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Memorabilia: A Pass and a Permit:
A backstage pass, a permit for street theater, and a recovered
photo from long ago.
Festival
of Fools Program:
Charly Jungbauer, Janet (Planet) Beever, and Hank Targowski organized
the printing of these pages, as the info and images dribbled in
from the business offices and the over-strained Mick Flaum and
Kirke Wilson of Melkweg's art department, who were replaced during
the course of this sprawling project. The Paradiso conributed
graphics too. I lent a hand with some artwork, but mostly cranked
the Gestetner machine and collated things under Charly's guidance.
We needed an additional schedule sheet when we were done (see
below) -- but the program booklet ended up being very close to
reality.
Kirke Wilson
wrote in 2012: I was in fact, producing the Melkweg programs
with the Gestetner at that time and am the artist who drew the
cover of the various Fools from the Tarot decks I researched at
American Discount Bookstore (now called The American Book Center)
... Henk did the Crumb collage) and I believe it was Mick Flaum
(the screen printer) who hand lettered the Fools program. Mick
and I were responsible for the silkscreened week, theater and
Vondelpark posters for a number of years. Henk Langeveld (RIP
- 2011) printed the The Teenage Palmtree poster.
There are variations in the Workshop pages I can tell you about,
because I taught juggling classes in the slots reserved for "david/SaltLake"
-- in fact, besides those two sessions, me and my students took
over the Fonteinzaal in De Melkweg several other times. I was
very surprised when Jango stuffed a small pile of Guilders into
my hand for payment -- didn't know if we were making any money
at all with the Fool's School. Katie's compliments were
welcome too -- Amsterdam was learning something.
G.T. Moore and his Reggae Guitars might have been last on both
schedules, but although we danced our collective butts off all
night to their music, they weren't really the final act of the
festival. (See the note below)
Festival
of Fools Schedule:
This schedule was our bread and butter during that hectic June
of 1975. It varies a bit from the program in the booklet, but
that's because it was printed closer to the time the actual events
occurred. Does it document exactly what happened and when? Of
course not! What kind of fool would say anything like that, or
believe it? It is mostly true, however.
The London Friends Roadshow performed the rousing Michael Spaghetti's
Circus from their mobile stage, parked outdoors next to De
Paradiso in the evening of Saturday, June 7. They did a puppet
play and hosted a variety show on Dam Square during the afternoon
of Friday, June 6, and their band performed with the American
Friends Roadshow that night inside De Paradiso, along with some
members of the Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe. I've totally forgetten
what the Mime Troupe did on Sunday, June 8, but I saw a Justin
Case performance for the first time in De Melkweg, as half of
a duo named Chaos that night -- George Kugler was there
too.
Ii's reasonable to suspect that I was over at the Shaffy Theater
all that day, helping to get I was A Teenage Palm Tree
ready for it's premiere later that week. Speaking of the Shaffy
-- Ka' Theatre and the Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe were SCHEDULED
at the same time, but one company or the other often started late
-- thank goodness, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to see
any segments of their incredible show. (It's possible we started
early too, but I kind of doubt THAT!)
The schedule misses a couple of late-night spontanious combined
shows and jams which were the true highlights of the Festival
of Fools -- but they weren't planned, so how could they be printed
ahead of time? There was no single finale in 1975, but the strength
of what occurred manifested itself in the Amsterdam theater scene
for many years afterward.
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