Yesterday, both Sean and myself performed in the Fringe’s Improv Jam in the beer tent. This was a bilingual show with improvisers from Uncalled For, Just Us and Les Néos. Overall, I’d say it was a success, particularly since most of us had never improvised in anything other language than our mother tongues.
The highlights from the series of non-related scenes would have to be the haunted forest that Sean had to escape from by singing a French ballad with Dan from Uncalled For, lifeguard training that only taught how to give mouth to mouth, a zoo with some very randy monkeys, and about 5 or 6 scenes about Quebec life that involved pot, potatoes and the usual colloquialisms. Nothing says Quebec like a rude fry vendor swearing at you before the SQ arrests and molests you.
Terry Gilliam, the Python (of the Monty variety) with an American accent, has made some of the weirdest and funnies films to leave Hollywood. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas resembled a bad acid trip, or a few days in the life of Hunter S. Thompson. 12 Monkeys made me realize how disturbed Bruce Willis really is. He’s also had monumental flops, as with the Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a film which he begun several years ago, abandoned a week into filming, and has now taken up once again. I use the term flop to describe the ratio of money spent to money taken in.
His new film The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus looks promising. It also happens to be the last film Heath Ledger will ever appear in, assuming he isn’t resurrected using file footage or CGI, as with Nancy Marchand or Marlon Brando.
Although this clip doesn’t show much in terms of Gilliams use of lavishly exotic/surreal scenery, it still hints at his style. The theatricality of the ‘imaginarium’ troupe, as I understand it, is what leads the film into a the more surreal landscape of the character’s consciousness. In addition to this, the character of Tony is played by Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrel and Jude Law. This, if nothing else, promises to be interesting.
Truly, if our eyes are windows into the soul, then our webisodes are windows into the detailed and structured planning regime that goes into the creation of a show.
Sorry for the delay, but once again, the wild world that is my life delayed the launch of the third installment of the webisodes. So, without much further ado, as with this annoyingly long intro, or possibly, as some people might see it, poorly constructed sentences that run on and on, or even possibly as a stall tactic, which doesn’t make much sense, with this being the written portion of the blog…well, I’ve forgotten where I was going with this. Enjoy!
As our show gets closer and closer, more and more deadlines sneak up and slap us in the face. The important thing, however, is that we can still put out these sneak peaks of our Fringe Show.
From Friday June 13th until Saturday June 21st, Without Annette will be performing at the Mirror Stage (Venue 4 – 4247 St. Dominique Street) in the Montreal Fringe Festival. Our new show, ‘Argument With a Dolphin’, is still under construction. However, it’s shaping up to be a modern masterpiece of improvised proportions, or, at the very least, a monumental triumph of man over dead air!
BUT… have you ever wondered what goes into making a show? Well, the fine craftsmen at Without Annette have pieced together an answer, in the form of 6 webisodes, to be released at a rate of 1 per week, until we run out or begin our Fringe show. The first installment has already been released, and so to watch it, you can go to this link or watch it right here:
Fringe, Montreal | dan | 
June 15, 2009 7:27 pm | 
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