful Can't Get Started poster on the marquee of the St. Marks Theater, which we shared with numerous other productions.  One can imagine how much walk-in business that laminated color photocopy generated, especially considering there were no lights on the marquee.  Photo: Sophie Stewart-Madej

Page constructed 11/10/2000 | Updated 5/27/2002 | All images & text (c) 2000 Tom X. Chao except as noted

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