Stiteses In The Swamp Pt 1: J5, the Unsung Hero

I haven't written a word on here about Shrek the Musical. This is strange because because it was such a huge part of the Stites Family Summer 2015, but it's also precisely BECAUSE it was such a huge part of the Stites Family Summer 2015. I've not had time to write much.

My own experience was overwhelming, in terms of what I learned and what I did. But more importantly, and so firstly, I have to blather on about how proud I am of Lisa and John. These two followed me into this whole theatre thing like Tonto follows the Lone Ranger. Two finer companions couldn't be wished for. Let's talk about John first.

John has embraced the role of Sound Tech. The wonderful Katie Deese took him under her wing and taught him the basics on Wizard of Oz three years ago (and stepped up this year to help John with sound checks and teaching him even more about the finer points of sound engineering) and he handled Into The Woods pretty much on his own last summer, so he was a shoe-in for sound guy for Shrek. Turns out we ask a lot from the guy. Hannah Funderburke, John's newest mentor and friend in theatre tech (and source of his J5 moniker), was pretty horrified that we expected John to handle over 20 actors being mic'ed. She said pros would refuse to do that, it was just too difficult. John took it in stride, he had that many in Into the Woods last year after all. This time he had 24 actors (give or take, the equipment was constantly breaking down) with microphones, three choral mics hung from the flies and a reverb effect to deal with. In addition, he played the fart machine during one song, something that sounds funny but required him to basically play a percussion instrument along with the pit orchestra but do so from the tech booth. It was a great gag as long as it was perfect. The actors made body motions along with the sound effects so the timing had to be spot on to work. If it did, it was hilarious, if not, it would have shown. It WAS perfect. Every night. Oh, and I, in my wisdom, saddled the kid with sound effects and a video projector on top of everything else.

John realized what I didn't realize, or didn't want to think about. He had too much to do himself. Now, he was not the only one to be stretched too thin on this show. Our tech director had a heart problem and missed tech week and the first weekend of performances, throwing Hannah and I into the roles of co-acting-tech directors, and both myself and Jen were trying to fill simultaneous production and stage roles. John, I must say, handled it best, far better than Jen and I anyhow. He saw he was in the weeds and asked if he could ask for help from the director, the wonderful Cal Chiang, who was already in the booth watching the show each night. John recruited Cal to run sound and video effects, but had to cue him. But hey, it at least allowed him to keep his hands on the sound board, right? Cal, by the way, claimed John was "bullying" him (and saying so with a HUGE smile on his face). John said Cal kept "leaving his post" and needed to be called back. John is 15 and taking it upon himself to tell the director to keep to his work. Many adults in community theatre wouldn't do that.

John put a tremendous amount of time into this show, showing up two hours before call each day to try to make the sound work with whatever equipment was functioning that night. The mics were old and the replacements cheap. We had some very intense movement on the part of some actors and that was tough on the wires. Every time a mic was replaced, that meant a new place for that mic's actor on the soundboard. So with 24 actors' mics to keep track of, John could never count on all of them being on the same buttons two nights in a row. They never were, not once. And yet, John had the correct mics on and off when they needed to be and kept everything in balance throughout trios, duets, solos and big ensemble numbers. I have no idea how he didn't lose his mind, but not did he not, he was having fun.

John is looking at a career in sound design/engineering. The experience he's gotten has been wonderful, but what I think will serve him best is his attitude. The guy is rock solid. You can't teach that. And I couldn't be more proud of him :-)

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.

Opening Night

Well, it happened.

That wasn't completely guaranteed at all, a fact that kept me up nights for the last couple months. Oh, I put on a brave face, I played my role as fearless leader telling everyone not to worry, that the show WOULD go on. I sold tickets with only the vaguest notion of how I'd refund them if disaster befell us. Most of all, I simply did something very hard for me and completely, willfully buried my self-doubt. Call it the power of positive thinking if you will, but I convinced myself that somehow I'd stop anything or anyone that tried to prevent us from opening this past Friday night.

We did it. After a lot of work by really a very few people, we did it. Lisa and I went to the first show in front of a (pretty much sell-out) paying audience. I saw it happen, saw the patrons arriving and picking up tickets and entering the theatre. We saw them enjoy the really comfy seats, saw them enjoying the company of friends and then enjoying the show and leaving happy. It should have felt......triumphant maybe? I mean, it was a long road, a bit of a fight actually, and I'd been building this night up as a sort of final battle, a chance to walk away with a win or a lose. But it wasn't. It was totally anti-climatic. I didn't walk out happy about all we've done, I left worried sick, still, about all we have left to do.

I've written before about all that needed to be done. It's not over in the way I expected it to be. Not by a long shot. I'm still going to be losing sleep over contractors and their bizarre sense of time and space, inspectors that may or may not come visit, permissions we may or may not need or have and another show coming up in just 14 days (and we still have another weekend of this one to get through).

 Now to be honest there are a lot of positives to list right now. The work paid off. They came and left happy. I've heard noting but praise for the venue from patrons. They love the seats, the lobby, even the parking. They were able to hear and see from all their seats. They were able, except a couple of ladies whose GPS led them to the ILA Hall up the road, to find us with no problems. Those with, ahem, mobility issues, were able to use the handicapped ramp easily. Our lobby easily held the crowd until the house opened. It's a GREAT place to see a show, much better than anywhere we've been outside of the main theater at Odell Williamson Auditorium. It's safe and comfortable, which a lot of our past venues were not. So hooray us.

The problems come from the performance side and the matter of permitting and inspections. I'm just confused by the whole permitting process, so I'll leave that aside. But the performance issues have me a bit worried.

In two weeks the Hermit of Fort Fisher opens and we need to have our lovely Southern beauty parlor turned into a cement bunker on a sandy spit of land at the southern tip of Pleasure Island. I've seen both the real bunker in question and the set used by the company putting this show on in their own space, so I know it can be done. However, I don't know how. I have a meeting with the Hermit director hours before we are scheduled to strike the Steel Magnolias set to determine what needs to go, what needs to stay and what pieces of the set can be left hanging around to await transformation into the beach and bunker. I'm hoping to have our Techincal Director at this meeting to start discussing tech needs for the Hermit show, because there are some and I'm not sure how they will be met. Are you sensing the pattern here? I know enough to know what needs to be done, but not enough to figure out how to do it. It's frustrating the Hell out of me. One condition of our lease of this theater to the Hermit people was a stage exit out of sight of the audience. This meshed nicely with the ADA requirement for a handicapped egress from the stage and will take the form of a ramp outside the building. I'm stressing out having this thing done in time, as it was promised to both the government and the leasees. So I've been stopping by the property every afternoon to ride herd on the contractors, who, in a very troubling way, remind me very much of Larry, Daryl and Daryl from The Newhart Show. I lose sleep over this.

Here's what the REAL bunker looks like. I imagine there was less graffiti in the Hermit's time

Then, less than two weeks after the last Hermit show, we have an event that may utilize the entire property at once. Our annual Fezziwig Ball has turned into a Fezziwig's Ball and Murder Mystery The ball and mystery part will take place in the same theater as the two shows have, but without the chairs present. I'm not sure where to put 100 chairs, especially as I'm not 100% sure how we'll be using the rest of the property. Our original plan, and the one we've been promoting, calls for a Children's Victorian Christmas Party in one of our two classroom buildings and a Victorian Food Court in the outside area between the main theater and the classrooms. It all sounded great when we planned it, and I really would still LOVE to see it come off as planned, but it's going to be an adventure. The chairs can go, for temporary, any of several places, that's not too big a problem. It will just depend on what space we use for children's stuff. But one thing I wasn't counting on was the transformation of the kitchen I suspect was supposed to play some role in the food prep situation into a lighting/technical workshop. Cooking anything more complicated than boiled water in there right now would be impossible. I saw all this work and thought how great it was our Frank the Tech Guru had found room to play until it dawned on my how close the Fezz Situation was. Now, again, this isn't a solution-less problem, it's actually a pretty easy solution, simply pick up all the equipment and tools and parts and control panels and send them back from whence they came. But it is just one more thing it never dawned on me would need to be done. I am finding I am not as good at thinking things through as I like to think I am.

Add to the mix the fact that while all this is going on we have two plays rehearsing and a children's workshop in full swing and you have one very busy theater manager with a very full brain. And a very complicated Google Calendar.

I'm wondering if I bit off more than we could chew to finish off the year. I mean, it WAS me who pushed for all this, so if it ends up turning into a train wreck, I'll take the blame, but I still think I would do it the same way if I got a chance to try again. I would rather fail from trying too much than fail from not trying enough. If this theatre wasn't being used this much, I think it would hurt us in the long run. I think also that while we are pushing the limits of our volunteer base, we are learning a valuable lesson. We need to know if we have the enthusiasm among our "BLT family" to make this place work long term. If this year ends as a train wreck, if we can't pull off all these projects, we will know that the support for a place of our own simply may not be there in anything but lip service. We've all TALKED about how we need to have our own place, but BLT needs to see how many people are willing to work to make it happen. If nothing else, I've unintentionally devised a great first test of that question.

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.

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 :-)

Giants In The Sky

There are Giants in the sky
There are big, tall, terrible, awesome, scary, wonderful 
Giants in the sky

So sings Jack in Stephen Sondeim's Into The Woods. Jack makes a trip up the beanstalk and glimpses a world that changes the way he sees the old, mundane world to which he returns. His experience has changed his outlook, he now sees somehow more even when looking at the same things. I can identify with that.

My experience in theatre has been that sort of revelation. I think it's been more noticeable and perhaps pronounced because I wasn't brought up around the performing arts (except as an audience member). I sort of climbed that beanstalk all at once and took in a new world and it's changed the way I look at things when I go back to being that simple audience member.

This past weekend, the lovely Lisa and I returned to the wonderful Durham Performing Arts Center and saw Book of Mormon. The show is outstanding and hilarious and just so, so very WRONG. We loved it. I would have loved it 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago, I'm sure I would have. But I saw it through different eyes than I would have then.

The first musical number features about ten Mormon missionaries standing on risers and each ringing an imaginary doorbell. The audience loved it, they laughed at the first finger poking the air and bringing forth a "Ding-Dong." It was a great effect, and an obvious one for working Mormon door-to-door evangelism into the show. But I watched it with a sort of heart in throat feeling, silently cheering on the sound tech who was hitting that button at just the right time to make the doorbell gag work. He did great, only one was a bit late, but I know THAT'S the thing he'll remember about that scene in that show, the one thing that wasn't perfect. And I also appreciate how hard getting that timing down can be. The boy had to do the exact same effect when he was helping out with Tuesdays With Morrie at our local strip mall theater. He nailed it, and it impressed the actors enough that they brought it up to me at intermission. Tiny things, things that may last a second at most, matter. I never would have given the doorbells a second thought five years ago.

Later in the show is a song that is in part about dysentery. Yep. It's actually got really catchy lyrics, but they are less then safe for work. Anyhow, the dancers during this rather educational segment use a long roll of cloth and sticks with different colored tassels to represent a river and, ahem, several bodily fluids. It's set to a tribal beat and moves along faster and faster as the song (and the unfortunate ailment) progresses. Watching this, I couldn't help but picture the poor choreographer on the first day of learning this bit. Sure they are professional actors, but come on, it's a hilarious song and the movements (hee hee) are not only hilarious as well, but physically tricky. I'm sitting there picturing our crew trying to pick this up and laughing that much harder because of it.

Those are just a couple examples, I could go on and on, but I don't want to spoil the show for anyone who hasn't seen it. My point is that our experiences aren't only about the joy and learning we receive while they are happening. The real magic of life-long learning, of every once in a while just climbing that beanstalk just because it's there, is a richer life --  happily ever after.

Valentine's Day In Pooh Sticks Land

I know, I know, it's somewhere between cliched and sickening to say that for Lisa and I Valentine's Day has never been much of a big deal because we celebrate our love everyday, but it's also true. We're that gross couple kissing in Walmart. Don't judge. She's just that kissable. All the time. And I have no filter. Or much self control. Don't feel alone if you see us and are made a bit uncomfortable by the blatant displays, we regularly horrify and gross out our teenager. But it works for us and we're happy so, deal with it.

This year as Valentine's Day approached we decided that our gifts to each other would be brand new Blu-rays of two classic Disney animated features, Jungle Book (because it was just re-released on Blu-ray a couple days ago) and Robin Hood. Romantic, huh?
We'll also go out to dinner at a little Italian place with a Irish pub inside near here, but we're bringing the boy along because, well, we love him, too.

The Jungle Book was Lisa's idea, really. I was seeing commercials for it and saying I was going to buy it the day it was released. It's one of my top Disney favorites. I'll give it its own post after we crack it open and check out the shiny new version. Anyhow, Lisa suggested that maybe I wait because, ahem, someone might want to get it for me for Valentine's Day. While she was looking into pre-ordering it on Amazon (where strangely it isn't going to be available until March) she ran across the Blu-ray of Robin Hood and asked if we would just like to get both for each other and be done with it. That sounded like a fine idea to me and so there we go, V-Day covered!

But it's really not so un-romantical as all that. Lisa knows how much I love Disney's Robin Hood and she has come to see the two of us in its main characters. Lisa fancies herself a princess and I fancy myself a bit of a rogue. Silly, maybe, to you reading this, but we buy it and love it. Lisa IS a bit like Maid Marion, maybe more like her than like any other Disney Princess. Maid Marion does a lot of giggling in this movie. She goes through the whole thing, even the scary parts, with a sense of humor based in the trust that her anti-hero from the woods will always be there for her. She isn't the sort to just play damsel in distress, though, and hope for rescue. Nope, Marion joyfully fights her way through the bad guys, giggling all the way, and helps Robin as much as he helps her. They are a team. Like us.


Like Robin, I'm not much for authority and I tend to jump in without much testing of any waters. I've always been the sort to do what I want no matter what I'm told. Sometimes, this works out great, often it gets me in trouble, like it does Robin. But no matter what happens, my Lisa is there beside me. Whether it's something big like picking up and moving 500 miles away to a place we've never seen before, or small like waking up and deciding we just must see Charleston that day, or just plain weird like jumping with both feet into a community theatre with absolutely zero arts experience of any kind, Lisa is there to be a sidekick, cheerleader, partner and sometimes protector, ready to knock anyone who doubts me over the head with a figurative iron pot. I couldn't ask for any more and I wouldn't have the freedom or courage to be who I want to be without Lisa beside me.

A couple of Christmases ago, Lisa bought for me a hand-drawn picture of Robin and Marion. She found it in an animation shop in Downtown Disney and just HAD to have it for me. It isn't a scene from the movie, it's just Robin and Marion together. Robin is gazing at his Princess with a real look of "how the Hell did I ever mange to deserve HER?" on his face and Marion is looking out of the picture exuding simple happiness that she has everything she wants in her bandit from the woods. He can't give her riches and he is sometimes more of a challenge than would be ideal, but he is hers and she loves him. It's us. It really is. And I couldn't be happier.

But the best part of that picture is that they aren't standing still. They are Moving Forward. Always. Like us.

Moving Forward

As luck would have it, the first post of 2014 is also going to be the 100th post on Pooh Sticks. I have been trying too hard to think of something to write that does the confluence of essentially meaningless numbers justice. I wanted to look back at the past year and forward to the new. I wanted to set a tone. I wanted it to be most of all POSITIVE. Our 2013 saw a lot of difficulties and sadness and I'm ready for a new day. But events overtake that. Bad stuff happens all the time, it doesn't fit neatly into our divisions of time. Already this month tragedy has struck our community and serious health concerns struck a young member of our family, and we aren't two weeks into the new year yet. But this blog is about my happy place, be that Disney itself or the one we make for ourselves here at home by loving and celebrating and doing the things that make us happy together with those we care about. So today on Pooh Sticks we celebrate one of the great additions to my happy place, my family's involvement in community theater, because it just so happens that tonight I officially take the reigns of the Brunswick Little Theatre as president of it's Board of Directors. See, it's topical :-)

The story of our introduction to community theatre can be found in this post about Opening New Doors. Long story short, my friend Jen asked me one day to be her stage manager for the production of Wizard of Oz she was directing. I said "yes", then went home and Googled "stage manager" and began a journey into a world I had known next to nothing about. I can never thank Jen enough for helping open that door. It's really enhanced our lives by giving us a whole new vocabulary, mental and verbal, to use to interpret the world. We don't look at any entertainment, especially live entertainment, the same way. We always enjoyed watching "making of" documentaries and the extras on DVDs, but now we can relate to Peter Jackson's dwarf camp prior to filming The Hobbit because we've seen munchkin camp in Jen's back yard. They are amazingly similar. We watch the rehearsal footage on the Making of The Sound of Music special and can't help but recalling our actors doing all the same things during rehearsals for BLT shows. The perspective simply makes entertainment even more entertaining. Knowledge has a way of doing that, I highly recommend aquiring as much as you can, especially in areas you are now unfamiliar with. Add to that the many opportunities for family involvement that theater offers, and I can not recommend the whole thing enough. We love it.

So now I'm having to put my new-found knowledge to use as president of our theater board. I am still unclear exactly how this happened, it was mostly a matter of being the only guy willing, I guess. I do still feel a bit in over my head, but I'm getting over it. The board work is actually much more my speed than the show work (though I am learning!). I can organize and sell and move a meeting along as well as anyone. I've already achieved a few small victories (in my mind at least) and am more hopeful than wary moving forward. We have what looks to be a very entertaining season ahead of us and I have some very good people working with me on the board, so I think BLT's future looks pretty bright.

As does my own. My family is healthy and happy and loving and safe. I have another summer working as Jen's stage manager (this time on Into The Woods, a show I've actually seen on Broadway) to look forward to. We are planning a return to Disney World in the late fall to check out the Christmas happenings and the New Fantasyland expansion. The economic outlook appears to be helping my work prospects. All in all Moving Forward looks like a very good thing. And I'm dedicated to making it so. I wish you the same.

Let's See The Good Done By The Sound of Music Live

My friend shared a blog post on FaceBook this morning defending the IDEA of NBC's recent The Sound Of Music Live. The blogger, and Jen, were calling out "theatre people" for the vitriol leveled at this performance all over social media. I'll take the liberty of quoting Jen:

I, for one, was really disappointed that the majority of the theater-lovers on my friends list couldn't find the positives in "The Sound of Music Live", and instead chose to post only negative remarks. If theater is going to survive, it has to reach and engage new audiences. As a long time community theater participant, I'm not ashamed to append "by any means necessary" to that sentiment.

And the blogger, Emerson Collins, hit the nail on the head describing the atmosphere on the live interwebs duing the show:

 It quite clearly became a competition to see how creatively each person could say they hated it more than the next person.  I find that disappointing and somewhat sad.

He's right. It WAS a competition to out-snark the other person. My wife and I watched it together and she was reading and sharing the FaceBook commentary as we went along. It was truly sad. And mean. And entirely missed the point.

 I'm going to restate a lot of what Emerson wrote in his blog here, but honestly, reading his post felt like he wrote it after listening in on  Lisa and I as we watched the show and observed the reaction. NBC went way out on a limb to do this show. Live TV just doesn't happen, and people expect perfection on the tube. Very few have ever seen a live theater performance, and they don't know what to expect from one, or how to judge it. This wasn't at all exactly like live theatre. It was certainly a hybrid of that and television, with cameras following the action rather than the scenes being changed in front of the audience. But even given that, it was very different from what the modern television audience has come to expect. It took courage to even attempt such a thing, and as someone involved in community theater myself, I really, really appreciate that.

Given the challenge of drawing an audience to something new, they needed an ace in the hole. They found Carrie Underwood. I'm no great fan myself, heck, I was calling her Trisha Yearwood up until I sat down to watch the show, but lots and lots of people love the woman. She has a built in following and a name recognition (I don't count) that brought an audience to this show that a Broadway actress never could have. Was she a great actress, or even a very good one? Nope. She acted like a pop singer. Because, well, it's what she is. It's fine to criticize her acting, to an extent, but not to criticize HER for her acting. She was giving her all in an effort to make a show come to life for people who may have never had that experience. When was the last time YOU tried to do that, or anything like it?  Carrie Underwood did more, I think, to ensure theater will hang on for a while than the collected casts of all those shows on Broadway that very few can afford to go see. Emerson points out the numbers:

 18.5 million people watched the show, the largest non-sports NBC Thursday night since the Frasier finale in 2004.  (For the record, it would take twenty 3000-seat theatres nearly a year of performing every night of the week to reach that many people.)

Believe me, I  am in a position to fret over the number of tickets sold to live community theatre shows, and those are some stellar numbers. People saw something very close to live theater. It may have made them consider seeing an actual live theatre show in their own communities. It may have made some want to see one in MY community. It made the idea more accessible, I think, and that is important.

It's also what "theater people" tend to be worst in the world at doing themselves. I believe the race to be snarkiest is rooted in the basic elitism of many involved in theater.  I am in the theater, I serve as a board member of Brunswick Little Theatre, actually I'm going to be president of the group in a few weeks, but I am not of the theater. I've been made aware of that in ways blatant and subtle, purposeful and accidental, many times over the last couple years, and particularly during my service on the board. I have definite opinions about the arts and their role in the human condition, but I am hesitant to share them too much for fear of looking like a fool in front of these people. I'm getting over that. 

But I'm not over it yet. This is the closest I'll come to sharing my opinions on this beyond Lisa and my close friends. Jen and Emerson shared their concern about all the negativity turning people off of theater in general, or turning entertainment companies like NBC away from attempting a similar project in the future, but it affected me as well. Despite being as free with my opinions as anyone you are likely to meet, I never once commented on The Sound Of Music the other night. My disgust at the hate-fest was shared with Lisa alone. I've not even commented on Jen's post sharing the blog I enjoyed so much beyond simply "like"ing it. And I won't.

See, because I'm on that board and I have and will in the future advocate for or against performing certain shows or presenting theater in a certain way, I'm paranoid about what my "theatre people" friends will think of my opinion. I didn't want to be the only one out there pointing out the positives of Sound of Music because I feared it would make my opinion even less valid to the board than it is now. I'm pretty sure my fellow board members all put me somewhere on the spectrum between blithering idiot and raving lunatic. Even the ones I consider friends. The condescension at those meetings has been unreal. I am a pretty confident guy, but it has even gotten to me. I mean, I do have very little experience in theater, but that doesn't mean I don't love it. It doesn't mean people that haven't had the chance to experience it couldn't or wouldn't love it.

There is this natural feeling among many theatre people that the "others" are incapable of appreciating a show that isn't as basic and simple and familiar as possible. I suspect these people don't want to challenge audiences, or bring new audiences into the more accessible shows, because they like being an elite, knowing about things others don't. I mean if the guy who framed their house can enjoy and discuss in detail a bare bones, avant-garde production of Beowulf, how does that Masters of Education hanging on their wall make them a better person than him? And yes, I had that discussion with a builder friend of mine.

Art is meant to be enjoyed. It lives more with each person it reaches. Theatre is meant to be seen, it can and should be enjoyed by anyone with a heart to touch. The Sound Of Music did that for some people. We should not only let them enjoy it, but celebrate their discovery of a new genre and invite them into our world.

So, thanks Jen and Emerson. Remember you two, for the same reason that it is particularity hurtful to a show for theater people to hate all over it, the positive opinions of people like yourself influence and encourage the rest of us just as strongly. And we need it.

39 Lessons

Well, not exactly that many, but I thought I'd finally put down a few of the things I took away from my experience stage managing The 39 Steps last month. This was a different experience. Not bad, it had many good moments and on balance I had a really good time, but it I didn't walk away with the same feeling I did from Wizard of Oz, or even Tuesdays with Morrie or the Talkin' 'Bout My Generation shows. I don't think anyone did. Truth be told, this is my second attempt at writing this. I wrote a post about a week ago with the same name, posted it one night and within about 12 hours I deleted it. It was honest and fair, I thought, but after a night sleeping on it and reading it again, I decided it wasn't what I wanted up here. That experience alone tells me volumes about my mixed feelings after this show. But I'm going to try again. Maybe sanitized isn't the right word, but this will be an easier thing for me to read in a few months, I think.

1. Playing It By Ear

39 Steps was my first foray into "calling a show." This is a stage manager duty that entails helping to let the tech people know when to execute a light change or play a sound effect. I was in communication with Gillian, our light tech, during this show using a set of headphones and a mic. This was cool in that I love gadgets and this totally played to my walkie-talkie nostalgia. It always seemed Gillian was asking me a question or telling me something at the most inopportune moments, but it wasn't her fault and it was more amusing than anything else. The tricky part of this was that I had to give Gillian cues based on the actors on stage being in place and ready when I had no way of actually SEEING the stage. I was behind a blackout curtain. This meant I learned to know the pace of the show and the actors and to use my ears to tell what was going on out on stage. Luckily, the hollow stage made every movement quite loud enough to hear, so it wasn't terribly challenging. It was just pretty funny to me that my introduction to this aspect of stage direction was done blind.

2. Community Theater Is Held Together With Duct Tape

Well, maybe not exactly, but it would be much harder without it. I started the show with four rolls of different colors of duct tape and finished with, I believe, seven. Black, white, glow-in-the-dark and my personal favorite, Liz-in-Winter all had uses that required that color and no other. Duct tape held the fog machine pipe in place, kept the knife in Annabelle's back, held the shadow puppets together, let us know where the curtain opening was and kept random wires from clotheslining actors. My stagehand used it in manner not appropriate to discuss on a family blog. Duct tape is my friend.

3. DIY

We had a troublesome prop on this show. A lamp we used in one scene started shocking me during tech week and continued to do so pretty regularly. The tech director and director weren't bothered by this, so I just let it be rather than looking closely at the lamp to see what the problem was and fix it my own bad self. It turned out to be just a matter of replacing the ludicrously tiny light bulb. Anyhow, I didn't and so the completely predictable happened and we ended up shorting out about a third of the building. We blew lots of fuses in control boxes and blew out several relatively expensive light bulbs. The second act of that show featured a rather improvised shadow puppet effect and no fog machine and a darkened stage right and actors had to navigate some very sketchy steps with only little flashlights to see by. I could have prevented this with a trip to Lowes. Next time I will.

4. Dealing With An Off Night

The night the fuse blew was just an off show. I suppose it was good, in a way, that the lamp snafu didn't happen during a good show, but still, having such an off night was troubling. It was awkward and negative from the very beginning, when we all arrived at the theater long before show time. The strange thing was that we were coming off the best show of our run as of that point and had every reason to be proud and happy with ourselves and each other, but it wasn't like that. Anyhow, the important part was that we all came back for the next show and shook everything off and put forth a great performance. That was an important lesson, nothing in live theater is lasting, neither the good nor the bad. A great show doesn't ensure the next will be even better, but by the same token, a poor one doesn't throw the train off the tracks. Every night is a fresh slate.

5. Be Part Of The Immune System, Not A Band-Aid

This is far and away my favorite, and I suspect time will prove it the most valuable, lesson. Director Jen was happy, she said, with my ability to see a problem and fix it quickly. She wants me to learn, however, to slow down sometimes and think of a solution that not only fixes the problem, but does so within the show. I was a band-aid, I need to be a white blood cell. This is tricky for me as this is NOT the way my mind works. I'm not theatrical, but I want to be and I am trying to learn to change the way I think. It's a challenge, but a really fun one. This is why I enjoy working with Brunswick Little Theatre, and one of the best parts of my friendship with Jen. Both push me to open those new doors. And I'm getting more and more comfortable doing so.

Hat-crobatics

Director Jen made up that word, hat-crobatics, to describe a part of The 39 Steps wherein two actors switch between six characters during one short scene mostly by changing accents and hats. The scene is a great representation of this show in particular. Four actors not only portray dozens of characters and undergo numerous costume changes, but they also often act as their own stage crew, clearing and setting sets during the show. That's not to say the stage hands themselves are sitting on their hands letting the actors do all the work. The three of us also set and clear most of the scenes while also performing shadow puppets and running a fog machine. This is a very small operation. It includes only Jen the director, four actors, three stage hands, a dresser, a light board operator and a sound board operator. That's ten people handling the show in total while it's in performance, not counting Jen in the audience taking notes on ways we can improve. We all wear a lot of hats, if the truth is to be told.

But it seems to me in my very limited experience that wearing lots of hats is the name of the game in community theater. Maybe it's not so usual to have the actors play multiple roles or participate so much in the handling of sets during the performance, but it certainly seems to always involve a lot of multitasking. My model for this is Jen. Watching her create a show, because that's what it is, creating, is a lesson on multitasking. I was amazed both during Wizard of Oz and this show at how much the woman manages to keep in her head. She knows the script frontwards and backwards, knows her blocking, develops a vision for a set and keeps track of prop needs all at once. At the same time she's thinking about rehearsal schedules and cast parties and publicity and sound and light cues and finding tech help and creating special effects. I've seen her keeping a notebook full of lists and things getting added and crossed off all the time, but ask her and usually she can pull any tidbit in those notes straight out of her head. I don't know how she does it.

My job on her shows has been as stage manager. I'll admit, when Jen asked me to help her on Wizard as one, I had to come home and Google it. This is what I found on the interwebs:

Stage managers typically provide practical and organizational support to the director, actors, designers, stage crew and technicians throughout the production process....... Once the show opens, the director's work is essentially complete. Now it's the stage manager's job to make sure that every aspect of the production runs just as the director intended time after time, until the production closes. 

There was a whole page of stuff in the middle that made little sense to me. Another website offered the advice that a stage manager shouldn't show too much cleavage. I got that one covered.  Basically, a stage manager wears lots of hats as well.

Jen is a very hands on director, she delegates as little as she has to, I think. Stage managing for another director might be different, but for Jen it's mostly being there when she needs a hand and helping make what she wants to happen happen. During Wizard, I was one of three stage managers. I didn't call the show (more on that later) and another guy was largely responsible for organizing the set changes. I was primarily there to fix problems that arose with the cast and help any way I could. It was a great learning experience as I got to participate in lots of stage manager things without having all of it on my shoulders. Almost like Jen planned it that way....

This time, I'm all she's got. But while it's a complicated show, it's a small cast and crew, so it works perfectly as another step up my learning ladder. I rarely see the cast during this show. The babysitting aspect of Wizard is almost completely absent this time. Now I'm focusing on the set changes and technical aspects of stage managing during the show. It's a challenge that I'll write about after the whole run is over. I'm sure I'll have more and better stories after another three more performances.

The two months of preparing this show saw me wearing a few hats as well. Jen told me at the outset that she'd be asking more from me in terms of time at rehearsals than she ever has of a stage manager before. I ended up at the majority of them doing something of varying usefulness. When an actor was missing, I read his lines, and once even tried acting his part, which in hindsight was probably a mistake. When everyone was there, I was "on book" which meant feeding lines to the actors when they couldn't bring one forth. That's not as easy as it would seem. It's hard unless an actor is well-trained and knows to ask for a line when he or she needs one. We only have one actor of that sort in this show. The others tended to stand there for varying amounts of time struggling until either they bust out with SOMETHING or someone fed the line to them. It was tricky finding a rhythm, jump in too early and you interrupt the flow and step in on the actor's character, but wait too long and it gets the actor frustrated and everyone else feels really awkward. I got better at it, I think, as I got some more practice.

Between rehearsals I got to play at set dresser and prop man. I spent a day searching through thrift stores and consignment shops for just the right armchair. I sent lots of pictures to Jen, anyone who looks at the photo gallery in my phone is going to wonder what the Hell I was doing.  I finally found a good one and talked the seller down a decent bit, which is totally out of character for me. I also created a small prop, a fake newspaper page. That was great fun as Jen only had a couple instructions and let me play with the rest. I helped with a few more things, acquiring a big piece of paper for a map prop and finding fake, throw-able snowflakes.

When we moved into the Amuzu theatre, I got to put my lighting tech hat on.  I had learned the basics of

Scary Ladder. This photo only shows the top half...

lighting during our rock and roll show in the park, so when lights needed to be hung (using the scariest ladder EVER) I was the guy. I got to change gels and hang and focus lights and string extension cords and such. It was fun. Everyone pitches in during load-in, so we all had lots of hats. We painted props and built a screen to project our shadow puppets and installed a curtain to create some small little "backstage" area to work the puppets and store props. We managed to work the wiring so there's been no blackouts and the building hasn't caught fire. As we moved into tech week, we sorted cues and the smoke machine and the puppets and figured out how to (and whether or not to in some cases) move props on and off stage

Aside from my various stage manager duties, I was busy at home between rehearsals with publicity and keeping up the website and managing ticket sales. This is the first show we've used PayPal to sell tickets on our own website, and there have been a few glitches and some second guessing that really annoyed me and complicated things needlessly. Before shows, I have been closing out that day's ticket sales online and printing the ticket buyer lists, contacting the local newspaper editor to beg for space, and stopping for last minute supplies of duct tape and glow rings and batteries and art supplies and such. Nights after rehearsals and shows, I'd find myself downloading and editing pictures, sending photos and writing cutlines to the same local paper and checking sales and putting buyers on lists for future shows.

It's a lot of hats for sure, but it's been fun. I can't wait to do it again.

Hat-crobat. Wonder if I can put that on a resume?

A Couple More Steps

I had, briefly, the brilliant idea to write 39 posts on this blog about my experiences helping bring The 39 Steps to the stage. As much as I dislike math, I do like numbers and I sort of thought that would get me writing more regularly. But the last exercise to help me write regularly was an attempt at a Blog Challenge to put up a post for each letter of the alphabet in the month of April. It took me over a year to write 27 (yes, 27. I did two "I" posts. I'm an over-achiever) blog posts. I'm not thinking 39 in a couple months was very realistic. Aside from that, I'm always nervous writing publicly about a play I'm involved in (heh, I say "always" like I've done this more than a couple times) because I'm afraid that in my enthusiasm and excitement, I'll write something I shouldn't or give away something that would be better kept a surprise. So while this isn't going to be the last update from the world of 1935 Britain, I'm not going to turn this into a play diary. But this blog is about what makes me happy, basically, and last weekend saw some small steps forward for the play and one bigger step for myself, and that made me happy.

Saturday we (my family along with Director Jen and her dad, Jonathan, who is building sets/props for the show) visited  the Historic Amuzu Theatre to have a look around. I've been fascinated by this building since we moved here so I was really happy to get to poke around the whole place. The Amuzu was a movie theater begun by the current owner's father, but it's since been remodeled into a venue for live shows. It has a stage and the balcony houses lights and tech equipment. To say it's a bit cramped backstage is a huge understatement, but this show has a cast of four and minimal sets, so it won't present much of a problem. I'm not going to say this is the ideal theater space for any show, but it will work very well for THIS show, we think.

I'm not going to give away Jen's ideas for staging the show, but the fact that the stage features two "balconies" is going to be perfect. We spent an hour or so poking all around (that was mostly me) and measuring things (mostly Jonathan and John) and taking pictures (all the little shots of the Amuzu you see on this post are Lisa's work) and imagining how the show could be brought to life in this space (that was mostly Jen, who is a flat-out genius at that). It was a great morning, getting to indulge my curiosity about the interior of one of my favorite landmarks while watching my friend go into Imagineer mode. Jen's the closest thing to Walt Disney I'm ever likely to meet and I love being there to see how she works through ideas and starts bringing a show to life. Then, when we got home and I downloaded all of Lisa's pictures, I was reminded once again what a treasure she is and what a great eye she has. She shot that place so well, it actually led to me putting a little blurb about our trip on the show's website. Just because I HAD to use a few of her photos.

Also on Saturday morning, Jen shared a bit of news that led to Sunday's fun. The show was cast after auditions the week before, but one of the four actors had second thoughts and backed out before the first rehearsal, scheduled for Sunday. This was to be a "read-thru" of the script. That is just what it sounds like, the actors read the script aloud, each reading his part. It's fun. Jen wasn't too worried, she said. She'd already contacted a couple people and was putting a last minute call out on Facebook with the idea of carrying on with the scheduled read-thru and turning it into a sort of audition if need be. I volunteered to read the missing guy's part if it came to that and no
one showed to try out on short notice.
I guess the idea was already started in my head. I'd had a lot of fun watching the auditions and actually found for the first time being around theater stuff that I wanted to be taking part in what the actors were doing. It was a series of improvisational games followed by readings of parts of the script. I'd read the script twice already before the auditions and found myself thinking about how I'd do it if it were me up there trying out. Not that I wanted to be IN the show, mind you, just that I thought it'd be fun to get to act out this stuff. So, when it looked like Jen might need a warm body to read, I jumped at the chance.

Then, while running errands and walking around Walmart of all things, I got to thinking. That really did look like fun, the acting thing. It seemed, for the first time, accessible to even me. There was no singing or dancing. It was a lot of lines, but maybe I could memorize that. No, I could never do that on a stage, in front of people. Well, maybe. I just don't know. I sent Jen a message reiterating my offer to help read. She read between the lines I guess and understood and said what I couldn't bring myself to say, "Unless you're ready to make your stage debut...." 

Was I? I don't know. I knew for a fact that the guys she contacted to try out would be great and if they showed I was out, I said. Another volunteer responded to her call and said he'd come out. I didn't know his acting background and figured if he was as new to this as I, I would go ahead and read for the part with him. Jen told me whatever else happened, she'd give me a chance to read. I guess she understood what was going on in my head, she's been through this herself as an actor and seen many others go through it as a director. And she gets me. 
Sunday came and I surprised myself by not being nervous at all. I was happy, really happy. I was imagining my friends and family coming to the show. I was imagining being one of a small cast and all the camaraderie that I figure goes with that. I had myself convinced  it was totally doable for me to remember all the lines. I was excited and happy and looking forward to three o'clock. Then, while I drove to Adrian and Jen's office where the rehearsal was to take place, it hit me. I had been asked that morning to stand up in church and sort of wave "hi" to the congregation as I was introduced as a member of a new committee, and I hated it. It made me nervous and uncomfortable. What the Hell was I thinking volunteering to get up and ACT in front of an audience at a real show that people expected to be very good? I'd freeze and embarrass myself, embarrass the other actors, embarrass Jen. What sort of friend was I to put everyone in that position?  And if I did get the role, that would mean I wouldn't be stage manger, something I've been looking forward to all year. I loved stage managing Wizard, but I was one of three and this time I would be flying solo on a show that presents some real interesting challenges. That, and I love being Jen's helper, part of her production team.

 

When I got to the office, I saw that the other volunteer, Dan, had come out and I resolved to take Jen aside and tell her I was out as far as trying out. Let Dan have it, good or bad Jen would make him work. But I didn't. I went ahead as planned and read for the part like I wanted it. And if Dan hadn't been as great as he was, and Jen thought I would be right, I'd have done it. Really I would. And that surprised me about myself. I gotta say, I'm proud of me.

As it turned out, everything went about as perfectly as we could have hoped. Before we started, Jen announced I'd be reading for the part, but that she was a bit upset by the possibility of losing me as her stage manager (something that truly never occurred to me, I figured I was very replaceable). Dan and I and the rest of the cast had a really great time with the script. Dan was perfect for the part, he has acting experience and can flip between truly wonderful accents with ease. I know everyone saw that, so after we were finished and it looked like Jen wasn't going to say it, I did. I would be happy to stay stage manager. And I meant it.

The Cast: (l-r) Ryan Joyce, Adrian Iapalucci, Liz Cervantes and Dan Gedman

So, Dan got his chance to return to the stage, Jen found a perfect Clown One and kept her stage manager and didn't have to tell her friend "no, I would rather use the other guy," and I got my chance to audition for a part in a play along with a real actor. And while Dan was clearly much better for the part, and obviously more experienced in acting in general, I didn't embarrass myself at all. It wasn't like "isn't it cute, Jeff tried," not at all. I did well, and I think better than "for a first try" well. It was soooooooo much fun, too! It was every bit as much fun as it looked, I gotta say. 

Big thanks to Lisa for humoring all my crazy ideas and supporting me even though she knows it's going to mean a lot of nights away from home. Big thanks to Adrian and Liz and Ryan and especially Dan for welcoming the rookie and making me feel like I belonged there. And Big Thanks to Jen for understanding, for encouraging and for once again showing me a new door to open. This acting door hasn't been flung wide open by any means, but it has been left ajar. And that is huge for me.

                                                

   

A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With A First Step (or 39 of them)

Tonight I'm going to sit in on auditions for Brunswick Little Theatre's next show, The 39 Steps. To say I'm happy and excited understates it quite a bit. I didn't get to be much of a part of this summer's big musical production of Beauty and the Beast due to vacation and time conflicts (mainly), and with its run finishing up this past weekend, I am getting really itchy to be a part of a show again.

It's disingenuous to say tonight is the beginning, the first steps.  This show began when the director looked into The 39 Steps as a possible play she'd like to propose. She read the script, maybe watched a few YouTube videos and started thinking. There's A LOT of thinking involved in this. She proposed the show to the BLT board, they approved it, secured the rights, secured a venue and off we go.

While auditions aren't the beginning, they are a milestone and this time the beginning of my part in the adventure. My involvement with last summer's Wizard of Oz began at the first rehearsal, so this is a new and exciting thing for me. The director of this show, as if I need to even say so, is my great pal Jen. She is allowing me to try my hand at stage managing again, this time on my own. I'm really looking forward to the experience. This will be a very different show from Wizard; a cast of four rather than 50, minimal props, a small stage with next to no backstage area and at most a handful of crew rather than the 50-some we had backstage last summer. It's going to be a very different experience and I have no idea, in large part, what to expect. That starts with tonight. I don't know who will come (aside from a couple actors who have said they are) or what Jen has in mind for those who do try out. That is the best part, the not knowing. I love new experiences.