Remembering "A Night to Note"

In continuation of the tribute to the unusual artistic collaboration with R. Sky Palkowitz, I present some of my favorite videos like this one:

It's from the online web series Sky and I created called "A Palkowitz Now!"  This one was from a performance we did together in January 2003 to a very packed audience (you'll see them sitting on the stage) as part of the Theatre of Note's Annual 24 Hour fund-raising marathon. Sky's parents, the quirky and incredible Dave & Rochelle happened to be in town visiting which made it all the more exciting. We ended up with the prime time slot for performing and had the audience totally captivated and singing along with us by the end.

A little background: I had just finished taking my very first 8 week training workshop with Rachel Rosenthal in the fall of 2002 and had presented a final piece in December called "Crazy Ungrateful Human" in which I discuss and deal with my various issues with humanity and desire to be an alien - all the while painting words on a backdrop and eventually myself. I had also just shaved my head for the first time ever on New Year's eve as part of honoring a vision/idea I had to paint my left hand and apply it to the back of my head as a sign I was guided by Art (aka the Hand of God/the Beyond/the Universe).

Sky and I talked about combining "Crazy Ungrateful Human" with her comedy routine/ character sketches into one large piece and help each other with props and costume changes. It worked out splendidly - and we even got Sky's mother Rochelle to join us onstage. We coached her (coaxed her) the night before to join us and it really propelled the piece to another level. Sky pretended to have a feel a disturbed vibration from an audience member and brought Rochelle up to talk about her issues with Dave and bees in her ceiling. It took most people by surprise - they didn't realize until the end that Rochelle was really a planned feature of our performance and had been planted in the audience so that Sky could sing the catchy "Vacuuming Bees" for the rousing finale.

It was such a wild night, and as noted at the end of the video - full of the high of being on stage, and the low of having my car broken into and Rochelle's jacket stolen. It proved to be a most memorable, "Night to Note" and definitely a highlight of our collaboration together.