Tag Archives: Theatre

Pic Post Wednesday

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First, since it’s Ash Wednesday, I’ll start with a couple of fun things relating to that:

This made me laugh.  (In a related note, THIS IS HERE ALSO.)

 

I made this on the fun iPad app Skitch, because, well, it also made me laugh!

 

Last night was first rehearsal for The Usual, at Williamston Theatre.  This isn’t a great pic, but I forgot to take more!  You can see, in the theatre seats, a couple of our Production Assistants (who will also appear as chorus in this show) – Carolyne and Brandon.  Also Dana Brazil the choreographer, Alex our apprentice, and Chris Purchis (WT Managing Director.)  Onstage left to right are Stef Din (Stage Manager) and the cast: Joe Zettelmaier, Emily Sutton-Smith and Leslie Hull.

 

I mentioned a while back that Max was building a trebuchet for Science Olympiad.   His regional meet has come and gone, and today we did some modifications to the trebuchet, and he’ll start charting the distances and weights again!  Here we are in the school gym experimenting this evening before dinner!

And, because it’s fun, here’s a video of the first test fire where, thanks to the improvements we made, it works even better than we predicted!

Darn, now that I’ve listened to the video, it’s hard to hear Max explain it.  He says “Okay, this is a 2 kilogram counterweight and a 38 gram projectile on an awesomely modified trebuchet!  3-2-1 Launch!”

And another Wednesday has passed!

Saturday good things

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Good things on a Saturday!

My daughter turns 14 today. How is this possible?!

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Dead Man’s Shoes at the Williamston Theatre continues to get rave reviews!
“The world-premiere production, a joint offering by Williamston Theatre and Performance Network Theatre with direction by David Wolber, marries component skill and tight cohesion into a masterpiece of workmanship with entertainment value to match.”

Sci-Fi fans, if you’re not watching Fringe, you’re missing out on a great show! I just watched last night’s episode, and the show just gets better every week!

I never got my motorcycle license…maybe I should.

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The Detroit Tigers first Spring Training game is only two weeks away!

Prepping to start rehearsals

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I’m getting ready to launch into rehearsals for the next show I’m directing, The Usual: A Musical Love Story at the Williamston Theatre. One of the fun parts of directing (one of the many) is doing the research and prep work!  This quirky, odd, sweet little musical has a lot of very fun stuff going on in it –

Here’s a sampling of what I’ve been checking out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf0-Rrm9dI0

Bars and Pubs!

Old Computers!

A Fistful Of Raves…

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Okay, so it’s only two rave reviews so far, not quite a fistful, but – y’know, it’s a Western… “A Fistful Of Dollars”? So I was tying it all together? Oh, nevermind! Maybe just read these excellent reviews? 🙂 Then head over to Williamston Theatre and see the show!

First, Paul Wozniak of the Lansing City Pulse says the show is “Zettelmaier’s strongest script yet, sharply witty and gripping.” See the rest of the review here.

Also, Michael Margolin reviewed the show for Encore Michigan, and said it was destined to be “One of the best of the season” – you can read the review here.

I’m very proud of the work that everyone at involved in the show has done: guest Director David Wolber, the cast, company, playwright, staff and crew. Putting a big ol’ Western onstage is a bit of a risk, but one worth taking, and everyone did some wonderful work!

The Ballad of Injun Bill

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We just opened the World Premiere of Dead Man’s Shoes at Williamston Theatre, and the show has a song that runs through it, sung by a couple of the actors onstage, who accompany themselves with guitar and, occasionally, harmonica. The lyrics were written by the playwright, Joseph Zettelmaier, and the music was done by a wonderful group called The Potter’s Field.

After helping us with the music, The Potter’s Field also re-worked the song a bit, and recorded their own version, which is just fabulous.

Listen to it here:

Then, if you’re interested, find out more about the show here:
The Williamston Theatre

Pic Post Wednesday

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Random things from the day of a Dad/Artistic Director/Coffee Drinker

Today my daughter got her braces removed! I don’t remember being old enough to have a teenager having braces removed… but there she is.

Here’s what it can look like when a Director and a Set Designer have their first meeting about a set! We chatted about the play over the phone first, to discuss “approach” and the play as a whole. Then, a few days later, we had a 40 minute sit-down discussion, and left with a starting point! Fun, and exciting. Now to sit down and re-read the play with the starting point in mind…

Ah, another one of those kids I don’t feel old enough to have. This evening we sneaked out to do some shopping for Jeanne’s birthday. (Don’t tell her, it’s a secret!) (Well, the shopping part is… she already knows about her birthday.)

This last one is fun…. it’s from USA TODAY (By Kirill Kudryavtsev, AFP/Getty Images), and the caption read:
A woman sips a cup of cappuccino with the portrait of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, created with cinnamon and cocoa powder, floating on top at a coffee shop in Moscow.

I think the next time I’m in Starbucks, I’m going to ask for a nice President Obama made out of cinnamon and cocoa on my Pumpkin Spice Latte…

Pic Post Wednesday… plus some bonus material!

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Pic Post Wednesday!
Dead Man’s Shoes, by Joseph Zettelmaier – starting Previews at Williamston Theatre tomorrow! (click the pic to blowuptuate it into full size awesomeness!)

A lot of the MLB Players have taken to wearing these Phiten necklaces with their team logo during games – it’s part fashion, part placebo “energy booster”, and they’re neat looking. And my awesome wife got me one for my birthday, so now I look JUST LIKE A MAJOR LEAGUE BALLPLAYER! (minus, you know, 20 years, a foot of higher altitude and the paycheck.) 🙂

I mentioned that my son and I were building a trebuchet in this post. Here’s a shot of this miniature medeival seige machine “in progress”:

BONUS MATERIAL!
In other news, I have to introduce some cool blogs: My sister Gina has recently started a blog called “They Call Me Pretty Pretty Princess” which is really funny, and you should check it out. And a friend of hers, Tanya, has a very funny blog called “News From The Handbasket”. Thanks to these two, I’ve been bestowed the honor of a Liebster Award. What does that mean, you ask? (I asked, so it’s okay if you do!) Well, let me explain! Better yet, let me cut and paste:

Liebster is a German word that means ‘dearest’ or ‘beloved’, but can also mean ‘favorite’. The idea of the award is to bring attention to blogs with less than 200 followers. The Award comes with a few rules. You’re supposed to:

-Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them
-Reveal your top 5 picks for the award and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
-Post the award on your blog
-Bask in the love from the most supportive people in the blogosphere – other bloggers
-Hope your recipients pass the award to their 5 favorite blogs to keep the love flowing

How neat is that? So, without further ado, I’d like to present this to:

In My Little Town – this is a blog from my friend Laura, who is a wonderful writer. Her pieces are always thoughtful, entertaining, eclectic and enjoyable. Check her out, and tell her I said hi.

She Was The Young American – I just discovered this blog, and it’s delightful. She’s a young American who just moved to London to get an advanced degree in theatre. It’s a treat to read along as she explores her new home AND explores the theatre.

Alida’s Art Journal – Alida Saxon is a wonderful artist, who posts all sorts of cool “work in progress” pics as she creates things. Check her out!

Howard Sherman – Howard Sherman is an arts administrator, producer, theatre pundit, and was Executive Director of the American Theatre Wing for a long time. His blog and Twitter accounts are very active with always interesting theatre discussions.

Two Good Eggs: A breakfast blog. Listen, I like breakfast. And these two women love breakfast, love talking about it, and are fun!

Charitable Atheism. Chuck O’Connor writes and thinks about things that I think I should probably think about, but that make my head hurt. I read his blog, and think “Thank God there are smart people debating these things – I hope it all works out.” Then I think “Heh – I’m thanking God for a blog about atheism.”

(At this point, I’m going to admit that I don’t know if those folks all ACTUALLY have under 200 followers. I’m betting some of them may have more. But I’m leaving them here anyway, because I’m a rule-breaking risk-taker, and you can’t stop me. Next up: Running With Scissors.)

Variety and Theatricality

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I had a great trip to New York last week.

This season at Williamston Theatre, one of the shows we’re doing is a fun, quirky, musical called The Usual that’s going to be a world premiere. The show is still under construction, and the writers/composers are a couple of guys we know in NYC. So, I went out and did a quick workshop reading of the piece with them so we could get some audience feedback, hear the piece out loud and plan the next steps in the process. That part of the trip went well: we learned a lot, and I think the piece will be better, tighter, trimmer and funnier.

I also got the chance to see some shows. I saw 3 – Chinglish, Avenue Q, and Cymbeline. All 3 were wonderful, and very different – I loved the eclectic mix of shows, and it got me to thinking about how important a good variety is. I’ve posted this quote before, but I still love it:

Unless you commit to the whole range of what theatre can be, you haven’t created an interesting theatre. -Christopher Ashley

Although we’ve only just closed the first show of this season, I’m already looking ahead at what next season might be. The reminder from this quote, and the trip to NYC, are nice to have in my head as I’m considering options for the 2012-2013 lineup.

One of the interesting things about the shows I saw is that they all included some kind of direct audience address, too – none of them tried to be a movie onstage. Even Chinglish, which is pretty episodic (not in a bad way at all), and the most “realistic” of the 3, really embraced and had fun with the theatricality of the scene changes and transitions. (The direction on that show is really terrific.) The more I do this job of mine, the more I find myself pursuing that – there are things that you can only do in a theatre, and making sure we embrace those is becoming more important to me.

I personally would like to bring a tortoise onto the stage, turn it into a racehorse, then into a hat, a song, a dragoon and a fountain of water. One can dare anything in the theatre and it is the place where one dares the least. – Eugene Ionesco

I’m not sure, honestly, where all this will lead us as we work on the rest of this season, and lining up what comes next season.

But I know that I’m pretty excited to find out!