The San Diego Reader Sounds Off on Love Negotiated

From the San Diego Reader Website:

"The Lotus Theatre Collective has given the play a lively production in which the entire cast contributes (Marc Biagi, as Richard, Jennie Olson, as Veronica, and Melanie Sutherlin, as Maria, merit special mention). Sheila Rosen's costumes define character to a T. And Marie Miller's lighting's the best I've ever seen at Swedenborg Hall."

Read the full listing here.

Photo by Kathleen Masse, quote by Jeff Smith, San Diego Reader.

First Review of Love Negotiated

From San Diego News Service, Feb. 15, 2009:

"If you want to experience a really funny look at love, this play Love Negotiated is an absolute must."

Read the full review here.

"PHOTO shows gay kissing scene, rare in San Diego theatre, as policeman
Mark (Tyler Josua Herdklotz, left) embraces soap-opera star Luke
(Thomas Hall), in the new and very funny stage play Love Negotiated. It opened on Valentine’s Day at the Swedenborg Hall theatre."

Photo, caption and quotes by Leo E. Laurence, San Diego News Service.

Love Negotiated Production Stills

Here is one of a number of photos of the Love Negotiated cast at work under the lights.

To see them all, click this link: Kat Masse's Love Negotiated Stills

NBC Morning Show features "Love Negotiated"

For those of you not awake and watching tellie at 5:45am, then you missed our feature on NBC Early Morning News with Jason Austell. But no worries! Your loving A.D./Producer woke up at the ungodly hour of 4:00am and picked up your nervous-grumpy-not-a-morning-person-playwright Kevin Six and delivered him to the NBC Studios where our professional and chronically-early-everywhere-actress Savvy Scopelleti was waiting, and within moments we were joined by equally professional arriving-with-coffee-in-hand-actor Tom Hall. Phew. Ok Kevin, you can relax now!!!!

Just in case my camera wouldn't be allowed on set, we took this picture as we waited in the lobby for our escort to bring us into the studio:

(note how great everyone looks for 5:00 in the morning!)

We went down the hall of editing rooms and sound rooms and rounded the corner of newsroom cubicles and right into the live taping studio. I must have missed the red "on the air" light, because they were broadcasting live as we shuffled in and our host gathered chairs for us. Here's the co-anchor leading in to the weather update:



Speaking of lead-ins, or "teasers", that's just what they had our two actors do before the commercial break. Here's the tape from my angle, which was fun to watch as the camera man was having fun with their shot:



Well finally, the moment arrived, and they were ready to air the live interview! Just one thing though. Kevin had to get to his spot:



There, much better!



Ok, now everyone is in place and, it's GO TIME! (remember, it's all LIVE on air!)

First, Jason Austell interviews the playwright Kevin Six, who explains that the show is about lawyers, non-lawyers, and people just trying to figure out what love is. He says basically it's about relationships, and we hope that's funny!





So 30 seconds of that then a preview scene from the show by our talented actors. Fortunately for us, it just so happens that both Savvy and Tom have backgrounds in broadcasting, so they knew exactly how to stand, what to do, what to say, and how to get it all out in exactly 60 seconds. They were awesome. I mean, just look at them, they're naturals!





Notice behind them, outside, how dark it is? Yep, the sun had not even risen yet, and before you could even say "breakfast", it was a wrap!

So where's the tape of the actors doing the scene, you ask? Well, if you weren't up at 5:00am to watch it on tv for yourself, then you'll just have to come see the show!

Love Negotiated on TV

Love Negotiated will be the subject of a story on NBC 7/39's Morning News on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009. Now, here's the fun part. Actors Thomas Hall and Savvy Scopelleti are doing a scene from the show (one of the few that can be done on TV) and they're interviewing playwright Kevin Six.

We're on at5:35 a.m. So! Warm up the recording devices or look for a link here late Tuesday. We'll see you on TV!

Love Negotiated Takes Second Place

Tulsa, OK

The Heller Theatre has announced the winners for their 2008 Heller Theatre Playwriting contest. Love Negotiated by Kevin Six came in second. See the results here.

The management of the Heller Theatre a nice note detailing how Love Negotiated might take first place in 2009 and possibly be produced. The good news is that changes made for the upcoming San Diego production have already been made and will result in a crisper, better play and a possible future production.

Kate's Website

Kate's Website is done. Kate is a character in Love Negotiated. See it here:

Kathryn H. Kugelbrecher

Bonus points to anyone who can translate her last name...

Crunch time

So we're starting tech, technically this Saturday. Tech is always the most interesting time of a show, I feel, because here is where your ideas about a show and the reality of your space really meet for the first time. Having been in a few and seeing some big and small (done some backstage work at La Jolla Playhouse, Lamb's Players Theatre and San Diego Rep), it's always "interesting" to see how the show evolves at this point. Oh, yes, that idea about having that over there won't work because we can't move that light over because this thingy is blocking the light from the ceiling, yes, that thingy is the sprinkler system, and no we can't move it.

You need to have your sense of humor when going into tech.

As an actor, I know that I need to have my patience. I'm here for the designers so they can do their thing, their art, their vital contribution to the piece. Here is where the magic happens, the set emerges, the lights come up and tada, it all comes together.
Or not....
But regardless, we open on February 14th. That's the beautiful thing about theatre, one of the ONLY industries that has a deadline and meets it EVERY TIME. That curtain will rise, and there will be a show.
So whether the ideas about the thingies work or not, the light hangs this way or that way, or that curtain that was supposed to look like...well...whatever, it's happening.

And we're all a part of it.

Mock Websites

We have a few fun sites for the characters in Love Negotiated. Check them out here.

Phony Websites and Etcetra

We're going viral -- actually Organic -- with the marketing for Love Negotiated. Organic Marketing is viral marketing that doesn't make you sick. Th that end, we are creating websites for the characters in the play, many of whom are lawyers.

But one character is an actor. In a Soap Opera. And that means that nerdy teenage girls fall in love with him and create fan sites for him. So, with that in mind, please see:

Lucas Quartermaine's Fan Site

Photo Shoot

Here are some of the better photos from the Love Negotiated photo shoot. The great Kymri Wilt took them and they're hot! Which one do you like?

Riddle Answered

Question: What do Helen Keller, Jose Feliciano, Roy Orbison and Stevie Wonder have in common?

Answer: They're all the butt of jokes in Love Negotiated.

See it. www.LoveNegotiated.com

Riddle Me This...

What do Helen Keller, Jose Feliciano, Roy Orbison and Stevie Wonder have in common?

The Love Negotiated Lawyer Bunch

First Rehearsals

Love Negotiated had a table read and a rehearsal and it's already Broadway-bound as far as I'm concerned. The actors were wonderful, we saw drawings of the set, the actors moved around on the stage and the words were pretty good as well. Check out these pictures.




Above (from the top): Playwright Kevin Six; Marc Biagi as Richard; Stage Manager Lizzie Silverman and Melanie Sutherlin.




Above (from the top): Melanie Sutherlin is Maria and two shots of most of the Love Negotiated cast.

Love Negotiated Promo Video

Here's the first of many promotional videos for Love Negotiated. This video was taken by our own Assistant Director Kymri Wilt just after the cast read the play for the first time. Hope you like it!

Rehearsals begin!

So we begin tonight! I'm really looking forward to working with everyone on this. This is my first time working with DJ and I'm really excited. So I'm keeping this short and sweet and hopefully will have more to share with the www soon. :)

So Long 2008 Hello 2009

Hello Blogosphere!

I'm sure everyone will be proselytizing about the previous year and predicting outcomes for the next. I'm not immune to it (or using long words) either so let's get busy figuring out what happened last year and what's to come next year.

Last Year: Nothing of import.
Next Year: Love Negotiated opens.

We need to find a way to get people to visit the website (www.lovenegotiated.com) and purchase tickets. I believe subtle threats to be the best course of action. For example:

1. If you don't purchase tickets to Love Negotiated, the world as we know it may very well cease to exist.
2. If you don't have Love Negotiated tickets in your pocket when the man comes around...
3. It doesn't matter if you see the Love Negotiated but it does matter that you have tickets. It doesn't matter to the beast under your bed, that is.

I hope to have 100 of these pretty little threats by opening (Feb. 14, 2009). Won't you please help? I promise to print them all.

Kevin