Saturday, December 10, 2011

Santa's lap


I can't resist this. Rick Hines jumped onto the Jonathan's lap on the Santa Throne last night. What do you suppose he's asking for?

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Review - Santaland Diaries

The review came out today, and he loved it as much as everyone else in the audience. The second weekend is on its way to being sold-out - a real coup in this season of abundance for holiday entertainments.  Here's the review:


Published 12/8/2011


‘Santaland Diaries' Starts Out Zany and Stays That Way
By Dan Mackie
Valley News Staff Writer
“Here comes Santa Claus,” the spirit of Bing Crosby croons from unseen speakers before the start of The Santaland Diaries.
People of a certain age will recognize the relaxed phrasing, the mellow voice -- it goes down as easily as hot chocolate with melted marshmallows.
But did Bing's dreamy White Christmas really exist? Did treetops glisten? Did children really listen, to hear sleigh bells in the snow?
What about long lines? Heavy traffic? Picked-over merchandise? Cranky kids? Crankier parents? And unholy night, pepper-spray attacks on Black Friday?
If the holidays aren't all they're cracked up to be -- the most wonderful time of the year, for starters -- The Santaland Diaries, playing on weekends through Dec. 18 at the Shaker Bridge Theatre in Enfield, might be a curative.
Shaker Bridge is staging a one-man play by humorist David Sedaris, the darling of public radio and author of several very funny books. The Santaland Diaries is based on an essay he read just before Christmas in 1992 on NPR's Morning Edition. It recounted his strange season as a Christmas elf at Macy's Santaland, a job Sedaris sought on a dare and out of desperation, since he was an out-of-work New Yorker.
In this one-man (or one-elf) production, Jonathan Anderson portrays David the Elf. He comes onstage in civilian clothes, blue jeans and dress shirt, and tells a story of a long descent into the belly of the beast, in this case, SantalLand.
Anderson gives it all he's got, prancing (elf-style), preening, whining, hollering, and strolling merrily about. He recounts the indignity of having to be cheery as an elf -- “Everything the elves said ended with an exclamation point!” he exclaims.
The staging is simple: In the center is a Santa-sized chair with a red seat. Next to it twinkles a tree. A couple of presents are nearby. Some fake snow is strewn on the floor.
Beyond that, all we have is Anderson and his considerable energy. Segments are separated by the brief dimming of the house lights, and a bit more of Crosby's Christmas crooning.
Sedaris' story starts out zany and stays there. Elf training includes group cheers. Give me an S. Give me an A. Give me an N. You know the rest.
It crosses from the awkward to the surreal when Anderson appears in full elf regalia. “This is my work uniform,'' he says, his humiliation outfitted in red and green polyester.
We learn that Santaland is divided into sections like “the omigod corner,'' where visitors are overwhelmed by their glimpse of the entire scene, or “the vomit corner,'’ where little children lose their lunch. We learn that parents can be overbearing, customers can be rude (and profane), and professional Santas can be a little strange. David the Elf shares this with the bemused outrage of a skilled comic observer.
I've heard Sedaris tell his story on the radio -- he tells it well. Anderson has the challenge of making you forget Sedaris' voice (if you happen to be a public radio groupie) and listening to his. Anderson's physicality is an asset -- by golly, he sells his elf self. This production is at times laugh-out loud funny, and smile-worthy when it's not.
The Santaland Diaries is a seasonally appropriate antidote to the horrors of the holiday season. No matter how bad you have it, the elf had it worse.
“The Santaland Diaries” runs through Dec. 18, with shows on Friday and Saturday nights, and a Sunday matinee. Call 603-448-3750 for information, or go to www.shakerbridgetheatre.org.
Dan Mackie can be reached at dmackie@vnews.com, or 603-727-3211.

Friday, November 18, 2011

It's time for Santa!

We're a week into rehearsals for Santaland Diaries, an outrageous comedy by David Sedaris. In addition to working for hours every day in rehearsals, I'm building something that will pass (I hope) for the over-the-top world of Macy's "Santaland." First thing was to get some really big lumber . . .



and then get it shaped into something . . .



that will pass for an exaggerated Santa Throne.




Here's Jonathan in rehearsal playing around with the slacker elf in Santaland. This weekend, we're taking time off from rehearsing, Jonathan is playing with friends in Boston and I'm going to get this sucker tricked out in yuletide cheer. Christmas trees, lots of little lights, garlands and artificial snow!

Opening night is December 2nd - it's gonna be fun.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Becky's New Car

We started a new tradition last night - the staged reading. We had a great crowd show up for desserts and the staged reading of Steven Dietz's play, Becky's New Car. Everyone loved the presentation, and people can't wait for the next one. I want to thank all the wonderful actors who took part in this, and I also want to thank all of the people who made the wonderful desserts. It was a great night - it created a lot of excitement about the work that this theatre does.

Jonathan Anderson rolls in from New York on Sunday, and we start rehearsals on Monday for the David Sedaris play, The Santaland Diaries. I think there's general agreement that David Sedaris is one of the funniest people on this planet, and this production is going to be very, very funny. You may remember Jonathan from his amazing performance last season in Fully Committed. This guy is a great comic actor. . . or more accurately - he's a great actor with a great sense for comedy.

I have two days to design and build a Santa throne.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Time Stands Still goodbye

Well, TSS has closed to overwhelmingly positive reactions.  Although I never get sentimental about any productions, I will miss working with those four people. But now, it's on to the next one. Spent the last two days striking the set, and it's all gone! Last step is cleaning up and storing what I'm going to keep, and then it's time to really focus on Santaland Diaries. Jonathan Anderson will be here in a couple of weeks to begin rehearsals. If he's anywhere near as good as he was last season in Fully Committed, SD will be a great show. We're going to have some real fun working on this one.

Before I get on to building the set for SD, I have to design the set. But before I can do that, I thought I'd share some photos from TSS.

Mandy the event-planner

Jamie under threat

Sarah remembers Tariq

Jamie changed his copy for their book

Richard takes a stand

Mandy remembers the elephants

Jamie and Sarah home again

Final image in the show - listen to Brandi Carlile's "Downpour"

So, . . . one down and four to go. Heading down to New York in a week and a half to audition people for shows 3,4 & 5. Brandy has become my casting agent in New York, and we have some really good people lined up to audition. Can't wait to tell you about what happens. And while I'm there, I've snagged a ticket for Theresa Rebeck's new show. Review to follow.

Here we go!

Friday, October 14, 2011

Time Stands Still review

Well, the review hit the paper yesterday. And as promised, here it is:


In her provocative 1989 essay The Journalist and the Murderer, New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm famously asserted, “Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.”
In Malcolm’s withering, too-cynical assessment, journalists and murderers are not so far removed from each other in their arrogance, penchant for self-rationalization and instinct for closing in for the kill, an irony that is at the heart of Time Stands Still, the Donald Margulies play currently running at Shaker Bridge Theatre in Enfield.
The ethical dilemmas that face reporters and photographers who cover the big stories are mined by Margulies for their innate dramatic conflict. How can photojournalists and reporters stand aside from the action, recording, in the midst of chaos? What is reporting and what is exploitation? Is it possible to be objective? What kind of toll does the work they do, particularly in war zones, take on them? Are the heightened emotions aroused by working in a war zone to be trusted?
In the case of Sarah, a photojournalist with something of a messiah complex, and James, her longtime partner and a free-lance journalist, the personal and the political are so intertwined that it’s almost impossible to discern the line between the two; particularly for Sarah, who seems to be atoning for a childhood of lonely privilege by throwing herself into the dangerous, unforgiving work of documenting life in Afghanistan and Iraq during the American occupations.
James, a freelance writer, has a harder time attracting notice. His talent and ambition don’t burn as hat as Sarah’s, he doesn’t seem to work as hard, and there’s the implication that he really doesn’t have the stomach for the big important stories that she does. So when Sarah comes back to Brooklyn after a long recuperative stint in an Army hospital in Germany, she and James are at odds. She doesn’t want to talk about what happened to her in Iraq; he does. He wants a commitment from her; she’s hesitant.
Enter Sarah’s former lover and close friend Richard, a middle-aged photo editor at a big Vanity Fair - like magazine, and his sweet young thing, Mandy, a guileless, seemingly not-very-bright naif who inserts foot into mouth the moment she sets foot through the door. Sarah takes one look at the pretty, youthful Mandy and is dumfounded. “She’s a sprite!” she exclaims sardonically.
But Mandy, it turns out, may well be the smartest, most empathetic and most intuitive of them all. She has Sarah’s self-righteous number down cold, and she has the knack for putting her finger on people’s vulnerabilities, but not in a mean way. She wants to love and be loved, and to start a family. What’s wrong with that, she asks Sarah, who doesn’t really have a good answer to such an elemental question.
Margulies has an ear for sharp, confrontational dialogue, a facility that’s shown to best advantage in the play’s second act when James and Sarah finally come to grips with the holes in their eight-year relationship that they’ve casually papered over. It’s a painful, lengthy process. Time stands still for no one, least of all for two people who have now reached a critical fork in the road where the things each wants from life are radically different.
As Sarah, Zarle brings a brittle intelligence to the role, and a quiet passion that flares up when she feels defensive. She resists the temptation to try to win the audience’s affection. As James, Tim Rush conveys the frustration of someone who loves Sarah without necessarily understanding her. Dan Weintraub is appealing as Richard, miming bemused helplessness in the face of Mandy’s charm, youth and adoration; adoration it seems safe to say, that the prickly Sarah never lavished on him.
Caitlin Glasgo, as Mandy, is deft and funny in the way she turns Sarah and James’ ironic skepticism aside with her sincerity and the way she unerringly puts her finger on the heart of the matter. when she asks tearfully why a team of wildlife photographers shooting the separation of a baby elephant from its mother in a sand storm didn’t intervene to save it when they could have, she gets back, in her own way, to the conundrum posed by Janet Malcolm. When does a journalist serve a story, and when does that involvement veer over into something manipulative and self-serving?
Director Bill Coons has a real way with actors, and he is fearless in bringing to the Upper Valley new and challenging material. As the playbill notes, this is the premiere of Time Stands Still in New England, which is so small feat for a smaller company like Shaker Bridge when you consider it is competing with companies like Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, American Repertory Theatre in Boston and Northern Stage in White River Junction.
Time Stands Still is topical, it’s entertaining, it has plum parts for its four actors, it’s frequently witty and it explores some of the big questions of the day. But Margulies’
play has flaws, chief among them the fact that Sarah and James don’t really talk like journalists. They talk like someone’s idea of a journalist, with big, sweeping, programmatic statements about responsibility and morality. Journalists are often deeply affected by the work they do, and are serious about how they do it.
But many reporters, by inclination and training, have a gallows humor and irreverence that rarely makes itself felt in the play. 
Further, when introducing Mandy, Margulies makes her sound so fatuous that it’s unbelievable. An event planner who arranges big corporate parties at places like the Metropolitan Museum’s Temple of Dendur, Mandy can’t even pronounce the word “sarcophagus,” and has to ask her boyfriend Richard what the word is. Would a 20-something event planner in Manhattan really be that unschooled, when most kids half her age know what a sarcophagus is? Will the other characters enter the zone of stagy speech? Often, they do.
I had the sense sometimes that Margulies was busily marshalling arguments pro and con on a given subject, as if we were in a coiurtroom.
Court rooms are theatrical by nature, of course, so there’s nothing wrong with that except that it impedes the characters’ drive toward that magical moment when they take on their own life on stage, rather than acting out the playwright’s directives.

- Nicola Smith, 10/13/11


Pretty well written, with only a couple of out-of-place assumptions. Overall, a nice review. I would like to refer her to an interview that Margulies did last year in New York. With him were Laura Linney and Eric Bogosian, as well as one photojournalist and two international journalists. A comment made by one of the journalists (and vigorously seconded by the others) wondered if Margulies had been eavesdropping on her conversations at home with her spouse. They all said that yes, they talk that way. None of the language seemed inauthentic or forced to them in any way - quite the opposite, actually. Margulies pointed out that several friends who are photojournalists and media reporters read the drafts of the play while he was developing it.

Maybe there was something in the way I directed this piece that led Ms. Smith to see the language as somehow inauthentic.  We sure spent many, many hours trying to make it immediate and real. Oh well.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Time Stands Still is open!

Act One, scene two


Well, it was opening weekend for the SBT production of Time Stands Still. Objectively speaking (if that's even remotely possible), it was a huge success. People loved the show, were blown away by it. The review comes out soon, and I'll post it (whether I agree with it or not).  here's a photo of a moment from the second scene of the first act. From left to right, it's Sarah (Brandy Zarle), James (Tim Rush), Mandy (Caitlin Glasgo) and Richard (Dan Weintraub). Four amazing actors and a wonderful script. Pinch me.

- Bill

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

In rehearsal

We're into our second week of rehearsal, and this is an exciting place. We're all thrilled by the subtlety and power of this play. There are new things to discover with - it's apparent - every line.  I'm really blessed with the cast I have for this play. They all bring a lot to the table and to each other. Each time we work on a scene, the electrical charge gets turned up even more. Great - I can't wait to get to rehearsal today.

Caitlin & Dan getting ready to work on a scene.


The set is pretty much complete, as far as the building goes, but the brick wall still needs to be whitewashed. It takes four different coats of paint to turn these white pvc vacuform panels into brick. I still need to paint doors, casings, touch up moldings, paint the floor . . . it will end someday. We're almost done with collecting props, with one big exception. I need to find a KAFO (Knee-Ankle-Foot-Orthosis) for Brandy to wear in the first act. Her character (Sarah) has almost been killed in an IED explosion in Iraq, and she's been badly hurt, including a leg that's been broken in multiple places. So she needs to wear that leg brace. Hmmm.

Brandy and Tim getting ready.


We had a really nice article about us in the paper last week. Nice big picture above the fold, and some great anticipation for the season. This is all starting out in a very exciting way for us, and we hope the audience will feel the same.

Working on a moment from Act 1, scene 2

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Closer and closer

Every day that I go in to the theatre to work on the set, I'm struck by the fact that we are going into our fifth season. What started out as an "I don't really feel like retiring" impulse has turned into this very real thing with a very real purpose. The idea that all of these people are interested in what we do is simply astounding. Never something that I'll take for granted.

Here's what's going on at the theatre. I'm still working on the set, and hoping I can get it done before rehearsals begin on the 19th. The big challenge is to make a Brooklyn loft appear on a stage. Damn you, Donald Margulies for writing a play that needs a kitchen! But I'm making headway, and it looks like tomorrow is going to be a painting day, with some time to hang the other door and maybe even cut and install some molding.  Outside of set work, I'm collecting props and stuff - but mostly continuing to reread and study the wonderful script. Can't wait to start creating. Then I'll really have something to write about.

One door hung and level enough for me.

Kitchen counter almost ready to paint.

This door needs a knob and a bunch of locks - it's New York.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Summer's over and the fuse is lit.

The blog has been on vacation, and we'd like to thank Aline Ordman for filling in on a couple of occasions during the summer. Her paintings from up in Maine are beautiful, and almost make me feel guilty about relaxing for a while. But the relaxing is over, and work has begun on our fifth season.

Our fifth season! It was a real question for a while, because we needed to raise $50,000 to allow us to do a fifth season. Thanks to the generous support of many friends of the theatre, we have raised half of that amount. We decided to go ahead with the plans for the season, believing that we would be able to raise the remaining amount during the course of the season.

We were very fortunate to have gotten the rights to do a great play - Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies. It was a huge critical and popular success in New York last year, with an award winning cast - Laura Linney, Brian D'Arcy James, Eric Bogosian and Alicia Silverstone. This is an amazing and timely play, and our cast is also stellar. Coming back to SBT is Brandy Zarle, who blew us all away in Boston Marriage. Joining Brandy in the cast is her husband, Tim Rush (yes, he does look a lot like Colin Firth), Caitlin Glasgo (Boston Marriage, Dead Man's Cell Phone) and Dan Weintraub (Sylvia, Time Flies). Our rehearsals begin on September 19th, and we're all cranked up and eager to get going. The tools are out, we've begun building the set, and now I'm ready to get the actors in here and get the magic started. 


Ready to attack that big pile of lumber







Monday, July 25, 2011

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

DMCP photos

As mentioned earlier, here are some photos from the production of Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone, which ran from May 6 - 22. The production featured Jenny Strassburg as Jean, Alex Dittmer as Dwight and Gordon, Jeannie Hines as Hermia, Caitlin Glasgo as Carlotta and Robin Ng as Harriet.

empty set with hand-painted cell phone snippets floating like clouds



Jean in the cafe




Hermia's drunken confession



Carlotta's prompting to be beautiful
commiserating with Gordon's mother



Jean liked him better when he was dead



cell phone ballet



Dwight saves Jean






falling in love in the stationery store


 So that's it for season four. I realized toward the end of the season that 4 of the 5 productions were written by women. Certainly wasn't by design, but rather it reflects the current state of theatre in this country. I picked five scripts that I loved and four of them were written by women. It's about damned time that the theatre world caught up.

That being said, I have no idea what shows will comprise the fifth season - I'm not even sure there will be a fifth season. Like most small non-profit theatres, it remains a continual struggle to find the funds to remain open and active. I hope we'll be back.

- Bill

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Dead Man's Cell Phone is open

It's been too long since I wrote or blogged or posted or whatever the hell this is. The season is winding down, and I think we're going out with a bang rather than a whimper. I know I took a huge chance by taking on a Sarah Ruhl play, for a number of reasons. Most people (i.e., the general public) don't know who the hell she is. People who work in the theatre know her work . . . and some are enchanted by it and others are turned off (or frightened?) by it. For the actor, her work is particularly challenging because she gives you very little to work with. She demands that an actor bring lots and lots to the table / rehearsal space. For the public, her work is challenging because she really stretches or completely ignores most dramatic conventions. If one demands verifiable reality from start to finish, she will certainly challenge one's perceptions. She's intimidating for a director because there are so many demands and so many wonderful opportunities for provoking news ways for the audience to watch. I really like what she calls her "Hopper moments," where a character is alone and still, seen almost as a piece of sculpture in a specific environment. As a director, I not only have to honor those moments, I have to find a way to celebrate them. I think the pedestal that Sarah places Aristotle on is a bit shorter than the one I use, but it's great fun to look at the world from her perspective.

Bringing Jenny Strassburg and Alex Dittmer up from New York to do this play was not only the right thing to do, it was a real gift. Wonderfully talented people, a joy to be around, people who bring fresh ideas and focused commitment to the work. When I'm creating the painting that is a play, it's great to have a deep and vibrant palette to work with.

One of the nicest surprises was the review that we got. (The review for the last production - Boston Marriage - was . . . ummm . . . stupid.) This one was not only very positive (that sure helps the phone activity) but intelligent and perceptive. Thanks to Nicola Smith for really getting it, and for writing about it so clearly.  Here's the review:


Shaker Bridge’s Exhilarating ‘Cell Phone’
by Nicola Smith
Valley News Staff Writer
Saturday, May 14, 2011
The playwright Sarah Ruhl, who has been awarded a MacArthur fellowship and twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in drama, is one of the most highly touted writers to come up in American theater in the last decade, and after seeing her comedy Dead Man’s Cell Phone in an exhilarating production at Shaker Bridge Theatre in Enfield, it’s not hard to see why.
Her writing is daring and inventive, and pushes at the boundaries of conventional dramaturgy. Sometimes she slips, but she slips in a way that commands your attention, because she’s tried to reshape your notion of what’s possible in a play. She’s not throwing out the dramatic arc entirely, the kind that says you go from Act I to Act III with certain obligations to be met at points A, B and C, but she’s certainly experimenting with it in a way that shifts your perceptions.
Samuel Beckett did this decades ago, as have other playwrights, so while Ruhl is not yet a game changer the way Beckett was - at least not with this play - she is clearly interested in the big questions of life and has the talent to grapple with them in ways that make you think. Even a few days after having seen the production, I’m still going over it in my mind, which isn’t always the case with plays.
Early on in the show, I confess to having felt fidgety. Where was Ruhl going with the play, and why did it seem so disjointed? Was she laying on the quirkiness too thick? Were the characters endearing in their eccentricity or merely annoying? Some of her observations about how technology seems to devour our lives and alter our behaviors are true, but aren’t particularly original at this point. But near the end of Act I and in Act II, Ruhl quickens the pace, the loose threads begin to draw together and she resolves doubts with a gratifying catharsis both comical and poignant.
The premise is this: A young woman sitting in a care is annoyed by the incessant ringing of the cell phone of the man sitting at the table next to her, and asks him politely to answer it. He doesn’t respond and the phone keeps ringing. As you can surmise from the title, the man is dead and can’t answer the phone. But it’s what the young woman, Jean, does next that rockets the audience into a weirder, pixillated sphere. She answers the phone. 
That in itself isn’t so extraordinary. Who hasn’t walked by a public telephone booth (back in the days when there were telephone booths that people stepped into to make a call), heard the phone ringing for no apparent reason and answered it - or been tempted to - just to see who was on the other end, and what the caller wanted? It’s one thing, as a stranger, to briefly interject yourself into somebody else’s drama. But it’s quite another to then take messages for the dead man, named Gordon, meet his family and pretend that you worked for him, which is what Jean does.
She’s a compulsive fabulist, unable or unwilling to stop telling tales about a man she never knew, partly, we sense, because she is lonely and also because she, in a way, has taken on the dead man’s identity, inherited his life - and so, she thinks, his obligations. But there’s the pickle, or the horns of the dilemma. What if the man Jean has invented for herself, and, it turns out, for his family, bears no resemblance to the real Gordon? Jean’s Gordon is sentimental, dedicated and thoughtful. But in reality, Gordon was amoral, crass and opportunistic. Unwittingly, Jean has set into motion a chain of events that do not, safe to say, go as anticipated. But whose fault is that? Gordon, because he lived a life less than pure? Or Jean, who couldn’t resist playing the chivalrous knight? Or is this just the way life goes?
Bill Coons, the director of the play and of Shaker Bridge Theatre, has done a terrific job of confidently juggling all the comedic balls in the air. He keeps the audience just enough off balance to unsettle them, which is what theater ought to do. Coons always picks interesting material, and he’s to be commended for bringing new works and newer playwrights to the attention of Upper Valley audiences.
He has assembled a strong cast here. First and foremost is Jenny Strassburg, who plays Jean as a sweet, addled, slightly crazy do-gooder. She’s always a second away from being exposed as a fraud, but has enough wits about her to recover her footing in time. Because Strassburg is able to convey the utmost sincerity, even when bringing out statements that strain credulity, she’s able to make the unbelievable believable and funny at the same time.
Jeannie Hines, playing Gordon’s widow, Hermia, is neurotic and controlled, until she lets loose in a glorious drunk scene in Act II. Robin Ng, playing Gordon’s mother, with a wig that makes her look a little like John Adams in one of his presidential portraits, is imperious, demanding and as nutty as the rest of them. Caitlin Glasgo, who plays a woman once involved with Gordon, and another woman who expects to profit from his business, holds her own against Strassburg’s Jean.
Alex Dittmer, in the dual role of Gordon and Gordon’s brother Dwight, who falls for Jean, is deft at playing the two sides of the fraternal coin, and is particularly fine in the monologue that opens the second act, when Gordon tells the audience who he really is. This is Gordon’s moment, and I think it’s also when Ruhl puts the audience on notice that here’s a theatrical voice to be reckoned with.
The uncertainties of Act I, the halting communications and miscommunications and the pointedly surreal characters now begin to make dramatic sense. Dittmer has the mannerisms and speech of a self-obsessed, self-important thug down pat: Is it a coincidence that he reminded me of the long, unsavory parade of self-justifying Wall Street bankers who appeared on TV during and after the economic collapse of the fall of 2008?
Ruhl wrote the play well before the events of that fall - and it’s possible she was thinking more of American wars than American avarice - but she seems to have uncannily anticipated the atmosphere of corruption, the frenzied, unbridled consumption and the self-delusional thinking that made the last decade a virtual replay of the Gilded Age, only with Blackberries.
Dead Man’s Cell Phone continues at Shaker Bridge Theatre in Enfield through May 22.


I'll be taking some production shots during this last weekend of the show, and I'll post them soon. If you haven't seen this one yet, take a chance.

- Bill

Monday, April 11, 2011

April 11, 2011

It's been a while . . . Boston Marriage closed over a week ago, so I guess it's time to put up some photos from the production. Here goes -

Anna and Claire imagining "Susan" baking a pie

Anna tells Claire she's romanticizing the mating instinct

Anna thinks Catherine should go home to Ireland

Catherine demonstrating a carnal balance posture

Claire standing vigil for her lost love

Anna fears being rebuked or arrested

Catherine with a particularly unhelpful observation
So the period of working with these wonderful actors has ended, but next week begins work on another play, with more wonderful actors.

Big announcement. Jim Handy (for a variety of reasons beyond his control) won't be able to come to Shaker Bridge to do our scheduled production of The Drawer Boy.  The last several weeks have been a crazy and frenetic re-shuffling. I've decided to do a production of Sarah Ruhl's wonderful play, Dead Man's Cell Phone. It is both funnier and more touching than you can imagine. The two leads will be played by a couple of actors I cast in New York a few weeks ago, and the others in the production will be familiar to much of our audience.

Here's the scoop on the play: Jean spends her free-time reading at coffeehouses whilst the world hums and haws around her.  One day, however, while engrossed in a book, a man next to her refuses to answer his cellphone.  After repeatedly admonishing the man to answer his phone, Jean ventures over to his table, and discovers the stunning reason why the phone was not answered – the man is dead.  As this morbid realization overtakes her, the cellphone again begins to ring; Jean answers it.  So starts the beginning of Jean’s madcap, surreal and at times frustrating journey as created by playwright Sarah Ruhl  – a journey that steamrolls Jean from a dinner with the family of the dead guy (Gordon), a tryst with Gordon’s brother Dwight, separate outings with Gordon’s wife and mistress, a zany afterlife detour, and culminating with a tumultuous rendezvous with underworld dealers of body-organ smuggling.  Whew!


Jean will be played by Jenny Strassburg:




and Gordon (and his brother Dwight!) will feature Alex Dittmer:






The rest of the cast will feature Robin Ng as Gordon's mother, Jeannie Hines as his wife and Caitlin Glasgo as "the other woman." We're all excited to get going on this one, and you'll be able to begin watching the fruits of our labor on May 6, when the production opens. 


Here we go! See you soon,
Bill

Friday, March 25, 2011

Boston Marriage - the review

Yesterday the Valley News published their review of our production. I'm embarrassed for them. I wrote a response, but couldn't decide if I wanted to post it. I thought I'd give myself a full day to cool down and reflect. I'm cool and reflective and posting my response.

* * * * * 


A review of Boston Marriage was in the paper this morning, and it’s a positive one. Positive, but moronic. It reads like a high school book report, whose author has simply ripped off most of it from wikipedia. It’s a “snapshot of the lives of three women.” That is, among other things, a totally meaningless statement. But that pales in comparison to the assertion that the play is about a lesbian relationship. Sure, in the same way that Hamlet is “about” the divine right of kings or Long Day’s Journey is “about” drug use. Please. Next time, Valley News, send someone who has actually graduated from high school.
Almost all of the review (and I use the term very loosely) is a plot synopsis. Thanks for giving away the dramatically surprising elements that we want the audience to discover for themselves. Perhaps it’s a good way to fill up a column when one has nothing either original or perceptive to say. 
“Catherine . . . provides a bit of comic relief.” Comic relief from what, the constant eruptions of laughter coming from the audience? Anyone who uses the term “comic relief” in a review is holding up a flag that says “I may not know anything about the theatre, but I read a play once in high school English class.” 
I’m still trying to figure out why it’s important to point out that this play was written in the “pre 9/11 age.” Is it because female relationships were so extraordinary way back then? My God, that was twelve years ago! He should have read the program. “Today, a story about a love affair between two women seems almost quaint.” What? So a story about heterosexual relationships would be what - prehistoric? What’s your point?
The fact that he spends one entire sentence talking about the remarkable actors in this production, and does so with the perception of someone who once saw an elementary school Christmas production, is of little consequence. Because he does point out that the play has a “subtext.” Let me point out something that may be of use in any further theatre criticism that you do (God help us) - all plays have “subtext.”  And then I’m still trying to figure out what he means by calling the production “sparse.” He never explains it, and so since it’s an apparently trivial observation I’ll ignore it.
I know I can’t ask for someone with the requisite knowledge of theatre, of acting, of human interaction and the nature of story-telling - but I would like to ask for someone who has been to a play before.
I hope you’ll all be able to see this wonderful production. The acting is amazing and the script is simply a work of genius.

Monday, March 21, 2011

BOSTON MARRIAGE is open





It's been a while since I posted anything here. (I've been kind of busy getting this show up.)  But we're open now, and the audiences are blown away by the show. I've been hearing things like "best acting I've ever seen in this area" and "my cheeks hurt from laughing." People are really impressed and moved by the work these three women are doing, but no one is more impressed with them than I am. It has been an absolute joy to create this wonderful thing with them.


Caitlin, Brandy, Alexis during rehearsal

Weekend work - gold and black lacquer
Finished set

We're going into the second weekend of performances, and I'll post some production shots soon.

And I'll have another thing to post - an announcement is coming.

- Bill

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Boston Marriage has begun!

We're now underway, rehearsing this wonderful play. Working with three very talented women every day is a joy in so many ways. We find ourselves reveling in the unbounded wit, feasting on the glorious language, finding out what makes these characters do what they do. It is a thrilling challenge.

Alexis Black and Brandy Zarle

Caitlin Glasgo

Tomorrow we start drilling into Act Two . . . lots of things to discover. Four of us who can't wait to get to work.

- Bill

Friday, February 18, 2011

Here comes Boston Marriage

Things are getting geared up for Boston Marriage, which opens on March 18. The newsflash is that we are going to change the curtain time. It has been, for last last 18 productions, at the New York curtain time - 8:00 pm. But now, we're going to have an Upper Valley curtain time - 7:30 pm. You'll have to get dinner a little earlier, I guess. But then, you'll get home earlier. Unless you can find somewhere to have dinner after the show, which I've always felt was a lot more fun. Admittedly, it's easier to find a place to eat in New York after a show. (I absolutely love "44 & X" for a late dinner and post-show conversation.) Sunday matinees will also start a half-hour earlier - now at 2:30.

Next week I meet the cast in New York to work on costuming. The play takes place in the first decade of the 20th century, so we'll be looking for dresses from 1900-1910. The Costume Collection on 26th Street has a huge collection, so it will probably take us quite a while. This is a collection whose costumes have all been donated by Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, and by studios that have filmed in New York. The quality of the costumes is really wonderful, but since they were built as costumes rather than off-the-rack clothing, none of them have sizes! So we'll be running from hanging pipes to dressmaker dummies, to dressing rooms, and back to the pipes. If we can get all of this done in one day, it will be a miracle.



Rehearsals will begin on Monday the 28th, and here are the wonderful people that I'll be working with:

Brandy Zarle (Anna)


Alexis Black (Claire)



Caitlin Glasgo (Catherine)

So my dilemma consists of hanging out with three exceptionally talented and beautiful women every day. Yeah, it's a dirty job, but someone . . .

- talk to you soon, Bill