Sunday, May 24, 2009

From Charleston and Spoleto

And now, from current-time, Kathy and I are on our annual (sixth year, I believe) marathon visit to the always-interesting Spoleto and Piccolo Spoleto festival events in the charming town of Charleston, S.C. We usually try to cram in as much as we can during a weekend, almost always Memorial Day weekend, and this year is no exception.

We drove into town on Saturday, checked into the hotel, and immediately left for Mount Pleasant and a production about the musical life of Bobby Darin. There was much to be liked about the production, especially the singing/interpretation of the lead actor (playing Bobby) and the great band they seem to be able to assemble at the Village Playhouse for these events (not our first time there). However, being what we are, we spent the drive back into town dissecting what we would change about the show if WE were doing it. There were only two actors on stage, and "Bobby" also ended up telling a lot of the biography. We'd have put a third actor on stage and just let Bobby be Bobby throughout. And a few other nitpicky things. But when the music was cooking, this was a lot of fun to watch.

We returned and quickly went off to our next show, a production of "La Cage aux Folles." It had its moments. Just not enough. A few of the voices/actors left something to be desired, and they should have hired a choreographer. (Now, there might have BEEN a choreographer, mind you, but they should have hired someone else.) Not very comfortable seats, either, so that made it a bit painful.

We then had our outdoor Jazz performance pushed indoors, and an hour-plus later, by rain. By that time, for better or for worse, we were in a restaurant drinking good wines and eating delicious Italian. We did not make it to the rescheduled jazz show. Ah, well. We had fun anyway (and the rain stopped until about 3 a.m., of course.)

More to come!

Update on my own plays

I'll do a quick update on the plays I have written so far, chiefly to the effect that the only news hasn't been positive news, but at least I know ....

One play was submitted for the N.C. New Play Festival, which selects only one play. Mine wasn't it. One play was submitted to an artistic director known by a friend of ours, who might or might not be producing some plays at his center this year; he chose to determine he was not interested. One ten-minute play I wrote and submitted to the Source Festival -- one of some 500-plus that were entered -- was not chosen for the final 18. And one ten-minute play written to a specific theme for an event called the "Seven" (this time, 418 competitors) did not make the Top 22 from which the seven finalists were chosen.

That hasn't stopped finding new or revised places to try to place the play scripts, and there are several other "maybes" that will be answered one way or another by September or so. But for now, no definite productions brewing. Just so you know ....

Catching up

Not least because we've been seeing a lot of plays, I haven't had much time for catching up and reporting on the ones we HAVE seen. So I'll try to do some of that today.

Since returning from the Big Apple and Memorial Day weekend, we caught three different plays in our own back yard. First was "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, a place we return to often when we get the chance. There is almost always something interesting on stage at UNCSA, especially during the late fall, February-early March, or late April - into May, the times when productions are ready to be staged within the school's calendar year. Although tough times for everyone caused some budget cutbacks this year, there were no disappointments with this production or the earlier Timberlake Wertenbaker play we saw on campus. It continues to be surprising to me that low-cost, high-quality shows on this school's stages continue to be under-attended by the area community.

The very next night we were off to catch N.C. Black Rep's production of "Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope," which had some dazzling talents on stage for a relatively short run at the Arts Council Theatre. A lot of energy, chiefly well presented, though like other shows of this sort, sometimes the disconnected stories can be a little disjointed as well, for me, anyway. It was time very well spent in any case.

Last but not least in our local show-going was "The Blonde, the Brunette, and the Vengeful Redhead," a one-woman show at Triad Stage that I thought quite impressive for the range of characters, male and female, that the actress presented. The show was interesting too, though perhaps more interesting to me than to Kathy (maybe it had been too long a day for her). Set, lighting and sound, as usual for a Triad Stage production, were very well done, and generally speaking, it was a pleasant and rewarding evening of theater.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

New York City, Part Two

We wrapped up our visit to NYC and Broadway with three more plays, all interesting or at least worth seeing to one extent or another.

First, Kathy returned with TKTS tickets to "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," one of August Wilson's ten plays from the cycle set in Pittsburgh's Hill District. It was quite well acted, and generally very interesting, but at the end it got all kind of metaphysical/ theological/mystical on us, and I lost track of it. I'm sure it meant something to some of the members of the audience. Not so for me.

We had the added bonus here of sitting next to a couple who, it turned out, were from Winston-Salem, and he had been the head of the theater department at Wake Forest for over 30 years, prior to retiring about a decade back. Delightful conversation during the breaks!

On Saturday, we took in "Exit the King" (Eugene Ionesco) and wrapped with "The 39 Steps." Ionesco was perhaps a little too deep for the likes of me, though the performances, esp. Geoffrey Rush as the 400-year-old king who was on his way out from his collapsing kingdom, were worthy. "39 Steps" was just pure fun -- very clever staging and use of only four actors to presesnt a complete story based on the Hitchcock movie of the same name. It had at least one of those scenes where a character is juggling three hats and passing them around from his head to portray three different people in the same space of time. For entertainment that doesn't really require a lot of thinking but you can be charmed by the cleverness, I recommend it!

Then it was back home to Kernersville, though we did get to see and share some of the LaGuardia space with musician Bruce Hornsby, one of our favorites -- just happened to notice him coming through security right behind us, then waiting for the flight to Richmond, Va. adjacent to where we waited for ours to Greensboro.

Great trip all the way around!