Happy Pat Tuesday everyone! Y’all have a chill weekend?

It’s wild that I began this newsletter to fill you in (almost) every Tuesday about the creation of BIG BEAR, and here we are on the other side of it. Technically, I mean—you can still get the digital ticket to watch the stream until November 1st and I SUGGEST YOU DO.

To be honest, it’s hard for me to fathom that it’s over. This entire production was a grand experiment for my psyche to see what it would be like to have “one big thing". I’m known for my juggling in LA, from improv to sketch to directing to writing to acting to Margaritaville, but there’s a Goethe quote (stick with me) that I’ve been thinking about in all this: “at the moment of commitment, the universe conspires to assist you”. And I gotta say, the universe came through this weekend.

I don’t want this email to be an entire book, but I just wanted to say, from the inside, this 5 show run went better than I ever could have imagined. We had 5 wonderful, generous, invested audiences, and 3 days of pure joy onstage and backstage. Lentils were flying, smoke alarms were beeping, and the Trulys were Truly-ing. All the work—from the stress of hoping it would be received well to the haggling of schedules to the painstakingly plotting out of how many Solo cups needed to be thrown away in the first 30 minutes in order to have the number we needed for the last 30 minutes—all paid off. And more importantly, it clicked THE DAY BEFORE the show! So when we got out onstage for opening, we were confident, we were listening, and we were ready to really live in this beautiful world designed to cave in on us.

I’d love to answer some questions about the show if you have them—if you do, send me a reply and I will talk about them next time! If you got a chance to watch it, I’m dying to know what you thought. It was a cathartic experience to see the show so relatable—these are some of the least favorite thoughts I’ve ever have manifested in characters that we all know too well, so the positive reception just made me feel less like a crazy person.

But before I get too in the weeds on this show, I want to do some thank you’s. Firstly, to Alexandra Dennis, the stage manager and producer and coordinator and clock setter, this show would literally not exist without you. The tireless work you put into keeping this thing running without an OUNCE of stress displaced onto anyone else was nothing short of awe-inspiring. To producers Laser Weber and Cara Christian, you kept this thing running by solving problems I didn’t know existed until you fixed them. You kept this ship afloat in ways that I sorely needed and you made me feel like this was a project worth committing to.

To my designers: KC McGeorge (set), Daniel Bergher (lighting), Mischa Stanton (sound design), Ryder Dunnagan (props), and Dana Olinsky (wardrobe). Your care and excitement to fully realize the smallest details of this script was the greatest honor I’ve ever been bestowed. And to the crew of builders and helpers, Bryon, Peat, Scully, Max, and Carrie—the way you continued to keep this ship running smoothly (even when everything was wet and covered in puzzle pieces and lentils) gave me such ease—I knew I was in good hands!

A big thank you to the Elysian Theater and Drew Spears Productions, who shockingly and wonderfully provided a level of altruistic support far beyond that of their fees, giving their time and energy WAY past what they needed in order to help fully realize this for us.

And of course, to Brendan, Angela, Kimia, Jon, Joey, Lauren, Syd, Emily, and Kimia, my Beanie Dogs—thank you for going on this journey with me. Creation can be incredibly lonely. So many of my scripts will never meet a gang of lovely, hardworking, empathetic, passionate, and dumbfoundingly talented artists who believe in it, but I’m grateful this one met all of you. Thank you for lending yourselves to this and creating characters that people are attaching themselves to like a Buzzfeed personality quiz. How special you all are.

And lastly—to the supporters. Those who donated, those who came, those who watched, those who posted about it. You saw something you wanted me to make and you supported me to make it. I hope the finished product made you feel like your time, energy, and money was well-treated and well-used. If I did this through “proper channels”, there’s no way they would have let this play be as raw, visceral, tonally-sporadic, and bizarre. How special is it that we live in an era where you can just help the artists make their art?

Lots of questions about what is next for this thing—and to be honest, I didn’t know if we’d ever get here in the first place. Right now, I’m basking in glow of your enjoyment of this piece—it makes me so happy you dug it. Writing another thing seems impossible right now—I’m going through one of those “maybe that was the last good thing I had in me” phases just because there’s nothing that’s bringing me more excitement than this show did—but if we can do this BIG BEAR again somehow and somewhere with this EXACT cast again, I’d be over the moon. If anyone has a theater they want us to do it at—we’ll come to you.

And if you’ve been on this journey for the show, I can promise you these Pat Tuesdays won’t end! I have plenty more things going on and plenty more thoughts and I’ll be continuing to fill you in as we go. Who knows? Maybe I’ll make a hard pivot into POTTERY. Happens more than you think.

PAT’S PROJECTS - things I’m up to that you can check out!

BIG BEAR LIVESTREAM - available til November 1st! Get it while you can!

WE FIXED TWILIGHT - A TTRPG 8-part web show where we literally recreate the movie TWILIGHT and make it better (it’s possible), created by the wonderful Sean Coyle and Waleed Mansour! I got to play Edward Cullen against Kylie’s Bella Swan, and to be honest I had the time of my life. I read the entirety of Twilight (on audiobook) before this too, so don’t ever say I don’t prepare!

PAT’S PICK - something I loved this week

Champions of Justice (Los campeones justicieros) - I just watched this 1971 Mexican lucha movie last night at Vidiots as a part of my “do-nothing day” and I had the most fun. Lucha movies are so wild—like blaxploitation films with luchadors and so much stuff that wouldn’t fly now (I do not endorse that stuff but I won’t let it stop me—this thing is ridiculous). But if you wanna watch something with people in wrestling masks fighting underwater, this is gonna hit the spot.

Love you all! Thank you again for the best weekend of my life!

Patrick