Catching up, a bit, anyway

Since last I posted, we caught the very entertaining "Hank Williams: Lost Highway" at Theatre Alliance. I don't need to plug it too hard, since the run just ended and the shows all sold out. But Gray Smith as Hank and Justin Hall as his street mentor were both excellent; the live music was delish (esp. the pedal steel and Dobro moments); and the supporting cast generally fine. Gray was on pretty much throughout the show, and I'd guess three days of sleep would be appreciated now that the show's over. He earned it!

I came back from Phoenix with the idea for a short play in mind, got it written, and got it read at the Greensboro Playwrights Forum two weeks back. I thought it went very well indeed, and we'll learn more tonight when it will be the raw material for a Directors' Forum -- first time I've attended or been part of one of these. That should be a new and intriguing experience! I'll report on that later.

With Kathy doing the stage manager job for KLT's "Once Upon A Mattress," there's not a lot of show-going right now. But that will pick up speed again very soon, as the annual (sixth year) excursion to Charleston, SC and the Spoleto USA and Piccolo Spoleto plays is right around the corner. Yay!

Two shows, and more waiting

After Thursday's night's new plays at GTCC, Kathy and I then, together, took in "Nunsense" at Clemmons Community Theatre (performed at the New Hope Presbyterian Church) on Friday night, and last night was "Ethel Waters: His Eye is on the Sparrow," at Triad Stage.

I thought the CCT did a very nice job indeed with "Nunsense," a very amusing tale of the nuns at Mt. Saint Helen's and their efforts to raise some money to properly bury the last four of the 52 nuns who died when the convent's cook's vichyssoise went bad. The "talent show" they are trying to put on runs into a variety of challenges, and each nun gets a chance to shine and/or save the day. All of which, as Sister Hubert points out, would have been unnecessary if the Mother Superior hadn't taken money from earlier fundraising to buy a VCR.

We enjoyed the singing and the performing, and were especially pleased to discover what a great singing voice was displayed by Lee Ann Chrisco as Sister Hubert. Her number near the end of the show was awesome. Though she is pleasingly humble about the whole thing in real life, that's a voice you'd want to hear again, for sure! And young Charis Jeffers, who we hope will be our Meredith in "Conversations in a Cafe," was a pleasure to watch as Sister Amnesia. Though we didn't know the other three performers, they all played their characters quite well, and they all seemed to be comfortable together and enjoying themselves.

If only the sound had been better ....

The Triad Stage show was a good one, essentially telling the story of Ethel Waters with one fine actress reflecting through flashback, and a piano player accompanying her when she sang, and sometimes providing "mood music." I'm not familiar enough with Ms. Waters' recorded music, but we agreed that the singing portion was not quite as strong as hoped (esp. having heard Ms. Chrisco the night before!), and for me, about five minutes cut from each act would have made it more pleasing. But all in all, still a good night of theater!

The playwriting continues, in fits and starts, as I'm working on a short piece for which the core idea was created during one of those shows in Phoenix. And I need to return to "Patent" and try to get more pieces of that glued together. Maybe this week ... as I wait to hear something one way or the other on the fates of two short plays I have submitted. One of those delayed its submission deadline by a couple of days ... so that more competitors could come in!! Whee! ... and then delayed the announcement of its finalists accordingly. Grrrrrr ......

It's FUN trying to break in as a playwright!

And an update

We've just moved out of the time period in which, after too long a lull, Kathy was involved as an actor with a play. We had noted that Adam Sullivan, who directed "Margaret Mitchell" for KLT, had won and would have his play "Crier Tuck" produced by 3rd Stage Theatre in Greensboro, while attending the Short Plays. Kathy wondered out loud if there were any roles for middle-aged women, so I asked Stephen Hyers, who would direct. He said "yes." She decided to audition, and, it turned out, she was given BOTH of the middle-aged woman roles. That turned into a lot of fun for her -- playing two completely different woman characters -- and hastened the acquisition of a wig she had planned to get for the "Conversations" role this fall. At least one member of the audience (who clearly hadn't read the cast list in the program) did not even know the two women were the same actor. Cool!

The play itself was pretty good, especially for a first staging, and underwent some change in the rehearsal process. One or two things I might change, but minor -- all in all, a lot of fun!

Kathy since has moved right on to helping stage manage the upcoming KLT musical. Meanwhile, I caught two short plays by Ed Simpson and a short-ish musical by Tommy Trull tonight at GTCC, directed by Michael Kamtman, with whom we have crossed paths various times since arriving in Kernersville in 1989. It was an interesting evening! The first, perhaps 10-minute, play was good but suffered some from one weak link in the cast. The second was longer and well done, given the partial limitation that these were all staged readings. And the musical was a neat retelling of a piece of mythology, with the lead female quite good -- animated as a performer, and a good singer, too. I can't say quite as much about the rest of the singing, though, and would enjoy hearing this again with a group of musical singers.

And on we will go -- two more shows in the next two days!

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!