Bard in the Quad Videos!

Here are two videos from our Bard in the Quad performances.

The videos are from all of the shows, pulling out the best bits. Special thanks to Sophie for doing all the camera work for the shows.

The first video is the "Main" show that we performed. We did this show 7 out of the 9 times. Due to Kristen and Crizzly not being able to make it to a couple of the shows, we created an alternate show. Both shows were a lot of fun to perform and we'll be making use of them again in October in Lebanon for a fund raising show for the High School's music / drama departments.

Main Show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTk9jUc2OpQ

Alternate Show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wS4NsyBjOo

Again, thanks to Gibby and the entire Bard in the quad crew for letting us entertain the crowds before the shows!

David Sallee

Bard in the Quad 2010 - Show 9

Well . . . it's the last show.

Crizzly left a message stating that his back was still giving him problems and that he and Kristen were still in Portland, so we readied the "B" show to finish on. After Saturday, we figured we could do that.

The final Sunday is usually a bit of a smaller crowd (as was the case this year too) and the added heat probably made the crowd a bit smaller too.

Also it turned out to be a rather rough show. I was quite droppy, messing up the Box section, messing up the Duo section to the point where we struggled to get back on track. I even messed up my Diabolo section of the Finale (clearly I was going for the Trifecta :-)

Brenda and Zeb soldiered on and carried the show. Zeb was the shining star tonight, really kicking my booty during the duel and had an awesome seven ball collect at the end of the duel to seal the deal . . . heh heh.

Very glad he was there to take up some of the slack I was producing.

Sophie helped out on camera again, and we used her for the collections too. I'm sure it's a good thing we did as after that show I knew our collections would be down. Still a great run of shows and a much needed boost to the funds for the convention!!!

Performers:

Zeb (shining star!)

Brenda

David

Camera:

Sophie

Collections:

$140.57

Overall:

$1678.25

Some interesting notes:

We managed the entire run without ever having a night under $100. First time ever!

Our per-show average was actually HIGHER than last year even though we made more last year. $186 per show avg. compared to $177. Probably would have topped last year's take with one extra show :-)

We now have over $4K towards our convention!!! Fantastic!!!

Bard in the Quad 2010 - Show 8

Hey hey it's the "B" show!

Brenda, Zeb and I met up and practiced the show quite a few times before heading over to the Quad. It was super hot during the day, but things cooled off quite quickly as our performance drew near.

All of us were quite excited about performing the show, and even Sophie was excited to film it. I hoped the jokes worked for the crowd and there are some tricky sections that I really hoped we could pull off.

Things worked great!

The cigar box section went pretty smoothly. Almost nailed the rotation trick, and managed to save it ok.

Brenda's throwing from three into 4 into 5 into 6 section worked really really well. Did a collect into multiplex that kept things going long enough for her to throw in the 7th beanbag. The crowd really enjoyed that section, which got them prepared for the Duel between Zeb and I.

Once the Dueling Banjos music started, the crowd response was awesome. They laughed, and then started clapping along with the music. The fell apart a bit towards the 7 ball passing end, but it fell apart to comedic effect, which is what we wanted anyway.

The finale to "Company of Fools" was a hit as well, and kept the show energy up and rolling.

All in all, it was a very fun performance and everyone did great!!!

It was also our highest night of collections, even though we didn't break $300 like we did last year on the final Saturday (I blame the heat).

Performers:

Zeb

Brenda

David

Camera:

Sophie

Collections:

$250.44 (Woo hoo, broke $250!!!)

Overall:

$1537.68

Look at that, we've already broken $1500!!! Great job everyone!

Bard in the Quad 2010 - Show 7

Crizzly was a real trooper today. His back was pretty much killing him, but he managed to perform quite well. Luckily for him he will be able to take tomorrow off as we debut the "B" show.

The Friday crowd was fantastic, which hopefully helped :-) They were a lot of fun and we had a quite fun performance as a result. Brenda and I managed to have a drop free Duo routine and Sophie did a great job of capturing it on video. Should make it a bit easier to put together all the "best bits" from the show that way. There will also be an "out takes" video as we have lots of footage for that, and perhaps even a "great saves" video . . . heh heh.

Made the most tonight thus far for our collections. I really think we can reach the $1500 mark!

Performers:

Crizzly (bad back and all!)

Kristen

Zeb

Brenda

David

Camera:

Sophie

Collections:

$225 (Highest yet!)

Overall:

$1287.24

Bard in the Quad 2010 - Show 6

Thursday's crowd was a really good one! Very responsive and paid well too ;-)

We've been really fortunate with the wind as of late. It's been staying calm for our club portion and we very much appreciate it.

Temps are supposed to get really hot from here on out so it will be interesting to see how that goes for us. Thankfully we are performing in a shaded area, and it isn't too long into the show that there is a nice shaded area for the crowd. Will the higher temps keep the crowds a bit lower? Only time will tell.

We also have the alternate show coming up on Saturday. Practice is looking good for it and I think we will have some fun performing the new stuff :-)

Performers:

Crizzly

Kristen

Zeb

Brenda

David

Camera:

Sophie

Collections:

$224.37 (our second over $200 for the run!)

Overall:

$1062.24 (Broke $1K!!!)

We are now ahead of the 2007 season. It's going to be quite the push but it would be fantastic to break $1500!

Bard in the Quad 2010 - Show 5

Traditionally the second Wednesday of the production run is the lowest with regards to amount of funds collected. This year, we changed that trend! :-)

Things are going to get rather toasty soon as temps are forecasted to be in the 90's as we go into the weekend. Thus, I decided to wear a short sleeve shirt and Brenda skipped wearing a vest for the performance. Keeping cool on stage is a bit more important.

It certainly helped me, and I think Brenda was more comfortable as well. We had quite a bit of wind this time, which actually made the 6 club sequence a challenge. However, the wind showed mercy and dropped down right as we started up our 7 club stuff. Had a really nice run of 7 clubs and the audience was great!

Sophie was kind enough to do the filming again, and got some great shots in the "over the shoulder behind the performers" angle.

It was a great way to kick off the second week of performances. Everyone is adding their own nice touches to the performances and I think everyone is having a good time. We even got some practicing in for the "B" Show which we will be performing on Saturday. I know Zeb is very excited, and I'm looking forward to it as well. We're still getting a few of the final details for the finale done, but I think it will come together quickly.

The first part of the B show is pretty well ready, as Zeb keeps getting better and better at passing 7 beanbags (both 2 count and ultimates).

So, we'll keep the good vibes rolling and keep the energy up as well!

Performers:

Crizzly

Kristen

Zeb

Brenda

David

Camera:

Sophie

Collections:

$179.91 (first year we have surpassed $100 on a second Wednesday!!!)

Overall Total:

$837.87 (We have now passed the entire run of 2006. 2007's run, here we come!)

Bard in the Quad 2010 - Show 4

Sunday - Wrapping up the first week of shows

Sunday morning had lots of rain, but by mid morning, it was starting to get sunny and warm. We were a bit concerned that the wet ground might reduce the number of people, but it seemed to be holding pretty consistent. To me the crowd seemed a bit more noisy / less attentive this time, but it could have just been my perception. Show went pretty well, I finally had success at the three up, so I was happy with that. We did have some crashes with the 7 club finish, but did our best to play it up anyway :-)

Chris Comstock (former president of the juggling club) was visiting so he got a chance to check out the show and even contributed to the collection. The night’s take wasn’t too bad with it being $140 even.

I think everyone is going to enjoy a couple days off to recharge and be all set for the Wednesday show. We’ll be working on the “alternate” show on Monday, so there isn’t all that much of a break I suppose, but we’ll have to get that one going as we’ll be performing it on Saturday!

Performers:

Crizzly

Kristen

Zeb

Brenda

David

Camera:

Sophie

Collections:

$140

Overall Total:

$657.96

Oh, since we’re at the “half way” point of the shows, I thought it might be nice to put the collections into perspective.

2006 - $383 ($76.60 avg per show)

2007 - $314.99 ($52.50 avg per show)

2009 - $744.80 ($148.96 avg per show)

2010 - $657.96 ($164.49 avg per show)

Considering we’re one show down, we are actually averaging over 2009’s collections.

We’re also just $150 off from catching the entire 2006 run, and $250 off from catching the entire 2007 run. Would be hard pressed to catch last year’s total, but we will certainly give it a go :-)

The second Wednesday of the production run is traditionally the lowest in collections, so we’ll see if that holds true again this time. Personally I’m going to attack the show with all sorts of energy!

Bard in the Quad 2010 - Show 3

Saturday – All Systems Go!

A bit overcast with the weather, which allowed us to do a fair amount of performing closer to the crowd. Did have to move back into the shadows after the first routine though as the sun started to show itself through the clouds.

Had a really nice crowd on Saturday. Energetic, and into the show. Show went pretty smoothly and everyone is adding some nice touches to the show. I had a few drops, and missed the three up into five with the duo routine, but came much closer.

Did have an awesome save during the seven club portion, catching a pair upside-down and fixing one with a self toss, and the other with a thrown one and a half spin to Crizzly.

Sophie was nice enough to film the show again, this time with Zooooooooom :-)

When the shows are all done, I’ll cobble together the best bits and put together a video. I think I’ll really enjoy getting all sorts of different angles to play with during the editing process.

One thing that is new this year is the Bard in the Quad group is providing pre-show music, so while we are waiting to go on, we get some fun music to play around with ahead of time.

Performers:

Crizzly

Kristen

Zeb

Brenda

David

Camera:

Sophie

Collections:

$185.12

Overall Total:

$517.96

Bard Show Number 3 . . . or is that 2?

Back on track tonight! I kept a close eye on the Bard in the Quad website and there were no cancellation messages (yay!)

So, we met up at six for our pre-show warm up and then headed over to the location.

Seeing the stage all set made us quite happy as well :-)

Tonight we were joined by Sophie who was kind enough to do the filming of the show.

The amount of wind we were experiencing was a bit of a concern. There are only a few elements that are very prone to wind issues, but one of them is an entire 7 club passing sequence that lasts for quite some time. So, we figured we were in for some challenges, but can't dwell on the things we can't really change.

The crowd was a fair amount larger tonight (as to be expected) and right away, they had some really good energy. There was one lady in the crowd that really enjoyed the jokes in the routines and that made things quite fun for us! :-)

The first routine went really really well. Crizzly and I were even able to do some sword battle and have the clubs hit each other . . . heh heh. The duo routine went pretty well, I messed up the three up in to five again. I'll have to dedicate some extra practice for it tomorrow.

The finale club passing went rather well too. It was amazing, but right before we went into the 7 club portion . . . the wind . . . died down. This made things waaaaaaaay easier!

I did the end speech and Crizzly did the "Side Bet" addition. Just one taker in the $20 suggestion, even though it was two $10 bills :-)

Really good group though as we probably had some combined crowd from the cancelled show the day before.

We did break $200 for the night, which is awesome! Let's keep it going!

Zeb and Sophie decided to stay to watch the play. We're looking forward to hearing a full report tomorrow night from Zeb and Monday from Sophie :-)

Performers:
Crizzly
Kristen
Zeb
Brenda
David

Collections:

$212.42

Overall: $332.84

The Curse of No-Show #2

Ahhh . . . wouldn't be "The Play that should be mentioned" if there wasn't some sort of curse involved with it, right?

Well, for night number two, the curse struck.

We were to meet up at 6pm at the Kelley building to go over the show again. Brenda and I got there and set things up and Zeb arrived soon after. Brenda and I went through our duo routine, and then the three of us headed over to the Quad. We were discussing if we needed to run though the Alternate show as it looked like there was a possibility that we would need to perform it.

As we get to the quad, we noticed something quite unusual. There weren't any staging for the show. All their "props" were gone and the stage was rather bare.

Never a good sign :-)

Well, it turned out the curse had struck them, and their lead was out sick, so the show had to be cancelled. We're hoping that he will be feeling better for Friday. Crizzly and Kristen were late as Crizzly managed to injure his back and was having trouble moving around.

This curse stuff gets pretty serious sometimes . . . heh heh.

Well we actually went through the show at the right time on stage and had a few people watching us practice. Passed the hat, and while we didn't make any money, we were treated to some rather yummy blackberries (thanks Sophie!)

We'll give it another try on Friday and hopefully everything will be back on track!

Not sure if they will be adding any shows to make up for the missing one or just skipping over it. My guess would be if they have to cancel another one, they will add more, but since it was a Thursday show, they might consider just skipping it.

David Sallee

Bard in the Quad 2010 - Show 1

Performers:
Crizzly
Kristen
Zeb
Brenda
David

A great start to the season!

We met up at the Kelley Building early to do a dress rehearsal in a building with no wind issues and some nice A/C ;-)

Warm up and practice went fine, so we headed over to the staging area.

Got set up without any problems (thanks Gibby!), tested the sound system and ran through a few last minute blocking ideas.

Weather was rather nice for the show. Not too hot, and the wind was minimal, which is always a good thing for us :-)

Brenda, our official time keeper let me know when it was time to start and away I went.

Intro speech went fine and we started up our new Romeo & Juliet Juggling Version routine.

I really liked the way this went. The audience seemed to "get" the jokes and I think it has a nice amount of variety / silly stuff going on with it. Crizzly and Kristen played up the Romeo and Juliet parts nicely, and Zeb attacks his part with some amazing vigor . . . heh heh.

Before the run of shows are over though, I think Crizzly and Kristen will be a bit too good at Poi for what the show calls for ;-)

The transition into the Duo routine was smooth. Brenda had an amazing recovery during the routine and if it wasn't for my collision on a three up go into 5, we would have had a drop free routine. I'll nail it next time.

Finishing off the night was our club routine with Crizzly, Kristen, and me (David). It went really well and I was quite pleased with how it turned out.

The crowd was about what I would expect for an opening Wednesday, but they were enthusiastic and made performing for them quite fun.

I gave our closing pitch before passing the hat and the $20 line has already worked! :-D

Brenda was our big money maker tonight pulling in not just one $20, but TWO. We won't mention how much Crizzly wound up collecting . . . heh heh.

Total for the night - $120.42

Again, a great start to the season. One down, Nine more to go! :-)

Bard in the Quad - 2010

The shows are about to begin!

We had a fantastic practice on Saturday and are looking forward to the upcoming shows.

The first one will be Wednesday, August 4th. I'll do my best to update the blog with how things went and I'm also hoping to film each of the shows to cobble together a good edit for YouTube :-)

Come on out, bring your Roaring $20s and see you out there!

Dave

Final Night . . .

Well, that's a wrap :-)

Our last show for the run has come to an end and we've had a great time!

Ended with a near flawless show as well, so it was a great one to finish with.

Crowd was a bit smaller than last night, but still had good energy and helped us move over the $1750 mark!

Special thanks to Gibby and the entire Bard in the Quad staff for allowing us the opportunity. It was very beneficial to our fund raising, and gives us a fantastic start towards the 2011 convention. We're really hoping that we can do it again next year :-)

Also special thanks to all the performers for a job well done. Congrats to Brenda and Kristen for getting out there and doing their first juggling performances! Well done!

Crizzly, way to be a solid passer, and always fun to perform with. We'll get you out there doing the "Shakespeare" routine one of these days ;-)

Just think how great the next time's show will be!

Here's the details:

Performers:
David
Brenda
Crizzly

Camera:
Keli

Day's Take:
$221.31

Overall Take:
$1770.53

Best Night, Best Crowd!

What an awesome crowd we had tonight :-)

You know it is going to be a good night when the crowd is huge, and they are really responsive. When I first came out to say that the OSU Juggling Club would be doing the pre-show entertainment, we got applause . . . heh heh.

I introduced Crizzly and Brenda and they got applause.

The Radio Program got great responses and nice groans at all the right times :-)

Brenda's bounce routine was once again spot on, perfect with the music and super smooth.

The diabolo went well, managed to get really lucky with the high throw in the wind. It drifted quite a bit on me, but I was still able to catch it, and the audience always seems to enjoy that moment . . . heh heh.

Oddly enough, the start of the club routine was a little glitchy as the music didn't start at the right time. Brenda was able to get it going though and we were back on track.

Did the end speech and Crizzly had a new twist on the "side bet". We waded into the large crowd and it was a good thing again that Brenda was with us to help with collections.

Took quite a while to count things up this time. Did get another three $20's. So that's always a great way to start things :-)

Broke all kinds of records tonight and have to adjust our goal in a upward direction!

Keli was generous enough to help film the show, so now we have two copies of the show from different perspectives. We'll get one more show taped on Sunday and I'll see if there's anything I can do with the footage.

Performers:
David
Brenda
Crizzly

Camera:
Keli

Day's Take:
$316.17 (Yes, we made over $300!!!!)

Overall Take:
$1549.22

If we were to reach $2K we'd need to break some more records and take in a little over $450. Hopefully we can reach $1750 at this point! However, at this point, we have exceeded all expectations and are really happy with the way things have gone :-) This will go a long ways in assisting for paying for the 2011 convention!

Friday - Back to full strength :-)

Brenda rejoined our group, and Keli made a surprise visit as well!!!

Naturally we put her to work, filming the show. It was actually the first time she's seen us do a show, so I think it was a good experience for her :-)

The crowd was really good again. Nice size and energetic!

We had the volume nice and loud this time, and good responses during the Radio Show.

Brenda's bounce routine was a thing of beauty this time. Super smooth, right on time with the music, flawless performance.

The diabolo went well, and we moved on to the club juggling.

Overall the club routine went really well and was a lot of fun. Had to dodge the sun a bit during the passing, but we managed just fine :-)

It was really nice to have Brenda back for the passing of the hat. Made it much easier / quicker to do the collections.

Crizzly did the side bet line again and our very first contribution was a $20! :-)

We managed to have the second best night and there is an outside chance we could reach the ever rising goal of $1500 now!

Performers:
David
Brenda
Crizzly

Camera:
Keli

Day's Take:
$192.05

Overall Take:
$1233.05

Thursday's ROCK!!! :-)

Had a fantastic show tonight! Quite a bit more people than last night, and there was a lot of energy in the crowd as well.

We were down one person as Brenda was feeling quite a bit under the weather due to bad allergies, so Crizzly and I came up with something to fill the 1 minute 38 seconds of time.

Since I use that time to change out of my costume, we needed to figure out something that Crizzly could do for just a bit before I came out and joined him.

Decided to go with some 5 ball trick stuff, and it actually worked out just fine. However, we're both hoping that Brenda will be feeling up to doing the bounce routine during that time for the next show :-)

The Shakespeare routine went well, and the audience was nice and responsive. We pumped up the volume a bit and I think that helped.

The diabolo went well too.

The club routine (look it's a trend) went well. I had some silly drops during passing, but overall it was fun and the crowd enjoyed it.

Did the closing speech and then handed the mic over to Crizzly to cover the "side bet" idea. Must have worked as we managed to pull three $20 from the crowd again :-)

Took a bit longer to cover the crowd with the two of us, and there were a few times when I thought we had everyone covered only to find some people holding money aloft . . . heh heh.

Overall, it was a great show and we were able to break two records in one night.

We managed to take in the most in one night we have ever done, plus, we have exceeded our best year's take as well.

Performers:
David
Crizzly

Day's take:
$203 (yes, we broke $200!!!! :-)

Overall take:
$1041 (yes we broke $1K!!!! :-)

Now if only we could have three more shows just like that! Gooooooooooooo Team!!!!

Wednesday's Show . . .

The first of the second half of shows.

Performance wise, the show went really well. A few minor drops, but a solid performance by all. For some reason though, the show felt a bit flat tonight. Not as much reaction from the crowd and not as much energy from them fueling our show.

Weather wise, it was a bit cooler than usual, but we were fortunate not to have any sun issues nor have any wind issues to speak of either.

Did the "side bet" line at the end, but didn't have any takers this time :-(

We'll try again tomorrow and see what happens.

Brenda got the night off (which meant that she did the sound and early packing after our show was over) as Kristen did the bouncing routine.

Performers:

David
Kristen
Crizzly

Day's Take:
$93.20

Overall:
$838

Which means we have now passed up the first year's $802 take! Gooooooo us!!!!

The Half way point

Well, we're at the half way point in the show run, and things are really going well.

Crowd was great tonight. They even applauded when I came out to do the introduction . . . heh heh.

Radio program went great and is nice and smooth at this point.

Brenda's bounce routine got some applause during her tricks which was really cool.

The sticks and strings for the diabolo held together tonight so I actually got to perform the entire thing :-) Without any drops, or snarls . . . woo hoo!

Had one drop during my solo club juggling, and we had a couple of wind induced drops during passing, but other than that, it was a very clean show.

Did something a little different with the end speech this time. Crizzly thought it would be a good idea to say that we had a side bet going, that whoever gets the first $20 in the hat the other person has to match it. So, we gave it a go and had a great response!

Actually got not just one $20, but THREE! :-D

We'll be sure to try it again on Wednesday and see how it goes.

Performers:

David
Brenda
Crizzly

Day's Take:
$171.71

Overall:
$744.80

Now we get a couple days off, which means more juggling!!! . . . heh heh.

Four = Fourtunate

Much better show tonight.

Had a few drops, but overally it went a lot more smooth.

Crowd was nicely responsive to the Radio routine. I switched out for a newer string for the Diabolo for this time's routine, and guess what . . . it broke!

Broke a bit further away from the end this time, so was again disappointed with the results of that. For tomorrow, I'll be using Brenda's sticks and string which is as new as I can get.

I do have some backups just in case as well.

Had just a couple of drops during the club passing, but the 7 clubs went really well. The hat lines worked great and I'm a bit more used to the mic now, so that's good as well.

Plus, we set a new record, which is always enjoyable, including receiving a $20!!!

Performers:

David
Brenda
Crizzly

Day's take:
$175.07

Overall:
$573.09

So far, things have really exceeded expectations. We're also getting a lot of "Thanks" from the audience for us providing a "Pre-Show". Let's keep it going!

Third time not quite the charm . . .

So, coming off our best show, we followed it up with our worst one.

Not that it was horrible, just not quite up to the standards of the second show.

What went wrong . . .

Weather was a bit of a factor. It had been overcast the majority of the day, but the sun decided to pop out and wreck a little havoc during the performance. Wind was a bit of a factor but not too bad.

Things started ok. Used the mic for the first time during the opening, and it went well, just have to get a bit more used to it :-)

Shakespeare routine went fine.

Kristen did the bouncing for us tonight and that went ok as well (Brenda enjoyed the night off). Granted it was a first performance kind of thing, but really not too bad.

The Diabolo routine was where things started to fall apart. Had another snarl during the string climb (almost tempted to leave it out at this point) but worse, I had a string snap. Towards the end of the routine, I was suddenly without a string between two sticks. I was left with a stick, and a whip . . . which isn't quite as useful for doing the Diabolo :-(

Ended the routine there and moved into the club finish. Had a lot of drops there as well. Some of which were really pointless.

Stumbled a bit on the end speech as well.

One of those, if it could go wrong, it did, kind of shows.

Wasn't expecting much from the take, but we were pleasantly surprised.

I'm certain that the next shows will be better. In a way it's nice to get that one out of the way :-)

Performers:

David
Kristen
Crizzly

Tech:

Brenda

Day's Take:
$117.50

Overall Total:
$398.02

Typically, the weekends have bigger audiences, so we'll see if that holds true again this year.