i don't know if there is sufficient interest here, but i thought i'd start a thread to talk about anything theatre/performance related - particularly in our region.
Shows we've seen, shows we - or friends or family - are involved with, shows we'd like to see.
And so i can have a place to talk about what i am working on, and to find out if it is ok for me to talk about specific upcoming shows here... And so i don't have to bore people who couldn't care less...
: )
amy
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Right now, i have been working as the assistant/associate lighting designer for a production of Medea, which previews tonight, opens tomorrow, and runs though the weekend. It is a Quinnipiac University production - but their department is rather small - and new - so they hire out for designers. They also don't have a theatre on their campus, so their shows happen at Long Wharf - which is super exciting to me!
It is interesting because the cast is made up entirely of QU students, except Medea, who is played by a professional, Equity actress, who happens to be deaf. She signs her performance, while a student speaks her lines. It is wonderful to watch her - you hardly need to hear the words sometimes - her performance conveys her meaning very well.
Anyway, back to the theatre one more time - my last night to take notes for fixes tomorrow!
amy
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That's cool to have a deaf actress have a lead role. Good luck with the show! I'm sure you'll do fine and the show will be a hit.
When we lived in CT 30 yrs. ago we had season tickets to the Long Wharf productions. One of my favorites was their Lion in Winter. Remember this was a long time ago.
Sounds like very exciting and interesting work. I hope the production goes well and is a great success. Lighting is such an important part of a theater production isn't it, setting the mood and sense of time and place. Are there a lot of lighting effects that you have to do manually or are most of them all on a program now?
Every summer my friends and I pack a picnic dinner and go to Shakesphere in the Park at the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport. One year the play wasn't even Shakesphere!
That's nice. We always wanted to go to Central Park but it gets so crowded.
You could come to Bridgeport. Spend the day at the Zoo and then take in the play. It is always fun as this group manages to get music into every play and then they do a mini-musical at intermission. I'm sure the Bard would have loved it!
DD#1 just *s*t*a*r*r*r*e*d* in Oklahoma! at her High school - it was a pretty good production, with a small tight cast. All her life she's been "second housemaid" or "a nun" or "partygoer" and she finally got not only a speaking part but a major speaking part! She was Aunt Eller, who is not the romantic lead or the other couple or in fact a romantic part at all (this is Rodgers and Hammerstein so everyone ends up with somebody) but Aunt Eller sort of acts as a Greek chorus - she's on stage most of the time, she's kind of commenting on everyone else's behavior and bossing everyone around. Well, in the show, every time someone forgot a line, Aunt Eller could just bluster something and fudge a line to cover it up. It was great. I don't think any other one character could have saved so many scenes!
x, Carrie
I like Macbeth to a hip-hop score.
MSND as staged in Statford upon Avon 2005--great lighting, Moon started at front of the stage,large &
prominant then moved around for other scenes varying is light & size. Characters in "modern dress" ugh! fairies as hand puppets spotlighted so handlers in black not seen. Very unusual.
How odd, Iris! x, C
Medea pleads with Kreon for one more day...
argues with Jason
(BTW, it is really hard to accurately photograph color and light on my camera - the bright spots overwhelm the color.)
lures her children to their fate...
screams after the murders...
(argh. it is pure red in reality - i hate the way the source shows almost white here.)
Great shots, nonetheless! Thanks.
My son was just cast as the lead in Aladdin! Wow!
congratulations! will it be his 1st show?
Congrats, Harper! Maybe Amy has some pointers for him.
it seems unlikely Victor, since i have never been a performer.
Do tell us more, Harper!
Here is a link to a press conference:
http://newhavenindependent.org/archives/2008/02/the_message_is_1.php
amethystsm- what great lighting! Not an easy feat.
On the subject of Shakespeare..... Last year the Chicago Shakespeare Theater staged Kabuki Macbeth; it was fantastic! Talk about a bizarre setting, but it worked beautifully. I've had a subscription to the CST for 5 years now, and that was by far the best show.
thanks!
i'm "just" the assistant, but i feel i have had more input on this than most shows i have assisted on. i chose almost all of the color, all the templates/patterns, and i have done quite a bit of the cueing of the show. Hopefully i will have some better pictures soon...
amy
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Ok...not a large list, but, these are my wants, as well as Paul's:
Wicked
Spamalot
Grey Gardens
Spring Awakening
We've seen, together,not seperately, I don't have enough time to list all of them:
The Lion King, Rent, Chicago, Les Mis, Chorus Line, and Kiss Me Kate
Paul sings in the Northeast Pa Choral Society...I've gone to 3 of their performances so far. His choral group just got to sing, this was about 2 months ago, back up for Kenny Rogers.
I'm friends with a group that puts on the Vagina Monologues so, every year, I see that. I won't discuss my favorite part, but a certain celebrity dropped the bomb on Meredith Viera on the morning talk show.
Amy, I went to your myspace page, your friend has a video on his page, with a full orchestra doing a rendition of West Side Story I believe...I love that stuff...love it.
If anyone can get me tickets for Wicked, I'll divide everything in my yard and give it to you...I'll even drive it to your home, and deliver it, and plant it. I would need 2 tickets though, if I saw that without Paul...I'd be sleeping in my flower beds for a season or two...lol.
i give up - which friend?
Are you just looking to see Wicked on B'way, or on tour? It has played in an awful lot of cities by now...
Spring Awakening, i LOVE the music, but i found the show disappointing in comparison.
Curtains is a lot of fun, Grey Gardens, which closed sometime last year, i didn't like at all.
The British revival of Sunday in the Park at Roundabout now is one of the Best. Things. I. Have. EVER. Seen. But that's just my opinion...
; )
Off to see opening night of Medea.
...Medea, Medea, i just met a girl named Medea...
Aren't you working?
Hey Carrie!
I played Aunt Eller when my camp did OKLAHOMA! as our closing production.
Sheesh... that was over 40 years ago.
The first "big" show we did was Peter Pan (I was Smee)
Then OKLAHOMA!.
My last year there we did The King & I. I was Lady Thiang.
Nancy
Wow - lots of performers on the forum!
My daughter just made her high school cast of Seusical the Musical. It's her 2nd acting part (a few more in crew--costumes) but the first time she will sing and dance.
Thom, I saw the traveling Wicked in Hartford and thought it was fantastic. Also discovered some great websites for reduced prices on Broadway last time we went in to see something. Try google.
Congrats, Dave!
Thanks.
For NYC shows, try:
http://www.playbill.com/
Lots of offers, you have to sign up - but it is free. You can get discounted tickets to most shows through Playbill.
Of course there is the TKTS booth, opens at 3pm for same night tickets at 1/2 price. They are pretty much always orchestra seats - a good thing for seeing shows, not a good thing paying for them - 1/2 price for a musical is around $55 - $65, for a play it's $40 - $50.
Brought to you by the same organization that runs TKTS is:
http://www.tdf.org
This you do pay for - ithink $27 a year, and only certain people can join - theatre professionals, union members, students, teachers (i'm not sure what all else as i am a theatre professional who is a union member and a student.) TDF gets you B'way for about $30, off-B'way for about $20. Often they are for off days - Tues and Wed, or for shows just into previews that want bigger houses, or are otherwise struggling. These are NOT orchestra seats - you get what no one else bought. But you can buy up to several weeks ahead online, and know you have seats. Check the site a LOT, availability changes daily....
A lot of theatres do student ticket prices too, rules vary by venue, but can usually be found on the Playbill site too.
i have never paid full price for a B'way show.
whew!
amy
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Thom, we took DD#2 to see Wicked on Broadway for her birthday the year that 'Popular' was so popular - 2 yrs ago? 3? Anyway, the theater that was showing it had some kind of deal where a wheelchair patron and his/her attendant got in for $25 each! Of course the seats weren't terrific, but neither were they awful. I'm not suggesting any kind of fraud here, just sharing an anecdote.
And Nancy, don't you think Aunt Eller is a really important part? Not swooshy skirts or sexy costume or fancy dancing, but holding the show together?
David, what part is she in Seussical? DD#2 is Bird Girl #1 - I'm already sick of the music!
xx, C
LOL re: Aunt Eller.
I had fun with that part. It was a bossy, put-'em-in-their-place kinda role.
If someone want's to sing a song from the show they always pick the tilte song or "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning".
Me, I come out with "Poor Jud is Dead".
LOL!
Nancy
Oh, Poor Jud Is Ded - I love that song, Curley is so wily. And DD#1 is SUCH an Aunt Eller, she was totally type-cast. My HS took itself way too seriously to do stuff like Oklahoma!, we did Macbeth, I was a witch. Good for my 14 y. o. self-image - NOT!
xx, Carrie
I wouldn't call you a witch; you're just misunderstood!
My daughter is in the chorus. She is a fish, a hunch, and something else.
Speaking of Seuss his birthday may be today (or Sunday?). Between the new movie, the musical, etc.,he is more prominent than ever.
Dr Seuss was born March 2, 1904 - so Sunday is the day.
He died on my 40th birthday - Sept 24, 1991.
Nancy
Any more comments like that and I'll misunderstand you, buster! (muttering) LOL. Chorus is good - I forget, what grade is she? x, Carrie
Amy:
It's great fun to do lights for theatrical productions. I got started that way a long time ago and eventually moved into performing and musicals. Since I moved to the shoreline I have been in several productions at Ivoryton Playhouse and other theaters--my latest gig was doing the orchestrations for Really Rosie in Guilford in Feb. The picture is me as one of the Peers of the Realm in Iolanthe for the CT Gilbert and Sullivan Society in Middletown last fall.
