OMG

According to Greenman, the Hedda poster is up on the Iowa City buses. Erg. Yikes. What other cartoon-like noises can escape my lips. I'll just believe him when he says it's beautiful. I mean, I know on one level it's a nice picture. But the thought of having my photo everywhere . . . I can see why superstars get plastic surgery, but how do realtor types stand it?

Regarding his invitation to rant: Gladly. I'd refrained until I knew we were taking it up with the board and putting a stop to it.

On Saturday night, the fairgrounds had scheduled a teen dance in another building. The teen dance was aware of our existance, according to the president of our board, as she'd talked to them herself. So we're in the first act of Hedda, and suddenly the air is filled with this tremendously loud, migraine-inducing bass. You could literally feel the air pulsing around you to the beat. We sent someone over to ask them to moderate the tone a little. They refused to do so more than a touch. It was like being in an apartment under a frat. Mind you, the music is coming from a closed building about a hundred yards away. It was so distracting we started dropping bits of lines. At one point there was a half second pause before I said one of my lines because a motorcycle had revved just outside the door, and I'm thinking: "WTF is next, a drag race? Oh, yeah, I talk here." Not the best night for acting. Finally, during intermission, we got in touch with the fair groundsperson and got them into the building along with the DJ and demonstrated how it was too loud to think. They turned it down, and promised to keep it down until 10:30 when we were through. They didn't. Third act, they snuck it back up again. I was livid. I wanted to call a brief intermission, leave the stage, kick ass, and come back to finish the show. As Lu said, "She's got spike heels, and she knows how to use them." Only I couldn't. I also wanted to threaten the sponsors of the teen dance that we would attempt to hold them legally liable for the price of the ticket refunds if they persisted in knowingly interfering with our business. Okay, the last might be a bit much, but I was pissed.

BTW - Greenman, Matt, and so on: if you know anyone who was there for sure, have them get in touch with Barby to get a free ticket for another night. We've all agreed that they deserve at least as much. We've just got no way to identify anyone but season ticket holders or those who made reservations.

According to Barby, we've straightened this out with the Fairgrounds board directly, and should have no further difficulties.

UPDATE:
Okay, I know Nelson's good on the publicity and all, but we've got a spot on Ibsen.net? The Norwegian website? Don't you think that might be a little bit of a long commute for them to see Hedda?