Name of Respondent: Jackie Sanders, Owner/Operator
Name of Company: Literary Gumbo Actors
Name of Show: The Couch Potato
“I do hope that my mother’s energy is floating around me supporting my efforts even though I know for a fact that she wouldn’t approve of the content.”
1. Why should people tune in to your show?
Tune in to WLGA for all your favorite television shenanigans as Gerald, The Couch Potato, denies his wife’s offer to join her in shedding a few pounds. Instead, he chooses to stay in and watch the tube justifying it as a reward for all his hard work at his sit-down job. Gerald finds a variety of rather usual shows and commercials while channels surfing. Will his wife’s new Christmas blender help Gerald get off the couch ore will some outside influence shed a little light on his attitude? Will Gerald ever get off the couch?
2. What about festivals intrigues you? Any why the Atlanta Fringe?
I enjoy the variety of shows that may appear in a festival. I am mostly intrigued by its ability to assist writers in showing their works in an arena where they may not have otherwise received the opportunity to do so.
I chose Atlanta mainly because I saw it on Facebook but had never seen it before and was immediately attracted to it. Something told me to apply, and here I am!
3. What inspired you to create this?
This show was one of several that literally just popped in my head. I decide to run with it in particular after a few challenges occurred where I was unable to produce my original submission for this show. The title popped in my head. I started writing…fast!!
4. This year ain’t normal and there’s no sense pretending it is. How has Covid affected what you’re doing for this festival?
You ain’t lying! It has affected us in that we were all excited about travelling to a larger city to perform a show that we had a blast performing locally in hopes that the locals in Atlanta would enjoy it as much as the folks here and as much as we did preparing for it. When the festival got cancelled, we were hurt, especially when it got cancelled twice…in the physical sense. Then Covid affected some of my cast members and their abilities to participate. Some were afraid to participate for a variety of reasons. I didn’t want to replace them even though there is plenty of other great local talent around. The whole dynamics of the show would have changed.
I changed the entire show due to my actors availability, with their health concerns in mind, and based on how they were feeling individually about the whole thing. I literally wrote this show in as we went providing a shameless plug for the original show in it.
5. What have you learned from working on your show so far?
I can still surprise my damn self in a moment’s notice. LOL My actors are so talented and versatile, that having to change my show really was quite alright with me. It has provided an opportunity to get another show idea of mine out to the public where I would have waited until I thought I was ready otherwise.
6. There’s a mysterious, anonymous little square watching your show and sticking around for the talkback. In your WILDEST dreams, who is that mysterious stranger grooving on your work? (Please note, this question is inspired by us recently learning that Neil Patrick Harris has been doing this.)
I would absolutely LOVE for some anonymous little square to be watching my show. You never know who’s watching which is one of many reasons that I keep pushing to be a part of the festival. I quite honestly can’t say who my stranger would be because life has a funny way of showing you that the one you thought was it wasn’t but the very one you paid absolutely no attention to was it.
7. Fringes are the place to really push the boundaries so we gotta ask: are your parents getting the link are or you gonna be like, “Uhhhh, I dunno, the website doesn’t seem to be working, Mom…”
Unfortunately, my parents are both deceased, but I do hope that my mother’s energy is floating around me supporting my efforts even though I know for a fact that she wouldn’t approve of the content but only because her own “innocent” child wrote. I never spent enough time around my father to know what he might think.
8. We’ve asked this question every year for the past nine years or so but it hits different this year: Will your show change the world?
HA HA Of course, my show will not change the world. My only hope is that those who do view it find it funny or at least amusing and/or can obtain a message from it. If nothing else, I hope it makes the audience LOL!
9. Zoom meetings: dress up head to toe or Daffy Duck it?
Daffy Duck….duh!
10. We’re making an excellent Spotify playlist. Describe your show in two or three songs we can add to keep the jams flowing.
That’s a tough one based on our shenanigans, but I guess Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” could sum up at least the gist of the show. I mean, The Couch Potato is watching tv and things do get a little weird.
Sounds cool, right? Be sure to reserve your tickets now!
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