I just love good acting

The material is tough to watch at times, and of course some folks here in the Bible Belt are just going to lose their religion over the language, but Del Shores' "The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife" just opened at Theatre Alliance (Winston-Salem) tonight, and it is intense and awesome. Two of my favorite actors, whom I am also lucky enough to call friends, play the lead couple, locked in an abusive marriage that meets all the classic characteristics. A friend in the trailer park is trying to help the wife out, and the newly-arrived five-times-married slut across the way is helping the husband out of his pants.

We had seen three Del Shores plays at T.A. in the past -- one of which, "Sordid Lives," I actually liked. But you can clearly tell that he decided to go serious with TTATOATTH. And serious it is, for the most part, though there are certainly some laugh lines. Especially for the two leads, played by Cheryl Ann Roberts and Mikey Wiseman, it's a physical, and physically demanding, time on stage. They make it very, very believable, almost uncomfortably so -- which is, of course, the point. We're looking unflinchingly at a bastard of a husband doing everything he can to demean and intimidate his wife, and blame his many failings directly on her rather than looking in the mirror. Painful stuff, but with those two leads and strong support, extremely well presented.

As I've said before, not every T.A. presentation is a favorite or even good. This one, however, for someone who wants some serious in his theater from time to time, is an absolute winner.

The latest reports

Time to get caught up on recent playgoing!

Quite some time ago, in part to see if we could figure out what all the buzz was about given its seeming success around the country, we bought tickets to the national tour of "Church Basement Ladies" for when it came to the Stevens Center on April 1. We went and saw it. Well, truth be told, we saw part of it. It is a very rare thing indeed for us to leave a show before it's over. I can only think of two other times in all the years. But we walked at the intermission on this one.

Frankly, I simply cannot understand what would entertain anyone about this show, unless, possibly, they were from Minnesota or possibly practicing Lutherans. Even then .... The tunes and lyrics were so-so, the acting in most cases overdone, and it just wasn't very funny. I've always thought "Nunsense" proved that you can have some fun with religion or religious characters (though I'm not so sure about any of the sequels, which I have not seen.) But this show proved that the opposite is also possible.

Not long afterwards, we arrived for a mini-vacation in Phoenix, and Kathy discovered that a Phoenix Fringe Festival was happening. So on Sunday night of the trip, we found one of the six venues that had three interesting-sounding shows (most of the Festival shows ran about one hour each). We caught a 5 p.m., a 6:30 p.m. and an 8 p.m. show.

The first was a one-woman show on the concept that angels are given opportunities to select bodies and types to return to the Earth to fix karmic problems. It had some good ideas interspersed with some less-than-interesting exposition. Not bad, but not great, either.

The second show was intended for children but told a good story for adults, too. The concept was a young man (with wings) who had been hidden out of town by his parents and as he grows up, discovers other children and ideas and finally makes his parents realize he must try on his own and might have been overprotected, though to some extent for good reason. It was a sweet and thoughtful show. Unfortunately, I got kidnapped for a few minutes by an idea for a 10-minute script that I will start writing soon. But I still enjoyed it a lot.

Finally, we saw a play called "Dudes Gone Wild," with four young men in various stages of not yet being willing to grow up, on the evening five years after high school after a woman leaves one of them virtually at the altar. There was a lot of drinking, cursing, and crude references to women and themselves. Sometimes playgoing should take you to places you don't normally reside, and this did for me -- kind of made me wonder if my life would have been different if I'd had a fraternity mindset.

And happy that I didn't.

A little down time

Well, March has not been much of a month for play-going, though April should make up for it. Due to a variety of time-sucking chores and non-play projects, not much has happened in play writing, either. I need to find a way to turn that around!

In any case, the musical highlight of last weekend was attending High Point Community Theatre's production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," which used the impressive sanctuary at Wesley Memorial U.M. Church in High Point. We went with Myla and Paul O'Brien, not solely for the musical but because Mary Lea and Cameron Williams, as well as Dave Wils, were in it.

In addition to being a lesson in how some things can be done by a community theater that KLT seems not to think of, the production was a delight, with only one really bad off-note in the entire show (pretty wonderful for community theater). Mary Lea, as the Narrator, and the young man who played Joseph, had -- and I don't often use this word in theatrical commentary -- awesome singing voices that impressed from beginning to end. The show may not be "Cabaret" or "Spring Awakening," but I enjoy it (second time now) and I left the theater smiling. That's a pretty good deal for a Saturday night's entertainment!

Now I look forward to "Church Basement Ladies" on April 1 and a host of others to follow. And I will write again some day. I swear it!

And on we go ...

The week away at the OBX wound up with a little more work done on "Patent," a number of other needed chores completed, and a draft of a second short play that might prove suitable for the fall Greensboro Playwrights Forum's short plays. The concept for the fall shows is less a theme than a place -- all of the shows will take place in a unit set of a roadside diner. Fun!

As mentioned before, "for the fun of it," I stopped in Raleigh on the way home from the OBX to see Theatre in the Park's "Don't Cry for Me, Margaret Mitchell." It did not turn out to be fun, actually, except for some conversations with audience members before the show and during intermission. It just wasn't very funny, and some of the choices on line interpretations and physical "humor" were mistaken, in my opinion (and Kathy, who saw it Friday night, chiefly agreed).

I had corresponded with the actor who played Hecht, and I thought he looked the part very well, and when he was allowed to be a grown-up, played it quite well, too. But sometimes, it was more Three Stooges than three grown men working on a play script. And the way they chose to represent Victor Fleming, the man's man, well, less said the better. The transitions to the beginning of both acts were painfully long, for no clear reason except to allow entire songs to play, and oh, I could continue, but I won't.

I guess, on the bright side, it is always instructive to see something you DON'T like, not only for education but because you appreciate a well-done show much better as a result.

And speaking of well-done shows, "Around the World in 80 Days" at Triad Stage was delightful, and we especially liked the lighting (designed by Norman Coates, Andy's lead professor at UNCSA). We also had fun at "Forever Plaid" by Theatre Alliance -- a little choppy here and there, but at least one especially good voice that I had not been able to hear individually, at close range, prior to that night -- and more fun with Kernersville Little Theatre's "The Battle of Shallowford," with a good cast indeed and one of the best KLT sets I've seen. It's unfortunate that it was under-attended.

Meanwhile, auditions were held for "Crier Tuck," which was the winning NC New Play Contest script (Greensboro Playwrights Forum) this year. Kathy has been cast in BOTH of the middle-aged woman roles, both of which occur in the second act of the show, written by Nathan Adam Sullivan, who also directed "Margaret Mitchell" at KLT. It will be fun to see her back on stage after some time, and dancing with two different roles, too. Those shows will be in Greensboro April 15-18, at the downtown Arts Center.

Keeping busy!

A good experience

I am currently on my annual week-away timeshare writer's retreat to the Outer Banks, where it has been cooler than most years, and breezy, but mostly sunny. I guess it's good that the weather has kept me indoors and more concentrated than some of these trips in the past!

The writing portion so far has included the adaptation of an old short story to a very short play, which was fun and might become a submission to the Playwrights' Forum's Horror Anthology, which occurs in October (going to be a busy month). Maybe I'll get it accepted!

But speaking of the Playwrights' Forum, I volunteered for, and then ran the lighting board for two tech rehearsals and three of the four performances of the Evening of Short Plays. It happens that the studio theater lighting board there is identical to KLT's larger board, so I wasn't too technologically challenged to be able to figure out the running and the cues. Unfortunately, the cues were programmed for a certain order of shows, then the order was changed, so there was some jumping around involved. But I don't feel I screwed it up too badly; it was fun to see the various shows and how the process works; and I certainly got to be comfortable with the board again. Maybe next time I can learn more about the actual programming, etc. Certainly a fun learning experience, anyway!

Many more shows to come over the next few weeks, starting on Sunday -- going to stop on the way back to K'vegas to catch "Margaret Mitchell" at Theatre in the Park in Raleigh (Kathy will hopefully get to see it on Friday evening) -- just for the fun of it, to see how they handle the show.

And then a fair # of Triad shows after that. And hoping to get some serious work done on the next full-length play script, "Patent" -- starting ... right now!

Weather or not

Lately, central North Carolina has been pushed around by somewhat uncommon wintry weather -- a 6" snowfall over last weekend; uncommon cold; freezing rain/rain today; more wintry stuff threatened for the coming weekend.

It has wreaked havoc with all kinds of events schedules, including the play we had scheduled to see this past Saturday. We've been lucky enough to reschedule it for Thursday night -- hopefully before the next snow attack -- so will report on that soon.

However, that means we've only been in the theater a couple of times lately, as well as a special event, so looking forward to clearing roads and more shows before long.

We got over to UNCSA for a special performance of "The Compleat Works of Wm. Shakespeare, Abridged" that helped raise funds for senior drama students to get to L.A. for auditions (and part of the proceeds went to the Haitian relief effort). It was a lot of fun, if a little sloppy here and there. We sat with Macon Shirley and Paul and Myla O'Brien, so a good theater night!

More recently, we caught "Oscar & Felix" over at Open Space, with Ken Ashford and Scott Stevens in the title roles, and Michael Carter and Chuck Powers among the poker players. Pretty good too, I thought. A few line drops here and there, but good energy and it held my attention.

We also ran over to Greensboro for the season-announcement event at Triad Stage. A good collection of shows, but a particular favorite included -- they'll be doing "Educating Rita" as their second show, in the fall. Can't wait!

Since last writing, I have managed to discover that a lot of the in-depth research I had been doing on individual songs, writers and publishers may not have been necessary. I have yet to confirm with ASCAP, but BMI definitely offers a "promoter" license that, for a fee (of course) allows basically unlimited use of all BMI songs for music backdrops -- at least for the limited run of our "Conversations" production. This is VERY good news!

Plunging ahead

We haven't done much playgoing lately, but that's about to change -- quite a few shows in the region looming on the calendar. I'll try to remember to report on them as we take them in.

In the meantime, the work on the "Conversations in a Cafe" project for October continues rapidly. I am in the middle of a number of searches for proper licensing techniques in order to use certain popular songs as part of the soundtrack, legally. This is a one-time production; the venue doesn't have any kind of musical license (nor does it need one); and the use of a recording in a performing-arts environment falls into a kinky area of music licensing anyway. The easiest ones, I have found, have one performer, the same writer and one publisher. Get much beyond that, and boy howdy, does it get complex.

The soundtrack I had in my head at the beginning, back in 2006, is going to change somewhat, both for simplicity and for financial reasons. I originally had 11 songs I wanted to use, but if you have to pay upwards of $70 per song to use 'em, well, public domain songs sound better and better.

Then we're starting discussions about set, set pieces, furniture, lighting, window designs, and of course, casting. A lot to think about, but oddly enough, we open in nine months, and that doesn't sound like a long time away any more. I actually ordered the first piece of the prop furniture yesterday.

I'd quote a Steve Miller song about time keeping ticking, ticking ... but they'd probably want a fee to quote it. So let's just say I'm trying to keep up with show prep along with everything else.

But we have filled in a lot of blanks in terms of casting the show, and with each commitment (well, tentative commitment - we'll ask for firm commitments on July 1), I get a little more excited about the show being something special. Most of the time, I'm glad we made this decision to jump off the cliff. And as I told someone the other day, we'll see how we feel about that when the run ends!