With Lear—

Three weeks till we launch our Eastern tour of King Lear, moving now into solidifying the changes we’ve made since the last showings in San Diego and Occidental and getting the car and the ice chest ready for the cross-country hike.

The whole monstrous affair fits into the back of our Prius, and on the nights we’re not crashing with friends along the way we pull into a friendly truckstop, move everything into the front seats (and in this case some aluminum poles under the car), and curl up in the back. Not the roomiest sleeping quarters but immensely preferable to blowing bucks on motels. Elizabeth prepares frozen dinners enough to get us cross-country, heats them over a campstove, and we dine splendidly.

We start with two shows at Germinal Stage in Denver, a company like us in its 40-somethingth season. From there to The Venue in Norfolk VA, a sweet little arts center where we’ve played several times. Then up to Baltimore — Towson, actually — for a show and a workshop at Towson University and reconnecting with many old friends.

A few days free, and then returning for our first run in a Philadelphia theatre since we left in 1999, at Studio X (with fulsome gratitude to our friends at New Paradise Laboratories for helping arrange this gig). And up to Brooklyn for two shows at Irondale Center, a bustling enterprise near BAM — again with gratitude to old friends from the ensemble-theatre scene.

And down to familiar stomping grounds: four shows at Touchstone Theatre in Bethlehem PA; a performance and workshop at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster; and a show in Bloomsburg at a small vital arts center Box of Light while seeing old colleagues from the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble. A day to catch our breath, then up to Portsmouth NH for three shows at Pontine Theatre, where we’ve had rich & fulsome outings.

Heading west then to Milwaukee for a show and workshop at UW/Milwaukee, the site of our founding of Theatre X, our departure from academia, and the locale of people who are still among our dearest friends. And finally to the Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre, West Liberty IA, and heading home.

The schedule is attached, and if you’re in the vicinity we look forward to seeing you. If you live along the i-70 or I-80 corridors and have a floor or spare room for an overnight, we’d be pleased to unsqueeze from the Prius to stretch out full-length on our bedding.

DamnedFool—

For the past 20 months we’ve published a weekly blog, 86 posts to date. It has a tiny readership: nothing in the way of movie reviews, weight-loss tips, relationship advice or political insight, though the Fool does have a unique way of looking at things.

But we’re addicted to plunging into it each Sunday night and discovering what’s in there to write about, even when Elizabeth’s in Italy or CB’s at Pigeon Point or the Fool is sitting stupefied in the corner of the coffee shop.

If you haven’t seen it: each post includes pieces from Elizabeth, from Conrad, and from the Fool — the last a composite of Pogo, Mehitabel’s Archy, and Lear’s Fool trying to make sense of the world. In the most recent, he addresses the question, “Do we create our own Reality?” — though if we do, he offers no hints on how to stop doing it.

So we invite you to visit DamnedFool.com, and if you enjoy it, subscribe. Costs less than the NY Times —it’s free, in fact, though we can’t afford to pay you to read it.