Ikke, Ikke, Nye Nye Nye, from the 2005 Lanford Wilson season.

As we go into the final weekend of performances for Candles to the Sun, I wanted to “rescue” one more current photo - in this scene, the miners are trying to convince Bram (Chuck Spencer, seated at center) to join them in the upcoming strike:

I filmed this video a few weeks ago, but I didn’t want to post it then and spoil the surprise for anyone who hadn’t seen the show yet. With only one weekend of performances left, I think it’s safe now to share this look at the actors practicing the choreography of the big fight scene, where Star and Red are attacked by a gang of strikebreakers:

This is part of the preparations the cast goes through before each performance, making sure that the fight will look realistic - and be safe - when it happens in the show.

Ross Travis, who you can see getting in some gratuitous shots at Red at the end of the clip, choreographed the stage combat for Candles to the Sun.

I was interviewed yesterday by a student at DePaul University, who is preparing a presentation for an Intro to Theatre class and chose to present the history of Eclipse Theatre Company.

Before the interview, she emailed me a quick list of the questions she wanted to focus on. The first question on that list set the tone for a great conversation:

Does the production of Candles to the Sun have any special significance to the history of Eclipse Theatre Company?

I’ve told this story before, but it’s always a fun one to tell - starting with that production of Confessional in 1999, where six of the current ensemble met for the first time, and that whole 1999 season, when we brought Eclipse back from the ashes (literally!) by spending the year exploring Tennessee Williams. When we started talking about the idea of the Celebration Series, I don’t think we could have imagined a better show to kick it off - not only do we get to return to our roots as a company, but also to Tom Williams’ roots as a writer.

All this weekend, Nina O’Keefe will be playing Fern in Candles to the Sun. She’s understudying for Julie Daley, and she’s been working with us since the first rehearsal back in early February. I’ve watched her work with the cast in rehearsals, and I’m excited to see how her presence changes the show this weekend.

I got to watch my own understudy back in the 2006 season - my sister’s wedding fell in the middle of the run of Boy Gets Girl, and I got to watch James Joseph, who did a fantastic job, rehearse my role with the actors I had spent the last two months working with.

It’s a strange feeling as an actor to watch someone else play a role that you feel closely connected to (I watched a dress rehearsal and kept thinking “he’s wearing my clothes!”), but it’s also invigorating for everyone - I got to see an actor bring a different energy and make different choices (some of which, of course, I unashamedly stole when I went back on the following week), James got an opportunity to play a great character, and the rest of the cast got to feel a sense of newness that sometimes fades over a six-week run.

Days are slipping into weeks too quickly - I blinked and it’s Friday again. Here’s Boy Gets Girl, from the 2006 Rebecca Gilman season.

Yes, that’s me lurking in the background. And yes, there is a reason for digging up this photo this weekend. More on that later tonight.

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

Bald Ridge is another location referenced in Candles to the Sun as a place where the boys would shoot squirrels. In my research there were several Bald Ridge locations including a Bald Ridge Reservation in northeast Alabama. I found a Bald Ridge in Jefferson County, Alabama, which is not necessarily close to Clay County or in the Red Mountain region. One of these two locations are likely what Williams had in mind when writing Candles.

But more interestingly, there is a Bald Ridge campsite in Georgia that happens to be on Lake Sidney Lanier, from whom Williams’ received his middle name from. Now I doubt that the campsite was there, at least in its current form, in 1937 when Williams wrote Candles. It quite the coincidence.

At an Eclipse post show discussion during the Gilman season I recall an audience member asking a question regarding what the actors did outside of performing in that particular play. Every single actor on stage worked a 9-5 job during the week and moonlighted as actors during their evenings and weekends. The audience member seemed surprised that the actors needed to work these day jobs but in the world of non-profit, store front theater that is Chicago the majority of actors, playwrights and other theater employees work jobs outside of theater to make ends meet. Similarly, though his wasn’t exactly a need to make ends meet, Tennessee Williams worked at his father’s shoe company after failing his first year of college. His passion for writing drove him so hard that he would work all day (often writing at work as well) and then come home at night “tank up” on black coffee and stay up all night as his typewriter writing short stories.  All for the love of the art.

Lost in Yonkers, from the 2003 Neil Simon season.