Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2

Taming of the Shrew at Wayside Theatre. Amazing. Simply Amazing.

It's been a tough couple of weeks at Wayside Theatre for our staff. Lots of work and lots of frustrations. Everyone is feeling the end of this grueling, but ulimately rewarding 50th Anniversary Season nearing its close. I'm feeling it as well. But this afternoon and early evening I got to participate in something that make the frustrations melt away and make me realize why all we do is worth the doing.

I can hear some of you saying, "oh, no, Crocker's in gushing mode again." Well, yes, I am. But before you tune out, let me assure you there's a reason for the gushing. Yes, I am proud of each and every show we do here at Wayside Theatre. This little theatre with a big heart has some truly amazing artists working here who do amazing work that is worth me constantly gushing over. But today, I had the privilege, the joy, and the utter delight to sit back and watch something our team accomplished that is beyond gushing over.

Each spring our Education Department produces an production of Shakespeare. Each show may have an adult or two in the cast, but mostly the cast is populated with local teenagers. Each and every one of these productions has been a small miracle, full of great work, great accomplishment, and the joy that you can only get watching young people tackle the Bard with exuberance and gusto. Without taking anything away from the excellent productions we've done of Romeo & Juliet, Comedy of Errors, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Macbeth, this year's production of The Taming of the Shrew is mind blowingly good and the best of the best.

I got to watch today's final dress rehearsal and I have to tell you, this is one of the best things we've ever done. Our Education Director, Megan McShea, has led our production staff and this group of teens (and a couple of Interns and one other adult) and created one of those magical moments in the theatre that is so good you don't want it to end. Performing out of doors in the gardens of the former Civil Cricket Cafe has all the challenges of doing any kind of theatre outdoors, but this cast grabs Shakespeare by the words and makes it come alive in ways that astound. At the risk of over hyping the accomplishments of everyone associated with this wonderful show, I can't think of a production we've done that I'm more proud of.

We're performing The Taming of the Shrew this weekend tomorrow at 4:30 and Saturday and Sunday at 12 noon and 4:30 each day. Weather permitting. Oh, yeah, there's that. We're expecting some rain this weekend, so we'll probably have some rain date performances next weekend to make up for any we might lose this weekend.

If you've been around Wayside Theatre at all as an artist or a volunteer or an audience member, you know how much we effort we put forth on anything we do and you know the strength of our committment to our Education programs and the amazing young people who take advantage of the opportunities we offer. I urge you to come see this show this weekend, (or on one of the rain dates next weekend should that be necessary). And I also ask you to do these amazing teens and this amazing production a big favor. Share this post. Tell folks you know to come and see this show. Yeah, I know, I want you to do that all the time. But, folks, this one's special and it deserves to be seen, to be enjoyed, and yes, to be gushed over.

April Fools Day Jokes That Give All Year Long

American politics

Google's Android

The Global Warming Debate

Intel has a new mobile chip platform and will compete with ARM

Twitter as a news source

Wall Street

Internet privacy

Personal privacy

Internet security

Financial security

Justice is blind

Republicans and Democrats

Rush Limbaugh

Name your news channel

Patent law

The Health Care debate

Facebook

The RIAA and the MPAA

Supply and Demand

Organized Religion

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile

Government regulation is good/bad

Sovereignty

4G

The US Congress

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poissons D'Avril

Happy April Fools Day. Watch out for what you read on the Internet today. You never know what might be a prank, so keep your skeptic's hat on.

Great Reviews Coming in For Greater Tuna at Wayside Theatre

The first two reviews for Wayside Theatre's production of Greater Tuna are in and it looks like we made the critics laugh. In a good way. Both the Northern Virginia Daily and The Winchester Star (that link takes you to a pay wall. Sorry.) really enjoyed the bizarre and abundant humor that Greater Tuna is filled with. Here are a couple of excerpts:

From the Winchester Star:

Wayside Theatre's 'Greater Tuna' is absurdly hilarious.

Greg Pragel as Arles and Eddie Staver III as Thurston bring these savory characters vividly to life in a way that keeps the audience amazed and astonished.

And from the Northern Virginia Daily

The play, "Greater Tuna," offers a deliciously satirical look at one day in the life of the 20-some residents of the teeny, tiny fictional town of Tuna, Texas.

turned quick costume changes into an art form

And it goes on from there. We'll be seeing more and more as the days go on. But suffice it to say that we're tickled with the early responses. The show is indeed a laugh riot and Greg and Eddie are amazing, as is the team of dressers. If you're looking to get some laughs I hope you can make it to see the show. If you're not looking to laugh, well, something's wrong with you.

Side note: John Horan who used to review us for the Northern Va Daily no longer does so. He was a casualty of the recent purchase of that local paper and no longer is associated with that enterprise. We'll miss John's reviews but it was great to see him at the theatre sitting in his traditional opening night seats.

Greater Tuna Brings The Funny at Wayside Theatre

Last night we opened the hilarious quick change comedy, Greater Tuna at Wayside Theatre. It was a fantastic opening night, filled with laughter, and filled with good times. Our remarkable actors, Eddied Staver and Greg Pragel created some magic on the way to playing 20 characters in the span of under two hours. And their magic is made possible by the wonderful team of quick change dressers we have back stage who also did a remarkable job. All in all a great night of watching a couple of excellent actors be excellent clowns as they go back and forth between characters, swapping dresses and heels on and off faster than you can say quick change.

Greater Tuna has become a classic since its debut back in the 1980's (as have its many successors). And watching this production of the show this year, I'm reminded of just how timely the piece is. Presenting the lives of the residents of the tiny town of Tuna, Texas, we get to see some hilarity, but also some of those good old American traits like bigotry and ignorance come to life. The more things change the more they remain the same. Or is that really true?

We did the show back in 2003 and had a successful run then, but I have noticed one signficant change since that time. The character of Elmer, a local Klan member, who gets to make a few public service announcements on radio station OKKK, seems to have a very different impact today than he did back then. You can audibly feel an uncomfortableness in the audience when he introduces himself and goes on about his message. In 2003 when he closed his prayer with the line, "make the world a better place... for the right kind of people" we got big laughs. That's not so funny to audiences today as it was then.  Probably because back then I think most folks didn't see Elmer and his ilk as a threat the way we do today. In fact teen audience members take it harder than most, which is intriguing.

But Elmer is as key to the play and the story as are Bertha and Pearl, Petey and Stanley. It's a world I think we all love to laugh at, if only to keep it tucked away, hoping to shield it from our laughs with laughter. But then again... for some maybe not.

Rob Reid and Copyright Math

Ever wonder about those claims about billions of dollars lost to copyright infringement? Well, this video of Rob Reid's talk at the TED conference on Copyright Math will set you straight. It will also leave you laughing. Worth a watch.

 

Mike Daisey, NPR, Lies, and the Silly Outrage

Mike Daisey is deservedly catching some flak. Daisey does one man shows that are performed in front of an audience. He captured quite a bit of attenion on one he did The Agony and the Ectasay of Steve Jobs, about Apple and worker conditions and the abuses in China. He got caught making up some of the stuff in the show, after it aired on NPR's This American Life.

Now the world is jumping on Daisey for making shit up to make a buck. Like he's the first one to do that. I'm sure Ira Glass has made some edits in a show somewhere in his life that have spun or twisted a story to his liking that might shade the truth a bit as well. I bet he's also sat by and listened to a guest tell what he knows is a bald-faced lie and not called them on it either. Daisey says he's off the hook because he's not a journalist. Journalists all over are knocking each other down to get up on the highest part of the pedastal to call him out. This American Life is in full outrage mode and issued a retraction. The New York Times has weighed in (yeah, they know a liar when they see one.) It's all silly stuff.

Jeff Jarvis has a post up about the ordeal called Lies in which he exposes some of the absurdity here in the modern era where liars are rewarded continually with high office, high ratings, and high profits. Here's an excerpt:

So how could that norm be canceled for public figures, for politicians who insist we’ll have death panels or for performers on stage who think the spotlight forgives lies?

I hope not and I don’t think so. But perhaps we haven’t made the price of lying for them high enough. So they think they can get away with it to accomplish what they want to accomplish.

Jarvis is on target as far as he goes. It isn't that we've not made the price high enough for being caught. It's that the payoffs are larger for doing the lying than any penalty that could be meted out.

I could make an arguement about artistic license being a playwright myself, but it isn't worth it. We seem to be far too happy to live in a world of fiction in our everyday lives anyway. Daisey is just the latest sacrifice to the mythical gods of truth that we pounce on now and again to make the rest of us feel better about the lying that is so pervasive around us and that we just blindly accept, giving permission for it to continue. Voted in an election lately? 

The spotlight can't forgive lies or liars. The spotlight was invented so we could better watch a world of make believe anyway. The spotlight makes both lies and truths stand out in bold relief. The problem is, the spotlight can't discern which is which. And sadly, those of us who can have stopped caring enough to do so.

 

 

Southern Crossroads at Circa 21 Sounds Like a Hit!

From what we're hearing this morning it sounds like Southern Crossroads, the musical that Steve Przybylski and I put together back in 2009 has turned into a hit at Circa 21 Dinner Playhouse in Rock Island, Il. It's still early (and I think most of the cast and crew are sleeping it off after a successful opening night and presumably one hell of a party), but from the few emails we've gotten and Facebook posts, everyone seems thrilled with the show, most importantly, the audience!

This sounds like the second successful production of the show since its premiere at Wayside Theatre in 2009, the last at Totem Pole Playhouse this past summer. That one garnered a standing ovation for every performance as audiences just fell in love with the story, the characters, the music, and the fun.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Circa 21 production in a few weeks and meeting the new family members of the Greene Family Singers and all who poured their hearts into this latest production. Thanks to all who worked so hard to make this a success at Circa 21 and congrats on a wonderful opening night.

Comedy Cuts to the Chase: John Cleese Explains Stupid

Hang on until the end of the video for the explanation.

A Little Faith, a Little Luck, and a Lotta Love: Smoke on the Mountain Debuts

Well, here we go. Another opening and another show at Wayside Theatre. Like all things worthwhile there are always challenges to be met along the way and even though it is a few hours before curtain, I think I can safely say we've met the ones facing us here. But before I get to those challenges, let me update those who follow here and care about Wayside Theatre's progress in meeting the many challenges the organization has been facing this last year.

If you're a Wayside Theatre regular you've been with us on an incredible and sometimes scary journey throughout this 50th Anniversary Season. If you're new to the scene we hope you check out our thrilling production of Smoke on the Mountain by a professional theatre company that just a few short months ago could not predict whether or not it would still be in existence in 2012. But we're here and we are going forward with a sense of growing confidence that we haven't had in quite some time.

We're here because our loyal base of supporters has demonstrated incredible support for this "tiny theatre with a big heart." We're here because we have an incredible family of talented artists who believe that their continued collaboration on the productions and educational programs this theatre offers is important to this community. We're here because Wayside Theatre is special.

 

Late last summer when we announced the Emergency Campaign to raise $90,000 in 45 days those on Wayside Theatre's Board of Directors and staff looked at that campaign as a vote by our community on whether or not the theatre should continue. There was an overwhelming response from our community. Not only did our community vote in the affirmative, they helped us exceed our goal by donating over $106,000,  $30,000 of that in the first 4 days of the campaign. Those funds enabled us to pay serious debts that would have seen us close the doors without those contributions. The result of that campaign is that we were able to breathe a little, but it was a short breath as we began production on Wayside Theatre's annual Christmas Show. The World Premiere of Glory Bea! A Shenandoah Christmas Story by Rich Follett and Larry Dahlke was met with enthusiastic audience response and continued to build on the momentum that began growing with the Emergency Campaign.

Concurrent with those efforts we begin a serious discussion with those stepping forward about how we could sustain Wayside Theatre going forward. Those discussions continue on many levels including in the media. Several journalists have taken the organization to task and continue to do so, but in fairness, the criticism looks to the same goal those charged with securing Wayside Theatre's future have: keeping Wayside Theatre alive and vital as a part of this community's cultural life.

As the New Year dawned and work continued we now find Wayside Theatre's prospects improving. For the first time since the world's economy crashed in 2008 we are current with our ongoing obligations. We've announced a stellar line up for our 2012-13 Season that begins in June, and over 50% of our subscribers have already decided to renew their commitment for that exciting season. (As a reference that's on par with years' past.) Equally as important, we're seeing new subscribers deciding to journey with us into the 51st Season.

We are asked each day about our progress. The best description we can give is a simple one. We're making steady and demonstrable progress and feel confident about that progress and our planning. Now that critical operational debts have been paid, we are able to focus again on our long term debt picture as we continue to work with our supporters to stabilize Wayside Theatre's ongoing efforts. (As a reference the theatre's long term debt is secured by the property it owns including the theatre building.)

Are we out of the woods? In the world we live in these days, I'm not sure anyone could realistically say that. But we're poised to turn an important corner this winter and spring if the hard work to build on the hard earned support you and many like you have shown the theatre continues.

And now on to the show. Plays involve people. People to write them, perform them, design them and produce them. While plays chronicle the human condition, those that bring them audiences are also subject the fragility of life and its ups and downs. This is a return to Smoke on the Mountain for us, after a successful production years back. But it is with some new cast members and some returning veterans of the Sanders Family. It was also with a different director as John Healey did the first production so well. So a new dynamic needed to formed. Just as we were getting close to seeing that new dynamic gel in the final week of rehearsal, one of our cast members, Bob Payne, became seriously ill and had to withdraw from the show on Wednesday. For those who will ask, Bob is on his way to recovering and we wish him well with his convalesence.

 

So, we had to scramble. Fortunately, that's somethign this company does well. Maybe that's out of surviving the last few years. Reaching out to other producers and cast members who have performed this show in other theatres we were quickly able to contact and hire Roger Eaves to come in for the role of Burl, the father of the Sanders Family. He joined us on Friday and with one day of rehearsal we began previews yesterday with a matinee and evening peformance.

Those who have worked at Wayside Theatre know what a journey that preview Saturday is. Shows meet the audience for the afternoon matinee and grow throughout the day and into the evening performance with notes in between. By the end of the night, we know what we have. In this case we met the audience with more than the usual nerves jittering around, but the matinee audience loved the show, and when we met the audience last evening, we, the show, and the audience all arrived at the same destination for a wonderful evening of theatre.

There are many thanks for this to be shared. First and foremost, Roger Eaves is an amazing performer who stepped in to a real challenge with a smile on his face and a lot of love in his heart. The rest of the cast (his on stage family) quickly adopted a new daddy and with a few hours a new dynamic was beginning to unfold. Our staff was amazing all week once we got the news and made sure everything was ready to support the cast going forward.

It is more than appropriate that the title of this post begins with "A Little Faith, a Little Luck, and a Lotta Love." We got lucky hooking up with Roger so quickly. We all had faith in each other, and the tremendous love this group of artists at Wayside Theatre has for this theatre and its place in its community was at the heart of all of our efforts these last few days.

So, to paraphrase a lyric from Smoke on the Mountain, I'll close with this before we go get ready for opening night.

We've had a lot of heartaches, met a lot of grief and woe.
And when we would stumble, then we would humble down,
And there I would say,
We wouldn't take nothing for our journey now.

Thanks to All for the Merry Christmas at Wayside Theatre with Glory Bea!

Today we don the final performance of Glory Bea! A Shenandoah Christmas Story at Wayside Theatre. It's Christmas Eve. There's no place I'd rather be than here today. Every year with our annual Christmas show I tell the cast that our charge and our mission is to bring Christmas to our visitors. Every year we do. Each performance we sense the audience getting into the Christmas Spirit right along with us. But the Christmas Eve performance is always something special.

Theatre artists talk about that bond that develops between performer and audience member all the time, but on Christmas Eve with a Christmas show the bond begins forming long before the audience takes their seats or the actors head to places. Everyone knows, and expects, this to be magical, this to be joyful, and this to be Christmas. And you know what? It is.

Today we'll travel that journey once again and then the Wayside gang will head off for a couple of weeks to try and recoup a little energy for the remainder of the season. It has been a year of challenges and a year of successes. It has also been a year of wonderful people working hard and sharing their efforts. Thanks to all of the wonderful children who make Glory Bea! possible and thanks to their wonderful parents for sharing them with us on this ride. Thanks also to Rich and Larry for giving us this tale to tell. Thanks to our audiences for spending the time with us.

And as always thanks to the wonderful artists who are Wayside Theatre. Some of us will be traveling different paths in the new year to come, but we'll always have those moments of joy we've created for those willing to come and play with us. Especially those on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Playwright and Political Dissident Turned Leader Vaclav Havel Dies

R.I.P. Vaclav Havel.

It's not often in the history of the world where the interesection of the arts and politics collide in a profound way that saw Vaclav Havel move from the stage of one to the stage of the other. But that happened with this playwright who saw his dissident and boundry pushing plays, along with his actions propel him from the stage to prision to the presidency of Czechoslvakia. All of this at a momentus and confusing time in history as communism was falling in Europe.

Havel was always a hero of mine for his writings and how they contained greater truths that unseated conventional thinking in such an entertaining way. In ways that only the stage can really provide and he did so with great risk, given the era in which he was poking at the ribs of the beast that constrained muh of the world.

These thoughts from Havel made sense then. And as with the case of all great thinkers and writers, it still makes even more frightening sense as we have supposedly moved forward. More, because you'd think we should have learned something from that era.

"We have become morally ill because we are used to saying one thing and thinking another. We have learned not to believe in anything, not to care about each other. . . . Love, friendship, mercy, humility, or forgiveness have lost their depths and dimension. . . . They represent some sort of psychological curiosity, or they appear as long-lost wanderers from faraway times."

But, then we don't have a habit of listening to the chroniclers of the human condition.

Words That Should Be Banned for Overuse

Each year the folks at Lake Superior State University publish one of my favorite lists. This list contains words or phrases that they believe should be banned because they are overused or just, well, they just shouldn't be used period.

This year's Lake Superior State University List of Banned Words contains some interesting ones such as viral, FAIL, epic, A-Ha moment, and one phrase that I think has become as demeaning in its overuse, The American People. As the nominator says, aren't all Americans people?

Anyway, enjoy this year's list. And if you want to see all the words that have been banned in the past here's a link to that as well.

The 7th Annual Life on the Wicked Stage Ink Blot Awards

Like everything else in my life in this insane year this post is a day late and a dollar short. The seventh anniversary of this blog was yesterday, December 3. But things in my life kept me from putting the finishing touches on the post and getting it published on the big day. On some level that's unacceptable. On others it is entirely in character this year. But then, maybe we'll see that change in the new year.

Seven years. (and a day) That's how long I've been presenting the Ink Blot Awards as my way of recognizing the anniversary of this blog. It's been a fun ride. It's been full of laughs. I'm hoping this year's awards will also provide a few chuckles to folks who stop by and give them a read. Although the history is mostly ancient and perhaps bordering on the irrelevant, I think it is important to provide some of it as context. So here goes:

I created The Life On The Wicked Stage Ink Blot Awards as a celebration. Yes, it's a celebration of the 1 year anniversary of this blog. But it is more than that. It is a celebration of a community that I have come to know and admire. The Tableteers that make up the Tablet PC Community are an amazing collection of individuals who know and work with the Tablet PC platform. They are fiercely protective of it, insatiably curious about advancing it, very intelligent, often wickedly funny, at one time very forgiving and patient, and in the same breath, scathingly critical when the need arises. They are also exceedingly willing to evangelize the platform to anyone who will listen, and in my humble opinion, have helped keep the spotlight on The Tablet PC in ways that may, in the long run, prove to be responsible for keeping the platform thriving.

So much has changed in the time I started blogging that first year. It's changed with me and also that community has certainly changed. Those around me have changed as well in an eerie parallel to how things with Tablets have changed. Tablets mean different things now-a-days, although some of those who make them seem to have less penchant for success than Microsoft did.

What hasn't changed and what's consistent about Tablets is that they are still the very personal devices that they started out to be. Microsoft never recognized that. Apple did. Others tried to emulate without acknowledging the core reasons for Apple's success. And by and large they failed.

What's also changed is my attitude about politics, cultural happenings, and other things that I observe on this blog. I've also changed how I observe and remark about them. The convenience of Twitter and Google+ take something away from this blog. Sometimes I worry about that. Sometimes I don't.

I've become increasingly disenchanted with quite a few things this year. To be honest, I don't know why. I used to find it all entertaining in a "Human Comedy" sort of way. I don't find it that entertaining anymore. The ins and outs of life begin with the foibles of humans. It used to be that somewhere along the line we acknowledged that, celebrated it, and moved on, bettering ourselves in the process. While I think we still acknowledge it, and we might celebrate it, the only benefit we're deriving by moving on is to repeat the same things over and over again with an increasing frequency. I think this year's Ink Blot Awards reflect that with the number of repeats. Or they reflect my warped sense of things.

This was a year that so many things resulted in a "FAIL" that I think we have to look for a new buzz word for failure. Politics and the circus around it started performing without a tent and nobody cared that the clowns weren't funny any more. It's not that the clowns weren't funny that is maddening. It's depressing that no one cared anymore. Major tech companies became exposed for what can only be described as abhorent stratagies. New gadgets now depend on the same fickle first weekend sales that movies do. Of course if we had better gadgets being released, we'd probably see better results. Social networking became a parody of itself and all of that sharing resulted in a few shares too many or not nearly enough, depending on your perspective. Big media continued to prove that it doesn't have a clue. Little media seems to inexplicably want to follow that path as well. Oh, and Mother Nature reached up and smacked the planet around trying to get our attention. But aside from watching the compelling video and pictures we continued to just be thankful it wasn't us feeling her wrath, and sympathetic to those who did. The 99% became the Tea Party without the tea but with lots of party, because in the end the complaints are the same. For its efforts it got criticized by the 1% for being unorganized, dirty, and partying too much by the 1% that defines itself by making money and not making anything else so it can party. I think the 1% are just jealous because they feel like they have to dress up and shower in order to play their game. There's an old saying in show biz that if you put real life on the stage no one would believe it. I think if you put this last year on the stage, not only wouldn't anyone believe it, but Groupon would have a hard time selling discount tickets to it.

Last year's many repeats were due primarily to me spending the year dealing with my mother's terminal illness and ultimate passing. This year's repeats, I think, deal more with the fact that nothing has really changed. Change used to be a constant. I don't think it is as constant presently. On some levels I find that depressing, on larger levels I find that extremely human. I also find that it focuses those who are looking at life with 20/20 vision into a clearer view that someday may pull us out of the rut we're in.

Any pretense at aspirations aside, the rules for inclusion on the list are the same. Award winners are subject to my own whims and fancies. Some are best in class, some are just frivilous, some deserve the small heaping of scorn these awards might cast their way. Human nature, no matter the field of endeavor, is ripe with that which needs celebrating and that which needs derision cast its way. Good friend, Tablet PC MVP and fellow GBM contributor, Mark “Sumocat” Sumimoto, christened these awards with the nickname of ‘The Blotties’ in year one, and that sorta stuck. So we'll let it keep sticking. And finally, if you don't like the list, go make your own.

So, as always, hit the jump, cue the dancing girls, beat out a tattoo on the drums, sound the trumpets (or the theremin) and get ready for the Seventh Annual Life on the Wicked Stage Ink Blot Awards .

Enjoy!

Reality Done Gone Bye-Bye: Trump to Moderate Republican Debate

If there was a shark that was still circling the wading pool after all the splashing we've been through so far in this political season we would now have jumped it. It's been apparent for some time now that what passes for presidential poltitics has become not only irrelevant, but a continual mockery of itself. All players in the charade have been unmasked and anyone passing for an Emperor can't be that embarrassed to be exposed because all of the exposers are just as unclothed.

So, this should, perhaps mercifuclly, be the final nail in the coffin for what used to be the process of pretending like we were serious when we chose a president. Donald Trump is going to moderate one of the debates.

In earlier times this would have been as laughable as choosing Big Bird or Mickey Mouse. But those times have long passed us by. I take that back. I've just insulted Mickey and the Bird.

I'd say I was sickened by this, but that would imply that there was anything healthy about my response to any of the political shennanigans that go on now that demean the concept of politics.