Venus Fringe

It’s been a wild ride producing seven different pieces in 5 different Fringe slots. Exciting and insane and amazing. It’s hitting me that I myself perform tomorrow and then again on Sunday with a completely different piece. Going over my Molly project has been incredible. It’s been seven years of research and debate and four plays written. I’ve been heckled, scoffed at, and called “clever” by an Irishmen. I’ve broken into abandoned buildings, become obsessed with cemeteries, and attempted bizarre late night exorcisms. I’ve stayed in many a hotel room, eaten perogies, and taken private dungeon tours. A woman possessed, perhaps obsessed. The only thing I haven’t toured is the Yeungling factory…driven by it a lot. Each coal town had it’s own brewery. Until prohibition. But Yeungling bottled water then. So, they are the only ones that still stand.

I finally feel like I’ve found the voice in the work. This play is coming out in PRINT and professor Phillip Mosley has written a paper on my process and work and presented it to a panel of professors in Austria This is CRAZY. I’m amazed at the works simplicity. And the pain of the story has always challenged me but after last nights rehearsal what I’m feeling now is the liberation. Perhaps because this summer has kicked my buttox. Two friends were killed tragically within a two week period. And a teen that I workshop with was shot twice. She survived and we’re doing a fundraiser for her in a couple of weeks. I’m just talking about July here. So, the work has actually given me an opportunity to…sing the next song…move through..and remember that I’m still steppin, and the cause becomes more intense and important.

Venus finally has a home and the bills keep coming, but somehow we keep paying them. We lost phone usage today but scrounged up all of our change from over the years and I couldn’t believe it was over 200 DOLLARS! So, I’m back on line and able to communicate with the world. Verizon and I have come to an agreement for another day.

This summer feels dark and hot and amazing and risky and terrifying and fills me with elation. It’s a lot. No a/c, the dryer is broken, but we are air drying clothes (perfect season for it) and I haven’t gotten my summer a/c cold this year, so that’s good. I haven’t performed this work in DC in 3 years. I’m used to being on the road. Driving on 81 and performing on some church alter or study hall at Penn State or Museum lecture hall. It will be amazing to have lights. I’m used to going to Joe Wayne’s Hibernian House and having a Yeungling after. Used to the Banshee in Scranton. Doing this at home…that makes me feel pretty naked.

These solo flights seem to have common threads even though there are 7 different authors. We’re all finding our voices. We’re all defiantly pushing our own envelope of artistic development, we are all LEAPING from the altitude on which we’ve previously been grounded.

Now, I just hope we sell some tickets. That could make a big difference for Venus. With the great work the Fringe staff and the Warehouse staff has done, I have to fight the thought that if we can’t sell tickets here… It’s just my own censor. It’s my own fear. These stories are good. These works are brave. They are all different. Quality. They are all courageous…enough already…time to rehearse myself…it is what it is and will move no matter what…onward…deb.

Deborah Lou Randall
Executive Director
www.venustheatre.org
…setting flight to the voices of women…