Tour: Saratoga Springs

Dear Constant Reader,

This past weekend we took A (Re)Movable Feast to Saratoga Springs, NY. Why there? It’s the home of April March, The First Lady of Burlesque, and it was her birthday weekend. She graciously agreed to be our special guest star.

We arrived at the venue and found this:
upstairs

It was an old church and it is just as cavernous as it looks. The stage was probably about 4 feet high and the hall could have easily sat 700 people. Our intimate show was going to be lost in the vastness. Add to that, the dressing room was on the other side of the building and down a narrow and twisty set of stairs.

Fortunately, there was a rehearsal hall downstairs, which looked like this:
before

When we got done with it, it looked like this:
after

We brought in all of that gear ourselves. Okay, not the chairs; we rented those. But the lighting and sound equipment, the pipe & drape, the tables & cloths, and, of course, our costumes, set pieces, & props. Your Kickstarter dollars at work.

And we set it all up ourselves. There are no divas (not even me) amongst the Boston Babydolls during load in and strike. We were on a tight schedule Friday afternoon. We started around lunchtime and finished with just enough time to rehearse the show. I think rehearsal ended literally minutes before the house opened. Everyone worked hard to turn that bare hall into a theatre.

We had a great time performing with our special guests BettySioux Tailor, Mimi Mischief, and of course, April March. There was also shopping, drinking, and museum going, but that’s a missive for another time. I have a lot to do before The Dollhouse tonight!

Published in: on 21 June 2012 at 9:42 am  Leave a Comment  
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2011 recap

Dear Constant Reader,

My friend Holly Rebelle of Burlesque Noir (New Mexico) recently blogged about her year past in burlesque and I thought it was a great idea. Let’s see how much I can remember.

January
The Boston Babydolls put on a light revue called Hot Dates with a calendar theme. Highlights for me are introducing my “Champagne on Ice” act and wearing my mink coat in the finale. Betty choreographs it such that at no time did the coat ever touch the ground, but was passed from hand to hand until hung up by the stage kitten.

February
Naked Girls Reading Boston participates in the chapter-wide theme of “Love Stinks!”, sponsored by Great Philosophers Who Failed At Love. We are the only group to have the (clothed) participation of the author.

March
Mr. Cupid’s House of Love brings us a couple of milestones. Evie Sphinx becomes an official troupe member. The sultry songstress Alissa joins us for her first show. I perform an aerial act. Scratch is in our finale, dancing.

April
The Expo! I finally perform my tribute to April March. I’m not sure I have ever been so nervous in my entire performing career, trying to do April’s act in front of her.
Also, the Boston Babydolls win “Best Burlesque” from the Boston Phoenix.
And we perform at the launch party for the new comic Teenage Satan.

May and June
We throw a victory party for our Best of Boston win from the Phoenix, but mostly we begin preparations for Madame Burlesque: An Evening of Tributes, our most ambitious show at the time. We launch a Kickstarter campaign, build a giant oyster, and have fabulous photos taken. But most importantly, we cast Brigitte Bisoux and Corinne Southern.

July
Madame Burlesque at home and on the road! It’s our first real tour and we have so much fun. 4 states in 4 weeks! Whose idea was it to bring a giant oyster? That thing doesn’t exactly pack small!

August
B.A.B.E. moves! A larger space, just down the hall, opens up in our building and we take it. Scratch spends most of the month turning it from drab industrial space to a lovely dance studio, including a new dance floor and storage room.

September
At long last The Wrathskellar has a home! After months of searching, Scratch finally finds a vacant storefront in which to build our creepy tavern. He and a very small team of talented carpenters along with a lot of very unskilled labor from the Babydolls do the impossible in about two weeks.

October
It’s all The Wrathskellar all the time. We come to see that dirty, chilly space as our second home. Also, the birth of Sunday Socials. We welcome Brigitte Bisoux as an official Boston Babydoll.

November
We win “Best Burlesque” from the Weekly Dig and arrive at their award party in Scratch’s 1956 Packard.
Scratch thinks it’s a good idea to hold the Burlesque Marathon again. Much sleep deprived fun is had by all.

December
Naked Girls Reading presents an epic marathon reading of A Christmas Carol. We had no idea it would take so long…

And what are we up to now? Getting ready for Unlucky in Love. Live music, live singers, partially-clad dancers!

Published in: on 9 January 2012 at 1:05 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Life on the road again

Dear Constant Reader,

This week the Boston Babydolls’ perambulations took us to Brattleboro, Vermont and the Hooker-Dunham Theatre. It’s a quirky little space, but we took it in stride. Once we figured out how to keep me from falling off the stage during a group number and how to get the giant oyster through the narrow door, everything was perfect. Well, maybe we blew a fuse during the actual show… what can I say, Evie Sphinx is an dynamic dancer!

During our little down time, we visited a fantastic farmers market. I was content with a few pints of raspberries, but the guys had to buy a whole leg of grass-fed lamb! And there was Malian food too. And of course, there was some clothing shopping in town. Maybe I shall even post some picture of my treasures.

The only real negative was that someone stole our signboard. Hard to believe that we had it out on the sidewalk for two weeks in grubby Central Square, Cambridge with no problems, but after a few hours in pleasant, hippie Brattleboro, it’s gone. So if you see a sandwich board with a blow up of our logo and “retrofabulous”, we’d really like it back.

Before I close, I’d like to recognize our tech crew:

Creating excellent lighting is a challenging enough job, but doing so in a mere few hours, in an unfamiliar theatre, that’s not really set up for our kind of lighting, is a near miracle. And yet Hunter still manages to do it. With very little cursing. Even when he had to run extension cords down the hallway to get enough power. Or when the aforementioned fuse blew.

Brigitte was kind enough to loan us her boyfriend to run sound for the road shows. Despite spraining his ankle the day before, he was still game. And when he discovered the ankle was *broken*, he was still there to play our music. That’s what you call a trouper.

Next stop, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Peripatetically yours,

 

 

 

 

Published in: on 2 August 2011 at 2:57 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Life on the Road

Dear Constant Reader,

The Boston Babydolls are on tour! Madame Burlesque is such a great show, we just had to share it. We just finished a fantastic weekend in Portland, Maine at the Lucid Stage.

For those of you not in New England, it just so happened that the weather was *brutal* that very weekend. Over 100 degrees and humid. Thank goodness the theatre had air conditioning!

The show was well received and it was good to see some friends from the area. We had a little down-time and there were some adventures, like the quest for the topless donut shop (don’t ask…)

We’re looking forward to loading up again and heading to Brattleboro, Vermont on Friday. If you want to join us, get your tickets here.

See you soon,

 

Published in: on 27 July 2011 at 1:48 pm  Leave a Comment  
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