Cancer 30°

The next performer to come to Cambridge this week, all the way from San Francisco, was Marga Gomez who performed a masterful comedy show called POUND. There are certain people on the planet whom you’ve never met but have heard about with whom you feel you will share a true connection. I felt Marga was one of these people. I truly enjoyed her show though I didn’t expect to relate to it, being billed as something very geared toward gay women. But that wasn’t the case at all. I loved the show and found it quite universally appealing. She is a precision artist and i loved watching her tear up the stage. I had to go it alone that night because Stella suddenly got some kind of flu bug and so she sadly had to miss it.

I forget how keyed up I get with festivals. Well I didn’t forget I just always think I’m going to be more relaxed and less frenetic than I am. I get very high from the energies of shows and then it takes me forever to come down from that. After Marga’s show I sent out to eat a late night pizza, the same pizza, actually that I had seven hours before. To be fair, they were individual pizzas, and I did end up sharing it with a bunch of other people.

According to the directors of the venue, I think those who attended our shows really enjoyed them. But strangely we already have more tickets sold to our Glowberon series, which we do September to May, then we had for these shows at present. Maybe the word festival puts people off. Or maybe people prefer to stay home and watch Netflix. I can’t expect everyone to have the same reaction I have to live performance which I find the most exciting form. And I’m not talking plays (although we do produce plays) and I’m not talking concerts (our shows must have more narrative than “patter”). What we put on is something unique; and since the beginning (of Afterglow) folks have been positively wowed on one hand by the incredible performances and negatively wowed on the other by the smallness of our audiences. I have to tell you that I’m getting to the point where I’m not going to be able to do this anymore unless people get more behind us, not less. Lately it we have been living under the law of diminishing returns.