Author: Ken McGuire

Got back to Kilkenny this afternoon (go on the cats!) after spending Friday evening / Saturday / Sunday morning at the family home in Sligo and I have to say, it was great. Even now as I lie flaked out on the bed with the laptop battery showing no life in the status bar, I have to say I feel recharged.

The weekend also gave me time to tinker around a bit more with the Nokia E50 which until now has simply been acting as a way to keep track of Jaiku and Twitter over the weekend, though it turned out to be quiet enough given something of a Twitter outage (or caching issues). I must really get around to printing that review. Which reminds me, I’ve created a separate blog to start storing all my reviews so they’re not going to be appearing here once they start hitting the web.

The trip up on Friday afternoon also gave me some much needed time to get thinking about one or two ventures which need opening up. Having found myself as a passenger instead of driving, I managed four hours on the road sussing out ideas, bouncing them off my brother (who can’t help but laugh and echo everyone else’s sentiments in “as if you’ve not got enough on your plate already”) – but it all helped. A few phone calls need to be made in morning off the back of a good afternoon’s work and testing that I clocked up on Saturday. At least the internet wasn’t around to distract me!

Long and short of it is I’m putting some wheels in motion this week in advance of an upcoming birthday which should make for some interesting developments over the next few years.

I will say one thing though – if you need to recharge your own batteries, drop everything and book a weekend over the west. Head for Sligo! The air is pure, the pints are cheap and the music is out of this world. Hell, I even got roped into the session… Now, I’m ready for another week.

Half twelve at night, I’ve a house to be tidying and I’m finding myself overly distracted by twitter, jaiku, bebo and God knows what else on the internet. Must mean I’m regaining a sense of normality.

Back to the office tomorrow after slogging it out in the Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny, this past week for Cannibal! The Musical. Judging by the estimated crowd numbers we’ve gone down well in Kilkenny – judging by feedback from those in attendance we’ve gone down ridiculously well in Kilkenny. Next thing is to find about 30,000 euro and take this baby of ours on tour in 2008 – any takers?

So much buzzing around my head for this past week, so much to do and write about having almost cut myself off completely from the online world, barring my Nokia E50 which was picking up Twitter / Jaiku SMS deliveries for the week. Note to self… don’t let the phone die out. I lost it for the bulk of one of the days this week (lost the use of it that is for not having one of the newer Nokia chargers in the theatre) and of course this resulted in a seriously scatty delivered of messages from Twitter which confused the hell out of me where I’d been monitoring certain discussions.

That said.. there’ll be a few reviews on the table, now that I’ve also added in the LouderVoice review plugin to WordPress (which drives kenmc.com and all my other blogs).

These come in the form of

• Nokia E50 – purchased around ten days ago or so with the intention of allowing me follow twitter / jaiku and divide GPRS use away from main mobile.
• Nintendo Wii, which I’ve treated myself to after Cannibal! (no, not with theatre profits, more with cheering up and wanting to experience more interactive gaming).

and likely more besides.

Reality sinks in hitting the road to Waterford tomorrow morning bright and early before getting back to the office for around 10:30am to fight my way through a week’s worth of emails.

I sure will miss the show though….

Cannibal! The Musical! which opens tonight is the latest end product off what has been a long production line running for The Devious Theatre Company of whom I am ‘Technical Director’. Where we have made efforts to make our job titles and job descriptions within the group quite refined and specific, when it all boils down to it you are the jack of all trades, similar I reckon in running any organisation where you’re a startup figure.

I’m on a week’s holiday from the office to concentrate on one of my other ventures and loves, the afore mentioned Devious Theatre Company which was established between myself and three others almost 18 months ago. In that period we’ve produced three shows, sold the rights to one, have become an arts-funded theatre group and have been able to drum up attention for ourselves in the local, regional and national press as well as regional airwaves (South East) thanks largely in part to our production of Trey Parker’s Cannibal! The Musical!

Opening tonight in the Watergate Theatre Kilkenny (and running until Saturday) means that myself and the rest of the DTC committee (or board) have been working quite literally around the clock to get the show to the a good state of readiness for tonight. EPKs were issued again on Monday, I did a radio interview with Beat 102-103 Monday evening which ran on the hour yesterday, props made and finished, set constructed and painting, lighting set – I spent the bulk of yesterday with the KilkennyMusic.com crew (great how all of these ventures have a connection to one another) organising the sound setup in the Watergate Theatre – programmes are being collected today, final touches being put to costumes, batteries replaced or charged for radio mics, front of house team organised, extra makeup being bought…. as I said – you are the jack of all trades. Well, we are the jack of all trades as no matter what our job title for the group, we’re doing it all…

Of course, its keeping me away from the blog for the bulk of the week as I’m sure as hell going to enjoy an extra hour or two in bed tomorrow morning. There’s a victory pint due in Cleere’s Theatre I’d say around 10:40 tonight (gives time to get out of makeup, costume, make notes ahead of tomorrow’s call) – victory at least in the sense that after 9 months of preproduction we’ve reached the opening night of one very large (and expensive) show and that much in itself for the core of us at DTC is a crowning achievement.

Right now, I’m off to collect some of the cast, make tracks for KCLR for an in-studio appearance around 11am. Streaming is available online at KCLR96FM.com (just beneath the ‘Under Construction’ sign). I will say though, the Twitter and Jaiku delivery via SMS is keeping me up-to-date with all the goings on. Might find the time to make a few tweets during the interval tonight 🙂

About 5:40pm yesterday it dawned on me that I’m on holiday. Or I should say “on holiday”, knowing that the meaning is pretty much useless to me as it involves no travel, no sun, no breaks, nada. Now, the trip I’m lining up to Toronto in November – that will be a holiday – until then I’ll enjoy these few days.

I’m checked out of the office for a full week but trading one long day for another with the opening of Cannibal! The Musical to the public on Wednesday. Having the holiday from work means I get to put time into the last minute advertising, set construction, moving into the theatre, liasing with lighting designer, organising the technical aspects of the production, taking technical rehearsals, dress rehearsals, more meetings than you can shake a stick at while hopefully getting at least one extra hour in bed in the morning.

Even though its not a holiday in the traditional sense of the word I’ll promise you that I’ll still get as much enjoyment out of it. I take a lot of pride in my work and have a great sense of job satisfaction, something I think we all find when working for ourselves and while I leave the office behind for a week I’ll draw the same sense of satisfaction out of The Devious Theatre Company. There’s something to be said to taking to the stage and performing in front of an audience – whether in the business sense where you’re delivering a presentation (last week) or in the arts sense where you’ve got a few hundred people in front of you (says he in absolute hope) enjoying (again in hope) the work that you and the others on your team have created.

When everyone sitting down is enjoying it you can trust that we’re enjoying it more.

Toronto won’t be able to come soon enough for me, or will the first weekend of September (Electric Picnic weekend, me having sold my ticket in order to cut myself off in Sligo for a weekend) as a real holiday will be in dire need come the final curtain next Saturday night.

For now though, my bag is packed and I’m looking forward to a week under 20k lights, wearing some kind of stage makeup, prancing around pretending to build a snowman, getting shot in the face, and all that goes on in between…. and I wouldn’t trade it for any holiday in the sun.