Moebius Theatre

It’ll Be Spring Someday

Even a hibernating bear gets up every so often, turns around, checks the weather, and goes back to sleep. Well, here we are. Moebius is still waiting out Covid lockdown but there are stirrings of life.
Your Deep State Officers for 2021

President: E. Michael Blake (this was decided by the election in December but we had to get Ted Cruz to certify it). Mike is your all-purpose contact for venting, pleading and grumbling and he will be so glad I said that.

Treasurer: Peter Pollack. Talk to him about the money.

Secretary: Your humble and disobedient servant, Lisa Golladay. Send her (I like to talk about myself in the 3rd person) any news you’d like to share with other Moebius members.

Director of Development: Dan Ley. He will be talking to you about online workshops and other activities.

Webster: Penelope Skrzynski. She is the lucky person who will try to keep the moebiustheatre.net website updated and packed with exciting content. Suggestions always welcome.

The Next Zoom Meeting

… is scheduled for Monday, April 19 at 7:00 p.m. We’ll email you the Zoom invite so keep an eye on your inbox.

It’s time to start throwing ideas at the wall and see what sticks

We have spoken briefly with Helen Montgomery, chair of Chicon 8. Which, we are all assuming, will be a normal Worldcon at the Hyatt Regency Chicago over Labor Day weekend 2022. She says they want to have lots of live theatre events. You know what this means. What sort of a show do we offer to Chicon? This is early; we have time to shoot the breeze before floating an actual pitch. Any and all ideas are welcome. Mike Blake will be our liaison with Chicon for now.

Meanwhile

On the one hand there’s performing in front of a live audience, which is not a thing yet. At the other extreme there’s sitting on our sofas streaming Netflix, alone, in the dark. What about the middle path? Some groups are doing shows online. Our own Brian Sebby, the hardest working man in (virtual) show business, filed this report from the front:

I am a part of InterCity Improv, which started off as a long form jam on Sunday nights at 8pm, but has now expanded to include an Open Mic, Short Form Jam, Saturday afternoon casual jam, and we’ll be trying out an all-music jam.
The main page right now is our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/intercityimprov

However, we will be launching an actual website soon at: https://www.intercityimprov.com

(Right now it redirects to Facebook.)

All of the events are on Zoom, although some of them are streamed to Facebook.

We also have a Youtube channel that some of the streams have been posted to:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7ghD6Nk9uIIBzBKD2IzG3w

(Please subscribe so we can get a real URL once we hit 100 subscribers.)

Another group that is doing some really great shows online is ComedySportz Chicago, which has shows every Friday and Saturday at 7:30 and 9:30pm on Twitch:

https://twitch.tv/csznchicago

There is a lot going on right now online – I mostly know about the improv, but there’s also a lot of comedy, standups, and other theatrical productions. For instance, Lifeline Theater did a really good online version of Pride and Prejudice a few months ago.

Thanks, Brian, for shaming the rest of us 😉

Whither Moebius?

This has become a joke to include on agendas because, you know, same old question every year. This year is different. The pandemic paradoxically opens up some new opportunities to collaborate. We could try online shows, readings, improvs, projects to stay awake. And of course writing. It’s always a good time to write. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been thinking of 2020 as a sabbatical year and giving myself permission to play solitaire like that’s an accomplishment, but now it’s 2021. More to come.

— Lisa Golladay

Secretary and Czarina of Communications, Moebius Theatre