Turn Out The Lights...

From the Desk of Marc Adam Smith:

[Editor's Note: As many of you may know, we at Point of You had a home away from home with our Officers Gerard Savoy and Tina Trimble - we hosted many a party and held many a rehearsal there. At the end of 2010, they left the city for the suburbs. What better way to end our 10th Anniversary Season than with a look back...]

"The Parties Over" the recently passed Don Meredith used to sing that at the end of Monday Night Football in the 70's and 80's and now it seems apropos for the end of the CASA DE SAVOY where so many of us spent so much time over the past few years. I hope you all had a chance to stop by and help out with the move, and to take one more look at our home away from home and the two folks who invited us into it over the years, I can only think back to 8 years ago when we started going there...

Tina and G had 5 Cats: DJ, Jack, Roscoe, Ben and Omar. They now have one cat...do the math folks.

Mel and Sean where a couple living together down in the South Street Seaport and had no cats or a baby... and Mel was not yet Jewish, welcome to the front of the Bus Mel!

Jeff and Meghan where not Jeff and Meghan.... Jeff was ....well Jeff, and Meghan as far as we knew did not exist. Since we can only think of them as a couple let us not dwell on the past.

Paul looked like Lenny from the Simpsons, and back then he was always leaving things at the loft. Glad that stopped....wait, I think G just found Paul's South End script.

Johnny was the Dirty one, the single guy who had the nerve to sleep with women. OMG how did we ever survive that shock? And now he's a married man!

Keating was Keyser Soze in training, and now we know how wrong we where about him (PLEASE DO NOT KILL ME ONE DAY KEATING)

And I was a Loudmouth, Sarcastic, Prick... Good that some things stay the same, huh?

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Editor's comments: Thank you for the love, the laughter, the learning and the food. We'll miss the loft. Thank you G & T for letting us share that magical place with you.

A 10th Anniversary Conversation with our Founders

Jeff: I feel like Jeremy Pevin talking to John Cusack in Gross Point Blank, “TEN YEARS!!! TEN YEARS! TEN….YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSS!.....TEN! YEARS!”

Johnny: Oh, I see where you’re going. I thought it was because I’ve lived in Chicago. Yes, Point of You has been around for 10 years. Wait, WHAT?!?!?

Jeff: It’s amazing when you’re so focused on the next project how suddenly you take a break and look behind you and see you’re a decade older and such is the case with Point Of You Productions.

Johnny: Stop saying that! You’re making me feel old! I still buy comic books, for crying out loud! … Maybe I shouldn’t have confessed that to the World Wide Web?

Jeff: Do you think there’s anybody out there who’s shocked by that?

Johnny: (sigh) No. BUT comic books play a pivotal role in our 2011 season!

Jeff: Stop looking ahead right now. This blog is about looking behind us.

Johnny: … I like these curtains.

Jeff: (sigh) And as amazing, wonderful, and even surprising as it is to see that POY has turned a tenth of a century older this year, I can’t say that if you had told us ten years ago that we’d still be doing theater that I would’ve expected anything else.

Johnny: That’s quite a run-on sentence you’ve got there. But I take your point.

Jeff: I mean, some of the faces have changed but the goal hasn’t.

Johnny: I was updating some of our files the other day and it’s amazing to see how much the Ensemble and even the governing board has changed over the years. So many fantastic guest artists have worked on our stages and some truly amazing people have dedicated years to this group and continue to do so.

Jeff: A special thank you to Melanie Kuchinski Rodriguez, Chris Keating, Paul Weissman and Karron Karr who have been with us since Day One. And to all of the current Ensemble members and guest artists who help us continue to do entertaining, challenging, and well crafted shows.

Johnny: I know you said no looking forward but we’ve got to talk about our 2010 season at the very least.

Jeff: This will be a different year for us as we will be bringing back some old favorite productions with new casts (mostly) and directors (possibly…depending on if enough people want to see me act).

Johnny: Oooh! Should we put that to a vote?

Jeff: How many sugars were in your coffee this morning?

Johnny: I can’t blink, so… seven? -teen?

Jeff: Moving on. We kicked off our 10th season with a night of stand-up and improv comedy that was a HUGE success. Thank you to Gotham City Improv for the use of the space! And coming up in March we’re bringing back a fan favorite.

Johnny: If you say Hurt So Good I think I’ll cry. That show takes a lot out of me!

Jeff: No no, we're bringing back our staged adaptation of Kenneth Branagh’s A Midwinter’s Tale. It opens on WEDNESDAY!!

Johnny: I love that movie!

Jeff: Who doesn’t? A bunch of desperate actors fed up with their current career paths trying to do Hamlet to save a church, Christmas and their souls?

Johnny: Sounds a bit like how POY started. Only we did Titus Andronicus and it had nothing to do with Christmas.

Jeff: Although that gives me an idea!

Johnny: Save it for 2012! This time around, A Midwinter’s Tale has some of the same performers from the 2004 production but all of them are playing different roles. In addition to the newer ensemble members we also have some fantastic guest artists. This production is already a hoot and a holler!

Jeff: And that’ll take us through winter. Come summer, we’ll have an I’m Just Saying with a “summer in the city” theme, looking at life in NYC dealing with the heat, enjoying the sun, hating the humidity, etc.

Johnny: But with flashbacks to various years! It’s not just about summer 2010.

Jeff: Correct. And again, we’ll have plenty of guest artists bringing new scenes, monologues, songs, you name it.

Johnny: And I promise the theatre will be air conditioned!

Jeff: And this fall we’ll be doing a brand new production of Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus.

Johnny: Marlowe’s written something new? Amazing (if not highly improbable)!

Jeff: What I mean is we’ve done Shakespeare before but this will be our first adventure with Marlowe. This, by the way, will have a Washington D.C. angle with Dr. F being a prominent Governor, or Senator, or whatever politician is in the news that month for being a scoundrel…it came to me while in the bathroom of a bar. Not so surprising when you think about politics and the devil these days…

Johnny: It just hit me! Ten years, man. A decade!

Jeff: I know! And as challenging as every year has been in the way of finding spaces for shows, and ways to draw in crowds with much smaller wallets than in previous years, what seems to never be hard to do is to find something challenging to ask people. In the case of A Midwinter’s Tale, we ask why people put themselves through such hell to do something they love, why they chase so hard after something. In a sense, we’re asking is theatre worth it, or life? And why?

Johnny: But in a funny way!

Jeff: And with Dr. Faustus, we will be asking our audiences at what point do we, as voters, decide that personal demons should be allowed to usurp our decisions of who we want running our country, city, or state (I mean seriously! He brought a prostitute across state lines. THAT’s a reason to get rid of the man an entire state wanted as Governor…? Really?????)

Johnny: Ok, reign in the rant, there, killer. Save it for the stage.

Jeff: Hopefully the next ten years will yield similar successes of exciting productions and amazing performances, but if we had a goal that we most would like to see realized, it would be to finally find a home for POY where we can do all of our shows. After all, as we get older, we do feel that ache to finally settle down.

Johnny: Ya think? In the past ten years, we’ve had four weddings and one baby (with another one due in April).

Jeff: Johnny means the company settled down! (Dude, this is how Ernie and Bert rumors get started!)

Johnny: I look back with nothing but pride. We’ve built one hell of a family here at Point of You. I look forward to giving each and every one of them a chance to shine.

Jeff: Anything else sappy you’d like to say in conclusion?

Johnny: A toast! All my love to long ago and to days to come!