The Official Salvage Vanguard Theater Blog

My first post here at the SVT blog will be to chastise my fellows for not blogging more.

There, I’m done.

Hello, world!

Things are going pretty well in NYC. The audiences have been
VERY responsive to the show. We’ve been asking them to fill out a
questionnaire and 93 percent say they’d recommend the show to a friend. One
12-17 year old kid said that it was the greatest show he had ever seen!
And while all of our invited potential investors are coming this weekend
coming up, someone has asked about investing in the show, unsolicited. In
other words, handed off his card to the box office and asked me to call
him. Seth and I are meeting with him tomorrow.

So, we’ll see! I’m pretty anxious about everything and really hoping this
won’t be a waste of time and money. This weekend coming up is the one that
counts. We’ve got major producers coming to every performance (including
the guy who originally produced Annie!). Gah!

Also, Fred Newman, the sound effects guy from Prairie Home Companion came. He loved the show. We got to hang out with him after. Super-duper cool and fun! Hooray!

Well, this is it. After 11 years of tweaking, a season of touring the country, and a backers’ audition in New York in January, Chad Nichols and I broke down and completely rewrote the entire Intergalactic Nemesis (the original one, not the sequels). Based on feedback from the road, feedback from our backers’ audition, and things that have been gnawing at us over the years, we took an 80-page script, tore it to shreds and put it back together. Now, it’s a tighter, leaner, stronger, funnier animal and only about 10 percent of the original remains. We presented the show for two performances last Saturday in Austin and audiences seemed to love it. Now, we’re presenting the show for two weekends only in New York with the goal of lining up investors for a 2008 commercial Off Broadway opening. If you know someone who lives in NYC, please tell them to come! We need to fill them seats! Details below!

The Intergalactic Nemesis
at TBG Theatre (312 W 36th St, 3W)
July 5, 8 PM
July 6, 8 PM
July 7, 7 PM and 10 PM
July 12, 8 PM
July 13, 8 PM
July 14, 4 PM and 8 PM
Tickets only $15

SVT Reads!
This Saturday, June 2nd!
4pm!
Zach Scott Arena stage!
MOLOCH AND OTHER DEMONS by Jason Grote.
Creepy, cool, and entertaining as Hell! With free wine after the reading!!! See you there?

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m pretty terrible with a camera. Which is why I never use one. Today is the day I wish I did. Take a look at those pictures in the post below and now imagine that walls are up separating the gallery from the 50-seat studio theater from the 100-seat black box from the scene shop from the public restrooms from the dressing rooms, etc. Believe it or not, the space actually looks bigger with all those walls up. I seriously can’t wait for the opening next Thursday so that lots of people can see this amazing facility. Lee Eddy has been working her ass off to put together the opening party. Eastside Cafe is catering. There’s booze from somewhere (I can’t remember where but they rock).

Huge shout-outs to Andrew Clements and Craig Nasso, our architects; Ed Diaz, our construction guru; Connor Hopkins, our construction foreman; all our incredible subs (our electricians got their supplier to donate most of the electrical stuff); and most of all, the incredible Etta Sanders, who, 7 months pregnant, has been managing the entire project and has done a whiz-bang job of it!

In other news, Mud rehearsals are going very well. This is one hell of a cast. We’re also completely rewriting The Intergalactic Nemesis and I couldn’t be happier with the new material. That show goes to NYC for two weeks in July and we’re performing it twice at the new space on June 30 at 2 PM and 8 PM for FREE!

But that’s not all: when the new space opens, there will be music every Tuesday night, films every Wednesday night, late-night shows every Friday and Saturday, play readings every Sunday night and the gallery opens with a show on June 22. Plus, we’re reading Dan Dietz’s newest play at 4 PM on the 23rd of June. The phenomenal Shannon McCormick is coordinating all our 2nd-stage events and Melissa Ladd and Jen Beck are curating the gallery.

And, lest I forget the hard work of Jenny Larson, SVT Reads! rolls along this weekend with a reading of Jason Grote’s Moloch and other Demons Saturday at 5 PM at the Zach Scott Arena Stage.

Whew!