Hidden Falls: The Musical

Everybody! Everybody! I'm in this, so you should come check it out! 

When you go to Improv Boston's website click on the Comedy Lab schedule to buy tickets.

Hidden Falls: The Musical

Wednesday Nights in March*

8pm at Improv Boston

In this 40 minute long improvised musical, actors will create the town of 

"Hidden Falls," anew based on audience input at the top of each show.

Through song and scene we'll discover the people who make up the town, 

and the dreams and desires that make up those people.

Because it's completely improvised, no two shows will be alike!

Buy tickets online for one or more performances.

 Part of Improv Boston's Wednesday night Comedy Lab series.

Director: Steve Gilbane

Piano: Steve Gilbane

Percussion: Jeff Greenwald

Featuring: Jaime Church, Mat Gagne, Don Schuerman, Ben Scurria,  Monica Shea, Deanna Tolliver, and Misch Whitaker

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* Except March 9th due to programming for the Women in Comedy Festival.

 Which you should also come see. 

Updates on Writing

I owe you an update. I haven't been writing anything here. But I've been writing nonetheless.

Improv Asylum's newest Main Stage revue opens July 3rd weekend.
We've been jam packing our weeknights with rehearsals so that we can bring you a show that will make you laugh and cry and yell and want to be our friends on facebook. The period of time for sketch submissions ended this past week. Now we have several hours' worth of material to sift through and create a show out of. Throughout June, on Thursday nights at 10pm you (yes! you!) can come watch us try new things out. That means new sketches as well as new improv structures. And because we're not sure how well it works yet... it's all free!

Meanwhile, on the Gorefest: 8 end of things, Mr. Brooks and I finished our very first completed draft of the script on May 28th. On May 30th I met with Steve Gilbane (composer) and Don Schuerman  (director) to discuss their suggestions for revisions, and was pleased as punch to find there were not many rewrites needed.

However, our conversation did generate a ton of fun new ideas I wanted to fit into the show.
Since then I have been working to revise the script into what it is now.

While Brooks and I continue fine tuning, Steve has been writing music, Don has been researching plans for guillotine construction (go ahead, you can read that sentence again if you need to), and the lyricists have been coming up with witty rhymes and clever phrasing to fill in all the most dramatic moments in the plot.

If you ever wondered what we writers talk about in our secret meetings, here is an all encompassing snippet:

Me: I don't know how to fix this line about typewriters!!!
Brooks: I'm not sure if it really matters...
Don:  It definitely doesn't.
Steve: What if we make it a song?

The second draft is slated to be completed by June 20th.

Let's Dance for 100 Beds Tonight

Do you love 90's music? And dancing? And... beds?

Tonight at Middlesex in Central Square Cambridge, MA they'll be pumping up the 90's jams for a cause is not only worthwhile, but specific and measurable.

I found out about 100 Beds for Haiti through connections I made while working at Hospital Sacre Coeur in Milot.  Their goal is simple: to send 100 beds to HSC by June 2010, and guess what?
Thanks to great organizing, 100% of the money raised is earmarked for this specific cause.

These beds will improve patient care now, but will also allow the hospital, which not only services the earthquake victims, but also serves as a health care center for a larger, local community to develop long term plans for sustainability.

So come on out tonight at 9pm and meet me at Middlesex at 315 Mass Ave in Cambridge, MA.
It's a $5 donation at the door, we'll rock out to some Spice Girls and Michael Jackson, and before you know it we'll have made it possible for this amazing hospital to be even more amazing.

I'm not convinced yet. Why beds?
Before the earthquake HSC was just a 73 bed hospital, but in a matter of days it expanded to welcome more than 400 patients. There were at least 175 mattresses that I know of donated by a cruise ship, and probably more than that from near and far as well, but many of the patients we cared for rested day and night on bare cots.

While I was in Milot the hospital was home to about 273 patients; as of March 17th they have discharged some more to Port Au Prince, but the hospital plans to continue offering services to a newly expanded population.

It would be great to start expanding the number of beds to match the number of patients. Having proper beds improves patient outcome by limiting post op discomfort which in turn aids in speeding physical therapy tolerance. PT promotes rehabilitation (obviously) but also prevents complications such as pneumonia and DVTs. Plus.. I didn't assemble a sample group or crunch the numbers myself, but from sheer observation in the tents I can tell you that decubitis ulcers (bed sores) seem to form quicker in patients who are cot-ridden as opposed to bed - ridden.

Imagine surviving an earthquake, a painful and debilitating crush injury to your leg and an amputation  in a very limited surgical environment only to die while in recovery from a preventable condition like a DVT or an infected bed sore?

Adding more beds to Hopital Sacre Coeur serves a short term and a long term purpose. It  improves the outcome of patients who are currently being treated and it also offers sustainability for the hospital's future. Part of CRUDEM's mission is continuing to stabilize HSC so that even when the foreign volunteers begin to dwindle, local staff can continue to offer exceptional care to their patients. Adding 100 more beds allows HSC to plan for the long term development of their recovery center.

Check out the facebook event for YoYoYo 90's Jam: Heal the World Edition, and  invite your friends. Then grab a slap bracelet, a mood ring and a five dollar bill and meet me at 9pm. Simple.