Sweet SixteenTwenty Eight

Vegas was a hoot! We had some great shows, and it was a ton of fun. There's something strange that happens going from Orlando and Walt Disney World to the Las Vegas strip. It's all the same or similar production value - lots of lights, lots of sound equipment, lots of stimuli. But the rating is very different. PG on the one side to NC-17 on the other. From the Happiest Place on Earth to Debauchery City.

At the shows was Jason Earles. You may not recognize the name. Especially if you don't have kids. But he plays Jackson on Hannah Montana on the Disney channel. My kids watch the show all the time. If you haven't seen the Disney channel they shoot maybe 24 episodes or so and then they play episodes 4 times every day or so. So you get to know the people very well. In addition, Disney is champion at cross marketing and cross promoting. All their "stars" make appearances on various other Disney Channel shows, have been involved in the Disney Channel Games, etc.

Jason and the Production Manager came back to the Green Room after the shows. They are friends of one of the guys on the Wayne Brady production team who also does the warm up for Hannah Montana. They were very impressed that I knew so much about them and about their show. Apparently kids get glued to the Disney channel, but the parents don't know it at all. Lucky me though, they loved the Vegas shows and thought I was funny, so I got to get some autographed pics of the guy and Daddy was a huge hit with the kids.

Of course the most impressive thing to me was the fact that Jason plays Hannah's brother - a 16 year old teen - and they were telling me this guy's actually 27 years old and married. What!!!! At first I felt horrible for considering divulging the truth about that on my blog, but I looked him up on imdb and it's all right there for anyone to see. Born in 1977. Love that Hollywood where we can't find any suitable 16 year olds to play a 16 year old. In fact there are no suitable 18 year olds. 22 year olds. As it appears, not even a 26 year old could pull it off.

From Feast to Bigger Feast

Once again, the realization of time between posts never ceases to surprise me. Two weeks since my last post. WOW. Where doo the time go?

Well, since that last post when several possibilities were on the horizon, everything has gotten extremely busy on all my fronts. School started on August 7th for my Marina going to 2nd grade and Walker starting Kindergarten. Hey, what's with starting school on August 7th anyway? Didn't we used to have summer vacation all the way until Labor Day? In addition, my Disney work has really picked up for the final third of 2006. SAK is in pre-production for the Lost Comedies of William Shakespeare, the SAK High School Leauge is mounting again, and I leave this weekend for Las Vegas to do the Wayne Brady shows at the Mirage.

It actually looks like I'll be travelling a lot through the end of the month. After Vegas I'm back in Orlando for 2 days filled with auditions for Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor Comedy Club. On Wednesday I fly to Los Angeles for Playtests of the Monsters show at Walt Disney Imagineering in Glendale. The following Saturday I fly from L.A. to New York for some more Monsters auditions. Whew! September is only a bit open and I know I'll be much better off if I use the time to ready for October through the end of the year when I'll be knee deep in Monsters rehearsal and development. We hope to have something unofficial (a sneak peak if you will) open by Christmas. These are the times that are most challenging to me as the lion's share of my work hours will be dedicated to Disney to get that show open. At the same time we're opening a new show at SAK. With SAK's current financial state I really don't have much choice other than to try and juggle both. The Disney Show Director work I do not only is my family's major source of income, but the Disney money helps SAK out as well. And I have to say I love doing both very much, but these are the times when the 2 worlds collide and compete for my time.

On a final note, I was successful in my attempts to set up video chat capabilities on the computer. Yay iSight and Mac!!! Now while I'm out of town, I'll be able to stay in touch with my lovely little ones and my lovely wife with both sound and sight. I'm very excited about that. All I'll need is a broadband connection to the Internet, which shouldn't be too hard to find.

Next post hopefully from Vegas!!

Vegas Bound!

Well, things kind of fell into place and it looks like my Vegas trip is a done deal. Luckily, the other booking I had softened and may be able to be rescheduled and we'll celebrate Morgan's birthday a day early or a day late.
The new challenge is to see how I can use iChat to somehow configure my computer and camera so my family could watch me doing one of the shows live. These are some of the silly technical quandries that consume me at times. With just the right cable or wire and this and that hooked up - it seems somehow strangely doable.


I also learned from Jonathan that the reason he can't do the show is he's going to be down the street at the Luxor with the Drew Carey All-Stars! So, I'm sure I'll get a chance to see him while I'm there. I haven't seen Jonathan since the birth of his second baby.


If you happen to be in Vegas next weekend - come check out one or more of these shows...

THE DAVE RUSSELL IMPROV SHOW FEATURING WAYNE BRADY AT THE MIRAGE
(Hey, it's my blog, I can slant it however I want)
Friday August 18th @ 9pm
Saturday August 19th @ 9pm

OR SEE SAK ALUMNUS JONATHAN MANGUM AT THE LUXOR
Drew Carey and the Improv All-Stars
Thursday August 17th @ 9pm
Friday August 18th @ 9pm
Saturday August 19th @ 8pm & 10:30pm
Sunday August 20th @ 9pm

Quick SAK History

I recently did an interview with Becky Morgan for a show called Arts Connection on WMFE. It offers a nice quick history of SAK from its early days at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, through the EPCOT years at Disney, and chronicles the growth and development of the SAK Comedy Lab. Pretty interesting reading. If you want to give a listen, just click Arts Connection Interview.