In For a Penny: Holidaze

Charles Lewis III, just in time for the holidays.

“Where do you think you’re going? Nobody’s leaving; nobody’s walking out on this old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no, we’re all in this together! This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We’re gonna press on and we’re gonna have the hap-ha-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-dance with Danny-fuckin’-Kaye! And when Santa squeezes his fat White ass down that chimney tonight, he’s gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse!”
– John Hughes, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

I’m not a big fan of Christmas. I didn’t plan on starting with that line, but considering that the other options I had for this week’s thread mostly revolved around the US’s supposed predilection for violence and one-upsmanship and my taking a look a lot of “classic American” plays that revolve around the idea that in order for you to be successful, someone else has to fail; adding to that a last-minute commentary about recent national tragedy and scandals and how a play I wrote is currently showing some uncomfortable parallels to allegations recently made in the adult film industry… after contemplating all of that, I decided to take the high road and focus on a subject much more easily digestible, namely Christmas. Specifically how it’s not at all my favorite holiday.

It’s not that I hate it, it’s just that once that I hit age, oh let’s say 20, I developed that Charlie Brown-esque disdain for all that “the Christmas season” represents. I don’t need to be reminded of the economic fundamentals that help us thrive, but that hasn’t improved my impression of shameless materialism. That may have more to do with the fact that the same economy has yet to provide me with a full-time job over the past few years, but that’s another story. I had to pinpoint one specific aspect I despise, it’s the idea that you have to be happy this time of year; you don’t have a choice in the matter. If this cold-as-a-witch’s-teat season doesn’t naturally fill you with skull-exploding merriment, then it means you’ve fired shots in the imaginary culture war that rages around you, because Communism or something.

As a theatre person, getting me to see a Christmas-themed play is akin to pulling my teeth. Since I’ll likely be spending most of the day emptying my bank for the sake of my family and friends (although I’m proud of my “shop local” ethic), the last thing I want to throw away two hours consciously ingesting the very “merriment” I’m trying to avoid. That’s why I’m less likely to head out to see A Christmas Carol or The Nutcracker as I would a piece that consciously subverts the forced happiness of this cold month.

It breaks my heart that our colleagues at PianoFight won’t be staging their annual production of Dan Heath’s Merry Forking Christmas. The play, which originated at PF as a spin-off of the original Forking, hilariously skewers SF consumers, drug dealers, and mall Santas – in other words, right up my alley. And Theater Pub itself has originated a couple of Christmas-crushing productions that put a smile on my face just thinking about them. I’m still kicking myself for having never seen the Gentiles’ Crappy Holidays live, especially since two of the ‘Pub’s columnists acted in it. Thankfully the internet has preserved it for the ages.

Even before that, I myself took part in the ‘Pub’s first-ever Xmas-themed show, Code Red, a collection of monologues and shorts – mostly presented in the form of an AA meeting – from adults who are traumatized to learn that Santa isn’t real. My piece isn’t very well-written, but it’s presented alongside a lot of pieces that really are and they all have fun slaughtering the sacred cow that is Christmas’ most famous mascot.

After that first year, the ‘Pub started a tradition of doing musicals for their December entries. You might think that means a more upbeat story, but given that the two musical selections revolved around public crucifixion and AIDS, respectively, it was keeping in the tradition of recognizing this season as the downer it really is. Just look up “Christmas” on the ‘Pub’s YouTube channel and soak in all the seasonal sardonic satire. Hell, the next one revolves around a kid who gets traumatized for life after his father is killed. Good times.

As I said above, I don’t hate Christmas. What I hate is the idea that one is required to put on a specific emotion for the benefit everyone else. That’s outright fascist when you think about it. But that doesn’t mean that more traditional productions are inherently bad. I happen to like the clichéd morality tale of A Christmas Carol, love the music of The Nutcracker, and hold a reverence for The Black Nativity. I certainly won’t fault anyone for love these or any other holiday work, just don’t force me to do so. That’s all I ask.

So as we mix our egg nog with enough high-grade liquor that the punch bowl might just catch fire, let’s raise a glass to the storytellers who love to set traps for Santa ever year. There are plenty of Christmas Storys and Miracle on 34th Streets to keep the masses happy; give me the gore of Gremlins from a boozy Bad Santa if you want me to call this the happiest time of the year.

Charles Lewis III thinks you should all come see Theater Pub’s next Xmas musical, Guess Who on Monday – Dec. 14 at PianoFight. And not just because Charles himself is singing in it, but he does get to sing one of the most recognizable lyrics in music history.

Cowan Palace: Crappy Holidays From Our Dysfunctional Family To Yours!

Ashley’s enjoying the crap out of Crappy Holidays.

Hi gang! Well, it’s been quite the month in the new working mom/actress/writer sitcom that is my life in San Francisco. So this week I’m keeping with our themes “breaking the rules” and exploring the Fringe Festival with a blog comprised of some images of my experience being back on stage… instead of you know, writing about them. Such a rebel, I know.

Will Leschber, Warden Lawlor, and Ashley Cowan in Crappy Holidays

But first, let me plug the show!

Crappy Holidays was written by the eternally funny and wonderfully wicked, Nick Gentile and Lisa Gentile. Warden Lawlor is our fearless director and completing the bad ass team is the cast; featuring, Eden Davis, Kat Bushnell, Dan Kurtz, Tavis Kammett, and Will Leschber. Oh, and Cowan Palace Queen herself, me.

Tavis Kammet, Ashley Cowan, and Will Leschber in the first scene of Crappy Holidays.

As our Facebook invite explains, “Crappy Holidays is a trio of dark comedies showcasing the cynical side of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. “Death is My Bitch” features the Grim Reaper making friends in the wrong places. “Ma’s Thanksgiving Pie” depicts a quasi-sane mother locked in a battle of wits with her offspring. “Bobby’s Letter to Santa” delivers a drunken, disgruntled holiday icon facing a career change. Don’t need to see “A Christmas Carol” again? Then this show is for you!” (Guys, this show is seriously for you.)

Eden Davis puts the elf back into Christmas.

The production has been endlessly fun to work on for so many reasons. Everyone is hilarious and brings so much to the table (sometimes in the form of pie!). You have three more chances to see us:

September 19 (1 PM),
September 20 (9 PM), and
September 22 (9 PM).

Katrina Bushnell and Tavis Kammet backstage at the Fringe.

Also, The San Francisco Fringe Festival is in its 24th year! That means it can almost rent a car! It’s full of all the fun, adventurous stuff that defines the scene. So if you can, come see our show! Or go see one of the many other offerings of this year’s lineup. And if it helps to convince you, here are some pictures from our dressing room and from our show last night!

Dan Kurtz, approving of the editor’s decision to scatter the pictures throughout the article.

Find out more about Crappy Holidays and all the other shows the Fringe has to offer at http://www.sffringe.org.

Working Title: I Love the Smell of Crappy Holidays in the Morning

This week Will Leschber talks madness and holidays with Lisa and Nick Gentiles…the holidays…the holidays.

Apocalypse Wow. I’m sure everyone has their own story about trying to wrestle greatness. Was it an occasion where you had a single solitary moment to shine? Where the spotlight was on you and the play has built to this? When the coach called your play? What careful words did you choose as your child had a their first emotional crisis? Was it just surviving the holidays? Was it a season long slog towards a a project that may have been bigger than you? Were your limits tested? Did you emerge fractured or more sane that you ever thought before?

I used to see these moment of grasping towards greatness as single defining tests: the moment you had the lead; the moment you walked across that stage, shook his hand and took your diploma; the moment that culminated after arduous wedding planning; the moment of moving away; the moment you faced Death; the moment they gave you the award; the moment she took her first step. Now I think wrestling greatness may just be closer to an endurance test that a moment of strength.

How long can you rage unphased through the chaos? Some people thrive in havoc. It’s a bit extreme for my taste but to each his own. My god, how many people do you know who just gel when the chips are down, the curtain is up and the final dress is now? I feel like we must be a little mad to want to be constantly part of the process of tumultuous creation and destruction.

One beautiful mad event that pull together variant strings of creation and chaos is the San Francisco Fringe Festival. 150 performances by 34 Indie theater companies. I was lucky enough to bend the ear of two great writers who are returning to the Fringe this year with another set of short plays. Nick and Lisa Gentile are the warped, beautiful minds behind Crappy Holidays. Crappy Holidays is a trio of dark comedies showcasing the cynical side of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Nothing sounds more like a warzone than holidays with Death, your family and a cursing Santa Claus, am I right?!

Since I have an incessant need to know what film pairing would perfectly with their play, I asked them. What film would send you up the thematic river and get you in the perfect unsound mindset to enjoy their play, I asked. Here’s what they had to say:

There are a lot of holiday movies, but we have a different recommendation: Apocalypse Now. We think this movie can be seen as a kind of twisted metaphor for what a lot of us go through during the holiday season.

We feel obligated to enjoy the holidays, as if it’s a mission. But a family gathering can feel like a journey into a heart of darkness. We often end up face to face with someone who’s methods have become … unsound. Sometimes, you eat that green bean casserole at Thanksgiving, or unwrap that Christmas sweater and you can only say “the horror…the horror.”

I can think of nothing that fits better on top of the yule log than a big ol’ helping of the horror…the horror. Makes me want to sing Carol of the Bells immediately. Yeeesh. Apocalypse Now, more like Apocalypse Wow. Am I right?

If you are looking to cut through the chaos and get an early serving of holiday fruitcake, go see Crappy Holidays and any number of the other SF Fringe Festival shows. Greatness…and pumpkin pie…await.

The 2015 San Francisco Fringe Festival, 150 performances by 34 Indie theater companies,
September 11 through September 26. For more info visit: www.sffringe.org Apocalypse Now can be found for rent on many of the usual platforms (iTunes, Vudu, ect)

Off-Kilter And Off-Key: An Interview With Lisa and Nick Gentile

In anticipation of “Crappy Holidays”, our anti-celebration of the holiday season coming at you this Saturday, November 16 at 8:30 at the Exit Cafe, we took a moment to chat up Lisa and Nick Gentile, the creators behind the show and a unique husband and wife team in the San Francisco playwrighting scene.

So, level with us: what have you got against the holidays?

Nick: I always enjoyed the holidays because we got time off from school, so I appreciate the original purpose of the holidays – permission to behave irresponsibly. It’s all the dreary repetitive ritual stuff that got grafted onto the holidays that bothers me.

Lisa: Holidays are Petri dishes of angst, resentment, fear, expectation, hope, and love. It’s rich material for human drama. Some people take holidays so seriously, they need to be soothed when we handle an occasion with anything less than absolute reverence. Everything is fair game for us. I think that’s all there is to it.

Where did these plays come from? Real life experience? Horror stories of others? Your own twisted minds?

Nick: “Death Is My Bitch” came from real life. Lisa was driving on Highway 17 in the rain, and I started talking about how dangerous the road is, and she told me to shut up. We made up the part about dying, though.

Lisa: That’s not all that we made up.

Nick: “Ma’s Thanksgiving Pie” grew as we work-shopped it at Play Café. Doing readings at workshops helps a lot. When you hear it read, you realize what parts are thin. We realized that the first version of the play had only one plot twist, and that we needed to add a few more to make it worth the audience’s while.

Lisa: The empathy that helps us define a character’s wants and pains comes from real life. We like to riff on real world events and archetypes. Maybe we live closer to our shadow selves than some. It’s always high noon!

Nick: Neither of us can remember where “Bobby’s Letter to Santa” came from.

Lisa: Someone asked whether “Bobby” is autobiographical. I didn’t know how to respond.

Your work in general tends to have a bit of an off-kilter quality to it. What do you credit as the source for that?

Lisa: Real life is off-kilter.

Nick: Tell them about your background in psychology.

Lisa: At an early age, long before my formal education, I wanted to see what people would do in various situations. And what moves me more than anything else is the expression of human potential. In our writing I enjoy looking at creativity free of right or wrong. I like to explore how characters see and reach for what they want. I like that we don’t burden them with any codes of conduct other than what makes sense for the story. We get to cut loose, too.

Nick: My Pookie is like the Nietzschean Ubermehsch, beyond good and evil! As for me, I just listen to the voices in my head…the screaming ones…

What’s the best thing about writing as a team? What’s the worst?

Nick: The best part is that, when you run out of ideas, you can get help.

Lisa: The worst part is debating whose take is better for a given scene. We exhaust each other.

Many of the actors are ones you have worked with before. Do you generally write for certain actors?

Nick: We don’t write for specific actors. It’s only afterwards that we realize that this person would be perfect for that role, etc. But perhaps these actors have subconsciously educated us to write for them.

Lisa: We were lucky to meet most of this cast through Theater Pub. We know as a fact that Warden Lawlor, Ashley Cowan, Will Leschber, Dan Kurtz, and Tavis Kammet will totally commit to these characters no questions asked.

Nick: At least one of them has actually said, “I’m your bitch. Anything you want.” It’s too much fun to give up.

Editor’s note: we’re fairly certain the actor in question is Warden.

Lisa: We’re excited to add Stefanie Geerlings, Eden Davis, and Doug Miller to the mix for this show.

You’ve formed your own production company recently- tell us more about that.

Lisa: When we started writing and submitting plays together it was easy to just be two authors. Someone else produced them. But then we started writing and producing short films with other collaborators and a loosely structured network of mix-and-match teams developed. Then we went on to produce films for our niece and nephews. We didn’t want our names to interfere with their credit. Now we also produce stage works. We needed a way to package our various contributions so we picked a name. Our mission is to generate smartly twisted comedy. Studio Banal+ is about to celebrate 10 years of letting the shadow shine.

What’s on the horizon for you after this show?

Nick: We’ve been trying to do a longer work for a while. It involves a producer, a director, and a screenwriter discussing a bad science fiction movie that they are trying to make, with nuns taken over by alien brains and pregnant androids. The three are arguing about changes they want to amok, and whether these are driven by artistic merit or hidden ulterior motives.

Lisa: Someday I want to set one at sea so that we can have those fake waves moving back and forth on stage. But I what I know about being at sea I can’t yet put to paper.

So really, come on… what is your favorite holiday?

Lisa: The ones where the whole family gets together are good fun. It’s nonstop storytelling, playing music, and laughing. But we can’t always make it happen around a holiday. Sometimes it’s a summer weekend at the beach or in the woods. Last year we scheduled our Christmas gift exchange for 30 minutes in the café at Bass Outdoor World in Manteca, even though none of us lives there.

Nick: The ancient roman holiday of Saturnalia. This occurred in December, and involved banquets, gift-giving, and a carnival atmosphere that overturned social norms. I think the Christians stole it and turned it into Christmas, and got rid of that carnival part, which was the best part. That Council of Nicea – they were jerks!

Don’t miss Crappy Holidays, this Saturday at 8:30 PM at the Exit Cafe (156 Eddy Street, San Francisco). Admission is free, with a five dollar suggested donation!

Only Two Weeks Till Our Next Show!

And now we have this killer image…

Deck the halls with irreverence!

San Francisco Theatre Pub is proud to present Crappy Holidays, three short plays about the holidays and their discontents, for one night only on November 16, 2013 at the EXIT Theatre Café at 8:30 PM!

Crappy Holidays, written by Nick Gentile and Lisa Gentile, includes Death is My Bitch, Ma’s Thanksgiving Pie, and Bobby’s Letter to Santa. The trio of dark comedies offers a grim reaper making friends in the wrong places, a quasi-sane mother outwitting her offspring, and a disgruntled holiday icon facing a career change. The cast includes Ashley Cowan, Eden Davis, Stephanie Geerlings, Dan Kurtz, B. Warden Lawlor, William Leschber, and Tavis Kammet.

Says director Nick Gentile: “If you don’t need to see another production of A Christmas Carol or The Nutcracker, this show is for you! Oh, and the cast rocks!”

Admission will be free, with a suggested donation, at the door!

The EXIT Theatre Café is located at 156 Eddy Street, San Francisco, CA.