The Adventures of Nervous-Boy

The Adventures of Nervous-Boy (a penny dreadful)
by James Comtois
Directed by Pete Boisvert

June 8-10, 15-17, 22-24 (Thursday through Saturday)
8pm, $15 Admission

Downstairs at The Gene Frankel Theater
24 Bond Street (between Lafaette and Bowery)

for reservations call 212-352-3101 or click here to order tickets through TheatreMania
www.nosediveproductions.com

"Poor Grendel has had an accident… So may you all."
—John Gardner

"Living in New York, I'm around a lot of people who are stressed out. Always stressed, always freaking out and always living in a constant state of self-created panic. I'm not really like that. I don't really stress out. At least, not in the way that people I know do. I don't feel stress. It's more of a constant feeling of steady dread…"

So opines the eponymous hero of The Adventures of Nervous Boy, a horrifically alienated New Yorker who's slowly and steadily losing his mind. In the new black-as-death comedy-horror play from Nosedive Productions, the cruelly-named Nervous Boy wanders around a grotesque nightmare version of the city and comes across New Yorkers of every kind, from rude cell phone users, belligerent alcoholics, pretentious academics, screaming couples, demons from the underworld and brain-dead zombies as he tries to burn a recently earned paycheck in order to maintain his sanity.

The Adventures of Nervous Boy features graphic violence and strong sexual situations and is recommended for adults only

Good night. And, get laid.

The Ranking of the Bills

After a conversation earlier today regarding the new HBO polygamy series Big Love, I realized that even though I have seen him in almost a dozen movies, Bill Paxton has never left the tiniest impression on my brain. I have absolutely no opinion about him whatsoever. Whenever I see him in something, he slips out of my mind almost immediately. He's a cypher, nil, absolute zero.

In short, the perfect neutral point to design a Ranking of the Bills. Here we go:

10. Bill Murray - God
9. Bill Clinton - Slick Willy
8. William H. "Bill" Macy - An improvement to any movie.
7. The Bill of Rights - Essential reading.
6. Bill Shakespeare - A William by any other name...
5. "I'm Just a" Bill - He's ONLY a Bill.
4. Bill Pullman - The One From Spaceballs
3. Bill Maher - Keeps dropping down the list each year...
2. Kill Bill - Volumes: 1 through 2, Inclusive
1. Bill Cosby - PUDDIIIIIIIING!!!
0. Bill Paxton - The Perfect Neutrality of Bill
-1. Bill Bradley - Man, this guy disappointed me.
-2. Bill Nye - Science Guy
-3. Bill Amend - Foxtrot was really never that funny.
-4. William "Buffalo Bill" Cody - Poor man's P.T. Barnum.
-5. Cable Bill - Fuck you, cable bill.
-6. Bill Gates - Has. All. The money.
-7. Bill Kristol - Smart guy. Completely full of shit.
-8. Billy Carter - Drunken Brother of Jimmy.
-9. Mr. Bill - Eddie did a better Gumby on the same damn show.
-10. Bill O'Reilly - The Devil

what I do

Philucifer, (aka Charlie Willis, aka D. Piddy, aka EveryMonkey) recently made a reference in his blog to a comment I had made about the process of directing. Thought I would answer it here (hey, it’s as good a use for a blog as any, and this page has been silent for too long now).

When I see a production of an established text, I’m primarily interested in what the artists working on this particular production have to say. Any established text that has risen to the point of name recognition has already been dissected in dozens of reviews, critical essays and college bull sessions. The script in and of itself rarely interests me while watching a stage production. On the other hand, I’ve never been much of a fan of concept productions, where the script is completely ignored because the director felt like setting Othello in space so he could make a bunch of Star Trek references and show a bunch of scantily clad women. What I do find interesting are the places where the director and actors shine a new light on a text. To put it another way, I enjoy those moments of symbiosis where text and action work together to accent ideas or images that are only partially realized or alluded to in the script itself.

The first three plays I directed were by ‘established’ playwrights, i.e. plays that I found in a book somewhere, that had been staged in professional productions before. As I left college I switched over to directing new works by playwrights that I knew. At the time I said to anyone who would listen that this was because I didn’t have to pay royalties (which my college/local theatre had covered for me in the past). Closer to the truth, I was fortunate to know a number of very talented playwrights who were kind enough to let me take their new babies out for a spin.

When I started working with playwrights that I knew, my initial feeling was that I had an obligation to stage a ‘pure’ version of the show. The premiere of a new piece is often looked at as the definitive version; if nothing else, it will most likely strongly influence subsequent productions. I still think that there is a huge level of respect that must be brought by the director to a first production, but as I’ve grown as a director I’ve realized that at the end of the day, all I can EVER bring to a show I’m directing is my own point of view. I don’t need to bring the playwright’s point of view to the rehearsal table; if they are skilled at their craft, their ideas will be evident in the text. What I do is to take the ideas, philosophies and emotions of a script and use them as the beginning of a conversation.

This conversation starts in pre-production with the playwright, grows with the addition of actors and designers and eventually becomes fully formed with the inclusion of the audience into the dialogue. One conversation, taking place over the entire length of the production. Often conflicting ideas will exist within the same piece… this friction is one of the essential elements of drama. In Nosedive James generally sets the topics we talk about, but many different opinions and ideas on these topics emerge throughout the production. My job is threefold: first, to begin the initial dialogue with the playwright (or with the script itself in the scribe’s absence) by bringing my own ideas about the topic into the mix; second, to facilitate this conversation as we bring the other artistic elements into the fold; and third, to ensure then when it is presented to the audience it is of a whole cloth.

And yeah, I do most of this consciously.

Signing off for another six months,

Pete

My Union-Leader debut

Ted Koppel is a Waffle

One of my all time favorites:


Sorry I haven't updated in a while. This is what I seem to do with blogs... Start up a new one, post for a few weeks and then let it run fallow. Will try to do better.

Lots of good stuff coming up for Nosedive. We just confirmed our dates for the upcoming fundraiser. It's going to be Saturday, Spetember 25th at the Emerging Artists Theatre on 42nd Street. Details are over at the Nosedive site; more will be added shortly.

Speaking of the Nosedive site, we had a little DNS crises there last weekend. Took a couple of days to resolve, but in the process I was able to move it off of Jeremy's machine and on to a professional server. Jeremy's been a huge supporter of Nosedive for years now, allowing us to host our website for free off of Torgo, his in-house server. If you're not familiar with Jeremy's work, he's an excellent cartoonist operating out of the heart of the Granite State. He's been writing his File series for nearly 15 years now. Check out his homepage here (yes, that is me in the upper left hand corner with the squinty eyes) and his new Union Leader published strip, "Leave, Freeze or Die" here.