kamehamehamlet

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It's been a bit radio silent on the KHH page (we just passed one year since we announced the revival!) but I wanted to share one of the many projects I've been working on for the last two years!

Today I'm releasing an indie game! You can play it for free on PC, Mac, Linux, and Android! After dipping my toes into game design work in early 2023, my wife and friends hosted a Game Jam for my birthday (The Gamiel Jamiel). With the theme, 'Season', my team started brainstorming an overcooked inspired card game. 48 hours later we had a workable game with basic mechanics, four levels, and a short narrative. As narrative/writing lead, I learned a ton that weekend but in the following months, my group started talking about polishing the game. We built a plan around additional jams and throughout 2024 kept working on More Than You Can Chew. We added an arcade mode, expanded the story( and added voice-over), and our developer went ham on UI and game feel bringing it to an incredible level of polish. I'd say more about the narrative but will leave that for another time, once it's out in the world for a bit. It's available for PC, MAC, Linux, and Android all via Itch! I hope you enjoy :D

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Archival Post: Super Saiyan Goku

In celebration of hitting our email subscriber goal, let me share a piece of a KamehameHamlet draft.

@iamarealhumanbeing asked this question in @amokslime's original post! During our livestream today, I answered:

We eventually cut this because we couldn't afford another actor for the last minute of a play but it also meant we lost maybe the best of the show, so please enjoy a look at an early draft.

We'll be streaming every Saturday in June from 4pm to 7pm CST. Come hang out!

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Blossom (Bre'Elle Erickson) and The Mayor (Natalie Rae Wass). Puffbots (Jessica Smith and Amanda Chial). Don't mind me taking a moment to remember just how great our costumes were! Shout out to our costumer Sarah Simon who also worked on KamehameHamlet. Photo by Alex Wohlhueter.

Play-Dot Archives: Mayor Lear May Wrap Up

Thank you all for joining us for a very fun and silly Mayor Lear May (week) and enjoy this last-minute promo (below) we made for our final weekend of the run in 2017 I'll link all the archival posts below, and don't forget to join us for our Spirit Bomb Rally Stream tomorrow! Shalee and will be back to tackle the ever-growing list of reblogs so hop in and ask us a question or two about Mayor Lear or Kamehamehamlet! Until then, Lord Abracadaver of Minneaspolissville, signing off. Mayor Lear Archival Posts:

Mayor Lear Promo Poster

What is Mayor Lear?

Mayor Lear Projections

Mayor Lear's Cave Scene

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Archives: Promo Poster Set #2

To promote KamehameHamlet in 2015 we put up seven posters at CONvergence a large Sci-fi and Fantasy (and like all geeky things really) convention in the Twin Cities. Each poster had a modified Shakespeare quote, matching character, and one of the seven dragonballs. I'll post the remaining four next week! Check out the other posters here! Check out our previous archive post featuring Freeza's tail here! And don't miss our upcoming rally stream this Saturday!

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The Tumblr reblog sensation is returning. But like the Sayians or Shakespeare’s folios, it has the potential to develop in many forms.

Visit kamehamehamlet.com to be notified when we have more details.

Follow this blog for a peak behind the curtain.

And read on to learn more about the show, how we got here, and where we’re going.

Thank you for waiting just a little bit longer.

Revival Project Q&A

Who are you?

Hi! I’m Daniel Cole Mauleón (@writepictures), the writer of Kamehamehamlet. In 2015 I co-founded the theatre company Play-Dot Productions with KHH’s director Shalee Mae Cole Mauleón.

What is Kamehamehamlet?

Kamehamehamlet: Good Night Saiyan Prince, was an hour-long one act play, performed during the 2015 Minnesota Fringe Festival. It’s a staged retelling of Vegeta and Freeza’s battle on the planet Namek. Marketed as a Dragon Ball Z and Hamlet mash-up, the parody quickly shuffled off its weighted gi, revealing it was actually a Waiting for Godot spoof. After five performances, Vegeta hung up his helmet of spiky hair. Seven years later, K (@amokslime) wrote this incredibly gracious post on Tumblr, which inspired two people to reach out to me via Reddit to ask if I had a script or a recording of the performance.

I want to pause the semi-marketing voice and say a heartfelt thanks to K. Kamehamehamlet was brought to life by an incredible team of artists during a summer I’ll never forget. We got laughs at jokes, gasps at fight choreography, and we broke even on the budget (a Fringe miracle TBH). K’s post gave me the chance to revisit that show through someone else’s eyes. The mix of pride and humility it stirs up is truly indescribable.

If there is art which has changed you, and especially if the artist is still alive I encourage you to non-intrusively share that with the artist.

Is there a copy of the script?

Yes, I’ll speak more about that at below.

Is there a recording of the performance?

There was, but I genuinely lost the files. And that’s for the best, honestly. It was a last-second attempt, filmed from two cheap cameras (with different qualities and resolutions!), both at bad angles and with truly awful audio. Trust me. It’s better this way.

That said, I do have other archival footage from rehearsal's, tech, etc. that I look forward to sharing for those curious.

What’s next?

This is the question I’ve been asking myself over the past year and the reason it took so long to post anything. Especially since one thing I want to do differently this time is make sure that any artists involved are meaningfully compensated for their time and skill. However, I can’t plan without a better estimate of what kind of support we would have, and I didn’t want to share our intentions without concrete details. Right now, the best way you can support this project is by signing up for the announcement on kamehamehamlet.com and following us on Tumblr and YouTube!

The second best thing you can do is to share with others about this project, if I’ve learned anything reading through the comments on K’s post, it is that there’s a much bigger audience for KHH than I could have ever imagined, and you likely know at least one more person who would be interested.

And while I don’t want to promise anything I can’t deliver on, I will share that I’m planning on making the script available this year and I’ll be writing a separate post about that in near future.

Update 5/21/24: We've announced a staged reading for later this year!

If you’ve read this far thank you so much.

Photography by Ann B. Erickson. Vegeta is played by McKenzie Shappell. Freeza is played by Cayla Marie Wolpers. Costumes by Sarah Noel Simon.

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Archives: Promo Poster Set #1

To promote KamehameHamlet in 2015 we put up seven posters at CONvergence a large Sci-fi and Fantasy (and like all geeky things really) convention in the Twin Cities. Each poster had a modified Shakespeare quote, matching character, and one of the seven dragonballs. I'll post the remaining four tomorrow! Check out our previous archives post featuring Freeza's tail here! And don't miss our weekly rally stream this Saturday!

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I dont think I'll ever get to watch kamehamehamlet, since i live very far away, but i hope it goes well!

Hi Ospreyonthemoon! Hopefully, you will be able to see KamehameHamlet too! Currently, our only plan is to livestream a staged reading; this would likely be on YouTube, and I don't think it would be region-locked. Additionally, I want to make the script available for others to perform so who knows, a performance could always pop-up near you in the future! I talk a bit more about both of these plans in this post. Thanks for reaching out!

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🩷 BADMAN 🩷

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Hey! It's me! I'm beyond excited to finally be able to show you my cover art for the @kamehamehamlet script.

Thank you so much, Daniel, for commissioning me to draw two of my favorite characters of all time, during my favorite arc of the series. And a massive thank you to whichever tumblr user/s reached out to ask him about it. Now I'll get to experience a play I never thought I'd get to see again. Seeing it all those years ago really did pull me out of the most difficult art slump of my life. Seeing the actors have so much fun, while being so emotionally sensitive, made me remember why I fell in love with making art in the first place. So I'm really looking forward to reading the script and seeing the staged reading! I hope we can all enjoy it together.

Here's the latest informational post about the script. Please take a look, and please reblog to make everybody look at my drawings of vegeta to make sure all the folks who are lamenting that they missed it get their chance.

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Revival Project Update: The 2024 transformation! 👀👀

Thanks again to everyone who has shown support since we announced the project less than a month ago. I'm so excited to share more details about our goals for this year! I previously mentioned that I'm working to make the script available this year, what I didn't mention is that I'm revising the script, and you will be able to experience KamehameHamlet with a special staged reading of this transformed play with the original KHH cast and director on board!

The reading will be streamed online and recorded for later viewing, and following the reading we will make the revised and original scripts available.

There is one more very meaningful and super radical detail about the revised script that I'll include here when it is announced shortly.

Be sure you don't miss the details by signing up for email updates at KamehameHamlet.com and read on to learn more about the script and staged reading!

More about the script

Why are you rewriting the script?

I'll share another post this weekend breaking down the reasoning behind the rewrite. I'll link to that post here when it's up!

How will the scripts be published?

At the very least, both scripts will be available in digital form for anyone to read. However, I will also be looking into options for printing physical copies.

Will we be able to perform the script?

This is a goal of mine, so I'm looking into options that can support myself and Play-Dot while also making the play accessible to artists of all budgets.

Any way this new version will let me be pedantic to strangers online?

Yes! The original KamehameHamlet had the subtitle 'Good Night Saiyan Prince' the revised version uses the subtitle 'Waiting for Goku.'

More about the staged reading

What is a staged reading?

Staged readings can be pretty varied, but in general, it's a stripped-down production without costumes, lights, blocking, etc. Actors are familiar with the script and may have gone through some rehearsal, but aren't expected to memorize lines.

Why a staged reading and not a full production?

I answered this question yesterday which you can read here. In summary, a staged reading will be a much easier goal to accomplish with fewer risks involved.

What should we expect from a staged reading of KHH?

A lot of these details are still up in the air. Whether we gather the actors on zoom, or bring everyone together with a professional recording equipment, the goal is to make sure it's available for people to view online. To that end I'm looking into costs for a few different levels of quality, and following that we will look into options around funding.

I want the staged reading to be incredible, how can I support it?

Right now, the best way to support the KamehameHamlet Revival Project is to:

Sign-up for email updates: This tells me you are willing to navigate off of Tumblr by a few clicks, to support or view KHH content.

Follow this blog: This helps to make sure you don't miss updates!

Share our posts: Amokslime's original post is nearing 20,000 notes. First of all, that's insane! However, the majority of people who have seen that post still don't know we are working to bring KHH back. You can help spread the word by reblogging our updates and if you see a mutual sharing the OG post, consider reblogging with our announcement!

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At the risk of sounding Insane, will the unedited/original version of the script also be available, so we can see how the show has changed over the years?

You don't sound insane! Or we're both about to... Another dream of mine would be to release a fancy annotated version of KHH like all those Shakespeare editions I love and would either include the original in its entirety or highlight what the changes are etc. Since that's less likely the original script will be made available as well, likely in a digital form. I'm still working away on my post about the direction of the revision which will explain more!

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Hello!

I saw this show back at Fringe and it haunts me to this day.

I cried over a show where everybody was wearing wheelies. Amazing.

If you wanted to do a revival (I want you to do a revival) would you consider doing at at a show at a local geek convention, like CONvergance? I think it would go over really well there, and I would love to see it again.

Hi @leebrontide! I'm grateful/sorry KamehameHamlet has been haunting you for nearly a decade. But genuinely, thank you. I shared your review/reblog with the director, Shalee, and it meant a lot. I have a bit more to say about that, but I'll save it for the very end because it has mild thematic spoilers and well, this blog only exists because most people haven't seen KamehameHamlet... yet. As for your question, I've been planning to share my thoughts about a full production revival at some point, so I hope you don't mind me diving in.

To respond to your question about a proper revival:

In the grand scheme of possibilities, I haven't written off a revival production. However, we would want to make sure it is accessible via recording, and if we're putting recorded staged theatre into the world, we want to make sure the recording is professionally captured and edited. I haven't done the research, but my gut estimate is that it would be a pretty penny. Additionally, a goal across the revival project is to make sure we are ethically supporting any artists involved. Put together, this means a revival production would require significant funding on top of other logistical elements. This isn't to say it isn't a goal, but I don't see it as something we would be able to achieve this year. that said I believe one of the magic things about theatre is the nature of works to be produced by different people who each bring their own passion and points of view. This is why I'm exploring options for making the script available for others to put on their own productions. I've had at least one person reach out about possibly submitting KHH to a Shakespeare festival, and I read a handful of reblog tags where folks mentioned wanting to perform it at the schools, etc. and that really excites me. It would be my dream to see this performed across the world so everyone would have a chance to support live and local theatre. Some runs will be great, some will be bad, and some will haunt you for a decade, but that's theatre! To bring this back to the topic of a revival, I'm working on a post to share tomorrow. But I'll tease it here. While a full production isn't likely anytime soon, we are working on a staged reading with the original cast and director for this year. This will be available to watch online! Finally, (or well, finally before we talk mild spoilers) since you brought up Convergence I'm really really curious if you learned about our play because of the flyers we put up at Convergence the week or so before our show. We made a handful of different flyer designs, printed maybe 100 copies and plastered the double tree. I'll share the others in an upcoming archival post but here's my favorite!

Mild thematic spoilers for KHH below!

^Lee's reblog/review for context!

Once again, thank you for the kind words and I really want to shout out Shalee here. Her direction excavated the themes of pretend/play violence that I'm really glad resonated so well with you. And speaking with her, I know it's inspired by playing DBZ with her friends outside as a kid. While this POV might not always be present in my dream of endless productions, I'm certain if she gets a chance to direct it again, it will be at the heart of that production. And if we get a chance, we'll be sure to save you a seat.

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KamehameHamlet Archives: Freeza's Tail

Vegeta (and his helmet) have gotten a lot of love, but I wanted to highlight my other favorite piece of costuming: Freeza's tail! Read on to see it in action, and how it was made!

Made of a super long industrial pool noodle (with some theatre magic modifications), this costume piece/prop whipped around stage behind Cayla with a twisted fluidity that tied together Freeza's look. I mean just look at how it hooks around the rock then lashes out when Cayla turns sharply.

Let's take a look at how it was made!

The original idea for the tail was based on those wooden snake toys and I cut up a pool noodle as a protoype and sent the following video to our costume designer/magician Sarah Simon.

Sarah took my less-than-half-baked idea and crafted the final form of the tail. She shaved down a large white pool noodle to a taper, and instead of cutting all the way through, she used precise slices at varying angles which allowed specific bends exactly where we wanted them. The diagram below explains it better.

So why put all of this effort into this piece:

1. It's cool. Duh.

2. We needed to be able to pull off this moment.

Thanks for reading! Oh and if you are thinking the following...

Wait a minute... you told us there wasn't a recording. So, what's this then?

The footage in the gifs comes from a short recording during tech sent to our fight choreographer to show how the choreo looked in the theatre. I'm combing through old videos of that time to find pieces worth sharing with you. Follow this blog to see these snippets or follow the links below to learn more!

More KamehameHamlet:

KamehameHamlet.com

Announcement Video

Announcement Post

Previous Archive Post

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Later this week I'll be sharing a post about my intentions behind rewriting the script, until then enjoy one of many Shakespeare references in the VIZ translation!

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Binders

In elementary school there was a group of boys who sat near the back of the bus who would pass around pages of dragon ball z fanart collected in three ring binders

they'd spend weekends at the library scouting fan sites on dial up connections loading new pictures of their favorite heroes printing their favorites for ten cents a page or twenty-five if they wanted color

when they saw the news today did they save a photo of Toriyama to a folder on their phone before texting their friends "check out this legend"

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KamehameHamlet Archives: Postcards

Thank you...

to everyone who signed up, reblogged*, and followed yesterday! It means so much to see your support for the Kamehamehamlet Revival Project. If you haven't yet, you can watch the announcement video here and read the Q&A here. *A special shout out to the individual who commented #new tumblr hype thing that will probably fail to launch just dropped , and proceeded to follow anyway. I get it. We all want something to believe in. Thanks for choosing us. Just to set some expectations, the goal is to share one larger post each month focused on the process, development, or context around the Revival Project. Additionally, I'll share something archival from the 2015 production weekly. If you just want to know when we have big news, sign-up at kamehamehamlet.com.

Also, our AMA is open so don't hesitate to ask us questions along the way!

This month's larger post will be about my approach to rewriting the script for distribution. Keep an eye out for it! But first, as a thank you, I want to share promotional art that was never used during the initial run and likely only seen by 2-3 people.

A big part of MN Fringe promotion are the postcards advertising your shows. These are dropped off on the tables of various venues, posted onto corkboards around the city, and handed out to friends and family, who will kindly smile as they recycle them. For the initial KHH postcard, I remade the MN Fringe logo in the style of the 2000s US Shonen Jump logo. Only then did I quickly learn what brand guidelines are whoops.

The above image shows the original design next to a SJ cover. The second image is of the final design of the postcard which beyond the obvious MN Fringe title change has as few smaller tweaks!

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I'm going to start queuing up reblogs of previous KHH posts.

Please don't read into this account being more active as a sign of any big updates or news. It's more, I am an old and just now learning the benefits of this queue feature, and have a pocket of time this morning and it feels like a fun thing to do.

Oh but one small update which is drafting has begun. The shape is different. The deadline is still nebulous.