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Post by Gracie on Jul 20, 2007 7:55:39 GMT -5
...that makes me sing! (Bad rhyme. I sorry.) Who's got theatre experience here? I didn't, apart from being part of the orchestra in several high school productions and taking roles in classroom productions of Julius Caesar and Our Town. But when Grizzy and I began dating, it was immediately apparent that I'd have to become a 'lobby lizard,' too--our name for the theatre crowd, because our hangout of choice, between classes, was the Mainstage theatre lobby. At any given time you would find someone running lines with someone else, and some of my happiest memories are watching John and Dave do their own version of Monty Python routines. Hilarious. He started me out doing props for a totally bizarre play he'd been cast in-- Marco Polo Sings a Solo, which was supposed to be futuristic, set on an iceberg in Norway in 1999. It was only 1983 at the time and it is hilarious, now, to think of how the set and costumes looked...1999 having come and gone with nary a trace of what was envisioned. Grizzy was an astronaut, who discovered a planet where the vegetables were living creatures and so he had a love scene with a carrot. Yes, a carrot. But not the way YOU think. This 'carrot' was Kelly, who was one of the most gorgeous redheads I have EVER seen, and who conspired with me over coffee about how best to choreograph their scene, as in 'okay, Gerald, you can put your hand here...no, not THERE...and you can...no, you can't do that...' It was fun to see how good we could make it look without ever doing anything that any of the three of us would be uncomfortable with! He asked me to do props for the play, which meant collecting and/or making them, and then dressing the set and making any changes needed during rehearsals and productions. For that one I made album covers, and an anniversary 'cake' (three layers of luscious styrofoam, iced in a truly poisonous Ty-D-Bol blue colored icing and sprinkled with silver dragees) and I forget what else. I also doubled as a dresser for one of the actors, stripping them with one hand while simultaneously dropping the new costume over their heads and fastening at the same time. This is a good skill that has proven very useful over time....  Later I became his assistant director for McNally's The Ritz. And that's a WHOLE 'nother story. After we married, we became the technical directors and set designers at our community theatre, in addition to Grizzy's acting and my directing. If I had my druthers, I'd become a professional set dresser; I love it that much. Any other lobby lizards out there? Yes? No? If you haven't worked in the theatre, is there a play you especially love? Theatre is so immediate, you know; it's not like watching the same movie over and over. You can see the same play every night for weeks, months, even years (and I have done that) and it will not be the same experience twice. Last night we went to see an old favorite called Pump Boys and Dinettes. It was not the best production we've ever seen, but it was fun. Okay, so....next? Because if no one responds I'll just talk to myself here, and regale you all with memories. And oh...the memories! Like: Bus Stop
The Foreigner
Arsenic and Old Lace
Godspell
Tribute
Lunch Hourand so on.... |
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Post by booklady on Jul 20, 2007 8:46:15 GMT -5
Damn Yankees. Don't laugh! I love the story and that has nothing to do with my love for the Red Sox, which came YEARS after I fell in love with the tale of Joe Boyd, Joe Hardy, Applegate, Lola, Bess, Benny, Roscoe Ent, Mr. Welch, and yes, even Luster Head. Of course it was through reading the book that I fell in love with them, but the play's ok too.  I also like Guys and Dolls. |
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Post by Gracie on Jul 20, 2007 9:55:01 GMT -5
Not laughing!
Remember, there was a potato chip commercial a few years back with a chip singing "Whatever Lola wants......"
I LOVE that one.
Are there particular playwrights and/or directors you like?
Neil Simon for me, no question, and Bernard Slade.
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Post by joew on Jul 20, 2007 10:02:45 GMT -5
No theater experience except a one-line (in Japanese) role as one of the locals in "Teahouse of the August Moon" in high school.
But every time I come into my house, I still use the curtain line from the first act of "Arsenic and
Old Lace," which I saw in high school. It goes, "Well, here I am!" (It is said by the sane nephew as he arrives, and it immediately follows the villain saying, "We need a victim.") Blackout. Curtain.
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Post by Jane on Jul 20, 2007 10:26:06 GMT -5
I actually minored in theatre in college (as a fall-back, ya know, in case the English Major thing didn't work out). My acting professor told me, "You probably shouldn't try this again." I am, quite possibly, the most inhibited person ever. However, I still love theatre and think there is nothing better in the world than that moment when the lights go down, the audience quiets, and the curtain begins to open.....Coctau called it "the red and gold disease," and I have it, in spades.
When we lived in Detroit, Wayne State University's Hillberry Theatre was AWESOME! We saw every play they put on for about seven years. Their staging was amazing, and we saw some of the best Shakespeare I've ever seen there.
We go to NYC whenever we can. I think the one I loved the most was when I took my daughter (a dancer) to see "Movin' Out" in New York. My husband is a big fan of musicals which I'm not particularly. I told him the next time we go, I want to see lots of dance and cut down on lavish musicals and classical concerts. Although, I must admit, "Lion King" really blew me away when I saw it in Toronto.
Now I am planning a trip to Stratford for the Shakespeare Festival. I want to see King Lear and Othello, but my husband says, "Only one drama, please," I'll see if I can sneak them both in, and he can go see Oklahoma.
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Post by Brit on Jul 20, 2007 12:31:43 GMT -5
I took the whole family to see "The Lion King" and it was the best £400 I ever spent.
Waht most impressed me about it was the decor and costumes. The motions of the gazelles for instance were gobsmackingly fantastic. So UNhuman in motion, the actors that played these parts were intrinsic to the performance.
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Post by slb2 on Jul 21, 2007 1:31:53 GMT -5
I must confess, every time I've gone to a play at the Gutherie (which is a really big deal), I've fallen asleep. Even to my adored Patrick Stewart in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?" I love musicals. I could see musicials over and over and soak it in. But not plays. No thanks. I've never been an auditory learner. I married into a theater family, however. Both sets of brothers-in-law, along with their wives, have been doing theater since high school. One BIL sought his fortune in Hollywood, but settled for Yankton, South Dakota running radio, instead. The other BIL and his wife and both children live for theater. And here I thought they were nerds.  |
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Post by ptcaffey on Jul 21, 2007 1:42:22 GMT -5
My top eleven theater experiences (as an audience member!), in no particular order:
1. "The Time of Your LIfe" - San Francisco's ACT Company's production of William Saroyan's play.
2. "As You Like It" - The Theater Royal Bath's touring producing, starring Rebecca Hall as Rosalind.
3. "The Secret in the Wings" - Writer/director Mary Zimmerman's visionary rendering of obscure fairy tales.
4. "Our Town" - The Berkeley Rep's production, with Barbara Oliver as the Stage Manager.
5. "True West" - Sam Shepard
6. "James Joyce's The Dead" - musical version of the famous story.
7. "Measure for Measure" - Shakespeare's Globe Theater, with company director Mark Rylance starring as the Duke (an all-male, original practices production).
8. "Waiting for Godot" - Gate Theater of Dublin's touring production
9. "War of the Worlds--the Radio Play" - the SITI Company's adaptation of Orson Welles' 1938 radio production.
10. "Arcadia" - Tom Stoppard's funny, heartbreaking play.
11. "Mark Twain Tonight" - Hal Holbrook
Plays I'd like to see
Shakespeare - Richard III, Henry V, Romeo and Juliet
Stoppard - anything, including Arcadia again
Beckett - Krapp's Last Tape
Martin McDonagh - anything by him
Thornton Wilder - Our Town again, The Skin of Our Teeth
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Post by booklady on Jul 21, 2007 6:33:51 GMT -5
PT, I toured Mark Twain's Hartford, CT, home last Sunday. I learned a lot about the man and enjoyed the look at his life. (You mentioned Hal Holbrook's one-man play here, plus Twain's desk in the other thread.)
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Post by Trusty on Jul 21, 2007 7:24:32 GMT -5
Who's got theatre experience here? Good Lord, Gracie. Do you know how sensual your post is - exciting the imagination? We can study it in detail ....... if you desire, of course.  |
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Post by Trusty on Jul 21, 2007 7:28:39 GMT -5
Remember, there was a potato chip commercial a few years back with a chip singing "Whatever Lola wants......" I LOVE that one. My first play - in first grade. I was a daisy. Yes. A daisy. In a field of singing daisies - but I was on the first row in the center. The best daisy on stage! And, that's all I'm gonna say about that. |
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Post by Trusty on Jul 21, 2007 7:30:47 GMT -5
When we lived in Detroit, Wayne State University's Hillberry Theatre was AWESOME! Did you go to Wayne State? Strawberry's dad taught there. |
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Post by Trusty on Jul 21, 2007 7:33:18 GMT -5
I took the whole family to see "The Lion King" and it was the best £400 I ever spent. 400 pounds!? Just how many people are IN your family?  |
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Post by Trusty on Jul 21, 2007 7:34:59 GMT -5
Funny. I had not planned to post on this thread. |
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Post by booklady on Jul 21, 2007 7:40:28 GMT -5
Oh, Trusty, you're just being dramatic.
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Post by Jane on Jul 21, 2007 10:26:56 GMT -5
Trusty: I took some classes at Wayne State when I lived in Detroit. My husband got both his undergraduate degree (German!) there as well as his MBA, and my son-in-law went to med school there. What did he teach?
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Post by Brit on Jul 21, 2007 13:30:02 GMT -5
Trusty - there were 6 of us on the occasion we went to see Lion King. It was to celebrate my grandson's "graduation" from pantomime to real theatre.
We had always taken him to pantomime from the time he was 3 years old so he would get a "feel" of being in a theatre and being exhilarated by the experience. But I hasten to explain that I was including all the train fares to London and supper after the show. It so happened that we went on my birthday!
Last year, when my Kiwi friends were over here, we took in a day at Stratford on Avon, and saw Romeo & Juliet in the afternoon and Julius Caesar in the evening. The latter was rather heavy going, but an experience none-the-less.
I think we might have mentioned Wayne University in a previous incarnation. My brother-in-law lectured there in the 1950's.
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Post by gailkate on Jul 21, 2007 14:10:08 GMT -5
My high school drama teacher hated me. No other excuse for her failure to cast me repeatedly. So I took my enormous talents to the local Little Theatre Guild. Props, make-up (lord, my poor "subjects" looked orange and demonic), scene-painting. My first role was as one of the keening chorus in "Riders to the Sea." I don't recall having more than a line to speak, but I keened with relish.
Then I was the air-head girlfriend in "Auntie Mame," the one Patrick mercifully escapes before Mame is driven to disemboweling her dreadful family. After that I was the sweet young thing in "The Lady's Not for Burning," a wonderful play no one performs anymore. I wanted to be the sultry suspected-witch, but our Theatre Guild elders correctly deduced my 17-yr-old innocence was not up to sultry.
I loved acting. For a shy person, there's nothing more liberating than pretending to be someone else. Unfortunately, that early experience has made me a fierce critic, always picking apart the stage blocking and bits of business others have sense enough to accept amiably. Add a couple degrees in English and you get a person saying, "Holy _____! Have they even read the play?"
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Post by booklady on Jul 21, 2007 14:15:44 GMT -5
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Post by Brit on Jul 21, 2007 14:22:02 GMT -5
That's an interesting link:
I liked the line
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Post by ptcaffey on Jul 21, 2007 18:14:22 GMT -5
PT, I toured Mark Twain's Hartford, CT, home last Sunday. I learned a lot about the man and enjoyed the look at his life. (You mentioned Hal Holbrook's one-man play here, plus Twain's desk in the other thread.) Very cool, BL! When I used to live in the East, I kept meaning to go there but circumstances intervened. It remains on my list of places to see. In fact, I'm thinking about a grand literary-related tour. |
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Post by Trusty on Jul 26, 2007 6:41:45 GMT -5
Trusty: I took some classes at Wayne State when I lived in Detroit. My husband got both his undergraduate degree (German!) there as well as his MBA, and my son-in-law went to med school there. What did he teach? I've just been corrected about Strawberry's dad's teaching. Alas, she has many friends who went to Wayne State, but her dad taught math and engineering at Lawrence Tech. I must apologize for being wrong. It's the first time in my life that's happened to me! ;D |
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Post by Gracie on Aug 3, 2007 22:27:11 GMT -5
Who's got theatre experience here? Good Lord, Gracie. Do you know how sensual your post is - exciting the imagination? We can study it in detail ....... if you desire, of course. Aw, Trusty, go on. No, really, go on! go on! |
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Post by Trusty on Aug 4, 2007 15:56:12 GMT -5
Good Lord, Gracie. Do you know how sensual your post is - exciting the imagination? We can study it in detail ....... if you desire, of course. Aw, Trusty, go on. No, really, go on! go on! Uh..oh. Now I have to remember something from two weeks ago. Do you know how hard that is? Oh, yeah. Hard. The whole thing is a play on words. First the setup: "Grizzy was an astronaut, who discovered a planet where the vegetables were living creatures and so he had a love scene with a carrot. Yes, a carrot. But not the way YOU think. This 'carrot' was Kelly, who was one of the most gorgeous redheads I have EVER seen, and who conspired with me over coffee about how best to choreograph their scene, as in 'okay, Gerald, you can put your hand here...no, not THERE...and you can...no, you can't do that...'" Then the killer: "He asked me to do props for the play, which meant collecting and/or making them, and then dressing the set and making any changes needed during rehearsals and productions. ...I also doubled as a dresser for one of the actors, stripping them with one hand while simultaneously dropping the new costume over their heads and fastening at the same time. This is a good skill that has proven very useful over time...." No words had to be changed for my imagination to shift into overdrive. ;D Oops. Forgot to wash the sheets. Must strip the bed. |
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Post by Gracie on Aug 4, 2007 18:25:21 GMT -5
Trusty, I am laughin' out loud just now....it's hilarious what you made of this. See, for me it's just one of my best memories...I hadn't really thought how that would play in the minds of those who weren't there.
Just got home from work, hot, tired...you made my day.
I will add to this thread in a day or so. Many more theatrical moments...such as directing Griz in a play where he's supposed to be pretending to have an affair, to stop his wife who IS having an affair with the other woman's husband....we were newlyweds at the time, and poor Mo, she was so nervous about kissing Griz on stage that finally, in frustration, I just threw the script down and yelled, "you have to kiss him, so just DO it, I'm NOT gonna scratch your eyes out! JUST KISS MY HUSBAND THIS MINUTE!"
Yes, well...the play's the thing.
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Post by Gracie on Sept 30, 2019 20:23:40 GMT -5
Oh. My. Stars.
I am currently sitting in the women's dressing room, where I have done hair and makeup for several wonderfully talented women, and dressed another and chosen jewelry and other accessories for finishing touches. I also had a couple of 'save me!' moments with the young actor who plays a bellhop.
See, here's the thing. When I wrote this original post, my God, 12 years ago! we were not involved in any kind of theatrical group. There wasn't one we could be involved with. Our beloved Footliters in Michigan burned to the ground and when we moved here to Indiana, there was (still is) the marvelous Wagon Wheel Theatre (in the round! circular stage!) but you couldn't do anything unless you were a professional. And alas, we were not.
But in the fall of 2013, Center Street Community Theatre was born, and Grizzy and I got in on the ground floor. We are part of the leadership committee and in the blink of an eye, so it seems, we are in our 6th season, about to open our 11th play (LEND ME A TENOR.) It amazes me.
So in the years since I originally wrote this, I have now been part of:
YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU (props)
ALMOST, MAINE (assistant director)
M*A*S*H (assistant director to my husband!)
THE FOREIGNER (director)
OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS (set design, set dressing and props)
THE CURIOUS SAVAGE (props)
THE MOUSETRAP (props)
ARSENIC AND OLD LACE (set dressing design and props)
STEEL MAGNOLIAS (set dressing and props)
OUR TOWN (co-directed with my husband)
and now, LEND ME A TENOR, where I am a personal dresser, hairstylist and makeup artist.
In the spring (which means we begin in January) my husband and I have been asked to audition for the two leads in ON GOLDEN POND. If I land the role of Ethel, I'll actually have to do age makeup, which seems funny to even think about, but there it is, she's more than ten years older than I am, so.....
Reading this again has been just lovely. And where is Trusty these days? I always loved his posts and seeing names in the original thread that are not with us here saddens me....
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Post by BoatBabe on Oct 2, 2019 8:38:47 GMT -5
This is lovely, Gracie, and thank you!
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Post by jspnrvr on Oct 2, 2019 10:21:45 GMT -5
Isn't it nice to be involved in stuff?
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Post by slb2 on Oct 2, 2019 16:55:28 GMT -5
If I were name a regret, it might be that my family didn't immerse itself in theater. My daughter, KMB, loved theater. My two sons showed an affinity for it as well. But my sister's death and my spouse's elevated anxiety stirred us into such a stew, we couldn't rise above it all, simmering for years.
It's not too late, though. Perhaps something will come of this flighty idea after all.
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Post by Gracie on Oct 2, 2019 17:33:10 GMT -5
This is lovely, Gracie, and thank you! you're welcome! I thought y'all might enjoy some vicarious theatre |
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