Pic Post Wednesday!
Snapshots of a week full of theatre, family, and fun! It’s been a busy week, not as much journaling as I’d like, but it’s been a good kind of busy, so no complaints… Just pictures!
My son bought me this at a yard-sale. Yes, it’s a Klingon. Yes, it’s also a piggy-bank!
(Fellow nerds: Is this Gowron?)
“Today is a good day to save!”
This is our closing week of The Understudy at Williamston Theatre. It’s been a pretty terrific experience.
My kids are Rock Stars!
Speaking of my kids, Max is laying here next to me, reading, as I write this post on my iPad. Look how cute this kid is!
Tracking the progression of the set for the upcoming show (mentioned in last weeks Pic Post), here’s a picture of the updated model! Nice changes by the designer, based on discussions of both aesthetic and practical needs. Excited for this show!
Lastly… This is awesome…
…and so is this…
Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Pic Post Wednesday: New Shows, New Games, Family Time!
A good, busy week!
Production meetings for the next show at Williamston Theatre, Red, White and Tuna, directed by John Lepard. Here’s a picture or two of the set model – Janine Woods Thoma is the Set Designer. This pic was right before they had a couple of great ideas and Janine tore the model apart to experiment!
In other theatre news, I’m beginning work on the next show I’m directing, boom, which I LOVE!
Had a great time with Max this evening. After Maggie and I grilled an awesome dinner (salmon, chicken, pork medallions, veggies), she and Jeanne went out dress shopping, so Max and I got some Dad/Son time: first, ice cream from Twisters.
Yes, they’re both huge, and yes his has 3 candy eyeballs on the front of it. These things happen…
Next, we wanted to play some games, and we had a new pack of expansion cards…
So we played some Munchkin!
Seriously, could that kid be any cuter?
We also played a game of Ticket To Ride with the whole family, and then the kids were off to bed!
Lastly, Maggie and I saw this bumper sticker when we went grocery shopping, and it made us laugh… and then we spent the next 20 minutes rhyming things with “peanut”…
Have a great week, folks!
Monday Night Quotes – Making a Difference
Thinking a lot lately about responsibility, the reason we do what we do at work, at home… Planning the next few things for the Williamston Theatre, meeting with teachers about next year for my kids, making and debating choices… Hoping they’re the right choices, but knowing that the only way to find out is to move forward!
*****
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.
-Woodrow Wilson
When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough, we must do.
-Leonardo da da Vinci
How wonderful that no one need wait a single moment to improve the world.
-Anne Frank
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
-Dr. Seuss
Pic Post Thursday!
Random photos from random moments in the life of a random Dad, Husband, Artistic Director and geek…
The week in review:
This can’t be good, right?
Since the “service engine” light was distressing, Maggie and I got Pinkberry!
Okay, the “Service Engine” light may not have been the actual reason we got Pinkberry, but while we were having it, we discussed the fact that we’re less than two months away from the Warrior Dash, which we’ll be running together this July! Here’s me at the end of last year’s Dash:
That’s why, despite the Pinkberry, this week I started really hitting the elliptical runner in the basement again, and last night the kids had me working my cardio by joining them in a long battle of “Just Dance” on the Wii:
(“It’s easy, Dad – see the guy on the screen dressed all strange like you used to dress in the 80’s? You just follow all the moves he does until the game ends or you fall over and we roll you out of the way… whichever comes first.”)
Aaaaand lastly, the reviews for The Understudy at Williamston Theatre have been good so far, and audiences seem to be really enjoying it, but just to be safe we’re considering adding a new actor for the show:
Here’s Milo Lepard, son of Emily Sutton-Smith and John Lepard, hanging out on the set of The Understudy. He’s learning all the parts, just in case…
And now, a weekend full of shows! Hope your week has been good!
Some nice reviews for “The Understudy”!
“A love letter and a workplace comedy” – good review from Encore Michigan!
Lansing City Pulse says “Parker and Caselli crackle with mutual distrust and animosity that slowly morphs into warm respect. Both believe the other to be an inferior actor. Watching them prove otherwise to each other is a treat.” – read the whole review here!
The show is a “hilarious theatrical journey”, according to The Greater Lansing Ubiquitous Theatre Online!
More reviews to come, but the important thing is that audiences seem to be enjoying the show!
Monday Night Quotes: Heroes
The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by.
Felix Adler
The Veterans, marching in the Memorial Day Parade in Chelsea this morning.
Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can.
Philip Zimbardo
Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hard times don’t create heroes. It is during the hard times when the ‘hero’ within us is revealed.
Bob Riley
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others, at whatever cost.
Arthur Ashe
Friday’s Flotsam and Jetsam…
Miscellaneous things on a Friday afternoon!
A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.
Franz Kafka
***
It’s Opening Night for The Understudy!
Here’s a fun article from the Lansing City Pulse previewing the show
***
It’s Towel Day! What’s Towel Day?! It’s a day celebrating the life and work of Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, among other things!) 
To celebrate, you’re supposed to carry a towel around with you! “Why?”, you ask? Read on…
“A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value – you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.”
Also, see: DON’T PANIC.
Alex and I, being very serious, with our very serious towels.
***
In other miscellaneous news – today was “Moving Up Day” for my daughter. This means that she spent the day at the High School she’ll be attending next year, in an orientation. This also means that suddenly my little girl is in High School!! WHAT?! Oy… didn’t we just start her in kindergarten?! *sigh*
Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
Franz Kafka
Wednesday Pic Post!
Random images from a week in the life of a Dad, Artistic Director, husband, geek, etc…
A cool image of Alex Gay and Chris Purchis at Williamston Theatre, on the set for The Understudy. The set makes it look like we’ve expanded and added an entire theatre of seats upstage! 🙂
Tonight the Detroit Tigers had some VERY special guests watching their game. Sadly, all the reactions were the same when Prince Fielder threw the ball into the ground, instead of to home plate:
In news not nearly as sad as the record of the Tigers, my family has a new board game that’s a ton of fun: Ticket To Ride!
The game is easy to learn, and a ton of fun. 
If you’re a family who plays games together, and your kids are 12 or over, give it a shot, you’ll love it!
I’m not one of those people who post pictures of all their food all the time, but I have to say that I’ve been trying to eat healthier as I prep for the Warrior Dash in July (and, y’know, trying not to be chubby in general!), and this Chicken Caesar salad from Tavern 109 in Williamston was awesome!
It looked so good I had to take a picture, and then it lived up to expectations. Come to Williamston – we have good theatre, and good restaurants!
Lastly, it’s been a long week, full of the normal challenges of anyone working to keep a business open and prospering in this economy. I saw this picture on a friends Facebook page, and had to share it, because it fit so nicely with the week and was a nice reminder of how to tackle running a theatre:
Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Tony Caselli 