Tech! Twitter Preview! Opening Weekend! Exclamation Points!

Posted on December 5, 2014 by Caity-Shea Violette

Before and After Klingon Makeup for SQuja’ marDa and Emli Qachit

After two months of rehearsals, we finally had an audience tonight and it was an important reminder of why we do this show in the first place: to share a fun, quirky story of transformation with an audience of people who are excited to see it. Everyone who comes to a show like Klingon Christmas Carol wants to enjoy themselves and they’re rooting for us to have a great time telling the story. As an actor, how much more set up for a good performance can you be? While I don’t subscribe to the notion of “tough crowds” (an excuse for a silent audience one might hear in the dressing rooms of the Sunday matinee performance of an absurdist Swedish comedy, you know, like hypothetically speaking), this show has a particularly warm and generous following.

Obligatory Before/After Klingon Makeup Selfies

This show was created to honor a beloved fandom and a timeless holiday story, and it’s being told by a company of trained professional storytellers and creative team who are committed to honestly living in the world they’re presenting. As a theatre-watching human, I’m not a huge fan of productions that spend more time winking at the audience than they do investing in the story. If I’m being completely honest, before the show started I was concerned it might go more the in the direction of winking (I’m sure there’s a joke in that sentence, but I’m too sleepy to catch it), and I think I mentioned in my first blog how relieved and excited I was to discover this was not the case. This show truly respects the trust that audiences give us when they purchase their ticket. Or, to quote the text I received at intermission from my friend in the audience tonight: “Okay, so this is weirdly amazing.”

Klingon Bar Fight as captured by an audience member at the Twitter Preview

For all of you less technologically aware people who might not know what a “Twitter Preview” is (I had no idea what it was), it’s a preview where audiences are encouraged to take pictures, tweet and post about the performance using the show’s hashtag #KlingonXmas. But, this is of course obvious to us social media savvy young people (I literally heard the phrase for the first time last night and just pretended to know what it was until I pieced it together using context clues. Shout out to my fourth grade reading teacher for the skill set, sorry for the sentence I’m about to end with a preposition). It was super fun to see pictures of parts of the show I’ve always been backstage for.

I’m grateful in advance to the audiences with whom we’ll get to share this story. (See, I know how to not end sentences with prepositions when I want to. <- ugh, I didn’t even try to do that). I’m grateful to my KCC cast mates, creative team and crew for their kindness, humor and friendship throughout the process. I’m grateful for the opportunity to use my love of people looking at me while I talk (see also: acting) to help contribute to a few hours of joy for everyone in the room. Qapla’!

Ticket Update: Shows are already selling out, so make sure to get your tickets in advance at: http://www.tinyurl.com/Klingontickets-2014

A QachIt Family Affair

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Caity-Shea Violette

Hey, All!

QachIt Family table read in Klingon. L to R, Shandee Vaughan, Phil Zimmermann, Jeremy Cowan, Christina Romano, Clark Bender’s forehead, Elizabeth MacDougald, Christopher Kidder-Mostrom.

We’ve been busy in the rehearsal room finishing blocking (!!!) and working through language. Almost all of my rehearsals this week were for QachIt family scenes and it turns out when you mix a room full of sleep deprived artists, a puppet and space language, things get super silly. Like painting with the windows closed silly. Giggle fits, Star Trek puns, and a surprising amount of cat references filled the rehearsal space as we blocked and incorporated language into our dinner conversation around the table.

Elizabeth MacDougald and tImHom

In the show, my character marDa QachIt often interacts with her younger brother tImHom, a puppet brought to life by the talented Elizabeth MacDougald. Throughout blocking, Catie (our director) had tImHom and I improv some playful interactions to incorporate fun brother/sister moments into the scenes. Our puppet expert Alison Farajpanahi joined rehearsal one evening to work with the cast on puppet movement and etiquette.

(Alison teaching me how to pick up tImHom after several failed attempts)

Me: So, do I like aim for the armpits or try to just scoop him up or…

Alison: Think of it like you’re picking up a two-year old.

(Blank stare)

Alison: You know, like how you pick up a kid when you’re going to hold them?

Me: I just realized I don’t think I’ve ever held a child. Like ever. Does that say something about me?

Alison: …have you ever picked up anything similar to a child?

Me: Do cats count?

Alison: We’ll work with it.

Join some Klingon Christmas Carol cast members at Geek Bar in Wicker Park this Sunday, November 9th from 3-7pm for a “Klingon Cultural Symposium”! You might even see some ridges {{{:-)

Until next week!

Caity-Shea

This is Klingon Christmas Carol’s 5th and FINAL year in Chicago, so tickets will be going quickly! Guarantee your spot by getting tickets in advance at: http://www.tinyurl.com/Klingontickets-2014

Philip Zimmermann: The Story behind the SQuja’

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Caity-Shea Violette

We’re almost halfway through the rehearsal process! Now that we’ve started the blocking and language work of scenes that I’m in, it’s been exciting to see my fellow actors breathe life into their characters and dive into telling this story. Ali (our producer) mentioned at the beginning of rehearsal that combining the language, physicality and trying to remember to act at the same time is an incredibly difficult balancing act, especially for those new to the language. Despite this, I still had my secret hopes that it would be easier than she made it sound. Remember that “desperately, profoundly, emphatically wrong” thing from the first blog? It remains continuously applicable.

However, this has given me all the more respect and appreciation for the awesome cast of actors I’m fortunate enough to work with. I wanted to talk to some of the KCC veterans to hear more about their experience and how they approached their characters. I was able to chat with Phil Zimmermann (SQuja’) and discuss his process for playing this iconic role.

CSV: So, you’re playing SQuja’ (Scrooge) in this year’s production of KCC. That’s a pretty massive role that puts you onstage (and speaking Klingon) for almost the entire show and involved in nearly every rehearsal throughout the two-month process. I could imagine that being a little overwhelming. After hearing you were cast, how did you prepare?
PZ: I got in touch with Ali and Chris and requested a copy of the script shortly after accepting the role. I had a lot of time before rehearsals started which was lucky and so I read the original Dickens story a couple of times as well as watch A Muppet Christmas Carol, Scrooged with Bill Murray and and the 1951 “Scrooge” with Alistair Sims that Catie recommended. My summer got very Christmassy before it got Klingon. After immersing myself in the story and learning as much as I could about the character of Scrooge I started to back translate my lines from Klingon to English.

CSV: With so many different versions of A Christmas Carol and portrayals of Scrooge, did you have any particular versions that you used most for inspiration?
PZ: The Muppet Christmas Carol has always been one of my favorites, and I think it has some interesting parallels to the Klingon Christmas Carol. In that movie they had the challenge of telling this story in a new way, from the perspective of non-human (muppet) characters, and while they still speak English the movie communicates a lot through movement and the shapes of the puppets. So when I started thinking about SQuja’s physicality and voice a part of me thought “What would be a good muppet here?”.

CSV: Totally. And you bring up one of the biggest questions I’ve heard from people who will be seeing KCC for the first time this year. Assuming you’re not a Klingon speaker, what is the experience of seeing the show like? Do you need to be a Star Trek fan to get it?
PZ: Out of the five years Klingon Christmas Carol has been in Chicago, I’ve only actually gotten to see it once, last year. There’s not another show like this in Chicago. The Klingon is fascinating to listen to, and it’s easy to follow along with the super titles if you want to know what’s being said in English. You don’t have to be a Trekkie to enjoy the show, but if you are you’re going to get a lot of additional enjoyment out of it. There’s references from every era of Star Trek, from the original series to the current JJ Abrams movies. But the story of Scrooge’s transformation is so universal that anyone can see this play and connect to it.

CSV: You’ve been in KCC in previous years, right?
PZ: I played Kahless Present from 2010-2012 in the Chicago productions.

CSV: What was it like to stay with the same show at the same theatre through multiple years and casts? Is it weird to be currently playing SQuja’ in a cast with fellow actors who have played the role in previous productions?
PZ: Working as closely as I did with Kevin Alves for those first three years, it’s hard not to think about his portrayal, but his biggest influence on me is that I remember a lot of the queue lines he had for me and it’s helped in memorizing the script. Working with Clark Bender who played the role last year is always a treat, he’s a really fantastic guy and a real natural performer. It’s nice to have someone who’s been where you’re going on something like this. And there’s Christina who’s been in the show for all five years. It’s great having that connection to back when I first moved to Chicago and the show was just getting started here, too. That said it’s also really nice having so many people around who either I haven’t worked with before or are entirely new to KCC. There’s a lot of enthusiasm and new choices being made that keep the whole thing fresh.

CSV: Alright, last question. This year is KCC’s final production in Chicago. During the last five years that it’s been performing, the show has become a beloved part of the holiday season, especially in the Star Trek and theatre communities. Is there anything in particular you’d like to leave Chicago audiences with as they celebrate this tradition in its final year?
PZ: I moved to Chicago to perform in this show in it’s first year here, and it’s been a huge part of my life since then. I’ve made good friends, found a great job, met a ton of amazing people and performed at an honest to goodness Star Trek convention all directly because of my involvement with this show. This show means a lot of different things to me and my hope would be that it means something to everyone who comes to see it and that they remember it as long as I will, which will be forever.

Huge thanks to our Phil for sharing his thoughts and wisdom. Visit his twitter page where he will be tweeting in character as SQuja’ throughout the show. Check back here this weekend for more behind-the-scenes Klingon mischief as told by our other KCC blogger, Timothy!