2012-03-23/24 Imperial House of OPA

Back in January, I was asked by The Imperial OPA Circus to help an amazing group of performers put on a production as their Stage Manager and I was happy to accept.  For over two months we rehearsed and I helped herd my favorite cats and help bring this amazing production come to life!

The script was written by Luke, known mostly to the audience as that amazing juggler with the awesome mustache, and Tim Mack, the ringmaster, who worked tirelessly to make the amazing ideas and script come to life.  The show was amazing with a wonderfully twisted plot, an amazing live band and aerialists who cover trapeze, lyra, silks and Spanish Web as well as all the acrobats and dancers.  There is no way you'd be able to see a show of this caliber anywhere else for this cheap.  You're practically stealing your seat when you buy a ticket to any Imperial OPA show as they are often a third or less then the travelling Cirque de Soliel shows and you're supporting local Atlanta artists.  


The plot was a cross between Rocky Horror and a morality tale which seems to be a running theme of the OPA shows.  Not only are they entertaining to watch they have a good positive message that you can take away from all the amazement. A Man and Woman break down on the side of the road in front of The Imperial House of OPA and discover a circus inside the house and all of the dreams they thought they had lost along the way in order to make it in the corporate world.  In the end everyone discovers a path to follow their dreams which is the best advise you can give, find a way to follow your dreams and you'll find happiness!



Ironically, as I am in school for theater right now, I had to write a paper about a live theater show and was given permission to write about this particular show as far as the technical elements so if you're interested in how we took a nearly abandoned theater with well loved (broken and damaged) equipment and made this amazing production please keep reading!

From January 25th through March 24th I worked as the stage manager for The Imperial OPA Circus’ production of The Imperial House of OPA.  There were many challenges with working on this production including the space itself.  The Arts Exchange, where our rehearsals and shows took place, used to be a school and is now an artists’ complex that has fallen into a bit of disrepair over the years.  Though we spent time working on it last fall, we still had more work that needed to be done such as finding additional lights, bringing in and running lines for the PA, etc…

The lighting has been its own issue since the beginning.  As the space is wired but many of the dimmers do not work, some of the lights are shot due to frayed connectors, and others do not work for reasons unknown.  In order to make-up the difference we moved the lights around to get the most coverage on the stage, added clip lights to the front of the stage to create foot lights and help add additional lighting to the stage.  We covered most everything with gels of blue, amber and magenta in order to blend the lights on the stage and help create the mood.  Someone was also kind enough to bring in four LED lights that could change color so we used golds and greens in the first act and turned it to blues for the goldfish ballet in the second act.  We also had access to an older light that we had found and were able to get a new lamp for it and mount it to the booth so we could have a working spot light for the production.  Thanks to an abandoned giant gold disco ball we were able to simulate goldfish swimming around the theater during the large “aerial explosion” towards the end of the second act.  I am by no means saying that our lighting was perfect, but Myron placed the lights to get the maximum amount of coverage and controllability.  He was able to create a seemingly high tech lighting design through what we had available and what we were able to be scrounge up.

The sound was mainly used for the band and for a few special effects as we did not mic the performers.  There were a few actors that made me wish we had left the choral mics on throughout the whole show, but over all I do not think they were necessary.  The band sounded great during the first act, however, the second act had three routines that were done through CD instead of with the live band and the transition back to the band after the prerecorded music seemed to cause an issue with the sound.  Though we tried to correct it I feel that Gary, who was running sound, was unable to hear the problems that we could hear in the back of the theater.  There were a few moments where, for dramatic effect we put an echo on the hanging choral mics for during the dream sequence and a very dramatic moment of someone screaming “NOOOooooo” so we put the delay to emphasize the drama of the moment.

The set was very minimalistic; it included an arm chair with ottoman and a table with a goldfish bowl and a hat rack DSR and DSL a small platform with a small table and two chairs.  Other than some fabric draped on the back wall that was the extent of set pieces.  The costumes were done by Dee Dee, and I think that over all she did well with creating a consistent aesthetic.  The only costumes that did not seem to blend as well were ones that were brought in by the performers themselves.  Also, for one of the dream sequence bits there was a giant paper mache goldfish that Tim wore to represent the spirit of one of the characters long dead gold fish.  As a result a few moments of the show had a weird balance between amazing professional circus acts and elementary school arts and crafts which somehow totally worked.

Over all I really enjoyed working on this production and am very proud with what everyone was able to accomplish with our very limited resources.  The performances were amazing and we had sold out shows.  I do wish we had been able to have a longer run due to the amount of time and energy that we put into that production, only two nights seemed a bit of a letdown.  However, we have discussed these issues and hopefully the next show will be even bigger and better than the last one.

2011-12-31/2012-1-1 Imperial OPA Circus with Cake at The Fox

Back in November, a few weeks after wrapping up Boodeeni, my other half received a text that he would be opening for Cake on New Year’s Eve at The Fabulous Fox Theater in downtown Atlanta.  At the time, it was a far off concept and it didn't seem real to either of us.  It wasn’t until he heard it announced on the radio on his way home from work at the beginning of December that it really started sinking in.  Shortly thereafter, I was asked to be the stage manager for this amazing show and ran rehearsals through December to get the show in order and help organize some of the best talent in the Southeast.  It is always an honor to work with these performers and they never cease to amaze me as to what they can accomplish in a very short period of time.

Saturday, December 31, 2011, started pretty early for everyone.  Rigging for the aerialists began at 9:30am with brief moments for them to familiarize themselves the set up before the other opening act, Wolf and the Tuba, and the headliners, Cake, needed to take the stage for set up and sound check.  B and I did the idiot check before leaving the house.  All of his drums and such were packed in the trailer so we wandered over to Zach’s house, the tuba player, to pick him up along with Hiron, otherwise known affectionately to the band as the Keebler Death God, who is the guitarist, lead saxophone, band leader and writer of most of the songs.  We had one more stop before heading over to the Fox; we were off to pick up Mike, aka Brutus, and accessories such as the tumbling weight, the Widow Maker and the Baby Maker.  Once we were loaded up in the car with the trailer packed to the ceiling we were off to the Fox!

Once at the Fox we loaded everything in while Cake was on stage with their sound check.  We were crossing back and forth trying to be as quiet and sneaky as possible to not disturb their sound check.  It was a very surreal experience to be standing on stage, with Cake playing and looking into the 5,000 empty seats that would later be filled by screaming fans.  Once we got everything in we all went down stairs into the catacombs to the OPA dressing room.  Everyone was getting dressed, stretching, putting on make-up and preparing for the run through, which would be our first time actually working on the Fox stage.  We were going to be dividing the show into two acts, one at 8:30pm and one at 10pm, with Wolf and the Tuba going on in between the acts and Cake going on after the final act.  The run through was amazing!  We ran through as many acts as possible in our time frame. We worked with the Fly system for dropping and raising the lyra (aerial hoop), the trapeze and the silks, to make sure we had everything timed correctly to keep the show moving as smoothly as possible.  We had 30 minutes for each act and there was no room for error.

Act one opened with an intro from Tim and the entire cast coming out on stage while the band played “OPA Swing”.  It was a high energy way to start the show and give the audience a taste of what was coming for them throughout the night.  At the end of the song the stage was cleared except for the next act which included Rose going up on the lyra with Meredith and Angela who would be belly dancing to a CD of the song “Erase” by Beats Antique (used with permission of the band.)  The CD had a few skipping issues but Rose and Meredith kept it together through the whole piece and made it look beautiful and the audience had no idea there was a technical issue.  Next were the jugglers, Safety Third, performing to the band playing “Sketchy Gypsy”.  They started with balls and then switched to rings before the music went to double time.  Once the music went to double time Steve, as Father Time, came out in a tiger stripped suit with his walker and began doing balancing tricks and hand stands on both the floor and on his walker.  Next came a fountain of feathers with Musee du Coeur performers: The Chameleon Queen, DeeDee Chmielewski and Desire Evoquer entering with red and white feather fans only to reveal Jacosa hiding behind the cascade of fluff before she rose up to the trapeze to perform while The Chameleon Queen did a beautiful fan dance, backed up by her Musee sisters as the band played “Cutie Pie Malonga.”  After a very solemn and delicate finish monkeys burst onto the stage scaring off the beautiful ladies, clearing the area for Brutus, The Iron Behemoth, and his lovely assistant Petunia showing off their beast master skills.  With creatures such as Discount Monkey, Expensive Monkey, Picasso the Geometric Gorilla and rounding out the show with the evil vultures, these beast puppets showed both amazing puppetry skill as well as a wonderful comedic vaudeville skit done by Brutus and Petunia who also wrote the bit.  Next up was Lauren, who flipped and twisted herself on the aerial silks while the band played “Beaten Tracks” and The Chameleon Queen and DeeDee danced Sky Writers over the audience.  Closing out the first act was Todd and Amber doing their AcroYoga hand balancing act.  The band played “Troup Enters” while they spun each other around with the finale being them balanced while Tony, the expensive monkey, dove between their balanced bodies and Brutus, Petunia, Steve, John, Rose, Dee Dee and Jacosa created a human pyramid behind them to frame their amazing feats of feet!

After the first act everyone had approximately one hour to change clothes, smoke cigarettes, and get ready for act two while Wolf and the Horn played and managed to fill up the stage and get the audience hopping with their two person band. 

Act two opened with a welcome from Tim and then immediately went into Safety Third juggling clubs with assistance from the beautiful Desiree Evoquer and the band playing “Puppy Dog Stomp.”  They quickly tossed the clubs back and forth, starting with four and working their way up to ten clubs flying back and forth across the stage.  Next came Lauren back on the silks with a slower, what appeared to be more difficult and was definitely full of some amazing acts of skill.  Dee Dee came out and did a beautiful veil dance while The Chameleon Queen and Desire fluttered on the sides with silk fans to extend the beauty coming from the aerial silks while the band played “Sinking Stars.”  After Lauren lowered herself to floor it was time for Brutus and Petunia to re-enter with their amazing feats of Strong Mannery which included a fight over the tumbling weight while the band played “F F#” and giant weights for a lift off before creating sexy voltrons with their unpaid gypsy harems to try to outdo each other. In the end they decided to work together and even the unpaid gypsy harems seemed please.  Next was another bought of AcroYoga to “G Thing” with all the spinning and lifting you could imagine with Tony bouncing off a Spring board doing a flip over the two of them, which was a very spectacular ending.  Next was Jacosa’s time to shine on the trapeze while Rose did an acrobatic fabric dance on the floor.  Jacosa twisted and swung in amazing angles while keeping herself precariously balanced as the band played “Moondoggie” during all of her tangles and turns.  The Belly dancers returned to the stage with their tribal dancing and ended with Fire Fans, balance candles and Tim coming on stage with a flaming sward.  It was a very spectacular way to end the show.  The final act was the bows while the band played “Bella Chow” and the entire cast came on stage and took a bow that waved across the stage and then the cast danced around the stage bringing up the energy of the audience before Cake took the stage. 

The band was totally amazing and hit all the cues, even the ones we had trouble hitting due to technical difficulties.  Their professionalism and skill helped move the show along and create a seamless line from act to act that kept the show going.  As I was the only person running props and working with Larry “the Fly Guy” to get all the aerials in, there were a few moments that there was more than I could do by myself.  All of the performers were wonderful and willing to help me by hopping in and assisting me in getting tumbling mats placed, set props, etc… They were truly amazing to work with and all so willing to help out so that everyone’s act went well, not just focusing on their own.  I am very pleased to say that we were 30 seconds under in our time in the first act and almost one full minute under in the second act.  In fact, everything went so well that Cake asked all of us to be on stage for the countdown at midnight so that’s how we all rang in the New Year.  It was an amazing moment, just being on stage with Cake and the rest of the OPA while 5,000 people celebrated with us is the most amazing way I’ve ever spent a New Year’s Eve.  If this is any sign as to how the rest of the year will be, by all means, bring on 2012!

2010-10-09 The Imperial Opa Presents Night of the Living Circus

The Imperial Opa Circus produced The Night of the Living Circus it's final big show for the season at The Goat Farm.  It was a huge event with multiple opening bands and Ninja Puppetry by Raymond Carr who always does a great job.  The circus is a combination of live music and traditional circus acts such as clowns, acrobats, aerialists, strong men, with some not so traditional acts such as ice sculpting, belly dancers and fire spinning!  It is what I would imagine a circus put on at Burning Man would be with an amazing underground feel with everything you'd expect from a circus minus the elephants.

Below is a promotional video that they put together for this show.


The Imperial Opa presents: Night of the Living Circus! from Captain Crazy Productions, INC on Vimeo.

There was so much going on from the opening parade to the funeral procession at the end of the show for the woman who sacrificed her self to bring back the undead circus.  The entire circus had a cohesive story line of sacrifice and hard work to bring the circus to life and at the end the whole circus worked together to bring back the women who had saved them all and made her the newest member of the circus.  You have to love great entertainment that also has such a good positive message as well.  The highlights of the show for me were the comedic bit with the strong man, the two aerialists and the fire spinning, but the whole show was truly amazing.  I will definitely be checking them out again and you should too!  I hope you enjoy the pictures I took!