Spent Monday at the Theatre Bay Area Conference surrounded by theater peeps, coffee, bourbon, muffins, and Bill Bivins. Had fun avoiding anything serious, listening to top people in the field, bumping into friends and clarifying for myself why the conference is important. So here are notes on what happened along with some marginally useful commentary…

10:45am – Arrived after car had been towed in the morning – $467. Missed opening speech. FML.

10:46am – Checked in. Saw Jamya Divila. She has at least 47 jobs in the arts.

10:52am – Slapped Bill Bivins on the back with conference program. Got coffee. Bull-shitted about how awesome everything’s going.

11:30am – First panel. On new work models.  Encouraging signs from Magic, Berkeley Rep, and Alter Theater about prospects for playwrights. Alter wins for most local-centric development program. Chris Chen was also on the panel and smartly said playwrights are the soul of their cities. Tony Taccone is pretty funny. My question on what effect beer had on the panelists’ development processes was giggled at and never answered (understandably I guess), but in regards to PianoFight, it has been very important. For example, beer is the reason we did this:

12:43pm – Next panel was lunch at Jupiter. Invited Val, Geo, Charles, Matt, Rick and someone I’d never met named Grey. Vigorous discussion on merits of dark beer versus light. Dark won. Christy Bolingbroke was the only one at our table on time to the next panel.

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Hey, gang.  Clint here with another PianoFight.com exclusive glimpse behind the scenes of live theatre and into the virtual scenes of my own bizzare reality.  This time they want me to blog about The SF Olympians Festival… And to that I say, sure.  No problem; that’ll be a cinch. It’s a festival that happens every year that… has absolutely nothing to do with the Olympics. Hmm. Bing or Google? Wikipedia says uh… let’s see… what I really need here is an angle…

“Sing, O goddess, the mighty battle at Mount Olympus, that heavenly onslaught, that literal clash of the Titans! Sing of the carnage and the strife that befell the ancient world in that time before time when those indomitable Zeus-kin rode forth on a wave of vomit to slaughter their own family members! That ancient scrimmage where a young Cyclops – long before he joined the X-Men – fought alongside Charles Atlas in brutal contention against the San Francisco Giants. Sing of power and glory! Of death and retribution! Sing of Zeus’ many sordid love affairs with Metis, Themis, Herpis, Eurynome, Polyurithane, Demeter, Dmirtri, Diploticus, Danae, Mnemosyne, Monica Lewinsky, Jared Leto, Hera, Semele, Helen, Karen, Sharon, Kaitlin, Caitlin with a C, Alkmene, and the Elks Lodge. And please, goddess, sing us some of that great music that came from back then like Electro, Calypso and that cool hair band Styx. And goddess, one other thing…I, uh…”

Alright, I confess. Is it obvious that I know literally next to nothing literary about Greek Mythology? I mean, other than common knowledge – that lightning is what happens whenever the gods eat too much spicy food after 10 pm, Hercules had a babe friend named Xena, and there was a huge earthquake in Hades a couple years back – I can barely fill a bottle cap with my knowledge of classical mythology. I distinctly remember snoring through that class which explains why it’s all Greek to me. So it makes perfect sense that PianoFight asked me to write up a feature about our involvement in No Nude Men’s premiere deity-themed writing competition. Doesn’t it?

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Taking a long weekend to tour the coast of California, PianoFight is thrilled to announce its Second Annual Endless Weekend Tour, a traveling show featuring original sketch comedy and live music that comprises PianoFight’s “Greatest Hits” of their 2011-2012 season. Happening May 22-27, the tour kicks off in Oakland, then voyages South to Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and San Diego. Tickets are $20 online and $25 at the door and can be purchased at www.pianofight.com/endlessweekend “We produce [shows] in SF all year, and this is a big chance for us to share our best pieces with new audiences,” says Artistic Director Rob Ready.

PianoFight, a critically-acclaimed theater production company, took a similar trip in 2011, and has revamped the tour with all-new work produced over the last year. Executive Director Dan Williams explains, “It’s like the ravioli that floats when it’s prime & ready: here we are, producing the hell out of shows all year long, and the best of those shows, the best raviolis, they go on the tour. And it’s really tasty stuff this year.”

PianoFight’s Second Annual Endless Weekend Tour features top content from PianoFight’s two resident sketch comedy groups, Mission CTRL and ForePlays, and live music from the company’s own music department, PFMD. The lineup includes a diverse range of absurd short comedies, from a beat-box exorcism to a musical number that will “spice up” your financial life, as well as a journey through a psychedelic courtroom and an existential crisis with Where’s Waldo. The full show will feature 22 of the company’s actors.

The tour begins with an opening night show at Era Art Bar in Downtown Oakland on Tuesday, May 22nd. The group will then travel to the Broadway Playhouse in Santa Cruz on Wednesday, May 23rd, camp out for two nights at Your Theatre in Los Angeles on Thursday & Friday, May 24th & 25th, move up to the Velvet Jones in Santa Barbara on Saturday, May 26th, and then wrap up with a final performance at The Ion Theatre in San Diego on Sunday, May 27. For specific times, location details, and tickets, please visit www.pianofight.com.

The Second Annual Endless Weekend Tour marks an opportunity for PianoFight’s SF and LA teams to combine forces, showcasing the company’s true range of talent. One PianoFight company member described this powerful team combination as, “like Captain Planet, but more post-modern.”

PianoFight LLC is an SF-based production and venue management company founded by Rob Ready and Dan Williams in the summer of 2007. Former managing partner of the Off-Market Theaters until its close in 2011, PianoFight is building a state of the art theater complex with a restaurant and bar in downtown San Francisco. In five years, the award-winning production company has produced over 250 original short and full-length plays, created the largest audience-judged playwriting competition in the country, tackled a choose-your-own-adventure play series, recklessly invited audiences to Throw Rotten Veggies at the Actors Night, and garnered international critical acclaim, all while staying true to its goal of producing new work by new artists.

A good friend of mine, Ahmed Bharoocha, is part of a three-man comedy group Dead Kevin Sketch. Ahmed, a fantastic stand-up in his own right, went to high school in Santa Barbara with me, PF Executive Director Dan Williams and our Finance Director Kevin Fink. He and I played Garth and Wayne respectively in a sketch we wrote for Spirit Week freshman year.

After living out East for a while, he finally moved back to the sunny shores of California and posted up in LA where he formed Dead Kevin with Ryan O’Flanagan and Jack Robichaud (John Hale shoots most of their sketches).

After a dinner party at our house the other night where I did the nasty dishes – pots, pans and cookie sheets with year old bacon grease cemented on to them – I couldn’t help but post this awesome, relevant vid. You can see their other bits here. Dig this:

I suppose you could call it a habit. I call it a tradition, or rather a ritual of sorts. Usually occurring after a long day when reading another email, answering another text, or picking up another phone call feels like it is simply out of the question. It is then that I rid myself of all responsibility to others and walk myself into the nearest dimly lit bar and order myself a burger and a martini. Straight up, super dirty, gin, extra olives. Medium, cheddar, yes, I will take the fries. My guilty pleasure that I get to do all on my own, out of the watchful eye of friends, family, or a significant other. It’s my moment I take, a kind of meditation I indulge in every so often. It can run a close second to taking in a good movie by yourself, or waking up and deciding to spontaneously steal a day at the beach with a good book.

Recently it came after a 60 hour work week (I shit you not) and a rehearsal where I played a pair of tits (again I shit you not, this was part of the Foreplays show of This American Lie, which closed last Friday May 4th to a sold out theater, woot!). Sometimes I frequent the same places, but usually when I find myself in need of my burger and martini I’ll hunt it down regardless of neighborhood, city, or state.

Below are the details of my latest quest:

Place: I found myself in my old stand by, The Bell Tower on the corner of Jackson and Polk. Read more »

It’s been a busy week at PianoFight. Last Saturday saw Octopus’s Garden’s electrifying finale. Last night, Mission CTRL blew the top off a wildly successful run, well overreaching their $7 billion IPO goal by acquiring the majority share of Facebook, now valued at around $96b. Tonight the ladies of Foreplays endeavor to do the same but are more likely to simply save the world with closing night of their highly-controversial This American Lie. And through all of this, BOA is up and running while the Second Annual Endless Weekend Tour is ramping up.

Of course, I say all this because I want to talk about our bodies. There is a lot coursing through them right now (adrenaline, beer, scientifically undefinable creative fluids, relief, beer, etc) and it’s important to be aware of that as we push forward today. To help us understand better, some French people took field footage of our insides with tiny DSLRs and even tinier boom mics. It’s about as inside PianoFight as any of us will ever get and really explains quite a bit… Enjoy!

- Jed