A Tale of Two Grinches

This very special Christmas show is one of the many things that has had me swamped for the last month or so.

Sorry about that.

Every year, to kick off the Christmas season, the city of Phenix City (that's a strange sentence if you look at it too long...) puts on a variety show of sorts for the community at the Phenix City Amphitheater, a quaint little venue on the Chattahoochee River that only holds about 1000 people.

It's a pretty big deal, even Santa shows up!

I was lucky enough to be a part of  last year's show "Christmas Chaos on the Chattahoochee", as both a co-writer of the script and a performer with my buddy Sam Beman, who's been appearing as the Grinch locally for more than 10 years! 

And we're back at it again this year, with an all-new show, "A Tale of Two Grinches".

I'm pumped to work with some of the wonderful cast from last year! Kristin Barker is reprising her role as Mrs. Claus, and Donterrius Ruff, who I've worked with for years on Sam's TV series "Light Talk", is joining me as Bubba the Elf (who, if you ask me, is probably up to something...)

 Sam will also be wearing a brand-new Grinch costume made by Audrey (ya know, my awesome girlfriend?)

I also helped a little.

I'll be reprising two roles I originated in last year's show Skippy, the Grinch's right-hand man (well, Elf), and Max the Dog, who can talk now... don't ask.

I'll also be belting out "Let it Go" as Olaf (alongside my favorite gal as Elsa, and in a custom-made gown, no less)!

But my favorite addition to this year's show is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reinder himself, a puppet I built just for this production who has quickly become one of my favorite new characters.

We've been in rehearsals for a few weeks now and we've laughed ourselves silly, let's just hope the audience finds us as funny as we do...

If you're a local come kick off Christmas with us with "Night of Lights" THIS THURSDAY NIGHT (Nov. 30th, 2017) at the Phenix City Amphitheater @ 7:00 PM EST.

Lots of fun in store with Elite Dance Academy, FREE Hot Chocolate, Fireworks, Comedy, and Santa Claus!

Plus, it's FREE!

More soon (...I Hope),

Avery

Checker Shoe Band is Back!

It's been quite a while since we've checked in with our friends from Heath and the Checker Shoe Band, but they're finally FINALLY back with a new episode!

When Stanley Stevens brings his new goldfish, Free Willy, to the show and quickly learns that caring for a pet is more than he'd bargained for.

Not much has changed since we left them in May of 2016, though I did repair, re-dress, and all-around re-furb the entire cast of characters so everything is shiny and new again!

I have missed living in the CSB world, things are so much simpler there.

More soon,

Avery Jones

OOOM #6

THANKS for checking out this week's episode of the Out of Our Minds Podcast!
A bit of a different show this week, we talk about OUR secret origins, favorite Thanksgiving meals, and BABY METAL! 

More soon,
Avery

OOOM #5

This week's episode of the Out of Our Minds Podcast is here and it is PACKED!
We're covering it all! Disney's streaming service, a possible Lord of the Rings Series, and, of course, Taylor Swift!

Back soon,

Avery

Still Alive!

It may seem like I have dropped off the face of the earth, but, I assure you, I'm still kicking!

TONS of puppet orders, classes, script writing, and live shows on the horizon so I'll be pretty spacey for a little bit longer, but, after that, I'll be back with a vengeance!

I know the two people that actually read this will be thrilled....

More soon-ish,

Avery

OOOM #4

Check out his week's episode of the Out of Our Minds Podcast!
We talk about Thor, The Punisher, Justice League, 20th Century Fox... but mostly Thor...

More soon,

Avery Jones

PROJECT: Wicked Halloween Props

A few posts back I said I'd share some details on the props I created for our "Wicked" Halloween costumes and Photo-Shoot, and I know TENS of people are just dying to read all about it!
So here we go... before I forget...

Something that I have learned to love in Cosplaying with Audrey are the wonderful little details and pieces we create out of necessity. Convenience and comfort have been key to our Cosplays, especially when making something for a Con. So if we need a bag or a purse for example, finding a way to theme it to the character's personality is a lot of fun.

Audrey and I have deemed these details "Character Embellishments", i.e.; things that aren't necessarily "canon", but add to the costume's story and the world it lives in. 

Like Audrey's Shiz University varsity sweater; nothing like it exists on-stage in the show, but it could very easily exist in their reality.
 

And she's darn cute in it...

In Wicked, Boq carries a small suitcase with him as he arrives at Shiz. Knowing we were taking our photos on a college campus, I wanted to play into the school scenes as much as I could, so, I went after the one prop I was pretty sure I could track down...

I was hoping to find a worn and torn vintage leather suitcase to modify, but couldn't find many affordable options. BUT I did find a vinyl cassette storage box (which is almost as old, am I right, Millennials?) that was the perfect size.

I started off like I do on every project, with a quick coat of spray paint to even everything out. 

I had some light brown left over from my Hunny Pots project and that was all I needed to cover up some crayon scribbles and the sticky remains of what was left behind by a few Hello Kitty stickers...

I picked up a small leather belt with some hardware to make a strap to make it feel like it was part of a larger set of baggage.
I stopped just shy of designing a luggage tag, but I ran out of time...
A few more passes with some black, grey, and dark brown paints for texture to give an "aged" look to the box, and I was beyond happy! 

I could have stopped right there...

But, of course, I wasn't ready to be done, so I designed a handful of Oz-Themed labels and souvenir stickers to add some more of that Character Embellishment that I mentioned earlier.

A fun $9 project that only took a few hours to pull off, AND I still got to bed before 2am!

I also threw together a Shiz textbook prop for the shoot. I went to a few thrift stores (yes, again) looking for a vintage book to work with, but I didn't have much luck (yes, again). So I grabbed a $5 sketchbook from Wal-Mart's art department.

 I needed a new one, anyway...  

A quick decal on the cover and an "IF FOUND" label on the back, with Boq's name and contact info (again, I love details, sue me...) made for a pretty simple, and nifty, prop.
I hit it with a few different colors of spray-paint as well, and took some sandpaper to the corners and aged it up a bit, like a generations-old textbook might be.
Easy. Simple. Awesome.

I had a blast and I love how the photos came out, but I've already said that...

That's all for now, I'll probably stop talking about Halloween soon. 

Maybe.

More on the way, 

Avery

OOOM Podcast Episode #3!

This week's episode of the Out of Our Minds Podcast is a Fan Theory Extravaganza!
We talk about it all! Star Wars, The Walking Dead, and Pixar (well, kinda)...

More soon,
Avery

THIS IS HALLOWEEN

One of the perks of being an "adult" is getting to act like a kid every now and then.
...Of course, I do get to play with dolls for a living, but I digress... 

Growing up, my parent's rules for Halloween were pretty strict. 

No costumes and no Trick-or-Treating.
So it wasn't until a few years back, when I moved out and into my own place, that I got to have a proper Halloween!
I bought a HUGE plastic pumpkin full of candy, Styrofoam tombstones, and spooky lights for the front porch, and was prepared for a night of scary movies and Trick-or-Treaters...

Yeah, no one came to the door and I ended the night eating my feelings in the form of about 50 Dum-Dum lollipops...

Fast forward to last year's Halloween (2016), now my girlfriend is a costumer so OF COURSE we're going all out on the costumes! 

We dressed as Seymour and Audrey (and her name IS Audrey) from Little Shop of Horrors.
Little Shop is a very important show to us and how we ended up together, but I won't go into all of that right now...
Because she's amazing, Audrey pulled the costumes together very quickly. But I wanted to contribute to the fun somehow, too, so built a prop "Audrey II" to carry around for the day.
What can I say, puppets are my crutch... 

This year we knew that we'd have to step it up!
There was a very long list, but through a strenuous process of elimination we finally made the very tough and time-consuming decision...

Boq and G(a)linda from the Broadway Musical "Wicked".
It's an odd choice, and no one knew who we were, and that was part of the fun!

Both of our costumes came from Goodwill, with Audrey taking her magic touch to them a few weeks before Halloween. It only took her a few hours to tailor my suit and add all the "Ozian" details.
She's just magical like that.

I custom-built and customized a few props to complete our characters, I'll do a post on those later...

In all, we spent less than $50 for both costumes.
Boo-Yah!

It's become a tradition (and when I say "tradition" I mean that we've done it twice, so I should really come up with a better word before I post this thing...) to have a mini Photo-Shoot in costume with our "adopted" Theatre Daughter, Sophie McDow. 

We took 130+ pictures on the campus at Lagrange College (and got plenty of strange looks along the way) but the photos came out beautifully so I'm not complaining!

We spent the rest of the night on Audrey's front porch giving out candy and looking at everyone else's amazing costumes. Then we hit Wal-Mart at 2 am to stock up on 50% off props, costumes, and Puppet Making supplies!

It's crazy how much fun I didn't even know I could have!
I can't wait for next year, we are already working on it...

More soon,

Avery