"Allan Smithee" makes an anonymous stage cameo...
"The first time I met Neal Medlyn was in late October, when I went to a performance in Wooldridge Square called "It's Like We Are Infiltrators." It was the 28th public performance that Medlyn had staged since his debut on the Austin scene six months before (see p.45 for the complete list). Audience size at these self-produced shows varied considerably. At this particular show, for example, my roommate and I were the only ones in attendance. But that didn't stop Medlyn. In the Wooldridge gazebo, Frank Sinatra was on the boom box, COPS was on TV, some guy who I thought was in the show but who was actually just a local drunk nodded off onstage. Medlyn and his friends Michelle Dean, Farris Craddock, Trevor Bissell, and others took turns reading stories, singing songs, and doing little puppet shows. Dean's five-year-old son Jacob was performing that night, too (Jacob's sure-to-be hit is "Boogers on Butts"). The whole thing was a chaotic mess of sensory overload, seemingly random bits of conversation, and occasionally terrific jokes.
"In the car on the way home, my roommate and I talked about how startlingly rough the show had been. Then we started pretending to be one of the puppets in the show, the one who shrieks "I love you!" We also tried to figure out what Medlyn's private life was like based on the snippets of dialogue, which were perverse and endearing and bespoke a profound obsession with trivialities. We decided he was deeply complicated. We also decided he was completely insane. Still, we were full of an odd, profound respect for Medlyn based on the fact that he would perform for just two people. Not including the drunk, the cast outnumbered the audience more than two to one."
Austin Chronicle, December 29, 2000