Author: directorebeccer

Thank You, Kickstarters!

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Thank you to everyone who has donated to Flux Fest ’15 and to our Kickstarter campaign!

We’re now just over halfway to our Kickstarter goal of $2500, with 10 days to go. If you’ve been meaning to throw in your support, now’s the time! Click here to go to Kickstarter — if only to watch the video. If you’ve already given, THANK YOU! Here’s a list of our wonderful supporters!

Because of your generous support, we’ve been able to add some bells and whistles to FluxWagon, like her new trapdoor and Aesop-appropriate paint job.

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Joan, designer of the FluxWagon, in her new trap door.

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FluxWagon at our opening performance at DeFremery Park, Oakland

New this week: animal portraits by the excellent Megan Hillard! (Stay tuned for photos of those after this weekend’s shows in Hayward and San Francisco.)

Your support is also invaluable to less photogenic but essential endeavors, like making insurance payments, buying gas, and renting trucks to tow Fluxie.

You also help ensure the Peripatetic Players can get paid! They’re super photogenic, actually.

The Peripatetic Players in action. Photo by Tim Guydish.

The Peripatetic Players in action: photo by Tim Guydish. Click through for a whole wonderful set of photos!

Character Profile: Lion

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He’s a noble beast, but he’s got a lot to learn…

The Lion & The Mouse -- illustration by Sam Bertken
The Lion & The Mouse — illustration by Sam Bertken

When we first meet the Lion, we know he’s impressive as the King of the Forest… but even he can learn from his mistakes. To play the lion. an actor must have a strong presence and and even stronger ROAR… He’ll be hunting, but he might also become the hunted!

There are plenty of stories about animals trying to imitate the lordly lion, but we’ve selected just a couple stories in which the lion gets to show the more complicated sides of his character. Any actor would be eager to sink teeth into this meaty role… making it the perfect fit for our own leader and impressario, Samuel Peaches.

See for yourself this weekend, when Aesop Amuck opens at DeFremery Park in Oakland on Saturday and the Noe Valley Town Square on Sunday. And help support the whole tour on Kickstarter!

Link to our project on kickstarter
Help take Aesop Amuck around the Bay Area this summer!

Opening Weekend – and no BART between SF & the East Bay!

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What is a Peripatetic Player to do?

We’re looking forward to playing at DeFremery Park, Oakland this Saturday August 1 @ 5pm, (special early-evening opening night!) and the Noe Valley Town Square this Sunday August 2 @ 2pm!

But BART service this weekend will not travel between San Francisco and the East Bay! In addition, the West Oakland BART Station, the closest station to DeFremery Park, will be closed. But GOOD NEWS! There will be more frequent BART and bus service throughout both sides of the Bay — just not between them.

Transit options:

To DeFremery Park: AC Transit Bus #26 or #31
To Noe Valley Town Square: MUNI #48 or J-Church 

CYCLISTS:

Biking to DeFremery Park or to Noe Valley is a great option! But BART asks that you don’t bring bikes on the Transbay bus bridges this weekend. (The regular AC Transit Transbay Bus routes do allow bikes.) There will be more frequent ferry service across the Bay — it’s a fantastic ride both on bike and boat.  Click here for more info for cyclists.

Drivers:

If you must drive, street parking is usually available at DeFremery Park, but quite difficult at Noe Valley. It’s always a good idea to plan some extra time if you’re driving.

Read more about the Transbay Tube closure here:

http://alert.511.org/2015/06/bart-transbay-tube-closure-august-1-2.html

We can’t wait to perform for you! Here’s our full schedule of performances… and a photo of part of the Mouse Family, ready to go!

Meekins, Princess Gwen and Thumper in their new Mouse costumes by Vivi Matsuda

FluxWagon Needs a Makeover!

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It’s true! We are underway with modifications to makeover FluxWagon for her new adventures with Aesop’s Fables. She’ll still be the same lovely red-and-yellow on the outside, with colorful worlds on the inside. But the Fables require a much more pastoral setting than the exotic locales of the Kipling tales we told in O Best Beloved. Allow the Players to tell you more:

And you can help! Just click on over to our new Kickstarter campaign, where any amount will help not only get FluxWagon ready to roll, but pay for boring things like insurance, park permits, and artists’ rent.

Thank you!!

Character Profile: Frogs!!!

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Illustration by Sam Bertken

How did this frog get so big? Through her own folly, I’m afraid…

She’s from The Frogs and the Ox, and she’s trying to make herself as big as an ox. It doesn’t turn out well.

In fact, the frogs always seem to be coming up with bad ideas… Like, for instance, in The Frogs Who Wished for a King or The Frog and the Mouse. Unlike the mice, who come up with bad ideas after a lot of thought and deliberation in their mouse councils, the frogs just don’t seem to think things through. Naturally, this leads to plenty of mishaps for the frogs.

The frogs are also scared of everything, perhaps with good reason considering all the misfortune that befalls them. They run for their lives in The Hares and the Frogs and The Boys and the Frogs.

What with all that running in fear and being prone to mishaps, we see some great opportunities for slapstick. That might be why the Frog sections of Aesop Amuck are some of the most hilarious to rehearse.

Here’s a little taste of our rehearsal shenanigans…

Aesop Online

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Thanks to the Library of Congress, many of Aesop’s fables are online in a gorgeous, interactive edition with illustrations by Milo Winter.

Google Books also has many electronic editions of Aesop collections, including a free public domain volume illustrated by Harrison Weir.

There’s a searchable collection at www.aesopfables.com, which also includes fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen and others. This is likely the most extensive collection, and you’ll find many fables that are nearly identical but with slight variations in the details.

Who was Aesop anyway? Wikipedia can tell you a little more about who he might have been. But no writings attributed directly to “Aesop” survive. We do know that many philosophers and poets, including Aristophanes and Sophocles, knew of Aesop’s stories; Sophocles composed some of them into verse poems. We also know Aesop didn’t write down any of the morals; the lesson of each story was thought to be clear without articulating it, but later authors have added them and today we recognize many familiar aphorisms in the morals of “Aesop’s Fables.”

And for more images, head to Wikimedia Commons for a wealth of public domain illustrations from historical editions of the fables.

Happy exploring!

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A Wenceslas Hollar illustration found at Wikimedia Commons

Character Profile: Mouse Council

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With a ton of fables featuring Mice, you can be sure that Mice will have a starring role in the Peripatetic Players’s Aesop Amuck!

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The Mice in Aesop’s Fables always seem to be having councils. They have a lot of important decisions to make, like how to get away from the Cat, or to better organize their mouse armies. And of course there’s songs to be sung… But we’ll let that be a surprise.

Stay tuned for more character profiles, and more fabulous drawings from Mr Bertken (a.k.a. Meekins)!

Announcing… Aesop Amuck!

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During August 2015, the Samuel Peaches Peripatetic Players — that madcap troupe of travelling thespians who brought you O Best Beloved — will take the show on the road once more in Aesop Amuck.

2015 Bay Area Parks Tour:
Saturdays and Sundays, August 1 – 23

Aesop Amuck is the Peripatetic Players’s adaptation of Aesop’s fables. It’s fun for the whole family, decidedly fabulous, marvellously moralistic, and at least 300% educational!

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The Fox and The Lion – illustration by Harrison Weir from Three Hundred Aesop’s Fables, translated by G.F. Townshend, 1867

Grab the kids, throw on some sunscreen (or, if in SF, pack a parka), and head out to the nearest park or public space! The Peripatetic Players will arrive 30 to 60 minutes before showtime to set up FluxWagon, their folding mobile stage. Shows last just under an hour, and are full of songs, pratfalls and theatrical mayhem.