But the highlight of the performance was the attendance of Margot Adler, the NPR reporter. She saw the show, interviewed audience, and then had me, Chris Gibson, and Buzz Moran come into the studio for an interview for a story for Weekend Edition. But when all was said and done–the story ended up airing TODAY on All Things Considered. Amazing! For me, it really was a dream-come-true. I even sent myself an email to remind myself that “today is the best it’s ever been.” It’s true!

“Sometimes it’s important to just have an escape,” Neulander says. “Life can be hard, and I feel like right now, in the times we are in, it really can’t hurt to have an opportunity for a couple of hours — for people from 7 to 70 and older — to go in the theater and escape from their daily lives and go on a pure, unadulterated adventure.”

Not mentioned in the story, but deserving a shout-out: Ray Colgan, who came up with the idea of a sci-fi radio play at Little City back in ’96; Chad Nichols, Jessica Reisman, Julia Edwards, and Lisa D’Amour, the other writers; Graham Reynolds, composer; and of course, Tim Doyle, the artist.

This weekend we play Proctors in Schenectady for four performances, then off to New England, Delaware and New Jersey.

Complete tour info HERE.

On Wednesday, Nov. 9, the group arrived in Duluth MN, a pretty town right on the shores of Lake Superior. At any moment it might snow (which had me worried because they were traveling in a van with a trailer, not exactly the safest winter weather driving situation). They loaded in the show that night from 9 to midnight, did their sound check the next morning, then a performance for school kids that afternoon, and the public performance that night. Not so bad, so far, right, but then…

They drove three hours to Collegeville MN, got five hours of sleep, and then the team split up. The performers and Jessie went to an elementary school at 7:30 AM to perform act one and then lead sound effects workshops while Augie went to the venue to begin the load in process. That afternoon they sound checked at the venue, then performed that night and then…

Drove another three hours to Morris MN, loaded in the next morning, sound checked that afternoon and immediately led a sound effects workshop, then performed for the public that night. They had a great house–nearly sold out–which helped a bunch, but by this time the team was exhausted. Worse, apparently the hotel in Morris was a real rat-trap. There are only two hotels in that town and both of them are pretty awful. Oliver told me he slept in his clothes on top of the covers. Danu made the mistake of pulling the sheets off the bed. Yecch!

The presenter in Morris told me, though, that the audience already was talking about the sequel. We’ll have to figure out a better hotel situation for next time!

The team was so exhausted they decided to go straight to Storm Lake IA to get a full day off before loading the show into the theatre at Buena Vista University. That almost worked out except the presenter there had only just begun to figure out the tech requirements (even though my team had thought they had worked this stuff out). In particular, the venue was still wondering if they needed to provide a projection system (!). So Jessie and Augie met with them in person to get it sorted out. And sort it out, they did, with everyone getting along at the end (whew!). Meanwhile the performers got a sense for Storm Lake, which smells like farm country (i.e. manure) because they farm things there, but is actually quite a pretty little town. The next night they knocked it out of the park against all odds. You see, the show was just for students; part of an 11-show series the kids are required to see. So at the top of the show, these nice young adults acted like a mob of 14-year-olds, hooting, cat-calling. At intermission, the performers didn’t want to continue. But they really won the crowd over (see the comment in the Mysterion blog on this site) and at the end of the night the presenter let us know that he’d book the sequel. Awesome.

Me at Austin Comic Con

That Thursday, November 17, I flew to St. Louis to meet up with the rest of the group. When I landed, Chris, Danu, Jessie, and Kenny were all at the zoo, the FREE St. Louis Zoo. I met them there, after they had been to the monkey house and the lizard house. Awesome.

Sound Check at the Edison

The 10-Story Slide

The next day we headed to the St. Louis arch. Also awesome. I decided that I’d take Sarah and the kids back to St. Louis next summer!

Finding His Inner 12-year-old

The next day we all flew home (except Oliver who drove the van back). Then, to the Long Center for our homecoming performance.

The W serves up liquid Pang Pang

All told, the Fall 2011 tour was a huge success. Seven of the nine performing arts centers and theaters are already talking with us about bringing in the sequel. Thousands of people saw the show. And we now have a whole bunch of homes away from home.

We get December off, then we’re back on the road in January for most of the spring. Also in the spring, look for a work-in-process presentation of Book Two: Robot Planet Rising!

Happy holidays!

The past few days have been a whirlwind. Compared to the week before, which was spent mostly between gigs, the tempo has really ramped up. We played the Music Box in Chicago, drove 10 hours, played the Heights in Minneapolis, then a day off in Minneapolis, then last night it was Duluth, tonight Collegeville, tomorrow night Morris (all in Minnesota), then to Storm Lake IA, before heading to St. Louis at the Edison. That’s the last gig before we head back to Austin. More on that in a moment.

Jessie was able to score us a great deal on a hotel just outside the Chicago city limits–a W-affiliate and the price per night was the year of the person’s birth (so $69 a night for me and Buzz). The only problem was that the hotel was a 25-minute drive from the venue. So, once at the venue, we were in town all day. Not a huge deal (Chicago is a pretty great town to be stuck in), but after the gig there was the question of how people would get back to the hotel if they didn’t hop in the van (not a cheap cab ride, to say the least).

The gigs in Chicago and Minneapolis were a real crap-shoot from my perspective. Unlike the rest of the tour, which is being presented by various performing arts centers with subscribers and substantial marketing budgets, these two shows were in classic movie theaters with no marketing budgets, depending pretty much on word-of-mouth alone. The chances of anyone showing up at all were slim.

Jason's curtain speech at the Music Box in Chicago

I quickly apologized to Justin, the guy who was helping with sound. He seemed genuinely grateful that I did, so I was extra glad that I took responsibility.

Moreover, it was Cami’s first performance in public doing the Foley.

The night before, she, Buzz, and I began rehearsal at 8 PM and didn’t end until about 1:30 AM. We had fun, but it was exhausting, to say the least. By the end we could barely keep our eyes open. Would she be able to pull it off? She still needed to run some stuff in sound check.

Well, sound check happened a lot later than we hoped because of the challenges of having a minimal crew and a limited sound system. Instead of having 2 hours to run trouble spots, we had about 20 minutes.

And there was still the question of whether anyone would show up…

So we were greatly surprised when about 150 people came out to see us at the Music Box! That’s a lot of people for a 4:30 screening on a Sunday!

Cami really knocked it out of the park, too. Sure, there were a few moments when she struggled to keep up, but no one noticed except the cast. And she played it with panache! She was simply a joy to watch.

Of the 150, about 15 were friends of people in the cast, including my own Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Stephen. I had dinner with them after the show and it was great catching up. Then I met up with Chris and had a beer at the bar next to the theatre. Just as we were starting to wonder how we would get back to the hotel, Oliver texted to say he was around the corner, and, literally, as Chris’ friends headed away from the bar the van pulled up and we went back to the hotel.

The next day, we left Buzz in Chicago (he flew home that evening) and the rest of the day was spent mostly in the van on the way to Minneapolis. Jessie got us a hotel about 4 minutes away from the theatre, but four minutes north. It was a total wasteland. And the hotel itself was weird. Our room windows looked not to the outside, but to a courtyard in the middle of the hotel. Lit not by sunlight, but by fluorescents. Waking up at 8 in the morning the next day, I was like “man it’s a rainy day”, but really there was no way to tell what the weather was like.

I spent most of the day working in my hotel room (with no roommate), so I was pretty grumpy by the time I had to head to the theatre.

Setting up at The Heights

Because of the nature of the show, I was the one who actually sold tickets at the box office. Starting at about 6:15, I was inundated! It was great to meet each and every person who came to see the show. There was one couple, though, who had come to see Moneyball and were surprised to discover it wasn’t playing. They had arranged to meet friends at the theatre and I convinced them to stay for our show. When their friends showed up, however, the guy friend rolled his eyes. You could tell he really didn’t want to see this show.

But the show! The sound was great, more than 100 people came out to see it, and Cami’s performance was awesome! The audience was the most vocal we had had. They laughed at every gag, they cheered Ben’s “librarian” speech, they applauded Jean-Pierre’s final monologue, they cheered when Zygon exploded, and they leapt to their feet at the curtain call. It’s that kind of response that makes the whole tour worth it and we ate up every moment of it.

Jessie and Danu are going to make it after all

The next morning I flew back to Austin for Austin Comic Con (which is this weekend). The cast got to spend most of the day in Minneapolis proper (what a great city!). And last night they played Mitchell Auditorium in Duluth….

We play the Long Center in Austin on November 22. It’s going to be an awesome show! Tickets HERE.

Yeah.

So I’d like to point out that so far the hotels have been really great. Right now I’m typing this from a W in Chicago, for example. Living the dream!

The intimate McPherson Opera House

The morning we arrived the office staff kind of avoided us, so I started wondering what was up. Jessie told me that what was up was the fact that they had sold only three tickets to the show that night. Yes. Three tickets!

To clarify: I provide the venues with artwork, copy, a marketing manual, and any creative input they’d like, but it’s up to the venue to actually promote the show. Some venues are great at that part and some venues, well…

We had talked about making this a family Halloween blowout, so I figured we’d have a crowd of at least 200 at the show. Needless to say, I was a little taken aback by the advance sales.

But then, a Halloween miracle happened. About 250 people came to the door that night to buy tickets. And we were told afterwards by the venue managers that the audience was the most effusive at the curtain call that they had ever seen in the two years of operating the venue. They literally would not let the performers leave the stage. After, we spent about two hours meeting the folks who came out. One person even said that she might make the trek to Austin on June 8 for the premiere of Book Two: Robot Planet Rising because that was her birthday!

From McPherson, we then had our biggest stretch of driving ahead of us. Two full days in the van, stopping overnight in Des Moines and then onto Madison WI. Not much to tell there except that everyone got along great–which I can tell you is pretty awesome in and of itself. This team of people has incredible chemistry. Maybe that’s why we’re having so much fun on the road!

The beautiful Capitol Theatre at the Overture Center in Madison WI

In Madison, a few key things happened that would change the nature of the tour forever.

Well, that’s a little dramatic, but there were a few cool things that happened in Madison. First, Cami Alys joined the tour. Cami is Buzz’s replacement starting tonight in Chicago, actually. She and Buzz will split doing Foley for the duration of the tour this season. The other thing was that Shana Merlin rejoined the cast for the one performance at the Overture Center in Madison. Shana originated the role of Molly last year at the premiere of the Live-Action Graphic Novel version of the show at the Long Center in Austin. Shana’s husband is from Madison, so it seemed like the perfect tie-in.

Chris Gibson and his new best friend at Ella's Diner

The coolest part of the school assembly for me was the kids’ reaction. They applauded at the end of every scene–a real sign that they were enjoying it. One staff member told me that she was planning to watch about the first 10 minutes of the show but then got sucked up into the story telling and before she knew it, 50 minutes had flown by. I love it!

That afternoon I had a great chat with Susan Crofton, the staff member who booked us into the Overture Center. They are thinking about bringing the show back, maybe in rep with the sequel, which would be a dream for me. But then the craziest thing happened. She asked me if I knew a friend of hers from Austin: Katey Gilligan. I couldn’t believe my ears. Katey’s daughter Talia is my daughter Piper’s best friend. But even more crazily, Katey’s ex-husband is named Ben Willcott (yes, there’s a real Ben) and his face was even the model for the character in the Nemesis comic-book series. Perhaps Madison was destiny…

Now is probably a good time to mention that Buzz is originally from Madison and, better, Nov. 4, the day of the show, was his mom’s 74th birthday!

Jason and Buzz sing "Happy Birthday" to Vi Moran

After the show, one 11-year-old boy told me that Nemesis was the “best movie I’ve ever seen.” Awesome.

The next morning we drove to Chicago (that was yesterday) and tonight we’ve got a performance at the Music Box.

Next Tuesday, it’s the Heights in Minneapolis. Then, three other Minnesota venues, down into Iowa, then to St. Louis. Finally, we head back to Austin on Nov. 22 to perform again at the Long Center. Please let your friends know about the tour and especially the Long Center show. I’d really love to sell that out as a homecoming for our incredible first month on the road!

Anyway, I feel like I can rest easy now. Sure, it’s only one person’s opinion. But they put that opinion out into the world. From KCMetropolis.org:

The show was so polished that it almost seemed as though a) live-action graphic novels were actually a standard style of performance, and b) Neulander and company had perfected it.

Woot!

Read the entire review HERE.

Raining in Wellington

l to r: Oliver Freeman, Jessie Douglas, Buzz Moran, Chris Gibson (in hat), Agustin Frederic, Danu Uribe, Kenny Redding, David Higgins

l to r: Mysterion, Jessie, Kenny at the Lied Center of Kansas

Ann and Erika strike the set at the Lied

Tonight, Halloween, we play McPherson KS. They say they’re no “fear” in “McPherson”. We’ll have to see about that….

The Angels at Bass Hall

We had a fantastic show in Fort Worth last night. First of all, the venue is outstanding. Somehow they made a 2,000-seat venue feel intimate. The acoustics were incredible. And the Monday night crowd was AWESOME! When Jeremy Byrd, the programmer there, invited us to play the hall about a year ago, I was so honored. My wife and I visited Fort Worth back in 1998 right after Bass Hall was completed and I told her how amazing it would be to actually do a show there. Now, all these years later, I actually did it. Holy mackerel! Awesome! Here’s what one person emailed me last night:

I took my two grandsons (8 and 6) to see your show at the Bass tonight, and I must say it was a grand slam! I expected it to be good, and it was much better than I expected. The boys were mesmerized by it – I think for a good 1/3 of the show they never noticed the actors because they were so glued to the artwork. When the six year old realized there were “real people” doing the voices, he became all the more impressed. Of course, you ended up costing me an extra $100 what with t-shirts and comic books and such – but it was all well worth it.

I just wanted to say thanks for a great show. I can’t wait for part two to come out. I wish you well in your endeavors.

Everyone on the trip is in great spirits and we just can’t wait to get to the next venue: the Ritz in rural Wellington, Texas, on the way to Lawrence, Kansas.

Jason Neulander in his WAA booth

At the Midwest conference last year my booth had great placement which meant that most everyone had to walk by it going in and out of the trade floor. I had a lot of people see the artwork and come up to my booth asking what the heck The Intergalactic Nemesis was without having heard of it. Well, this year in Seattle, the tide had begun to turn. First off, people had heard about the show because of the Pollstar cover story (trade mag for concert touring industry). Second, people were aware because their colleagues in the Midwest and Northeast had booked the show for 2011-12. So, rather than curiosity seekers, we (my manager John and I) had people coming to my booth with intention. In fact, at the end of the three days of conference, more than 40 venues had expressed serious interest in the show, including four from Hawaii (Hawaii!), two from Alaska (Alaska!), and four from Western Canada (Canada!). Moreover, several agents gave me their cards asking to rep the show, making me feel like the hot girl at the prom. (Don’t worry, Doug! I let them know I already had representation!)

Some buyers check out The Intergalactic Nemesis

So, now we have more than 80 venues seriously considering the show for a 2012-13 tour. Holy mackerel!

This week I’ve been doing the follow-up to the conferences as well as hiring some new positions for the tour. Finally catching my breath right now and therefore typing this.

BIG WELCOME TO Kenneth Redding, Jr., our touring keyboardist; Oliver Freeman, our new driver and merch guy; and Jessie Douglas, our company manager.

We hit the road next month. Can’t wait!

Last fall we premiered the first ever “Live-Action Graphic Novel“–The Intergalactic Nemesis Book One: Target Earth–at the Long Center in Austin to an audience of 2,100 people. Later this year it’s headed on a 25-city tour! Meanwhile, we’re already developing Book Two, premiering Summer 2012.

That’s right! There’s a sequel!

The Intergalactic Nemesis
Book Two: Robot Planet Rising

Radio Play written by Jason Neulander, Chad Nichols & Ray Colgan

Follow the continuing adventures of Pulitzer winner Molly Sloan, her intrepid assistant Timmy Mendez, and a host of new characters including:

Alphatron – Robonovia’s minister of defense
Dr. Lawrence Webster – interspacio-temporal quantum physicist
Dr. Natasha Zorokov – Webster’s assistant and Soviet spy
And a lot (and we mean a lot) of robots!

But this stuff doesn’t just grow on a tree. To make the sequel the very best it can be, we’re presenting the nascent script in radio drama format on June 10 and 11, 2011. Yes, a year early!

We’ll be workshopping the material for a week and then presenting it to a live audience. Actors Christopher Lee Gibson, Jason Phelps, and Cami Alys will read the voices, Buzz Moran will perform the sound effects, and maestro Graham Reynolds will play his original score. This will be an invaluable chance for us to dig deep into the story and characters and then get feedback from you the audience! Be among the first people ever to experience The Intergalactic Nemesis Book Two: Robot Planet Rising.

Your donation pays the personnel and offsets the cost of facility rental. Your feedback at the presentation will even help shape the direction of the final version!

Presentation dates: June 10 at 7 PM; June 11 at 2 PM and 5 PM

Presentation location: ND (5th St, just east of I-35) in Austin TX

Is it an all-ages show? You bet! It’s for the kid in everyone!

Click HERE to make it real!