Tour Whore, August 19, 2012

I've Got Shit to Do...
by Cameryn Moore

I’m still out here. There’s still about a month before the Canadian Fringe portion of my touring is over for the year, three and a half months before I finish my 2012 tour. I am developing a podcast, planning a revised edition of my book, enhancing my two websites, MOVING TO MONTREAL. I have at least thirty-five presentations of my three shows to get through before then, plus preview appearances, Sidewalk Smut sessions, workshops, panel discussions, radio interviews, special guest appearances, and five minutes at the Fringe Bar Gong Show at the Vancouver Fringe, during which I will teach the entire, gradually endrunkening crowd (increasingly inebriated? I like my word better) how to do the Cupid Shuffle. 

I’ve got shit to do, in other words, but that’s all right. For the last month, at least, I’ve been an active participant in a collective conversation that spreads around every Fringe, a conversation that hinges on one seemingly innocent question: “So, what are you working on for next year?”

this is a totally natural question to ask any Fringe performer. It implies that we are constantly working on something new

It’s a LOADED question, but not necessarily loaded in an “oh my god, this bomb is going to go off” way, more like in a loaded baked potato skin sort of way, where it’s mostly all the stuff you love, but there might be a big ol’ chipotle pepper smear somewhere in the bottom there that totally kicks your ass.

On the surface of it, this is a totally natural question to ask any Fringe performer. It implies that we are constantly working on something new. It’s gratifying that the asker thinks that we are that organized and forward-thinking that of course we are already working on the thing. Even more basic, the asker is assuming that we will even be around next year and not burned out on fringing or working harder to finish that evening coursework in accounting.

So if we accept all of those assumptions, that I will be coming back to tour next year, and that I’m already working on something, and planning ahead, this is not a terrible question. But it is a weird thing to field, nonetheless, because creating, performing, and producing are three different things, involving TOTALLY different sets of brain muscles.  Usually when someone asks me that question, I am either in performing or producing mode, and you’re punching this CREATING question right in my face, and it feels a little WHOA, oh, yeah, right, if I want to do this next year, I need to get started now.

Not everyone works that way, months and months ahead, but that’s how I do. So OF COURSE I am working on something. Multiple somethings. If these were irons in a fire, the chimney would have ignited from having too many hot amazing projects spinning over the flames at once.

Logistically, it can be problematic. For example, finding time to write down notes and outlines is a challenge, I mean, finding time to think about it for more than two minutes at a time is …. okay, actually it’s not a challenge, because I have a lot of time driving between festivals. But then I have to hold onto the thought long enough to pull over safely and write it down.

There’s a big difference, too, between just fucking around and actually working on something. Like, I have a world premiere at Mainline Theatre in Montreal on April 8, 2013, of my newest show, Bang It Out: Confessions of a Sidewalk Pornographer. My draft is due to the artistic director in two months, at which point he’ll then hook me up with a director. I am WORKING on that shit, believe me. I have a couple of poster concepts and a soundtrack plan and everything. Oh, yeah, and 40 pages of rough draft and notes.

Other projects are still time sensitive, but not so tied up with other people’s action or input. Like, I am going to be in Montréal for the Fringe season in 2013, but I can’t do Bang It Out, because it will have premiered only two months prior. So what show do I do? What’s going to be fun, not involve months of rehearsal, but still be tight? I’m still working on it, but less stressed.

I’m not working on those shows, but they’re fun to think about, floating along the top edge of the turbulent stream of everything else I AM actually thinking about.

Then there is this whole other category of Things I’m Working On that I’m not really working on, they’re just idle daydreams that I kick around in my head as creative exercises, or little jokes that ballooned into outrageousness during the course of a weird conversation outside of the Fringe club at 12:45am. Like the site-specific, bring-your-own-shovel funeral. Or “Shitshow”, the theatrical equivalent of “Everybody Poops”. Or the futuristic psycho-sexual love story about the psychic escort who charges extra for interpreting your dreams even before you tell them to her. Or the solo happening where I sit naked on stage and eat a plate of spaghetti, and ask audience members to put some parmesan on from time to time. 

I’m not working on those shows, but they’re fun to think about, floating along the top edge of the turbulent stream of everything else I AM actually thinking about. I like having that top layer, and the one underneath, and the three underneath there. It makes me feel stronger to feel all these possibilities under me and around me. Whatever I’m performing, it is not the only thing that I’m good for. Whatever I’m writing, pshht, no pressure, I’ve got 10 more lined up behind it, waiting for my attention. And if I get stuck or bored or confused, I can just jump to one, get some clarity back, and jump back to the problem spot.

What am I working on for next year? Pull up a seat, yeah, and buy me a pint of the Strongbow while you’re up there. This could take a while.

Cameryn Moore's slut (r)evolution will be playing at
Victoria Fringe August 24 - September 1
Vancouver Fringe - September 6-16

camerynmoore.com