First off Pixy Belmont will probably hit me with my hat when she sees that I wrote this. Feel free to pass it on if somebody asks what's up.
She is a proud person and the consummate professional (I'm a hot headed bastard). This past week has been a hard time for our family of three and I wanted to answer some of the questions I have gotten by email, text, phone and in person. I didn't just want to blurt something out. I wanted to think about it. There's a lot to say.
I would like to start by fist saying how much I admire. Granted she is my wife, but I honestly admired her work long before we ever had our first date. She does something very few of us does. She makes her whole living in the Arts. Every penny. It's something I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around. Ultimately it means she has a ton of jobs including writing, directing (some of her shows feature casts of 60+), consulting, designing, performing arts administration, education, science demonstrations and others. Ultimately this lady works nearly all the time to earn her daily bread. Her commitment and passion for her projects often consumers most of her waking hours between 8am and 11pm. Working in the Arts full time has never been easy and MsPixy backs it all with Herculean amounts of love, effort and giving a damn.
You're going to make what?!?
MsPixy has been working in the Chicago Burlesque scene for a very long time. In the early/mid 2000's she was one of the founding members of The Belmont Burlesque Revue, on of Chicago's oldest continually running burlesque shows. In 2011 she started a project that I thought was crazy.
She started writing a parody burlesque show based on the Super Mario Brothers that would be performed at the GTB. At the time she started writing she was already in the middle of directing two large scale musicals with casts of of well over 40 people each. I had no idea how she was going to pull off this new crazy idea. She did it the same way she does everything. With lots of hard work and late nights and some fun as well. Step one was playing a ton of Mario. Step two was hours and hours at her computer. Step three was modifying the show based on the talents and skills of the individual performers in the show. She even worked on the props. Her ability to construct both a human size turtle shell with shifting panels, a chain chomp and a warp tube that can be puppeteered among other things still blows my mind.
Remember how I thought it was a bad idea? I even pitched her other ideas ranging from Star Trek to Thundercats. She understood something I had not considered, that Super Mario Brothers was the most successful video game franchise of all time, had just released a new and extremely popular game and was about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. It was a prime candidate for a parody.
On Boobs and Goombas: A Super Mario Burlesque opened to packed houses and critical acclaim. A show that was only supposed to run for one month is running today in a completely different state. It sold out the first 45 performances (it would go on to sell out double that number). For the first year it was very difficult to get tickets.
I was so wrong. I knew it from the first time a Yoshi ran on stage. It was a really great idea. Soon after that MsPixy became very well known as the lady who made the Super Mario Brothers Burlesque show with Boobs in the title. MsPixy along with her incredibly talented cast did it. They made a hit.
Over time the cast of Boobs and Goomabas changed with the availability of the actresses and Pixy continued to make new chain chops, fix the turtle shell, remain always on the lookout for orange (the Fish) & green (Luigi) bras, and train new actresses. In 2012 Boobs And Goombas performer Picola Tushy (Mustache enthusiast) even took the show on the road and started performing the show with all new Gorilla Tango Geek Girls in NOLA. In 2013 the NOLA cast will start a whole new run of Boobs and Goombas and it will also return to the Chicago stage under the direction of Jeremy Edens. MsPixy is so proud.
Dragon Boobs
After a while GT approached MsPixy about developing a new show. Now if you have ever talked to MsPixy for more than ten minutes you will know that she is a giant nerd. What kind a nerd? A fantasy, theater, band, musical, gaming, cosplay, science fact and science fiction nerd. Well, she has a lot of other nerdy interests but this ode to Pixy is already getting pretty long. The working title was Dragon Boobs. It was MsPixys parody if her nerdiest interests and loves including fantasy novel conventions, Lord of the Rings, World of Warcraft, table top gaming and a bunch of other stuff. The script went through many iterations and each of the characters was adapted to the individual performers.
I love this show. It's my favorite of all of Pixy's shows and it really opened my eyes to what a scripted burlesque play could be. It was smart, sexy, silly, surprising and very entertaining. It was also very ambitious. The costumes were pretty crazy and a lot of trial and error went into MsPixys creation of the Red Dragon wings, cathulu wall and human size puppeteered spider arms. Her use of light in the trapped elf routine heavily influenced my writing of the Han in Carbonite number in The Empire Brings Sexy Back.
Fellowship of the Boobs opened in and was again a rousing success and went on to run for 13 months. For quite a while Boobs and Goombas and Fellowship of the Boobs were playing every weekend.
The Lost Show
It's a little known fact that MsPixy had originaly planned a trilogy of nerdyness. The first was video games, the second was fantasy and the third was going to be science fiction. Her original idea was to do a show that parodied time travel based science fiction in the same way that Fellowship of the Boobs lampooned the fantasy genre. Basically a mix of Back to the Future, Harry Potter (think time turner) Doctor Who, Terminator, among others. For a short time there was even an concept that would tease the show at the end Fellowship with a very Back to the Future inspired cliff hanger (your kids!). Ultimately the idea was shelved in favor of a Super Hero burlesque show.
The Hall of Boobs
Superboobs: A Super Hero Adventure again took the storytelling to a new level and incorporated the audience as the Jokers captive audience in a reality game show. The Joker and Harley Quinn use a space and time machine (a nod to the abandoned time boops concept) to terrorize DC and Marvels greatest heroes. I am a huge comic book fan and I really enjoyed the details. It was clear that this show was written by nerds for nerds. Superboobs left the stage while it was still selling out to full houses six months later and may return again someday.
The Dark Side
When I told Pixy I was going to write a show she was extremely encouraging. Many a night she was extremely patient as I fulfilled my daily hour and a half of writing time. When I was finished I knew that there was only one person I trusted to pull off this show. A lot of the concepts were ambitious and I knew that MsPixy could not only pull it off, but make it extraordinary. I feel extremely honored to have had one of my shows directed and choreographed by Pixy. Seriously, she made my every impossible idea happen. Better than that she made my show a success. I love The Empire Brings Sexy Back: A Star Wars Burlesque Sequel and I love Pixy Belmont.
Mentor
When I went to direct my own show Boobs of the Dead: A Walking Dead Burlesque I asked Pixy for advice. Her advice was work your heart out, remove good ideas that don't work, trust your actors, your gimmick can save you and take care of everyone on your team. Give them a safe place to make something great, be their biggest fan and advocate.
The Unseen
MsPixy also did a lot of things no one who attended one of her shows would know about. She was the architect of many of the administrative documents used on shows, developed processes, wrote helpful tips for burlesque gimmicks, shared advice, hugged people having bad days, filled in as a performer, wrote/edited the press releases for her shows (and mine), held firm sometimes, posted countless promotional posts for her shows and others at the theater, was obsessive about making sure show cards made it to various spots in the city, helped organize small shows, did countless interviews (television, newspaper, magazine, blog, podcasts), talked about GTB to the burlesque community at large and advocated for the health, success and well being of both her actors and GTT.
If Disney is the house that a mouse built, GTB is the house that nerds built. The ones on the stage, the ones in the audience, the ones crunching the numbers and the one who wrote a boobie show about an Italian plumber. MsPixy. The nerd I love more than all the boobs in the world.
Epic
The other day MsPixy received a phone call and three minutes latter it was over... And everything was different.
She had been replaced. All directors with ongoing shows had been replaced.
It was a really hard day/week for MsPixy. She had invested in building shows that she could earn income on and the largest portion of that was being removed.
Having a show that outlives you is good but being able to put food on the table and braces on kids is better.
GTT inc. had made a decision to replace all directors of ongoing shows with a single director who would then choreograph and direct that show going beyond their initial run. Theater is a business and I can understand that a business must make decisions that will benefit their operational capacity and monetary interest to survive.
At the end of the day MsPixy was still loosing the ability to choreograph, direct and largely make money from the shows she created. It was a loss of percentage. She lost her casts and artistic input.
It should be said that there was not contractual commitment to her always having the right of first refusal on directing or choreographing her shows so an incorporated business is well within their rights to make such a change. Still, it's hard. Damn hard.
Your attitude has been much better than mine about everything. I know you still have much love for GTB.
MsPixy you are my Nerd hero. You are a nerd in its unrefined state. You are a creative enthusiast that has entertained legions of nerd and non-nerd audiences alike.
Your shows have been performed over 274 times since October, 2010.
I love you with all my heart and know that this is an exceptionally hard time for you. I love you. The nerds love you.
MsPixy, you are the best.
