From the Director's Chair:
2007 Premiere Season
Alisa Baker reports from behind the scenes. . .
December 2007
The December 10 show was both our first ever holiday bash and the wrap-up for our 2007 "pilot season." We had a bunch of cool ways to celebrate. Caffe Macaroni is now serving dinner, snacks and drinks in the club starting at 7 pm, so they showed up early to hear gypsy jazz by our special musical guests, Le Jazz Hot, who joined us for an encore performance. We had not one but two wonderful performances: comedian James P. Connolly opened with a hysterical short stand-up set, followed by a (somewhat) more sober interview about his recent trip to entertain the troops in Afghanistan ("you don't want to disappoint") and his own earlier experiences as a Marine in Desert Storm. We closed with Barbara Scott (and J. Raoul Brody) performing her unique form of musical improv comedy ("anything too stupid to be said is sung"), including a spontaneous duet with Kurt! And in between, writer Po Bronson explained his theories on dealing with writer's block ("every writer gets stuck twice a sentence"). After the show we had a surprise visit from premiere show guest Rob Rodgers, who brought a naughty gift to give away in the drawing, in addition to the usual booty from the guests. The after-party didn't break up til long after 10 again. Looks like a trend!As we close out this season, Kurt and I want to thank the wonderful team of talented folks who've pitched in to help us make TSL happen : sound/lights: Neerav Mehta, Bruce Koball and Ian Hadley; photos: Andy Berry/Ryan Sullivan/Clay Robeson; doors: Ann Feehan, Bruce Yelaska, Grace Sargent; website: Nick Rabinowitz; video: Ian Slattery. And of course, our music director Ned Boynton and his gang of North Beach Irregulars.
Last month we asked our "First Nighter" audience (our regulars!) to respond to an online survey and let us know if we were on the right track. Happily, everyone seems to like what we're doing at the Purple Onion with Talk Show Live . . . so we'll be heading into our first "official" season, with a great lineup for opening night on January 14, 2008. We hope you'll join us in the new year!
November 2007
It's really beginning to feel like our TSL staff is falling into place as well. This time we had a full complement: photographer Ryan Sullivan, videographer Ian Slattery, sound/lights director Neerav Mehta and door manager Bruce Yelaska. Many thanks to these guys for making things happen! And for the first time we're serving food in the club. We'll be offering dinner downstairs starting at 7 pm, so that the audience can really enjoy the band's first set. More improvements every month. . .
Next month is our Holiday Extravaganza! We have a lineup of special guests, as well as some encore performances by audience favorites from our shows so far, including Le Jazz Hot. This is definitely a show to buy tickets to in advance! Can't wait to see you all there.
October 2007
This month's show had a storyteller, a pastry chef and a former firefighter plus a totally hot stand-up comic as a drop-in surprise guest. Diverse enough for you? We are definitely aiming not to let anyone get bored on Monday nights! Seriously, the audience was spellbound as Tim Ereneta, a professional storyteller (with a mission to tell tales to adults) gave a scary rendition of some usually dumbed-down but actually very grim Grimm's fairy tales. Emily Luchetti took us on a different kind of trip -- you can bet our San Francisco crowd, always foodies, can't get enough dish about what goes on in the kitchen at high profile places like Farallon and Stars. Plus, Emily gave away dessert at Farrallon to a audience member who stuck around for the after-party. And I can report that even though she's not with the SFFD anymore, I would feel pretty comfortable knowing that Caroline Paul was around if my house was burning down. Or, for that matter, if I was confronted with some difficult luge challenges. . . .The big surprise of the evening was an awesome drop-in set from NYC comic and star of the Bravo series, the anazing Reno. Another example of Talk Show Live synchronicity: Reno was in town for the premiere of movie featured on the show last month -- Passion and Power: The Technology of Orgasm. She was one of the stars of the movie. Then it turned out she was friends with not just the producers (Wendy and Emiko, who were our September interview guests) but one of our regular audience members. Voila! This is just what we're looking for.
We also had a special guest-star soundman, Bruce Koball (among other things -- such as doing the sound engineering for Neil Young -- he's technical director at the Hillside Club in Berkeley). Thanks to Bruce, we even figured out how to turn the spot on the band and off the stage -- at the same time! Another giant step forward. . . .
November 12 will bring another terrific show -- and before the end of the year we'll be announcing the Spring 2008 season. See you there!
September 2007
So, I've got a story that totally illustrates our "one degree of separation" idea here at 429 Productions. We programmed the September 10 show to have a low-key sixties counter-culture theme: Joel Siegal, a lawyer who achieved the ultimate Deadhead lawyer dream by actually representing the Grateful Dead; Frank Lauria, who had a best-selling "psychic fiction" mystery series in the late '60s-early '70s and then bummed around Tangier with Paul Bowles; and Wendy Slick & Emiko Omori, who've been making independent films with a social justice theme for the last 30+ years. We'd guessed that Joel and Frank had connected in the neighborhood (North Beach). But we had no idea that Wendy and Frank were friends as well (because Frank's wife, Ellen, was once Marianne Faithfull's publicist, and they had all run into each other at various parties in the 80's)! Who knew?So, the show was like old home night -- people in the audience kept discovering they were connected through one guest or another. What a blast. Plus, we tried a few new things. A surprise drop-in guest from the SF Fringe Festival (Matt Panesh, a slam poet from Manchester, England), a video (the amazing "dancing vibrators" video from Passion and Power -- an instant classic!), another installment of Kurt's Class Notes (by the way, Kurt killed at the Fringe and even had his picture featured on the front page of the Chronicle's Saturday datebook). And the North Beach Irregulars morphed into a superhot gypsy jazz group, Cafe Americain. Thanks again to Ian Hadley for recording the podcast.
Things went really well with format this time. More than half the tables were reserved in advance, so it seems that people like the opportunity to get their names in early through online ticketing (via our website). Table service during the show went smoothly, so we'll definitely continue that. And -- more people came early and stayed late to enjoy the whole party.
Stay tuned for another great show on October 8. And let me know if you have TSL connection stories of your own -- I'd love to hear them!
August 2007
It's always a little scary (in a good way!) to have your first attempt at a new venture go really well. The immediate question becomes: what's next? Or -- more specifically -- what can go wrong next?I'm pleased to report that the answer is: so far, nothing! Our sophomore effort, the August 13 show, went off smoothly -- well, better than smoothly. I worried that we might have too many performance pieces in a row: Gary's stand-up set, Cameron's short monologue, and then Kurt's excerpt from his one-man show. Each one hysterical in its own right, but would they all work together? It turns out they certainly did: everyone laughed nonstop throughout. And who knew that Ethan would also turn out to be a performer, replete with visual aids? Very cool. Plus, the debut of the North Beach Irregulars as our house band was a total kick. Ned Boynton and his friends are such pros -- you barely have to give them a hint on when to play guests in and out -- makes life easy for me and Kurt. We're so lucky to have musicians of the caliber of Jules Broussard, Vince Lateano and Simon Planting who are willing to basically hang out with us all night. No lack of appreciation from either the producers or the audience for the band!
We're still experimenting with the show's format and it's going to evolve along with our experience. For example, we introduced advance table reservations for the August show (buy tix online, get a reserved table), and people definitely liked it. The space is small enough that having a reserved spot makes a big difference. We also opened the doors at 7 pm and got the band going early, so that it would be easy to come right over after work (or after dinner upstairs) and enjoy the party. That was also a big hit! Our next plan is to expand table service during the show. We're working on that one for September 10.
Anyway, as promised, we got lots of good pictures this time because someone other than me took them. Here's the August 13 Slideshow, courtesy of our friend, photographer/actor Clay Robeson. And, thanks to Ian Hadley, here's the podcast.
July 2007
Last April, Kurt and I were drinking espresso at Caffe Greco and throwing around our ideas about what makes live performances work (or not). Kurt had recently produced and hosted an evening of stand-up comedy at the Purple Onion, and the success of that event had made him think about what other kinds of shows could be hosted in that setting. "For years I've been wanting to host a talk show," he confided. "Not where it's about hyping celebrity guests' latest projects, but one with actual conversations with interesting people." Hmmmm. I, on the other hand, have always wanted to produce and direct a live show. I have lots of theories about how the presence of a real, live audience affects the performance (and the performer), but nowhere to put them in practice. Another theory: if we're all in the same audience, we probably have lots in common with each other. But we don't get a chance to meet. The connection is too fleeting. What if you built the "meet" into the show? It was an "aha!" moment. Kurt's got the talent and experience. I've got . . . enthusiasm and theories. Aha! Let's put on a show! And being that one of us is a lawyer, appropriate forms were filed and 429 Productions LLC was officially born.
Three months later, Talk Show Live: San Francisco debuted to a packed house at the Purple Onion on July 16, 2007. I still can't believe it happened so fast. Check "yes" for theory number one: the audience and performers had a great time meeting each other. And maybe Kurt is the next Johnny Carson!
Here's the slideshow from our premiere (next time we'll have someone better than me take the pix!). We've got a podcast too, thanks to our friend, master soundman Ian Hadley.