Zero Untitled had a successful run at the Corpus Christi 7-Day Film Festival at the Harbor Playhouse on Saturday, September 31.  At the award ceremony held at the House of Rock a few hours after the close of the screenings, ZU brought in several nominations and a win at the festival:

Caleb Bonitz – Best Original Song (WINNER)

Megan Saenz – Best Supporting Actress (nominee)

Aaron Salinas – Best Supporting Actor (nominee)

Heraclio Gonzalez, Jr – Best First-Time Leader Award (nominee)

Full Cast – Best Ensemble (nominee)

The Kingsville premiere of the extended version will be held soon, but for now you can watch the trailer on YouTube and hear an excerpt from the award-winning song. Read more to see the video right here!

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In true Zero Untitled fashion, we have a handful of productions all coming up in a short amount of time.  Here is a quick run-down:

August 29 – Premature Punchline’s “Fishnado!”, Blue Room, 8:00

August 31 – Film premiere of “Eighty-Six Thousand Four Hundred Seconds” at CC7D, Harbor Playhouse, 4:00

September 6-7 – Don Nigro’s “Glamorgan”, Blue Room, 8:00

In addition to the above, be on the lookout for a promotional mime trailer for our in-house mime troupe, Forward MIMEntum, produced by Kingsville Now.  Also, the film “Eighty-Six Thousand Four Hundred Seconds” will have a trailer out very soon as well.  Likewise, the other mainstage production, “The Merchant of Venice” is in the rough-cut phase of editing and should be out in the next month or so.

For more information, visit the individual pages:

http://www.zerountitled.com/productions/fishnado

http://www.zerountitled.com/productions/eighty-six-thousand-four-hundred-seconds-coming-soon/

http://www.zerountitled.com/productions/glamorgan/ 

“Glamorgan” is presented by special arrangement with SAMUEL FRENCH, INC.

Here is a picture from our two-day mime workshop.  Thanks to all of the participants:

Jose, Luis, Rebekah, Dustin, Trey, Heraclio, Christina, CJ, Olivia, Aaron, and others!

Here is a pic from our crowd at OmniCon right at the start of the show.  After about 5-10 minutes, several other people trickled in and we about filled up the first four to five rows!  Also, a pic of the cast and crew!

Cast and crew are (from left to right): Rebekah Ramos, Christina Saldivar, Katy Orozco, Debbie Gerd, Beth Cantu, Aaron Salinas, Heraclio Gonzalez, Jr, Michael Verderber, and Julio Martinez.

Here are three of the four prizes from our recent Premature Punchline performance at OmniCon!

We gave away a Pokemon keychain (thanks to a local vendor), a copy of The Witcher 2 for XBox 360 (thanks to Gamestop), an AUTOGRAPHED Wolverine print signed by artist Sam de la Rosa (given by the artist), and an autographed John DiMaggio coffee mug (thanks to the UTPA Cartoon Club).

 Here’s a teaser pic from our forthcoming Corpus Christi 7-Day Film Festival project, written and directed by Heraclio Gonzalez, Jr.

Pictured from left to right are: Aaron Salinas, Caleb Bonitz, Megan Saenz, Heraclio Gonzalez Jr, Danny Cantu, and Julio Martinez.

Other cast and crew for this project will be Leah Luna, Daron Briscoe, Luis Zaragosa, Michael Verderber, Stacey Saenz, and others. Keep here for more info!

“Divided by Zero” is a brand new interview series, both traditional interview and video interview getting you into the head and heart of the ZU family.  “Divided…” will feature five sporadically posted interviews featuring veteran members and members new to the ZU family.  Our second interview in the series features Joshua “Beta” McCaulley, a newbie to ZU.  McCaulley is a comic, musician, and actor who has performed in roughly 5 productions with the company.

Divided by Zero – Joshua “Beta” McCaulley

 (McCaulley performing “Inviting a Friend to Supper” as part of the Textual Overture Series at Cafe 5)

How long have you been involved with Zero Untitled and what was your first production?

I have been involved with Zero for around 6 months now and I hope I don’t have to stop. My first production was the mortician Dr. John Eura in “Nightmare of Oz”.

What is your best memory of any ZU production?

When I recited “Inviting a friend to supper” by Ben Jonson

What kind of future project would you like to dabble in?

Shakespearean radio plays, or radio theater in general. And maybe even some film projects.

If you can play any role in any show for ZU, what would it be?

The villain, the “nice guy” persona comes to me naturally, and I would like to be dealt something that is, in a nut shell, different, maybe even opposite.

 (Performing in the short play “House Party Mix Up” as part of  the “Fish and Giggles” show: A. Medina, McCaulley, L. Zaragosa, R. Watkins, C. Bonitz)

Any characters from film or theatre that you’d like to play?

Leopold Bloom for Mel Brooks’ The Producers (He reminds me of a younger me), Benvolio from William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, and Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.

What do you expect from the audiences of ZU shows?

Integration, I like it when there is feedback between actors and audiences. In “Play-giarism”, I would walk up to a random audience member and make them laugh. Good times.

So, you like the audiences’ reactions to graphic stuff that Zero does in productions?

In general, yes I do. The only way the actors can really get a kick out of what they do, is if the audience gets a kick out of watching the actors do their thing.

How would you coerce someone that is not a theatre fan to come see a ZU show?

I would pull the friend card (laughs) I would say “Come support me with what I do” and then hope they show up.

ZU often does nontraditional theatre, so how do you suppose that can bring an audience into the world of theatre?

I would say that is entirely up to the show.

 (Performing in a Premature Punchline skit at GATOcon)

How so?

I can’t just say “we got fresh cookies, come to the show.” Hopefully, coming to the show will ignite something in them that will get them to do “research”, so to speak.

There are a lot of new people in the productions. What would you tell people that are new to ZU?

I would welcome them in with open arms. I would also tell them that working with ZU is their choice, if they don’t want to do it, that’s fine, but if they want to commit, I will assure them they will not regret their decision.

So, say I’m brand new to ZU and I wanted to be in Premature Punchline, how would you train me?

Like Mick would train Rocky but seriously, we would probably get together sometime and come up with a scenario and go from there, and also watch a lot of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”. A “monkey see, monkey do” approach if you will.

 (Improv game at GATOcon, alongside D. Gerd, R. Lopez, and J. Luna)

Since you are starting to develop stand up material, what topics are you looking into? And how will that differ from what other comedians are doing?

Some topics I’ve been looking into are my personal likes and dislikes, myself, and (with permission) borrowing some of my friends’ mishaps and misadventures. Most comedians have been travelling, or had dysfunctional family, or even they were just griping about the world around them. I have just used what was in my personal arsenal to the best of my ability. I have also started to delve into my own pool of general knowledge (i.e. MMPR trivia, history of donuts, etc.)

Any final statements?

Would you like fries with that?

 (A dramatic role in “Game of Fortune”, as part of last year’s “From Passion to Page” show).  

First sound test rehearsal: Olivia Del Bosque filling in with Luis Zaragosa playing Launcelot.   

Zaragosa, C.J. Lillie as Shylock, and Julio Martinez as Solanio.

Rehearsing with the threat of cupcakes: Melissa Saenz and Zaragosa discuss a scene while Rick Saenz (Gratiano) and Lillie work on a scene.

Here is Premature Punchline’s 2013 tentative tour schedule.  Some dates and times are subject to change. Please note that there have been some very recent changes to the tour schedule!

May 31 – Tango Tea Room, Corpus Christi, 8:00

June 20 – Blue Room, Kingsville, 7:00

June 22 – Pokemon Festival, McAllen, Time TBA Canceled

July 5 – Tango Tea Room, Corpus Christi, 8:00

July 27 – OMNIcon, McAllen, Time TBA

August 2 – Tango Tea Room, Corpus Christi, 8:00

Now that “A Glass Veil” has closed, what becomes of ZU’s project line up?  Well, plenty actually!  ZU plans to take a week-long break from rehearsals, pre-pro, and any other related work to give the cast and crew a chance to prioritize with other endeavors.

Upon our return, we have a huge summer ahead of us.  Two huge projects are being juggled at once: Shakespeare on Air and Annabelle’s Day Out.  SoA will be the radio-play recordings of William Shakespeare’s Othello and The Merchant of Venice.  The project is under the direction of C.J. Lillie (The Rorshach Test, Only Slightly Mad, etc) with assistance from Michael Verderber.  The project’s intention is to create downloadable recordings of the plays for educational purposes.  It should take roughly 1 1/2 months to rehearse and record each play.

Annabelle’s Day Out is a filmed spin off of the very successful Cooookie! play performed at the end of 2012.  An episodic web series, the series will follow the misadventures of Annabelle, the rambunctiously idiotic child fixated on cookies and giving trouble to the baby sitter(s).  At press, four brand new episodes have been ordered, two have already been written, and the play Cooookie! will be broken up into three episodes for a total of seven, released monthly starting in late summer.

Inevitably, Premature Punchline will be having sporadically scheduled shows in Kingsville and Corpus Christi as well.

Until then, we rest!