QWANcon

It was finally time for QWANvention. I wasn’t actually part of the organizing crew but pretty much knew them all so I arrived to Dixon Place already slightly earlier than what the event started. Helped out with some general set up before being banished back upstairs to wait. Did see all the members of QWAN arrive. Jenn Harris was the first one to arrive and since I was standing with the people who were in charge of organizing the event, got to meet her as well already then.

Passed the time waiting for the event part to start by hanging out and talking with some people I knew. Wren_kt7oz, rockie2010 and toto_too514  were all there. Saw some of the presents they had gotten and felt that my own simple gifts were pretty boring *g*. Also met some new people. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits.

Then it was time for the event to actually start. We were taken into the theater part and welcomed to the event. Then the members of QWAN arrived to a thunderous applause. First part of the event was dubbed as autographs and Meet&Greet but it pretty much morphed into a general hanging out and people talking with the guests while also taking pics of them and with them. There were just 16 attendees so it was all very relaxed and fun. The QWAN members seemed to enjoy themselves too. They all got plenty of gifts too. Of course Randy’s haul was the biggest and Jack who was sitting in the next table from him, tried several times “steal” some of Randy’s gifts. He yelled at Christian and Philip who were sitting further away that he had gotten all these lovely gifts while showing them Randy’s haul. Randy kept telling him to keep his hands off his gifts but it was all done in good humor.

I do have to admit that I’m not that familiar with any of the other people in QWAN besides Randy. I’ve seen Philip in “The Outs” and all the others in “Gayby” but it was truly a pleasure to meet them all. The first one was Jack Ferver. I do have to say that he totally won my heart. He was such a funny guy and totally took care of the speaking when I struggled to get words out of my mouth. I did ask him what he thought about the whole event and he assured me that they were all very excited about it. I told him that I was from Finland and he asked me if I had flown in just for the event. I told him that I was there with a bunch of friends for a vacation originally but the timing fit perfectly. I got him to sign a 10x8 of him as well as the Gayby DVD cover. When I handed him the 10x8, I also gave him a post-it note with my name on it and asked him to personalize it for me. He was all in for it but then he said that he hadn’t done it for anyone else and wondered if he should have. I just commented something about it being people’s own fault if they didn’t ask for it. *g* I did find him really easy to talk to. Only after I had moved forward, I realized that I had forgotten to ask for a photo with him. I hoped I’d be able to return to do that later.

Next it was Randy’s turn. He greeted me and asked if my jetlag was already better. I told him that I had gotten a few nights of good rest so it was all good now. How nice of him to ask that. I had him to sign a 10x8 and the Gayby cover as well. Then I got an extra 10x8 for aschicca. On top of that I was also collecting all the signatures to a postcard for a friend. This person had been in London with us last December for the theater event. I sort of wanted to test if Randy remembered her so I reminded him of an incident that had happened in London and he immediately responded with another incident that had to do with the same person. Obviously she had made an impression *g* I did suspect I might get into trouble a bit after this person heard what we had discussed but it was all great fun. I did have to correct him when he asked me if this friend was from Switzerland when she really was from Belgium. I told him that I was happy that I’d finally get to see the show after hearing so much about it. Then I still got my photo taken with him. Luckily there were plenty of people I could give my camera to. Then I sort of had to move forward so that I didn’t end up holding up the queue too much.

Jenn Harris was the next person I went to. She gave me a look and said “Pia, right?” Was impressed she remembered my name from just being quickly introduced to her some time earlier. Had pretty much the same things for her to sign than to all the others. She told me that she was very impressed by the 10x8 of her and how she had worked on it herself. Then she saw the Gayby cover I had for her to sign and became very interested in it. It appears that the cover for the US and European version were different. She spent some time outlining all the things that were different in the cover I had compared to the US cover. At some point Randy butted into the conversation to make sure I was from Finland. Don’t really know what brought that on.

And then I noticed that the people who had been in front of me in the queue had already gotten through Christian and Philip as well and they were now waiting for me to get there. I heard one of the organizers commenting something on the lines of “Oh, it’s just Pia. She always takes 20 minutes to get through”. I’m guessing that was in reference to me going way past my allotted time limit in the London event last year when I had my 1-to-1 M&G with Randy. To my defense, it wasn’t really just my fault. The guests kept talking to me too. I still had my photo taken with Jenn before moving on.

Next up was Christian. He was just lovely. He asked me where I was from and when I told when I was from Finland he asked me, where in there. I told him that I was from Helsinki, the capital (close enough) and he gave me this dirty look and told me he knew what the capital of Finland was and he was from Europe originally after all. But it was all in good humor. I just told him that I didn’t want to assume anything since not everyone knows that and it’s just has become my habit of answering that way. Talked about random things with him for a while before getting a photo with him and then moving forwards.

The last one up was Philip. I only had a 10x8 for him to sign. I did tell him that I had ordered the tote bag from “The Outs” and was hoping to get him to sign it but it hadn’t arrived on time. He told me that he was going to be on the set of “Whatever this is”, the new show from the same crew, the next week and he said he was going to kick their asses for not getting it to me on time. I did tell him that I was glad to hear that he was going to be in the show again and looked forward to seeing him in it. Got a photo with him as well.

After I had all my autos I just concentrated on snapping photos of everything going around. I also went to Jack and asked if I could get a photo with him since I had forgotten to do that before. He was all for it and made me sit next to him behind the table and wrapped his arms around me for the photo.

Since I saw other people getting their photos taken with all the guests in pairs as well after everyone had gone through the line once, I walked to Jenn and Randy and asked them if I could get a photo with both of them together. I took a seat between them and had the photo taken.

Then I decided to get a photo with Christian and Philip together as well and got them to agree with it with no problem. I took a seat between them and the photo was taken. Was then told that I had my eyes closed in the photo. Christian’s reaction to that was “Come on, woman! Keep your eyes open!” Another photo was taken and that came out pretty well.

Then there was still some time so I just walked around the area and snapped photos of the guests.

We had been told that while Matt Wilkas wasn’t there, we could get him to sign our stuff as well if we left it with the organizers. They would then take care of it.

Heard later that Randy had been told about Michael’s cluelessness the day before and he had laughed while saying something on the lines of, "I really do know the guy, you know"

Then the M&G part of the event was over and we were told to return to the bar to wait for a while before we were called down again to see the open tech rehearsal of the show. It was very interesting to see how they prepared for the reading. There was a funny moment when they started to discuss which version they were doing. It seems there are different versions of the both readings they’ve done in different times and they had to agree on the one they were going to do that night. They went through a few of the scenes to get the timing right. The guy taking care of the lights was there on the behalf of the theater so he needed to get some cues to know what to do with the lights.

There was also an amusing scene for the Notes reading where Christian’s character gives Jack’s character a bracelet. They used a children’s snap bracelet for that scene and had some trouble deciding if the scene was funny or not. Let me tell you that they managed to make it very funny. We were told that when that scene came up in the reading we should applaud like crazy.

In the middle of the tech rehearsal Matt Wilkas walked in as well and got a huge applause from us. He had had a matinee showing of Spiderman to do and that was the reason why he wasn’t there in the beginning. Still glad he made it to the rehearsals and the actual readings. 

During the rehearsals they also went through who was going to sit where and when. It seemed they had had different arrangements on different times. It had also been a while since they had last done the readings.

One item on the list that they had to do in preparation was to prepare a splash guard that makes the clean up after SWAN! a bit easier. First they were just going to use the table cloths that had covered the tables during the signing but then they found a roll of some thick plastic covered material from somewhere and decided to use that instead. At first there was not enough in the roll but they managed to find another roll and proceeded to tape it all together. 

There’s a lengthy monologue that Jenn delivers quite near the end of SWAN! that parodies the Oscar acceptance speech Natalie Portman made. All the guys are supposed to strike a certain pose at that point but while they were practicing it, everyone did the pose except for Randy and Matt had to nudge him.

All through the rehearsal the QWAN members kept goofing around and needling each other in good humor. They also kept calling each other "girl".

Then it was time to let them rehearse in peace so we were directed back to the bar to wait for the actual show to start. I sat there chatting with pretty much the same people I had talked with earlier too. More people started to arrive to the place since it had been possible to just buy tickets to the reading part of the event. I spotted some "familiar" faces there, as in people I knew from one place or another, in other words people who have worked with Randy in different projects or are connected with him in some way. The people around me seemed to know a lot more people out of the crowd that came in. It did seem that quite a few people out of the people who had bought a performance ticket was somehow connected to one or more members of QWAN. Of course there were then just people who had come to see it out of interest.

The people who had taken part in the convention part were let into the theater first. I took my seat in the first row and wondered why there was no rush from other people to sit there. It seemed most people preferred to sit on the second row or even higher. I turned around to ask the people behind me if there was some reason for it and they told me that the QWAN show was a bit like going to those water shows where it’s warned that the first rows will get wet. Made me think again about my choice to sit in the first row but it was too late by then since the seats were filling out fast. I did hope, that there wouldn’t be too much splashes landing on me.

Then the members of QWAN walked in, sat on their chairs with the backs turned to the audience and began their “vocal exercises” which pretty much consisted of them of mumbling stuff while occasionally saying something a bit louder with the sole intention of getting people to laugh. At the same time the organizers came to welcome everyone to the reading and when they said the place “Dixon Place” there was a loud comment from the direction of QWAN of “Dicks on plates”. That gives you a picture of what kind of stuff was said.

Then the actual reading started and it was so much fun. My memory is totally failing me here but I’m glad that I went to the trouble of watching the movies before the trip since I’m sure it made it easier to follow since I could remember the main events from the movies. Of course since this was a parody, some of the events were slightly twisted but in general they did follow the script.

Some highlights of the Notes reading:

- Philip spit a mouthful of water right at Christian’s face totally drenching him. Jack would have gotten drenched as well but he managed to dash away and save himself
- Jenn doing Portia’s (the cat in the movie) death scene. There had been a line for her a few times earlier in the play where someone claims “Portia is not alright” and to which she always replied “I’m not alright, guys”. Then it was time for her death scene which she started by pretending to choke. Then she dashed towards the audience and actually took hold of my leg before climbing up the stairs that were there beside me. And from there she proceeded to practically rolling over some of the audience. After reaching the stage level again, she ran across the stage space and finally crashed to a wall and proceeded to fall down dead. Had people in stitches.
- Matt’s portrayal of the character with Down-syndrome in the movie. I know it’s not PC to make fun of disabled people but truth be told there really isn’t much in the QWAN show that is PC. You just couldn’t help but laugh at him when he said his lines.
- And then there was of course the snap bracelet scene which got a huge applause from the convention people and probably left the others a bit confused about what was going on. It basically went the following way:
Christian: I got you this bracelet, miss
Jack: Oh?
Christian snaps the bracelet on Jack’s wrist and there’s another “Oh” but this time quite a lot more breathless and obviously sexually charged
- There were also very interesting sex scenes in the reading between Jack’s and Christian’s characters
- Randy delivered a long line with great passion and came to the end of it, or so he thought. He then turned the page and there was still one word missing from his line so he delivered that as well but the moment was sort of gone already. Cracked the others and the audience up

The reading ended up in a huge applause. The actors left the stage and there was a small intermission while they got ready for the next reading. Once more they walked on stage and started to prepare. Only this time Jack, Randy and Jenn were in a ballet get up and proceeded to all kinds of ballet-like movements on the stage. In the beginning Randy was wearing pointe shoes and actually managed to hold pointe for a small while. He also did some splits. At one point he tried to do a split against the wall but couldn’t quite make it and ended up falling down on the floor where he then crawled around for a while. At that point he took the pointe shoes off and hit the floor with them a few times before putting another pair of ballet slippers on. They also spread the splash guard on the floor.

The reading itself was once more hilarious. It’s difficult to describe it if you haven’t seen it but believe me it was a hoot. I much prefer QWAN’s version of the movie to the original.
Highlights of the SWAN! reading:
- Randy playing the part of the mother from the movie
- Randy calling Jenn a sweet girl and stuffing almost a full cupcake into her mouth
- Jenn doing the scenes where her character purges herself of all the food she eats. The splash guard was very useful there. She had a can of some soup that she pretended to eat and then spit on the floor. A few times she came really close to the audience and looked just like she was going to spit the soup all over them. Luckily she didn’t *g*
- At one point Randy fit most of Jenn’s fist into his mouth
- And another point Randy used sticky tape on his face to make his eyes really wide and his nose stick up. And then he tried to say his lines and the sticky tape kept letting go and he had to correct it.
- On one passionate scene Jenn got up from her chair and ended up dropping her papers which then proceeded to get all mixed up. She just gave them a look and said “Oh, fuck”.
- In this play it was Winona who wasn’t alright. Several times during the reading there was a line “Winona is not alright”
- When it was time for Jenn’s monologue, all the guys took their pose, except Randy. Matt again had to nudge him. You could see Randy commenting something about that to Matt.

Once more the reading ended up in a thunderous applause or actually a standing ovation. The people who only had the performance ticket were then asked to leave the space while the convention people still remained behind to have a talkback with the actors. At first there were no questions. I guess people were a bit shy. Surprisingly I couldn’t come up with anything either even if I’m usually good at coming up with questions. Anyway, finally they were asked about their future projects and they told us a bit about them. They all had something in the works. Randy just said that he had some vacation time coming up. Matt is involved with the Spiderman musical on Broadway. Philip is part of Whatever This Is. Christian had some projects coming up in Europe. Jenn had had a peaceful summer but had been involved in doing some music video that included her Barbie collection. Jack had a new museum show coming up.

Then they were asked about how they decide which movies they are going to do and who gets to play which part. They were also asked if there was possibly something new coming from them to which they really couldn’t give a clear answer. They all seemed to agree that they all had to think that a movie was good to be parodied for it to be good. A few of them admitted that they had this habit of going to the movies while hoping that the movie would be perfect for QWAN. They did throw out some upcoming movies that might have potential. As for the roles, they said that quite often some people feel that some role is their strong suit. Notes got started by Philip being able to do a very good Judy Dench impression where as Jack did a very good Cate Blanchet.
There was also some talk about how they all got together and ended up coming up with QWAN where they answer seemed to confuse even themselves when they really started to think where they had met each other and in which circumstances and who had been the one to sort of bring them all together. 

As a final comment I have to say that I really enjoyed their performance. My sides actually hurt from all the laughing. It was also fun to watch how the actors couldn’t keep their composure at all times either. There were quite a few instances when one or several of them lost it and then had to try and get through their lines anyway. There were a few moments when someone lost it so bad that there was a small break while they collected themselves.

After the talkback part of the event was over, it was also time for the whole event to end. It had all been great fun. I stayed behind to help with the clean up, not that there was much to do. Then we had to vacate the theater space but the bar upstairs was still open for a while. I sat there with my friends. I was well aware of all the QWAN members in the bar as well but left them in peace since they were obviously socializing with their friends and weren’t really working anymore.

However, I did encourage myself to go and say a few words to Matt when he didn’t seem to be otherwise occupied. I only got to say a few words to him before I was quite rudely interrupted by a certain individual. I moved a bit further away at that point but when she left, Matt stepped closer to me, apologized for the interruption and we talked a while longer. I just mainly wanted to compliment him about that evening’s performance and also tell him that I had enjoyed watching Gayby. He did seem to be pretty easy to talk to as well.

One by one all the QWAN members left. Since I was sitting with the organizers, I sort of got to say bye to them as well. Soon after that the place started to close and we had to leave as well. Since some of us were feeling hungry we headed out in search of a place to eat in. We did manage to find some place that was still open. We had been sitting there for a while when we suddenly realized that they were playing "Save the Last Dance" through the speakers. We felt it was a quite fitting end for the day.

Final comment: The whole event was so great. Everything ran smoothly and people seemed to enjoy themselves. My heartfelt thanks to Sarah and Milo, the organizers, as well as all the people who helped out with the event, in one way or another.