Somerville Night Live

Doing my Lorne Michael impression. Red Sox cap maybe not the best choice.

I produced and directed my first show for SCATV Ch.3 in Somerville last night. It was a live hour with some very talented cast members (and crew!). It was a SNL-ish mixture of skits, short films and news updates with a strong local Somerville slant and a seasonal holiday flavor.

It was precarious, as live events often are: Key actors stuck in traffic, crucial video files exporting with only minutes to spare, balky studio equipment and twenty odd cast and crew rushing around mustering costumes, props and script changes. Invigorating to say the least!

I didn't sleep for two days prior as more than half the show content was created in the final 24hrs. In fact 90% of the skits & films were written, and in the case of the short films (excepting Father Pike) were shot and edited, in the space of three days. Rehearsal? HA! We laugh at you and your "rehearsals."

Art Hennessey and Amanda Good Hennessey did the lions share of fleshing out our concepts into workable scripts. Not to mention managing the actor chaos backstage with admirable aplomb.

I was also really happy create some "Lord Somerville" short films out of Art's essays. Lord Somerville is an enigmatic top-hatted anachronism who strolls around observing the Somerville scene. Look for them to pop up online separately, too. Hopefully, we can do more of these!

Jason Reulet, of Oblique Sector fame, came up with a great musical theme for our "Eye on SCATv" news breaks.

Erik Rodenhiser took a break from his North Shore theater endeavors to break out his "Andre" character to host a few segments. Although, I cringe at the thought of seeing Andre do any more yoga. One downward facing dog was enough.

Some other talented performers brought their lightly scripted/improv A-game, including Sheryl Faye, Floyd Richardson, James Saguinetti, plus relative newcomer Sunil Dikshit.

The show will be re-broadcast in Somerville a few more times before moving on to Cambridge (CCTV) and then the Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN). Eventually, it will hit the web and I'll post the link.

I look forward to doing this again, only with a little less hectic creative process next time.

Lord Somerville scans the scene for the subject of another essay.