corrections

Nothing is 100%

1- We do not have a show in Düsseldorf as earlier reported.

2- We are playing a show in Berlin, but not at the Tempodrom, it will be at the Ratibor Theatre (which is the first place we ever played in Europe).

report on Beil

Beil is in the German-French sector of Switzerland. We stayed with a very cool family in a small village just outside of Beil called Erlach. Very picturesque village on a lake being overlooked by the alps.

We did our show in a cellar (our second now, the first was outside of Weisbaden). Very intimate crowd, and a dramatic show (the most dramatic all tour so far).

We ended up staying a little longer in Switzerland with this cool family, living swiss village-family life. Eating Swiss cheese (real swiss cheese that is) and enjoying swiss water and swiss air.

Like all good things, it came to an end when Lee and I took a train and a plane out of Switzerland and into Berlin. Out of the little village and into the big city. Craig is sticking around there for a little longer, he is doing an Old Seed show in the basement of the house we stayed at. It was really fun to help them convet their basement into a theatre (something they try and do once a month).

Berlin adventures soon to follow...

this is the theatre we performed at in toronto



The beginning of the tour in Toronto, when things made sense. The tour was so much simpler then. It is a pretty nice theatre to play in, thank you Toronto.

this is a theatre inside a giant soccer ball



In Dortmund, this is where we played. It was the first improv show in a series of a bunch that will take place inside this giant soccer ball (fussball in deutch) as part of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

It was pretty crazy...

Report on Winterthur

Ahh the swiss,

We arrive into Switzerland by train, and the border guards are checking our passports as we are pulling into our station.Of course they decide that they need to take pictures of our passports right then. Dangerous Canadians on the loose no doubt.

Winterthur is a nice touristy town in Switzerland which just happens to have a kick ass theatre. I know, it seems that lately I am saying that every theatre is our favourite, but c`mon, the Casino Theatre rocks. We are talking a 200 seat theatre with a full stage, full lights with a travel spot. A back stage area that has 4 rooms and a fully stocked kitchen (and when I say stocked I mean beer, wine and a fruit basket). Across the lobby of the theatre is a gourmet restaurant and upstairs in this building there are more conferance rooms and halls. They had us stay at the theatre in our own private apartment, again witha fully stocked kitchen. Each of us having our own room on the road is a luxury indeed. Lets just say after our kick ass show and our kick ass gourmet meal, we watched some kick ass swiss tv before going to kick ass sleep.

So this is Winterthur...

New expressions

On this tour in particular we have descovered some interesting new expressions. As I remember them I will tra and update this post.

Industrial Romantic - The Ability to see the beauty in Human made things attached to the Industrial revolution in a way usually reserved for natural beauty. Examples include: Industrial Parks, Parkades, abandoned factories. (See previous post)

Ear Worm - When you have a song stuck in your head. Examples include: Don`t Worry Be Happy...

Talking Through Flowers - When you disguise bad news in pretty language to soften the blow. Examples inclused: I just want to be friends...

God doesn`t have a stick to hit you with - Meaning God doesn`t just reach out of the clouds and hit you over the head with a stick, God has to move in mysterious ways. Examples include: Making you fall off a horse...

Report on Mannheim

Oh Mannheim...

One of our favourite theatres to play on tour is the TiG 7, it is so named because it is in the G7 sector of town. The town in broken into a grid system and that is how people get around. The theatre`s address is literally G7.

We played the show with Drama Light (which literally means Diet Theatre) and it was a fun one. The suggestion was Banana, which is usually a little to much on the comedy side, but we took it. A comedy duo who have a problem with the classic slip on a banana peel bit, the spanish revolution, reunited brothers and a love story of Industrial Romantic proportions. What a show. And we sold more merchandise here then anywhere, thank you Stefan and Lara.

Now wait, you might be asking yourself `what the hell is Industrial Romantic?`. Well it is a term we recently learned while in Mannheim. Industrial Romantic is when you look upon on the man made blights of the industrial world and you do in fact see the underlying beauty of it. Stefan and Isolda were trying to explain the term to us because in Mannheim by the river you can go and hang out and party. Across the river is the factories and warehouse spaces of the local industry, and they think there is a beauty to it. The empty and demolished buildings of an old industrial park all spray painted, smoke stacks that have long since exhauled their last breath... All are Industrial Romantic.

Thank you Mannheim for a new term for something i already felt.

Kareoke in Deutchland

So we go to a kareoke bar in München. But of course we don`t get a chance to get up and sing because it is so late. Kareoke is the same here as anywhere, the same songs, the same people, the same ratio of good singers versus bad singers. We were there with the München cast of the stage version of `Lost Highway` which i totally would have gone to go see if we had stayed in München for one more night.

So there you have it, further investigation of European culture.

Report on München

Some pretty awesome shows in München (that is Munich for all you english speakers).

We performed with ISAR 148, which is München's premiere impro company. They are pros and good people. They are also a duo with a musician. (The company also includes a manager, some other actors for extra gigs ect... ) The show was a fast paced jaunt through German-Canadian relations and language. The great news is (and was) that Robert Slade and Christine flew in to München to see the show all the way from London, England. It was awesome to see them and have them see us in our Deutch action environment. (Hello Rob and Christine if you are reading this)

The next night Crumbs performed our own show in a smaller more intimate theatre, and it rocked. A show full of love, love lost, love found, learning how to love and losing true love. That and some laughs.

All in all it was good to be rockin' the stage in München and seeing the ISAR 148 folks. The name of the group comes from the Isar (which is the river that runs through the city) and the number of kilometers that the theatre is down the river (148 km). In deucth, the number 148 can be pronouced 'eines fear acht' which in english sounds a lot like 'i fear act' or i fear the act the acting in general... which to me is funny.

Anyways, on to the next stop, Mannheim to hang with Drama Light.

10 Pin Bowling in Deutschland

Now it might seem like touring is all about fun and games, well, sometimes it is.

10 pin bowling in Germany is exactly the same as in North of America (unlike the mini-golf experience). I had a beer and fries, wore silly shoes and threw a heavy ball down an alley to knock over pins.

We went bowling in Weisbaden. Richard (who is Sebastions's roomate from France) invited us to play with his girlfriend, his sister and her husband. And let's not forget Marc, the half Brittish half French guy who came along. So there we were 3 French, 1 German, 3 Canadians and 1 Limey. A truly International game of 'knock down the damn pins'. Richard was the big winner, he even got a 'four bagger' which is one better then a 'turkey'. Luckily we didn't bet any Euro on this game.

i really enjoyed bowling, it is something i should really try and do more back in the Peg.

next stop...

So our next stop was in Weisbaden.
After a little confusion we settled our affairs and left the Coach in Göttingen (we stayed a couple extra days on the Coach's floor. He told us that visitors are like fish, they start to smell after 3 days, so thank god we got out before we started to smell. Thanks again Coach)

We end up staying in Mainz (home of Guttenberg, father of the printed word). Mainz is a part of the whole Weisbaden-Frankfurt-Mainz complex of cities. We have several days of workshop, we have a couple of days of shows and a couple of days of party. Overall we had a good time and i think that the inhabitants of the Mainz-Frankfurt-Weisbaden complex had a good time too.

There is a lot of good graphiti in Wiesbaden (and i have the picture to prove it).

We played a lot of video games (even me, though i am not a gamer by nature), i even kicked sebastions ass at Tekkan (Sebastion was our gracious host).

We hung out with actual people from France (a roomate of Sebastion's was French) and every year Lee gets a better impression of French people, and that makes me smile. It also gave me some practice with my French which is under so much rust it hurts me to use it (but it feels good later, kind of like exercise).

mini-golf in Deutschland

Mini-golf in Deutschalnd is a strange thing...

We ended up playing a nice little round of mini-golf while in Göttingen. Now I must tell you there are some differences between German mini-golf and the mini-golf in North of America. It could have been that this specific mini-golf place was strange and that it doesn't necessarily reflect upon all of Germany.

1- There was no artificial turf, it was constructed out of cement and metal.

2- It was against the rules to actually stand on the course to play (this is a rule we broke throughout the game).

3- There was no windmill (is this even mini-golf without a windmill???)

To make things interesting (like they weren't interesting enough) we decided to put up some Euro. Whenever someone wanted to bet, they would simply put up 5 Euros that they would get the best score on a hole. Jacob bet the most times and anded up winning most times but as far the biggest pot, that went to Craig (who only bet 3 times). Craig has now refused to bet on anything, claiming that he is quiting while he is ahead. It is just to bad that we didn't bet on the whole game because after 18 holes had come and gone and all the dust had settled it was your humble blogger who walked away with the best score.

Upon returning to Winnipeg i think i might put together an invitational mini-golf tournament (who's in?)

report on Göttingen

first, it is nice to have the blogger site working again.

second, Göttingen was rad (as in radical dude).

third, here is the report:

The festival in Göttingen was our 2nd and their 3rd. We were joined by Die Gorillas (from Berlin and the hosts of the Berlin International Impro Festival), Jacob Bannigan (formally from Edmonton's Rapid Fire Theatre but now from Graz and the wonderful Theatre Im Bahnhoff) and the The Göttingen Comedy Company. The festival is over a weekennd and the theatre is packed for 2 shows a night. the focus of the festival is very much comedy first and for just putting on a fun show for the audience (which we did).

We played some shorter scenes but also did some long forms as well. One of the forms was called the 'Search for the Super Scene' which is very much like 'More or Less'. I will explain. Each player is the director of their very own scene, the other actors act in the scene. The scene ends early and then you move onto the next director and scene. After everyone has gone once we get the audience to vote for their favourite scenes. The top scenes continue and the least popular one is dropped. We continue this process until we have only one scene left and then that scene's story ends and the form is over. Another form we played was the 'Locust' which was inspired when someone miss heard 'Lotus' and jacob thought about swarming the stage with actors. The idea is everyone stays onstage for the whole scene, playing charaters or props or the scenery. Whenever someone decides to change the scene they simply break out and ask the audience for a new location, and instantly the scene is transformed to the new place. This continues until it ends (somehow).

When we played our Crumbs show, we played it with Jacob, which was fun. It was the first time Jacob had performed a Freeform show with us... did i mention that it was fun?

So the festival ended, and we packed up our things. After sorting our the arrangements at our next stop we said a big 'chewzy coughsky' to Göttingen and a big thank you to the Coach (the Coach is the new nickname for Lars, who put the festival on. If you know Lars it would be cool if you continued to call him the Coach.)

On to Weisbaden (or is it Mainz?)

does my blog work?

so i have been trying to update this damn thing for days now. i write a bunch of stuff, then the thing doesn't work. does it work now?

this is just a test

report on GRAZ

For a couple of days we were in Graz (Graz, Austria is a great town). In fact, it is Lee's favourite city in the world. It is one of my favourites, it would be to hard to put it at number one (especially now that Lee has said it.)

Did a show on the Monday night which was so fun. I would have liked to have done the show with 'Theatre Im Bahnhof' because they are so good, but we did the crumbs show thing.

The show plot lines (just to give you an idea) were as follows: We had the girl trying to get into the cool crowd at school, the bitter old men complaining about past mistakes, the math teacher who was a number junkie and a couple other stories all mixed together. Everything ended up working out in the end and happily ever after, even for the two old bitter men.

The good news is Graz still has the Island they built in the middle of the river. Last year Graz was the European Cultural Capital. Every year The Board of European Culture Deciders picks one or two cities in Europe to represent the Cultural Capital. The City gets a bunch of Grant money and they do stuff. Graz built an Island, an elevator up the side of an odl statue, a huge 'Kulturehaus' in the shape of a liver (or possibly a kidney), and probably more stuff I didn't get to see. So Graz was going to tear down the Island after the 'Cultural Capital' year, it made no sense to build this cool 'building' and then tear it down. I was even threatening to run for mayor (burgermeister) to save the Island. It turns out some Grazians also shared my love and saved it. It turns out that Graz actually has a long history of creating art that had intended to be temporary and ends up being permanent. Perhaps this is how they became European Cultural Capitalists in the first place (well, in 2004).

After Graz, comes the story of Göttingen... But that is another post.