Open Season

A hunting metaphor seemed appropriate, somehow.

February marks the start of hiring for the new season of Festival 56. Every year the festival needs to find the perfect 20 or so actors and around the same number of technical and design staff to fill out the season.

This gives me a good excuse to brag a little bit about the sheer awesomeness of my wife, Laura Brigham, who is entering her ninth season as the casting director for the festival. Every year I get to watch her watch a thousand or so performers sing, act and dance for roughly 90 seconds each. From this, she manages to cull the 100 or so best options from the season, and from that she consistently hires those actors who fit perfectly with us, both in talent and personality. She’s like e-Harmony for acting gigs.

Now, a normal casting director has to hire a cast for a single show. Piece of cake: know the show, know what it needs, know what the director wants, find it. A casting director for a typical summer stock that  has a bit more complicated job: all of the above, plus make sure everybody can sing, dance and be funny.  Laura’s job is another order of magnitude beyond that: each actor performs in 4 out of 7 shows, which may or may not include Shakespeare, a Rodger’s and Hammerstein ballet, Bob Fosse choreography, a 3 page stream-of-consciousness monologue, or the need to sing the Queen of the Night aria from The Magic Flute. It will, however, require that each performer sing or do something entertaining every Friday night for cabarets. Needless to say, this is a tall order, and one that Laura manages to accomplish consistently year after year.

My job, in comparison, is significantly more reasonable. I get to find the creative minds who will work backstage and in the workshop to create the look and feel of the show. Usually, these staffers will design two or maybe three shows in the season for their respective department, be it costumes or lights and scenery. They all tend to have areas that they are strong in, such as having a gift for designing huge sets for big musicals or intimate, moody unit sets for small cast plays.

The big difference between Laura’s process and mine is efficiency. You see, the theatre business has created this ingenious system for surveying talent called the cattle call, so Laura can see 500 actors in a couple days. Me? I spend 6 hours sitting at a table interviewing one person every 5 minutes, max. Meaning I’ve talked myself hoarse, I’m completely exhausted, and I’ve seen 72 people, 10 of whom I might offer a job. There has to be a better way, but I haven’t found it yet. Sometimes I like to sneak into the casting room just to bathe in the sheer efficiency of it all for a few minutes. (I’m sure someone right now is screaming at the screen, “Efficiency?!! What?!! You’re mad!! MAD!!”)

So, next Sunday, the 12th, we begin with our local auditions at the Grace Theatre in Princeton. Then it’s on to Midwest Theatre Auditions in St. Louis at the end of the month, and finally out to New York City for our open call mid-March. And, oh yes, for the Cormier-Burke nuptials as well: The first festival couple is getting married!

Each year, Laura and I have a friendly contest to see who can be fully staffed first. And I always lose, which makes no sense because I can have multiple offers out for different positions while she has to wait to see who has accepted before she can offer the next set of roles. This year, I’m going to beat her…I can feel it.

New Season, Familiar Faces, Vol. I

It’s a new year, friends.

Ten new shows ready and waiting for us to jump in and get our hands dirty. It’s a great lineup, full of deformed fish people (Tempest), death by nursery rhyme (And Then There Were None), your retro iPod playlist (Respect), dancing gorillas (Cabaret)…and a ballet (Carousel). At this point in the process, I know about as much as you do about what these shows will look and sound like. One thing’s for sure, we have a solid bench of stage directors lined up who will put their mark on what we will see on opening night. Most of them are familiar names that you associate with many of our most successful productions, and some are new. Here is the team:

Jim Brigman, who earned a name for himself with the festival as a comic actor, returns to once again helm our free Shakepeare, The Tempest, after a successful directorial debut in 2010 with Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Lauran Stanis, who, along with Jim, was a member of the first season’s cast in 2004  and was both director and choreographer for last season’s Annie Get Your Gun, returns to us to work the same magic on RESPECT: The Musical Journey of Women.

Jimmy Calitri, who directed last year’s Songs For a New World, will turn his talents on bringing Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps to our stage.

Brad Raimondo, an MFA Directing candidate at The New School University, will make his debut with the festival directing Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (Ten Little Indians).

Laura Brigham, one of the festival’s most prolific actors and directors, will be directing Lend Me a Tenor, which played a short run in early 2005, and, after many requests from patrons, returns as a summer mainstage.

Tim Seib, the creative force behind our productions of The Wizard of OZ, A Doll’s House, Lucky Stiff and last season’s Proof, will bring his prodigious talents to the final blockbuster of the season, Cabaret.

 

And finally, I will once again indulge my love and admiration for the work of Rodgers and Hammerstein by taking on Carousel.

As I hinted at in the title for this post, there will be additional installments as our acting company comes into clearer focus. My plan is to keep you all abreast of the latest interesting news here at the festival so that you are well-informed by the time we reach curtain for Respect. Be sure to forward the link to the Festival 56 Blog on to anyone you know who follows the festival, and be sure to subscribe!

Also, be sure to check out our new website, www.festival56.com, for more information about the upcoming season, including show dates and special events. We are excited to announce that the site will be offering online ticket sales by the time the box office opens at the end of April. Let us know what you think by commenting on our facebook page!

Glad to have you back for Season Nine! Mystery, Magic and Murder!

Where Are They Up To Now? Vol. I

Jason Simon as Dick Dead Eye in The Guthrie Theatre's HMS Pinafore

It’s been an exciting week for the festival, with one of our co-founders and longtime actors, Jason Simon, making his big network television debut on the PBS broadcast of The Guthrie Theatre’s production of HMS Pinafore. Now, unless you attend all festival shows with a bag over your head and wearing ear plugs, you know who Jason Simon is. He’s the big, loud, funny guy who has starred in 18 of our productions since 2003, as well as directing and designing the sets for many more. (Oscar in The Odd Couple, Lennie in Of Mice and Men, The Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance and Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, just to name a handful.) He has also been creating all of our show art every season of the festival, and recently added a beautiful mural to the side of The Grace Theatre.

But Jason’s success goes much further than Festival 56, and it was suggested to me that I should take this opportunity to do a piece bringing you up to speed on what some of our other festival alumni have been up to since their time on our stage. But to give Jason the proper kudos for his latest accomplishment, I’ll start with him.

JASON SIMON

The last time Jason was on the festival stage was 2008, starring as Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar, among other roles. Since then he has spent 2 full years touring as Max Bialystock (the role originated by Nathan Lane) on the national tour of The Producers and one year on the national tour of The Wizard of OZ as The Cowardly Lion. After leaving the road behind in 2010, Jason starred in the Off-Broadway revival of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which was nominated for a Outer Critics Circle award for Best Revival of a Musical, and in the summer of 2011 starred as Dick Dead Eye in The Guthrie’s HMS Pinafore, a job he landed while in the process of painting our mural on the Grace.

LYNN ANDREWS 

In 2006, Lynn rocked the stage as Mama Morton in Chicago, Aunt Eller in Oklahoma and Marmie in Little Women. With her huge voice and brassy attitude, she was an immediate festival favorite that I’ve been asked about many times over the past 5 years.

Lynn Andrews as Miss Hannigan in Annie

Since 2006, Lynn has spent  three years as Miss Hannigan on the national tour of Annie. She spent the summer of 2011 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in the award-winning From The Fire, and has been working on commercial voiceovers for products that sound healthy. She currently lives in Williamsburg and spends much of her time playing the ukelele.

 

CHRISTOPHER WINDOM

Christopher Windom, director of Chicago in 2006

While you may not recognize the name, you definitely know this man’s work. As the director of our 2006 production of Chicago, Christopher Windom was at the helm of one of our most popular and talked about productions. Since directing and choreographing Chicago at Festival 56, Christopher has had the chance to direct and choreograph in NYC, Missouri and even El Salvador.

In 2007, he went back to school and received his masters in directing from Brown University/Trinity Rep where he directed classics like Our Country’s Good, The Tempest and Woyzeck. Since graduating in 2010, he’s directed and choreographed at Maples Repertory Theatre, FringeNYC, and the New York Musical Theatre Festival. He also had the privilege of assistant directing a three-theatre co-production of Ruined by Lynn Nottage at La Jolla Playhouse, The Huntington Theatre, and Berkeley Repertory Theatre. This fall Christopher will be directing and choreographing A Christmas Carol at Trinity Repertory Company. Stay up to date with Christopher at www.ChristopherWindom.com.

NOAH LONGO

Noah Longo

Noah was a cast member from 2005, our second season, and starred as Arpad in She Loves Me, Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing and Stuart in Brigadoon. Noah said goodbye to NYC in 2007 and moved to Los Angeles to pursue more TV and film opportunities. He was soon cast alongside Adam Carolla in the sequel to Waiting called Still Waiting. He went on to shoot Clear Lake, WI. with Michael Madsen as well as a handful of other independent films.

2010 marked Noah’s entry into both writing and producing. He and his writing partner created, wrote, produced and starred in  a web series called BOOK CLUB and shot the pilot along with the entire first season (11 episodes total)–all  to debut on HULU later this winter.  He is also working with a major head of development to get it pitched to various networks with the hopes of it becoming a TV show.

This August, Noah was cast in his first big studio film, Think Like a Man, based on Steve Harvey’s book “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man,” which is set to be released in theatres sometime in 2012. He currently lives in Valley Village, CA and is the proud owner of a one-eyed cat named Millie and a three-legged kitty named Mr. Billups.

Those Were the Good Old Days…

A couple nights ago I was invited to visit a play rehearsal of the Bureau Valley High School theatre club and give a short talk about the festival, life as an actor and so forth. The head of the theatre department is a scenic designer I met earlier this year who has started working with the festival this season. I was interested in talking to these kids because over the past 8 seasons, it’s striking to me how few high school students have been involved in the festival.

Sure, we always have a handful of young people, perhaps 5 or so each year, who work in onstage or backstage roles. But when we hold our local auditions, we have been consistently disappointed with the back of participation from the group you would think would be the most gung-ho about getting involved.  I remember back to my years at PHS and think how me and my fellow theatre geeks would have fallen all over ourselves if there had been real, live actors hanging around town all summer.

So where are they? What’s the disconnect?

I’m sure there are a lot of factors, and I hope that by talking it out here and telling you what my experience was the other night at BVHS, I can perhaps come up with some way to solve the problem. If, upon reading this, any of you have suggestions or ideas, please feel free to share.

First of all, if you’re a young actor, what you covet most in the world is Lead Roles…that elusive and wonderful status symbol of the theatre world. And by signing on with the festival, you are immediately relegating yourself to smaller roles, chorus jobs and backstage work, since the pros do all of the heavy dramatic lifting. But the other side to that, and what I  had hoped would outweigh it, is the chance to work with, bond with and hang out with some very interesting theatre people who love nothing more than talking about themselves and their experiences.

I also think that there is an intimidation factor. Acting is a notoriously vulnerable vocation, and young actors are sensitive to their own shortcomings. In a school setting, the stratification of skill levels is within a reasonable range, so there is a safe, comfortable setting in which to work, explore and grow. But at the festival, the presence of older actors can make these young actors painfully aware of where they are on the road to artistic maturity. It takes a strong sense of self, I think, to hold your own in that kind of setting.

Interestingly, the older actors love working with younger actors, since we all had to walk that road. No artist ever forgets what it felt like to have the desire to say something and the struggle to gain the ability to express it properly. There is no better and more supportive atmostphere than among other artists who have stood in your place.

The last reason I can think of has two sides to the same coin. The best way I can put it is that we, the larger community, aren’t funneling kids towards the arts the way we have in the past. Now, I understand the twin pressures on the education system of cutting back spending as tax revenue shrinks and that America is falling behind the rest of the world in math and science. I get it. We need engineers first, actors only slightly less so. So we prioritize. And either the drama teacher gets laid off or, and perhaps worse, the position is given to someone who has no background in theatre and no passion for artistic self-expression.

If the teacher and the school do not see the value of the arts, why would the student? I had no access to professional theatre in high school except a yearly trip to Circa 21, and yet the passion and dedication of Dan Martinkus infected all of us in the department. A disproportionate number of my fellow cast members during those years have ended up with careers in the arts.

The flip side is that it’s not just the responsibility of the schools to educate our kids. As a theatre artist, if I want young people to be involved with the theatre, I need to reach out to them more than I have these past few years. The best participation the festival ever had from young actors was when Theatre Camp 56 was in full swing in 2005-2007. Our week long overnight camp for high schools brought a lot of young people to us who stayed with us for many seasons. Of course, the state’s gutting of the U of I Extension program put an end to that model, but the success of it shows us that it’s possible.

I didn’t know what to expect as I walked into the BVHS rehearsal. I’ve presented to high school classes before who’ve looked at me like I was a dial tone. Imagine my immense pleasure to walk into a theatre full of excited, outgoing young actors who clearly love the theatre and were eager to talk about it with me!

After meeting teenagers who would sooner chop off an arm than express anything but extreme ambivilence, to meet these kids who wanted nothing more than to perform their play for me was amazing. They were proud of it! As they should be, because it was a very funny show!

I stayed there hours past when I had intended on leaving. I met a young playwright whose work had been premiered by the group earlier this year. I answered nonstop questions about life as an actor and how to get involved at the festival. And I watched a good chunk of their play, Mother Goose Is Eaten By Werewolves. The in-jokes, the laughter, the comaraderie, and the clear passion for the theatre…it was everything that a high school theatre department should be.

It’s good to know that there are theatre geeks out there, just like I was, that are getting what they need to become artists. Because, whether the politicians say it or not (and usually not)… the world needs artists. Christopher Gadomsky. the BVHS drama coach, has done a tremendous job with getting these kids excited and engaged. I officially award him the Nobel Prize for Theatre Education.

Too Many Memorials?

This week is going to be filled with memorials to 9/11. Every station on television, every parade, every possible location where  you think there might be a memorial, I can guarantee you it will be there. I read an article the other day questioning whether all of this 9/11-mania was healthy or whether it would lead to burnout. Yes and Yes, I say.

Of course a full week or more reliving the horror of  that day and the sacrifices that were made, and are still being made, will burn us out on the topic. But isn’t that a good thing? I’m tired of carrying the pain of that day around, walking out of trailers for movies about 9/11 because I can’t bring myself to face it again. After ten years, I’m ready to face it head on, explore the pain and make it an open and natural part of who I am. I couldn’t do that for a long time, but this anniversary is finally giving me the opportunity to do just that.

As we have prepared for our own tribute to the 347 fallen firemen of the FDNY here at the festival, and as I’ve gone through the process of researching our play, it’s striking how not remotely in the past this event is. 1 World Trade Center is just now rising into the sky above Ground Zero at the rate of about a floor every week, with the citizens of the The City honoring the memory of the fallen in true NY’er-style: arguing about it.

As we sit in the rehearsal studio, reading and talking about the men and women who ran into the towers when everyone else was running out, about those who had to carry on in the days that followed, and about those of us who lived in the city and wanted so desperately to help but couldn’t, I am filled with a respect and awe for their commitment that I hope I never lose.

And then for that awe to be turned to anger when I read the news and find out that the Zadroga bill, the bill congress passed to provide healthcare to the first responders who dug through the asbestos and jet fuel-filled rubble in the weeks that followed, excludes cancer.

No, this thing is very much with us and alive. And the police and firemen who saved us that day are still paying the price. The list of victims is still rising. And while I can’t save them, I can at least celebrate the choice they made, and make every day, to put themselves in harm’s way so that others may live.

I don’t live in New York City anymore. But I go back about once a year, and everytime I come up the stairs from the subway, I still look to the sky to find the towers to know where I am. I can’t help it, it’s a habit born of years. As the new 1 World Trade Center reaches above the rest of the skyline, I hope that, at the very least, the citizens of my beautiful city will be spared that daily reminder of what was taken from us.

Intermezzo

What a great summer! Don’t you think?

When we, as a bunch of quasi-employed theatre geeks, first cooked up the idea of starting our own company, we had a picture in our head of what it would be like: an intense but rewarding and supportive atmosphere in the rehearsal studio; excited, engaged patrons who expected the best from us; spectacular talent and, of course, really great shows.

From the beginning, we’ve had many of those elements. The community of Princeton especially has been rock solid in their support of Festival 56, and it is because of their willingness to come play with us that we have been as successful as we have. But for me, producing these seven plays has been a far different and wholly fulfilling experience compared to the desperate, hope and passion-filled days of the first season. We have come a long way, and finally we are reaching that elusive goal that most theatre companies never attain: the picture in our head and the picture on the stage are starting to look more and more alike.

Georgia Mallory-Guy and Greg Collins in Proof

That’s not to say that everything is perfect of course. The world of nonprofit regional theatre is one of perpetually chasing down all the things we desperately need. There is never enough time, never enough money and never enough staff to meet our needs. I have a leaky roof, microphones that function about half the time, and a workload that is better suited to three people than to one.

Trent Jeffords in Kiss Me, Kate

But I also work alongside a board of directors that is tireless in their efforts on behalf of the festival and creative and supportive of me and my efforts. They love theatre, they love Festival 56. And it shows. I can’t thank them enough for everything they do, since it allows me to do what I do.

 

The cast of "Shrew"

As a producer, this was a very exciting year. There were a lot of things that we tried for the first time, and some pleasant surprises that were very encouraging. First, Shakespeare in the Park, after a few years of declining attendance, has surged back with our best showing since 2007. I was worried that we had lost momentum when we switched to evening performances, but after the heat wave of this summer, I think we were all grateful for a nice, cool evening under the stars.

Geogia Mallory-Guy and Greg Collins in Proof

Another nice surprise was the continued success of our late night cabaret series, which surged this year based on the response to our new “themed” nights. The “80′s night” and “Battle of the Sexes” were the most popular cabarets of the year. No small part of the credit for the cabarets, though, goes to our lovely emcee and hostess, Laura Brigham, and to the creative collaboration of the cast and music staff who put together each week’s program.

 

 

 

Annie Get Your Gun

On the main stages, of course, is where the real action was. Lauran Stanis, as director of Annie Get Your Gun and choreographer for Nunsense and Kiss Me, Kate, outdid herself with dance spectacle, from cheerleading lifts and kicklines to crawling up walls and splits up a rolling ladder. We’ve never had a more exciting feast of music and dance to get our audiences buzzing.

Rachel Broadwell and Michael Lindsay in Kiss Me, Kate

Not to be outdone by the dancers, though, the singers of the season came out strong from the beginning, with Sarah Smith and John Cormier tearing down the house in Songs For a New World, and Sarah coming back with Jillian Prefach to showcase their almost superhuman riffing ability in Nunsense.

On the dramatic side, Tim Seib proved himself the master of his craft once again with a riveting, muscular production of Proof, complete with digital projections, while the cast of Twelve Angry People showed us the power of great ensemble drama.

 

 

Twelve Angry People

It was a powerful season. It is a new high-water mark for us, artistically. If the rest of my life and my career is spent doing this kind of work with this caliber of artist, then I am a lucky man indeed.

Backstage Anecdote #2

I received encouragement from some of you after I posted my backstage anecdote last week to do a few more. It’s fun to talk about the creative ways that we problem solve, and since my writing time is running a bit short these days, it seems like something a little shorter and sweeter might be more withing reach…

Problem: How to create a stucco wall treatment for the set for The Taming of the Shrew. Also, how to make it look waterstained, mud-spattered and wellworn.

Our Solution: I actually have no idea what is used in the real world to make stucco. In theatre, it is usually a temporary treatment for a short run, indoor production. Our production of Shrew, however, is outdoors and must last for 6 weeks. The base material for the concoction is joint compound, but since joint compount isn’t waterproof, we had to make adustments. The final recipe is a mixture of joint compound, paint, Elmer’s glue and something called Sculpt or Coat, which is sort of a clear, flexible joint compound. The end result is a material that is flexible enough to be applied to ever-swelling and shrinking wood without cracking and chipping, and is water resistant.

It is applied to large wall flats by hand (a very fun, messy undertaking involving copious amounts of smearing and smacking) with the addition of sawdust every so often to give thet illusion of degragation and inconsistancy. After it is dry, we spray on alternating layers of watered down paint (brown for mud, blue for grime) to give the whole thing an aged look.

Come see The Taming of the Shrew for it’s opening performance at 2pm on Sunday at Soldier’s and Sailor’s Park to see the final product!