Oh Wien, Wien (or as we "english lovers" know it, Vienna). We have had a love / hate relationship with this town. And when i say hate, perhaps that is a too strong a word, we have just had our annoyances.
On one hand, we know some great people here and that always makes a city. But the last time we did a show here (which was 2-3 years ago) we had problems with:
-the stage (there was an amazing set of a bombed out apartment that we were not allowed to play on)
-the lights (the lights were all aimed at the set and the tech wasn't speaking english)
-the organization (we arrived at the theatre only to learn we could not get in until 30 mins before the show, which was a problem because of the above reasons)
-the advertising (the picture used in the very minimal ads was a picture of someone else, in fact it was woman, in double fact it was a woman who had been in a scene with us years ago at another festival who simply destroyed any good scene she touched)
-audience (there wasn't one)
So we just had a grey and dreary time. After that experience we had just written off Vienna and "not where CRUMBS will go". So this time was a complete 180 from that experience, now Vienna is sunny and cool again. TAG (our host group) were cool, they had a very cool space to perform in, they brought with them a wonderful audience and we had a great time. Thank you Georg.
The show included one story line that had conflict between lions and lionesses about work distribution. It was a story that would make a nice... well, story.
Another story involved "road pirates" and big rig truckers, another classic tale. So we also did a kick ass show that will ensure that we return.
Another bonus was that TiB (Theatre Im Bahnhoff which literally translates to Theatre in the Train Station) which are good friends of ours from Graz who do great improv and do great theatre. Jacob Banigan now lives in Graz and works with this company (with his gal Trixi and his lovely daughter Lili). Jacob is the former Artistic Director of Rapid Fire Theatre in Edmonton and a very old and good friend. It was nice to just talk Canadian to someone. He was also the team captain of the Canadian Team that Stephen (this blog writer) was on for the Championship match of the 2006 FIFA World Cup of Improv that was all across Germany (good times). I hope I didn't lose you as I jumped all over the place there in this post.
Bottom line, Vienna, you are cool again, I foresee a golden age approaching.
Next stop: Graz (Lee's favourite city... Stephen doesn't play favourites)
