Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe Outline and Scrapbook

Program & Memorabilia from the 1st Festival of Fools -- 1975

Thanks to Marion Onnekink, I have scanned complete copies of the program and schedule from the first Melkweg / Shaffy / Paradiso Festival of Fools in 1975. I'm making a few comments below, but leaving these primary documents as they are -- an archive for research.
 


Memorabilia: A Pass and a Permit

Festival of Fools Program (PDF)

Festival of Fools Schedule (PDF)
Return to 1975 Festival of Fools

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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.


Images from my own collection, plus many thanks to the genrous gifts of primary sources from Marion Onnekink.
All information is serachable, and freely available for scholastic research. Graphic design © Michael R. Evans 2012  Email Me