Cross One Off The Bucket List-- Thalian Hall Edition

I'm fascinated by the old, the historic and the grand. When we first saw Wilmington some 22 years ago, one of the places that stuck out to us was Thalian Hall, Wilmington's combination city hall and performing arts venue. The idea that it's both amuses me to no end, by the way. Anyhow, it's a century and a half old and looks from the outside much like an antebellum theater should look. Lisa and I were dying to get inside.

It's funny how "bucket list" stuff changes with our experience. Back then, the idea of going to see a community theater production in Thalian Hall never really occurred to us. We were new to town, and only lived in Wilmington for one year, and just never connected to that world. Our first visit inside Thalian was for a showing of Gone With The Wind, and while it was a great experience and a perfect place to see that particular film, we didn't experience Thalian as a live theater venue until late last year.

Our friend Jen was stage managing the Thalian Association's production of Peter Pan and it was a chance to see a real live show inside this piece of history. We had lots of reasons to be excited for this one-- Peter Pan is one of my favorite stories, the show involves tricky backstage fly work to fly the characters around, and we had several friends in the cast, including Jen's son Max as Slightly Soiled the Lost Boy. AND we finally got to see Thalian's stage put to use.

All old theaters have ghosts, why not skeletons?

So my bucket list entry had changed from getting a look inside Thalian to seeing a show there. But then it changed again. After working backstage on a few shows, I was interested in more than the audience section of the hall. I asked Jen if, after the show, she could show us around backstage. That never would have occurred to me 20 years ago. I mean, if offered, I'd have gladly gone and loved it and appreciated it, but I would never have thought to seek it out.

We loved our backstage tour, the place is everything you would want it to be. There's the historic to appreciate and the modern to be jealous of. I'm glad I didn't get the tour until recently as I had the experience to see things and understand things that I never would have at 25. Getting "backstage" anywhere is a fun thing, and we felt really cool and special to be walking around behind the scenes at such a grand old place. It was a check this off the bucket list moment and I truly felt my Thalian Hall fascination was satisfied.

Sometimes our bucket lists change as we add new knowledge and open new doors. Sometimes, though, those who know us well can add to our list in ways we'd not have presumed to. A few months ago, Jen told me she was stage managing a charity event at Thalian Hall and asked if I'd like to serve as stage hand. The idea of WORKING a show at Thalian Hall had honestly not really seemed like a serious possibility. It's usually a two-three week commitment and my schedule and distance from Wilmington made it not something I ever considered, and besides, that's a REAL theatre and I'm, well, me. But this was something I could do. Except that I couldn't. We were scheduled to go to to a wedding in Pennsylvania that weekend. But I've learned that once a door is opened, if you really want to, you can find a way to walk through. This particular chance wasn't going to pan out, but another item had just been added to the bucket list.

Then our PA plans changed and we decided to sit out the wedding because of work and time concerns, and ones brought up by Lisa out of consideration for me, which touched my heart. It took me a little while, but it finally dawned on me that if I was going to be home, maybe Jen's offer still stood. It did, and came to include the boy as well. He, too, has been dying to see something in Thalian Hall and when I told Jen he wanted to come see the event we were working (a lip sync contest), she asked if he'd like to see it from backstage as she had one stagehand slot open. Uhhh, yes please!

There are some big names on that wall.

Jen has been opening new doors for us a lot the last few years. Without getting all sappy, let me just say that the experiences my family has enjoyed because of the influence and love of her and her extended family have been positively life-changing.

John wants one or two of these for Shrek this summer

Ok, so John and I got to be stagehands, and professional ones at that as we actually got PAID for this, at a theater featured in Architectural Digest as one of America's treasures. The experience itself was hard to describe, I'm still processing it. I mean, for me, just being back there was surreal and sublime. I truly do LOVE being in and around spaces like that, they affect me on a basic level I find hard to explain. But while all that is happening in my soul, the real-world Jeffrey was hauling things on and off stage, putting mole skin on a drunk woman's stinky feet and hollering at a bunch of well-lubricated patrons to get the heck out of the lobby and back to their seats so we could begin the second half of the show. Very normal stage crew stuff made special because it all happened in a place that is anything but run of the mill.

Oh yeah, we got to work with Dolly Parton, too :-)

I've only scraped the surface of the awesomeness of the experience, really. John had an adventure and made some valuable contacts, we met a lot of really cool people, the show was a blast to watch, Lisa got to sit in an opera booth, and I got to work with Jen as stage crew. There was not one negative in the entire experience, really. Which is how, in an ideal world, all bucket list stuff would be.

I'm Going Far, Far Away This Summer

It's been a rough year so far. A work situation has left me running a route since early January and I'm about worn out. You can trust I'm not really being a whiner here because my boss (and mind you I work at a company where sarcasm and abuse is the rule) actually sincerely apologized to me last week. Never happens. But things are looking up. It's spring and I have a new project to delve into. Shrek the Musical.

I'm stage managing once again, this time for a director other than Jen, which is both exciting and a bit scary, but it's going swimmingly so far. The director, Cal, is new to the area and to Brunswick Little Theatre, so a few of us have been really helping him with recruiting cast and crew. It's already been a lot of fun. Once again, Lisa and John will be joining the crew, John on the sound board and Lisa as an assistant stage manager.

See, I needed to find someone to take charge back stage a few times while I'm otherwise occupied. For the first time in forever, I'm going to be on stage performing in a few scenes. It's a small part as one of seven guards. I'm not trying to make a huge deal out of it, it's kind of like being a tree in the elementary school show (if your school's trees were dressed up like The Gimp). But, the role DOES appear in the Shrek Wiki. It's not much, but heck, it's there :-)

The guards are on stage with Lord Farquaad and are sort of his posse, or, if you prefer (and I do), his S1W. I'm told there is a bit of back-up singing as part of this group (shudder) and some dancing. On our knees.

This knee dancing part is the reason I am making my stage debut. Myself, Cal and Michael, the musical director, were standing around late one night after an audition discussing how we could find enough able bodied males to be guards when Michael suggested me. Cal jumped on it and when the cast list appeared, there I was. I wasn't recruited for my talent, I was recruited by virtue of being male and ambulatory enough to dance around on my knees and still stand up afterwards without requiring medical assistance.

That, and the fact that I will clearly look fabulous in pleather.

Black, I hope. That way I won't need to change to return to stage manager detail :-)

Presto Change-O

I had the absolute best time last weekend. We had a great murder mystery party Saturday night, but for me the afternoons before and after the party, when we transformed the space twice, were just as much fun. I'm endlessly amused and intrigued by the way Brunswick Little Theatre's theater space can be used. It began as an empty church sanctuary.

Then it was transformed into a theater for the first show, a showcase performance culminating a week of Let's PLAY! summer theatre camp. It was still basic, but featured a for reals stage and comfy seats.

Then Steel Magnolias moved in and a beauty shop appeared.

I have to admit I find the colors of this set nauseating, but it IS impressive

Then the Big Dawgs moved in and our beauty shop became the sandy point at the end of Pleasure Island for a production of Hermit of Fort Fisher.

I was amazed how much of the previous set remained and yet looked entirely different

Then the Best Christmas Pageant Ever arrived and it was back to a church.

Since then, Winnie The Pooh has been moving in, but first we had that murder mystery. It was a fairy tale themed thing, so Jen decided to go with an Enchanted Forest look seeing as we had the Hundred Acre Wood taking shape in the space. It worked out nicely. Owl needed a tree so we brought in the giant tree from last summer's Into The Woods and made it a part of the forest for both events. You can't tell from my photos, but Adrian had the brilliant idea to light the tree up from the inside and it looked super-cool. The Hundred Acre Wood will feature a few cut-out trees, so we just hung "fairy lights" on and between them as well. We hung a bunch of Chinese paper lanterns from the ceiling, brought in tables and table clothes, and all of a sudden our theater was a dinner party venue.

I wish I had a decent photo of the place with the lights out and lit with the lanterns and fairy lights, but you'll have to trust me, it looked spectacular.

Now it's being turned back into a Pooh set. The tree had to be trimmed a bit and turned and shifted stage left, but a few of us handled that easily Sunday. The seats are back, but set up with an open space in front so the littlest guests can sit on blankets and get an up close view of the show without squirming on mom or dad's lap.

Today some stairs are being added to the tree so Owl can come get in and out. The trees will be painted. Who knows what else? But rest assured I can't await to see :-)

Impressions from a Pretty Nice Weekend

I spent a lot of last year using this space to vent frustrations. I have dedicated myself to making this year different; not just trying to ignore the bad and focus on the good, that's mumbo-jumbo, I mean changing circumstances to lessen the bad and create more good. So far, so good, as evidenced by my weekend. I started out Friday getting all my work done that I wanted to while also visiting the BLT prop and costume storage and figuring out some geeky stuff on my new GPS. Saturday was a great day spent with Lisa while John was at band Districts Auditions (he didn't make it, but had a good time). So to celebrate, I'm going to share highlights :-)

The Crazy Uncle's Attic -- I always liken the Brunswick Little Theatre storage units to the crazy uncle's attic. I've loved digging through old stuff since forever (hence the anthropology minor) and BLT has lots of old stuff. Looking through this stuff for props and costumes for use in our upcoming Once Upon A Murder mystery party (buy tickets today, it's going to be great) and the Winnie-the-Pooh Let's PLAY! show was every bit as fun as I expected it to be. Well, digging through this stuff with Jen was every bit as fun as I expected it to be. She's like having your crazy uncle (aunt?) around to ID the stuff you find. Max or I would hold up a kimono or a jacket or an urn or a crystal ball or a plumy hat or a giant fake joint and ask "Hey, what was THIS used in?" and Jen would rattle it off. Great fun! For Max and I at least. And just having time to chat with a pal is always good for the soul. Better than any medicine when you've been feeling blah.


My New Toy -- OK, so I recently came into a little bit of money from my grandfather's estate, long story. Anyhow, I used a small bit of it on myself and bought a brand new handheld GPS to replace one that had died about a year or so ago. This new one looks much the same but it's color and has much more memory and new capabilities for geocaching. One feature is its ability to accept map downloads to augment its internal maps (which suck). I spent some time Friday tinkering around and found a great site full of free maps for download, and also figured out how to get them on my new toy. It's pretty damned cool, trust me. I just bought a micro SD card so I can find MORE free maps. I have a thing for maps.

Big Retail Sucks -- Ok, it's hip to hate on Walmart and "big box" stores and all, but I resist that as much out of my distaste for group-think as anything else. Saturday, though, really brought the failures of major retail outlets to my attention. We went to Kohl's so Lisa could spend a gift card that has been burning a hole in her pocket. While we were there and she was looking around, I was tasked with finding a few long-sleeved shirts and a jacket for the boy. Turns out almost all the clothing that is even remotely fit for the weather we are actually experiencing outside has been thoroughly picked over with the residual inventory on a collection of 70% off clearance racks. Really? No long sleeved shirts in January? I'm too much of a realist to get all choked up about the clothing being produced by 5 year old Bangladeshis, but at least have the freaking little slave kids churn out some sleeves for sale in January, ok?

Next stop is Target, where they carry everything. Everyhting, it turns out, except the two things I wanted to buy. I wasn't looking for anyhting exotic, just some tupperwares to hide in the woods (see Geocaching above) and a micro SD card for my new toy. I batted zero, so today I placed orders on Amazon.com that will be at my house Wednesday. Easy peasy. Screw driving to Wilmington.

But Local Kinda Rules --  I love the "Buy Local" movement in theory. In practice, if you define local as really close to home, the SE Brunswick County area, it only really works if you're in the market for weird artwork, quasi-locally grown produce, or other people's discarded items. The retail options in the Southport-Oak Island area aren't exactly expansive. But Wilmington, now there is some cool stuff. We went to a camera shop on the advice of an ex-reporter friend and camera aficionado and I can't wait to go back. The place was a little like the Crazy Uncle's Attic of photographic......stuff. They had all sorts of new and shiny things, but also loads of old and funky things. I can't wait to go back and browse for, like, ever.

We Regress -- Lately, Lisa and I have been able to have more "couple time" than we've been accustomed to having. John's involvement with marching band and indoor percussion have him busy all day on a bunch of Saturday's, leaving Lisa and I up to our own devices. John's having fun and we have discovered that we still have as much fun together, just the two of us, as we did when we were dating. In fact, we kind of tend to regress to those days a bit. This is great for our mental health, sometimes not so much for our physical health. Yesterday, for example, we had hamburgers with Marianna sauce and fried mozzarella sticks on top of them for lunch. Then, since we decided we had eaten so much and weren't hungry for a "real dinner," we had Pillsbury cinnamon rolls and popcorn for supper while sitting on the couch watching Penny Dreadful on Blu-ray. Good times :)

Museum Book Stores Are Nirvana -- Even small museums have them and they are ALL awesome. The one at Brunswick Town-Fort Anderson is no exception. I found so much worth buying I need to go back. They have Stamp Act Defiance t-shirts (if you don't think THAT'S cool, you were probably the kind of person the opposite sex talked to in high school). None in my size yesterday, so darn, I need to check later. I did declare that since Lisa made me leave the house before my coffee I was buying myself a book. A Big Book. With lots of maps. So there!

Sunday Morning Random Thoughts After One Cup of Coffee

I saw this morning that I wrote ten more posts to Pooh Sticks in 2014 than I did in 2013, hooray me. But it was half of what I wrote in 2012, so I can do better. There are a few pretty unrelated things bouncing around my head this morning so instead of picking one I'm going to share them all. Aren't you the lucky one!

Into The Woods is a good movie. It was. Really. I highly recommend it to everyone, even those not inclined towards musical theatre. It has ethos and pathos and it's visually gorgeous. The acting is top-notch and the singing is very good. I'm not a fan of Meryl Streep the person (from what I can tell of her at least), but as an actress, she deserves the huge salary she pulls down. Wow, just wow. The choices they made as far as what to leave in in and what to cut out will grate on the nerves of theatre aficionados, but they make the movie work well in its own right rather than a screen version of the stage show. I do hope, though, that this movie's popularity will drive tons of people to see their local theater's stage versions. Live theatre trumps movies. Period.

My "Moment In The Woods" had zero to do with the show. One of the themes of this show is "moments" and people like to draw one that especially speaks to them. Despite watching BLT's performance many many times and enjoying it from start to finish, I realized watching the film version that I wasn't particularly married to any one part of the show or song or line. My moment came after the show was over, after all the audience had left, after all the actors and crew had left. My moment was, as we were leaving at the end of the night, seeing the glow around Jen, the director, that came from those nights when what she had just seen on stage matched up with the vision that she had been carrying around in her head for who knows how long. Her happiness some nights was almost palpable and seeing that in a very close friend was worth all the effort.

Galavant is on tonight. I can't wait. This thing looks absolutely awesome. It's a musical comedy that looks to be going completely over the top in a delightful way. Kind of Monty Python-ish, I'm hoping. AND this is my chance to do something completely frivolous and watch this show from start to end, for however many weeks it runs, no matter what I am "supposed" to be doing. So there! :)

The Winnie-the-Pooh Workshop kicks off this afternoon. I'm headed to the theatre this afternoon for an hour or so to help wrangle parents and paperwork as almost 30 children prepare to venture into The Hundred Acre Wood. I loved Pooh growing up, I shared it with my sister when she was young, John's first stuffed animal (you know, the one you buy him before he's born?) was Pooh Bear and he came home in a Winnie-the-Pooh onesie. If it's windy I always announce that it's a blustery day. If it's cloudy I say "Tut tut, it looks like rain". I play Pooh Sticks. A piece of me has always and will always reside in the Hundred Acre Wood. This Let's PLAY! session is making me very happy.

It's time to take the Christmas stuff down and I'm OK with that. Usually this day depresses me. Not this year. It's not that I didn't like Christmas this year, it was actually one of the best ever. But I am happy. Lisa and I are happy with life and the way it's developing for us. John is happy and growing into a wonderful man-child. My family is happy. Life is GOOD. I'm just happy and satisfied and fine with moving forward into a really cool 2015. 

Safe Zone

Remember playing tag, or kick the can or any number of games with a "base"? It was that one place you could go to escape for a minute, re-charge and rest? Sometimes we need them in real adult life, don't we? We need a known safe zone where we can go regroup, de-stress and then re-enter the situation ready for another go at it.

I'm a bit of a misanthrope, not real fond of strangers or large groups of people even if I do know most of them. I don't mingle well, I am awkward socially. I do enjoy parties but I'm never really completely comfortable at them. It's a weird contradiction, I know. Our great friends the Iapaluccis love to throw big parties, ones with lots of people I don't know, people I do know who I 'm not so sure about and lots and lots of really wonderful mutual friends. We love to go, *I* love to go. But they can be really a lot to handle sometimes, for someone like me.

I have a "base" at Jen and Adrian's house, though, that makes it much easier. It's the kitchen. Almost every time we are over there, I end up spending time in the kitchen, and not just hanging out. Probably why it's such a great escape is because I tend to do proper kitchen-y things in there. I wash up, put out food, cook. Often Jen is in there, she's the hostess with the mostest and head chef so it's perfectly natural, but sometimes I think she's on "base" too. And when she is there, she usually gives me a mission, which is awesome. The other night, for example, it was well into a party, 10:30 when the festivities got going at six, and Jen announces she's forgotten to cook the shrimp and I need to toast the coconut. So there we are, with all the dozens and dozens of guests milling about and partying, at the stove cooking coconut shrimp late at night. Yes, 10:30 is way late for me, don't judge. When we were done, we plated up and I followed the shrimp out into the yard and re-joined the party. It was great. I just love the idea that there's a place to decompress. It involves the magics of shared cooking and friendship at the same time and it's a really cool thing.

See, it's not hiding, it's essential party stuff going on :)

Coconut Shrimps!!

TA-DA!!!!

I'm leaving this week looking at myself differently than I did entering it.

I've enjoyed my involvement with theatre in large part because it's allowed me the opportunity to work with and observe some great creative talents making magic. I talk about that a lot on here because it fascinates me, it's something I never could do (the performance/creative stuff) and I like being around those who can and getting a front seat or even behind the scenes view of the creative process. I've seen myself as audience, in a sense, observer maybe is a better word, even of shows during which I'm backstage working. I like being near people I admire and this year has given me a chance to do a lot of that and expanded the universe of artists and directors and actors and choreographers that I get to observe.

But Monday a silly little Facebook post started a week in which I came to understand that I'm not audience anymore. My friend Jen listed all the projects her "friends in the performing arts community" are working on in the coming weeks. It was a wonderful list, really, and she tagged the people responsible for all the happenings in her post -- directors, musical directors, artistic directors.......and me. And surprised myself because I didn't see that inclusion as odd. I had begun to feel like I belonged in that "performing arts community".

I'm not a director of any one show, and am not really an Artistic Director in the sense that other theater companies use the term. Usually that is a paid position for the person responsible for the day to day, week to week operations of the theater. But this year, as Brunswick Little Theatre has moved into a place of its own and we've had to make that work and fill the space, I've come really close to filling that role in all practical terms. One of the new friends I've made recently is Steve Vernon, Artistic Director of Big Dawg Productions, the group putting on The Hermit of Fort Fisher in our space right now. He's the first friend I've made solely because of our common ground in theater, and it's made me realize I have my own real estate there, in that artistic world. We spent an hour before the opening show of Hermit talking shop. Sure, he is way more experienced than I and we both understand that, but we spoke as equals in the sense that we are both doing the same job essentially and he respects the way I've handled my challenges as much as I respect the work he's doing with his own organization. A year ago, Hell, two weeks ago, I would have entered that conversation as a pure learning opportunity, a chance to hang out with "those creative-types". But Friday night I WAS one of those people, one of a community of very different personalities all joined by a desire to bring the arts to others.

I've finally accepted that that's now a part of who I am. I organize. I facilitate. I make things happen. But that IS "arts". In a simple example, I figured out how to add enough chairs to fit 106 patrons into our theatre space while preserving a center aisle that the director wanted to use as a part of the show's blocking. In a more extensive example I oversaw the transformation of an abandoned church and school into a performing arts complex. That property will see auditions for a youth musical and rehearsals for an all-ages cast Christmas show and a children's theatre workshop and host over 100 souls attending a play.......TODAY. In Southport. In Brunswick County. And while it took the efforts of a lot more than just myself to make this happen, I am very proud of my own role. No theater in Wilmington is doing more. We, we in the Brunswick Little Theatre, are contributing as much as any group in the area to making the arts available to our community. And if the sell-out crowds are any indication, the community appreciates it.

While I got great joy out of being able to see up close and personal others making magic, I finally feel like I can say "Ta-Da" myself.

Plans Gone Awry.....WIN!!!!!

Yesterday Lisa and I planned to drive to Loris, South Carolina to watch John in his final marching band competition. The weather was iffy, well, more like definitely crappy with rain pouring down at regular intervals, but in the past the schools had moved the show into a gymnasium in bad weather, so we thought nothing of it.

We've developed a little tradition while traveling to John's band competitions. Lisa and I like road trips, and these things tend to bring us to places we've not been before. We drop John off at his school early in the morning so he can practice and ride the band bus to where ever. His group usually performs in the late afternoon, so we have plenty of time to amuse ourselves during the day. We've gotten in the habit of leaving home early enough to explore the area hosting the competition a bit, and we try to find some local, interesting place for lunch. One of our favorite finds last year was in Conway, South Carolina on our way to Loris. We planned yesterday to revisit this little cafe, Crady's.

All was going just according to plan, we were sitting at a nice window seat in Crady's looking at the really cool community theatre building across the street when I got a call from John telling us the competition was canceled and the band was heading to Planet Fun instead. So we ended up driving quite a ways for lunch (which was GREAT, by the way), but we still had until early evening before we needed to retrieve the boy. No problem, we thought, we'll just drive around and check out Conway then head home and cuddle up under a blanket until John was done.

While we were there, though, we decided to go across the street and look a little more closely at this theatre, The Theatre of the Republic. We'd seen it the year before as well when it was running The 39 Steps a week after our own closed. This time Young Frankenstein was the feature. While we were looking in the windows the door popped open and a nice lady invited us in to look around. We said, sure, we'd love to see the inside and went on in.

Well, before you know it, this little old man came up, Lisa tells him I'm the president of Brunswick Little Theatre in Brunswick County, and he says he'd love to show us around. I was hoping to see the seating area, which we did, but then he proceeded to walk us up on stage, through a sliding hidden door in the back and proceeded to show us the whole building. It was great, the place is the Tardis of theaters, it's about 12 times the size inside as it is outside. I was blown away, I have theater envy, bad. Our friend Jen took us backstage at Thalian Hall a few weeks ago, and that was impressive, but this little 325-seater has MORE space backstage than that! They have a huge scenic workshop, a big kitchen/hang-out room, make-up rooms, costume storage and workshops, dressing rooms with showers (separate from the make-up rooms) and prop storage everywhere. They've been in this facility a while, so it's like a museum of all their past shows. Lisa was dying for a camera.

The fireplace opens up. It's cool.

In talking to our tour guide, we find the Theatre of the Republic is celebrating 45 years next year, and HE was on the original board! Kind of explains why no one questioned the two strangers wandering through the back stage area 45 minutes before curtain. He was a little, as Lisa said, light on the facts. "When did you move in here?" "Oh, a while ago." "How'd you come into this place?" "Oh, it just opened up." But he was a great tour guide anyhow and showed us everything we could have asked to see and more. Including two racks containing probably at least 80 tuxedos that had just been donated. Why doesn't that happen to US?!?!?

On our way out, we were deposited in front of the ticket booth to sign up for the email list. The FABULOUS guy manning the ticket booth was in the middle of a rant about the huge pain in the ass that is cast and crew comp tickets. The audience for this rant was a woman who, I discovered to my great delight, was wearing a "Frau Stage Manager" shirt. We bonded. We got on the email list. We made plans to invite friends back to see Gypsy this summer. We left a bit exhausted and with heads a-spin just as the audience was beginning to arrive. I love the theater community.

We headed home and realized that our change in plans meant we could go to the first meeting/rehearsal for Brunswick Little Theatre's Fezziwig's Ball and Murder Mystery (tickets on sale now!). We went to our own little theatre, we danced, we discussed costumes, we got assigned characters (I'm Mr. Fezz himself and very pleased about that; Lisa is Mrs. Cratchet), we discussed how to fit all that we do into our space that seemed so huge just a little while ago, and we left smiling and happy and looking forward to the future.

Stage Mangement Appreciation Day

No, I'm not going to appreciate myself for being a stage manager, but I AM going to appreciate the chance to work in this role, and the patience and understanding and teaching and pure joy I've gotten from those I've had the opportunity to work with. And I'd like to REALLY thank Jen, a great stage manger (professional stage manager, thank you very much) in her own right, for offering me the chance to enter this world and for helping me find my place in it.

And it's a place I really, really like. I get to be part of the show without being "in" the show. I have the best seat in the house for free. I get to use duct tape. I've gotten to perform shadow puppet shows and create sound effects. I've gotten to work with flying monkeys and a steampunk chicken and cross-dressing men and leather-pant-and-corset-clad women. I've fixed costumes, kept props from catching fire on stage, bandaged cuts, wrapped ankles, wiped tears and mediated disputes before they turned to fisticuffs. I've also shorted out a good third of a theatre's electical system and thrown an entire production into disarray. It's not easy and I'm not at all what I'd like to be in the job yet, but it's tremendous, exhilarating, challenging and sometimes just plain silly FUN.

See? Best seat in the house.

I had a shadow for a lot of the night during Into The Woods shows.

They are making the "scary trees" pose. By the end of the run, I had ALL the backstage crew doing it too.

I never knew they had ladders that did this. I had to hang these lights so I could blow their bulbs up later ;)

I got to wear a headset and make shadow puppets during The 39 Steps, what's not to LOVE about that?

Good thing I look so FABULOUS in black. And so do those freaks :)

At Odell, I have a huge backstage in which to work. At the Amuzu for 39 Steps, we had this. It was cozy

Getting to the theater before anyone else and just being there is kind of magic.

Making sure no one eats the props is also my job. Sometimes I've had more success than others....

Really, seeing a show from here is pure, unadulterated FUN. You should be jealous.

Running Past The Roses

Sometime last year I re-posted something I found on Facebook, some meme with a photo and the words "I give great advice, but I seldom follow it" or some such thing. My friend immediately responded that she had the very same quote on a coffee mug on her desk at work, seems to ring true with quite a few people. When I began this blog, part of the reason I chose the name Pooh Sticks was because it represented to me taking the time to slow down and enjoy the simple things. Rather than using the bridge simply to cross the river that lies between you and your destination, we should stop, find a stick, go back and drop it in and watch what happens. Life is about the journey towards our goals and we miss much if we get too focused on the ends. I prided myself on being the sort to appreciate the little things, to take full advantage of the journey, to keep perspective.

I've totally ignored that advice, that part of myself, this summer. And I feel the worse for it, but I don't know how to fix it. The problem is, the things that have me running and not slowing to enjoy the path are GOOD things, largely even fun things. I am blessed with great opportunities and I feel like a heel whining about them. But I haven't slept through the night since mid-July, I regularly have a huge nervous pit in my stomach, it's an effort to not let my stress bleed over into lack of patience with others and I often fail in that. My pastor told me he loves reading about all I'm up to on Facebook and that he alternates between jealousy and sympathy and sometimes both at once. That's it in a nutshell.

Serving as president of Brunswick Little Theatre this year has been fun. It's also been much more than I bargained for. I had no idea how much stuff would end up in front of me, how many decisions others would refuse to make and leave to me, or at least wait for my input then do whatever I said. But that was ok, I could handle it just fine. Then this summer our treasurer, Jack Mical, passed away suddenly. Jack was my friend, he and I used to joke about being two fish out of water on the board, two guys with zero talent, zero experience and zero training in theater. All we had was a desire to see our friends (the same ones it turned out) with the talent, experience and training make magic and give the community great opportunities to enjoy live theater.  He was always there, always cheerful and always finding a way to turn what he knew he could do into concrete help. I admired that, learned from it, and then he was gone. And his job devolved to me. No question I was going to do it, and do it right, I mean this was the one way I could honor Jack's memory. I just had to figure out how. So with a bit of work and a lot advice I've managed to keep the theater's finances straight. Doing that in the middle of stage managing Into The Woods was a little TMI. It wasn't killing me, but it began the waking up at 3 am each night with my heart in my throat over some aspect of the books.

Then we decided to lease and run our own theater. And not only a theater, no, we moved into a 4 acre complex with several buildings, classrooms, a kitchen and more bathrooms than any normal group of people need. I signed the lease on opening night of Into The Woods, at the time our theater finances were at a low ebb and ticket sales for the Big Summer Musical were not big at all. No stress there, huh? I insisted on signing physically on the set of the show. I wanted to ask Lisa, John, the director and a few others to lay hands on me while I did it, but didn't want to look too much like the basket case I felt. I just wanted some good mojo, some clear sign of moving in the correct direction. I knew it would be a big undertaking. I'd thoroughly annoyed many long-time BLTers and some board members by throwing up every road block I could, by raising every objection, by voicing every caution while this was being discussed. They were convinced this was a no-brainer, this would be a great thing, nothing but positives. I couldn't even wrap my head around all the new work, all the new problems, it would bring. But in the end, at a special meeting, I voted along with everyone else to sign the lease. And I've been a wreck ever since.

It's been so very much more than I imagined. I liken it to moving into a new house, but more so. We have to prepare the space for we don't even know what yet. We have lots of ideas, ranging from the normal shows and workshops, all the way to sing-a-long movie nights and a medieval fair. That's part of the challenge for me, we are full of ideas, but less so on execution. Take for example the Fundraising Committee we created back in March. They were the ones who took it upon themselves to find a property for us to move into. They spoke with several realtors, a land developer and a landscape architect; they toured four properties; they generated over 4,990,876,412 emails (approximately) but have to date raised not one penny of funds. The members of the committee have donated generously themselves, but that's kind of not the point.

These are the people who said how easy it would be to operate a theater. They have ideas. But the place needs material and lights and paint and a schedule and some idea of what to use which space for. The size of that 4 acre property has shrunk massively in practical terms with requests for dance studio space, children's workshop space, a painting area, a technical work bench, a sewing room, prop storage, costume storage, and oh yeah, there' s a huge hollow tree prop with spiral staircase on  site now. We have requests to do dinner theater and a coffee house and babysitting and build a proscenium arch and knock out a wall to put a tech booth in the attic. And so far all these ideas are coming to me. Oh, and we don't have permission from the county to use the building as anything other than a church yet.

The board isn't so much absent as disengaged. We only meet once a month and most never look at their emails. They simply think we can carry on as we always have and it will all get done. I'm trying to spread out the work and it has helped a lot. I have a great guy in charge of grounds and maintenance, but he is loath to tackle any permitting issues. Jen is helping with fundraising, so we will now actually raise funds and build a real, active, renewing membership base. Lisa found me a treasurer, but the transition will take a while and a bit of work on both our parts. Still, I end up at the least overseeing all the aspects of running a theater, or really more like running a performing arts complex. How the Hell did THAT happen?

Add to this work troubles and challenges that I'm too pissed off about to even write about now, and it's been a lot of sleepless nights and days where I feel like Indiana Jones with that huge rock rolling after him. I had a Saturday morning with no plans yesterday and spent about 6 hours updating and adding to the theater's website. I could have let it wait, but when I do (like right now choosing to write this instead of adding a show and auditions to all the local media's calendars) I feel guilty and stressed over NOT doing things. It has sucked the joy out of stopping to smell the roses and I don't like it. I live less than a quarter mile walk to the beach. I moved here because of the ocean and the beach. And I haven't had sand in my toes in over a month.

I hate to even say this stuff, on the one hand. I mean, I wouldn't give up any of this willingly, it's rewarding and exciting and fun. Who can say they had the chance to start up a theater complex? I really feel like I'm making a real difference and doing something very worthwhile. But at the same time it's taking a toll. I need to find way to handle this and still enjoy the Pooh Sticks bridge. I'm just not sure how.

Do you know?

Making Into The Woods Our Own

Community theaters get access to shows only after they have run their course on the professional circuit. We are constantly told people would LOVE to see us do Wicked or The Lion King, but we can't, they haven't been released to amateurs yet. This means the shows we produce have already been seen by, or at least become a bit familiar in a second hand way to, theater fans. They enter with expectations, not in the open-to-anything way they might go to see a show that's brand new to the world. This can present a challenge, as we simply can't do some of the things Broadway can, from a technical standpoint for sure, but even from an artistic standpoint. The last two shows Brunswick Little Theatre performed on the big stage at Odell Williamson Auditorium were perfect examples. Everyone has seen Wizard of Oz and they come to the show expecting to see familiar things. Beauty and the Beast is so popular on Broadway and as a touring show, that even those who haven't seen it know what it is "supposed" to look like. We strived to meet these expectations and I think succeeded pretty well, but it was fun this year to get a chance to break out a little bit.

Into The Woods is familiar to theater fanatics, a favorite of many, but less so to the general public. This gave us, and director Jen Iapalucci in particular, an opportunity to put our own stamp on the show. Jen possesses the most unique and wonderful form of creative intelligence I've ever run across in a person. She can imagine the most amazing things then figure out how to make them reality. This is why I call her Walt. She has a blog all about it, you should check it out. Jen took a hold of Into The Woods, an already amazing piece of art, and made it her own with two big additions. First off, she gave the whole show a Steampunk look with the sets and costumes. This turned out really well given the duality and sort-of-real/sort-of-fantasy feel of the whole show. The costumes are spectacular and the set is wowing audiences, so it's clearly worked. The Wilmington newspaper reviewer even liked it despite being "over" the whole Steampunk thing himself. The cast loves the way they look and that helps a show tremendously. Kudos to Jen and the whole set and costume crews.

But Steampunk versions of Broadway shows aren't unique. What really impressed me, and what makes this show really ours, is her addition of an all-ages (but mostly children) ensemble. The Broadway show features nothing of the sort. I never told her so, but I admire Jen's courage in doing this. It's really putting a part of herself on stage for approval. This grew out of Jen's very personal love for children and insistence on making them (including her own) a part of BLT's summer musicals. She was all-in on this, too. The ensemble wasn't

just layered on top of the show, she wove them into it. If it worked, the show worked, but if not, if audiences saw it as a distraction, it could have hurt the whole production. Jen created mini-scenes, little stories within the story, for the kids to act out. She used them to create special effects like the giant and the beanstalk. She used them to create mood and help enhance the characters around them (in one instance, for example, they are flowers that wilt as the Witch approaches). They aren't icing an audience can scape off and still enjoy the cake beneath, the are baked right in there. That was a risk, to be sure, but one Jen is uniquely qualified to take.

Most of the Ensemble in a publicity photo

The Beanstalk

Milky White, the hen that lays golden eggs and stolen giant's harp are all ensemble members

Watching this come together, I knew it worked just as Jen envisioned it. The kids took to their roles with gusto and skill and the adults allowed them right into the show with enthusiasm and understanding. I knew *I* loved it and "got" what was happening, but I wondered how a critic would see it. Would he be one of those who believed local amateur theater should be judged solely on how close to the original they could get? Or would he get it as I did? We got our answer in the Star News' review yesterday:

Iapalucci's decision to cast a chorus of kids bolsters the whole fairy tale angle. Children play the birds who aid Cinderella and they open green umbrellas on a staircase to create Jack's beanstalk. It's a winning idea, even if a couple of the young performers' roles aren't entirely clear. 

He got it. And that was nice. But I find what I like most about Jen's  additions to Into The Woods is that, even as personal and very "her" they are, they make the show BELONG to all of us in the cast and crew. This isn't Broadway's Into The Woods, it's Brunswick Little Theatre's Into The Woods.

And it's EPIC.

Things I ALREADY Love About BLT's Into The Woods

We can start with that poster. Cool, huh?

I've been happily watching this show come together and largely keeping my mouth shut about it. We open two weeks from last night. Two weeks from this moment, I will be backstage at Odell Williamson Auditorium. I like that idea. So, I'm going to list a few of the other things that make me happy about this show, and particularly Brunswick Little Theatre's production of it.

1. The Writing

James Lupine is credited with "the book" on this show. That's, to my simple understanding of musicals, the words between the songs. I imagine he and Stephen Sondheim worked together hand and glove with the lyrics and spoken word bits. The story is told largely in song, so they had to. It really worked, in ways I truly admire as an aspiring writer.

During the opening number, there's a knock on the door to The Baker's cottage. His Wife asks who it is and The Baker responds in a way that sums up so clearly where this journey is taking us. Into The Woods is largely about normal people's responses to unusual situations. It is a great mix of the fantastic and the mundane, both feeding our imagination and relating to us in ways we can completely identify with ourselves. The Baker and his Wife take it for granted there's a witch next door, but it doesn't mean they completely buy into that part about "magic beans." That just strikes me as funny, they accept she's a witch but are suspicious that the beans she claims are magical really are more than just beans. The whole show and all the characters in it are like that. They are upset by a giant walking around their little world, but accept that giants sometimes do that. Cinderella talks to birds and her dead mother, but is shocked to see a giant beanstalk. It just goes to show that "impossible" is often in the eyes of the beholder.

I'm also in love with the idea that so few characters have names. The story is centered on The Baker and The Baker's Wife. Don't assume the show is sexist for identifying the female lead only as the wife of the male lead, the two Princes and called Cinderella's Prince and Rapunzel's Prince.  We also have The Witch, Granny, Little Red Riding Hood, The Wolf, the Evil Stepmother, and Cinderella's Father. Cinderella and Rapunzel have names, of course, but they are so well-ingrained in our cultural identity that both are essentially meaningless as personal monikers. The only two "real names" in the show are the Evil Stepsisters Florinda and Lucinda, which I'm pretty sure speaks to some greater point, but I haven't figured it out yet. The lack of personal names lends the whole story a general appeal, as if it's about US and not just THEM. I'm sure that was the idea, and this isn't a new or particularly subtle way to go about generalizing one's lessons, but I love it nonetheless.  There really is a bit of all these characters in all of us. We are greedy and cutthroat and kind and generous, we are clever and simple, we are loyal and fickle, we are brave and cowardly. And our children WILL listen, just as we did to our parents and their children will to them someday.

2. Steampunk

Jen decided to give this show a steampunk flair in its costumes and set, and it's looking great. If you aren't familiar with the term, steampunk refers to a sort of style based upon Victorian-age science fiction. It's Jules Verne-esque stuff, full of brass and airships and goggles and proto-industrial tech. Not to brag, but I was steampunk WAY before steampunk was cool. I was drawn as a young'un, totally mesmerized, to the 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea attraction in Disney's Tomorrowland. I mean, it was a submarine that looked like a big, metal fish. And you could see all the bolts! I loved blimps and airships. I had a Goodyear Blimp model in my room. I wore goggles and funky hats whenever I could get my hands on them. Back then I was weird. Today, it's a whole subculture and people are going to a lot of expense and trouble to look like I wanted to when I was 8. Jen has designed a whole show to fit my elementary school imagination, and I couldn't be happier to be a part of it.

3. The Costumes

I'll let them speak for themselves.

4. Milky White

Into The Woods features as a sort of character Jack's cow, Milky White. Milky White has been portrayed in different productions using everything from a big prop cow on wheels to an actor in a cow costume. Jen has chosen the middle road, an actor carrying a cow prop.  It's a great idea as it gives the audience a cow but also allows an actor to portray the cow's, well, emotions. The cow goes through a lot. And the actor Jen chose, a teenager named Chase Costen, has totally embraced his bovine side. In rehearsals, I've seen him react with his face and body in logical ways to what the cow is doing and seeing. When they line up to do vocal warm-ups, Chase brings his cow. He gets that they are one piece, not a boy carrying a prop. It's a little thing, but it really tickles me.


That's about all I feel I can say right now. We build the set next Saturday and I am sure I will be adding that to my list. But I don't want to give too much away. You'll have to come see for yourself. Find out all about it here. You'll not be disappointed

What A Long, Strange Trip It Was

Ok, so the show didn't include any Grateful Dead (for which I am eminently grateful myself) but I couldn't resist. For nine glorious days over the last couple weeks, I got to play roadie to a rock band. How many people get that chance? I had done this last year on a similar show and loved it, so I was really looking forward to this run. I had to cut it back a bit. Last year I spent well over 40 hours the first week at Franklin Square Park, but this year work just wouldn't allow me the same flexibility. It all worked out well, though. I put in a respectable bit of work and the director stepped up and helped set up and break down the show to a much greater extent. Director Mark worked his butt off on this show, I gotta say he IS pretty rock and roll. As it was, I ended up getting to the park between 4 and 5 pm and leaving about 11:30 each night. Let me tell you, the 4:30 am alarm comes early on that schedule. I think I'm still recovering. But oh my Lord, was it ever worth every killer second!!!!

My main role, the one I volunteered for, was light guy. I had my first experience with this last year at the British Invasion park show and have picked up a little extra here and there since then from Frank Blackmon, our resident tech guru and a retired electrical engineer. The light set-up for our park shows is necessarily simple, we have two metal lighting bars we erect and are able to screw some more lights into the frame of the gazebo that serves as our stage. We started with eleven lights, three facing the stage on each light bar, one over the piano, three over the drums and one aimed out towards the audience in the general direction of the port-a-potty.

While Frank and I were sitting on a park bench congratulating ourselves on getting all these lights hooked up in such a way that they came on and off at our command from the light controller (not as easy as one would hope), along comes the show's director with his vision for the lighting of the show printed neatly on two pages of paper. I was kind of tickled that he thought to put thought into the lighting, so I wanted to make things look as much like he wanted as possible. The problem was our lighting isn't so much traditional stage lighting, used to set mood and affect color and such, as it is essentially a series of spotlights that can illuminate certain areas of the stage. They are too close to the performers to blend together or light any more than one or maybe two people at a time. But Frank isn't the kind to be deterred and always likes making anything more complicated (he IS an engineer after all) so he immediately decided we could add more lights, ones with definite color to them. "We need back lighting, anyhow" he announced and we set about finding some smaller lights and hanging six of them, two each red, yellow and blue, in the back left and right corners of the stage. I'm not sure how well they conveyed the moods the director was looking for, but I diligently attempted to light the songs as he directed. Upon hearing they'd be backlit, the costume queen/vocalist Jen turned to her sister, another vocalist, and announced they'd need slips under their hippy dresses. That's why we have costume people, the light guys wouldn't have thought of that. :-)

Here you can see all our lights but the drum and piano lights, they are facing towards the back attached to the gazebo itself. See the little one aimed towards the audience? Supposed to light the way to the port-o-potties. I labeled it "PP" on my light board.

This is my light board and the notes I made myself so I'd know what to turn on and off when. The notes got soaked in a rainstorm and needed repair. The beer just seemed to fit this show perfectly.

So, I tried very hard to light the show as Director Mark hoped while also putting light on the singers and instruments that were involved in a song. I tried to time bringing lights up on background vocalists just before they began to sing, to bring lights down on the vocalist during instrumental breaks and to focus attention where it should be at any given time. I'm pretty happy with the job I did there. But the most fun part of the job was what Frank called the "DJ Light". It was affixed center stage aimed up above the band so it hit half on the gazebo and half into the tree canopy behind and above with funky, multi-colored lights in a variety of patterns. It looked pretty cool, but I figured it should be used sparingly, especially since most of this show's songs weren't of the hard rockin', funky light needing variety. I saved it up in the first set for Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit. It turned out perfect.

You see, no one notices the lights, they shouldn't notice if you are doing a good job, I think. But in this instance, the debut of the DJ Light timed with the opening words of the song got audible gasps and "ooooo's" from the crowd. My father asked me if I paid the folks sitting next to them to "oooooo" on cue, actually, the first night he came to the show. This really made me happy. White Rabbit was Jen's first solo number of the show and she killed it every night. The timing of the song in the set had something to do with the crowd reaction as well, I think. Concerts ebb and flow as they go along and this song marked the end of an ebbing of the energy level and a reminder that this was a rock and roll show. It was one of those Walt and Roy moments, Jen in the spotlight on stage as artist and me under the tech tent helping things along in the background, both combining to create a great moment that actually got real response from a few hundred souls each night. I'd never experienced anything quite like it and it was really, really fun. Here's a link to the YouTube video, it's cool :-)

Aside from the actual running of the lights, my roadie work was much more mundane. I set up and broke down much of the non-music related equipment, ran cords (lots and lots of cords) hither and yon, plugged said cords back in when over-exuberant fans pulled them out causing black-outs and loss of half our sound, and provided tape and staples and velcro as needed. I was sort of stage manager of the operation, though less so than last year. One quasi-stage manager task I sort of adopted for myself was attempting to get the audience sat down after intermission and ready to hear the first song of the second set. It began with Crosby, Stills and Nash's Find The Cost of Freedom, which is beautiful and this band did acapella to wonderful effect. Harmonies were their strong suit. Problem was, without "house lights" to blink, people had a hard time knowing when intermission was over. Mark wanted the song to start quietly on a darkened stage, which was an awesome idea and a great effect, but because it was so dim and mellow to begin with, and it's a really short number, the song was over before anyone really knew they were singing. I tried a variety of methods to find out when the band planned to begin the second set and get the audience's attention, but none worked. The sound person was often just as confused and still out visiting in the crowd while the band was trying to begin. No one knew what was happening and it was sort of a frustration each night until the last. That last Sunday, during church actually, I had an idea that actually worked. Before the band took the stage, but while they were about ready to come out, I used our microphone in the tech tent to announce that BLT was dedicating the next song to those who gave their lives in defense of freedom. It was heartfelt on my part, it fit right in with it being Memorial Day weekend, and it got people's attention. For the last show at least, that beautful song got the attention it deserved :-)

 After three nights of tech rehearsal and six shows, we were all exhausted. My experience ended in an entirely appropriate manner. The band had all left for a cast party and it was just roadies, tech folk and groupies left in the park (Lisa and I, the Awesome Flow Family and Frank). Everything was finally packed away and locked up. We looked at our tech tent. It was old and took a beating during a storm the first weekend of the show. We had decided earlier to retire it, but Frank wanted to take it home to try to combine with another broken tent to make one good one. Did I mention he was an engineer? Anyhow we set upon the poor thing trying to fold it's broken and bent frame into something that would fit in a pick-up truck. For some reason, we all found this hilarious. So there we were, five nerds wrestling with aluminum sticks in a city park at near midnight, laughing our butts off. It may not be the first thing you think of when you think rock and roll, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Into The Woods

Into the woods,
It's time to go,
I hate to leave,
I have to, though.
Into the woods-
It's time, and so
I must begin my journey.

I don't hate to leave, leave this work week behind. I'm kinda really happy to switch gears from rednecks and thugs and malt liquor and trying to spin straw into gold so my company won't sell half my area of responsibility and make my position in the company tenuous. I'm ready to walk into a room full of excitement and talent and hopefulness. I'm ready to work with amazing and talented people, to help a friend, to learn more about this world of theater.

 Into the woods
And through the trees
To where I am
Expected ma'am,
Into the woods
To Grandmother's house

Yeah, I'm expected. "I would expect nothing less" is how it was put when I asked if I could be of assistance at auditions today. It's not granny's house, it's Building F-is-for-Fabulous on the campus of our local community college, but being plum out of grannies, it'll pass. It's an odd space. It's hell to take photos that don't turn an odd sort of yellow there. It's a special needs classrooms in its real life, but today it'll be Audition Central. 

The way is clear,
The light is good,
I have no fear,
Nor no one should.
The woods are just trees,
The trees are just wood.
I sort of hate to ask it,
But do you have a basket?

This is my third stage managing job, and yes, I finally feel like the way is clear and I really have no fear. I'm not saying I can tell where this journey will take me or exactly what I'll wind up doing, but I know what the job is in the general sense and I know I can do it well. The unknowns are the fun part. I've got a new basket (bag o' tricks) courtesy of my parents at Christmas and it's full of the tools of the trade - duct tape, medicine, staple gun, duct tape, flashlights, safety pins, scissors, duct tape, Velcro, pens, paper, duct tape, screw drivers, hammer, pliers and duct tape. 

Into the woods
And down the dell,
The path is straight,
I know it well.
Into the woods,
And who can tell
What's waiting on the journey?

The path will be anything but straight. Jen declared this show "EPIC" months ago and I think she'll wind up being exactly right. I would imagine any production of a musical is an adventure, but community theater is especially so. Volunteers are different critters from paid actors. More fun, more interesting and more impressive in my opinion, but different and twistier. Rehearsing in a classroom for a show to be staged in a real big theatre is a challenge. We get one week to rehearse and work out technical issues in our performance venue. Twisty. But I've seen Jen and Michael Stringer (our musical director) do it before and they will do it again. 

The truth is, no one can tell what's waiting on the journey. But today we take a big step toward finding out WHO will be going on this journey with us. Break a leg, friends. I look forward to being your go-to guy when the path gets twisty.

SPECIAL POST-AUDITION UPDATE:

So, Jen chose to use the song from which I took these lyrics as the movement part of the auditions. Proving once again that great minds think alike :-) I'm so excited, there are so many positives surrounding this venture. 

And I already had to use my Bag o' Tricks :-)