Truth Or Fiction

On Todays Truth or Fiction

 Name: Linsey Almassey

Role: Assistant Stage Manger 

1. Linsey once had to hide from the cops behind bushes for ditching class in high school.

2. Linsey has had lunch with Seth Rogan on Set. 

3. Linsey has jumped off of a 50ft waterfall. 

Truth Or Fiction

Next up on Truth Or Fiction..

 Name: David Koppel

Role: Stage Manger 

1.  In 1992, David met Presidential candidate Bill Clinton and Vice-Presidential candidate Al Gore while dressed in a furry, ape costume.

2.  David made his Broadway debut as a cadaver in NIGHT MUST FALL with Matthew Broderick.

3.  David won an impersonation contest at a Star Trek convention in Wisconsin for his compelling "Chekhov" performance. 

Truth Or Fiction

What better way to get to know a cast then by getting to know them on a more personal level. Here we will share insight from the cast of Fiction on fun facts about themselves. The cast and crew members have been asked to write two truths and one Fiction. It's up to you, to figure out the truth about our cast and crew members! Comment which one you think is fiction and answers will be posted once all cast and crew have been posted.

Name: Erin Gilley

Role: Director

1. Erin is a singer in a rock band. 

2. Corndogs are Erin's favorite food. 

3. Erin's spirit animal is a hedgehog

Meet The Fiction Team: Marc Blinder

Sound Designer Marc Blinder was asked to weigh-in on the age old argument “What is the Greatest Rock and Roll Vocal Performance EVER”, an argument that leads to Linda's and Michael's meet-cute in Fiction by Steven Dietz.  Here’s what he had to say:

Jim Morrison - "Light My Fire" 1967

Why? Because it’s a super sexy song that inspires crowds to sing and people to dance, because The Doors helped marry Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll forever, and because just singing it was considered rebellious enough to get the Doors a lifetime ban from the Ed Sullivan show. There aren’t a lot of tracks in history that got to number one but could still get you kicked off the air and I gave Jim the edge over The Sex Pistols because he got there first.

In the Jungle!

Good luck getting this out of your head now. ;)

The Real Female Explorers

While the happenings in On the Verge (Or the Geography of Yearning) are wholly fictional, the three women in the play might be loosely based on real, amazing, pioneering women.

When asked where the idea for On the Verge came from, Mr. Overmyer said: 

''I first conceived of On the Verge while reading A Long Desire, Evan S. Connell's book about travelers. I was particularly taken with a chapter about Victorian lady explorers, and I learned that the author had gotten his information from another book, Victorian Lady Travellers, by Dorothy Middleton. One of the things that interested me in these women was the way they would go out and have amazing, hair-raising adventures and then come back to England or America and be as conservative as if they had never left home. Many of them opposed women wearing trousers, smoking tobacco or even having the vote. 

''For the rhythms and vocabulary I did a lot of reading of Victorian novels, and the play contains bits and pieces from actual journals and letters, though many of the anecdotes are distorted and fictionalized. Another important inspiration was The Land That Time Forgot, Arthur Conan Doyle's melodramatic science-fiction novel about Englishmen who become shipwrecked on an unknown island. When they ascend its high plateau, they find that all time exists at once there - that dinosaurs coexist with saber-toothed tigers.'' 

Fanny Bullock Workman. Mental Floss says: Traveling with her husband William Hunter Workman, M.D., this American mountaineer broke a string of women's altitude records while becoming a noted geographer, cartographer, and travel writer. The Workmans both came from wealth, enabling them to go on extravagant and arduous trips, like bicycle rides through Spain and India and treks up the Himalayas.
A shameless self-promoter, she earned a reputation for riling her rivals. But her dedication to detailing her accomplishments with precise measurements and thorough documentation meant she could back up her big mouth. A compelling orator, Fanny was the first American woman to lecture at the Sorbonne in Paris, and the second female explorer ever allowed to address—and later join—the Royal Geographical Society of London.

Alexandra David-Néel

1920s anarchist, spiritualist, and traveling opera singer Alexandra David-Néel is responsible for much of the beatnik philosophy that went mainstream in the 1960s courtesy of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. 

The 30+ books she wrote about her travels in Asia and spiritual adventures among the Sikh and Buddhist communities of India and Nepal inspired subsequent generations. She was the first western (and female) explorer allowed into the typically forbidden Tibet, had the unprecedented opportunity to quiz the Dalai Lama at length, and was fully adopted by many of the royal spiritualist communities of the Far East.

Mary Henrietta Kingsley was a huge help in recording the cultures of West Africa and breaking down the imperialist regime of Britain over the local groups.

Throughout the 1890s, she traveled extensively on her own, often living among the cultures which had been stigmatized by a British society intent on maintaining their status as elite by emphasizing the savage nature of African traditions. Mary's positive exposes of real African life and negative journalism critiquing white treatment of black cultures resulted in a flurry of improvements towards improving colonial life and encouraging local rule.

If you'd like to learn more about these real, groundbreaking women, go here and here. 

Invented in Chicago

At one point during On the Verge, Fanny declares that everything was invented in Chicago, including ice cream sandwiches. That got me to wondering how much of that was true. Mental Floss has a pretty good list of foods invented in Chicago - 

1. Italian Beef (my Chicago born husband's personal favorite)
2. Twinkies
3. Wrigley Gum
4. Vienna Beef
5. Cracker Jack
6. Chocolate Brownies
7. Frozen Desserts (NOT ice cream sandwiches but frozen Sara Lee pound cakes)
8. Jibarito 
9. Pepper and egg sandwich
10. Pizza Puff
11. Flaming Saganaki
12. Chicken Vesuvio
13. Kronos Gyros
14. Cream of Wheat
15. Shredded Wheat

I did some digging since ice cream sandwich isn't on the list. Here's what I found: 

"According to the book Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making by Jeri Quinzio, the ice cream sandwich was created in 1899 by an unknown pushcart peddler in the Bowery neighborhood of New York City.  These sandwiches consisted of vanilla ice cream pressed between two thin graham wafers.  The treat was revolutionary not only because it was hand-held and portable, but also because the heat from the hands helped to soften the ice cream, making it easier to eat.  The early predecessor to the ice cream sandwich was a slice of vanilla ice cream cut from a larger slab known as an “okey-pokey” that was sold by street vendors in London. 

In July of 1900 The New York Tribune, the popular newspaper of the time, published an article about the pushcart vendor who was selling the sandwiches. According to the article the man was so busy pressing the sandwiches to order into a tin mold that he didn’t have time to make change and insisted that customers pay the exact price of one cent.

The modern ice cream sandwich that we know, a slice of vanilla between two rectangular chocolate cookies, was invented by Jerry Newberg who sold ice cream at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh."

So there you have it. Not Chicago!