So, Zipperface!!?!: The Hobo Musical got into the Fringe Encore Series.

Gosh, really?  You mean we have to completely redesign this website to advertise the new run?  AND shlep all of our props to an even bigger theater?  AND print out new posters to show we have four new dates?!

Dammit!  And it’s all because we just HAD to have a sold out run and garner great critical and audience reactions.  Serves.  Us.  Right.

I knew when we cast the most talented and hilarious cast ever it would come back to bite us in the ass.  I said to myself, “Jon, these people are too good!  Everyone’s gonna love them!  They’re just gonna make you come back!”

I should have listened to my gut.  But no, we allowed the show to be too fun.  Ugh.

So, since I must, here are the four new dates for Zipperface’s “Back by Popular Demand” encore run in New York, which will be held at the even more awesome Actor’s Playhouse.

• Sep 11, 2009 at 10:30 PM
• Sep 13, 2009 at 2:00 PM
• Sep 15, 2009 at 7:00 PM
• Sep 25, 2009 at 7:30 PM

And, here, since I know you’re just chomping at the bit to buy tickets (probably since the last run was so popular and sold out before the first week of the festival was even over) I’ll give you the link to buy tickets.

Man, and I just wanted to relax this September…

As much as it’s nice to get good reviews in the media (which we have gotten in spades), the real catch is a good reaction from the audience.  Which is why I am delighted to share with you a conversation I had while leaving the theater last night after our third of five (sold out!) shows.

I’m talking with some old college roommates when a woman comes over and stops me.
“It was hysterical!  I loved it!” she gushes.  I thank her politely (I’m rather shy after shows) and begin to move on when she continues.
“It was really terrific.  BUT…and I think you know this…”

We all stop.  What could this woman’s criticism be.  As someone who was involved with the writing, directing, and acting in the show, I can think of any number of things that could be the problem.  In fact, every night, my mind becomes a shopping list of tiny things that could be fixed until only the post-show drinks with the cast can silence the voice in my head screaming “THE STAGE RIGHT CURTAIN SHOULD HAVE HAD THREE CLIPS, NOT TWO!  IT LOOKED UNEVEN!”  So what is the horrible, glaring error that this woman wants to impart to me.

“It was really terrific.  BUT…and I think you know this…YOU could really use a tan.”

Apparently my incredibly whiteness becomes a distraction when it gets put under stage lights.
We then have a charming conversation about how pale I am in which she honestly inquires whether or not I had purposely gotten paler for the role.  The entire time I was hoping that this woman will turn out to secretly be a big time theater critic and that sometime this week there’ll be a review in like the New York Times with the headline, “Zipperface is Hysterical.  Guy Who Plays Priest Should Go to Beach”

Oh, well.  I’m very white, I know.  Just ask our choreographer.  She had to teach me to dance.

Anyway, speaking of reviews, over at the NYTheatre blog we’ve been one of the two most read reviews in the whole festival for the past couple of days.  We were number one yesterday!
Sure hope that guy spellchecked…

Throughout my life, I have been involved with a number of plays.  Before a number of that number of plays, I have been known to anxiously tell my friends that they have to reserve their seats ahead of time..  A number of times that I did that for a number of the number of plays that I have been involved with, it has been, to be completely honest, total bullshit.

This time it wasn’t.

If you had gotten your ticket on time, this could've been your view!

That’s right!  For anyone curious as to why that bright yellow “Buy Tickets” sign has vanished from our home page, it’s because there are no longer any tickets to sell.  Yesterday morning, we sold our last ticket for the entire run making us (at this moment) one of only four Fringe shows this year to have done that.
Truly, I have no idea what to say.  Well, first off, “thank you”.  And I suppose second off, “thank you” as well.  We really couldn’t have done it without every single one of the people who supported us, from the large group of Rutgers kids who came opening night to the girl at Kinko’s who printed out the giant S&M photos we use as props.
Hmmm, maybe especially the girl at Kinko’s.  She probably thought Dave and I were total perverts.

Anyway, things are going better than we could have possibly dreamed.  We’re two performances in and we’ve got three more to go.  We’ve gotten nothing but good reviews so far (check them out by clicking the “Press Time” button back on the main page) and the audience reaction has been astounding.  So, yet again, thank you, everyone!

I love this picture. It was totally stolen from an audience member's Twitter.

PS. To those of you who didn’t nab your tickets fast enough, cross your fingers real tight, leave a nickel under your pillow for the Musical Fairy, and wish upon a star and maybe, just maybe, that big lovable lug Zipperface will be stalking the New York stages again.

Last night went absolutely amazingly. Thanks to everyone who came and made it as wonderful as it was.
I’m too tired to say anything clever here, so just pretend I did and know that we only have 4 more performances. One of which is sold out!

Know you’ll like it.

ps. We sold out another performance (Sunday the 23rd). That makes two.

Well, we left our early morning New York tech rehearsal today (it started at 8 AM, the perfect time to do some musical comedy) and decided to stop by Fringe Central, the neat little office the festival has sell tickets.  We stopped at the desk and met the nice people who worked there and asked them if we could see how our tickets were selling.  They cheerfully obliged (after checking our mega-fancy Fringe participant badges, of course) and we began trying to decipher the ticket sale book.
As we attempted to figure out the complicated lists of “phone sales” and “Fringe Fivers” and whatnot, one thing began to become clear.

“Gee,” I said.  “Some of these numbers look pretty high.”
Overhearing this, the woman behind the desk looked at her computer.
“Huh, these are pretty high,” she said.  “In fact…Hey!  Look at that!  You sold out your opening night!”
Thus began the third greatest moment of my entire life.*

The first thing I did was text all of the cast and crew because nothing works better as an energy boost after a few long weeks of tiring rehearsals than finding out you’ve sold out a performance.  Besides maybe having a miracle occur and me being able to reveal to them that they’re suddenly getting paid for the past few long weeks of tiring rehearsals.
The next thing I did was check the internet, which was already aflutter with buzz about our feat.  Of course, the internet that was aflutter at that time was mostly just the Twitter accounts of the various cast and crew members I just texted.

However, now that it’s been a few hours, the actual internet has actually been buzzing.  The Fringe Festival made an official announcement about how well ticket prices were going this year, and made a point of mentioning the handful of shows that have sold out performances already…meaning us!  And then, big news places like Variety wrote articles about that announcement and continued to mention our name.
You can check out the article by either clicking the link there or by checking out our Press Time section (linked to right at the left of this page) which has seen a few new additions this past week, including a great interview Dave did with The Bergen Record, one of the biggest papers in the Garden State.

Anyway, today was a great day.  And that was even before the Hobo Band went busking on the streets of New York!

The Hobo Band tries to sell some more tickets. To the performances that are left, that is.

Gosh, New Yorkers are fascinated when they see a musical singing saw!

ps. In case you didn’t get the message from the rest of the post, you should reserve your tickets for the remaining shows now!  Our first performance is already sold out and, when we checked this afternoon, the third only had about 10 left.

* In case you’re wondering, the second greatest moment is inappropriate for this family website and the first greatest is actually just an empty slot at the moment since I’m reserving that space for the eventual birth of my first-born son; a future hero who will one day cure Cancer or go to Mars, all the while regaling friends with legends of the day his father’s Off-Broadway musical sold out its first performance.

Since I have a Google alert set for the phrase “Zipperface Hobo Musical”, I learn about any appearance of our show on the web as fast as I do for my other Google alerts, “Jon Bershad” and “Gypsy Curse+How To” (don’t ask about that last one.  It’s just a hobby).  Which is why I’m able to tell you about our “Interview” over at nytheatre.com.

I, of course, have the word interview in quotes because it was less an actual interview than a simple three question form that was sent to all of the productions in the festival.  Still, our answers sum up the show pretty well and it is free advertising so the whole thing is pretty cool.  If you’d like to read what we said, click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page (alphabetical order curses us yet again).

…however…if you haven’t clicked on that link yet and since this is our blog, I can reprint the nytheatre.com piece (with a few handy additions of my own thrown in) to make it look more like the intensive artist profile we would have liked.  Enjoy!

My meeting with the creators of the fascinating new musical Zipperface!!?!: The Hobo Musical, was to be held in the trendy Williamsburg area of Brooklyn where they had just attended a new art exhibit held in a tiny loft.  Dave Rothstadt and Andy Wolf, two thirds of the creative trio, sat in front of me in the oxygen bar, comparing notes on the works they had just observed while having their conversation frequently interrupted by phone calls from high powered Hollywood execs.  Every few moments, a beautiful girl would walk by and her gaze would instantly fly to the two young men as if she were a passing a horrible car accident on the highway and desperately wanted to have sex with it.  Of course, this type of attention had become so familiar to the men since their show had become the talk of the Fringe Festival a few months earlier, that they hardly noticed.
A few minutes later, Jon Bershad, the handsomest, coolest, and all around most talented member of the three, pulled up in his Porsche and strode over to the table.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, his strong voice piercing the air like a hot knife going through butter.  Butter that desperately wants to have sex with it.  “My charity car wash with the Victoria’s Secret models went late because afterwards I had sex with all of them.”
“Right,” said Andy, sipping from his $3,000 glass of wine.  “How typical of you.  Shall we start the interview?”

NYT: What is your show about and what can audiences expect when they see it?
ZFHM: Zipperface!!?!: The Hobo Musical is a parody of lazy movie-based musicals, executed through the adaptation of a 1989 soft-core porn murder mystery that no one saw and fewer liked.  The adaptation is presented by a cast of charming, musical hobos, who have learned from Broadway that you don’t have to write your own story to put on a show.  All you need to do is take an existing screenplay, shove in a few songs and voila, you’ve got yourself a hit! The screenplay that they’ve chosen and now attempt to present to the audience is Zipperface,  a low-budget film about a masked killer hunting S&M hookers with a machete and Lisa Rider, the beautiful detective on his trail. While the satire and parody elements are visible to those who look for them, other viewers (who aren’t obsessed with Broadway musicals) can expect a wacky musical murder mystery, filled with catchy tunes, lovably eccentric characters, sexy hookers, and maybe an epic robot battle or two.
NYT: Why is your show pertinent to today’s times and/or why should your show be the choice for audiences to see?
ZFHM: In a time where every hit musical is either based on a movie with a derivative story or a jukebox musical written around derivative songs, it seems like no one is attempting to write an original musical anymore.  Musicals are a medium unto themselves and deserve writing catered to them, without which the art-form will slowly swallow itself until there’s nothing left.  We believe that this ultimate destination is closer than some might think.In addition, when economic troubles have got everyone down, a wacky musical comedy is just what the doctor ordered… right before he found out his 401k was depleted and killed himself.  If audiences are looking to just forget their problems, laugh and have a raucous good time, then this is the show for them.
NYT: Why did you choose to present this show?
ZFHM: The three writers of this piece have a very conflicted love/hate relationship with Broadway musicals.  It was out of this ambivalence that Zipperface!!?!: The Hobo Musical first sprouted.  After a successful run New Jersey, an independent festival such as FringeNYC was the perfect home for this musical about musicals … and S&M gimp killers.

There was much more to the interview but unfortunately, I was so taken aback by the group’s poise, charm, and hilarious anecdotes about hanging out with celebrities that I forgot to turn my tape recorder on.  Suffice it to say that everything they said was really, really clever and that their show (which opens August 15th by the way) is going to be totally awesome.

See?  Isn’t that way of presenting our answers so much better than just posting them all in a row?  Anyway, I’ve gotta go plan tonight’s rehearsal and schedule another car wash, so I’ll see y’all later!

We’ve waited and waited and waited and finally the day has come.  Zipperface!!?!: The Hobo Musical has gotten its official show dates for the 2009 New York International Fringe Festival!
Without any further yapping from me, here they are:

SATURDAY, AUG 15 @ 11:15 PM
THURSDAY, AUG 20 @ 8:15 PM
SUNDAY, AUG 23 @ 7:15 PM
FRIDAY, AUG 28 @ 3 PM
SUNDAY, AUG 30 @ NOON

Wow, we are only a month and three days away from Zipperface storming Off-Broadway.  Opening night is gonna be absolutely bonkers*.
You’ll be able to reserve your tickets at Fringe’s website or at their office in New York in just a week or so.  When they become available, I fully suggest you do buy them in advance because things get pretty crazy when we’re in the swing of things and we want all the loyal fans (and if you’re taking the time out of your day to actually read this, you count as such) to be able to get a seat.
Keep checking this blog and the Zipperface homepage and we’ll let you know exactly when and where you can order those babies.

*Don’t worry, people with early bed times who are gonna miss the opening night.  The other performances will be perfectly bonkers as well.

Hey, check it out!  Playbill (the fine people who fill up pages and pages with trivia quizzes, perfume ads, articles on Nathan Lane’s favorite New York area diners, and also a little bit of info on whose in the show) has been nice enough to feature us on their website.
In a photo feature previewing this year’s Fringe Festival, they chose us as one of 18 shows to highlight.  That’s 18 out of 201, folks.  That makes us better than 91.04% of the shows in Fringe!  It’s true, it’s math!
Sure, we’re the last of the 18 shows to be highlighted, but that’s the fault of damn alphabetic ordering.  Learn from our mistakes, kids, and don’t name your show with a “Z” word.  Yes, I expect all of you to start writing “Aardvark!: The Musical” tonight.

Anyway, check out the feature here:
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/130749-PHOTO_CALL_Preview_of_2009_FringeNYC_Shows

I love our cast and crew so much.  I love working with them every second of every rehearsal.  I love them so much that I could easily say that merely getting to perform the show with them would be good enough.

Cyriaque and Dave stand in front of Zipperface's future home, the Dixon Place Theater

Of course, I could just as easily say that I spend my nights swooping around New Brunswick, fighting crime as a masked vigilante with super fireball powers.  Saying either of these things would be incredibly simple, unfortunately, that doesn’t make either of them remotely true.

You see, I must confess, that we’re actually doing this show with the hope that people come to see it.  No, performing to no one merely for the sake of performing just isn’t rewarding enough.  Trust me, I put on a much cheaper version of Zipperface every morning while taking a shower but it’s just not as good.  There’s no audience!  Plus, Lauren’s portrayal of female lead Lisa Rider is much more in tune to the character than mine.
So, in an attempt to make sure there are actually people sitting in the Dixon Place’s very comfortable seats come August, we headed yesterday to Fringe’s official Marketing Mixer!

At this point, you’re probably wondering what on earth a Marketing Mixer is.  Well, it’s an event where spokespeople from all of the shows in the festival gather at a bar in New York to meet and discuss marketing ideas.  Basically you look for plays which might have similar audiences and you make deals to help promote each other’s show.  And, basically, I sucked at it.
As we looked around trying to come up with shows to talk to, I felt like we were at a middle school dance trying to come up with ways to start dancing with the pretty girls.  God help us when we came to a show that had actual pretty girls as spokespeople.
Anyway, in the end we had a great time, talked to some cool people, and heard about some really fascinating shows.  Hell, eventually you may hear about those shows in a Links page on our site because that’s just the kind of great marketing ideas people come up with at a Marketing Mixer.

The sign on the front door.

After we left, Dave, Cyriaque (Zipperface’s ACR, which is a person who acts as the go between for the crew and Fringe), and I went downtown to check out our theater.  The festival specifically prohibits participants just showing up at their venues but we circumnavigated the rule by going to see a show there.  Coincidentally, it turned out the show was another musical that heavily featured the accordion.  Maybe we’ve unknowingly hit upon some kind of new trend.
Well, the show was fun and, more importantly for us, the theater is even better than we could have possibly imagined!  We were worried when we read how big the stage was that it wasn’t going to be the kind of intimate environment that we were hoping for but we couldn’t have been more wrong.  When you come to see Zipperface in a few months, your going to feel like our cast of hobos can reach right out and touch you!
Wait, scratch that.  That sentence isn’t going to sell any tickets.  Here, try this:

When you come to see Zipperface in a few months, your going to feel like the group of attractive young actresses we have wearing sexy hooker costumes in our show can reach right out and touch you!

That’s much better.
Anywho, all in all it was a great day in the city and a great way to get us pumped for the incredibly tough rehearsal schedule we’ve got coming up this week!