An Oak Tree, by Tim Crouch, is a play for two actors, one of whom has never seen the play or read the script. A new actor, invited from Seattle’s finest, will join Artistic Director David Gassner on stage each night. Check this blog regularly to find out who’s up next. We’ll announce each week’s actors a few days before the performances.
David Gassner and Secret Actor Man
At the end of this year, I’ll be stepping away from the post of Artistic Director of Theater Schmeater, a job which I will have had the honor of holding for 3 years. It’s been an extraordinary period for the company, one where we produced many local and regional premieres and introduced Seattle audiences to plays and playwrights that weren’t being produced elsewhere. And, most importantly, we welcomed the entire Seattle theater community to come and play with us.
The company’s success over the past few years has been entirely due to the work of its excellent volunteer staff and board, to all of the artists who’ve worked with us and to the foundations, government agencies and individuals who have provided us with critical financial support. I am grateful to them all for their tireless efforts. I’m now leaving the company to return to life as a free-lance director, actor and teacher. I’ll still be in Seattle and plan to continue working with all of my good friends and colleagues.
In a short while the board of directors of Theater Schmeater will announce that it is commencing a search for the company’s next volunteer artistic leader. It’s an opportunity to make the next imprint on one of Seattle’s longest-running theater companies. I’ve had that opportunity and am glad for it, and would encourage anyone with both an artistic vision and the time to pursue it to check it out.
Finally, let me invite you to our upcoming shows (and the final productions of my term as Artistic Director). Both are Seattle premieres:
Please come and see both shows, and see me off on my continuing voyage. Advance tickets for both productions are available at Brown Paper Tickets.
Best wishes,
David Gassner
Outgoing Artistic Director
Theater Schmeater
I am so excited that we will be bringing The Twilight Zone: LIVE! back to The Schmee again in 2010. Happy 50 years!!! Check this out: http://paralleluniverse.msn.com/features/tv/50-years-of-twilight-zone/story/?gt1=28140
What’s your favorite episode?
–Teri L.
One of the most alluring, and most frustrating, aspects of the theatre is the temporal nature of the beast. “Here to day, gone tomorrow” isn’t just a passe saying in the theatre. It is a literal, hardcore truth that dictates a theater life more surely than “death and taxes”.
I was reminded of this, again, as I sat in on the first production meeting for “At Home at the Zoo” our next production here at The Schmee. (At Home… opens on November 6th and runs through December 5th) Like any first date, the meeting started off a little awkwardly, but as it progressed people began to feel comfortable, and by the end, possible seating and staging configurations were being paced off, design concepts were being hurled about, and the ever lingering question of period placement and costumes was confronted. In short, a production of a play was being conceived. (OK, I could take this date metaphor even further and mention the back seat of a 1972 Ford Galaxy that lingers in the fringe of my own memory, but that might be metaphoric over kill.)
Everyone at The Schmee is flush with the success of “Creation of the World and Other Business”, but there is another play to produce, and we have no time to bask in our presumed genius. There is another play to be designed, rehearsed, wrestled with, understood, and presented. All done at the same time that we wrestle with new scripts for 2010, choose a season, pay the bills, schedule publicity shots, write grants, and clean the bathrooms. Here today, indeed.
We in the Theater strive for The Moment, that infinitesimal amount of time on stage when the actors, playwright and audience share an almost indefinable unity of consciousness. This might come through a laugh, a tear, or a small moment of epiphany when empathy, experience, and memory join in a wave of understanding. It is not the same as what Film or TV offer. It is more precise, at least in intention, than Music or Dance. It has no name in English. * We often can’t see it, hear it, or touch it. It seems we always just stumble toward it. But when we find it, when it happens, we and the audience know it.
(The Germans tried, but they have to measure everything.)
A week ago Sunday was strike for this summer’s production of “The Twilight Zones: Live”. We’ve put all the costumes back on their racks. We’ve put the props back in prop storage. The set is dismantled. The lights are hanging in back.
I always find strike to be a bit of a bitter-sweet experience1. On the one hand, there’s the satisfaction of the completion of a job well done. On the other, there’s the realization that this particular experience will never come around again. You’ll undoubtedly work with many of the same people again, but circumstance won’t bring together the same combination of personnel and artistic elements.
I suppose it’s appropriate to take a brief break from my maundering on the fact that life is change, and explain the title of this post. I’ve always thought of Boxing Day as the holiday where you put Christmas back in its boxes, which is much like what happens at strike. In addition to that, I’m often left with a similar bitter-sweet feeling at the end of the Christmas holidays, so it seemed like an appropriate title. Just for fun, I thought I’d throw in a little bit of reference material relating to Boxing Day just to tie it all together.
Perhaps I can excuse my ignorance with the fact that I’ve never lived in a part of the British empire2, and Boxing Day has never been a part of our family holiday tradition, but it was a little disappointing to be confronted once again by the depths of my own ignorance. I did, however, get the ‘putting things in a box’ part right. If you’re curious about the actual tradition of Boxing Day, there’s an article at Wikipedia.
At this point, I seem to be having some difficulty tying everything together, and bringing this post to a conclusion, and my present sinus difficulty isn’t making it any easier3, so I think I’ll just bring it to a close. I had a great time working with Theater Schmeater, and this will be the last time I post as the lighting designer for this production of the Twilight Zone. I do plan to find other excuses to keep writing for The Schmee however. I hope you had a chance to see the show, and I hope you’ve all enjoyed the blog. With luck4, you’ll be hearing from me again.
-daveh
[1] Except for the very few shows I’ve worked on where I was desperately glad it was over.
[2] At least anywhere that’s been a part of the British Empire in the last 200 years.
[3] Oddly enough, sinus pain, compounded with the feeling that your eye is going to pop out and your teeth are going to explode has about the effect you might expect on concentration and complex thinking.
[4] Luck for me at least. If you think this is a really bad idea, now’s the time to lobby your local Schmee staff member.
For the last two and a half years, Theater Schmeater has taken up more of my time than my wife should have allowed, perhaps more than I should have committed, perhaps more than any sane person in my financial state should even consider. (And never as much time as T Laz) Mainstream rationality has never been my strong point. As with anything worth doing, my time at The Schmee has been up and down, filled with minor and major skirmishes, misunderstandings, group hugs, pinched bottoms, tears of laughter and cries of sheer utter disbelief. All of these more than justify the effort.
But the best times, the times that have renewed my often frayed passion for the theatre, have been the two park shows that I worked on. The first year was as “house manager” and technical helper, and last year as “scene designer” and, vaguely, as an actor (I am loath to use that term for what I did, although to be fair what I did was done in front of an audience. I like to think that they were laughing with me. It allows me to sleep on some nights.) Both shows reminded me what it was about the theatre that so infected me more than three decades ago.
Perhaps it was the park setting, where the audience was unconstrained by seats or walls. Perhaps it was the element of a freely shared experience with the audience, untainted by an exchange of anything more than their attention to our efforts. Perhaps it was because deep in our roots, going back through Shakespeare and Plautus, through recitations of the Iliad and the story of Gilgamesh, story telling has been an outdoor experience, under the sky, at the whimsical mercy of weather and animals. It was basic, joyful, raw.
The Schmee opens The Sorcerer’s Apprentice this weekend. I am not very involved this year due to many things, but I do miss being in the show this year. I will miss the lazy Sunday afternoons, family’s strolling down the glade toward the stage, a crowd magically forming in the shade. I will miss the occasional sleeper basking in the sun, the occasional stoner trying to assimilate, the blankets spread out, baskets full of goodies. I will miss the wide eyed child, four or five years old, apprehensively approaching the stage, and knowing deep down, the bug has bitten her. All of her parents’ hopes and aspirations for her, as a lawyer or a doctor, or a first lady, dashed in a moment of awe. I will miss seeing the constant re-birth of my kind.
DS
Part of the crowd waiting for the preview
“The Twilight Zone: Live!” launched with a bang. It started with a sold out preview last Thursday, although ‘bought out’ might be a better term given that The Schmee was paying you to attend1, rather than vice versa. That was followed up by a sold out opening night show on Friday. And for me at least, it was a very topically appropriate day.
It was one of those Fridays that makes you wonder if you’ve suffered a visit from Rod Serling past. It all started out when I was trying to print out updated paperwork for the lighting design. I’d expected to have some difficulty printing the plot, as it ought to be printed to scale and I don’t have a printer that will print 11×17 documents. That turned out to be the least of my problems. Every time I printed something related to the show, it had voids and light streaks, just as if my toner cartridge was running out. A quick check revealed that I could print other documents just fine. Eventually, I had to give up and head out the the theater.
On the drive, the subtle wrongness continued. I unfortunately timed my commute such that it would hit Friday afternoon rush hour. As I headed down I-90 into Seattle, I noticed that there was less traffic than I usually saw on the Sunday morning drives to the production meetings. Upon arriving on Capitol Hill, I had no difficulty finding parking. At this point, I had to wonder if perhaps I’d managed to arrive on the wrong day.
A patron relaxing before the show
As it turned out, I had arrived on Friday. The show itself went well. We had a visit from Anthony Winkler, one of the founders of Theater Schmeater. The audience seemed to enjoy the show. It wasn’t ’till after the show that I hit the final bit of strangeness.
The crowd waiting for the opening night performance
When I stopped by my local grocery store on the way home, I was confronted by a sign proclaiming the “Tootsie Roll Patriotic Midgets.” Yep, you read that right. I looked around briefly, expecting to see something like the Bud Light Girls. It had obviously been a long week, because it took me a while to notice that the sign was attached to a set of shelves containing bags of what appeared to be Tootsie Rolls wrapped in little American flags. I suspect that whoever wrote the sign may have meant “Tootsie Roll Patriotic Miniatures.” Then again, maybe not2.
The view from the late seating and "I didn't think I'd need to purchase a ticket in advance" seats
If you’re planning to see the show, you may want to purchase tickets in advance. I have no idea how tickets are selling but given that both the preview and opening night were sold out, it seems like it might not be a good idea to just show up and expect to get in.
A closeup of the aforementioned view
The cast and crew of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" at Volunteer Park
“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice“, the other opening I mentioned, doesn’t happen until Saturday, but I got to see it earlier this week in preparation for taking production photos. It looks like a fun show. It’s got a bit of something for everyone, with music, magic, humor, talking animals, a moral, and did I mention magic? I do have one piece of advice for those of you attending the show. Take a sweater. It can be colder in the park than you expect. Actually, I’ve got a second piece of advice. If you take a sweater, take it with you when you stake out a seat. It’s a bit embarrassing to wind up suffering from the early stages of hypothermia while sitting 500 yards from your sweater.
Trust me.
Now go out and see a show!
-daveh
[1] If you’re confused, see this post
[2] Before finishing this, I thought a visit to the Tootsie Roll web site would be in order. It turns out they’ve got a product they call “Tootsie Roll Midgees” (two Es, no T), so it’s entirely possible that I’m the one who got it wrong. My version is more entertaining however.
Third from the Sun - 2009 Photo by David Baum
Third from the Sun - 2009 Photo by David Baum
Nothing in the Dark - 2009 Photo by David Baum
The Lonely - 2009 Photo by David Baum
Tim Moore as Rod Serling - 2009 Photo by David Baum
Cables and Adapters
I’d planned to post something in the lull between hanging the lights and tech week, but as you might expect, the lull never appeared. I was playing around with some thoughts along the line of “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” Some of you may remember the old ABC Wide World of Sports intro from the late seventies. I can’t remember the “thrill of victory” part, but the “agony of defeat” part was this guy catapulting sideways off a ski jump, with skis and poles going everywhere. These turned out to be strangely prophetic musings, as I seem to have hopped onto the ski jump a week ago Tuesday without even realizing it.
TD Michael Mowrey setting up equipment for Cue to Cue
Hanging and focusing the lights took about twice as long as I expected (2.25 times to be precise), and half again as long as I’d allowed for. I don’t think I’ve ever hung lights from Unistrut before, and I had no idea how much time that adds, particularly if you’re no more dexterous than I am. I’m used to hanging lights from pipe with clamps, where the big time consumer is moving the ladder. With Unistrut, you have to jam a Squeeze-Nut into the track, then hold up the fixture and bolt it in. Meanwhile, the Squeeze-nut (which you had to jam in in the first place) is now skating merrily along the track, desperately trying to prevent the bolt from threading, while the lighting fixture gets heavier and heavier. I’ve been lead to believe that there may be easier ways to deal with it, but I’ll just refer you to my earlier comment regarding personal dexterity.
In any event, with the help of Mark D’ Angelo my Master Electrician, we got the lights hung and focused with only minor difficulties, although my assessment may differ from Mark’s, given that I wasn’t the one who got electrified. After the lights were hung, I seem to have slid straight into tech week poles and skis flailing.
ME Mark D' Angelo, MD Teri Lazzara, and TD Michael Mowrey
Tech week is essentially over now. All that’s left before opening night is the preview, although by the time most of you have read this, that will be over as well. Despite my personal insecurities, it looks like we won’t need to hand out flashlights to all the patrons, and I probably won’t be burned outside the theater (in effigy or otherwise). Things have come together nicely. Lights, set, sound, costume, and acting are all working together, and I think it should be an entertaining show.
On a last, not entirely unrelated note, in the midst of all of the above goings on, my new camera arrived. Actually, that would more properly be ‘my new, retro, toy camera’. I recently got a Holga, and since the company that is manufacturing them now has jumped on the merchandising bandwagon with both feet, they’ve designated the traditional black and silver one their ‘Twi-Lite Zone’ model.
Holga 'Twi-Lite Zone'
See you all at the show (but not on opening night, ’cause that’s sold out!)
-daveh
This is an opportunity for the adventuresome theatergoer to participate in Theater Schmeater’s Theater Adventure Reward Program (TARP – unlike the Fed’s program, you don’t have to give it back!). By attending this preview of The Twilight Zone: LIVE!, each audience member will receive One Dollar! This offer is limited to “first-come, first-served” at the box office (no reservations), and the box office will open at 7:00 p.m. Theater Schmeater offers this program to encourage dedicated theatergoers who thrill at the excitement and occasional danger of being in an audience for a production’s initial public performance.