Ten Questions. Ten Answers. And one Big Surprise in the audience …

CLENCHED

Struck by a mystery illness, David receives doctor’s orders to relax: something he’s incapable of doing. Desperate to conquer his debilitating tension, David dives into a spiraling monologue, a farce that audiences will find familiar, funny, and delightfully weird.

Show  Info:

• Fri Feb 19, 2016 | 8:50PM
• Sat Feb 20, 2016 | 12:30PM
• Thu Feb 25, 2016 | 8:50PM
• Fri Feb 26, 2016 | 5:30PM
• Sun Feb 28, 2016 | 5:10PM
• Fri Mar 04, 2016 | 7:10PM

UNDER St. Marks New York, NY $12/$15

Answers by David Mogolov
(writer/performer)

1. Forget the PR version. When you’re talking to your friends, how do you explain this show to them?
David: CLENCHED is a goofy, spiraling monologue that developed as I was thinking a lot about big data, and then coincidentally got really sick with a bacterial infection last summer. The script was underway when I got sick, but a weird experience I had while at the doctor’s office became a perfect frame for re-imagining the show. It’s much, much funnier than it would have been if I’d stayed healthy. Now it’s an hour-long comedy about illness, fonts, big data, and my complete inability to relax. They come together in a way that I think will be really fun and surprising.

2. Here’s a scenario: After the show some audience members go have a drink.  What’s the part of the show you hope they’re discussing?
David: Oh, I hope they’ll be discussing the scene that inspired the promo photos for the show, but they could just as easily be talking about the NFL, Comic Sans, or meditation.

3. What drives your show – character, theme or plot?
David: Theme. Definitely theme. As I start to write, I have a whole mess of things I think might fit, and ultimately the only way they stay is if they tie into a couple key themes of the show. If they don’t fit, the only way I’ll keep them is if they’re very funny.

4. In rehearsals, read-thrus, or prior incarnations, what’s the one thing someone said about the show so far that made you (or the team) the most proud?
David: “Oh, I got so tense just then.” – this comment by someone at a reading of an early draft, at a specific moment, provided such a clear opportunity for a great revision.

5. If money and resources (and even reality) were no object what is the most lavish, luxurious, pointless prop, costume, effect – anything – that you would spend money on for this show?
David: This isn’t exactly big-budget (and it risks sounding a little Corky St. Clair), but if I wanted to do something totally pointless, I’d periodically vent the smell of toast into the theater, like an olfactory soundtrack to the show.

6. What’s the one thing you’re looking forward to regarding the FRIGID Festival itself?
David: This is my third FRIGID: I love this festival. The FRIGID team are unambiguously “the good guys.” Somehow they create a culture where everybody is really kind and helpful and open and fun. It’s big enough to see a ton of great, diverse shows, and small enough to meet everybody and have great conversations. I hope everybody comes to a bunch of shows and then donates some money to Horse Trade Theater Group, who put this whole thing on and treat everybody like human beings while taking none of the box office. It really does wonders for my faith in people.

7. Is there a scene, a moment, a gesture … anything at all in the show that you anticipate may get a completely different reaction depending on the audience that night?
David: Yeah, I imagine the show will be received quite differently depending on the professional composition of the room. I’m both delighted and terrified of what would happen if I had a large number of designers. I’d be equally curious about football players, but I don’t expect the NFL to send a contingent.

8. What’s your favorite line from the show?
David: So few of them make sense out of context! I like this one a lot: “Maybe I’m not so precious and different! Maybe I just need a candle and a crystal and a blanket with sleeves!”

9. What’s the last thing you usually do before the beginning of a show?
David: Check my zipper. I wish I hadn’t learned that habit the hard way.

10. You scan the audience and you see a face that stops you dead in your tracks – who is it? And why are you shocked?
David: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Well, I expect he’s elsewhere, eating an endangered animal.

Well, David — okay. I’m not much of a sports person so I just googled Roger Goodell. There are a lot of memes  … enough for me to agree that yes, it’s not beyond the scope to expect he’d be eating something endangered**.  Possibly.

Hey, Mr. Goodell – all in good fun, right?

Ahem.  Anyway … the rest of you – don’t forget to check out CLENCHED.   

**No animals were harmed in the writing of this post.

 -*-*-

Horse Trade Theater Group will present the 10th Annual FRIGID New York Festival at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4^th Street between 2^nd Avenue and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1^st Avenue and Avenue A) February 16-March 6. All shows run 60 minutes, or less. Tickets are available for purchase in advance at http://www.horsetrade.info/  

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