It’s coming. You don’t want it to happen. You’re a bit frightened. It never goes well. But this time, maybe this time will be different. Maybe this time, The Appointment will go well.

Check back next week for the web premiere of the film!

-Rob

Friend, collaborator, ShortLived 2.0 winner and writer of PianoFight shows The Position and Pulp Scripture, playwright Bill Bivins has a chance to be published! Playground, an indy development company that does everything from host a massive monthly reading series (Monday Night Playground) to co-producing world premieres around the Bay Area to producing a film festival and new works festival annually, is working on it’s next project – publishing its best writers. Naturally, our buddy Bill is one of ‘em. They’re raising money to cover some of the expenses through an IndieGogo campaign and if you’re a big theater nerd like I am you can pre-order the anthology of new plays by donating to the campaign – check out the video below, and CONGRATS BILL!

Indiegogo 3 from Cass Brayton on Vimeo.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the plays in the anthology, you can see them at the Best of Playground Festival happening May 9-26 at Thickhouse.

-Rob

They look sweet, light and innocent, but sometimes fortune cookies are bitches.

The gentlemen from PianoFight’s intensely awesome sketch crew Mission CTRL crashed Cultivated Wit’s Comedy Hack Day earlier this month to conceive of, create and debut / pitch their brand new app Reality Check. Now that it’s been created, we’ve mandated that all PianoFight Company Members have this handy on their smart phones just in case. At some point, we assume this will be sold in the app store, but until it is, check out the video below to see Mission CTRL and developers Christian Hansen and Bret Petersen present the future of app technology.

As you can see below, we’ve been hard at work posing for photos at our NEW SPACE, which will definitely open this year. Check out the three dead sexy PF founders, Kevin Fink, Rob Ready and Dan Williams, (Full Disclosure: I’m the one in the middle) in front of the soon to be complete bar.

Definitely progress from where we were a few months ago, which you can see below:

If you’d like us to abuse your inbox with email updates about the new space and upcoming shows, you can always sign up here.

Thanks for reading!

-Rob

I’m back with the newest installment of, Doo-De-De-Doooo PianoFight’s DoppelBlog!

Today I’m going after Mission Control’s ever charmingly sarcastic Raymond Hobbs, who’s recent portrayal of an inchworm at our company retreat was so vulgar yet adorable. Just. Like. Him.

You know who else is cute? Ray’s Doppelganger, Nick! This guy is not a celebrity nor an inchworm, but rather, a bartender who works at our resident bar The Tempest. He seriously could be a Hobbs’ lost sibling. Take a look for yourself!

See?

-Rachel

Pants Off Dance Off

This weekend was awesome. We opened not just one but two new PF one-time-only shows, both chock full of new work. If you weren’t able to make it out, we missed the shit out of you.  Good news is, it looks like our horizon is plump full of more in the future.

We started on Friday night busting out our multi-dynamic new Variety Death Match Show line-up, featuring all new work from PF groups, Mission CTRL and ForePlays, as well as a plethora of other new work ranging from music and stand-up to new acts birthed out of various nooks and crannies in retreat beach houses. We packed the new Z Below space (formerly TJT) to the brim, and the night left us all grinning, sweaty and a little sleep deprived.

Saturday’s PianoFights Pants Off Dance Off  was a different show entirely and a new type of production for PF — bringing together a variety of different Bay Area dancers to perform a one night only multi-faceted dance show, hosted by the fearless Raymond Hobbs and fellow producer Brian Gibbs, ending with a pantsless dance party hosted by DJ Short Shorts aka our own lovely and talented Sean Conroy. The theme of the night asked both performers and audience alike to shed their pants and join in on a night of dance that was both entertaining, slightly educational and fun.

In the process of producing our Pants Off show, it was a priority for the production team (P.F members Jena McRae, Brian Gibbs, and myself)  to represent the PF “voice” while incorporating a largely non-PianoFight cast.  It was a blending of two worlds that by the day of the show had suddenly left me with a small pit in my stomach and an irrepressible urge to keep refilling my wine glass. The combination of music and the movement of the human body telling stories has always owned a little bit of my soul. The effect it can create has a way of diving into one’s pores and transcending views of the world and traditional modes of communication.  It can be magic. In that same vein, some dance can also leave you feeling bored, lacking and irritable.  Herein laid my fear.

In the same way that to me seeing the same theater shows produced again and again can become a little stale, so can seeing the same work from dance companies.  Growing up in somewhat of a “the nutcracker can go f-itself” atmosphere, my dance school put on a production of new work each year. Surealia, ebbed and flowed with what was a constantly evolving storyline.  Creating a dance show that had you continually wanting to come back for more.  No two shows were alike, it was a sort of Cirque Du Soleil like ballet production that was the breeding ground for what has turned out to be some pretty extraordinary talent. The show was different from what the community was expecting AND it was awesome.  On top of that it was the first show I had been a part of that all my white boy Marin gangster rapper friends actually saw and liked.  This may or may not been because of all the females were cloaked in skin tight tie-dyed unitards but it was also because they weren’t  doing conventional “Sugar Plum Fairy” ballet. It was new, the movement was new, the music was new.  Legs were being lifted and beats were being dropped in a way that had a variety of people’s attention.  Clearly, we were onto something.

A lot of people’s idea of dance is being forced to see the Nutcracker for the 27th time during family holidays and school field trips.  And while for some of us this is the cats meow — for others, it’s beyond played out and irrelevant. My hope, by taking a stab at producing a dance show, was to captivate our usual PF audience, who may or may not be your typical theater going audience member, and have them enjoy watching dance in the same way, even though they may or may not be your typical dance going audience member.  What happened on Saturday night  had me walking away feeling a surprising optimism about doing work like this again.  PianoFight had successfully produced new work by talented, enthusiastic artists and more than that, a surprising amount of commentary after the show said that people had appreciated seeing dance in an accessible, somewhat casual, and pantlessly enthusiastic atmosphere.  They wanted to see more, we wanted to do more, and nobody was wearing any pants.  Hell YES.   Here’s to more potentially pantless, always expanding movement and music based collaborations in our future.  What What.

- Emma

Just months ahead of opening its new venue at 144 Taylor Street, PianoFight presents a one-night-only event where Company Members will perform experimental sketch comedy, stand-up, dance and music in the most creatively supportive arena possible, the Variety Show Death Match. Performers will compete for the adoration of audience members and the mercy of Pope Caesar the Brutal, under whose unflinching eye their creative and mortal fates will be decided. PianoFight’s Variety Show Death Match happens Friday, April 12, 2013 at 8pm, at Z Below, 470 Florida Street. Tickets are $10 online here and $15 at the door.

Variety Show Death Match features a mix of styles and forms, including a new sketch from the female-driven sketch comedy crew ForePlays, stand up comedy from Ray Hobbs, new songs from Das Haus Band, Andy Strong and Derricka Smith, with Ken Reichl and his drum set filling the role of house band, comedic improv from Rachel Rockwood and Dave Levine, a lively cello solo from Heather Buchheim, a showtune from Leah Shesky, a massive and deadly fight orchestrated by Derrick Fischer, and a scene from Mission CTRL’s upcoming full-length spy-thriller-comedy Red Rover.

In preparation for the opening of its two-theater and restaurant bar venue, PianoFight has tasked company members with creating all new material and new show formats, and has hired Pope Caesar the Brutal as its Artistic Brand Strategic Consultant to oversee the process. “We’d seen Pope Caesar the Brutal’s incredible results at other organizations like the Catholic Church, the Roman Empire, and Quiznos, so we decided to give him a long leash in how he went about helping us choose acts for the new space,” explains Artistic Director Rob Ready. “We really like the ‘death match’ format, though we are concerned it could be a real waste of talent.”