Vintage, Verse, Vanilla and a Vulture

The Boulevard Theatre’s fundraiser last night was well-attended. I’d made my way to the former Schwartz's on KK for Boulevard's Vintage, Verse and Vanilla having been given the opportunity to perform as part of the evening of poetry following food, wine and fundraising auction . . . the atmosphere at the former Schwartze’s on South KK was quite pleasant, but I was there for the poetry , , , 

With the auction wrapping up near the end of the evening, everyone had filed into the Boulevard Theatre itself for the poetry. There I was with 9 other people . . . a large number of them actors . . . we stood in the lobby outside a thoroughly packed theatre, getting called to the stage one by one. Between the mid ‘90’s and the early part of this decade, I’d performed over a dozen places on poetry open mics all over Milwaukee. Perfroming at the Boulevard was a bit odd for me.

First offwith the traditional poetry reading, the readers sit amongst the audience, taking turns making it to the stage for performance. At the Boulevard, the ten of us sat onstage, taking turns standing to perform as the Boulevard’s Mark Bucher announced us . . . which felt a bit odd until the size of the Boulevard sunk-in. The space is small enough with a large group of people that everyone ends up onstage. It’s a highly communal environment whether you’re onstage or not . . . and having never actually performed at the Boulevard before, the small size of the stage struck me from the other side. There really ISN’T much space up there. Actors always do a remarkable job of making there appear to be more space up there than there actually is . . . performing poetry/spoken word, I’m used to far bigger, far emptier spaces.

Also: it was a bit odd sharing the stage with people I’d written about in reviews before . . . and more than that it was an honor. David Flores did nearly flawless Ogden Nash. Beth Monhollen did a brief, upbeat bit of verse. Ruth  Schudson gracefully flitted through a reading of something a bit longer. Dan Mooney talked about a recent surgery involving a vulture. I sat next to Nigel Wadewe vaguely seemed to remember each other from performance open mics in the past. It wasn’t until either of us performed that we recognized each other. I’ve known over a hundred performance poets over the years . .  many of them only briefly. It’s not until I hear the words that I recognize them . . .It felt a bit more comfortable up there for me with him there, as I felt a bit out of place on a stage amongst legitimate equity actors. . . There was a lot of memorable stuff spoken that night, but Dan Mooney’s stood out for mereminded me of Gray’s AnatomySpalding Gray’s spoken word piecenot the TV show . . . Mooney’s got talent for storytelling. And the picture of him in a hospital gown with a vulture over his shoulder was an interesting visual to end things on . . .