The serious work begins

I'm guessing at this point that it will be a rare day from here through October that doesn't have SOMETHING to do with preparing for "Conversations in a Cafe." Tuesday night was a good example: Myla O'Brien, our fearless director, was here at the house along with Kathy and Cheryl Ann Roberts (who will play Susan and Ellie, respectively, in the show). We had an early audition with an actor who could not be here during the regularly-scheduled auditions (for a totally enviable reason), followed by a wide-ranging discussion of planning for the show, and taking notes regarding first-act blocking from the director to meld into the play's script.

Meanwhile, the search is on for various stage furniture and dressing items, along with various props, all of which need to come together reasonably soon. Today, I also spent time with the director at Korner's Folly, where we'll produce the show, working on a variety of subjects that will make the actual production go smoother. Good meeting!

And then I discovered the place in Greensboro, thanks to a lead from the afore-mentioned actor, that has a lot of used and new restaurant furnishings and equipment. Hog heaven! I now have a little less to worry about in regards to where I might find the things we need. This is a good thing!

CATF entertaining, "Conversations" taking on life of its own

So back some months ago, I decided and committed to going up to Shepherdstown, WV for a second year to take in some of the new plays at CATF. For those who don't know, Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) is in its 20th year, working on the campus of Shepherd University and using its facilities to present, nowadays, five new works each summer with an Equity cast and providing lots of opportunities for Shepherd and other young theater students to work shows.

A good friend of ours is the business manager there, and she convinced me last year to make the trip, and I found it quite worth it. All three shows I saw, I felt, were worthy and entertaining within my vision of what constitutes entertaining theater.

This year, I was set to see three more shows, but ended up dropping one of them in order to accommodate a reviewer who wanted to get into a sold-out performance. For me, it worked out well, for my overall favorite this year, "Breadcrumbs," is the show I picked up to replace the one I was going to miss. Yay! It was only a little over an hour long, but very touching, very well performed, a very nice lighting design by Colin Bills (one of Andy's friends in the DC theater lighting group) and just no false notes I could discern. The story deals with a young woman seeking some kind of purpose and an older woman writer starting to disappear into Alzheimers. Liked it a whole lot!

I wish I could be as enthusiastic about the rest of my stay. I liked the second show, "Inana," quite well, but it wasn't earth-shattering, though it did a fine job of tapping into a culture less known to the average American. It deals with a newly-married Iraqi couple -- an arranged marriage -- and we slowly learn why they have ended their marriage day, which started back at home, in a hotel in London. It's a good mystery, and was generally well-acted, and there's certainly a tension. But one of the transitions, to me, seemed a little abrupt -- my feeling was the playwright could have given a few more lines to smooth the transition. Others felt it might have been weakness on the part of the actress. I didn't see that, but I certainly felt there was room for improvement somehow! And that in turn stole a little bit from the play's overall impact.

And then my last show. Wow. "The Eelwax Jesus 3D Pop Music Show." Allegedly a musical, though actually sort of a disguised rock/pop concert with a fair amount of pretty uninteresting music and a fair number of disjointed images being thrown out on either side of where they placed the band. I can only say I've never seen a more random conglomeration of stuff being thrown on a stage. They could have saved a lot of room in the program by calling it "Random," in fact. I made it to the end, but it was a close thing on bailing at intermission. It would surprise me very much if this show made anything other than noise anywhere else in the future.

Now back in the Triad, and even while I was gone, the details and planning for "Conversations in a Cafe" began to show that time is growing shorter and suddenly the work is going to have to get serious. Finding prop and set dressing items; contracting for the music license rights; buying additional lighting instruments; planning for auditions; getting the script ready to copy for read-through; contacting production folks; and a lot of other correspondence. There's a lot to putting on a play! (In case you didn't already know that.)

Catching up on the play-going reports

As I sit here in front of the computer listening to "The Music of Providence Gap" and being reminded what a lovely talent Laurelyn Dossett is, I'm also reminded that I haven't yet caught up on the various shows we've seen since late May. It's about time!

On Memorial Day weekend, we made a now-traditional pilgrimage to Charleston, SC to spend a little time with our son, Andy, and take in some of the many fine offerings of Spoleto Festival USA and Piccolo Spoleto. Normally, this means 5 to 7 shows of some kind or another over a long weekend. This year was no exception. In addition to a jazz performance, we had six shows to see during our stay.

Of those six shows, three of them were presented by student actors present and past of the College of Charleston, and all three of those had something about them worth seeing. Two -- "Lone Star" and "Thom Pain (Based on Nothing)" -- were new to us, and the latter in particular -- a one-man performance -- kept one's attention especially well. The third was a presentation of Neil LaBute's "reasons to be pretty," which we had also seen on Broadway with a fabulous set and a good cast. Even with a simple set on a simple stage, the cast did a fine job with the play.

Another show we took in was "(title of show)," an amusing little musical about a couple of guys and their friends trying to create a successful musical. This was done out at the Village Playhouse, which has done a decent job with earlier shows we've seen (they're in Mount Pleasant). We had fun with it, but it's hardly a brain-teaser or challenging in any major fashion.

We were somewhat less thrilled with the production of "Mahalia: A Gospel Musical" downtown. Nothing wrong with the play, exactly, and it was certainly better than last year's "Cage Aux Folles." But the lighting in this space is, well, basic, and either some of it was pointed in the wrong direction, or the actors forgot where to stand. The woman in the lead role had an awesome voice, but especially for Kathy, not so much on the acting chops. And as an overall rule, the sound was choppy. While it certainly had its moments, it was the least effective of our theatrical stops.

Last but certainly not least was Gate Theatre/Dublin's presentation of "Present Laughter." It was quite well done, wonderful set, great acting, very amusing. And we had the benefit of sitting afterwards to watch the crew convert the set to the next production -- which they did many times throughout the Festival -- since there is chamber music and an opera presented in the same space as well. Our son was master electrician here (Dock Street) and his best man at the wedding last October, McLane Snow, was on the crew. A little fun behind-the-scenes visit.

Since our return, there wasn't much theater-going time for a while since Kathy was way deep involved in a show -- stage managing KLT's "Once Upon A Mattress." Naturally, I saw it, and had a lot of fun watching a good cast in a funny, light-hearted show. We did, however, manage to sneak in Paper Lantern's excellent production of "Kimberly Akimbo" in Theatre Alliance's space and enjoyed that very much, too.

Finally, once the show was over, we had two entertaining experiences at Triad Stage, one later in the evening (11 p.m. start) at the UpStage Cabaret, where they were offering Christopher Durang's "An Actor's Nightmare" and "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You," a combo we first saw together in a small theater in Los Angeles once upon a time. And the following night on the main stage, we saw "Providence Gap," the latest play creation effort of Preston Lane and Laurelyn Dossett -- and in our opinion, the one that holds together the best of the four (also including "Brother Wolf," "Beautiful Star" and "Bloody Blackbeard"). Though I would cut 10 minutes from its running length if it were me. And come to think of it, are all the titles required to be two words long?

Anyway, a couple more events coming up, including three or maybe four shows at this summer's version of CATF up in West Virginia. Sounds like more fun, to fill in around the many preparations for "Conversations in a Cafe."

Time to catch up!

Here it is July 1 already, and I haven't blogged in, well, a while. That doesn't mean I haven't been busy!

Since last I wrote here, Kathy has been tied up in the process of stage managing Kernersville Little Theatre's "Once Upon A Mattress," chiefly a fun if time-consuming process. This also meant, of course, some entertaining at home, which is always some work. Since I wasn't seeing much of her during that time, I also took off to the other house for a while -- and even got some writing done on the "Patent" full-length project. Not much, but better than nothing.

But the vast majority of my time nowadays is caught up in preparations, research, communications and other related tasks for the fall production of "Conversations in a Cafe." It's pretty exciting, of course, thinking of having one of my scripts coming to life on stage. But as many common citizens do not realize, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that no one knows about, and I am in the middle of all that "stuff" right now.

We will hold auditions for some of the roles in August, and we are tying down the roles we've already cast right now. It's a busy time, and it's going to remain that way.

But worth it, one hopes!