A Christmas Carol: The Scrooge Diaries
Ron Severdia's blog as he goes through the process of creating a solo show

Incredibly remiss

November 13th, 2007

Well, I’ve neglected this blog for too long and now it’s performance day in Bratislava. The International Theatre Festival opened on Monday and there was a big ceremony as one of the big theatres from Prague came down to perform. The Minister of Culture and a tons of what they call “smotana” here (the famous of the famous) all dressed in their best, showed up to participate in the exciting event.

I’ve been making preparations for the show over the last few days, with Josh’s help, of course. We’ve been to the theatre and organized everything we might need and too a look through their prop storage to find something that would be at least a little similar to what we used last year, but it was hard. One would think that being geographically closer to the UK would be some kind of advantage in finding Victorian-style furniture, but that’s not the case. We’re just going to have to make do with what we’ve got. It isn’t the end of the world because the audience is naturally there to see me and not going to be so detail-oriented as far as the props are concerned.

On Monday afternoon, I went to RadioFM to visit my friend Vera’s radio show and promote my show. On Monday evening, I did a short interview on STV. There have been lots of other bits of advertising out there as well…one we even discovered by accident while sitting in a cafe near a pile of pile of day-old newspapers!

It’s early morning now and the adjustment to European time has been a drag. For the last week, I’ve been falling asleep at 4pm in the afternoon and waking up at 2-3am. But the last day or two has been a bit better and I think I’ll stay awake for tonight’s performance (with plenty of espresso!!!).

We’re off to the theatre this morning set lights & sound and run through the show all day up until the 7pm performance time. For the locals, I hope to see you there!

Embarking on a European Tour!

November 3rd, 2007

I’m back! I must admit that I was a bit skeptical last year I’d return for another year. But I guess it was fate. I’m taking the show on the road to Europe for three weeks (in case you missed the info on the home page) and it should be fun.

Taking off on Tuesday and I’m spending every minute of my refreshing my memory of this 60+ page script that I struggled with last year. I went through and refined some things based on last year’s performances as well as now having a fresher perspective on the adaptation. More on this and other bits & bobs in the coming weeks. Come back!