Applause, applause.

Recorded my interview with Dee Perry for WVIZ's arts and entertainment program Applause this afternoon.

I have been making appearances on WCPN's Around Noon since 1998. Radio was already something I'd gotten very comfortable with, I fiddled with it in college, Guerrilla Theater Co. did a radio show on WRUW ten years ago. I used to get nervous coming in for an interview with Dee but with practice, my familiarity with her, it's just no freaky thing now.

But TV is just weird. I gave myself a tension headache earlier today just thinking about it. Frtunately, so much of producing television is this tedious standing around and waiting, any potential nerves just evaporated.

It helps when the situation is new to everyone around you, too. Both WVIZ and WCPN have only just recently moved into the Idea Center on Euclid Avenue. I believe they have taped some segments for Applause in the new studio - which is located right on Euclid, you can see the studio from the street - but the part of the show where I perform scenes from I Hate This was the first time they tried to shoot something using the window as a backdrop.

They were messing with filters, which glare screen to use ... I didn't get to see the final take, but apparently everyone was pleased with it.

Usually I do a scene with Lydia in it if I need to pick something out of context. But they aren't very active scenes, and this is television, so I did the Nurse Angel scene, where I get to run all over the bed. We did a few takes, I managed to fark up a word or two in each take, but I think they got something good. I hope so.

The interview was unnerving as well. I knew I'd have to be concise, that it would be a shorter interview than I was used to. I mentioned how the mission of the show was to get people to open up, and to discuss this dark part of life. I think I said there were more people who'd experienced neonatal death than you might think.

After the taping, the producer and one other member of the production team came up to share their stories with me. One was a survivor of another kind, a cancer survivor, but also told me how their mother had lost a girl, and she wasn't allowed to see her. The other was the parent to a boy he lost nineteen years ago.

And you know, sometimes I get stuck as to exactly what to say. "Nineteen ... wow," was probably how I started. But we kept talking for some time.

Of course, when I was asked about the sgnificance of March 20th as the broadcast date (they knew - it was a set-up) I am not sure what I said, but I might as well have said, "Five. Wow." That would have been enough.

Applause broadcast dates: Thu. March 16 @ 7:30p, Sat. March 18 @ 6:30p & Sun. Mar. 19 @ 1:00p