79 The True Ballad of Fall’s Blessings by Hank Boland, music by Mikhail Fiksel dir Nic Dimond. Somewhere around ‘02-early ‘03 Nic Dimond came up with the idea that Strawdog would help to create their own show, and it would be a musical. Hank Boland was brought on board with Mikhail Fiksel, and for several years, we conducted a bunch of workshops and improvisations, that Hank took some ideas from and that became the True Ballad of Fall’s Blessing. Now, you may not know this about me, but I CANNOT sing. But this time it was okay, because we left the singing to the people who could actually sing, Carm and the ladies, and I just helped on some choruses. The story takes place at the end of the old west, and the Hennesy sisters have just lost their father. He left them a watch, a coin and a compass along with a dying farm and a deck of cards. The Hennesey’s give the three tokens away, not knowing that the strange Mr. Parker wants/needs to win them back. So he enters into a wager with Phineas Waterman, a sideshow entrepreneur to reclaim them, and if Phineas does, he will have access to Parker’s Dust Band, a collection of the dead playing the music of the spheres. This sets into motion various journeys that take place over a year, involving a preacher and his pregnant wife, a young man who wants to be an actor and joins the cavalcade whose starting acts are a bearded lady, a double jointed thespian and a boy who will eat anything. I played Tyler Carter, a mysterious man who shows up to the farm who loves gambling and whiskey, and ends up planting more than crops. In a play filled with ghosts, circus “freaks”, a one armed Frenchman and the devil himself, I played a guy who got caught between two sisters, got drunk and knocked up one of them. The years of working on this show produced many fun memories, and a lot of the jokes stick with me today. They also produced a cast album. #retrospective #2005 #thetrueballadoffallsblessings #hankboland #nicdimond #mikhailfiksel #tylercarter #thesortingbox #whocareifyourballsarealittlehairy #iwouldloveforyoutoseeit #embracethestrange #Whatwasthedealwiththezombiemusicians #theactoff #theboxofdoom #slapliloquy (at Chicago, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/B651q9lpVd-/?igshid=5azu0o0s5pj5