In the Fall of 2015, I decided to apply for FRIGID New York, with my show, “Punk Grandpa” as a multiple character cast.
Previously, I went to New York in June of 2015 to perform my one woman show version of “Punk Grandpa” at The Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. Every show in the festival picks a cause to support in some way and ours was the NYC chapter of The Alzheimer’s Association, since my grandpa had Alzheimer’s. It was a fantastic experience and I regret nothing: I got to see my New York family and share grandpa’s legacy with them, we got a good review here (& the reviewer showed up with a balloon animal!):
http://nytheaternow.com/Content/Article/2015-6-24-punk-grandpa
and we were nominated for a number of awards and won The Outstanding Performance in a Solo Show Award and
The Congeniality Award.
The audience of family and friends who came were wonderful! The only thing was I just wish that we had a bigger turn-out; we had about 30 people total that saw the show. On opening night, we had three people in the audience. And then, we had some technical difficulties and so one of our audience members, our lighting designer, graciously stepped in and ran the lighting and so we ended up having two audience members on opening night!
So, I decided to apply to the FRIGID New York 2016 Festival with “Punk Grandpa” as a local multiple character cast (it was first done with multiple characters at The Waukegan Theatre Festival at Three Brothers Theatre in July of 2015!) as well as a local director and stage manager, in an attempt to draw a larger audience. It’s a six character cast, with a Grandpa, Laura and four Ensemble members. My husband, Jake, helped me with this greatly. He told me about the world time clock, so I would know the time down to the second, as I applied for FRIGID. Here’s how the FRIGID application process works: the first 15 applications received by FRIGID at midnight on Labor Day get into the festival! Then, the remaining 15 are drawn by lottery. Jake also advised me to fill out the online form 10-15 minutes before sending, so that it wouldn’t expire (otherwise I would have filled it out hours in advance). So, I did and Jake’s advice worked!
Here is a listing all of the shows that are being featured at the 2016 FRIGID New York Festival:
http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Horse-Trade-Sets-10th-Annual-FRIGID-Festival-Lineup-20151218
Since then, a few highlights of the “Punk Grandpa” process with FRIGID New York have been:
1) We had about 500 submissions for the “Punk Grandpa” auditions between the postings on Playbill and Backstage!
2) When I was looking for someone to play a grandpa character in a play in Chicago, we had NO age-appropriate actors who submitted for the role for auditions. Then I kept posting and had just a few age-appropriate men apply before finding the right grandpa. He showed up in costume and ended up being perfect for the part. In New York, we had multiple age-appropriate men apply to be my punk grandpa!
3) The man playing our grandpa owns an alto saxophone and has offered to play music in the show for us!!! He can also sing and dance; I am thrilled, as my grandpa was always singing and dancing.
Here is the link to FRIGID New York:
Sequins instead of Pimples 