Manitou Springs, Colorado

August 10, 2010







Manitou Springs, Colorado

We did not get much of a rest after attending One Night Stand as Kathy & I had to rush home and pack and make our final preparations for vacation to Colorado that began early the next morning with a flight to Atlanta where we met up with Kathy’s father Jim before boarding a plane to Denver. With the time change factor we were in Denver shortly after noon and on our way south to the little Mountain town of Manitou Springs, where Kathy’s brother Chris and his family live.

Kathy, Kari, James, Chris, Sophie & Jim



Manitou Springs is a funky little hamlet that is just west of the larger city of Colorado Springs with the entire area known simply as The Springs. Nestled at the foot of Pikes Peak, Manitou is at once a historic town and a thriving artistic community with a nice array of nice restaurants and shops to keep tourists content.

James



Sophie

Chris and his wife Kari and children Sophie and James live on Ruxton Avenue, just below the trailhead for the Barr Trail and the Cog Train depot that lead to the peak of Pikes Peak. It is a great location and conveniently for us, the cottage just next door to their home is a rental so we were able to stay right next door.







Our schedule included three nights in Manitou, giving us a nice window of time to both hang out with family and take in some touristy activities as well. We also made time to head over and check out the house that we own nearby. We purchased the house in 2005 and rent it out to help cover the mortgage. We got to meet the current tenants and check it all out and all seemed well.







We spent the first day hanging out, going with Sophie to watch her take equestrian lessons. Living in Key West, being able to go to a full-on stable and get a small taste of the real West. We have two horses in Key West, both used by the police department and rarely if ever to they ever get above a slow trot, so it was cool to see horses actually running in open spaces.

Kari, Kathy, Sophie





We made it to the downtown area a number of times, to eat at our favorite restaurants, The Loop and The Keg, to drink microbrews in our favorite bar/ mountain gear shop Kinfolks and to enjoy ice cream at the local creamery. We even got to witness first hand a real gully washer downpour during which the streets were flooded and clogged with dirt and debris carried down the mountain.



Jim, James & Chris

But most of all we got to just hang out and spend quality time with family, a perfect start to a week-long adventure in the beautiful state of Colorado.

One Night Stand Four

August 9, 2010







One Night Stand Four

It is an amazing experience to witness the creative process as it unfolds. As the photographer for two of the 5 plays in The Studios of Key West’s “One Night Stand Four”, I had the unique opportunity to watch as the directors and actors worked through the final phase of their productions and then carried it forward to the actual final dress rehearsal and finally to the actual performance later that same night.

Mike Mongo

Marky

During the performance itself, I choose to sit back and just watch and not to photograph, so all these photos are from either the practice runs or the final rehearsal and thus do not have the benefit of the full sets or costumes which really do enhance the production.

Erin



One of the more interesting aspects to watch was how the different writers and directors incorporated the required common line and prop. The line that each play had to feature was from the old classic film, “Cool Hand Luke”, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” The prop that each group needed to include was a EPT home pregnancy test, which made one poor TSKW intern have to go out and purchase 5 pregnancy tests.



The full rehearsal was the first time that I was able to see the full plays all run through at the same time. As you might imagine some groups were much more organized and together than others. There was a tension in the air as the teams struggled to get it together under the pressure of time. What seems from the outside as a fun, low-key experience can be at times fraught with nerves as the teams rush to beat the clock and to come across as professional as others.





The plays were fantastic overall, in spite of forgotten lines and the occasional missteps, I knew from experience that each mistake simply magnifies the enjoyment for the audience. This is live gonzo theatre and flubs are part of the action and watching the actors improvise when things go wrong is one of the joys of the process.



Shawna

The rehearsals were a mixed bag as some groups were frantic while others seemed ready to go for the first of two performances only minutes from the end of the rehearsal. Kathy & I joined the sold out standing room only crowd to watch the culmination of 24 hours of hard work by everyone involved.



Peyton

The show was an unqualified success, performers who moments earlier could recall their lines, delivered them with ease or else improvised flawlessly. The staging, sets and costumes completed the mix and one just walking in to see the show would have a tough time imagining that none of it existed 24 hours earlier.





In past years, the plays have been judged and awarded, for best in show, a process that was dropped this year. That decision was a good one as it would be unfair to single out one of the groups as they all delivered a wonderful night of theatre. Kudos to Elena Devers, Mark Hedden, all the staff, board & volunteers at TSKW and all of the people who gathered together in creating one of Key West’s coolest annual events. We are looking forward to next year already.



Liz

Mook J

“What we’ve got here; is a failure to communicate.”

August 8, 2010







“What we’ve got here; is a failure to communicate.”

The fourth annual “One Night Stand” brought together dozens of Key West’s most talented artists, writers, actors and directors who all created in the space of 24 short hours, 5 plays from the seminal idea to the fruition of the completed performance. I was fortunate enough to be asked to be one of the photographers to document the journey as it happened by The Studios of Key West.





I reported for duty Saturday afternoon and the process was already zipping along. The writers had worked overnight writing the scripts in the specific genre they had been randomly assigned. Crime/Gangster, Adventure, Romance, Science Fiction & Comedy were the genres that were assigned. The writers met with their directors starting at 7:30 AM and were joined by their respective casts an hour later to begin the rehearsal process.

Jolly & Chris

Dick Moody



The teams had less than one day to set their staging, learn the lines, gathering props, get costumes, practice, run through a dress rehearsal and stage two performances. At the same time a team of backdrop painters and set designers were scrambling to finish their work by 3 PM so that the stage and theatre could be set up and ready for dress rehearsal at 4 PM.







When I arrived to learn my assignment, the artists were already finishing up the sets and it was a quiet chaos in the studios as they madly rushed about trying to finish painting, building and creating the sets. I was assigned to go over and photograph two teams as they practiced their plays at two locations at The Red Barn Theatre.



Cast & Crew of "Educating Ace"



The first team was in the main theatre at the Red Barn and was the team producing the play “Educating Ace” written by Mike “Mr. Z” Zielinski, directed by Michael Marrero and starring Paul Kaufman, Kristen Wilson, Rebecca Gleason and Janeen Gracer. The crime drama was almost completed when I arrived and I photographed the last run through before the team took a break before rehearsal.



Ben Harrison

Peyton Evans

My second stop was in the upstairs studio space at the Red Barn where the cast and crew of “Galactic Interface” was working on their performance. Written by Ben Harrison, with director Mark Heddon and starring Peyton Evans, Tony Konrath, Bonnie Ripin, Bob Bowersox and Rita Brown, this group was having a far more difficult time working out the kinks and they used up every second of practice time before heading back over to the Studios for the final staging before the actual performances.