Tag Archives: baseball

Random Thursday Stuff

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Today: Random thoughts on things that have been clogging up my brain the last couple weeks.

The Detroit Tigers have had a disappointingly sad first half of the season. Yeeesh.

We are about to start previews for the final production of our 17th season at Williamston Theatre! It’s amazing that we’ve done that many, this makes production number 98! Season 18 is around the corner, and I can’t wait. Until then though, I hope people come see Predictor, it’s SUCH a great script – I love the story, and our entire production team is killing it!

Speaking of theatre: Dependability is a trait that employers look for. Do they still teach this in theatre schools? It gets rewarded.

I’m so grateful for my many doctors. And as messed up as the American medical system/Health Insurance world is, I’m also grateful to have the coverage we have.

I finally left Twitter, or X, or whatever it’s devolved into. Just not an Elon Musk fan, and honestly I’m getting a little tired of social media in general. Working through how to manage that.

We celebrated my mother’s birthday the other day with her. My wife Jeanne and I, and both our kids and their fiancées had a great afternoon out together. Everyone’s been so busy and with the kids moved out of the house now it was really great to have everyone together. I’m a lucky guy.

Random TV stuff: House of Dragons is back, it’s been fun so far. The new season of Doctor Who was a mixed bag, but largely delightful – Ncuti Gatwa is a terrific Doctor, and I’m looking forward to seeing more! Apple TV’s show Dark Matter is a fun sci-fi show that’s right up my alley, did anyone else watch the first season? I’m excited that the new season of The Bear is out, looking forward to watching that.

The Presidential Debate is on tonight. I’ll miss it, because we start previews tonight, but I’m looking forward to catching highlights online later. At least, I think I am. I’ll be honest, maybe I’m trepidatious. I still can’t fathom voting for Trump, he’s such a human trash bag, I just can’t wrap my head around people seeing the guy and thinking “Yeah, that’s a leader I’d follow”. Biden has his challenges and downside, for sure, but at least I believe he’s trying to do things for the people of the country – Trump is in it for himself and that’s it, and the extremists using him and his quest for power to push their theocratic agendas are scary.

Speaking of politics, I’m excited for an upcoming event at Williamston Theatre. In honor of the upcoming election, we’ll be doing a series of readings of fun, engaging political plays in October. 3 shows over 3 days, should be a fun time! Keep your eyes peeled for our announcement of show titles and details!

That’s enough Thursday Thoughts. Gotta go! Just for fun, I’ll leave you with an image from our show: here’s a picture from our Photo Shoot for Predictor. First Preview is in a couple of hours, I’m very excited!
(I shot this with my phone, sorry if it’s not the best quality!)

Featured in the photo are the cast, from Left to Right: Kamara Miller Drane, Mona Eldashoury, Caitlin Cavannaugh, Tobin Hissong, Chris Purchis, James Kuhl, Ryan Patrick Welsh. Directed by Billicia Charnelle Hines. The work you’re seeing in this picture is: Scenery by Thalia Lara, Projections by Jeromy Hopgood, Costumes by Mona Jahani and Lighting by Shannon Schweitzer. Props are by Michelle Raymond, Sound is by Brian Cole and Intimacy Direction is by Alexis Black. Adam Kruger leads the SM team and Aaron Delnay is our Technical Director!

Random Nice Things on a Sunday

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Happy Sunday!

Life is super busy lately, seems that way for a lot of folks I know too. I hope everyone is doing okay. Still, there are a lot of things to celebrate, so I’m listing them to remind myself!

Yesterday the Detroit Tigers pitched the 9th no-hitter in team history!! Yes, they’re still in third place in the worst division in the league, but they’ve at least been playing entertaining baseball a lot of the season and yesterday was a very cool special thing!

We start preview performances for the beautiful, funny Be Here Now by Deborah Zoe Laufer at Williamston Theatre next week. The tech weekend has been terrific: director Rob Roznowski and the entire cast and production team are knocking it out of the park – it’s a terrifically entertaining piece! Get your tickets soon, this one is fun and will sell quick: https://www.williamstontheatre.org/shows/2022-2023/be-here-now

In other news, I’m directing a play in Ann Arbor, for the Penny Seats Theatre Company. Return To The Forbidden Planet is a fabulously silly musical, a combo of science fiction, Shakespeare and pop hits from the 50’s and 60’s! (I mean, if YOUR spaceship was hit by an asteroid storm, wouldn’t YOU sing Great Balls Of Fire?!). Opening August 3rd, it’s performed outdoors in Burns Park and it’s a perfect piece of outdoor summer theatre! I’m having a great time working with the team putting together this bit of toe-tapping ridiculousness – come out and have fun with us, and see how many sci-fi ”Easter eggs” you can spot!

WOW!

I got to visit the Grand Canyon!! Holy cow. My first time, some friends and I went for a couple days. Amazing. Humbling. Terrifying, because that’s a long way down and no railings!

Have a good Sunday everyone! Celebrate something!

Slowly Waking Up

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That’s the way things feel right now – after the kidney transplant, I’ve gotten a lot more energy back, my numbers are all looking great, and so I’m starting to do more and more regular life stuff. We’re also starting the progress of waking up the Williamston Theatre, after a long 16 months of dusty, quiet emptiness. Starting in August we’re bringing back the staff, and starting the process of re-opening the building and prepping for a late Autumn return to performances. AND this month the current phase of our renovations will wrap-up, which is going to be great. I can’t wait for audiences to return to the space.

We’re also working on a couple of staged readings! Very excited for these, they’ll be outdoors on the Summer Circle stage at Michigan State University. We’re always thrilled to collaborate with the MSU Department of Theatre, and grateful for the use of their beautiful outdoor space for these readings. It feels great doing things like sending out scripts and working out rehearsals again! For more info on those readings, CLICK HERE, and then join us on August 6th and 7th! Two terrific plays: A super charming, brand new piece by the award winning playwright Jason Odell Williams called On The Market, and a fabulous bitingly funny satire by indigenous playwright and MacArthur fellow Larissa Fasthorse called The Thanksgiving Play.

I’m really hoping that the Delta variant of Covid, and now the new Lambda variant I just read about, don’t take off and sweep through the country. Our reopening plans depend on numbers getting better, not worse, and the whole theatre industry is making plans and watching with wary eyes. Take care of yourselves, folks, and get your vaccine!

In other news, has anyone been watching the Detroit Tigers since the All-Star break?! I mean, this team is probably going to finish middle of the pack at the end of the season, but that’s okay – it’s a big improvement over the last couple years, and their future is looking bright. As I write this though, they’re on a 6 game winning streak and leading 7-5 in the 8th inning, so it could be a 7 game streak soon!

I’ve spent a bunch of my recuperation weeks reading – anyone else a fan of N.K. Jemisin? Over the last few years I’ve become a huge admirer of her writing, and I’m nearly through her fabulous sci-fi/fantasy series The Inheritance Trilogy. You can check out all her writings here. I’ve also spent a bunch of time reading a lot of plays, in particular looking at a lot of plays by BIPOC writers. In fact we’re excited at Williamston Theatre about a gorgeous play we’ll be producing in collaboration with a couple other theatres around the country in an upcoming season that I can’t talk about yet, but it’s going to be a very cool project, and I’m thrilled to start this relationship with this fabulous playwright.

That’s it for the Thursday update. So grateful to be getting back to work, getting my energy back, and hoping for things to open up safely a little more. Aaaaaand the Tigers just beat the Rangers 7-5, so that’s a nice 7-game winning streak!

Take care of yourselves y’all!

Baseball!!

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I know, I know – pandemics, politics, there is a LOT going on in the world more important than baseball.

I have so enjoyed the craziness of this 60 game Covid season of baseball, with the cardboard cutouts of fans and the 7-inning doubleheaders and crazy schedule changes based on coronavirus testing and runners starting on second base in extra innings. Just the “will they really be able to complete it?!” drama (and yes I was skeptical) but it’s been so therapeutic and exciting to watch, and the final game of the American League Playoff Series tonight was excellent.

But.

Yes. More important stuff in the world. And those deserve attention. But sometimes I need to… not pay attention. I run a theatre. We, like most of the industry, haven’t really been able to work since March and don’t know when the hell we’ll be able to. So, between not knowing when my company will re-open, and not knowing when I’ll get another paycheck, life is stressful. My kids are back in college and away from home during the worst pandemic in our lifetime. The country is a politically divided nightmare. And the solid, normal action of watching baseball is such a grounding thing, that it’s incredibly easy to add it to the list of things that I’m grateful for, that are helping me get through the craziness of NOW.

It’s way too easy to fall into getting locked into watching the news 24/7, building anxiety inducing scenarios in your head as you avoid big crowds, and sit doomscrolling Facebook for hours… but tonight, watching the Tampa Bay Rays win the ALCS was such a moment: the joy on those faces. The excitement, love, hope and JOY on that field moved me tonight in ways I didn’t expect it to. With the state of the world, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen that much happiness. It choked me up. It was such a RELIEF – just seeing the emotion, the celebration – I’m so grateful to have been able to watch it, to have been reminded that those feelings can still happen, and to be unexpectedly overcome.

I can’t wait to watch the final National League Championship game tomorrow night. And then next week the World Series starts, and I will be watching every game.

And I’ll be so grateful.

Happy Opening Day, Everybody!

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It’s Opening Day!!  Today starts the 2019 Major League Baseball Season!

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As my friend Aaron texted me this morning, “HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

This is one of my favorite holidays of the year.  The first pitch of the season is scheduled for 1:05pm, and there are a couple of games starting then: The Mets -vs- The Nationals, and Baltimore -vs- The Yankees.  Our home town team (and my favorite) The Tigers have first pitch scheduled for 3:37 today, playing in Toronto.  They’ll play 4 games there, then go to New York to play the Yankees for 3 games, and then the Tigers have their Home Opener on April 4th, at 1:10pm.

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Here’s a link to a fun OPENING DAY GUIDE from MLB.

And, because this is great, here’s a very fun announcement from the Tigers about their Opening Day Lineup.  Turn up your volume for this, it’s a terrific homage to all the video baseball games we played back in the day!

Happy Opening Day, y’all!  The Tigers are in a rebuilding mode this season, so most folks think it’s a long shot for them to contend for a spot in the playoffs, but there’s always a chance!  AND – it should be a fun team to watch, no matter what!

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*note – none of these images are mine, they’re all borrowed from the internet!
**Go watch some baseball today.  Or turn on the radio and listen to Dan Dickerson announce the Tigers game!

Thursday Pic Post of Good Things

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So, good news: this is a picture of my lungs, which are “looking good!”, according to the doctor. So, in The Continuing Adventures of Wheezy McCoughCough, the Bronchiospasm Kid we’ve have had a good week, eliminating some possibilities. Now, if we could eliminate more and solve the whole recurring wheezing/coughing thing, that’d be great. Slowly but surely!

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Other awesome things: this was my view during the ct scan. 🙂

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This is the lit up mural thing on the ceiling for people to look at during their ct scan.

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I got lucky, and got a ticket to the Tigers versus the A’s playoff game on Tuesday!

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Um…sometimes you’re the guy who forgets when his plates expire…

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We open The Woman In Black tomorrow night, and it’s a beautiful, spooky show! Here’s a photo from my phone that’s not nearly as good looking as the actual show!

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This is the newest video from Williamston Theatre, check it out!

The Last Rose Of Summer? Maybe… Or maybe it’s just a really tall rose that held on in our front yard longer than the rest of them did!

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And lastly… How I hope to spend Saturday morning with my family:

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Happy Thursday everybody!

Random Good Things on a Saturday Morning

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I’d better get some gas for the leaf blower!20121027-104447.jpg

My daughter and I decided that our dogs should enjoy Halloween too!
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The Tigers are in the World Series! They’re down 0-2, but they’re back in Detroit tonight and I think they’re gonna take the next 4 games! 🙂
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Any FRINGE fans out there? I love the show. Only 9 episodes left, and I had to buy a shirt from the show… So I bought a concert shirt from the fictional band that Walter listens to!

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Ebenezer, the world premiere by Joseph Zettelmaier, is the next show at Williamston Theatre. It’s a beautiful piece. First rehearsal was this week, here’s the cast at the read thru:

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Okay, I started this post this morning – then a bunch of Quality Family Time happened, and now I’m finishing it. Several hours of leaf work has resulted in this:

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Yay Autumn! 🙂

Now, time to prep for the Tigers game: I have to make sure my couch is properly stocked with snacks and remote controls!

Wednesday Pic Post:

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A ballpark is a magical place, don’t you think? It stops time. It’s a place where a father and son can sit together on a lazy afternoon enjoying the game and decades later, in those same seats, that son can sit with his son, and it’s as if nothing’s changed. Time moves differently inside a ballpark.
-Ernie Harwell, from Ernie by Mitch Albom

Today…
…we had a press conference for Ernie, and our Stage Manager Megan took this shot from the booth! Press Conferences are odd things, and I don’t do them often, so it was fun.

Speaking of baseball…
Last night we played some catch in the yard! Awesome.


Speaking of awesome things, The Town Pump has awesome fried pickles, and lunch today was pretty darned great.

Also…
We start rehearsal for this show next week, and I’m looking forward to it. It’s been a long time since I’ve been onstage, and I’m anxious to work out those muscles again!

So, challenges, opportunities, quality family time… a week full of reminders that all of those are important. Thanks, Universe.