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Since the Gold Rush, San Francisco has been a famous "end-of-the-line" destination to those looking for a chance to re-invent themselves. 

The next play I’ll be acting in is Emperor Norton I — a new musical. Norton, by proclaiming himself Emperor of the US in the 1850’s, became perhaps the first of a long, colorful, proud line of "eccentric" San Franciscans.

Conventional wisdom was that he was crazy — suggesting a bridge over the East Bay, trying to prevent the Civil War, proposing to the Queen of England. Yet with every new "royal proclamation" he became more loved, more celebrated, more in demand. This is the San Francisco way.

Come enjoy this charming & funny story from the Barbary Coast — from rags to riches to rags to pomp & fleas — weekends in Dec ‘05 and Jan ‘06. At the Darkroom Theatre, of course, 2263 Mission St @ 19th St. 415 401 7987. Reservations recommended…

When it comes to photography, my approach is pretty much the same as elsewhere — chuck the rules, embrace the random, and dump quickly what isn’t working. Here’s a link to a series of images I call ColorFields — explorations into the intersection of light, color, motion, and slow shutter speeds. Using the technique for portraits can also yield suprising & beautiful results. Links are to Flickr.com pages.

This weekend will be the last performances of a play I have been directing — Lovesick: The Cat Allergy Musical. Its the story of a woman, looking for love in all the wrong places — specifically, trolling the internet. As each new goofy & inappropriate guy comes over, she falls quicky in love. And her cat, Lucky, finds new ways to dismiss each of the dates with brutal comedic torture.

Her version of the story is that her cat is ruining her life. His version is that he’s protecting her from doing something stupid. The tension between Serenity & Lucky is so good, it reminds me of home. I keep finding dark meanings in the songs (written by Darkroom producer Jim Fourniadis), and in the text, which my soon-to-be-ex-wife, the author, swears are not there. But I know what happens in our kitchen…

In fact, when I first read the play, I wanted to direct it very dark. The humor would be wrung from the audience, thirsting for solace and release. But the author wanted it light and fluffy. Its definitely not that, and I do believe she put her feelings about our dissolving marriage into the script. But its also brutally funny and smart and fast-paced and chock full of 10 original pop-rock-punk songs (click for mp3s) by Jim Fourniadis that I simply can’t stop singing. And I don’t even like to sing.

If you ususally don’t like theatre, come to the Darkroom sometime anyway. If you’re not happy, I’ll consider a refund. They’ve done so many great shows — Clue, Princess Bride, 2 seasons of Twilight Zone episodes, Zippy the Pinhead (written & co-directed by me). Its an old punk rock bar & record store turned into a punk rock theatre. If you subscribe to my RSS feed, news of my next show will arrive automatically. Er, maybe…

This weekend, I am acting in a stage adaptation of a Twilight Zone episode from 1961 entitled "Steel". Check out The Darkroom Theatre for more info & tickets. "Steel" originally starred Lee Marvin as a washed-up boxer, now manager of a washed-up robot boxer, sometime in the future. Next week are two different episodes, and I play Rod Serling.

What I love most about acting is the rehearsal - the explorations with other actors, finding how we’re related, what we care about. Its always surprising. This is how the real world works — we figure out things together, are dependent on each other much more than we acknowledge. On stage, being right isn’t enough. As improv-guru Keith Johnstone advises: How do you know the work is good? Other people want to play with you.

 When the play is over, I usually get depressed, am tired, and so I crash - physically and emotionally. We call it Post Dramatic Stress Disorder…