dancing in the moonlight

yes, that shian epechi. you can call me shian, it's okay, we're all friends here.

[stagedelight]

Don’t miss Safei Tis’s upcoming show! Rapid-fire mystery-themed improv, streaming live, starting at 9 o’clock Tapei time. The first show each week takes prompts from the online audience as well as the live one!

Check out the livestream here, or get tickets if you’re local!

(I’ll be making a surprise guest appearance sometime this month -- and just to keep Safei on her toes, I haven’t told her what day it’ll be, either! We’ll be putting recordings of that one online afterwards, in case you miss it.)

[stagedelight]

Good news for you Erethani stage actor RPF fans out there (yes, all three of you):

The lovely Chavira (be-Daha de-Karnor) finished the database merge she’s been working on, so now the International Casting Center and the Foundation for the History of Acting archives have a fancy new integrated search engine! (You won’t be able to get the full results unless you’re a paid member; if you’re at university, you might get a free subscription through them.)

And with the new integration, there’s some images available for subscriber access which weren’t previously in either database, including pictures of a number of Erethani actors not available elsewhere online! The ToA permit me to share a few of them publicly, so here’s some of the best for your enjoyment. (Click on the individual pictures for names!)

It’s a bit of a mishmash, I’m afraid -- some of them are in costume, some aren’t, some are professional and some are casual -- but you take what you can get in this fandom. :)

[stagedelight]

Why yes, there is a baby.

Not mine! My husband’s and his brothers’ and their wife’s. Happy and healthy and lovely and perfect.

Karo makes a wonderful father.

[stagedelight]

eeee a new movie with you!!!! you're maybe my fvaorite! are there actual turtles with wings or just metaphorical ones?? are they bird or bat or bug? if you can say. also does it have a happy ending? it is not fun when there are lovey giggly pretty movies that end sad. how long til it comes out? :D

Anon, I want you to know that I forwarded this message to our props manager, and she said that they hadn’t been planning on featuring any actual turtles with wings...

...but just for you, she’ll make sure there’s at least one.

(It comes out in Anitam in six weeks; after our run there we’ll be going on to Tapa, and thence elsewhere. There’s a full calendar at our website.)

(I’m not allowed to spoil the ending, but I am allowed to say that I do kiss the girl!)

[stagedelight]

ew gross ur performing with an ex-red? whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

What an excellent question, anon!

Like much of Tham’s oeuvre, Turtles With Wings lies somewhere in the realm between surrealism and magical realism. Things are happening (probably) and they’re strange (definitely) and significant (almost certainly).

Nevertheless, I think “romantic comedy” is the best descriptor of the genre of this particular play. While there are under- and over-currents of the dark and the bizarre, the most fundamental themes are those of love and laughter. Come for Tham’s characteristic dark hintings, if you like, but expect to leave with a smile on your face.

And that’s all I can say without spoilers! If you want to learn more, you’ll just have to book your tickets and come watch. :)

[stagedelight]

I am excited to announce the upcoming debut of Tham Kita’s much-anticipated romantic comedy, Turtles With Wings!

I’ll be playing opposite the delightful Safei Tis, here to perform all the way from Anitam. This is Safei’s first time on the big stage, so I hope all of you will give her a warm welcome!

Book your tickets for our upcoming performances online now to find out if the two of us can make it as oddball roommates in a city turned upside-down. Performances planned in twelve countries -- check the link to see if yours is on the list!

[openamenta]

If NAT is still practiced in your country, sign the petition to end it here. 

[sosuperawesome]

[stagedelight]

These are gorgeous! My sister is taking notes. :)

[stagedelight]

am I supposed to be impressed that you hire purples for green work? how progressive and broad-minded of you!!!

(Please be careful sending this kind of ask, friends; depending on your locale, falsely accusing someone of a crime can itself be a criminal offense. I’m hardly going to press charges against someone who’s confused and upset on the internet, but that’s not always necessary for them to get in trouble.)

I’m sorry my post was unclear; it’s easy to assume other people are more familiar with one’s area of expertise than they really are! Let me try and clarify a couple of points.

First of all, I don’t actually have any authority over these hiring decisions; those are made by the producer (the same person who hires me!) Producers, if you’re curious, are usually yellow, though the job is sometimes combined with the director’s, in which case it’s green.

Second, these are all actually historically purple jobs! So it would be very silly of me or anyone to claim they were being “progressive” in hiring a purple to do them. Stage crew have been purple for as long as we’ve had a caste system. (Acting is an old profession!)

Third, while it’s possible you really do feel these ought to be green jobs (and while I disagree, you’re certainly free to your own opinion), I wonder if I haven’t just failed to be clear about what they involve, because I think most greens of my acquaintance wouldn’t actually be interested in working them. Riggers handle the various ropes and cranes involved in a performance (they’re actually an exception to point two -- the very earliest riggers were gray!) What they do is closely related to (e.g.) construction work. Weapons wranglers are part of our props team; they keep track of and care for weapon props. And carpenters are, well, carpenters! Depending on where we’re performing, they can build everything from the stage itself on up.

Finally, I wonder if you have experience with a smaller scale of performance (very small-scale indie work, or school or amateur productions)? In those, this work is sometimes done by greens, just because there’s no affordance or budget for hiring a stage crew, and the profits if any are small enough that it’s unproblematic for the actors to just pick up what needs to be done in the way of purple work. That would be a very understandable reason for confusion!

[stagedelight]

This is Haltin be-Ves de-Pipton. She’s the head rigger on our crew. Watched a  (professional, not bootleg) recording of me in the last three seasons? Haltin was in control of the camera. When I jumped off the battlements in Forsaken The Rainbow, Haltin was making sure I was intact to perform the finale. She consults on all our set designs to help us design them so that they can be changed in twelve seconds flat. (Yes, that really is the upper limit. It’s longer on stage than it sounds like.)

Haltin makes art.

This is Lynt Corring. He’s our weapons wrangler. Every weapon you see on stage comes straight from his hands, and goes straight back into them the moment we step off. If we couldn’t trust him absolutely to do his job perfectly, every time, we wouldn’t be able to point anything more realistic than a water pistol at each other. He plans, preps, and loads every gunshot in every duel scene in every performance. He has absolute veto power on every prop weapon and every moment of choreography while they’re on set, if he thinks it could put an actor at risk. He’s used it before.

Lynt makes art.

This is Jedib Lalail. She’s our lead carpenter (shown demonstrating the stability of a set piece we needed to use in a stunt :P). She takes a pile of sketches and color swatches and a materials budget and the actual space we have to work in and produces a set. She’s involved at every step of the process, from blueprints to sandpaper. We’ve won five awards for set design in the last two seasons. All of them were Jedib’s handiwork.

Jedib makes art.

[stagedelight]

A friend out in the suburbs has a roof with a view. His building has cookouts up there once in a while when the weather is nice; he invited me and Karo to join him. It was delicious.

I think I’d like to do a rooftop performance sometime. Something meant to be viewed from below, or from the roofs of nearby buildings. It would be an interesting challenge to come up with something that would parse from that distance -- not much talking if any, big gestures, bright colors. Gymnastics. Fireworks, maybe. I’d have to get someone to look into what permits you need for that.

[stagedelight]

Okay, y’all, I know it’s spring in the south, but really. I am married, monogamous, not looking, and did I mention extremely married?

Send’em to @conversations-across-the-rainbow, tag mod: thunderstorm in the sky, he’ll appreciate’em.

[stagedelight]

Sathi and I went out to visit the Jakav Museum of Textile Arts. It was utterly delightful; some of the pieces, both modern and ancient, were absolutely breathtaking. Sathi weaves in her spare time, so she was particularly impressed with the technical skill on display; I just couldn’t get over all the inventive permutations of a single medium. (The museum makes the excellent, if unusual, choice of displaying purple and green samples together in the same galleries, which showcases the sheer breadth of possibility in the textile arts.)

[fuck-yeah-colored-hair]

[stagedelight]

Ever get tired of the "aliens have black hair" convention? Here's how the gymnasts in our late-night improv show mix it up! (Nothing to do with those quick impromptu costume changes, of course...)

[certasluas]

[stagedelight]

Donmar Ene's husband displaying some of his work. (Isn't that adorable relationship synergy?)

A reminder that Donmar is hiring!

[hairstylesbeauty]

💋 @saraontheinternet

[stagedelight]

My long-time stunt double is retiring and moving back to Doet to be near family. I'll miss her terribly, but I'm delighted that the reason she's retiring is that she and her husband are planning a baby in the spring. Hara is terribly sweet with children; I've seen her coax and reassure a one-year-old until he was not only willing to take a three-hundred-foot bungee jump with her, he was actually squealing with delight. She's going to be an amazing mom.

(Hara, I'm sorry about that time I got you in trouble by doing my own jump-from-exploding-train and breaking my ankle!) (On the other hand, you did dare me... ;))

[stagedelight]

I am shocked and horrified at the abuse allegations which have been put forward against Chiss Tuac.

Sexual abuse of purples by greens is a rampant problem in the industry; in a distressing number of countries, many cases don’t even fall under any existing legal coverage, since actors don’t technically employ stagehands, makeup artists, etc., despite the massive power imbalance that generally exists. Undeniable cases of harassment are too often dismissed by people who find the abuser attractive and believe that therefore no one could be traumatized by unwanted advances from them.

I am professionally acquainted with Chiss Tuac (he plays a significant role in the forthcoming Guarded By The King), but I don’t know him well personally; I don’t consider myself particularly well placed to comment on what may have taken place, and think that any speculation on my part is at this point much more likely to be harmful than helpful. I hope for a speedy and just resolution to the case, and help and healing for Chiss Tuac’s accusers regardless of the outcome.

[stagedelight]

Update: Chiss was convicted.

The judge sentenced him to a fine and community service. People more yellow than I have explained why the former is a slap on the wrist (short version: income brackets plus flexibility in actors' pay structures mean he can renegotiate a couple of contracts and take essentially no loss). The latter is even more a sham. Note that the sentence is in value-of-labor not hours-worked; people like actors who are often paid significant amounts for brief appearances can get away with claiming a ludicrously high hourly salary for that purpose.

I don't have any power to affect sentencing. What I do want to act to address is the fact that he is still slated to appear in Guarded By The King.

This isn't a move I take lightly. In general, I think it's a mistake to make artistic decisions, like casting a role, based on the personal life of the artists involved; by doing so, you not only violate the crucial boundary between art and artist, you also implicitly endorse the personal life of all others involved.

Given Chiss's official non-apology, however, it seems clear to me that he has no intention of amending his behavior. As such, employing him creates an unsafe and hostile work environment for the purples on set. Stage crew may not appear on screen, but they are crucial to the final production that you see; if employing Chiss interferes with their work, the quality of the result is less. This is not only a matter of principle, but also a practical consideration for the artistic process.

I have informed the studio that I will not be taking part in further filming while Chiss is still involved with the production in any capacity. If you're interested in supporting me in this, you can contact the studio and let them know that you will not watch the film if Chiss appears in it.

(A final note: while some of the other actors may choose to join me in this gesture, please don't judge those who don't. It's an effective action for me to take because I can afford the breach-of-contract penalties if the studio refuses to cooperate, and because I have enough name recognition to expect that they will prefer losing Chiss to me. Those aren't true of everyone.)