London: The Half-Way Point

Today marks the beginning of Week 3 of our 4-week long stint at the New End Theatre in London. It's an odd check-in point. It feels like I've been here for months, but then it also feels like time's been flying.

I think the month of June spoiled Stacie and me. We were able to do a bit of traveling around Europe, and our show performances were part of festivals that organized everything for us. Now, in London, I perform Tuesday-Sunday, a total of 28 shows. Although the theatre has done marketing and reviews have been quite good, we still don't have a large captivated audience that we can bring in each night to see the show. Our target audience: London. We've tried flyering, but it seems that most people just want a picture with me dressed up as the mascot then actually coming out to see the show. We've put up posters in shops and restaurants. We've flyered cars in the parking lot. (I've always hated when people put things on my car, yet now I've become one of them!) All in all, as my dear friend Jessica reminds me, just getting a small number of people to come out each night to see a show about some American guy who nobody knows in England is quite remarkable. And as my other dear friend Shana reminds me, every artist goes through some sort of hurdle like this, and only after you can power through it can you really reap the benefits.

Wow, this blog post has quickly turned into a cheesy downer, huh? I'm having an amazing time here and I've realized in the past couple of weeks that performing the show night after night is exactly what I want and what I should be doing right now in my life. So, if I have to live off a couple baguettes everyday as my food intake, fine!

I thought this picture adequately describes this post. Sorry if it's too frightening for you.