“One of the things about choosing is it really gives your power back. In choosing joy you get to choose something that doesn’t take much time or money and is not controversial.”
Roger Wyer

Wednesday night was the Wilde Awards Ceremony, at the Gem Theatre in Detroit. Much fun was had by all, it’s always a ton of fun to see all the theatre folks from the area!

We at the Williamston Theatre were pleased to receive 4 awards last night, which was a nice honor. Set Designer Bart Bauer won Best Set Design for our production of Talley’s Folly, and John Lepard and I won best Sound Design for the same show. In addition, Alex Leydenfrost won Best Actor In A Comedy for his work in our production of Panache, and Panache also won Best Comedy Of The Year! So out of our 10 nominations, we won 4, and we’re very appreciative of the recognition for the folks who worked hard on our season. There was some wonderful work done by the Michigan theatre community this year, and it really is an honory to have our work nominated, and to be recognized with some of the finest productions, artists and companies in the area. For a complete list of the winners, click here.

Today we had a great big brainstorming session for a few topics at work, which went really well. AND they started work on the A/C improvements in the theatre, which is fantastic!

Then I got to see my kids perform in their production of “The Princess Bride”! So cute, so much fun! And some of the swordplay was quite wonderful!
Wanna see some pictures?

Tonight is the Wilde Awards ceremony in Detroit. These will be fun, they’re always entertaining and it’s always fun to see all the folks!
The Williamston Theatre is nominated for 10 awards this year, which is a record for us, including Best Drama, Best Comedy and Best New Play.
Winning or not will be fine, it’s nice to be nominated – we’re proud of the work over the last year, and pleased that other folks are enjoying it too!

The Detroit Tigers stretched their lead to 4.5 games over the White Sox last night! Go Team!! Man, it’s fun having a team in the pennant race! (And leading it!)

I recently did a little bit of a layout switch/update to my website www.tonycaselli.com – any input or feedback would be completely welcome!
(In fact, my daughter just did a HILARIOUS fake rant at me this morning, when she looked at my website – there’s one picture of me where I’m smiling/laughing, and she started spouting in a British accent “Oh NOOOOO! How will anyone take you seriously Little Man?!”

I love that “Little Man” is something my daughter calls me when she’s fake ranting – makes me laugh every time. “When’s DINNER Little Maaaaaan?!?!” Hee!

So my brother-in-law is trying to get me hooked on the show “Warehouse 13” – I just watched the first couple episodes, and it’s a fun, light little scifi show. Anybody else watching it?

Yikes. Going over the bills, I’m starting to regret turning down all the work I did for this coming season! I mean, it was a good choice – I can focus on Williamston more and have a LOT more family time, but those shows would’ve been nice for our bankbook!

Still, as we slide towards the new theatre season and the new school year both beginning, there’s a lot to be excited about!

Tonight I got the chance to go see RiffTrax Live at the Quality 16 Movie Theatre in Ann Arbor. (It was playing tonight at about 430 theatres across the country!)
RiffTrax, if you’re unfamiliar, can be found here. It’s the creation of the guys who did Mystery Science Theatre 3000 – MST3K in geek language (I Grok Spock) – and it’s hilarious!
Tonight they did a LIVE broadcast from a theatre in Nashville, of the movie Plan 9 From Outer Space, and it was a ridiculous amount of fun.
It’s sort of like sitting in a room with a bunch of friends, and watching movies so bad that you have FAR more fun making up your own dialogue, snarky remarks and commentary through the whole movie…

SO MUCH FUN!

I got to rehearse a staged reading of a new play, too, with good actors and a good playwright in the room. ALWAYS a good way to spend a few hours!

AND my diet must be working a little, because I heard from several folks today “Hey! You’re looking skinny!” – so, that’s nice! 🙂

Also, today’s an interesting anniversary for me – it’s been 5 years today that my full-time job at the Purple Rose Theatre Company ended, and I entered a whole new world of freelance directing and founding/running a professional theatre!

It’s funny – 4 years ago, on the one year anniversary, I posted this journal entry, which was about that extremely transitional year of my life. This year, I don’t have the urge to post anything as introspective, lengthy or profound.

Maybe that’s because it was only a couple of days ago that I posted THIS entry about the end of our third season at the Williamston Theatre, and that was as introspective and profound as I feel like getting right now… or maybe it’s just because right now I don’t have anything profound to say about it. It’s been 5 of the best years of my life, plain and simple. Sure, my time at the Purple Rose was great – a learning, growing, productive time in all sorts of ways – lots of lessons, both professional and personal, were learned. But at the same time, the last 5 years have been absolutely wonderful. Maybe that’s just natural, I mean my kids are growing up and that brings a whole new level of challenges and joys. Jeanne and I are 5 years further in our marriage and I couldn’t be happier. Freelance directing has been an incredibly fulfilling and freeing thing, and being Artistic Director at Williamston Theatre has… well, been life changing in all the good ways. (It’s funny – I just read those two journal entries back to back… what an interesting juxtaposition of place and perspective.)

So, another anniversary of sorts. Many anniversaries, I think, make you look back at the past.

This one, today, makes me more excited about what lays ahead!

Or is it “lies ahead”? “Lay ahead”?

Eh, either way, it’s what comes next… and I’m looking forward to it.

Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.
– Charles F. Kettering (1876 – 1958)

So we just closed our third season at the Williamston Theatre.

The fact that we’ve closed season 3, and are deep into prep for season 4 is wonderful and amazing and fulfilling in all sorts of ways.

I’ve wanted to journal on this for a few days now – and I’m sure more thoughts will come later – but the last week has been so full that when I get home at night, I want to sleep! Unfortunately that means less journaling time for me, and I’m missing it.

But the last week, and today especially, have me thinking and reflecting.

Today we had auditions for the final show of next season. We’ve almost cast the whole year, we have a couple more roles to go.

In addition, today was a day of dealing with a bunch of things that made life… good. Some of the best: building renovations (our new bathrooms are coming along nicely!), working on scheduling and some details for the first couple shows of the year, spent some quality time with the rest of the staff and some other members of the WT family, and sat in the theatre for a while just soaking in all the activity going on in our little space: in the back were some construction guys working on our new “restroom suite” and the new booth entrance. In the theatre was the musical director for next summer’s show running actors through their paces on a song, while in the lobby was the director of that show walking some actors through basic dance moves. Familiar faces were mingling with newcomers to our building, and all day long there was the electric buzz of “good-stuff-happening” humming through the building. The building that’s become our home over the last 3 years. We’re continuing to build and grow this company – but it feels like there’s such a solid base now… a solid core of work and people and quality and process and faith. I feel incredibly lucky to be doing what I’m doing: to be working with John and Chris and Emily, who breathe life into the company. To work with Erin and Stef and Rochelle and our crews and our directors and actors and designers and writers and volunteers and board members and patrons – this family that we’ve created is growing, and although sometimes I look around and think “Wow! Where did all these PEOPLE come from?!”, I also look around and am reminded that each day doing what we do is a huge privilege, and doing it with people of good character is a gift.

We were looking at the numbers for the season. Our audience has grown by 15% for each of the last two seasons. That means that over the last two years, our audience has grown by more than 30%. That’s an exciting, affirming, and inspiring number. We’re not where we can be yet… but we’re certainly a lot further along than we were when, a few years ago, we got the keys to an empty furniture store and asked each other “What next?!”.

So that was my Tuesday. It was a good day.

A quote that feels right for the moment:

Things to remember:

1) The worth of character;
2) The improvement of talent;
3) The influence of example;
4) The joy of origination;
5) The dignity of simplicity;
6) The success of perseverance.

Marshall Field (1834-1906)
(American department-store owner whose pioneering activities in retail merchandising were continued and extended into publishing by successive generations of his family.)

NASA says they don’t have enough money to keep a lookout for asteroids that could wipe out our planet! This can’t be good, right?! Didn’t they see DEEP IMPACT?!

I mean, isn’t that like having a big giant sailing ship, like the Black Pearl, with no one up in the crow’s nest looking for…well, icebergs? (I’m pretty sure I’m mixing some metaphors here.) When the crew of the Jupiter II slept, didn’t they leave the Robot watching the sensors, or at least looking out the windows?!

Does this mean they’ll not be watching for UFO’s either? How will we know if the Vulcans swing by our solar system to check us out?

What about looking DOWN? Is anyone still looking down at the Earth? (Now, I’m just assuming that we’ve always had surveillance under the surface of the planet – otherwise how will we know if whatever race of creatures it is that live in the center of the Earth decide to tunnel up and take over? Is my first warning of this going to be when a giant gopher/soldier creature burrows into my yard and establishes a perimeter around my garden?)

I’m not gonna be able to sleep tonight.

Thinking about the people I’m surrounded with now, the ones I’ve been surrounded by in the past, and the ones I’ll be surrounded by in the upcoming future…
Thinking about the person I want to be with/to/for those people…

There are countless ways of attaining greatness, but any road to reaching one’s maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity.
Buck Rodgers (Former American Baseball Player)

Don’t worry so much about your self-esteem. Worry more about your character. Integrity is its own reward.
English Proverb

The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.
Harvey S. Firestone

When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take – choose the bolder.
Ezra Pound

Don’t be a dick.
Wil Wheaton

Last night we had a wonderful round of callbacks for The Smell Of The Kill at the WIlliamston Theatre. Kristine Thatcher is directing this show for us, and we got to mix-n-match a whole bunch of great actors as we worked on casting the 3 women needed for this dark, edgy comedy! Fun!

If you’ve not yet seen it, several folks on LJ and Facebook have pointed out the new video from Weird Al Yankovic: It’s a tribute to Charles Nelson Reilly, and it’s hilarious!

I think our vacation this year will be to Mammoth Caves. Jeanne and I went there many years ago, and had an incredible time going on the Wild Cave tour! This time, with the kids, we’ll do some camping and cave-touring! I can’t wait!

A busy week this week – we’re wrapping up The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged at the Williamston Theatre, and already well under way in our prep for next season. And next week… building renovations!! Whoohoo!

Oh, and we’re going to have an apprentice or two at Williamston Theatre next year! VERY excited about that – if you know someone who’d be interested in the position, have them contact me! 🙂