Tour Whore, April 29, 2012

Preview Perils

IT SAYS MATURE AUDIENCES ON THE FUCKING POSTER, PEOPLE.

by Cameryn Moore

All the forms are in. (I think.) My marketing print material is in the pipeline. The promo/special event calendar is starting to fill up. R105 tax waiver application went out three weeks ago. A little more than a month until I head up to my first fringe, in Montréal. I can relax, right? No. I have my preview to write.

The preview is that little 2-minute piece that gets thrown into a preview showcase evening at many fringes, in theory so that audience members get a sense of what your show is about and make that crucial extra star in the program book next to your show blurb. I think for this season I am doing a preview at Montréal, Winnipeg, Victoria, and maybe Vancouver, I can’t remember. Calgary, do you have a preview night? If not, don’t. Or do. No, don’t. I can’t…. God, I am so conflicted. It throws me every year, even though, compared to the 31-page, multiple-choice script that I'm working from for power |  play, it is a tiny little thing, a piece of bathroom graffiti. How hard can a third of a page of script be?

Tour Whore, March 18, 2012

Making the Bouillion Cube

They won’t care how good my show is, if they don’t get the gestalt in 5 seconds or less. Gah!

by Cameryn Moore

Imagine that you’ve just pulled this beautiful roast chicken out of the oven. You labored long and hard over it, and it shows: smells great, looks amazing, your mouth is watering, it’s going to be delicious, you can’t wait to serve it out. And just as you’re sharpening the knife, the guest of honor says, wait, do you think you could make a boullion cube out of that?

That’s what this time of year feels like, when I have to take my show and boil it down to promo copy.