Cheers to the Year.

Christmas felicitations to all in blog land. I trust you are well.

The original idea at the start of the year was simple: Pack the first half of 2011 with shows, design, teaching and jackanapes then have a baby in June and take it nice and slow in the second half. 

Well, the best laid plans of Lliam and Men...

There was a "10 years in the Biz" celebration at the Day Job and a nice certificate to go with it, some corporate work from the delightful Nikki Parry and some illustration/poster work for an old friend Mr Chris Thompson.

Illustration for CT @ Jigsaw Theatre

 Then it was back up to Sydney to film a new tv show for Ten called Micro-Nation. I'll let TV Tonight explain:

"Micro Nation is described as “the tale of Pullamawang, a forgotten island nation lying off the Australian coast. Home to a cast of larger-than-life characters, their absurd but comfortable lives are thrown into disarray with the discovery of diamonds.”

The ensemble cast also includes Lliam Amor, Kit Brookman, David Collins, Dan Cordeaux, Rebecca De Unamuno, Harriet Dyer, Roz Hammond, John Leary, James Mackay, and Jon Williams.

TEN chief programming officer, David Mott, said: “Micro Nation is yet another step towards developing new opportunities in digital television for the network, and for Australia’s commercial television landscape. We’re excited to bring such a funny and original Australian project to the ELEVEN audience.”

John Leary and I before getting into costume.

Producer, Linda Ujuk, added: “Micro Nation is a smart and completely absurd comedy that cleverly reflects current Australia and how it finds its place in the world. We’re extremely proud to be collaborating with Boomball, a team of six up-and-coming writers with backgrounds in stand up and sketch comedy, who have created some serious funny.”

I play the villain (misunderstood, of course): Menzies McFadden. Not one bit of scenery was left unchewed by the time I got through shooting. Keep your eyes peeled on Channel 11 for this one.

All through this year my lovely family have been amazing and a constant source of wonder and encouragement. 

Now as the year begins to wind down, the baby winds up and I'm just windy... I say "thank you 2011 - you've been grand".

     

New Posters and Seasoned Travellers

Buckley, the Baby and I all trooped up to Sydney recently, to see her ancestral family home and those inside as well as giving me a chance to get along to the GRAPHIC festival at the Sydney Opera House. One of the highlights was a talk by FRANK creator, Jim Woodring. A fascinating insight into his mind, working process and surreal creations. Other highlights included a thought provoking and illuminating panel discussion about wordless comics with Woodring, Peter Kuper and local hero Nathan Jurevicius. The less said about Robert Crumb not turning up the better.

Bummed that I missed out on the workshops and the talk with Scott McCloud.

Some of the loot I picked up on my travels.

While in Sydney I also got to see the fabulous Mad Square exhibition - when it gets to Melbourne I urge everyone to go see it.

Back in Melbourne we did a return season of the improvised longform Pia Zadora at Impro Melbourne - fast becoming my favourite format for it's simplicity and possibilities.


Next it was up to Brisbane with B & B (Buckley and Baby) for the Off The Cuff Festival which is run by the excellent group Impro Mafia. I performed in two shows, ran a workshop in Pia and Long form and got to hold the baby backstage while Buckley and friends did some sterling work in the National Theatresports Competition (Victoria won).

Stage parenting 101.

The design work keeps coming for mates alike - more to come:

More Design! Bright! Shiny!

A3 Poster for Spontaneous Insanity's Fundraiser.

Series of A3 posters and images for Rob Lloyd's Fringe show "Who, Me."

Fellow Impro Melbourne performer Vic Healy is back with another show.

A3 posters for various upcoming shows at the versatile Impro Australia.

E-Book cover design for Jonathan Gould's new tome - more info when it comes to hand.

The Actor and the Advertising Industry...

So... I went in for a TV ad casting the other day, short notice shoot, learnt the script, read to camera etc, got a call back, nice. Went back in, met the director and did the same piece to camera, ok - not as good. "We'll let you know - shooting is this Friday". That Friday I was scheduled to fly to Sydney for the Graphic Festival... but as so often happens in my life - the fee outweighed the pain of changing flights etc. So I wait for confirmation. Wednesday rolls around and I figure I haven't got it. A call to the agent fails to throw light on the subject - apparently it's down to me and another actor (great!) but now they want to see more people from the agency (what?)...

Turns out they'd stiffed the casting agent by secretly going to another while he was casting around. Disgusted, he washed his hands of them... fair enough - but what about me? I still hadn't been told a definitive "no" yet and it was now Thursday and I needed answers. After some calling around I was finally told "your services won't be needed for this one". I had already figured as much. Apparently the Director and the Producer liked me for the role but the client wanted the person they "saw in their imagination".

Let's just say the next time you see a "doughy" chef onscreen complaining about his finances it won't be me and I'm 100% certain that this client doesn't "Live in my world". Just. Plain. Rude.

More Design work to poke a stick at.

Spontaneous Broadway tour poster - Port Fairy

Logo and Business card design for Spark Leadership

Impro Australia's Celebrity Theatresports was a star studded Spanish affair

DJ wunderkind and all round amazing human Tom Lowndes needed a Poster for an upcoming gig - the recordplayer logo is by the super Simon Christopher Griener.

Foggy Morning in Melbourne Town

As the streets of Melbourne resemble a location shot for The Mist - I start to ponder on recent events.

Our Adelaide adventure seems like a century ago but the upshot was a mixed bag of highs and lows:

Dave, Amanda and I mounted a sketch show with only two weekends of rehearsal with the rest being virtual discussion and aborted Skype conferences (stupid computers). We ironed out the kinks during the run and ended up with a slick, funny show that suffered from lack of audience exposure.

While the TuxCat maybe a funky venue with an "all hands on deck" attitude they were battling to get the venue ready by the opening of the Festival - frustrating when you have black outs in your show but these are rendered useless by the sunlight streaming in through the windows onto your rickety MDF/milk crate stage. Being on the third floor of a dusty, condemned heritage building (don't step there - you could go through the floor) with no lift surely cut out that all important 60+ demographic that we were aiming for. Oh well - live and learn.

The Festival itself was grand - Some great acts and wonderful performers - highlights included the new Dead Cat Bounce show, Patrick Monahan and the return of Ross Daniels's show The Transposed man.

Gluttony had a great atmosphere and Amanda and I enjoyed lounging around in bean bags under lantern lit trees, sipping G & Ts and eavesdropping on punter's reviews of the acts.

It was joyful to throw our hat in the ring and to finally be a part of something that I had long earmarked down as a "To Do". Thanks again to Dave Bloustien for suggesting the idea in the first place.

Merrily we rolled back into town and started to prepare for the Melbourne Comedy Festival. All the while getting Amanda used to a new home, State and finding room for all her stuff in amongst all my accumulated junk (I come from a long line of hoarders - when my Granadma died we were astonished to find thousands of ice cream lids in her garage...) At this point it would be remiss of me not to mention that AB was pregnant and we were trying to cram in as much as we possibly could before the baby came.

This year I directed and performed in Late Night Impro and put together a formidable cast and a ridiculous schedule - 11pm shows Thurs, Fri & Sat three weeks in a row. Not so bad you might think? But I cast Jason Geary, Rik Brown and myself as the main hosts and with all the other shit we were doing in our lives it nearly killed us. Ugh. Still we had some great guests (Brent Hill from Rock of Ages, Jimmy James Eaton, Amanda and Susie Youssef) Unfortunately we just missed out on having the improv legend Greg Proops join us onstage (although I did get to pose a question to him during his Proopcast on the last night of the Fest).

Here are some of the posters I designed for the Comedy Fest:







Also over in WA - Spontaneous Insanity returned to the Big Apple and asked me to update the old poster:


and Impro Melbourne kicked off their Impro Cave season in a NEW space.


Recently I completed a fantastic collaboration with the incredibly talented Anton Emdin which led to this project: Shrinks!

I've got a whole bunch of things coming up (new posters for Fringe, a trip to Sydney to see Robert Crumb, another season of Pia Zadora, more spots on Neighbours etc) but the biggest thing that's happily taking up my time at the moment is the birth of our son Dashiell - nearly three weeks old now and just a wonderful little bundle.




Happy days to you all.
Cheers
L

Paper Fun!

Here you go - something free for the Modern kids of today. A handy dandy wallet card - simply download, print out, cut carefully around the edges using a sharp instrument (perhaps scissors?), fold along dotted line 'A' and pop it in your leather wallet or purse - then when anyone stops you to ask details about 'An Evening with Style and Panache' - the egg will NOT be on your face (can we suggest a plate?). Cheers Lliam (aka Rodger Panache)

2011 - and a new start

Interesting how life trips and turns and leaves you gasping, humming and sighing. There are plenty of things filling up the year already as the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Comedy Festival loom large.
Posters, flyers and web banners have been flowing out the Amor Studio at a clip as well as book cover designs, badges and stationary.

This has been balanced with writing and rehearsing a new sketch show with Sydney comedian and improviser, Dave Bloustien for the aforementioned Adelaide Fringe. An Evening with Style and Panache will debut at the Tuxedo Cat Feb 17th -27. (Tickets are now on sale)

Designed this poster based on an old "Man From UNCLE" comic book cover

I was also honoured to be asked by Dan Ilic to be a part of EVAPOR-AID - a night of comedy to raise funds for the QLD and VIC flood tragedies. Improv geniuses Jason Geary and Rik Brown joined me on stage for some Shakespeare/Bogan switch-a-roo.

Photo: Courtesy Barry Radio. Jason Geary (right) and I with some wicked looping action.

On a personal note - This week I head up to Sydney to bring the delightful Ms Amanda Buckley down to Melbourne to come and live with me and share some good times. Keep an eye on twitter for Road Trip updates :)

Also to round out the month there is another fundraiser myself, Julia Zemiro, Jason and a whole bunch of friends are doing to raise some money for the Kid's Plus Foundation and to help our friend Helen get her little girl a special bike. Click the image and check out that amazing line up.

Poster by me for a chum.

Come along - it's absolutely guaranteed to be an amazing night. More info here.

Also on sale now are tickets to Late Night Impro at the Comedy Festival - which I'm directing this year - more soon :)

I'll post some more design work soon. Happy New Year folks.