On Wednesday I get to take down the sign at HAPPY Bar that says “All recording is prohibited” for an entire hour.

The reasons why I want to release Emissary are pretty varied, but there are a couple of pretty big reasons:

1. Emissary is about the internet, and how I am part of it. Morally I couldn’t just riff on the internet without saying it was okay for other people to do the same. Well, I could, but that would be a dick move.

2. I want people to feel like they have a measure of ownership over the satire and amusement that was produced for them, and I want them to feel like they can use it, that they can share it and that they can build upon it. You buy access to an event with a ticket, you should be allowed to have a record of it under your own control too.

3. Remember Section 92a of the Copyright Act? I had started piecing together the show when the Labour Government had just flagrantly lied that the public had not bothered to consult with them on the bill. I was still writing it when the protest at the Bee Hive happened because the new government were just as asinine as the last. Possibly more so. That got me steamed, and I realised that if I didn’t actually step up and release my stuff in a way that allowed others the same rights that I desperately wanted, I would be at the mercy of what ever small to middle sized industries (like a teen with a bottle of scrumpy, it don’t take much) bought out New Zealand politics. The license is a toasty little jacket that keeps me from freezing in the open air of the public domain and suffering heat stroke inside copyright.

4. Some of what I’m doing is satire. New Zealand is no Guatemala, where you can be thrown into jail for a twit or seditious Youtube video and I’m no Jonathan Swift, but gosh darn it we kiwis have a healthy respect for the law. This way if one of my ideas takes off the other nerdly and diligent kiwis will be able to share the idea, and an idea can only grow if people have access to it.

And that’s why I use that Creative Commons thing for Emissary.

The Comedy Festival opens this week, tickets to my show are located here.

Remember, Emissary is creative commons, like this site and every thing in it, feel free to boot leg it.

The Sando Presents a Series of ridiculous radio plays:

19-21^st February, 7pm, the Katipo café. Web tickets  found here.

Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to listen to me rant for an hour and ten minutes ? Well, good news for you, I’ve got three ridiculous radio plays being recorded in front of a live studio audience (you), one a night (7pm) from the 19-21st of February at everybodies favorite spider themed cafe the Katipo Cafe. There, was that up beat enough for you? Tickets to be found at Downstage Theatre or at the following  link.  Podcasted versions shall be released at my kicking website,  www.thesando.com, where else?

On the 19th, it’s Joust the lordling, starring myself and Alice Phillips, you might remember her from that heart warming news story about a dog that adopted some kittens. An attempt at capturing the spirit of a British Broadcasting Corporation style radio comedy series, Joust the Lordling offers amusements galore. We do about seven characters each, Alice and I.

The 20^th brings us Education Day, starring Alexander Rodgers and Sando son of Sando (me). The last day of term has come, and it’s just totally ape nuts bananas. Just what happens when you realise your entire school is cancer? Get some sort of governmental chemo?

The 21st features a more free form free wheeling, half surrealist quarter improv, and totally heart felt comedy about a small town kiwi community whose beloved racist dairy owner who is found brutally murdered. The Coast: A Murder on Thee will be a real winrar, or possibly PKZIP, depending on Operational preference.

We are releasing all of these pleasant and pleasing performances under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand Licence. Mainly so that people can mess around with it if they’d like. Also to say “screw you Section 92A of the New Zealand copyright law. You’re broken. I want people to play with my stuff.”

Good feelings and salutations to y’all.

To contact me, just use nic@thesando.com, or any other way you want.

Impressing at the beach

Oscar; having taken Ada to the beach tries to impress her.

Oscar

Okay; see the dingy.

Ada

The one floating in the water.

OSCAR

Yes. Pay the closest of attentions to it. No wait; look at my hand, and also look at the dingy.

Ada

I can’t do both at once.

Oscar

Okay; now, look, (he snaps his fingers calling forth lightening and thunder), yes!

Ada

You did that. With magic.

OSCAR

Aye!

ADA

There could have been people on that.

Oscar

Its a dingy; you could see it was empty. No… No top.

ADA

They could have been crouching.

OSCAR

At night; while it’s moored.

ADA

It belongs to somebody and now it’s sunk.

OsCAR

Yeah; but-

ADA

You vandal.

Ada exits and Oscar stands singing the Beethoven’s 5th, clicking his fingers in time to the music.

—

Cities of the world

Oscar cavorts around the cities of the world. Talking to people he can see and generally making a nuisance of himself.

Oscar

Ah, Hello. Good afternoon. Bonjourno! Guten targ. hallo? salut! My Lads!

VOICE

Mate. Wait, who’re you?

OSCAR

Never mind mate. Ola! Good evening, good evening, giid evening, good evening, guv? Good evening, sir.

voice

And a good evening to you too lad.

OSCAR

Hello ladies? Do any of you fancy some Abby synth? I picked it up this morning.

Voice

Keep your distance sir!

OSCAR

I’m so sorry that you are presently unavailable, ladies. Maybe tomorrow? Your breasts looked marvelous! Ha!

Voice

You; you Larakin! what the hell are you doing on my roof?

OsCAR

Genuinely sorry sir; do you happen to know where Chicago is from here?

VOICE

Across the blooming ocean. Get off my roof!

OSCAR

At twice sir. I mean; at once. See? Once again, the problem is solved thanks to kiwi ingenuity. Hello! How do you do? Isn’t it a fine evening? Oh, yes, good old kiwi ingenuity don’t you know. Do you happen to have some 8′ gauge wire there sir? I could fix this jalopy up in a half jiffy. Stop that war too. Heck, sir, I could. Hum. I could rig that entire sailing ship over there with just some wire, and a small amount of… hempen cord? My apologies sir, the shadows do grow long, and I fear that I must retire before… No, you are too kind. Please; there’s no need, I am more than capable of attending to my own withdrawal. Seriously now, don’t hold me, I can stand by my… Oh sod off! Have you met my fists? They’re called Donner and Blitzen!

He summons lightening to vanquish his enemies. He flies home to bed.

Pretentious working title: The Glass-blowers Daughter.

Brief Synopsis:

A glass-blower takes a new apprentice into her home, he messes with her magic collection and her daughter,  causing a cluster fuck of epic proportions.

A glass-blower, upon her daughters rejection of the family business, takes on an apprentice. The apprentice, falling in lust with the daughter tries to impress her by stealing and using her mothers collection of magical items. The unimpressed daughter realises the utility of one of the items and uses it to turn into a dog and run away, falling in love with another dog. The glass-blower mounts an unsuccessful search for the daughter, who has made a den at the local beach. The apprentice becomes addicted to using the magical items to cavort around the great cities of the world. The daughter has puppies. The Apprentice’s thievery is discovered by the glass-blower, who starts to beat him, he, to save his hide, tells the Glass-blower where her daughter is.  She leaves to track down her daughter. The Apprentice tries to get word to the daughter, through her dog/boyfriend. The glass-blower realises her daughter’s bestiality and throws the puppies into a bag and then into the ocean. The dog, daughter and apprentice arrive and find the bag, and no glass-blower. The apprentice tries to comfort the daughter and the dog goes for revenge. The dog attacks the glass blower in her workshop, and the glass blower kills him.  … Things get hazy after that.

So, yeah, that’s the story so far.

Stuff I want to include.

‘So, you see, the glass that has lead added to it grows expodentially larger;
thinner every second. You add a little lead to the sands, and the entire system changes,
becomes fragile and beautiful.’

‘Wow, that’s like a metaphor for life.’
‘Yes; a stupid one.’
–
The visits to the city should be really weird. I want the character
to pretend to be the people who are talking to him and then exaggeratedly answer them
and their questions.
–
I want the daughter and the dog’s conversations deal with repetition and change of inflection.
–

Peace out guys.

Now to think about what my deadlines should be. Hum…

For this show, I’ve decided that I want to be able to enter it in one or more of the up coming Festivals that I have an interest in. They are, in order of nearatude, the Wellington Fringe; the Dunedin Fringe; and the New Zealand International Comedy Festival. The Comedy Festival would require that what ever I do be funny, and I don’t know if what I want to do is write something funny. It probably is, but you know, what if it isn’t? So, that means I should aim towards one of the two Fringe Festivals, I have decided to go with the Wellington Fringe because it’s nearer to me, in time, and also, it is situated where I live. Also, if I want to perform in the Dunedin Fringe, I could just use the show afterwards… As long as the show I create is one that can travel. Either way; Wellington Fringe = Win!

The Wellington Fringe Festival’s application dates are rapidly approaching; 5pm on October the 17th to be specific. The actual Fringe doesn’t start until the Sixth of February. This date is known across New Zealand as Waitangi day. The Festival closes on May the First. So; if I wish to do a Fringe show, and I do, I have a few concrete deadlines. The first is I have to have my performance’s concept nailed and presented in an application for staging at what ever performance place I decide on, hopefully one of the better ones such as Bats though that can often be a pipe dream.  I have then got to make sure that I have my final application form into the Fringe office by the Seventeenth of October.  The Third, is an actual performance, or more likely performances that have to take place between The Sixth of February and the First of March .

So, let’s look at the dates.

01/10/08 – The last day to apply for performance space at Bats.

17/10/08 – is the final day my final script is due to my lecturer.

17/10/08 – is also the final submission date for the Wellington Fringe Festival. Not that conveniant, because I need to have actors attached to the piece by then.

06/02/09 – The first day of the Wellington Fringe.

01/03/09 – The last day of the Wellington Fringe.

26/03/09 – The first day of the Dunedin Fringe.

05/03/09 – The last day of the Dunedin Fringe.

??/05/09 – The New Zealand International Comedy Festival.

So, now I have set deadlines, I should get to work. Or you know, implode under all this pressure I’ve just given myself.  Actually; I think I might make myself a curry. Yeah; that sounds like a tasty indian treat.

*Anyone who has googled up my failed attempts at doing a long form comic on DrunkDuck.com will be well aware of this.

The first being that I am really quite interested in development  diaries. I enjoy both reading them and writing them. When I was doing undergraduate theatre at Victoria University of Wellington (VUW for short,) we were required to keep a workbook which we would hand in every so often for evaluative measures. The students who didn’t hate writing it often had really interesting stuff in their books. Often, technical development journals , while often incomprehensible (to me at least, especially when they start posting foreign code), are also, if not fun, then at the very least interesting reading; who doesn’t get a little thrill each time a project forks? This blog is written for people like me, who took that as a rhetorical question.

The second reason is that I hope this could be of some use to other theatre, comedy or improv people who are trying to build themselves a show. All too often theatrical people are terrified of sharing technologically, or try to hide behind a veneer of mysticism. It’s as they are losing value or status by sharing with other performers. Anyone who has tried to research the lighting designs of a “certain well known American lighting designer,” can see how persnkitty theatrical people are about protecting their processes and about their intellectual property. This has an end result of keeping Theatre skills and facts inaccessible to all but the few who aren’t hampered by the tyranny of distance. I don’t see how it could hurt me to show people what I’ve done and letting them examine my successes and failures for their own benefit.  So, considering this, I’ve decided to release this entire site on some sort of Creative Commons license. I must admit that I’m still not sure if I will give the final work to the commons or not, but there is a good chance that at least a chunk of it will be.

The third reason is totally selfish. I hope that by making an effort to blog about what I am achieving and how I am doing it, I am giving myself another excuse to keep on slogging through these hard yards. I, of course, hope that I am  able to succeed and succeed well, so good luck to me.

I guess I should really get to work on it then.