Friday photo rescue

From Total Eclipse 2009 (our annual benefit), this is a reading from Jeffrey Sweet’s play The Action Against Sol Schumann, presented as part of the 2010 featured playwright selection process and featuring ensemble members Steven Fedoruk, CeCe Klinger, Nora Fiffer and myself.

The process is almost complete – we’ll have some exciting news to announce by mid-July …

Separation/Insulation

In preparation for our forthcoming show SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, now in rehearsals, I had gone through many reviews of the John Guare play; and many had referenced THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES by Tom Wolfe.  “Transcendent…magical…a masterwork that captures New York as Tom Wolfe did …” as Frank Rich wrote in his review of the play. So, I set forth to my local bookstore and picked up a copy of the Wolfe satire.  There is maybe a difference of a few years between when both plot lines take place, but the main themes and ideas are shared. The issue of class, race, status, identity, sexuality, and connection are all burned in the pages. The other thing they share is the New York pace, the quickness, the whirlwind, the speed, the thrill.

In early discussions of how we wanted to put our mark on this  play, the theme of isolation and disconnection kept coming up.  There is an excerpt from BONFIRE, they captures an element these themes:

“Insulation! That was the ticket. If you want to live in New York, you’ve got to insulate yourself from these people. The cynicism and the smugness of the tide struck as very au courant. If you could go breezing down the FDR in a taxi, then why file into the trenches of the urban wars?”

Steve  had said that in many ways SIX DEGREES and BLUE SURGE share an equal fate: BLUE SURGE is about the insulation and isolation of the poor and their inability to break out of that world, and SIX DEGREES is about the same thing, only with the upper class, the rich.

A major difference I find in Tom Wolfe’s book and John Guare’s play is that Wolfe has no mercy, sympathy, admiration, doesn’t find or give many redeeming qualities in the menagerie of characters he has created. Guare, on the other hand, has tremendous love for his characters.  It is very important, as Steve said at our reading of the play, with the full glorious cast assembled, that we  like these characters. And there is the trick of the play, I think. If we as the audience, the cast, the crew, the reader, genuinely like all of these characters despite their flaws and status and attitudes, then we have succeeded in delivering the power of this piece; a very timely  piece when it first premiered as it is now.

Perhaps that is why the famous actors of the movie THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES, speak ill of the film. Wolfe passed judgement on them through his story telling, instead of leaving it to the reader to cast the stone.

Watch scenes from A Song for Coretta

Stagechannel.com has two video clips of scenes from A Song for Coretta – click the images below to watch.

In the first scene, Zora (Niccole Thurman) interviews Helen (TayLar) about her memory of Mrs. King:

click image to watch video

In scene two, Helen (TayLar) and Keisha (Kristy Johnson) have a hard time seeing eye to eye across the generation gap:

click image to watch video

Friday photo rescue

From the currently-running, Jeff-Recommended A Song for Coretta by Pearl Cleage – I promise the whole show isn’t this sad, but this moment between Keisha (Kristy Johnson, left) and Mona Lisa (Kelly Owens) is beautiful:

A Song for Coretta is Jeff Recommended!

I received an email yesterday morning from the Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee – a week after winning two awards at the 2009 ceremony, we’re already in the running for next year.

Congratulations to everyone involved!

Opening Night

Eclipse ensemble member TayLar plays Helen, giving an interview to Zora (Niccole Thurman) about her memories of Coretta Scott King, in Pearl Cleage's A Song for Coretta

The last few nights of previews for Pearl Cleage’s A Song for Coretta have been great – so great, in fact, that I haven’t been able to get a seat since Thursday. So I’ve been listening from the lobby and talking to audiences after the show as the cast and crew make the final push before the big show tonight.

It’s been a fun week – we’ve had fun and responsive audiences who have really loved the show, and we’ve had our share of weirdness and then some. In the last few days, we’ve seen a doll get accidentally beheaded on stage, an actor lose her footing in the rain, and a trolley of drunk partiers that parked just on the other side of the thin theater wall for half a show. And then there was the naked bike ride, which rolled by the front doors a few minutes after the show ended last night. I think we’ve gotten all the weirdness out of the way, though – and the show is strong and beautiful and ready to rise above whatever else pops up during the run.

Blue Surge honored with two Jeff Awards

I’ve never been all that good at tooting my own horn, and maybe that’s why I’ve been so slow to blog about the fantastic night we – and I – had on Monday. The 2009 Non-Equity Jeff Awards were held at the Park West, and two of the night’s awards went to myself (Actor in a Supporting Role) and Laura Coover (Actress in a Principal Role) from Blue Surge. The full list of nominees and winners is at www.jeffawards.org.

Jeff Award Winners Laura Coover and Nathaniel Swift in Blue Surge

I think the acceptance speeches will be posted soon at www.stagechannel.com – I’m excited to see them, since I have no idea what I actually said. I’ll tell that story when I link to the video, though.

Congratulations and thanks to all involved!

Friday photo rescue

Eccentricities of a Nightingale, from the 1999 Tennessee Williams season.

Friday photo rescue

I forgot to post a photo yesterday, but here’s an action shot from today – from about twenty minutes ago in our tech rehearsal for A Song for Coretta, here’s Sound Designer Adam Smith working on a sound cue:

Fifteen days

I’ve spent the last few days creating an Eclipse Intranet for our office staff to use (with great thanks to the fine folks at Google), and I had a moment of total disbelief when I set up a tool that counts down the days to each production. I put in the date of Opening Night for A Song for Coretta (June 14th), and it told me that that’s only 16 days away. 16 days? And that was yesterday, so now it’s telling me that we have 15 days left until the show opens. 15 days.

Wait a minute, didn’t we just have the first rehearsal? And weren’t we just in the middle of Blue Surge? And, heck, wasn’t it only yesterday that I was worried about too-short biking shorts in an obscure Tennessee Williams play?

Niccole Thurman, Ebony Wimbs, TayLar, Kelly Owens and Kristy Johnson in Pearl Cleage's A Song for Coretta

Time does have a habit of moving way too fast, especially when we’ve got a lot of great projects in the works. And fortunately not everyone is as surprised as I am – I watched a run through at rehearsal a few days ago, and the cast definitely looks ready to go. Sarah is already working tiny little moments; work that directors sometimes don’t have time to get to. Clearly she and her actors have been doing their homework and aren’t feeling the time crunch the way I am. We start loading into the theater on Monday, we have tech rehearsals next weekend, and then we’ll have audiences before we know it.

And, although I miss the great projects we were working on, there’s not a lot of time to look back. The fancy new gadget tells me that we’ve got 57 days until Six Degrees of Separation and 67 days until Plaza Suite. There’s still 169 days until Democracy, so that’s like forever away. Right?

Friday photo rescue

Candles to the Sun, from the 2008 Celebration Series Part I.

Friday photo rescue

Big Time, from the 2004 Keith Reddin season.

Friday photo rescue

The Talking Dog, from the 2002 John Guare season.

A Song for Coretta Pre-Production Photo

Hey everyone! As a production assistant for A Song for Coretta, part of my job was to set up a pre-production photo shoot. After having a lot of luck with scheduling, we were able to get the photographer, the actors, the costumer, and a few others to come and take some great photos! This one is one of our favorites. We have more photos uploaded on our Flickr site. You can find them at our flickr set. Enjoy!

Friday photo rescue

I think I’ve “rescued” this one before, but it’s still my favorite Mom photo in our archives – and not just because I’m playing the son …

From Come Blow Your Horn in the 2003 Neil Simon season, this is Cheri Chenoweth trying to give me some good motherly advice. 

From all of us here at Eclipse, a very happy Mother’s Day to Moms everywhere!

Coretta Rehearsal – Day 3

Day 3 of Rehearsal-Ownership?

We just completed the third day of rehearsal for “A Song for Coretta”

To recap Day 1 was the first read through in which we invite subscribers, ensemble members and other friends of the company to hear designer presentations and hear the actors read the script aloud together for the first time.  Day 2 was a wonderful dramaturg presentation from Katie, dramaturg and ensemble member.  She gaves the cast, management team and director insights into Pearl Cleage, Coretta Scott King, the civil rights movement, the war in the middle east, teenage pregnancy, Hurricane Katrina and other information pertinent to having a deeper understading of the world of the play.  Day 3, today, our first chance to really dive into the script.  This is really the day I, as the director, have been waiting for.  The first chance to get the actors in a room together and talking about the world of the play, the characters, what drives them, where they came from, why are they here.

I had a wonderful evening.  We have assembled a fine, beautiful cast of women ready and excited to tell the stories Cleage puts forth in her script.  We spent the evening reading through the script at a large conference table and stopping many times to discuss points in the script intertwined with our thoughts, feelings, inclinations regarding motives, intentions and using our own personal experience and knowledge to lead to new discoveries.   I am excited to continue the process tomorrow as we go through the last third of the script as over the course of this evening I was reassured that I am working with a group of incredibly intelligent, hard-working, thoughtful and inquisetive women.  Just the type that need to be in a room together to bring Cleage’s brilliant work to life.  OK, maybe I sound a bit like a marketing person at the moment, I just have to express my excitment and pleasure in bringing this piece to life and I am more than excited to continue on this journey over the course of the next few weeks!

Interview with the Jeff Nominees

Laura Coover and Nat Swift, Jeff-nominated actors in Blue Surge, sat down with ensemble member Steve Dale before the final performance to talk about their characters, their process, and the nudity:

A beautiful Song

After almost 24 hours of free time (we had our last performance of Blue Surge on Sunday), we’ve already started to work on the next project – the Chicago Premiere of Pearl Cleage’s new play A Song for Coretta.

There was a lot of energy at last night’s First Rehearsal – the cast was ready to go, we had a great turnout of subscribers and friends, and director Sarah Moeller had just had a wonderful phone conversation with Pearl Cleage, who sent her love and support to all.

There’s a lot to talk about as we start to work on this play, but what jumped out at me last night was the musicality of the play as a whole. Sarah brought together a group of actors with beautiful and distinct voices, and they quickly understood and embraced the rhythms of Pearl’s writing, and the harmonies they can create with one another. The result was a rich musical quality that rode underneath and shaped the powerful stories these five women tell throughout the play.

And this is only the first read through …

Friday photo rescue

Four Jeff-Nominated performances, from 2008/2009:

Jon Steinhagen in Plaza Suite:

Nora Fiffer in The Autumn Garden:

Nathaniel Swift in Blue Surge:

Laura Coover in Blue Surge:

Eclipse nominated for four Jeff Awards!

The nominations for this year’s Non-Equity Jeff Awards were announced this morning, and Eclipse was honored with four nominations, including myself and Laura in our current production of Blue Surge:

• Laura Coover, Actress in a Principal Role – Play (Blue Surge)
• Nathaniel Swift, Actor in a Supporting Role – Play (Blue Surge)
• Jon Steinhagen, Actor in a Supporting Role – Play (Plaza Suite)
• Nora Fiffer, Actress in a Supporting Role – Play (The Autumn Garden)

Congratulations to all the nominees!

There’s still one weekend left to catch the now Jeff-Nominated show – tickets are available online here.

Friday photo rescue

Brutality of Fact, from the 2004 Keith Reddin season.

Returning to Pearl

We still have two weeks left in our run of Rebecca Gilman’s Blue Surge (and there are some tickets left!), but we’re already starting to get excited about revisiting 2007 featured playwright Pearl Cleage.

In less than two weeks, we’ll begin rehearsals for A Song for Coretta, a beautiful play about five women who gather in the rain outside the Ebenezer Baptist Church to pay their respects for the late Coretta Scott King. As each woman shares her reasons for being here, Pearl Cleage explores the impact that Mrs. King had on their lives, and the connections that they build with one another through her memory and legacy.

The rehearsal process begins with an Open First Rehearsal – a unique, behind-the-scenes that includes a few words from Artistic Director Nathaniel Swift (that’s me) and Director Sarah Moeller, presentations from the technical design team, and the cast’s first read-through of the script. This is a free event, and a great opportunity to meet the artists and hear their ideas.

Here are the details – I hope you can join us and help us kick off this journey!

A SONG FOR CORETTA
Open First Rehearsal
Monday, May 4th at 7:00 pm
Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N Lincoln
Cost: Free
For more information or to reserve seats, please call 773.325.9655

Friday photo rescue

Late Bus to Mecca, from the 2007 Pearl Cleage season.

Friday photo rescue

Suddenly Last Summer, from the 1999 Tennessee Williams season.

Friday photo rescue

Sorry I’m late – I’ve started adding photos taken by our lighting designer, Seth Reinick, to our Flickr set. It’s taking longer than I expected (the man takes a lot of pictures), but it’s well worth the time – from the first batch, here’s Kevin and I arguing about who screwed up the massage parlor raid in Blue Surge:

Live blogging from backstage

2:04 – I just arrived at the theater a few minutes ago. We’re sold out and then some today, so I need to keep the producer hat on for a few more minutes. Warmups, notes and fight call start in six minutes – I’ll be back soon.

2:28 – The box office chaos is (mostly) under control, I’ve had a chance to practice getting punched in the face, and now I’m off to make sure my props and costumes are set where I’ll need them to be during the show. The first things I need, for a quick change after my first scene: socks, underwear and a gun. It’s a fun show …

2:42 – The house is open – I can hear only a few people out there right now, but we’re waiting on the group from MSU, so it’ll get a lot louder any minute. I just finished my warmups – pushups, situps, and some stretching, and now I just wait for the house lights to dim.

2:51 – Yeah, it just got a lot louder out there. I hope everybody got a seat.

2:57 – We’re holding for five minutes. I guess they’re trying to find seats for everyone. “Holding” is the right word for us as we’re backstage – we’re ready to start the show, and now we need to keep that energy and focus as we wait. Which means I probably shouldn’t be blogging right now, but what the heck.

3:00 – I just overheard the organizer of the MSU group tell her students that there’s no photography allowed during the show. Considering my first costume, I appreciate that.

3:10 – We’re off and running, a few minutes late. I’m not in the first scene, so I still have a few minutes to let my jittery nerves run their course. I think I’ll pace around the dressing room.

3:29 – Finished the nude scene and the first quick change. We’re in scene three now. The show’s going well, and this audience is giving us a lot of energy. Days like this are a lot of fun.

3:33 – I was just backstage waiting to do the set change after scene three. At the end of that scene, Curt tells his girlfriend not to be jealous of the prostitute he tried to arrest in the first scene. “It was just work,” he says. “I can’t even remember what she looked like.” From somewhere in the audience, as the lights were going down, we could hear someone say “Yeah, right.” Yeah, it’s going to be a fun day …

3:57 – Just did the fight scene. The package claims that the blood packs I use are “pleasant-tasting.” The package lies.

4:09 – Intermission. Lots of energy and noise from out in the house. I wonder if they know – Michigan State just beat Louisville 64-52. They’ll play Connecticut next week in the Final Four.

4:26 – This is probably the last time I have enough of a break to blog until the end of the show. This play moves fast, especially act two, and I need to stay focused so I don’t miss an entrance. I’ll be back if I can.

4:46 – My work here is done. Just waiting for the curtain call now. And the post-show discussion, which I’m really looking forward to. Kevin and Laura are in the final, heartbreaking scene on stage right now. It sounds like it’s hitting well – a great finish to a strong show.

Live blogging from backstage on Sunday

I guess technically I’m live blogging right now (we’re in act two, scene three of Blue Surge right now, and I have about five minutes before I’m back on stage), but this is just a quick post to say that I’ll be blogging throughout the show from backstage this Sunday. The show starts at 3:00 pm. Stop by the blog between 3-5pm to ask me what things are like in the dressing room …

Talking about the play

We have our first of many post-show discussions coming up after Sunday’s show, and we’re kicking it off with a group that I’m really looking forward to talking to – joining us for Sunday’s performance is a group of students from Michigan State (which means they’ll probably be checking NCAA tournament scores on their phones during intermission) who are in a program called MRULE – Multi-Racial Unity Living Experience. According to their website, the group encourages students to “contribute to positive race relations” by providing a community and forum for discussion:

Through open and frank discussions on controversial issues, informative presentations, interactive exercises and a variety of experiences that encourage the development of genuine friendships, students create and cultivate the experience of multiracial unity.

This makes us, I suppose, an “informative presentation,” but I’m looking forward to being informed by the students.

Blue Surge is a story about class, wealth and identity – in my mind, it’s about the way we see ourselves in the context of our own background, and the way that sense of identity can limit or destroy us if we allow it to. It’s not a play about race (it takes place in a small midwesten city, and all five actors in our production, myself included, are white), because the issues it digs into are not specific to any particular skin color or heritage.

That being said, I think it’s naive to think that class and race are unrelated - especially in America, with our long national history of intertwined -isms and the cultural identity issues that come with that history. So more than anything else, I’m excited to listen to the students from MSU tell me what this play is about – and I’m guessing that many will see it in a different light than I do.

This Sunday’s show is already sold out, but we’ll have discussions after all of the Sunday matinees through the run except the final performance on May 3rd. I’m excited about this week’s discussion now, but each week will bring a new group of people with a new way of thinking about the ideas Rebecca Gilman has given us to kick around. Join us if you can – the matinees begin at 3pm, and the discussion starts at about 5pm after the show ends (and yes, feel free to join us for the discussion even if you’re not seeing the play that day). There’s a link to buy tickets on your right …

Friday photo rescue

The Infernal Machine, from the 1997/98 Jean Cocteau season.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the nudity

This past Sunday, we ran the show for the first time with full costumes – which, for me, included full lack of costumes. My character, Doug, is an undercover cop who arrests a prostitute early in Blue Surge. To keep his cover, he strips completely when he asks for a “massage.”

This is a first for me, and not something I really thought I’d ever do. But I love this show, and I love playing Doug, and the story just doesn’t go forward if he doesn’t make the arrest. And that means the play doesn’t go forward if I don’t get naked.

So, for the last five weeks in rehearsals, I’ve been getting ready. I’ve had a lot of help from the cast and crew, who have been supportive and professional (and yes, cracking immature jokes, but that’s part of the process too). Sasha Gioppo, who plays Heather and shares the stage with me (and has slightly more of a costume than I do, but not much), has been particularly fantastic. I know it’s a weird experience for her too, and I hope she feels as comfortable with it as she’s helped me feel.

Last night, performing in front of an audience for the first time, I realized that – for me at least – there’s no such thing as being “ready.” It feels weird if I slow down enough to think about it, and it will probably keep feeling weird until the last show on May 3rd, but it also feels exhilarating and liberating. It’s a quick, active scene at the beginning of the play, and there’s not much time on stage to think about that weirdness (there’s plenty of time for that before and after the show, of course).

Instead of feeling uncomfortable during the scene, I’ve found myself feeling more free – since I would never ever get naked in public, I have no choice but to let the character of Doug take over. He, of course, is totally fine with it. So while I’m on stage, I feel like I am Doug in a way that I’ve never really felt before – I have no inhibitions, no doubts, and none of the usual voices in my head that analyze my performance while I’m in the midst of it. Simply put, it’s not me on stage. It can’t possibly be me. It’s Doug, and I can trust him to be himself and get me through the scene. And if things are going well, as they were last night, that feeling carries over through the rest of the play. So in an odd way, this is actually making me feel more comfortable as an actor than I’ve ever been.

So now I can cross this off my list of things to do before I die. And now that I’ve done it in front of a packed house (a nice surprise for a Dress Rehearsal), why not do it again?

Friday photo rescue

I’m adding Scott Cooper’s fantastic new photos of our current production, Blue Surge, to our Flickr set now – here’s Sandy and Curt (Laura Coover and Kevin Scott) playing darts:

Watch scenes from Blue Surge

Two short clips from Rebecca Gilman’s Blue Surge are now up on The Stage Channel, and you can watch them both right here on the blog:

In the first clip, Curt and Sandy (Kevin Scott and Laura Coover) discuss the down side of community college:

Click on the image to watch video

In the second, Curt describes the undercover operation at the “massage parlor” to his girlfriend, Beth (Kerry Richlan):

Click on the image to watch video

Taking a punch

I shared a video a few weeks ago of Kevin and I (playing Curt and Doug in Blue Surge) running a fight scene in an early rehearsal. At the time, we hadn’t worked with our fight choreographer, ensemble member Thomas Jones. Kevin and I did spend a few minutes figuring out what we were going to do, and it worked out pretty well.

A few weeks later, we had reblocked the scene, memorized our lines, and choreographed a punch, a fall, and a couple of smacks with a newspaper. Take a look below:

Jim Cramer & Jon Stewart

Last night was the final rehearsal before we move into our home at the Greenhouse. The mania and fun that is Tech week is now upon us, and it’s odd to think that so much time has passed since the very first read through.

So, like most nights after rehearsal, I get home and  wind down; I am so amped up during rehearsals, I need a good hour to relax and come down. I usually pop on The Daily Show after I have returned e-mails and gotten some business done. If any of you who are reading this have not seen Thursday night’s episode, watch it NOW!

I will provide the basic gist of the episode: Jon Stewart had been all week and last tarnishing and slamming CNBC for their lack of reporting and possible negligence and complacency in this whole market trouble. So, enter Jim Cramer of Mad Money, to be the kind of buffer for the network and Jon’s jabs at their failures. This is a great interview and speaks to what I think most Americans are feeling  right now: anger, confusion, completely baffled and a sense of betrayal.

Blue Surge is a brave piece of writing that is deeply relevant for our times right now, and I imagine will remain a powerful piece of writing  and theatre about the present state of The American Dream. And, all of these elements that I listed above, anger, confusion, bafflement, betrayed, and frustration are all apart of this piece.  There is an almost eerie echo going on in this play. All week, with what the headlines have been blowing up, and what we are doing in rehearsals this is coming so much closer to home. And that is exciting! That is what is amazing. Rebecca Gilman has written something that is almost ten years old and speaks to our present moment loud and clear and with such depth, intelligence and concern and love for the people that this crisis and event is really slamming.  There is something wonderful, humbling, and honoring in producing a play that speaks for people and understands that sometimes the choices are not many, that sometimes you are left with two options.

There is a touching anger throughout Blue Surge . I know that that seems like an oxymoron, but there is something moving about an emotion, be it sadness, joy, desperation, etc.. that everyone universally feels. Who among us can deny that there is an element of  universal anger in all of us at what is going on. There is unity in that, and in being apart of this play, hearing the words and seeing this cast really grab hold of these characters and their predicaments with such grace, truth, and thunder, this play has spoken to many of my concerns of what is going on right now in this country. That is something remarkable.

So, here is the assignment: Watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the march 12th episode and come out and see Blue Surge.

An interview with Sasha Gioppo

Stephen Dale, one of our fantastic new ensemble members, has been sitting down with the cast and crew of Blue Surge to talk about the show, the rehearsal process, and whatever else happens to come up when you put creative people in front of a digital video camera. We’ll be posting more interviews with actors and designers as the show rolls along – the first is Sasha Gioppo, who plays Heather in Blue Surge – watch the video below:

Friday photo rescue

We’ve been working on a series of video interviews and rehearsal scenes that we’ll start posting today, and I’ve got a lot of writing to catch up on as we head into tech rehearsals this weekend, but for now – it’s Friday, and that means our regular weekly look back …

This is Spinning into Butter, from the 2006 Rebecca Gilman season.

Playbill is reporting that the film version, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, is scheduled to open March 27 in select cities.

Friday photo rescue

Plaza Suite by Neil Simon, from the 2008 Celebration Series Part I:

This picture comes courtesy of lighting designer Seth Reinick, who was nice enough to let me add his photos to our Flickr set. Seth is with us again now, designing lights for Rebecca Gilman’s Blue Surge. Which means we’ll have lots of great pictures…

Friday photo rescue

Blues for an Alabama Sky, from the 2007 Pearl Cleage season.

This is from a tech rehearsal – that’s director Steven Fedoruk in the foreground, giving notes to TayLar and Alfred Kemp on stage. I designed the lights for this show, and I was as suprised as anyone by the way TayLar’s robe catches the blues and purples here.

2010: a new odyssey

It doesn’t seem that long ago that 2010 was the stuff of sci-fi fantasy stories; a year when cars would fly, robots would live among us, and we would make contact with a giant baby floating through space. Or something like that.

And yet there it is, sitting just over the horizon in the very real and non-fantasy way the immediate future always sits there. Maybe we will have flying cars and indestructible cyborgs in the next nine months, but it’s probably more realistic to assume that next year will be mostly like this one, and get to the work of planning what we’ll do then.

For us, that means choosing a new playwright. After a two-year celebration of our mission statement, we’re ready to dig back in to a full year-long exploration of a single storyteller. And although 2010 still feels a long way off, it’s getting closer every day, and we’re well on our way through the process of finding the next artistic voice to embrace.

The process started months ago, when we formed a five-person Artistic Committee within the ensemble and started reading. A lot. We had a list of over a dozen playwrights to consider – recommendations from ensemble and board members, subscribers, friends and playwrights (and yes, many of those groups overlap). The committee spent months reading plays by everyone on the list, discussed, argued, and narrowed the list to four. There are a lot of things to think about as we decide which writers to include on this list, but in the end it comes down to a search for stories that we feel a connection to – stories that we feel we need to tell.

The first public part of this process is only a couple of weeks away: we’ll be performing scenes from the four playwrights at the Total Eclipse Benefit on Sunday, March 8th (and yes, tickets are still available). We’ll be looking for feedback from the audience there, and we’d love to hear your thoughts here as well. Here’s the lineup for the Total Eclipse performance:

The Lonesome West by Martin McDonagh
Broken Glass by Arthur Miller
The Action Against Sol Schumann by Jeffrey Sweet
The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek by Naomi Wallace

Field Trip

Rehearsals have been remarkable! As I have posted before, this is my first time being on the other side of the table, the first time I have sat through the gruelling decisions steeped in auditions, call backs and now rehearsals; helping guide the vision of the playwright. It’s quite the change for me, and there are times watching this company of players, where I am so invested in what they are doing, I want to leap up on the stage and work with them as an actor. I wonder how actor/directors are able to do that? It’s something that I am continuing to look into, as directing becomes more and more a challenge I am interested and frightened to take. These are very gifted artist’s and watching them discover new elements in themselves, the script and the world we have made together is that of watching  an orchid fully bloom. It is quite simply astonishing.

Last night’s rehearsal was no different.  In applying our mission to every show we produce, every actor really becomes aware of language and how the emotional truth is set for us in trusting what the text provides us with. Last night , some amazing choices were made due to  trusting what Rebecca Gilman has written.  Now, there is always something we actors do that helps us grasp a deeper understanding of what these characters experience and that is investigation of behaviour that may or may not be a part of who we are as  individuals. So, we took an inspired Field Trip to the Admiral Club to further our understanding of what these two girls, Sandy & Heather go through on a daily basis, being hookers.

Now this is not to say that the ladies who work the stage of the Admiral Club are to be equated with prostitution, but the sense of a “Fantasy” world, a surreal existence in which women strip to Full Monty and bump up and down among the men in the audience and for money can be safely accessed.

 The Admiral is unlike many strip clubs. It’s furnished like a grand cabaret theatre of the fifties, very posh decor, mood lighting, and “body guards” surrounding the place dressed to the nines. There is an element of privilege almost. Everyone is cordial and welcoming and yet the clientele are as varied as college frat boys, businessmen, you’re Joe Six-Packs, and the group of us actors doing research on this Field Trip.

Throughout the house there are ladies clad in their stockings and such, offering up and giving lap dances. Every now and again we saw one of these dames taking her customer to a back room area, and there is a performer on the stage. There is a lot of action going on and all of it is flirtation. We had two lovely ladies, Natalie and Valarie, approach us and start up some friendly conversation. A bit flirtatious. A bit provocative. A bit interested. And then, you’re hit with the bottom line: How would you like a dance?

There are two scenes in the play that go through this exact break down. A little friendly chit-chat to warm up the customer and then pleasantly, dropping all guard and dropping the act, getting to the point: So, what do you want to do?

Both of these girls were very good at their work. Both times they spoke directly to Sasha & Laura, while having some kind of direct physical contact with me, but not looking at me or speaking to me. There was the occasional smile and checking in on me, but there wasn’t any inclusion. Not until both Sasha and Laura turned down the offer of a dance, then I was all they wanted. And why not? My red hair is gorgeous, and red heads are a dying breed so this just very well may be the last Chance that Natalie and Valarie have to give a lap dance to a dapper little gent with red hair like myself.

All of it though was brilliantly exercised. There is the approach to the two people who don’t pose a threat, and who are easier to talk to. Follow all of that with the direct approach to me. All of it is a build up to courting us and to make us feel comfortable with the fact that a more than half-naked woman is standing before us, and then in a moment will be completely fully nude.

We were wondering, when they were on stage what they think about? Grocery listing, their day tomorrow, politics, what shade of green works best? This was a genuine interest. What does one think about when performing like this, knowing that a room of people are watching with dirty thoughts, clean thoughts, maybe one of the guys in that audience has a vision of falling in love with one of these strippers, and he saves her from this life of exploitation and they run off into the snow covered streets of Chicago, hand in hand together for always?

No insight was given on this, except for Valarie. She had asked us how we all knew each other, was this our first time to a strip club, what did we do, etc..?

“We are actually doing a show together.” “Really!? What kind of show?” ” A Play. Theatre.” “Do you guys ever do comedy?” ” Sometimes.” ” I do comedy too.” 

This  piqued our interest; was it possible that this could be one of our very own thespians? A member of the club?

“You do? Where?” “Here.” “You must have a lot of fun with it.” “Oh yeah. I get to mess around with people’s heads. It’s lots of fun. How do you feel about a dance?”

Right when we thought we had a connection, the bottom line smacks you bacross the face. At least she had a great sense of humor.

Friday photo rescue

Landscape of the Body, from the 2002 John Guare season. Kerry Richlan (left) is currently playing Beth in Blue Surge. Anish Jethmalani (right) is currently directing Blue Surge. The dress (right) is currently in between gigs, but hopefully we’ll see it on stage again someday. 

Kerry Richlan and Anish Jethmalani in Landscape of the Body

The American Dream

The phrase “the American Dream” is part of the show description of Blue Surge on our website.  So, as I’m looking around for inspiration for the dramaturgically driven lobby display, what do I do, I turn to google…..I mean isn’t that where we all turn when we are looking for inspiration?  Either google or facebook, one of the two will surely have the answer.

I divert, back to the story, I googled the American Dream and thought I should share some of my results.

There is actually a Wikipedia article regarding “The American Dream” the classic story of “life, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness”…..the opporutunity to make choices without the restrictions of race, class, color or creed.

I also got the lyrics to Lil’ Wayne’s song “The American Dream” which include:

Mr.Mike Tyson flow,uppercut all yawl
step into my ring bitches,ding ding bitches
click clack pow pow ping ping bitches
im the Dream machine i mean keen vision

fuckin right imma monster

Which if I’m interpreting correctly, I think describe a different American Dream….I’ll let you link to the lyrics to interpret for  yourself.

There is also the American Dream Downpayment Initiative.

And….the newest addition to the story about the American Dream

“We have begun the essential work of keeping the American dream alive in our time,” he [Obama] said, before affixing his signature to the $787 billion stimulus bill passed by Congress on Friday.

So it leads me to no actual conclusion……What is the American Dream?

The Sound of the Serge

There is one scene in which Duke Ellington’s poetic, heartbreaking, & illuminating “Blue Serge” is played and talked about. If you haven’t heard this particular tune, or any of Ellington’s music, run to your nearest itunes provider and get some. Music has always played a very vibrant, essential role in my work, my life and my art…. that sounds cheesy! But, it is true. The music of the 30’s & 40’s captures the themes and events of that time so devastatingly; songs with lyrics & without. Some of my personal favorites have been Johnny Mercer, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, to name a few. This is also true of the sound of the fury that was the 60’s & 70’s; the show also mentions some great classic rock icons.

I find that when I am working on any show, the music of that show is a major source of inspiration, imagination, and emotionality. Sometimes the music that helps me the most is not of the era the show may or may not be placed in. Luckily with Blue Serge  we are in the present and so the music that has come to me and has helped me has been really interesting.

There have been the obvious choices, I feel, given what the story of Blue Sergeis : Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, a little Ani DiFranco. But the biggest surprise for me has been the desire and the effect of the haunting Nina Simone. Songs like  “Feeling Good”, “Wild is the Wind”, “Four Women” she even has a wonderfully deranged version of Weill’s “Pirate Jenny”, all have this quality of solitude, weariness, brutal honesty and a Delicious sense of irony, that are all very much alive and well in the world of our show.

Music, like any kind of performance art, is a beast that holds nothing back. To hear Nina sing a love song  about being together forever, the flowers, the birds, there is always that sense of doubt in her voice. It is a voice that forces you to look and hear beyond the words written, and let the interpretation take hold and float away. And all we have to do is float along and see where the ride takes us.

Total Eclipse 2009

It’s only a few weeks now until our big annual benefit, Total Eclipse 2009. The party this year will be at Rockit Bar & Grill (22 W Hubbard), with performances from ensemble members, silent and live auctions, a 50/50 raffle, and the first annual Eclipse Corona Award (the link is there to explain the reason for the name – hint: it’s not the beer), presented to Jane Alderman.

I’ll write more soon about the great new venue we’ll be partying at, the performances we’ll be presenting (samples from the playwrights we’re considering for the 2010 season) and Jane’s impact on Eclipse’s growth in the early days. If you’re already excited, though, you can get your tickets now …

Leaping into the hole

So, this is the first time I have ever done this as myself, JP, that is. An alter ego of mine wrote during Plaza Suite: Wally the bellhop.

This is my first outing with assistant Directing and the thought was at once thrilling and somewhat terrifying. What was expected of me? What will I be taking charge of, if anything? What if Anish doesn’t like my cologne? What if the actors thought I was trying to conduct my own little casting couch on the sly?

In all seriousness though, I was nervous because I didn’t know what I was doing. It was a challenge that I had not attempted since school. I am very happy to report that this has been a great experience so far. This is very much a collaboration of some wonderful artists bringing forth all their ideas and points of view. It’s the processing, assessing and seeing what works and doesn’t that proves to be the challenge. Thankfully with this imaginative cast and under the leadership of Anish things are falling into place beautifully.

Blue Surge is a very timely story, perhaps more so than when it first premiered almost ten years ago here in Chicago. There is a story of struggle and a feeling of helplessness that this country is facing right now. A sense of “I’m not sure what to do. I feel stuck.” I don’t know where to go, or how to really fix it.” This is a part of what our story is about. This confusion and frustration when feeling stuck in a hole and there is no one to help.

Thankfully a bunch of people have leaped into the hole and a few know the way out.

Watch a scene from Blue Surge rehearsals

We’re just over a week into rehearsals for Blue Surge, and last night we ran through all of act one twice. We’re all still carrying scripts and exploring choices at this point in the process, and there’s still a long way to go before we open, but things are starting to take shape.

In the clip below, Kevin Scott (Curt) and I (Doug) are discussing our relationships with the prostitutes we failed to arrest:

This is a great part of the rehearsal process – we’re starting to get comfortable with the characters, we’re starting to remember our lines and our blocking, and there’s a lot of time to play.

Friday photo rescue

Big Time, from the 2004 Keith Reddin season.

The “Are you a cop?” defense

My favorite bit of dramaturgical research so far – according to urban legend debunker snopes.com, it is not actually true that an undercover cop has to answer honestly when asked “Are you a cop?”

Yeah, it seemed like that would be a dumb rule.

Blue Surge Dramaturgy is here

We just finished posting all of Sarah’s dramaturgical research for Blue Surge. The permanent link is over on the right sidebar.

We’ll probably add some more information and links, and we’ll point out some highlights in posts as we go along, but jump in and browse away …

Meet some new friends

As we start the new season, we’re also welcoming seven new artists into the Eclipse ensemble. They’ve all been working with us over the last few years, and we’re really lucky to have each one of them in our family.

We’ll be posting photos, bios and interviews of each new ensemble member over the coming months (and maybe some of us old folks, too, while we’re at it), so you can get to know all of us. For now, you can get a sneak peek at Eclipse’s newest faces by clicking “read more” ….

Friday photo rescue

From the brand spankin’ new Blue Surge set on Flickr, here’s me and Kevin (Doug and Curt in the play) cooling our heels in the alley, waiting for the Captain to give the signal to start an undercover operation.

 

Nathaniel Swift and Kevin Scott in Blue Surge

Blue Surge rehearsals

Laura Coover and Kevin Scott in Blue Surge

This past Monday night at the Greenhouse Theater, the cast and crew of Blue Surge got together for the first time to kick around ideas and read the script out loud. With a small audience in the upstairs studio theater that included a few subscribers, friends, and playwright Rebecca Gilman, we got our first taste of the journey we’ll be taking over the next few months.

We read this play out loud for the first time in 2005, in an ensemble member’s living room, as we were planning the 2006 Rebecca Gilman season. We read it again in 2006, as part of the Playwright Scholar Series. We read a scene from the play at our Total Eclipse Benefit last year.

Clearly, something about this play has been calling us.

A look back at 2008

At our first ensemble meeting of the new year, one of the agenda items was to look back at the 2008 season and talk about how we did – what worked, what didn’t, what lessons to take into the second half of the Celebration Series.

We weren’t sure what to expect as we started the Celebration Series in 2008 – this would the first time in ten years that we had produced a season with more than one playwright, and there was some concern about the “departure” from our mission statement. The idea of celebrating our unique relationship with all of our featured playwrights gave us some pretty spectacular gifts in 2008, though:

Bubba Weiler, CeCe Klinger and Stephen Dale in Candles to the Sun

In the spring, we got a truly unique opportunity: to be the first professional theatre company – ever – to produce a play written by a young college student named Tom in the mid-1930s. Candles to the Sun disappeared for over almost years, but Tom became a legend in American theatre. This was the perfect (and unexpected) beginning of our journey through the Celebration Series – the chance to reconnect with our roots by exploring the roots of the playwright who brought us all together.

Cheri Chenoweth and Jon Steinhagen in Plaza Suite

In the summer, we dove headlong into silliness with a return to the world of Neil Simon. We had consciously avoided the most well-known comedies when we featured Simon in 2003, and we all had a blast discovering what we had been missing - mugging our way through the three stories in Plaza Suite, each one more absurdly funny than the last (and we will get to take one more swing at them; the Chicago Park District has invited us to remount Plaza Suite as part of their 2009 Theater on the Lake lineup). As in 2003, though, it was Simon’s suprisingly compassionate and tragic characters who stuck with us after the laughs died down.

John Fenner Mays and Nora Fiffer in The Autumn Garden

The fall gave us a chance to make up for a missed opportunity – in 1999, we all fell in love with The Autumn Garden, and we all decided we were simply too young to do justice to the mature stories Hellman mixes together in this complicated script. It’s been an itch waiting to be scratched for almost ten years, and a pleasure to finally get back to it.

Along the way, we also dipped our toes in the immense waters of Jean Cocteau’s career, and spent an afternoon with Lanford Wilson’s fictional family, the Talleys. We dug up pictures from old seasons, we found the old dramaturgy binders, and mostly we had fun rediscovering why we had so much fun with these writers the first time around.

On Monday, we start a new journey – the second year of the Celebration Series, and a return to our 2006 featured playwright, Rebecca Gilman. We presented Blue Surge as a staged reading in 2006, but decided not to include it in our season. But this one has been itching at us too, and we’ll have the next three months or so to scratch that itch.

Friday photo rescue

Frame 312, from the 2004 Keith Reddin season.

Friday photo rescue

So clearly my momentum on the blog ebbs and flows – I’m hoping that this is the beginning of the rising tide, as we head into the new season …

The Talking Dog, from the 2002 John Guare season.

Friday photo rescue

Bourbon at the Border, from the 2007 Pearl Cleage season.

Friday photo rescue

A little quality family time: Come Blow Your Horn, from the 2003 Neil Simon season.

I hope your Thanksgiving was a happy one, filled with family and friends and food.

Friday photo rescue

A Woman Without a Name, from the 2001 Romulus Linney season.

The Autumn Garden: a story in images

In the last two days, I’ve written posts about video scenes from the show and an audio interview with me, so I thought I’d continue the media trend this morning by sharing some of the wonderful photographs we have to help us tell the story of The Autumn Garden.

Chuck Spencer and Millie Hurley in The Autumn Garden

Our photographer Scott Cooper, who has a beautiful post about our show on his blog Archetype Images, took all the images you see here (and all the images in our Flickr slide show).

Stephen Dale, Julie Partyka and Judith Hoppe in The Autumn Garden

The photos we use are primarily for the press – ideally, we like to give them five or six good photos for them to use in print and online with reviews and articles. They need to showcase the actors, engage the audience, and tell a story.

Scott knows this script well, and he was able to join us for a rehearsal to watch a run through and get to know the actors. He had clear ideas of the moments he wanted to capture and the stories he wanted to tell.

Millie Hurley, Julie Daley and John Fenner Mays in The Autumn Garden

Watch scenes from The Autumn Garden

click image to watch video

The sleek, newly redesigned STAGE Channel has two video clips of scenes from The Autumn Garden – click on the image above to watch Ned Crossman and General Griggs examine their lives, or the image below to watch Nick Denery try to convince Constance Tuckerman to pose for a new portrait.

click image to watch video

A conversation with the director

If you haven’t discovered Theatre in Chicago’s podcast interviews, you’ve missed a lot of great conversations with Chicago’s best artists. And now’s a great time to discover them – I sat down for my first interview last week, and it was posted yesterday.

It’s a 30 minute or so conversation that wanders around through our current Jeff Recommended production of The Autumn Garden, the upcoming second half of our Celebration Series, Eclipse’s elaborate and chaotic process of choosing a playwright for the season, and how the fact that the theater burnt down in my first show with Eclipse convinced me that this was the theatre company for me.

Friday photo rescue

Another Part of the Forest, from the 2000 Lillian Hellman season.

Friday photo rescue

Women and Water, from the 2002 John Guare season.

Autumn Garden Previews start Wednesday

We have a full run through tonight – our final rehearsal before the actors move in to the Greenhouse Theater this weekend. We’ve been working and running each act individually over the last few nights, and I’m looking forward to putting the pieces back together again tonight.

The Autumn Garden is filled with stories that weave in and out and over one another, and each story is thick with detail and truth.

Nora Fiffer and Stephen Dale in The Autumn Garden

The young adopted niece from German-occupied France longs to return home but accepts an arranged marriage with a wealthy young gay man who needs to marry to retain his family’s social standing. The veteran of two World Wars rallies his energy for one final battle for his own personal freedom while his childish wife fights to keep her world from collapsing. The struggling owner of a summer resort, one short generation removed from the wealth and status of her family’s past, searches for answers to her life’s emptiness in the opportunity she missed when the man she loved left twenty years ago. Or the other side of that story: the self-centered artist who returns to his childhood home to insinuate himself into the lives of the people he left twenty years ago …

And this only scratches the surface – the brilliance of this script is the richness of each individual story and the beauty of the whole.

We have preview performances next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – tickets are only $5 for industry folks (which includes blog readers; just ask the box office for the “industry” discount when you call them at 773-404-7336). The previews are our last opportunities to explore and play with these stories and make sure they’re all being told clearly, so we’d love to hear what you think as we get ready for Opening Night next Saturday.

Voting Day

Don’t forget to vote today – if you’re in or around Chicago, you can find your polling place and lots of other information here.

From Candles to the Sun, here’s a little politics Tennessee Williams style -

Coal miners discuss creating a union to fight the owners of their mining town.

Friday photo rescue

Brutality of Fact, from the 2004 Keith Reddin season.

Ten years older

In 2000, Eclipse Theatre Company chose Lillian Hellman as our featured playwright. We explored the roots of the Hubbard family in Another Part of the Forest, Hellman’s political voice in Watch on the Rhine, and her adaptation of Jean Anouilh’s The Lark.

The Autumn Garden was, of course, on the short list of plays under consideration that season. It was a script that many of us felt a strong connection to, and one that I felt a strong itch to direct. But I knew I wasn’t ready to tell the stories of mature relationships and self-reflection that Hellman weaves together in this beautiful play. I wasn’t the only one: I remember a few ensemble members saying that it would be a great choice – if only we were ten years older.

And now here we are, almost ten years later, with the opportunity to continue our journey with Lillian Hellman. We’re all a little older, a little more mature, and a little more ready to tell this story.

Friday photo rescue

Another Part of the Forest, from the 2000 Lillian Hellman season.

Browse the dramaturgical research

I’m almost done uploading all of the dramaturgical research for The Autumn Garden – from the Pompano fish that Constance offers to prepare for Nick, to the heavy Isotta that Crossman drives through Pass Christian, it’s all here (or will be soon). This is the information that Sarah put together for the cast and crew to help us fully imagine the world these characters inhabit. It’s here on the blog (the permanent link is over on the right) for us – and for you – to browse through anytime.

Planting a garden

Throughout the first two weeks of rehearsals for The Autumn Garden, we’ve been working mostly on the blocking – figuring out how all twelve actors move around the set and what the overall shape of the play looks like. In the last few days we’ve started going back through the script, asking questions and talking about the characters.

Every line of Hellman’s text is packed with clues about what’s happened in the past and what’s happening offstage; now we have the fun job of finding all those clues and figuring out what they mean.

The main action of The Autumn Garden is the return of Nick Denery to the Gulf Coast home where he spent his summers as a young man. The script tells us that he shared those summers in the past with at least three of the characters in the show (Constance Tuckerman, Ned Crossman and Carrie Ellis), and that he hasn’t seen any of them since he left suddenly twenty-three years ago.

The play doesn’t tell us exactly what those relationships were like in the past or what’s been happening in the meantime, but Hellman does drop hints. One quick example:

When Nick first sees Carrie, he says that he didn’t expect to see her at the summer house and asks her “how come?” Those two words have opened the door to a conversation that’s lasted for over a week in rehearsals and may keep going until we open. Because of that question, we’ve dug into Carrie’s relationship with her wealthy mother-in-law (Mrs. Ellis), her twenty-five year old son (Frederick), and her long-absent and never mentioned husband. If Nick is surprised by Carrie’s presence here, he must know something about what was happening in Carrie’s life when he left twenty-three years ago. Once we started doing the math, a number of interesting possibilities started to emerge, and we’re deciding now which possibilities match up with other clues in the script.

Throughout this part of the rehearsal process we’re going through every page looking for these clues, and making decisions about what those clues mean to us.

I’ll try to mostly stay away from the obvious metaphors, but this really is like planting a garden – we can see the places where something will grow, we plant an idea or a question, we nurture it through rehearsals, and we hope it will grow and bloom into something beautiful and useful. I don’t know exactly what these seeds are at this point, and I don’t know what they will become, but I do know that they will become a part of the rich garden of characters and stories that Hellman first planted almost sixty years ago.

Friday blog rescue

Yes, it’s a little more urgent this morning than the usual photo, but I’ll start with that: this is from our upcoming production of Lillian Hellman’s The Autumn Garden.

Chuck Spencer and Millie Hurley in The Autumn Garden

We’ve been in rehearsals for two weeks now, and it’s been months since my last visit to the blogosphere. I’m adding the dramaturgical research for The Autumn Garden and hoping to get back into the swing of regular posts, videos and photos in the coming days.

There’s a richness to this script that runs deeper than almost any play I’ve worked on – even the Hellman productions in 2000, which were filled with complex characters and intricate plots. As we’ve been exploring The Autumn Garden, we’ve found that every line gives a hint about the history and off-stage lives of the twelve characters who collide in a summer resort on the Gulf Coast in 1949.

We’re asking questions and filling in details now, and I’ll be back soon with updates from the process.

Friday photo rescue

2, from the 2001 Romulus Linney season.

Friday photo rescue

Come Blow Your Horn, from the 2003 Neil Simon season.

Getting Hitched at the Plaza

Notable Weddings and Receptions of the 1960’s at the Plaza Hotel:

Patricia Kennedy and Peter Lawford – April 24, 1954 Wedding (pictured below).

Jean Kennedy and Stephen Smith – 1956 Reception at the Plaza.

Singers Robert Goulet and Carol Lawrence – Aug. 12, 1963 in State Suite.

Julie Nixon and David Eisenhower – 1968 Reception (along with 6 other receptions that day).

Friday photo rescue

Days to Come, from the 2005 Lanford Wilson season.

Friday photo rescue

Spinning into Butter, from the 2006 Rebecca Gilman season.

Theater Thursday

The League of Chicago Theatres is joining us for a Theater Thursday event tonight – in true Plaza style, we’ll have tea service before the show, and a discussion and backstage tour after. Tickets are still available – here’s the details:

Plaza Suite by Neil Simon
Eclipse Theatre Company
At the Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theater
2257 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago

Join the cast and crew of Plaza Suite for afternoon tea at the Plaza before the show! Enjoy full tea service, including a selection of premium teas, scones and preserves. After the show, you’ll also be invited to a discussion with the artists and a private backstage tour. One of Neil Simon’s most popular and celebrated comedies, Plaza Suite details the misadventures of three very different couples – all in the same room at the world famous Plaza Hotel.

Event begins at 6:30 p.m.
Show begins at 8:00 p.m.
Tickets: $35
For reservations, call 773-871-3000 and mention “Theater Thursdays.”

Plaza Hotel – Part 2

On November 28, 1966, in honor of Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, Truman Capote hosted his acclaimed “Black & White Ball” in the Grand Ballroom. He chose the Plaza “because it has the only beautiful ballroom left in New York”. A brilliant setting, a select guest list, a strict dress code, and the novelty of wearing masks (he even had to approve who was brought as an invitees guest). Capote rented Suite 437 that evening. He invited 540 persons, there were 200 press in the lobby and 300 onlookers in the street. Capote had no flowers declaring “the people are the flowers”. The party cost $16,000. New York Times printed the guest list, CBS aired live coverage. Diana Trilling summed it up neatly, “a very complicated moment in this country’s social history.”

Simon in the Park

A few of us went to Grant Park last night to see The Odd Couple on the outdoor screen – along with a thousand or so of our closest friends and some of the strangest low-hanging clouds I’ve ever seen, we sat on blankets and drank red wine and watched Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon trade classic Simon quips.

The City of Chicago web site includes a few bits of trivia about the movie, including a story about Matthau (who also played all three male leads in the original production of Plaza Suite), who asked to play the fastidious Felix because it would have been more of a challenge as an actor. Simon’s response:

Walter, go and be an actor in somebody else’s play. Please be Oscar in mine.

Opening Night

Plaza Suite opens tonight – we’ve had a run of great previews, giving us a chance to get used to the timing of the show with an audience laughing, and now we’re ready to do it for real.

This has been a fun trip for me as an actor (that’s me on the right, playing hot-shot Hollywood producer Jesse Kiplinger, pining for my high school sweetheart Muriel Tate, played by ensemble member Frances Wilkerson) and as a producer. Everybody in the cast is feeling good and having fun, and we’ve got six more weeks to play with this after tonight.

Live blogging the second preview

7:04 – I arrived at the theater about fifteen minutes ago, after an early dinner with some great friends who stopped by Chicago on their way from New York to a new home in San Francisco. They’ll be in the audience tonight, along with hopefully lots more great people.

All of the actors are here now, and we’re just starting to get ready – putting on makeup, checking props, wandering about aimlessly with the energy of a new show in front of an audience.

I’m off to get ready myself – since my character starts off by emerging from the bathroom where he’s just finished shaving, that’s part of my preparation for this show. I’ll go do that, and get into costume, and then I’ll be back.

This is my first time live blogging – I don’t know quite where this will go. If anyone is reading this in real time and has any questions about what really happens backstage during a performance, leave a comment below.

7:34 – Just got the call from the stage manager – the house is now open. I’m freshly shaved and in costume – well, part of my costume, anyway. I don’t actually go on stage until after intermission (around 9:00), so I’ve got some time.

8:01 – I can hear the murmur of the crowd over the monitors (they’re designed to let us hear the show from the dressing room so we know when our cue is coming up, but they’re good for listening to the audience too, although I can’t make out what anyone is saying). The play should be starting any second now – we must be holding for the audience to make their way in from the lobby. I’ll go check.

8:09 – The show just started. CeCe and JP are on stage now, Ted is waiting for his entrance, and the rest of us are in the dressing room, quietly running lines, doing crossword puzzles, and putting the final touches on makeup. I’m getting used to my new John Lennon sunglasses, which I’ll be using on stage for the first time tonight.

8:14 – The Cubs are up 1-0 in the fifth.

8:26 – Going well so far – the first act is getting some good laughs from the audience, and the energy sounds good. I’m still waiting – in full costume now – for my entrance. I’ll go over the script one more time before I go on, checking some of the lines that I’ve struggled to remember in the last few performances. They’re all in my head somewhere, but it always helps me to look over everything a few minutes before walking out onto the stage.

8:49 – It’s amazing how much this show is still funny for us in the dressing room – we’ve seen it almost every day for the last six weeks, and we can only hear the dialogue over the monitors (no video back here in the dressing room), but we still laugh a lot as we’re listening to the actors on stage.

8:58 – Intermission. I need to go get ready to go on.

9:12 - Wally the bellhop here; Nat and Frances have just started the second act, and the belly laughs are rolling into the aisles. The show tonight is moving along wonderfully, a big, lively house. Just listening to the show from the dressing room, is pure pleasure. This troupe of actors have such a grasp on Simon’s language and an awesome ability to improvise on the words; curving, toying, bouncing the words off the walls. The bellhop duties are large and complicated. Dressing and presenting the room to our lovely guests, seeing to their every whim and need, to anticipate those needs and desires before they even know they want them. For instance, for the Visitor from Hollywood, the room is decorated in divine flowers and fully stocked with the very best liquors we provide. This is to make the guest, the famous Hollywood produce Jesse, with the illusion that he is our finest guest we have ever had here at the Plaza. The truth is most of the vodka, scotch and bourbon that I have supplied him with is from the Truman Capote costume party, reused, but presented with the elegance and professionalism that is the standard here at the Plaza.

9:44 – It’s Nat again – Frances and I just finished our act, and I just learned that the bellhop’s name is Wally. Tonight’s run felt great – the audience seemed to be “delighted,” as one of my fellow cast members described it backstage, and Frances and I both felt good when we got backstage. Our energy was good, our timing was on, and we had a lot of fun. And we still get one more crack at it before we open on Sunday. Act three has started now – Jon and Cheri are just beginning their half-hour journey of frantic absurdity as they try to get their daughter to come out of a locked bathroom on her wedding day.

9:53 – Cubs lost 2-1. The Astros picked up back to back doubles off Bobby Howry in the ninth.

10:02 – We share our dressing room / backstage area with Woody Guthrie’s American Song, and their music filters through (not into the theater itself, thankfully). They’re ripping through This Land is Your Land right now, and it sounds like a real hoe-down back here. They close on Sunday – I hope whoever comes into the studio theater next is as much fun.

10:08 – The stage manager is about to call places for the curtain call – time to go get some love.

10:14 – And that’s our show. Have a good night, everyone. Maybe we’ll try this again later in the run.

Live blogging from backstage tonight

Assuming the wireless connection works again, I’ll be blogging from backstage during tonight’s Plaza Suite preview performance, which begins at 8 pm.

If you can’t join us at the theater tonight, check in throughout the evening to see how things are going.

Friday photo rescue

Plaza Suite, opening Sunday, July 20:

Norma (Cheri Chenoweth) and Roy (Jon Steinhagen) get a call from the wedding party downstairs. Their daughter, Mimsey, is still locked in the bathroom and refusing to come out for her wedding.

The life of a script

There are some actors who keep their scripts in pristine condition throughout the rehearsal process, protected by a binder or laminated or just treated with proper respect.

I am not one of those actors.

My script for Plaza Suite has been with me since last winter, and it’s been in my pocket most days – called into service whenever I’ve had a few minutes on a bus or train or waiting for a meeting to start (or end, depending on the meeting). It’s joined me for road trips, baseball games, parties, and even a Bocce Ball tournament (I didn’t win).

The first time I read a script (after I know I’m playing one of the characters) I don’t deface it at all – in fact I try not to think at all, and just read to enjoy the writing.

The script starts evolving into the mess you see above during the second reading, when I highlight all of my character’s lines. I once worked with an actor who despised this very common practice, claiming with righteous indignation that highlighting your own lines implied egocentric arrogance (sorry – that was how he talked). It may be self-centered, but it sure helps you find your next line until you’ve got them all memorized.

On the next few trips through the script, I start jotting notes in the margins – mostly questions at this point. I’ll come back to these questions, and sometimes write down the answers, during rehearsals.

Once rehearsals begin, I start writing notes into my script to help me remember my blocking and stage business – all the physical movements that need to be consistent in performances. As we get deeper into exploring the play, I scribble more notes into whatever space is left – a reminder that an exchange of dialogue needs to move quickly, a new motivation for a line, a note pointing out a phrase that I can’t seem to remember correctly, and so on.

By the time a show is ready to open (four days from now as I write this), my script looks like it’s been through battle – or at least a long journey. And in a sense it has been through both – and hopefully it’s reached its destination and can claim victory.

Plaza Hotel

The Plaza Hotel set the standard for luxury hotels in the early 1900’s. The building was opened to the public on October 1, 1907. It extends along Central Park and 5th Avenue New York City. The 19 story building is the premiere hotel in New York City.

Deliciously pleasing by any standard

One of the true gems of dramaturgical research – Sarah found this video to give us some background on Sam’s troubles in Plaza Suite:

SAM: I can’t even think straight. I’ve had five meetings this morning, four teeth capped, and I haven’t even had my Metrecal.

Plaza Suite – Broadway Production Part 3

George Scott had a detached retina at one point in the run and had to take nearly six weeks off the production. During this time they decided to have a British actor, Nicol Williamson, play the role. Actors Equity was highly opposed to this and finally agreed; however, on Williamson’s debut many actors picketed the show, including Marsha Mason (whom Simon later married).

Upon Nicol Williamson’s entrance an Equity actor in the audience began to sing “The Star Spangled Banner.” Eventually security came to remove the unhappy patron just as he finished “and the home of the braaave.” The play restarted and when Nicol made his enterance he received a standing ovation.

Friday photo rescue

It’s a true rescue today – I just found a treasure trove of old photos, so there will be lots more coming soon. I started with the 2003 Neil Simon season photos, which for some reason include a large number of pictures of me looking very silly. Here’s one of my favorites – the rest are on our Flickr page.

Come Blow Your Horn, from the 2003 Neil Simon season.

And The American Playwright is …

A commenter on the last post asked if Neil Simon is “THE American playwright” – and if his prolific and successful career isn’t enough to earn that title, then whose is?

Simon has certainly been one of the most, if not the most, popular and well-known playwrights in America – between Broadway revivals, summer rep theaters, regional professional and amateur companies, and high schools all around the world, there have been few if any moments in the last fifty years when there’s not a Neil Simon play happening on stage somewhere.

And his plays are a lot of fun – with a few notable exceptions (the Pulitzer and Tony winning drama Lost in Yonkers comes to mind), he writes plays that are simply fun for actors to play with and for audiences to watch. If we’re looking for someone to carry the “America’s playwright” title, that’s not a bad quality to have.

Who else should be considered? I suggested Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and Edward Albee earlier, but since I left a comment there I added to the list in my mind Lillian Hellman and Sam Shepard, who capture two very different senses of what it is to be American.

Add your suggestions – and your reasons – in the comments below.

Plaza Suite – Broadway Production Part 2

With baseball season in full swing and the Cubs (and the White Sox…..) in first place in their respective divisions I’ll tip my hat to the teams with a little anecdote about the Broadway Show League softball tournament.

George C. Scott, who played the lead in the original Broadway production of Plaza Suite, played for their softball team in the Broadway Show League, a softball tournament played in Central Park from early spring to early summer. Scott was the pitcher and if someone made it to first off him he would stand in the path to second base and say:

“You may have gotten a single off me but you sure as hell ain’t going to second. Go on, get back.”

And the runner would inevitably go back to first base.

Friday photo rescue

Eccentricities of a Nightingale, from the 1999 Tennessee Williams season.

If I remember my lighting design correctly, I think the town’s fireworks are providing the deep purple and red lights that are playing on Alma and the angel here.

It’s the best fireworks photo I could find – Happy 4th of July, everyone!

Plaza Hotel – Part 2

Beatle-mania struck the United States in full force in the 1960’s. Starting with their first American appearance in New York City in 1964. They stayed at the Plaza Hotel during this time and made appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, gave a press conference and partied at the Peppermint Lounge and the Playboy Club. During their stay two teenage girls managed to sneak themselves up to the twelfth floor where they were staying in a gift box. During their press conference, which was held in the Baroque room, they were presented with a pair of gold records for their album Meet the Beatles and their single “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”.

Plaza Suite – Broadway Production

To follow in suit with Nat, its been awhile but things seem to have settled and summer has set in, with perhaps some spare time for blogging.

To get back in the swing of things here are the basics facts about the original production of Plaza Suite by Neil Simon which opened on February 14, 1968 at the Plymouth Theater, New York City, where it ran for 1,097 performances. George C. Scott and Maureen Stapleton played the leads in all three acts.

Friday photo rescue

Talley & Son, from the 2005 Lanford Wilson season.

Plaza Suite update

I’m sorry for the pathetically slow blogging recently – I keep thinking tomorrow’s going to be the day when I get caught up and find a few minutes to post something, and then tomorrow shows up and turns into today before suddenly becoming yesterday.

You know what I mean, right?

So I have just a few minutes before heading off to tonight’s rehearsal for Plaza Suite, and wanted to give a quick update:

We’ve been rehearsing for a little over two weeks now, and tonight is the last time I’m still allowed to carry the script with me.

For these last two weeks we’ve been working on the blocking – where and how we move, how we use props and furniture – and developing our characters. Once we’ve got the lines memorized, we can start to really play.

I remember a point in the rehearsals for Come Blow Your Horn, which was my first experience acting in a Neil Simon play, when I started to understand the technical genius of his writing. It’s not just that his characters are witty (they are) or that he creates absurd situations for them to deal with (he does), but there’s a specific rhythm to his writing – the words and the pauses between words – that needs to be honored for the humor to really pop. We’ll be exploring and fine-tuning that rhythm over the next few weeks before our first audience on July 17th.

It’s interesting to note that in this rehearsal process, since reading the full script together at the first rehearsal, we’ve been rehearsing each act separately. It’s really the only way to work on a show like this (which is basically three one-act plays which all happen to take place in the same suite at New York’s Plaza Hotel), but it’s strange to spend so much time away from some of my fellow cast members. We’ll be putting all three acts back together at the end of next week, and I can’t wait to see all the fun they’ve been having in the rehearsals I haven’t been at.

Friday photo rescue

A Woman Without a Name, from the 2001 Romulus Linney season.

Ensemble members CeCe Klinger (left) and Frances Wilkerson (right) are both in rehearsals right now for Plaza Suite.

Friday photo rescue

The Talking Dog, from the 2002 John Guare season.

Plaza Suite first read through

The first rehearsal for Plaza Suite is this Saturday, and we’re opening the doors to our rehearsal to give subscribers and friends a look into the beginning of the process. There are still some seats available – if you’re interested in joining us, give us a call at 312-738-0704 or send me an email. We’ll be at the Greenhouse Theater (2257 N Lincoln) at 10:00 am.

The rehearsal will begin with quick introductions and presentations from our design team, and then the actors will read through the script together for the first time.

I’m excited to start the process (I’m playing Jesse Kiplinger, the Hollywood producer who tries to arrange a rendezvous with his high school sweetheart while staying at the Plaza Hotel), and especially excited to give people the opportunity to begin the journey with us.

Friday photo rescue

Hot off the presses from Plaza Suite: