Well no, actually you didn’t.  You see, it was a silent auction.  Although, how you can call something silent when you’ve got Bret Fetzer constantly exhorting the crowd to spend more more more is a wee bit baffling.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Last week, I had the good fortune to have an opportunity to play photographer for Theater Schmeater’s annual wine auction.  I really wish I could bring you the smells and sounds, as well as a few of the sights, but alas, I didn’t have a tape recorder, and I’m not sure how the smell-o-vision thing would work in any event.

I arrived as the last of the last minute preparations were being made.  The first thing that struck me was the aroma.  Someone was cooking something that smelled fantastic.  Unfortunately for me, food doesn’t mix well with optics and delicate electronics, so I can only assume it tasted fantastic as well.  As I wandered around, bottles of wine were being opened, and final touches were being added to the auction displays.

I’d never been to a silent auction before, and I wondered how they were going to make the evening more compelling than watching a bunch of people wandering around eating and waiting for the season preview.  It turns out they had a plan.

First, the items were divided into a number of themed areas.  They had, unsurprisingly for anyone who knows Teri, a Rod Stewart area.  They had a Hawaiian area.  They even had a “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” area.  The auction in each of the areas closed at its own time, so someone was winning fabulous merchandise every half hour or so all evening.

Second, there was Bret Fetzer.  If you haven’t been to a party where someone handed Bret a wireless mike and said “Keep things interesting,” you’ve missed out.  The Schmee brought Bret in to be the ‘Auctioneer/MC’, and I think he really came through.  His unique and entertaining style of ‘Auction in Your Face!’ really brought the evening to life.  He spent the evening talking up the items, letting bidders know when their bids had been topped, counting down the auction closings, and generally castigating the crowd for not bidding enough.

The evening culminated with a rousing game of ‘Raise the Paddle’, a sort of reverse auction with the opportunity for participants to pledge however much they were comfortable with, and a preview of the show that ‘Raise the Paddle’ was helping to finance.

The preview was a scene from “Live! From The Last Night Of My Life” by once again local playwright Wayne Rawley. I’m not going to give away much in the way of specifics about the preview.  If you wanted to see it, you should have come to the auction.  I will say that it was absolutely hilarious.  You should really think about putting it on your calendar for next September.

After the preview, it was all over but the cleanup, and the picking up of merchandise won.  It was  an interesting and entertaining evening.  I got to see the Theater Schmeater staff in their finest of finery.  I got to see Managing Director Teri Lazarra speechless, for  the first and probably the last time in my life.  Overall, it looked like a good time was had by all.

-daveh

Snow is in the air.  Your neighbor has put up the Christmas lights.  The days are getting shorter.  The Christmas season is upon us.  It’s a season of beautiful sights, wonderful sounds, and special food.

Admittedly, I find it to be a season of not unmixed blessings.  I’m constantly bombarded with opportunities to exercise rampant consumerism.  I’ve a distressing tendency to consume more turkey and fixings than will really fit.  There’s snow in the air.

In and amongst all the shopping, eating, and Bing Crosby crooning “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”, it’s easy to lose track of what I think of as one of the more important meanings of Christmas and the Christmas season.

Remember when you were a little kid?  Remember the joy of pawing through the Sears Christmas catalog, looking at all the cool stuff and plotting what to ask Santa to bring you this year?  Remember anxiously awaiting the moment when your parents would get up, so you could find out what was in all those boxes under the tree?  Remember wondering just which of your dreams were going to come true this year?

That’s the meaning of Christmas I try to keep in mind. Whether it’s for your kids, your family, or your friends, Christmas is a time for making dreams come true, and individuals aren’t the only ones with dreams.  Organizations have dreams too, whether it’s something simple like a new coat of paint for the lobby, or something more challenging like a sink in the concessions area or a new computer for the office.

As you may have guessed, this is where you come in.  By supporting Theater Schmeater, you make the fulfilling of these and many other dreams  possible.  However, when you support Theater Schmeater, it doesn’t just buy new goodies for the theater staff, or help produce an opportunity for affordable relief from another night of reality television, it helps fulfill the dreams of local theater artists as well, from young actors  looking for a place to hone their skills, to experienced and familiar faces from the stages of Seattle.  It provides opportunities for designers and theater technicians to create magical new worlds.  It creates a place where artists of varying abilities can work together and learn from each other.

There are numerous ways to support Theater Schmeater, so I’m just going to pick a few.  First, Theater Schmeater has a wine auction coming up on the sixth of December.  I’ve never been, but I understand it’s a pretty exclusive event, and quite the party.  In addition to the auction (which includes things other than wine), there’ll be a sneak peek from The Schmee’s coming season.  If you’re interested, there may still be some tickets available here.

Next, it’s still not too late to go see “Vestal Virgins”, Theater Schmeater’s current main stage show.  In it you’ll get to find out whether Tsarina’s dreams of a comeback get fulfilled, whether Little Nannakin’s dreams of continued stardom come true, and whether Miss Clitty’s dreams of …  Come to think of it, I’m not sure I have a clue what Miss Clitty dreams of, but I’m sure it’s interesting.  Tickets are available here.

Lastly, but not finally, if you feel like making a donation, Theater Schmeater will gladly accept it here.  As I said, these are only a few of the many ways you can support Theater Schmeater, all of which will be gratefully accepted.

I hope you all have a happy holiday season.

-daveh

Did you ever wonder where your golden days of youth went?  Those days when you could go clubbing ’till 3:00AM and still get up the next morning and put in a good day’s work?  Those days when you were immortal and invincible, and you knew it was never going to change?

Did you ever wonder where that band went?  You know the one.  That group of enthusiastic musicians that made you want to give up your day job, buy a guitar, and go out on the road?  Or maybe that group of bored, jaded musicians that was confused about who was the entertainer and who was the entertainee?  The one you were sure you could do better than?

Did you ever wonder how Karen Jo might have turned out if the sixties had been really good to her?

Now’s your chance to explore some of these questions with Theater Schmeater’s production of “Vestal Virgins“.  What?  That’s not enough for you?  How about punks, and pop stars?  Still not enough?  How about tales of intrigue and forbidden love?  How about a brief lesson in ancient history?

Still not enough?  Well @#$@ it.  Get your @#$@ing ^$% in a seat!  The show’s about to begin!

-daveh

The Glass Menagerie comes to the Schmee

Here I am a little over five months into my new position as Artistic Direction of Theater Schmeater.  In that time I have had the pleasure of helping to cast several shows, design sound for Pageant Play, read a large number of plays & attend play readings to help choose the next season.  It is a bit daunting at times but always thrilling and satisfying.  The most satisfying of all has got to be the thrill of directing Tennessee Williams’ great play The Glass Menagerie. 

Once again The Schmee has assembled an excellent cast and crew that makes the task all that more of a joy.  Every artist involved on the project is thrilled to be working on one of the greatest American plays of the 20^th century.  Mr. Williams gives us characters that are real people who are doing their best to survive difficult times, while not always making the best choices in dealing with their obstacles.  There are no clear protagonists or antagonists in this play.  Just people living through trying times.

I think it is important to remember that Mr. Williams wrote it as a memory play.Far too often in our country we forget the past and pay the price for it.  Gore Vidal calls this phenomenon “The United States of Amnesia.”  I think that is part of what “The Glass Menagerie” is all about.  At least these are the things that the play has caused me to reflect on as we work through the process of bringing it to life on the stage. 

 I can’t wait for you to see it.

J.D. Lloyd

Artistic Director

Theater Schmeater

From the Toyota Yaris, which makes you want to step on bugs, to the Ford Fusion, which looks like an excuse to finally use that excess chrome Ford had laying around since the failure of the ’59 Edsel, to the entire line of Dodge Trucks which strives to tell the whole world that the owner wants to drive a Tonka 18 Wheeler when he grows up, the Oughts have presented us with a dizzying aray of quickly forgettable cars. This is not to say that there haven’t been a few exceptions: The Jaguar XKR Convertible, the Infinity G37 or the Mercedes SLS AMG. But none of these have been cars built for the common person for whom car payments have meanings, who don’t have a servant called Otto bringing the car around to the front, or whose schedule includes trips to the day care and grocery store. (The one true exception is the Mazda 3. The 2010 design is a jaunty little car, reasonably priced, which tools around town with a headlight to headlight idiot smile on its grill that proclaims ” Hey, the world is going to hell, lets have some FUN!”)

Are you familiar with the saying:

“Aim High. At least that way you won’t shoot yourself in the foot.”

Prior to this past week, I’d have said I aimed at least as high as most. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I need glasses, or maybe a level.

I suppose there’s no reasonable way I could have known that the kitchen drain was going to suddenly lose that most important attribute of drains everywhere, specifically draining¹. Likewise, there really wasn’t any way I could have known that my tire was going to tire of it’s oh so common shape and try something with a bit more eccentricity². And, how could I have predicted that the power would go out as I was putting the finishing touches on everything, aside from the alarming correlation between putting the finishing touches on stuff for The Schmee, and power outages at my house.

On the other hand, I could have spent less time trying to be clever in my previous post, and more time working on the photos. (BANG!) It would also have been a good idea, when last I reinstalled all of my software, to make sure that my (relatively minimal) color management was still working. (BANG!) I certainly could have taken better notes the last time I did this (or the time before), so I would realize how long it was really going to take to process all the data. (BANG!)

In any event, now my tires are round, my drains do, my color is managed, my photos are processed, and despite the fact that it’s a half a week later than I expected, the photos are where they belong.

Anyone seen my toes?

p.s. Just so there’s an excuse for posting this on the Theater Schmeater blog, here’s a few photos from the show, that hopefully don’t give anything away.  Apologies for the lack of captioning.  I barely know what the character names are, and haven’t a clue what the actor’s names are.

¹Anyone know why the drain clogs when it’s time to cook dinner? I mean, nothing says “Dinner Time!” like cleaning out the kitchen drain.
²Now I know why egg shaped wheels never made it.

Pablo Picasso, your procrastinating paparazzi here¹, just back from an extended journey inside my own skull².  Recently I had the opportunity to shoot some photos of The Schmee’s latest show “Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes”.  Man…  How could you not love a show with a title like that? But it’s not just a title.  It’s got a little of everything.  It’s got Angry Arabs³, Annoying Agents⁴, Beautiful Babes⁵, Driven Directors⁶, and Ravishing Receptionists⁷.  It’s got scrumptious sets, and lovely lights⁸.  It’s even got atrocious alliteration⁹.  Oh.  Hang on.  That’s just me.

All kidding aside¹⁰, this is a fun show, with humor, action, a point or two to make, and a whole lot more.  If you miss it, I think you’ll be disappointed.  On kind of a side note, not that the majority of this post isn’t a side note writ large, photographing the show offered me a couple of firsts in my long and relatively un-illustrious theater career.  This show marks the first time I’ve ever arrived at a theater and been greeted with “I know you’re not alphabetized but…”.  It also marks the first time I’ve ever been to a final dress rehearsal with assigned seating.  Kind of takes you back.

And, as a final note, the award for best outfit seen at tech-dress, not worn by an actor in the production goes to…

Managing Director Teri Lazzara
for p.j.s, complete with Rod Stewart shirt and rubber boots.

Where else can you go to see that?

Now, if you’ll wait just a moment, Peggy will be right with you.

¹For the sake of accuracy, management would like to note that the photographer’s name is not Pablo, and the term paparazzi is  not accurate, given that the photographer was invited to take pictures.

²We’ll leave it to the reader to figure out what the purpose of said journey might have been, and whether or not there was any possibility it could have been successful.

³Management would like to note that the term “Angry Arabs” is intended to denote a specific emotional state (anger) present in a specific Arab at a specific time, not to imply that Arabs are generally angry.

⁴Once again, the term “Annoying Agent” is intended to refer to a specific agent present in the play.  We are reasonably certain that there must be numerous agents out there who aren’t annoying.

⁵The term “Beautiful Babes”, while regarded in some circles as demeaning to women, is intended in a purely descriptive sense.  Which, come to think of it, is probably as demeaning as its use in any other sense.

⁶What can we say.  Have you ever met a director who wasn’t driven?

⁷Management acknowledges that the title in the term “Ravishing Receptionist” is likely less than accurate.  We considered requiring the photographer to use “Pulchritudinous Personal Assistant”, a phrase in which the title is probably more accurate, which expresses the desired sentiment, and which provides a useful challenge to the reader’s vocabulary, but it had the drawback of too may words to fit the alliteration scheme, and seemed on the surface to express the opposite sentiment.

⁸We hadn’t planned on footnoting these as we couldn’t see any way anyone could object to the uses of the terms in question.  However, just in case, we had no intention of offending the advocates of scrumptiousness, loveliness, sets, or lighting.

⁹Management would like to note that there is no particularly noticeable alliteration in the show, our loud mouthed propagandist aside.

¹⁰Given recent history, we view this as exceedingly unlikely.