Saturday night at the iO West we had 2 very experimental Hammerspace Improv shows. At 8pm in The Andy Dick Theater I did a 2 person show with legendary improv teacher Ed Greenberg. It was a really awesome experience. We started with an opening that was a dialogue scene, and it went on for 28 minutes. It was deep and meaninful and I did a lot of meditative philosophical stream of consciousness pondering of the Universe, it was very surreal and poetic. I was so loose! We actually adapted one of my favorite comic books, "Animal Man", into a film, within a long form improv show. It was wild. There were many musings and explorations of environmental and economic issues and problems in today's world all thanks to our suggestion of "Where do Black Holes Go When they Die?".
At 11pm in the Upstairs Black Box I had a 3 person show with Kelly Chase and TJ Gooding. Our suggestion was "Why am I Here?". The show we did is best described as an absurdist southern gothic romantic comedy of errors! It was like an abstractly sophisticated piece of slapstick theatre. Something very meaningful and magical was tapped into deeply and opened up big Saturday night. I am quite proud of Hammerspace Improv. The progress is exponential and growing!
Sunday morning and afternoon I was in a Sick End Films horror movie called "Arkill", filmed in a ballet studio in Alhambra. My improv buddy Ryan Karloff was there playing a role and we were both pleasently surprised to see each other. I was playing a campaign manager and he was playing a coked out speech writer. It was fun.
During my gory death scene I had a semi-erotic experience as a cute make-up girl named Brittany sat over me and massaged fake gooey blood into and onto my face, scalp, neck, and lips. That was really awesome.
When I left the set the director gave me a bag of organic-vegan-peanut butter cookies!
Monday, September 22, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Dawn of Quixote Radio Drama
This past Tuesday I had the extreme pleasure of performing in The Dawn of Quixote Radio Drama on KPFK (90.7 FM in Los Angeles). This was a radio drama adaptation of an experimental play written and directed by Juli Crockett (personally my favorite writer/director and all around amazing girl). The play is based on the first chapter of Don Quixote by Cervantes, and some of the inspiration and source material comes from Our Lord Don Quixote by Miguel de Unamuno. There is much philosophical exploration and discovery and this piece is an excellent example of what can be accomplished when you thoroughly explore the beauty, depth, and fascination of language, dialogue, and conversation.
Shaughn Buchholz plays Don Quixote. Juli Crockett plays Dulcinea, and I play Sancho Panza. The music is an original score provided by The Evangenitals.
The show premiered this morning at 7am on KPFK. It is now available to listen to online in the KPFK archives. I absolutely LOVED this play! It's our second radio drama (The History of Water was first). Next I believe we might be doing "Or The Whale" (Juli's adaptation of Moby Dick). I am really excited about that!
You can go th the KPFK audio archives and play or download the show. It is listed as Special Programming 7:02am Saturday 9-20-08.
You can also use the link here: Dawn of Quixote Radio Drama.
Shaughn Buchholz plays Don Quixote. Juli Crockett plays Dulcinea, and I play Sancho Panza. The music is an original score provided by The Evangenitals.
The show premiered this morning at 7am on KPFK. It is now available to listen to online in the KPFK archives. I absolutely LOVED this play! It's our second radio drama (The History of Water was first). Next I believe we might be doing "Or The Whale" (Juli's adaptation of Moby Dick). I am really excited about that!
You can go th the KPFK audio archives and play or download the show. It is listed as Special Programming 7:02am Saturday 9-20-08.
You can also use the link here: Dawn of Quixote Radio Drama.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Brutally Honest Improv: It's Funny!
I recently discovered, in a quite personal way, the very fascinating phenomenon of how funny and entertaining it can be to be brutally honest. Hammerspace has been experimenting with monologue openings in our improv shows this week. I have been using them as an opportunity to really open up and make myself pretty vulnerable. I am going through some heavy life changes. My world feels like it is falling apart. I feel shipwrecked, lost, abandoned, and alone. I am hurting, sad, and in pain. I don’t like it.
I made the decision to be honest when I did my monologue. I made it general and specific, but truthful… very truthful. I didn’t necessarily say why I felt the way I did, but I did say how I felt. That seems more important and ultimately more relevant to what would best enable you to express yourself in both a meaningful and artistic way.
The thing that is most interesting is how funny it was. It wasn’t a joke… it was as far from a joke as it gets. I simply told a short story about what was happening to me today, and how I felt today and as if by magic… it was funny.
We did a Thursday show recently and our audience was very small. At the top of the show it was just Henry Bermudez. He gave us our suggestion: How do you keep a woman happy?
We delved into a series of observations on happiness, how can anyone be happy, what it means to keep anyone anything, and other philosophical musings.
At one point during my monologue I told the audience I was currently experiencing depression… the “I want to drink myself to death kind of depression”. They laughed. It was funny and I don’t exactly know why but I wasn’t surprised that there was laughter. I certainly wasn’t trying to be funny. I was just being honest. I was being painfully honest about being in pain, and it was awesomely cathartic.
The monologues based on the suggestion led to a series of scenes that were very real, genuine, natural, emotional, and patient. It was fun and it was funny. The improv happened with the flow, ease, and grace that you sometimes get in real life. There were a few crazy situations but they seemed real because we were treating them truthfully. The show was deep. We all felt it and it felt like fucking magic. The four of us: Juli, me, Brittany and TJ connected. We connected with our minds and projected that connection outward and it felt amazing. The scenes were deep and philosophical and connected to each other with natural simplicity that all just seemed meant to be. It was incredible and ultimately I believe the gods and ghosts of improvisation revealed some of their truths and secrets to us through the performance of that piece. I felt changed. I experienced some growth during and in the aftermath of that performance. I experience growth as an artist, an improviser and a person. It was our deepest show ever and one of the very best by far.
We did a 4-person Hammerspace show in the Black Box (me, Kelly, TJ, Brittany). The show was so great. It wasn’t quite as deep or as philosophical as Thursday, but it was the closest to it we’ve had. It was a little shorter but it was also very honest. The suggestion was: Do soul mates exist? It was real and genuine and had conflicts of the heart. We did a very good hot-spot monologue opening. I opened up again. I started by saying that I was going through a lot right now so I’m reading a Zen book called When Things Fall Apart (by Pema Chodon). Everyone laughed. It was a sad thing to say and I was as honest and heartfelt in my delivery as I could be and people laughed. They weren’t being mean about it… we were sharing a moment. I spoke of the value and virtue of hopelessness and I was being serious and the audience was laughing and it was wonderful. During the show I wound up playing a girl stuck on the toilet in a bathroom stall at prom. She was calling for help on her cell phone trying to get rescued and scared that she would wind up telling this story her whole life and it would be a horrible prom story to be stuck with. It was really hilarious and realistic. The whole piece was that way and we all felt it. We all knew we had shared an honest experience, and we hadn’t just shared it with each other. We shared it with the whole audience.
The bible of long form improv is called Truth in Comedy. I understand why on a level of personal experience now. We discovered for ourselves that brutal honesty and vulnerability is funny. Audiences really appreciate it when you take the risk by opening up and letting them in. It is a wonderful thing and I am grateful for the experience.
I made the decision to be honest when I did my monologue. I made it general and specific, but truthful… very truthful. I didn’t necessarily say why I felt the way I did, but I did say how I felt. That seems more important and ultimately more relevant to what would best enable you to express yourself in both a meaningful and artistic way.
The thing that is most interesting is how funny it was. It wasn’t a joke… it was as far from a joke as it gets. I simply told a short story about what was happening to me today, and how I felt today and as if by magic… it was funny.
We did a Thursday show recently and our audience was very small. At the top of the show it was just Henry Bermudez. He gave us our suggestion: How do you keep a woman happy?
We delved into a series of observations on happiness, how can anyone be happy, what it means to keep anyone anything, and other philosophical musings.
At one point during my monologue I told the audience I was currently experiencing depression… the “I want to drink myself to death kind of depression”. They laughed. It was funny and I don’t exactly know why but I wasn’t surprised that there was laughter. I certainly wasn’t trying to be funny. I was just being honest. I was being painfully honest about being in pain, and it was awesomely cathartic.
The monologues based on the suggestion led to a series of scenes that were very real, genuine, natural, emotional, and patient. It was fun and it was funny. The improv happened with the flow, ease, and grace that you sometimes get in real life. There were a few crazy situations but they seemed real because we were treating them truthfully. The show was deep. We all felt it and it felt like fucking magic. The four of us: Juli, me, Brittany and TJ connected. We connected with our minds and projected that connection outward and it felt amazing. The scenes were deep and philosophical and connected to each other with natural simplicity that all just seemed meant to be. It was incredible and ultimately I believe the gods and ghosts of improvisation revealed some of their truths and secrets to us through the performance of that piece. I felt changed. I experienced some growth during and in the aftermath of that performance. I experience growth as an artist, an improviser and a person. It was our deepest show ever and one of the very best by far.
We did a 4-person Hammerspace show in the Black Box (me, Kelly, TJ, Brittany). The show was so great. It wasn’t quite as deep or as philosophical as Thursday, but it was the closest to it we’ve had. It was a little shorter but it was also very honest. The suggestion was: Do soul mates exist? It was real and genuine and had conflicts of the heart. We did a very good hot-spot monologue opening. I opened up again. I started by saying that I was going through a lot right now so I’m reading a Zen book called When Things Fall Apart (by Pema Chodon). Everyone laughed. It was a sad thing to say and I was as honest and heartfelt in my delivery as I could be and people laughed. They weren’t being mean about it… we were sharing a moment. I spoke of the value and virtue of hopelessness and I was being serious and the audience was laughing and it was wonderful. During the show I wound up playing a girl stuck on the toilet in a bathroom stall at prom. She was calling for help on her cell phone trying to get rescued and scared that she would wind up telling this story her whole life and it would be a horrible prom story to be stuck with. It was really hilarious and realistic. The whole piece was that way and we all felt it. We all knew we had shared an honest experience, and we hadn’t just shared it with each other. We shared it with the whole audience.
The bible of long form improv is called Truth in Comedy. I understand why on a level of personal experience now. We discovered for ourselves that brutal honesty and vulnerability is funny. Audiences really appreciate it when you take the risk by opening up and letting them in. It is a wonderful thing and I am grateful for the experience.
Parlor of Wonders show!
I was invited to perform in this show. It's really exciting and I am looking forward to it. It's very refreshing to know that this many vintage style vaudeville performers are gathering together for such a cool event.
Parlor of Wonders show!
Be in a Motion Picture! Madame Pamita's Parlor of Wonders at the Coffee Gallery Backstage on Monday, September 22nd!
Yes! You the audience will be in the spotlight as we are filmed with the most up-to-date moving picture equipment available! This is a full-blown variety show with audience participation and many surprises to astound and amaze!
A Cornucopia of Varieties Featuring:
Pantomime Hilarity by Patrick Ian Moore
Marionette Manipulations by Eli Presser
Euphonious Prognostications by Madame Pamita, the musical mystic
Ukulele Antics by Ukelear Winter
Musical Merriment provided by Patrick "The Idiot Saw-vant" Weise, Lucas
"Soup Greens" Gonze, and John "The Six String Scot" McDuffie
and more!
And it is all FREE!
Join us for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see acts of the highest caliber and be a part of an actual cinematic record!
Monday, September 22 8PM
The Coffee Gallery Backstage
2029 N. Lake
Altadena, California 91001
Parlor of Wonders show!
Be in a Motion Picture! Madame Pamita's Parlor of Wonders at the Coffee Gallery Backstage on Monday, September 22nd!
Yes! You the audience will be in the spotlight as we are filmed with the most up-to-date moving picture equipment available! This is a full-blown variety show with audience participation and many surprises to astound and amaze!
A Cornucopia of Varieties Featuring:
Pantomime Hilarity by Patrick Ian Moore
Marionette Manipulations by Eli Presser
Euphonious Prognostications by Madame Pamita, the musical mystic
Ukulele Antics by Ukelear Winter
Musical Merriment provided by Patrick "The Idiot Saw-vant" Weise, Lucas
"Soup Greens" Gonze, and John "The Six String Scot" McDuffie
and more!
And it is all FREE!
Join us for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see acts of the highest caliber and be a part of an actual cinematic record!
Monday, September 22 8PM
The Coffee Gallery Backstage
2029 N. Lake
Altadena, California 91001
I was quoted on a cool Sci-Fi Blog!
Around 2:30am early Thursday morning Juli discovered that I had been quoted on a very cool science fiction blog, "i09: Strung out on Science Fiction" (you should definitely read this blog, it rocks). The Day the Earth Stood Still remake with Keanu Reeves will be coming to theaters in December. The same week it gets released, The Asylum will release The Day the Earth Stopped direct to DVD. If you've been following "Patrick's Quest" you probably know all about my 3 day sci-fi adventure with C. Thomas Howell and Judd Nelson. If not... you can read all about it here in some slightly older posts from a couple of weeks ago. I love the fact that someone read this blog and quoted me. I love that they called me an LA improv geek (because I am). We performed non-verbal improv shows to live music by The Evangenitals tonight at Studio (Experiment) in Highland Park. We also performed a Hammerspace Improv show with Ed Greenberg and hosted our first improv jam. Back to business though... The Day the Earth Stopped. I visited the IMDb page for the film and dicovered... there is an IMDb page for me, Patrick Ian Moore! I had no idea but it sure is cool.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
MIME NEEDED? I got the gig!
The post said:
MIME NEEDED
We are having a french theme wedding at Castle Green in Pasadena and would love a Mime to perform for one hour on November 2nd, 2008 from 12 noon to 1 pm.
Although we are paying, we have a limited budget. Please contact us if you would like to discuss further. $100.00
This is on my birthday, and I got the gig.
They responded:
Hello Patrick,
It seems fated that since November 2nd is a special day for both you and us!
We only have $100 in our budget.
We need 1 hour tops to greet our guests, perform for 15 minutes after the
ceremony walk to the reception together two blocks away
We want a procession to the reception of our guests in black tie led by you
to the reception.
How does that sound to you?
It's certainly not a deal breaker but if you have a black and white striped
shirt that would be awesome!
I will e-mail you a contract this week. Please sign and mail back to me.
It's so cool that some people out there like mimes so much!
MIME NEEDED
We are having a french theme wedding at Castle Green in Pasadena and would love a Mime to perform for one hour on November 2nd, 2008 from 12 noon to 1 pm.
Although we are paying, we have a limited budget. Please contact us if you would like to discuss further. $100.00
This is on my birthday, and I got the gig.
They responded:
Hello Patrick,
It seems fated that since November 2nd is a special day for both you and us!
We only have $100 in our budget.
We need 1 hour tops to greet our guests, perform for 15 minutes after the
ceremony walk to the reception together two blocks away
We want a procession to the reception of our guests in black tie led by you
to the reception.
How does that sound to you?
It's certainly not a deal breaker but if you have a black and white striped
shirt that would be awesome!
I will e-mail you a contract this week. Please sign and mail back to me.
It's so cool that some people out there like mimes so much!
Friday, September 5, 2008
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