by Marc Gonzalez & Blake Jones

It is Rogue Festival time again! This year’s festival takes place from February 28-March 8 in the Tower District of Fresno, CA. Between now and then KRL will be publishing several Rogue Festival Performer Preview articles, as well as an article about Rogue itself. During the festival we will be publishing reviews of several of the shows. You will be able to find all of our coverage in our Rogue Festival category, and more info including some performer press releases on our Rogue Festival event page over on KRL News and Reviews. You can purchase tickets on the Rogue website.

Rogue Preview: The Trimmings
By Marc Gonzalez

After last year’s Marty’s Turn, I got a hankering to perform my own writing again. But I had learned a few things since Merely a Player, which served as my playwriting and solo show debut in 2020, also at the Rogue Festival: 1) I don’t have the bandwidth to learn and perform an entire, traditional solo play, and 2) I need a team. I need to be directed. I need someone to help me develop the script, and I need someone with an eye for design.

Bring in J. Daniel Herring (Director), Walter M. Mayes (Script Development), and Diego J. Sosa (Production Design). These three artists are people I’ve worked with before, in various capacities, and they are three men I trust wholeheartedly. Their guidance and support through this process has been invaluable in helping me grow as a writer and performer.

When I sought to write a new show, I didn’t have to look far! Years ago, when I began writing, Walter gave me the best advice I’ve heard to date: Don’t ever delete your writing; simply put the edits on another document for the rainy days. I took his advice and, without much thought, named the document “Trimmings.” I felt since my edits are essentially me trimming the fat from monologues and plays I’m writing, the title effectively served its purpose.

For this show, Walter was step one, because without a cohesive, focused script and concept, I would simply be reading edits and wasting people’s time. When I approached Walter with the idea, he immediately helped me finesse my edits, trim even more fat, and get me to the script I have now. When asked why he took on the project, Walter replied with, “I’ve been working for over a decade to help Marc find and enhance his voice as a theater artist, and I am always happy to support anything that helps him productively channel his extroverted personality into an entertaining audience experience.”

I’ve been blessed to have been directed by J. Daniel Herring several times now, and I’ve always enjoyed his productions, whether as an actor or audience member. J. Daniel has this to say regarding the process. “Getting to work on a one-man show is always a unique opportunity. There needs to be a solid foundation of trust between the actor and director. I had directed Marc in Pride and Prejudice, and felt we had built that type of trust during that project. I was delighted Marc asked me to direct The Trimmings.”

Because of the unique take of audience interaction, a wheel choosing my lineup of stories each show, and this not being a traditional play, but a storytelling show, the pressure is off a bit, which allows me to enjoy the audience interactions I’ve built in. J. Daniel has been a great fit for this because, storytelling is part of his theatrical expertise. I knew he’d get me to where I needed and I asked him about that. “There are performance techniques that storytellers use that combine various types of acting styles since there are no other characters onstage and usually no set and very few props and costume pieces. A storyteller can be a third person narrator, they can be themselves even at various ages, or they can be characters in their stories. And all these characters could appear within the same story being told. I think a unique aspect of The Trimmings is that no two shows will be the same. There are eight stories and only four of the eight will be performed at each Rogue performance. The audience will choose which four stories are performed, and so the odds are there will be no two identical shows. In fact, some of the stories might never be performed throughout the entire Rogue Festival.”

Diego J. Sosa has gone from being a CMT kid I choreographed, to a former high school student of mine, to one of my most trusted collaborators. We share a passion and enthusiasm for theatre that seriously has no chill. It didn’t take long from me pitching him the idea for the show to us talking design concepts. As Diego says, “I’ve always enjoyed working with Marc and our last Rogue collaboration was such a delight that I couldn’t help but take part in this project. When he brought to me this project, I felt the same feeling I had when I was first brought Marty’s Turn: excitement and an opportunity to take part in something special. I think it’s great for Rogue audiences because it’s got a unique premise. Because audiences don’t get the same show every night, and it offers different insights to our main player every night, I think audiences may come multiple times to see what stories are being told that night.”

At the heart of this process, I truly enjoy telling these stories because of how they shaped me as an individual. There’s a monologue about my mom that I’m particularly proud of. Ever since her passing in 2021, I found it difficult to put her into writing. The monologue for her, titled “My Mommy Tied My Shoes,” is one I especially look forward to delivering whenever it gets selected. But there’s plenty of comedy and reflection to, hopefully, keep the laughs rolling as well. Life is complicated, edits happen for all artists, and I feel that every audience member will take away something that encourages, inspires, and/or causes reflection. I’m grateful to this team for helping these stories see a new life in The Trimmings and I can’t wait for Rogue Festival audiences to come and see it for themselves!

The Trimmings
Where: Veni Vidi Vici, 1116 N Fulton St, Fresno, CA
When: Feb, Fri 28 7:00 pm – 7:45 pm
Mar, Sun 2 5:00 pm – 5:45 pm
Thu 6 7:00 pm – 7:45 pm
Sat 8 3:30 pm – 4:15 pm
Tickets $10

Rogue Preview: Three Fresno Songwriters
Presented by George Rotalo, Blake Jones, and Special Mystery Guests
By Blake Jones

I knew George Rotalo as a musician and performer decades before this, but I really started hearing him as a songwriter some years back when he was doing a slew of solo acoustic sets. This was somewhere around the first couple of Rogue Festivals … so, early 2000s? He had this way of sitting down, picking his guitar, while everyone just took in a deep breath and enjoyed that thing that George does: melodic tunes full of charm and wit.

Even though I’d shared a stage with him a number of times, hung out some, talked music-stuff, I’d never dug into a project with him. About two years ago, as the pandemic lifted, he called me and challenged me to come on over, and we’d try and write some songs. So, even though this attempt has stretched on for a couple of years now, just here and there, we’ve written a handful of songs … some finished, some 85% or so. We’ll get ambitious for a couple of weeks, then let it slide for a few weeks.

As Rogue Festival Sign-Up Time started to roll around, I proposed this idea to George: that we get a third songwriter, and do one of those “songwriters-in-the-round” sort of shows.
You know, like when a few songwriters sit next to each other and share their songs, maybe telling the stories behind the song’s invention, or sharing ideas of the actual craft and construction of making the words and tunes.

We needed a third person (cuz it’s hard to be ‘in-the-round’ with just two people. We came up with two friends to share the stage with: Nate Butler and Tom Magill, two of my favorite local writers. I worked for a short while in an originals band with Tom called Beat Reader, and with both of them in a Beatles cover band for nearly 25 years (!!). Both of them have contributed to local music in many ways: playing in bands, accompanying stage shows, and in Nate’s case, hosting a continuing radio series on KFSR 90.7 fm called “The Local Show.” So, this is how we set it up: George and I would share the show with these guys—each of them taking two of the four shows. They are what’s listed in the program as our ‘mystery guests.’ (You see, we didn’t have the third person nailed down at the time of Rogue Fest sign-ups … thus the humorous (we hope) picture of George and me with a third person’s head cut out of the picture (just like your Aunt Mabel would do at Christmastime with her instamatic and flashcubes).

Join us for all four performances on the back patio of Veni Vidi Vici in the Tower District. Tom will be our guest on Friday, February 28th at 5:30 p.m. and Sunday, March 2nd at 3:30 p.m. Nate on Saturday, March 1st at 8 p.m. and Saturday, March 8th at 2 p.m. Admission is $10.

If you love theatre, be sure to check out Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast, which features mysteries read by local actors. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, and also on podbean.

Check out more theatre reviews & other local entertainment articles in our Arts & Entertainment section. You can also find more theatre coming up on KRL’s Local Theatre event page.