…I’m not sure why he’s angry, but Bunny’s been swearing up a storm…

Ladies and Gentlemen…

Do you ever search the internet? For stuff? Of course you do.

Would you like to help out Williamston Theatre while you do it? Of course you would – you’re all marvelous people like that.

Well, www.goodsearch.com is the answer!

From now on, when you need to look something up on the web, go to http://www.goodsearch.com. There’s a little box that says “Enter your charity here”. Enter Williamston Theatre in that box!

Then, when you do your search, you earn a penny or two for Williamston Theatre.

It’s that simple!!

And if enough people do it, it could make a world of difference for our little company. A world of difference.

You can even add the Goodsearch toolbar to your web browser!! Or make it your home page!

So, if you’ve got that giving spirit, help us out when searching the ‘net, will you? I’d really appreciate it -every little bit helps!

Thanks!

I was reminded today that I’d not yet recorded a recent event in my LJ.

Last Wedneday, the Wilde Awards were held.

The Wilde Awards are a big Theatre Awards show for Michigan – they’re sponsored by the Between The Lines, a wonderful weekly newspaper that is very supportive of the arts, and of Theatre in MIchigan. A publication dedicated to the LGBT community, Between The Lines is, in fact, the last awards show standing in Michigan, after two daily newspapers discontinued their ceremonies. (The Detroit Free Press continues to do awards in the paper, as do several newspapers, but they’ve ended their yearly Awards Night.) Between The Lines puts on a wonderful, entertaining, respectful show. It’s a nice celebration of Michigan Theatre.

I was honored to win two awards for directing last week at the Wilde Awards. They were:

Favorite Local Professional Production (Comedy): “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol,” Performance Network Theatre; Tony Caselli, director

and Jim Posante and I won as co-directors for the show I had to take over directing when he had a heart attack partway through rehearsals. He’s made a great recovery, and we accepted this award together:

Favorite Local Professional Production with LGBT Themes or Characters: “Take Me Out,” Performance Network Theatre; Jim Posante & Tony Caselli, directors

It was a great event, I managed to not sound like an idiot with my acceptance speeches, and the food was free! Plus, Ray Schultz and Darrell Glasgow both won acting awards for Take Me Out, which is always a great feeling for a director! One of the other great things about The Wilde Awards is that some of them are decided on by the critics, and some awards are decided on by the readers of the paper, who vote online or through the mail. Both of the awards I won were voted on by the public, which is a nice feeling. Win or lose, it really is an honor to have your work recognized – especially among some fantastic theatre artists. It was quite nice to really feel like a part of the Michigan Theatre Community, and I was proud to represent the casts and production staffs of both of those shows as I accepted the awards. Directing is all about the people you work with, and Jim and I were both lucky to have great collaborators on both projects.

Williamston Theatre was nicely represented, with all 4 Founding Members present, as well as 2 Board Members. Unfortunately, our first production, Additional Particulars was done too late in the season to be eligible for any award nominations. Who knows, there’s always next year – a WT nomination would help nicely in our efforts to continue generating buzz about our new company!

Also, Lots of other awards were handed out to a bunch of great folks, including my good friend Kate Peckham who sometimes reads this journal – nice job Kate!! 🙂

So, all in all, a nice evening!

Both Survivor and The Amazing Race start soon, and I can’t wait. There’s been a little bit of fuss made by some groups over the fact that on Survivor this season, they split them up into teams based on their race, instead of by age, sex, or random selection. Apparently there are 4 groups – Asian-American, African-American, White and Hispanic. Most years, they only stay in these groups for a short time anyway, before they somehow get merged in with another. Either way, consider me one of the people NOT bothered by the choice. Are you? Discuss.

Sadly, Geneva did NOT win the CBS competition -mentioned in an earlier post- although she was clearly the best actor in the group. The Soap Opera audiences that did the final vote picked the cute, nerdy boy. He was second, in my mind, but also got a cute, funny scene to play. The scenes for Geneva and the third contestant, Ian, were a little heavier and darker. Still, quite a great experience for her!

Rehearsals for Rounding Third are going well! I’m looking forward to starting Act II today.

We have a new addition to our family! Well…7, actually. At the beginning of the summer the kids got a pair of very sweet gerbils who, it turns out, have created 7 more cute little gerbil babies! It’s really interesting to watch this process, and Max and Maggie are loving it! Jeanne did a bunch of online research, and it matches exactly what’s happening; they both work hard to keep the cage as neat as possible, they take turns herding the (still unseeing) babies into a corner and keeping them warm, and for the first couple of days they were both also VERY…frisky…with each other! And now the cage is ringing with the tiny squeaking of 7 little baby gerbils!

I fear for my bank account: This weekend I read the first two issues of the new Justice League of America comic book…and it’s really good. *must…resist…buying…* Why? Because then I’ll get sucked back into buying a whole BUNCH of comics every week! Nooooooo!

I’m very excited about November. Why, you ask? Because in early November, I will be seeing Patrick Stewart onstage in Shakespeare’s The Tempest!

So on Sunday I spent a couple hours trying to hook up our stereo system/surround sound speaker things to the tv. We’ve used the stereo and main speakers for years, but the “surround sound” stuff has been in boxes since we got them from my brother years ago. Sadly, I can’t figure out how to get it all working properly! I’m not sure if we have the right equipment to make it work, if some of it’s not working properly, or if I’ve just totally mis-wired it.

This morning, a message was left on our machine. A very annoyed woman said Well, I was trying to reach the diamond girl! *big sigh* I guess I’ll go through the front desk. I have no idea what that was about, but it made me laugh.

AAAAAAnd after typing that last line, I got a phone call from the school, and Max isn’t feeling well. So I’m now leaving to go pick him up. Looks like some Daddy/Son time today. Bye now!

In the new American Theatre magazine, there’s a great article/interview with Tony Taccone, the very successful director who is also the Artistic Director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

The whole interview is quite nice, but there’s one section that I particularly liked that deals directly with…directing. (That was quite a sentence!)

In this snippet about being a theatre director, he hits on two things that I think are important; working with actors, and the nature of the give-and-take between artist and audience.

One of the things I’ve felt as movies and television have increased in their popularity is that the act of two beings being physically close to each other on stage is much more significant that it ever was. The medium is so hot by its nature, and the other media are so cool. In the theatre we’re invited, challenged, sometimes forced to participate in a rather direct way. It’s a potentially dangerous medium, more so than film.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the movies. But there’s a specific type of courage required of theatre artists. I remember hearing a story about Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces. He had a scene with his father where he had to break down. The director spent some time convincing him of the importance of the scene, and finally he just went ahead…bam, one take, great scene, wonderful job, thanks Jack. But, well, stage actors have to do it eight times a week, for very little money, in front of some very unforgiving and inattentive audiences. It’s important to remember that what we ask of actors is scary. In order for them to explore scary terrain they have to feel safe, they have to feel that you have their back. I regard the first day of rehearsal as my audition. I want to create an atmosphere that makes people intuitively say, “Yes, I can trust this guy. This will be worth giving my blood to. I think this is going to be a good time.”

The rest of the article is very good, also. Give it a read if interested!

Rehearsals are underway for Rounding Third, and it’s going well! We’re having a good time exploring the stage, and they guys are very funny. It never occurred to me until yesterday that watching a man check for a rash is a very nice combination of hilariously funny and a little bit icky! *laughing*

Speaking of Williamston Theatre, here are the better pictures of the seats!

Two More

Okay, folks. Favor time.

The BackStory: CBS has a fun “reality tv” show on their website right now. Kinda like The Apprentice, except it’s called InTurn, and it’s a bunch of young college aged actors, and their “competitions” are all acting based, and the winner gets a 13 week contract as a character on As The World Turns!

A friend of mine, Geneva, is one of the finalists. (From the outset of the thing, it’s been clear that she was going to go far in the competition.)

I directed Geneva, who just graduated from Otterbein College, when I went down to Otterbein and directed Leaving Iowa there this Spring. Geneva played Mom in the show, and was marvelous. Great onstage, and marvelous to work with. It’s been a ton of fun watching her get challenged (and sometimes not) on InTurn. She’s got the looks and talent to kick butt in the Soaps!

Well, this week, she and the other finalists are doing their “final auditions”, which means they’re all playing small parts on As The World Turns. They’re all “murder victims”, (there’s a big stalker/slasher storyline going on, apparently), and they’ve all got a day where we meet their characters, then they get whacked by the slasher. I’m not a soap opera watcher, but it’s been fun watching this week to see the finalists. Good old TiVo…I can skip to the parts I want to see! 🙂

America has to vote on which of the finalists they want to win. Then, that actor will be brought back (as another character) for a 13 week job on the series. It’s a HUGE opportunity for a young actor.

SO: 2 things…

1) Go Vote For GENEVA! You can vote here, I think, after As The World Turns airs this afternoon. It shows from 2 to 3, then the voting becomes available.

2) If you’re interested, that’s also the link for InTurn, it’s been a fun easy show to watch. They did episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but they were only about 10 minutes long. They’re all on the site, so you can watch them all if you like.

That’s it! Take a minute or two, if you can spare them, and cast a vote or two for Geneva! And if you vote, or check out the program, let me know what you thought!

Today we start rehearsals for Rounding Third at Williamston Theatre.

Very excited about it, I really like the script and cast, and am looking forward to this process. Because of where we are as a company, this show has a different feel than our last. Too swamped this afternoon to do a long journal post, but I’ll write more about that later!

*warning: sci fi geek alert*

Well, it looks like the SciFi Channel will not be renewing Stargate: SG1 for next season. No giant surprise, although I am disappointed. The show’s been good the last couple of seasons, but not as great as it had been. The new cast members are good, but there’s starting to be a slightly recycled feeling about some of the episodes, and 10 seasons is a good long run.

Also, and possibly more blues-inducing, is that last week was the 200th episode of Stargate, and the local cable channel had NO AUDIO FEED. So, this huge episode that was built up for weeks as one of the coolest things ever in the run of the series…and I don’t get to see it (along with a whole bunch of other people.) Waiting to hear if they’re working on a solution to ‘re-air’ the thing for those of us who got the silent-movie version.

Anybody out there got Stargate’s 200th episode on tape? Wanna help a little sci-fi geek out?