What does this video have to do with Keepin' It Real with Wilson? Find out at #portfringe #PortFringe2019 https://t.co/pEft9m4VYR
Tag: portfringe
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PortFringe 2015 Summary
Holy wow. It was an exhausting week filled to the brim with great new plays.
Standouts include Dolphinephilia, a trippy farce based on the true story of Margaret Howe Lovatt. It was presented by the mysterious Marine Mammal Communication Project. Also in the realm of the absurd was Aliens vs. Beckett, a spin on the classic Waiting For Godot, and presented by the always slimy Crowbait Club. And The Green Room, a hilarious one-man show featuring a man arguing with his sock puppet.
And those were only from the shows that I saw. The festival featured dozens of acts, and after soldiering through this week, I commend all who gave the effort for their art.
Megan, as per her usual mode, outdid herself. She acted in three plays, and wrote/directed one as well. I really enjoyed the perky conversations of Take the Long Way home, and the excellent set designed by Carl Currie. And Megan’s performance in the poetic Boy Come Home was perhaps the best of her career.
I also acted in my first PortFringe show. I shared the stage with my wife, as well as the talented Adam Ferguson and Kristina Balboa in Allie Munier’s comedy I Can’t Take You Anywhere. It was an honor to act in such a well-written and humorous play. I hope Allie submits it to more festivals.
I shaved my beard for my art. Most people liked it, while others, myself included, found it strange to see my bald face. One person said that I looked like a creepy pedophile, and that hurt a bit. I’ve never quite understood that comment. How does one look like a pedophile? Perhaps it says more of the describer than it does of the described.
I’m glad the week is over and that we can get a break. Enjoy some photos.
The slimy facehugger from “Aliens vs Beckett”
Cleaning up after “Boy Come Home”
My shiny new, bald face.
The cast of “Take the Long Way Home”
The set of “Take the Long Way Home” -
Checked in at Portland Stage Company
Checked in at Portland Stage Company.
Helping mah wife run tech for her original play. #portfringe
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Cool Designs for PortFringe 2015
Here are two flyers, hot off the presses for PortFringe 2015. Both were lovingly crafted by Allie Munier. Yours truly will be starring in I Can’t Take You Anywhere, alongside my wife. We will be playing a quarreling married couple. If you like these flyers, then you should obviously come see the plays. ( I’m writing this post from a campground by the way ).
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2015 Portland Fringe Festival
For the past seven years I’ve supported my wife, Megan, in her whole-hearted devotion to the difficult art of play making. This past year, I’ve been joining her onstage and backstage occasionally. I’m thinking about changing my title from Rocco Tripaldi, Theatre Husband to the slightly elevated Rocco Tripaldi, Frequent Collaborator.
As I move forward in this endeavor, a quote from the legendary comedian, Groucho Marx comes to mind: “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member”.
I learned today that a play that Megan is a part of earned over $1000 in crowd funding to appear in this year’s Portland Fringe Festival. When I heard this news, I initially thought that it seemed excessive to solicit donations for Fringe, which is essentially a way to test out new work. Megan reminded me what Fringe is really about. The festival, like most other theatrical events, is competitive. The artists involved don’t simply want to test out their work, they want to take it to the next level. Sometimes you need to make a big impression to achieve that.
Friends in Portland, friends in Boston, friends in New Hampshire and Rhode Island: come see PortFringe. Come especially if it’s been over 5 years since you’ve seen a play. Come as an excuse to visit us and visit Maine. Come to see great artist striving for bigger spotlights!
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Port Fringe Preview
The countdown is on for this year’s PortFringe festival, and the hashtags are just starting to warm up. Get excited people, and make sure you come support the amazing talent in this town.
To wet your whistle here are a few enticing bits from the web!
And remeber to come see “I Can’t Take You Anywhere” starring yours truly playing opposite Megan Tripaldi. Without giving away too much, here’s some cryptic images from our writer / director Allie Munier. We’ll keep you posted as time draws closer.
Poster concept art by Allie Munier 
First table read! -
2014 Time Lapse
Holy smokes, 2014 was the biggest year of my life thus far! When I try to convey the magnitude of this year to my friends and family in everyday conversation, my emotions win out, and I trail off. So why not put all of the events in a nice easy-to-consume list, in chronological order for those of you who have not yet broken the barriers of time.
I marvel at how much Megan and I compacted into this year. I often complain that I don’t have enough time. After living through 2014, I realize that I should stop complaining, that my lifestyle is not so delicate, that there is always a way to squeeze in more life, that my body can take it.
Commence the time lapse:
March 8th: My beloved cousin Johnny dies. He meant so much to so many. I’m still denying that he’s gone as I write this, and I will be feeling the reverberations of his death for years to come, if not the rest of my life. I wrote a letter to his daughter to help me cope.
March 30th: We learn that Megan’s dad, whom I refer to as Papa John, has cancer in his urinary bladder. We visit him, and the prognosis is bittersweet: It is likely curable, and the treatments aren’t as harsh as chemotherapy, but there’s a considerable chance he could loose his bladder resulting in a large drop in the quality of life. We’ll wait and see…
April 6th: The newly assembled BruteProtect team has its first official meet-up in Albuquerque, NM. My employer, The Hotchkiss Consulting Group, switches from being a web design agency to a start-up overnight! Sam Hotchkiss put together an awesome team who has since become my second family. Our aim at this point is to create a robust WordPress plugin that allows folks to secure their websites, as well as manage multiple WordPress websites from one dashboard. We work hard and play hard for seven days in beautiful Albuquerque, sweating green chile from every pore, and battling gnarly server scaling problems. It was an amazing bonding experience, and if you want to know understand it better, watch Silicon Valley on HBO – it was basically written about us.
Late April: After thousands of hours of work, we launch My BruteProtect, a premium version of our plugin. We will spend many more hours in the coming months adding features, fixing bugs, and providing customer support.
May 5: Megan and I take our belated honeymoon to Edinburgh and London. We get some much needed relaxation, and fall in love with both cities immediately, as well as with each other all over again. The trip includes haggis, hiking, and whisky in Scotland, and lots of great theatre in London.
Summer: Megan performs in 4 plays in the exciting PortFringe Theatre Festival. This is followed by a warm performance in The Selfish Shellfish at Deertrees Theatre. Her original play, Open Casket, gets produced at the Footlights Theatre.
August: This is the month of WordCamps. I travel to WordCamp New York with Sam Hotchkiss and Derek Smart, and my dream of one day opening my Rocco’s Tacos restaurant is shattered. There was a Rocco’s Tacos right next to our hotel, and they’re a chain, and they weren’t open so I couldn’t even try a taco and tell them how mediocre they were! The next week, the BruteProtect crew assembles for the first ever WordCamp Maine, an event organized largely by our own Stephen Quirk. The next week, most of the team heads to WordCamp Boston.
August 28th: BruteProtect is acquired by Automattic. Our goal was always acquisition, but none of us ever dreamed it would happen so quickly. We joined the company just in time to fly out to the annual Grand Meet-up, held this year in Park City, Utah.
September 27: I speak at my first WordCamp. I talk about using a MVC mindset when developing WordPress plugins.
October: Megan and I help out our friend Cory King by performing in his yearly Haunted Hayride in Skowhegan Maine. I think our costumes are effectively creepy, yes?
November 6: I returned to the stage after a 7 year hiatus. I play the part of the Earl of Kent in my wife’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear at the Footlights Theatre. It was my first time locking wits with The Bard, and it was very challenging. I was still refining my performance with each night’s show, and by closing night, I nailed it! I also designed the blood effects. So much blood.
November 13: I give a lecture at St. Joeseph’s College in Windham, ME talking about what is like to persue a career on the internet. Thanks to my pal professor Chris Sullivan for inviting me.
The Holidays: Papa John’s cancer goes into remission! We spend a lovely, relaxing Thanksgiving and Christmas with him.
