Posts Tagged ‘Punslingers’

Punslingers Success and Ancient Rome

Thursday, June 29th, 2017

I am pleased to report that Punslingers – the new musical I co-wrote with Sam Hammersley for this year’s Orlando Fringe Festival – received numerous awards including Patron’s Pick and Best Original Lyrics/Book. It was a pretty spectacular show, and I hope it might yet go further one day.

While Sam raps fairly frequently around Orlando, I rarely have rap engagements around here, which is why I am excited that I have been booked for this year’s Downstreet Art Festival in North Adams. If you’re around on the last Thursday of a summer month, pop over to Main Street and catch me doing a half-hour of freestyle rap.

Meanwhile, in what I can only call a completely unintentional theme, both of my columns this month ended up being about Ancient Rome. The first was my response to a thousand articles blaming Millenials for the demise of everything, and was titled “The Problem With Centurions“. More recently, you may have heard about the production of Julius Caesar that featured a Trump-like figure, and the surrounding controversy. My own response was a Shakespearean monologue which starts with the classic three words: “Friends, Romans, Countrymen“.

Also, sushi remains delicious, and half-price sushi doubly so.

I Will Survive

Friday, March 24th, 2017

So, that election happened. And I went into hibernation* for the winter, in which I think I’m hardly alone. But, in spite of the snow, Spring is here, and it is a time for renewal** — at the very least, renewal of me posting on this blog occasionally. And while I could provide you with a litany of links to every game I’ve played and every article I’ve written this year, I’m going to stick with favorites. So.

My favorite column I’ve written so far this year was about food, which is totally my favorite thing to eat. As I would tell a chef named after the thing he prepares, “Hey Food, Don’t Make It Bad“. My favorite new boardgame of the year is the mightily epic The Colonists, which is like a worker placement game taken to the next level. And the videogame I’ve been playing most recently is the not-terribly-new Victor Vran, which is a Diablo-esque aRPG, but with nicely smooth combat.

In other news,  you may recall that early last year, I had co-written a musical with my old friend Sam Hammersley (and my new friend Thom Mesrobian). The musical was a Hamilton parody about Trump becoming president, it was the smash hit of the Orlando Fringe Festival last May, and if you’re wondering what such a thing would sound like, I can direct you to this YouTube clip of my favorite song.

Well, Sam and I have now recently finished writing a brand new musical which will be playing this May in Orlando’s Fringe Festival. This one is wholly original, rather than being a parody. But it makes up for it by having more puns than you have ever heard in a musical before. It is called “Punslingers”, I am very proud of it, and I will probably post about it again next month, so if you know anyone who might be near Orlando come May, you should tell them to plan to see our musical.

Meanwhilst, next weekend is the High Mud Comedy Festival here in North Adams, and even if I’m only performing at the aftershow rather than the main stage this year, it still should be a good time.

*Hibernation: For when it’s too much to Bear.

**Because I had nearly a dozen books out from the library, and couldn’t finish them all in 3 weeks.