Cheeseburger and Fries : The Musical

Jeffrey Scott Holland, author of Toulouse-inations, is now working on a new play entitled Cheeseburger and Fries, concerning a pair of minimal-talent street-busking musicians struggling to ply their trade on the sidewalks of Kentucky.

In fact, the play is a true story of sorts, since it's based on an actual busking duo called Cheeseburger and Fries (JSH was "Cheeseburger", and J.T. Dockery was "Fries") that frightened tourists and pedestrians for years on the streets of Lexington and in surrounding counties.

Says JSH: "Together, they learn to face the opaque amorphous horror that is modern humanity, via confrontationally atonal bluesmanship. Along the way we also meet their mysterious friend Ed, who has a penchant for making surreal and oracular pronouncements, often at the most socially inopportune times".

Cheeseburger and Fries is expected to have a Louisville opening, probably in Spring 2009.

(Photo: Cheeseburger and Fries before a performance in Georgetown, KY, circa 1997.)

Last chance for Toulouse-inations

The final show in this production of Toulouse-inations comes today, in the form of a 2pm matinee. Don't miss this last historic chance to see the show in its earliest embryonic form!

We'd like to thank everyone who turned out to see the play so far, and the overwhelmingly positive response we've received. If you saw the show and would like to be added to our mailing list, just drop us a line!

Extra special thanks goes out to Noelle Shotwell at the MEX Theatre for making our Kentucky Center experience a very warm and pleasant one at the end of the day!

Toulouse-inations opens tonight!

And so, dear readers, the time has come in which the juggernaut that is Toulouse-inations shall be unleashed, like Frankenstein's monster, out into the world. It's too late to stop it now and the world will, quite literally in a quantum sense, never be the same.

We apologize in advance for nightmares, behavioral changes, paranormal manifestations, existential anxiety, sexual arousal, confusion, past-life regression, spiritual transcendence, intrinsic aesthetic alterations, awakened kundalini, retrocognition, midlife crises, migraine headaches or poltergeists that occur due to viewing women in anachronistic underwear discussing things like the smell of Vincent Van Gogh's beard.

See you at the Kentucky Center at 8pm.

The Sudden Death of Baer Fabrics

Everyone was stunned to hear that Baer Fabrics made an abrupt announcement that they were closing their doors forever, effective immediately at 5pm yesterday.

The announcement came with zero warning, and gave little or no heads-up to even their own employees. No "going out of business" sale was held. One day the store was there, and then suddenly it just wasn't.

I think that's really, really, really odd. And troubling.

Baer's had been in continuous business for over a century, and Catclaw had come to depend highly on them for their astonishingly deep selection of everything fabric-related. Their button department alone boggled the mind with its tens of thousands of incredible buttons of all conceivable varities. Much of our supplies for Toulouse-inations comes from their wonderful costuming department.

Baer's always referred to themselves as "The world's largest button and fabric store", and though this probably wasn't quite true - I feel certain that it must be dwarfed by someplace in NYC, Europe, India or China - it's nevertheless a great loss for the entire world of fabrics, textiles and fiber. Not to mention us.

Toulouse-inations tickets now on sale!

That's right, you heard right, a truly historic once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has arrived - your chance to score tickets to the first-ever production of Jeffrey Scott Holland's Toulouse-inations at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Louisville!

After its run in Louisville, the show will go on to play in other cities and will set its sights on an Off-Off-Broadway production in NYC in 2009. Says JSH:

"By sheer persistence, stubbornness, and plugging away, this play will eke out a reputation for itself, for better or for worse, by hook or by crook, a bis ou a blanc".

Someday you'll kick yourself for not having jumped on this chance to see the show in its very first raw incarnation with its original cast, so save your future self the anguish of hindsight, and purchase tickets NOW!

Consult the Kentucky Center's schedule here, select "August", and click on "Toulouse-inations" to peruse and purchase. The show opens August 7 and runs for FOUR DAYS ONLY.

Questions? Call the Kentucky Center at 502.562.0100 or Catclaw Theatre Company at 502.649.3378.

JSH book signing in Lexington, KY

Catclaw's artistic director, Jeffrey Scott Holland, will be on hand at the grand opening of Morris Book Shop in Lexington, KY today at 2pm to sign copies of his new best-selling book Weird Kentucky!

Morris Book Shop is located at 408 Southland Drive in Lexington.

Toulouse-inations rehearsal photos