Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2

Lee and Brown: Bringing Guns to the Theatre

Don’t let the headline of this post alarm you. Although I once had a professor who said that “you’re not doing real theatre unless folks show up with guns to stop you from selling tickets,” I don’t think that’s what the folks who showed up in period ‘attire’ and accessories had in mind at the opening of Robert E. Lee and John Brown: Lighting the Fuse at Wayside Theatre.

Our production is a big part in the beginning of the multi-year celebration for the Sesquicentennial Observances of the American Civil War that start this year. John Brown’s raid lit the fuse that let to that explosion and events commemorating the raid are a big part of the kick off. We’re honored to be doing the play in that context, and folks who care a great deal about the history of those events are very excited about the play.

So, we had several ladies and gentlemen who decided to deck themselves out and wear their ‘attire’ to the opening night of the play. I found it is called ‘attire’ and not a costume when I made the faux pas of thanking them for wearing their costumes to the event. Hey, I’m a theatre guy and everything is a costume to us in this biz. But, nonetheless, the gentleman with the period rifle attracted quite a bit of attention out front of the theatre and in our concession area before the show, and also at the reception afterwards. He politely checked his fire arm during the play, and I got to remind the audience that they weren’t at the theatre for a Town Hall meeting, even if some of them were armed. 

Lee and Brown: We're Open

I’m not sure when I’ve been this exhausted after an opening. Usually it takes me a few days to recover from the intensity and stress that invades out lives in the run up to an opening night. Maybe it was because in addition to my director and producer hats I was also wearing my playwright hat this time around. But I think a good deal of the exhaustion I’m experiencing had to do with what happened in the hours before we opened Robert E. Lee and John Brown: Lighting The Fuse at Wayside Theatre.

We felt very good about the show after the two previews. Even with the changes we had made in this new edition of the play, we didn’t feel a need to come in and rehearse much before the show. I felt it was more important to give everyone a few hours extra of down time to recoup some energy.

I got into the theatre about 3pm. I had made a few tweaks to the multimedia slide show that runs throughout the production. And I wanted to make sure that if any other tweaks were necessary, I had time to do them. When I fired up the computer and the projector it was obvious there was no signal between the two. So, I rebooted everything and gave it a go. Still no luck. Not really sweating this, I knew we had other computers on hand capable of powering the slides, so I grabbed one and powered it up. Voila, we had a connection. But not so fast. The image looked very dim and the color was off.

Lee and Brown: $10 Tickets Available for Tonight's Performance

For those in the Northern Shenandoah Valley, we've got a limited number of tickets available for tonight's performance (Saturday 8/29 @ 8pm) Robert E. Lee and John Brown: Lighting the Fuse at Wayside Theatre. These tickets are only available at the door. Come on down and check out history so alive you can reach out and touch it. Map link here.

Lee and Brown: First Audiences Today

Men, get on your arms. We will proceed to the Ferry. You know what we are about.

That’s what John Brown says to his men on the night that they launched their raid on Harpers Ferry. It seems like an appropriate call today as we head into our first interaction with audiences as well.

When we debuted the world premiere of Robert E. Lee and John Brown: Lighting the Fuse in 2004 at Wayside Theatre, none of us knew what we had. It was a brand new play, sprung from my mind, and mid-wived to life by a capable production team and cast. Our capabilities have increased tremendously this time around, and is by and large more solid than that first one. That’s not taking anything away from those men who earlier did the journey. They did an excellent job, but this group is a bit more mature in what they bring to the table. The intellectual and passionate arguments crackle with a new fire in this new version, and the action seems much more intense this time around.

I keep going back and forth on whether or not this is another world premiere or not. I’ve made enough substantial changes to the script to warrant the label, but I’ve got a bias here that can’t be overlooked in making that call. Regardless, the play is indeed improved. It feels meatier, stronger, sleeker, and in a good way much, much, much, more complex.

We had a few folks watching the final dress rehearsal last night and they really got caught up in the story. Some were retired military and some were young people from our Youth Ambassadors Guild. Both extremes commented on how powerful the story was and how rich the characters were. The surge of the first act really swept them up, and as the arguments of the play take hold in Act 2, you good hear a pin/pen drop in the theatre. I know because I dropped mine and watched heads turn in disgust.

So, we’ll do the play in front of strangers today. We’ll see how they respond. We’ll make some adjustments. And then we’ll throw this beast at the world with the opening night performance tomorrow. It is going to be a weekend, that’s for sure.

This Is Me Today. Hanging by a Thread

One of those days where you feel like you're dangling from a thread, or some other piece of fabric.

Breaking News: No One Knows Anything about Anything in the Economy

You can take your financial analysts, your business shows, your government accounting experts, and your last month's statistics, wrap them all up in a tortilla and you'd still have a mouth full of nothing.

Headlines bounce up and down with good and bad news with the regularity of the sun rising each morning, and of course some seize on each tidbit of news and cry 'panic' or 'things are getting better.'

Can we just all grow up and realize that none of the indicators mean diddly, none of the prognosticators and none of us really have any idea what is going on?

We'd be better off picking winners at the track.

Lee and Brown: Everyone Waits

Today was a bit of a breather at Wayside Theatre unless you were Paul, our Lighting Designer, and Heather, our Master Electrician. The cast of Robert E. Lee and John Brown: Lighting the Fuse had the day off after two very long and hard days of work putting the play together this weekend. I did some radio recording this morning and then headed in to catch up on some admin work, then spent the late afternoon and early evening with Paul, going over the numerous cueing sequences for lights in the show. That work went well, so hopefully everyone can get a brief few breaths before we gear up for some technical work during the day tomorrow.

Tomorrow evening we add costumes, multimedia and sound to the show, so we’ll have an arduous and difficult rehearsal to get through. But we’ll fight our way through it, knowing that we have to focus on these external elements before we can get back to the story we begin to see come to life last night in the first run thru. Expectations are building all around.

As the narration ends prior to Lee’s arrival in Harpers Ferry.

“Everyone waits.”

Lee and Brown: Pictures from the Cast Trip to Harpers Ferry

Harpers Ferry is an amazing place to visit for many reasons. Of course our reason for taking the Wayside Theatre cast of Robert E. Lee and John Brown: Lighting the Fuse there was to experience the locale where John Brown and his men raided the town and met their end at the hands of Robert E. Lee and federal and state troops. Of course many of the buildings that feature prominently in the story don’t exist anymore. Some were burned during the Civil War and never rebuilt, and some met there end due to flooding. The town sits at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. You can actually stand on the point and have one foot in each.

A key feature for us is the restored Engine House. The building isn’t even on the same ground where it existed when Brown and his men retreated into it with their hostages once they become entangled. Even so, you can get an idea of just how small a building this was thanks to the restoration. The obelisk marker in one of the pictures (after the jump) stands where the Engine House used to be located.

After the jump you’ll see some of the pictures taken during the trip and there are many more located at this Flickr feed.

Lee and Brown: The Power of Words

I made a conscious decision when I wrote Robert E. Lee and John Brown: Lighting the Fuse that if anyone was going to condemn or praise the two main characters for their actions or their words, that they would be doing so based on the words that the characters themselves spoke or wrote. And many of their words make it into the play, along with words spoken and written by other figures of history including Frederick Douglass, Roger Tawny, James Buchannan, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, and many others. Yes, I created some dialogue along the way, but we are lucky in that each of these folks left a legacy of letters and writings that we are able to glean insight from. As a playwright if I couldn’t create a few words for these folks to say based on the volume of their words that were available to me, then I’d be one lousy playwright.

In many ways those words are what made me keep thinking that this play about these two men would be stage worthy. There obviously is no doubt about the evil nature of the principal issue of slavery. But how men approached that issue is what exposed the fault lines in our national character. Religion and faith play a part in it, as did the legal structure. Both Lee and Brown had a profound sense of faith. Brown’s adherence to God’s Law was his driving force and led him to force the issues. Lee’s fatalism, and belief that we can’t presuppose God’s plan led him to conflicting resolutions over the issue.

When issues so inflame passions that man forsakes the better part of his nature there is no “best” choice. May God then rescue us from the folly of our own acts and save us from our selfishness.

Lee & Brown: 9 Men Kicking Butt

Yesterday was the first long day of two this weekend, the other is today obviously, rehearsing Robert E. Lee and John Brown: Lighting the Fuse at Wayside Theatre. We took great steps forward. The afternoon was spent on Act 1, working through it, and then running it. I feel like we left Act 1 in very good shape. The evening was spent working the last half of Act 2, which is a tricky beast. We made some progress there, but didn’t really nail it yet, so we’re back to that early today. We’ll be aiming to run thru the entire show tonight, but we’ve still got some work to do before we get there.

The nine men in this cast are really going at this wonderfully. Seven of them have to play multiple characters, and they are working hard at distinguishing them through voice and gest, but it isn’t easy. This play is populated with a slew of characters, many historical. They range from the title characters to Frederick Douglass, to Supreme Court Justices, to New England merchants, to the town folk of Harpers Ferry, and also Brown’s Raiders. But these guys are kicking butt and they need to continue to do so. I think they sense how close they are and that’s where whatever rehearsal frustrations they feel are coming in.  If we continue to apply ourselves today, after the exhaustion of yesterday’s rehearsal, we’ll continue to move forward.

Tuesday we begin to add sound and the multimedia component to the show, and that will step us back a bit. Adding tech elements always, always makes the show step back initially. The multimedia in this show is so pervasive that it almost becomes a character. I shouldn’t say almost. It does.

Well, on to rehearsal, and another long day of good work. Will it be magical? Maybe cast member Dave Sucharski knows the answer to that.