Tenth Ave recordings

YES! I finally figured it out.
This is the link to Ghost Town -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imX1AfJbzz4

Here is the link to Darker Shadows -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of0Ofw7UN0c

And lastly here is the link to Death never fucking stops -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcOdxGar7uo

Latin Fucking

(Posting this for Viv who's having a wee bit 'o difficulty posting to the Dead blog)



Please find attached an attempt at the Latin Motto....it took blinkin' ages as I went down the route of creating a really fiddly template and painting etc as my graphical skills or packages are not up to it! But in the end I am just not sure about it and it may be easier just to print some gothic text....I guess the one good thing is that it looks very old fashioned, as if around for centuries as it's a bit crap.
Lemme know what you think? We can take it or leave it, no harm done!!!

Really looking forward to it!

Vxx

Scrooge Intro

I just threw this together. It still needs some tweaking but do people like it? Are we still going for the whole voiceover thing for the Death of Scrooge intro? (Could also do some visuals if so desired).
Hope this link works. If not just go to my SiHy page on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrR-YAtnSto

cryo-cart

a rough image from Nick, re: Dog Eared Death

and then ross said:

Hi Guys- hope you are all well. Here's my list of comments, responding to Claire's post + the feedback before it.

1. DOG EARED REAPER

Thanks for this, Si.

Viv, your performance of this poem just gets better and better!

I've passed the audio to Nick to see what he'll come up with. He's given me a few rough sketches, which I'll post in a minute. We asked Nick to look at this before we developed Viv into the fortune teller character, so I'm not too sure how (if at all) these two bits could fit together.

My first thought would be that Viv would put the candle on the lectern, then pull out some paper and begin drawing at the lectern. Then we see the pictures emerge above her. Then, when she 'accidentally' draws Death, it is like seeing Death in tea-leaves. She is as shocked as we are. Cue the final..."He...is...ddog...eared...death!" bit.

What do you think?

Let me know here on the blog and then I can feedback to Nick. If we decide not to use visuals at all, its best to inform Nick now. The guy is working ostensibly for free until we make that decision.

2. DEATH NEVER STOPS

a) latin lectern: yes! yes! thats a great subtle ref. I love it.

b) cutting a verse. less sure about this. it does feel long when we roll around to the third verse, but I thought that was the funny bit- the idea that the song 'never fucking stops'. I've been deliberately hamming that boredom up, so maybe its my fault!

I'd like to hear everyone else's opinion on this. I was surprised that our audience members picked up on this. I would also suggest that the song was one of the least rehearsed items, and didn't have the proper backing track, which would have reduced our confidence a bit.

Two verses feels a little too short for me...but I think a straight vote is the fairest way. Guys?

3. CATHY / DARTH VADER

Both were picked up by our audience as perhaps being out of place. I think that this was more a question of them being new and still being learnt. I would like to keep them in and see how they look come our next rehearsal. I'm sure that they'll be awesome.

4. GHOST TOWN

One other things I'd like to suggest before I email you all your scripts- moving Ghost Town to the very very top of the show.

Assume that it takes 10 minutes between opening doors to curtain up. I say we start with the EVP video, then roll straight into Ghost Town, so people are coming in, sitting down, getting adjusted, during that film.

> Then it finishes, going straight into Fisherman's News Bulletin.

> When the lights dip for the anthem, I replace James.

> National anthem cuts out, and before the lights go up, we have the opening 4 bars of Ghost Town again, along with the TDTNL title slide.

> Music stops, lights up and I go straight into the sermon.

This stops the drag time of Ghost Town. Also the EVP stuff is very chilling walk-in music, but it isn't getting the crowd excited. Ghost Town is more fun (but in its current place, people wont talk over it because the show has already begun)

5. SCROOGE

I'm cool for Mike's bit to be done just audio, like a documentary. I think thats a good idea.

6. USHERS

I am SO UP for greeting audience on their way in. "I'm sorry for your loss", etc. I think that's really funny. Maybe all of us should be congregated in the lobby in little groups, with two in the doorway shaking hands with big watery eyes. Dram of whisky/apple juice. A few hankies get whipped out. Once we hear Ghost Town start, we head in and slowly take our seats on the stage (maybe leave the 2 on the door right till the show starts)

7. ???

Have I missed anything else? How about we say that we close the phone-lines on Saturday. At that point, I'll email the final scripts over.

Looking forward to my funeral

Disjecta Membra,

Rx

Dog Eared Death audio

Here's the link for the temprorary Dog Eared Death audio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lXZVqO0ojw&feature=channel_page

The Last Big Push

Hi Guys

Hope you are all good and great progress was made at the Word Tank TDTNL rehearsal yesterday.

A few points were covered / suggested at the rehearsal:

Ross - could we have the absolute and final script emailed to us so that we are all, pardon the pun, singing from the same hymn sheet?
Speaking of which - are we happy with our original obituatires for the order of service for 30 Sept? Or if anyone wants to post a new one up just post it up on this here blog and I'll use it!!
Dog Eared Death has been recorded - this needs sending on to Ross / Nick - so Si if we send that or post on this blog/ do that asap that would great.

A custom built lecturn is being fashioned together as we speak! - Viv and I talked about using the latin for Death Never Fucking Stops - "Nex nunquam fucking subsisto" somewhere in the show, and I wandered if it might be worth subtley embossing it on the front of the lecturn? An idea?

10 Ave recording Ghost Town and He Who Would Valiant Be on the 21st.

Ross - we also thought about the performance of Scrooge McDuck and wandered how you felt about Mike's part of it being a voice over to go with the visuals to get round some of the comments of 'over-theatricalisation' that Annabel Turpin talked about in her feedback? It would also fit nicely with the cameo of Grim Reaper (i.e.not deflect from it). We've done a recording of Mike doing this section of McDuck anyway just in case you think this is an idea.

Anyway, that's enough for now.

Watch for more posts coming thick n fast.

Claire x x x

Feedback from 24 June 2009

Hi Guys

Here is the feedback from our esteemed audience at our work in progress performance at ARC last month. Feedback has come from Chirstine Chambers, Literature Officer for Arts Council England, North East and Annabel Turpin, Chief Executive for ARC - who are, or course, our venue partner for this production.

Both gave their feedback completely independetly of each other and directly to me through chat.

Christine's feedback

Bascially loved the show - thought the hour flew past
Has loads of marketing and audience development potential
Loved all of the film and visual aspects to the show, worked really well alongside the live performance.
Adored the Grim Reaper!
Loved Autopsy
Loved the eulogoy strucutre as funeral for dead fictional characters, so felt that the Cathy piece did not fit as well as the other's and detracted a bit. Christine was also not so keen on the Darth Vader piece, as it's possibly a humour that's been a bit too 'done before'
Thought Death Never Fucking Stops was one verse too long, but thought it was great and would benefit from some dodgy church organ music in the background.
A great show that deserves to tour and be seen by many! Could really think about how to go to town in making it even more of a funeral and congregation.

Annabel's feedback:

Bascially loved the show - thought the hour flew past
On the whole thought the show was really well written, and a really eclectic mix of material
Adored the Grim Reaper piece, really strong performance and writing
Beware over-theatricality when working with spoken word. Felt that Scrooge McDuck was a strong enough poem in itself not to have one person start it and then be booted out by another - don't let theatricality over egg the pudding. Likewise with throwing the rose onto the coffin at the end of the Milk Tray piece - Annabel felt this was not needed
Enjoyed the Cathy piece, well performed and written
Could see that Darth Vader piece was a bit 'done before' but thinks it should stay in the show as it will inject a possible familiairity in its humour that could be useful for audiences it will be touring to
Loved the coffin being marked out on the stage
Death Never Fucking Stops great, but one verse too long
Really need to think about the marketing and branding of the show - it should be made more of a funeral from the start - infact, even before the audience file in. Think about lecturn, staging. Flowers? An order of service on all the seats would really benefit the show. Don't be afaid of death as a subject matter - one suggestion is for Ross and another member of the cast the shake hands with people as they come in with the words: "I'm sorry for your loss" This will, yes possibly get people to think about someone they've lost (or not), but it will alson help to establish the funeral journey from the start, which will make the humour all the more impactive later on. And of course the final poignant conclusion from Incredible Shrinking Man.
Annabel suggests we go and interview a funeral director, and find out what happens at funerals. It's a subject matter that can evoke a range of responses which could be incorporated / aired through audience development initiatives planned for discussion on 30 Sept.

That's all fo now.

Claire
x

The Fly 2

The Fly

“A contamination.”
No further explanation.
You grew twitchy, nails brittle,
Bristles on your back.
It wasn’t all bad.
You’d always been handsome,
Now you were ripped.
Rampant!
Grabbing me at the shoulders,
Hissing Let’s breed.
Then feeding on doughnuts,
Skittles, jelly beans, Sunny D.
Skin started to suffer,
Blistered, seeping puss.
Still you wouldn’t discuss it,
Or see a doctor,
Even when limbs dropped,
And you were pickling things in jars.
Then mood swings,
Trawling bars.
I left.
Took a test (though I knew)
It turned blue.
Friends said get rid, poor genes.
I made a discreet call.
Backstreet.
No questions asked.
Just cash, gown, gas.
Then shattered glass,
Grasped in clammy hands.
Swept up like a damsel, you an ogre,
Scurrying over rooftops back to the lab.
Clutching a gun,
Spitting Our son! How could you?
You swore you weren’t trying to hurt us
You had a plan to return: a merge.
Three becoming one.
Christ you were strong.
Dragging me toward The Pods.
The final crusts of Seth Brundle falling away.
Jaw dropped like an apple core,
Dissolving into acid-bile.
Flaccid fingers giving way to feelers.
Vast microphone-like eyes.
Then in the gleam of the The Pods,
A glimpse of what you’d become.
You emitted, not a scream but a buzz,
Reared up, the vibrations shattered test tubes.
I felt a kick.
I heard a click.

Friends say I look better now I’m bigger.
Shame about your man. His job took him abroad.
I show them the scan.
And they grin Don’t they look weird.
All curled up.
Kind of looks like a big maggot.

Stan Ogden

Hey Guys

Local poet and writer Sean Kelly has been inspired by what we are doing so I thought I would post this up for our parousal!! Will be posting more Producer notes as we go. Soon. xx Here's Sean's ode to Stan and Hilda Ogden - Legends of Corrie....


The Dead That Never Lived - Stan Ogden

(tune: Jerusalem)



And did the Street in Hilda's time

Rule over England's TV screens?

And did those 20 million folk

Watch as the Rovers she did clean?

And did the Woodbine on her lip

Quiver so gently as she sang?

And was her love for her husband Stan

The greatest in all TV land?

(Although he was ignorant, and mildly abusive...)



She'd bring him plates of pie and chips

Bring him his Newton Ridleys mild

And while he drank free daily pints

She bore and rais-ed his four childs

(Tho two were taken into council care)



She ne’er did cease from cleaning work

With curlers always in her hair

'Til she did bury her dear Stan

In England's green and pleasant land

CATHY

Here it is - the final(ish)

In yer one bloody novel
Yer stuck me up a freezing moor
with ice cold brothers
and a knock about lover:
his swarthy, unknown origins
kept under a caustic tongue
with other Gothic undesirables.

Did yer have to put me in this time?
The outside inside of Victorian woman,
ghost paths and scratched windows
where the wildness of my own skin
finds me an unfashionable
threat
counterpart in the male.
Did you have to make him my rock
in death?
And did I have to end up in that
song by Kate Bush?

These eyes carry two skeletal visions:
both severed from our source before we
locked our breathing.
The shaping of industry
is a mirror
that makes devil's imps of us.
He and I bear an interchangable misery.
But we do not speak of it in the now.
The words are not there to cover the
wind.

So, partriachs,
Heathcliff performs his own exorcism
unidentified and nightly.
If you strain beyond your
alloted era
to hear clues of this ritual
after midnight you might know
a true lunacy
and one with integrity.
Follow my trail of scattered fragments,
torn from a single dress
hanging from branches tipped by rain-bloodied
fingers
along supernature's path
to love without romance.

Lester Burnham (American Beauty) - 1st draft

Lester festered in his memories of how things once were.
Evey morning, for years, the glare of resentment on his wife's face was like blisters behind the eyes.
Her perseverance of perfection was projected on everything static, except him.
He came to realise that he was still who he was and she had become something else.
A frozen soul with motions that crack in clockwork.

And the weeks that seemed like days that passed between he and his daughter, where words were exchanged, but nothing actually said.
He watched and pondered and wilted into the past where nostalgia embraced him warm, familiar hugs and cuddles

He gained and he lost
Remembered and forgot
Until he was who he wanted to be - who he was
But then all was lost
Perhaps, the ripple rings in coagulating pools on imaculate kitchen tiles tells us a sharp truth
You are who you have become and, one way or another, you can't go backwards

The Dead That Never Lived That Never Die

Death is a curious thing. An inevitable step into an unknowable territory. The only guarantee in an otherwise unpredictable existence.
But what if death, or more to the point, staying dead was not certain?
What if you were forever forced to return to Earth, reincarnated in the body you died in, never able to reach the ultimate ease of the final relax?
Let us take a moment to remember some of the unhappy souls who have left us time and time again. To name but a few: Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers and of course Charles Lee Ray, better known as the “Lakeshore Strangler”, even better known as Chucky the demonic doll.
Through the decades they have been: shot, burned, impaled, drowned, decapitated, blown up and torn apart. On occasion they have even been known to be dragged to the very depths of Hell.
But they always return.
And why?
Some say it’s because evil can never truly be destroyed. Others claim that they must just really love killing people. But I blame the writers, the directors and the producers. How many more times will these poor, defenceless mass murderers be forced to retread old ground? How many more times must they die before they can enjoy the rest that only death delivers? Maybe they will never truely die. Maybe they are cursed to return again and again, each time losing a little more dignity, each time dying for, what always seems like, the final time.
Chucky probably said it best the fifth time he died- “I'll be back, I always come back. But dying is such a bitch.”

music

liking the stuff going up here. i'll comment on each one today.

re: music

lets see how much we get done on the blog this week, but I'm not sure we will require the band until we've worked out the rest of the show.

i expect day 1 to be ideas and development, day 2 to be constructing the show and rehearsals, day 3 to be technicals and rehearsals.

so, at best, they should come in on the final day of rehearsals and then we can brief them on what we want. then they can rehearse in time for the gig itself.

so, what do we know?......

well, i think the guys should rehearse Ghost Town, but cut it a few minutes shorter. i'll edit down the video based on the new version they provide.

They should rehearse "he who would valient be"

There's the ominous intro for Mike Death

And a song of their choosing to play as the audience leaves

...that's a start!

but, regarding other songs- I think we should discuss it together as a cast when we meet on day1

R

I did it my way: as personally eulogised by 3 heroines of Victorian literature

Here's the idea. This writing is by no means finished, but it will give you an idea of what I am driving at.

Sound track from brass section: Trumpet? solo of Blake's "Jerusalem"
Spotlight on each ' reader ' at a time. I think 3 guys could potentially do it?
An interesting inconguity?

JANE EYRE:

I was a good girl,
I took slow steps
acquiring friends and privations,
my heart as locked away
as your mad wife.
The friends and foes
make their footsteps through my story.
I come in first person
and you are my last, Rochester,
with your Byronic self-burning.

I plucked your ass to safety
and ran screaming from
torn wedding dresses and
my own conscience.
I should have dumped you,
darling bigamist,
but came back in the end, steadfast, true
to the climbs of my more enduring nature.
But in these times, kid aside,
some say I should have pulled out
yer other eye.


EMMA:

Deliberate,
sugar - coated
anti- heroine
subervise in my world
of drawing room romance
and disliked even by
my own author.
Some say I stuck my
pretty nose too far
up other people's petticoat
biz.
But let me walk Earth again
and I'll write it large for
'Sun's 3am'
So I made mistakes?
Deal with it.
Find my tombstone
you'll find I
hitched my biggest critic.


CATHY: WUTHERING HEIGHTS

In yer one bloody novel
Yer stuck me up a freezing moor
with ice cold brothers
and a knock about lover:
his swarthy, unknown origins
kept under a caustic tongue
with other Gothic undesirables.

Did yer have to put me in this time?
The outside inside of Victorian woman,
ghost paths and scratched windows
where the wildness of my own skin
finds me an unfashionable
threat
couterpart in the male.
Did you have to make him my rock
in death?
And did I have to end up in that
song by Kate Bush?

He Never Brought Me Roses

Music and visuals:

A montage of The Milk Tray Advert

I want you dressed head to toe in black
on a soundtrack of smooth
Come to me on a gleaming steed.
Fast...but not furious.
Run, ride, swim, dive,
make me feel alive!
The deepest waters,
the roughest rapids
over the rocks
under the ice
from each impaasable cravasse
to satin clad and generous pillows
voile panels swaying in the breeze
I wait each night
centres soft and hard
but they broke the mould
And so I wait....

How did you die? Multi - media suggestions
End paraody: The Flake advert, the traditional telephone leading to Vader's obscene phonecall...?

Viv Wiggins 2009

Working title: Zombie news report

Good evening.

This is Edward Simmonds. Rpeorting live from outside the White House, where a remarkable new law has just been passed by the US government. The Equal Rights for Zombies Act has been the hot topic in the press in the lead up to this moment.

It all began during the zombie outbreak of 2012, as I'm sure you will remember. When the entire earth was submerged in The Undead. All of those who suvived headed underground. It was these underground havens that determined scientists proved in 2016 that Zombies were capable of learning. And now after 50 years of turmoil and hardship, we see the first US zombie citizen Graham Blaaar cating his vote for the elections. A momentous step forward to both human and zombie alike.

Robbie Hurst 2009

The Fly

"Something went wrong in the lab today. Contamination."



No further explanation, he grew twitchy, finger nails bitten to the quick. Thick hair on his back.

It wasn't all bad. Christ, he was fit. Rampant. Fun for a while, but I soon needed a break. I heard he was trawling bars, brawling. Ripped some guys wrist off in an arm wrestle. A week later, a rasping phonecall. I gasped when I saw him. Blisters, lesions, spitting up bile. All the time he swore he could fix it. I didn't tell him I was late. The next day, bug eyed pickling things in jars, limbs. He wouldn't see a doctor, not even when his cock dropped off.



I was getting bigger. I pictured it inside curled up like a gub. Friends say get rid. Who wants a kid with wings?





Mike Edwards 2009

Darth Vader: Yoda's Eulogy

Here to pay our respects to late Darth Vader we are.

Enlisted for training in the ways of the force at an early age he did; against better judgement of mine. Escpecially young Vader not immune to youthful mischief. Judgement this brought him, not helped by certain disabilities. Suspect in string of obscene phone calls his heavy breathing make him. Still only just learning, mind tricks only work on weak minded much to cost of poor woman whose knee aches still.

Hard to convince image is nothing, Vader became as he grew older. Dark helmet hard make one look? Think that what made him I know not. Still chancellor seemed to like it. With that he would now show off size of light saber. Insistent he was on red one.

Darth Vader: fiery in life as in death he be. Fucked he now is. Truly and well.


James Fisher 2009

Afterlife: The Party by James Fisher

(In the afterlife one of the spirits gently blushes while all the others sing to it Happy Death Day to You. At the end of the song they call for a speech).

Now, this is the spirit talking:

I really don't know what to say to this kind surprise other than Thank You. The wandering, solitary nature of my manisfetation might not make me the easiest soul to spend eternity with, but I truly am lucky to be resting with the souls that I do.

One moment I found myself in the company of you fine spirits and just the moment before I was standing face to face with a speedin 10 ton lorry.

As well as the thanks I already give for this party, I would also like to thank those who made it possible for me to be here. I would like to thank my undertaker, I would like to thank the vicar, I would like to thank my gravedigger...

(Chokes up)

I'm sorry, I always do this when I look back. I would also like to thank Madam Rosa who somewhere back there helps me in my contact with the previous world...

Medium (off): Don't mention it.

...and assures those who unfortunately cannot be with us yet. But when one day they do find their way here I may rest assured that they will be assured that I really have been alright.

Thank you.

Revising the current Dead material - suggestions from Claire, James and Viv

Hello Ross n all

We are just having a brainstorm in purgatory here - that place where the dead have not quite decided where they are going yet.

Anyway, we would like to make some suggestions about revising the current material for the show.

We think that Scrooge McDuck is a tad too long and could do with some editing - not loads, but could we look at this again to see what could be removed from the piece. This is based on feedback we had from the audience about the night in June last year. We are at risk of losing the audience if we put a piece that is too long after the length of Ghost Town.

Thinking about Ghost Town, we also think this was tiny bit long and could do with some cropping - say 30 secs or so. Also, no Citizen Kane in the footage? e.g. Rosebud - the most famous death scene in cinema? Think this should defo go in!

We think that the Grim Reaper's scythe needs serious 'blinging up' for the 22nd. Claire to sort.

It might be worth thinking about Charles Manson again and not totally removing it. The video of his poem e.g '...the truth is in your slaughter houses...' etc is particularly poignant. All it needs is some kind of intro into establishing Manson as truth twisiting itself into fiction. Also consider placing this after Autopsy, leading the newsreader's poem into news footage i.e. Manson.

Sweet as.
Ross / Panda - wot yer say? You are The Gaffers on this one.
xx Claire, Viv and The Fisher Man (a.k.a The Assassin)

The Nightmare

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xrU1fekgOY

Dates With Death

Hi Fellow Dead-Stars

The Dead do not rest - they stalk the Earth once more.

And the abosulute schedule is thus:

June
(NOT July as it says in the blog below)

We will be working at ARC in Stockton in June on the following dates:
Monday 22 June
Tuesday 23 June
Wednesday 24 June

All of the dates will be similar to last year (a 10am - 5pm run each day). I would like to suggest that we have a showing of work in progress to a small audience (i.e ARC team and a couple of others I'd like to suggest) to kep momentum, not go home feeling a bit bereft and, crucially, get some feedback.

September
We will be working at ARC again on:
Tuesday 29 Sept - full tech run
Wednesday 30 Sept - It's showcase time!! This is when venues and promoters will come to see the show, and we utilise the day to develop a tour plan from this, taking on board concerns from punters from the outset about how we go about marketing and audience development, for which I have some cunning suitably funeric ideas up my shroud sleeve! I will taking the lead on this day and will keep you updated on plans when they are developing.

It is really important all cast members can come to ALL of these dates. I'm really pleased to say that we will be having, as Ross has already mentioned, a brass section with us again (albeit a lot smaller) and Panda will be joining us again for 2 of the days in June is Assistant Director capacity.

As already said, please get your ideas up on this blog!!!!!

In memoriam

Claire
xxxxxxxxxxxx

GET UP so i can kill you again

Hello again, members of The Dead That Never Lived blogosphere.

As you may know (you’re checking old blogs, so I will assume you do know). The Dead That Never Lived has received a small pot of funding. This money is so we can give the show an overhaul, then do a showcase event in September. Success at this showcase would then lead to a national tour in 2010.

We have three days of rehearsal coming up in June, at the end of which we have to have an all new “Tour Model” TDNL, ready to hit the road.


1. CAST

The first problem is whittling down the cast. We have to produce a tight cast unit that can effectively tour. Our original cast of 13 just wouldn’t be able to work on the road.

Because one of the primary goals of our application is the development of poetry in the North East, I think that some of the work developed by non North-East writers will have to be absorbed by the North East cast.

That would leave the cast as:

Viv
Steve
Simon
Robbie
Claire
Me
Mike Edwards
and
The Fisher Man

You can see I’ve also removed our actors from the cast (Anglea/Amanda/Shirley) as I think that we need to concentrate on developing the acting skills of the poets. Angela, Amanda and Shirley all helped us a great deal with our stagecraft, but I think we need to take the skills they taught us and apply them ourselves.

Both Moxy and Tim produced fantastic work and were extremely inspiring writers and performers. It’s gutting to lose them, and I really want to keep their work in the show.

My initial thoughts would be to ask Steve to try out for “The Impossible Deathbed Lament of Scrooge McDuck”

and Claire or Viv for “Dog-Eared Death”. Claire, I don’t know if you’d rather take a more Producer-type role for this production, whatever you feel most comfortable with.

2. MATERIAL

We also need some new material for the show. So far, the show has:

1. "George Aligayah" by Jon Osbourne (performed by James Fisher)
2. "Sermon Intro" by Ross Sutherland (performed by Ross Sutherland)
3. "The Impossible Deathbed Lament Of Scrooge McDuck" by Tim Clare (performed by ?????????)
4. "Snow White finally succumbs" by Moxy (video)
5. "Andy Lippincott" by Jeff price (performed by Viv Wiggins)
6. "Rutger Haur" by Ross Sutherland (performed by Simon Hymes)
7. "Lon Cheney" by Claire Morgan (video)
8. "Grim Reaper" by Mike Edwards (performed by Mike Edwards)
9. "Autopsy" by Ross Sutherland (performed by Robbie Hurst, Viv Wiggins, Steve Urwin & Claire Morgan)
10. "Dog-eared death" by Moxy (performed by ????????)
11. "Death Never Fucking Stops" by Ross Sutherland & Mike Edwards (performed by entire cast)
12. "Sermon close" by Ross Sutherland (performed by Ross Sutherland)

(Simon and Robbie’s "Election" video, I’d like to use as a viral video to promote the show, but not include in the show itself.)

I reckon that the content comes to about 45 minutes. Another 15 minutes should be easy enough to fill. Before we meet in July, I’d like to encourage you guys to submit works here on the blog that you think might be suitable.

Ideally, we’re looking for work that directly engages with the theme:

A SERIES OF EULOGIES FOR DEAD FICTIONAL CHARACTERS.

rather than poems that just deal with Death in the abstract. Scrooge McDuck is the model, really.

However, submit everything. Better to have too much to choose from than not enough.

Similarly, if you hear a poem read at an open mic night that seems on-theme, befriend the poet and ask them for a copy.

One last thing here: consider writing a piece that could include the brass band. It would be great to keep a band in the show, but we need to find a way of incorporating what they do into the core of the performance.

Hopefully, by the time we get to rehearsal, we’ll have those new poems in place.
3. THE IS NO THREE

That’s it! I’m really looking forward to working with you guys again. You can send me a private email at rossgsutherland@yahoo.com, or call me on 07719446025. I don’t have my diary here in front of me, I’ll ask Claire to put up a post with the exact schedule.

Keep checking back here for more info…please submit poems, and please comment on each others poems, and for god sake, don’t die.

Disjecta Membra,
Ross Sutherland