ANGIE'S FRIDAY REPORT
Go here to read Saturday's report
View Angie's Pictures in the Photo
Gallery
Friday 1/12/07
The day started out with Adam announcing the winners of the video contest.
Let me tell ya there is some GREAT video editors out there, WOW! I was
really impressed. Some of the videos that stood out for me were "End of the
World" by Hailey from our sister club from Australia, The Canberra Xena
gang. From what I understand Hailey was a Xena con virgin. Good on ya
Hailey! "For Good" by Diana the song from the play Wicked! LOVED IT!!!...The
video as well as the play. <Grin> also Celebrity Duets by Jen S. (DOWNLOAD) was GREAT
she had highlight clips from Duets put together to Dionne Warwick’s, I know
I'll Never Love This Way Again.
Other video contest winners include:
Friend In Need by Michael<WOW I loved this vid, EXCELLENT song choice>
The Best by Martine<VERY CUTE>
Not Just A Pretty Face by Claudia. <GREAT song choice! >
On The Ride by Jenna <VERY CUTE>
George of the Jungle by Sharon<FUNNY!!! >
Ball Room Blitz by Donna (Download) <XENA kicks A**!!!! >
Love Lines by Cynthia <GREAT Xena vid>
Sweet Child of Mine by (didn’t catch the name of the editor. sorry)<CLEVER
EVE/LIVIA vid used to introduce Adrienne Wilkinson>
Story of a Girl (Download)
Video presentation of 3 Wishes by Deborah
Abbott
This pregnant gal, played by Deb Abbott was hit on the head with a Genie
bottle, lo and behold who pops out of the bottle? None other than Aphrodite
herself on hand to grant three wishes. Wish one, a huge chocolate sundae
with pickles, wish number two, to be able to tell her mom she is pregnant
and last but not least, wish number three was to have a healthy baby<they
show an ultrasound of a fetus and then you hear
The little fetus let out a Xena yell<Very cute>I thought the actress who
played Aphrodite did a wonderful job as well.
*** Then they showed back to back the blooper reels from season 1-6, you
know the same ones we have all seen a billion times…(Unless of coarse you’re
a newbie then they would be new to you) they’re still funny I hadn’t seen
them in a while.
Adrienne Wilkinson-Eve/Livia
Well what can I say about Adrienne she was as cute as ever:) She talked
about her new movie "North Shore Drive" and showed a pretty SPICY clip from
the movie however she cut it off right before the good stuff...<dang you
girl...LOL!!! > Someone had asked her what her first love scenes were and
she mentioned it was on the set of the show "As if".
One thing I thought was pretty funny was when she started talking about her
experiences on the show "Charmed" like her first run in with Janice
Dickinson on the set was hilarious...she said of Janice, she has 15
personalities with no sensor...LOL>the first time they met she walked up to
her and introduced herself and Janice looked her up and down and as serious
as ever all she said to Adrienne was "I'd do you."...LOL) also she mentioned
how short Alyssa Malano was, you think she'd be really tall but no:)
When she was younger she was a singer in a girl group with some of her
friends and she mentioned she would LOVE to do a musical as a matter of fact
she is in the process of working on this musical called "Reflections" and
they are currently waiting for approval to use the songs. Adrienne also
talked about working on the set of ER and how HUGE that set was. She loves
to dance and has been dancing since the age of two. Her mom is a nurse and
her dad is a policeman. She was a straight A student in school.
Someone asked her what she was like as a little girl and she said she was
very tomboyish always getting into trouble for jumping off high places. One
time she jumped off a huge deck attached to her house, and dislocated both
hips (Not only once but she actually dislocated her hips twice doing the
same thing) and child protection was called on her family...she said,
imagine how embarrassing that must have been especially for her dad who was
a cop. So needless to say her parents would get after her for doing crazy
stuff like jumping off this huge deck...LOL!
Another person asked her whom she liked to play better Eve or Livia and of
coarse she said Livia. "Its MUCH more fun to play Evil" she also talked a
little about shooting the Xena ep Motherhood, it rained and was very
muddy...it was miserable shooting that ep. Someday she would like to play
Mata Hari.
Steven Sears- Exc. Producer, writer
Ya know I just love this guy. He makes himself so accessible to the fans and
is always so nice and gracious:) It is so obvious he really loves and cares
about the characters of Xena and Gabby, and it comes across when he talks
about the show. He wrote some of the best episodes of the series.
During his Q&A he talked about some of the projects he currently has in the
works including a graphic novel series called "Stalag X" about a prisoner of
war camp. Humans at war with aliens, now I wasn’t quite sure if the humans
were keeping the aliens as prisoners of war OR the aliens were keeping the
humans as prisoners but it sounds like an interesting movie for sure...I
love that stuff:) He is also is working on /or has completed a screenplay
for Stan Lee called Code Runner.
He talked about the Xena episode "The Price" and that through writing that
ep he was trying to learn about his father. His father took the form of Xena
in the story and Gabrielle was him. He talked about how his father was an
assassin in the Vietnam war and he really had a hard time reconciling the
fact that here’s this guy who tucked him in at night and a very supportive
father and then on the other hand was the same guy who had done some not so
nice things during war time. He got choked up talking about this and
confessed this was the first time he hand ever talked about this publicly.
Another thing I thought was interesting was the back-story on the character
Amarice; she ended up nothing like what he had planned for her. As we all
know she ended up this kind of annoying Amazon wanna be tag along but
actually Steve had planned that she was a member of a militant Amazon tribe
who were strictly by the book...the children were raised with weapons in
their hands instead of toys and the mothers never showed emotion, no love
was shown just the basics to survive (food, clothing and training) It was
better to die in battle that to survive that battle and loose it. During a
battle with the Hoard the only remaining members of the tribe left were
Amarice and her mother... Amarice falls into the river and the hoard kill
her mother right in front of her, as her mother was dying she turned and
smiled an Amarice it was right then, the first time her mother showed her
any kind of emotion, she knew her mother loved her and she survived with the
guilt of surviving the battle. I think Amarice would have made a MUCH better
character if she had a little depth to her...but alas...no!...LOL!
He mentioned that he has recently talked to Hudson and she is currently
doing a movie that’s why she was unable to attend the con.
He wrote episodes of the A Team and and Sheena. He mentioned a funny story
while writing an ep of the A team one of the actors wanted and entire part
of the script re-wrote” because he just didn’t like it" so Steve re-wrote
the scene and completely wrote the actor out of the entire ep (luckily he
had the support of the producers who were getting kind of fed up with this
actor as well) who’s this actor you ask? NO not Mr. T ...LOL it was George
Peppard . So the moral of the story is... if your an actor don’t pi** off
the writers...or your producers... LOL
Someone asked him what some of his favorite shows are now and he
mentioned:(notice they are all cable pay channels? He said he HATES network
TV now because they have those little annoying ads in the corners of the TV
screen)
Battle Star Galacticia
Entourage
Nip Tuck
Rome
Deadwood
Dexter (he would LOVE to write for this show)
Zoe Bell –Xena’s stunt double
Didn’t Show up from some reason.
We heard later that she was up north working on a film.
Robert Trebor- Salmoneus
It was good to see Robert again. I hadn’t seen him since my very first Xena
con back in 1998 in Minneapolis MN he was there with Kevin Sorbo and if I
remember correctly I think Hudson was there too (Oh my gosh am I getting too
old to remember my first Xena con? sheesh!!) He talked a lot about his
one-man show called The Return of Brother Theodore. He called himself a
Theater Junkie. During the filming of the Herc ep, “Men In Pink” he had to
get his body shaved twice and he said it was NOT a pleasant experience…LOL!
He was in a movie about 22 years ago with Martin Sheen called “Out of the
Darkness” about the Son of Sam killings. He played David Berkowitz. One of
his most memorable moments was seeing Kevin Smith play Othello in Michael
Hurst’s production at the Water shed theater in Auckland NZ He was
incredible!!! "Kevin was a real gentleman”!
Xenaversity’s Xena vs. The Soul Sucker of Japa
First there was the Curse of the Furious Femmes... then there the Xena
Western, now the Xenaversity is back with the highly anticipated 3rd
Not-So-Silent movie ~ XENA VS. THE SOUL SUCKER OF JAPA!!! Xena and Gabrielle
are trying to take a much needed vacation, but the Fates have something else
in store for our favorite duo, and trust us, this villain really sucks,
souls that is! And it's NOT who you think it is!!
It was great to hear the audience reaction. People seem to really love
it…they laughed in the right spots. As most of you know this was supposed to
be Xena –vs-Godzilla which it was up until two weeks before the con when
Creation called and said that the Godzilla character is heavily copy righted
so we wouldn’t be able to use him. So we scrambled to come up with the
Xena-vs- The Soul Sucker of Japa…and personally I think it turned out GREAT!
Everyone worked really hard.
Friday Night Cabaret
An evening with Michael Hurst and Jennifer Ward Lealand featuring Jay
Laga’aia and the return of Brother Theodore with Robert Trebor.
Jay Laga’aia- Draco
Ya know I just love this guy, he
is so down to earth, and what a GREAT singer songwriter. He comes out with a
guitar and sings for us. He started with the theme from the Mary Tyler Moore
show, “Love Is all Around”, “You Send Me” by Sam Cooke. He talked about his
kids, his 7th child was just born and her name is Katherine Grace. He talked
about his experiences playing Mufasa in the Lion King Musical. He talked
about the audition process for Mufasa and he went in and did an imitation of
James Earl Jones as Darth Vader in Star wars and he got the part…LOL He then
followed that up with a song he wrote for his son called “Why Can’t I Sleep
on the Top Bunk Ma” (I haven’t been able to get the melody of this song out
of my head all day. I hope he has a CD one day) He ended his show with a
wonderful version of Galileo by the Indigo girls (a song I just love)
Robert Trebor- Salmoneus
Robert came out and did a excerpt from his one man play called “The Return
of Brother Theodore” There is no doubt that Robert is a wonderful actor, I
was like WOW! I had never heard of Brother Theodore before but apparently he
was an actor who had a midnight show for years, he passed away about 5 years
ago and this one-man show is a tribute to him. Robert said he uses some of
the exact lines from Theodore’s show. I thought it was pretty good but since
I didn’t really know anything about Brother Theodore I didn't really get it
ya know what I mean?? But I can appreciate it for what it was. There were
some funny parts. I was mildly entertained.
Michael Hurst and Jennifer Ward Lealand -
Iolaus and Boadicea
WOW these two are fantastic! I LOVE them. They came out and sang
individually and together. Michael started the show with a lively rendition
of My Delilah. Next the both sang the little things, which was about a
married couple and was very cute. Other songs they sang included: “Just Sing
don’t talk”, “Lonely at the top”, “Masochism Tango”. Then Michael did a
performance as a Drunk Irish Priest. Jennifer came out and sang a few songs
from her touring show “Falling in Love Again” about Marlena Dietrich. She
also sang some songs from the show Berlin. Jennifer also sang a song
accompanied on her ukulele. Michael talked about a song on the b-side of an
Engelbert Humperdink single called “Dance To My Ten Guitars”. It is so
famous in New Zealand it is practically the national anthem. They invited
Jay on stage to sing with them. I was thoroughly entertained and really
adore these two!
The Desert Party Disco
The guests included Adrienne Wilkinson, Jay Laga’aia and Robert Trebor. They had 3 Great entries for the table setting contest and the most awesome one of all was the entry from our international xenite pals. They depicted how Xena changed history in each area of their world. It was very clever. The guests moved about and talked to the con goers at each table. Robert Trebor shared quite a bit about his character brother Theodore. It was a fun night and I did a little dancing. I did the electric slide and was lucky that I didn’t end up on the floor! My knee started to act up not to mention I was so tired…I cant do it like I was 20 anymore…LOL! So I went up to my room around 11:30pm. My mom had a great time dancing as well. Unfortunately, T. overdosed on sugar and had to leave early-LOL!!