The other morning I found myself telling my doctor about how good “Menopause the Musical” had made me feel.  It has been around since 2001 but I saw it for the first time on April 2, 2013 at Beef and Boards Dinner Theatre on the northwest side of Indianapolis.

In the show, four different middle-aged women meet while fighting over some lingerie that is on sale at Bloomingdale’s department store in New York City.  Eventually they bond over the fact that even though they are different from each other in a lot of ways, they are all somewhere on the menopausal path.  They go to lunch in the store’s restaurant, try on clothes in various departments, use the restroom together, answer phone calls…and share experiences, offer each other advice and encouragement, laugh, cry, sing, dance…

And leave the store joyfully embracing where they are in life.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Menopausal Margaret

I don’t think the musical includes any original songs, which at first disappointed me.  Now, however, I admire creator Jeanie Linders’ choice to take (with permission) popular songs from her target audience’s youth (i.e., mostly from the 1960s, with a few from other decades) and re-write the lyrics to humorously invite candid conversation about topics that are not usually talked about candidly, let alone publicly. We hear each tune and remember, “Oh, I love that song!”  Then we listen to the new words and laugh with delight at being understood and validated on another level.

In tackling the topic of menopause “now,” Jeanie Linders did for us in 2001 what Judy Blume did for us in 1970 when she wrote with sensitivity and humor about menstruation and getting one’s first bra and so on in her novel for pre-teens, Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.  Both pieces let us know that no stage in the life of a woman’s body is shameful.  Also, that there is no shame in being curious about how other girls/women are experiencing each stage of life.  And that in fact, every stage is worthy of appreciation, even celebration.

Judy Blume and her publishers have tweaked newer editions of the Margaret novel to keep it relevant for new generations. Sanitary napkins nowadays have adhesive strips, for example. No one uses safety pins and a belt anymore to hold them in place but they did back when I was eleven and when Margaret was first published.  I was glad to read in my program that Jeanie Linders is working on an updated “Menopause the Musical Extreme” for “the next generation of women.” It is scheduled to premiere in Orlando, Florida “and internationally” in 2014.

I am also glad to know that there have already been some small updates.  For example, according to Jay Harvey’s interview in the Indianapolis Star of Beef and Boards actor Tiffanie Bridges, who plays Professional Woman in the show, her role used to be called “Power Woman.”  She is a manager in some sort of corporation.  I interpret, and applaud, this update as acknowledging that women in business are not the only women with, or interested in, power.

“I never get hot flashes”

The show does not dig very deeply into the complexity of the spiritual, creative, or psychological richness that is menopause.  It mostly focuses on physical symptoms and looks at them in a comical way.  So…I suppose there is a danger of people (e.g., men, younger women, uninformed women of any age) thinking the physical symptoms are all there is, that menopause is just a “curse” that you endure with as cheerful an attitude as possible, instead of being a true blessing as well.

Or that it’s okay to blame an individual woman’s legitimate anger or sadness or whatever on “menopausal mood swings” instead of actually listening to her, the way people sometimes dismiss a younger woman’s righteous anger or sadness as due to her being “on the rag” or it being “that time of the month.”

However, even if the show does focus on the physical symptoms, one of the things I love about it is that it does not say “here is what all women are like and here is what menopause is like.” Quite the contrary: it makes the point that each woman’s experience is unique.  For example, some peri- and menopausal women get “hot flashes” or have trouble sleeping or whatever, but not all do.

Also, it is obvious that the four characters in this story – Professional Woman, Iowa Housewife, Soap Star, and Earth Mother – were carefully crafted to represent different kinds of women, but I didn’t get the feeling that they were meant to collectively represent all women.  Quite the contrary:  the musical implies that these four “types” are only four of many. 

How refreshing!

The musical lets you laugh at the range of physical symptoms, which gets you feeling grateful for your body as is, which opens the door to talking about and reading about and thinking more deeply about and celebrating the other aspects of this stage of life.  You might, for example, realize that what you need to mourn is not the fact that you never had children but the fact that you are losing the ability to choose.  Or you might realize, now that your children have gone off to college or whatever and you have a chance to catch your breath, that you made some mistakes in raising them and you need to mourn those missed opportunities.

BUT there is a freedom in this grieving process, too.  You begin to realize that you have the second half of your life ahead of you without the expectations of the first half.  If you “failed” at meeting any of those expectations, well, so be it.  It’s okay to let them go now.

And you start to notice what you have accomplished and attempted and earned and learned…and the wisdom feels good.

In other words:  “Menopause the Musical” doesn’t go far enough for me on its own, but it is a fun catalyst for further exploration and personal growth.

(Speaking of post-show reading, another book that was pivotal to me in my youth – Our Bodies, Ourselves, by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective – has a Menopause version that came out in 2006.  Two other books that interest me based on their coming up on my radar via a number of sources are: The Wisdom of Menopause by Christine Northrup, M. D. and Creative Menopause: Illuminating Women’s Health & Spirituality by Farida Sharan, but I haven’t had a chance to even skim those yet.  I am also interested to read one or more of the several books that Jean Shinoda Bolen has written in the years since I first came across her Goddesses in Everywoman and Gods in Everyman books on archetypes years ago.  Doesn’t Crossing to Avalon: a Woman’s Midlife Quest for the Sacred Feminine sound interesting? And what about Crones Don’t Whine: Concentrated Wisdom for Juicy Women?!  The title alone makes me laugh with delight.)

Beef and Boards’ Production

But getting back to this particular show…

I was disappointed that while the songs are sung live by the four actors, their musical accompaniment is pre-recorded rather than performed in the moment by live musicians.  I understand that this is a way for a theatre to save money (and I assume that this was the thinking behind this choice for this show) but I still prefer live musicians, especially at Beef and Boards.  Beyond the uniquely heightened energy and artistic quality that live musicians bring to any show, there is something uniquely charming about being able to glance up and see the three or four musicians doing their thing in the B&B loft.

That said, the four actors in this show are pretty darn endearing all on their own with the recording.  Their voices blend well in their group numbers and their individual voices sound good in their solo numbers.  They dance well, too, and make you want to get up and join them in the fun choreography (created by Patty Bender and supervised by Daria Lynne Melendez.)

But what I loved most, and what may make me find a way to see this show again, is the wit and warmth they bring to their individual portrayals and the chemistry that exists between them on stage.

Tiffanie Bridges, as I mentioned earlier, plays the Professional Woman, a corporation manager who is comfortable with the high-pressured environment of a corporation but who lately has begun to rush down the hall as usual, mobile phone clamped to her ear on the way to a meeting…only to forget for a moment why she called the meeting.  At one point Professional Woman imitates Tina Turner, and at first I thought, “Hey, now, wait a minute. I love Tina Turner. Are you making fun of her?” But Tiffanie makes fun of Tina’s on-stage mannerisms so accurately that I felt she was honoring her as well as spoofing her, so I relaxed and laughed.  Tiffanie’s nickname around Indianapolis is “SoulPowerhouse” because of her singing voice, which is, indeed, impressive, but I admire her comedic skills as well.

Judy Bridgewater plays the Iowa Housewife, who minces hurriedly into the restroom and announces “Made it!” from behind the stall door because these days there is no guarantee she will.  She is in New York with her husband, who is there on a business trip.  Judy has nailed what I think of as the Midwestern Mouse disguise. It is a mix of: a surface of wide-eyed innocence, a layer of friendly practicality, over a base of deep-rooted family values (in the best sense of the expression) and strength. I’m not explaining this very well, but anyway, the wordless scene of Judy’s character optimistically trying on a flimsy bathing suit is Depends-worthy hilarious.

Rebecca Fisher plays the Soap Star.  She is a famous television actress who is worried that she is being eclipsed by younger actresses.  However, she has carefully taken care of her body and she is still oh-my-goodness sexy.  In fact, Rebecca sings one song in particular that shows that not only is there nothing provisional in the Soap Star’s sex drive, there is a power in it that only maturity brings.  She involves a random silver fox in the audience in a way that makes us all laugh – not at him but in recognition of her pleasure and need.

Dee Etta Rowe plays the Earth Mother.  She frequently stops to take deep, cleansing breaths complete with arm movements, and she turns to St. John’s Wort instead of Xanax to calm her mood swings.  She may or may not have been a “hippie” in her youth but she definitely shops at the New Age People store on 86^th Street when she happens to be in Indianapolis now.  Dee Etta gives Earth Woman a mix of broad (heh – no pun intended) comedic choices, earnest groundedness, airy-fairy silliness, and true compassion that is both fascinating and likable.

Men, Ben, “Midlife the Crisis Musical” and “This”

Going into Beef and Boards, I was thinking aloud on Twitter, trying to remember if I had seen this show before somewhere. I remembered a menopausal musical from a few years ago, but it had men in the cast as well as women…what WAS it?!

Twitter buddy (and a talented actor herself) Erin Cohenour helped me remember that it was “Midlife the Crisis Musical” (book, music, and lyrics by Bob Walton and Jim Walton) and that I had seen it at Theatre on the Square.

Later I dug around and found that I had written about “Midlife the Crisis Musical” on Indiana Auditions in 2007, before I started writing Indy Theatre Habit. Here is a link to that short review, if you want to read it.  I remember that show as being whineier, less celebratory than this one, but my review says I loved it, so I probably did.  My memory is not what it used to be. (Hah!)

In any case, “Midlife the Crisis Musical” was definitely about going through midlife as part of a couple and it tried to show that both men and women go through physical, emotional, and mental changes as they age.

“Menopause the Musical” is a show for women, about women, as (straight) women, whether single or married.  It values women independent of their relationships with men, and it leaves men’s mid-life experiences for others to tell about.  However, it is not a man-bashing show, which is another reason it is refreshing. 

I think that even though ”Menopause the Musical” is very specifically targeted in terms of audience, other people can enjoy it, too.  I laughed out loud with delight when I read on Ben Asaykwee’s Facebook that he had loved seeing and hearing his singing partner, Tiffanie Bridges, in this show but that he thought he must be menopausal, too, because he experiences many of the same symptoms!  (Ben is the young – maybe 30 years old? – artistic director of Q Artistry.)

And, just as many older adults enjoy reading the coming-of-age stories that are featured in young adult literature because a good story is a good story and we were all teenagers once, everyone knows someone that is or soon will be menopausal even if they themselves are not.

In fact, I think I’m going to start looking for “midlife lit” as well as YA lit from now on, both in terms of the novels I read and the theatre I see.  If I could, I would go back and see the Phoenix Theatre’s production of “This,” by Melissa James Gibson again.  It is completely different from “Menopause the Musical” and “Midlife the Crisis Musical” but  it offers another interesting take on “coming of middle age.”

Other Credits

Beef and Boards’ production of “Menopause the Musical” was co-produced by GFour Productions.  Director: Seth Greenleaf.  Musical director: Terry Woods. Sound Supervisor: Chris Strange. Technical Advisor & Lighting Designer: Gary Demumbrum.  Set designer: Bud Clark.  I  don’t find any mention of a costume designer in either my program or my media kit so I can’t tell you who designed the costumes, but whoever it was did a good job.  (If I find it out later, I will update this review.)

Music for this show was recorded by: Michael Dubay on keyboards; Don Meoli on drums; Jonathan Rem on bass.

Box Office and a Couple Other Things

“Menopause the Musical” runs through May 12, 2013 at a variety of times at the Beef and Boards Dinner Theatre.  For more information and show schedule: www.beefandboards.com.  To make reservations, please call their Box Office at 317-872-9664 between 10am and 7pm Tuesday through Sunday and 10am to 5pm Mondays.

My B&B server told me that the show’s license does not allow the 90 minutes to be divided by an intermission, so plan to have your dessert right after your meal and enjoy being home relatively early.  I thought I would feel rushed but it actually works out very satisfactorily, thanks to the skill of the serving staff.

The musical ends with an invitation for anyone that is currently going through The Change to come up on stage and do a kick line with the four women in the cast.  Two of the handsome servers stand in front of the stage, ready to hold your hand and assist you up the two or three steps.  Someone will even catch your shoe if you happen to kick it off by mistake, and you get a little gift from the cast before you go back to your seat.  I mention this not to spoil the surprise but to warn you so that you don’t let your foot fall asleep as I did.  I would have been up there myself if I had been able to walk right that minute!

‘See you at the theatres!

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com and @IndyTheatre on Twitter.

(Photos above were taken by Julie Curry and are used with permission.)

©2013 Hope Baugh

A few Saturday nights ago I drove over to the United Methodist Church at 29^th and Fall Creek to see Stageworthy’s production of “Nocturne,” written by Adam Rapp and directed by John Kastner.

It was a treat.

In that same weekend I also saw Carmel Community Players’ production of “Steel Magnolias” and the Broadway Across America touring production of “Sister Act.”  I enjoyed those two very much but Stageworthy’s production of “Nocturne” is the experience I want to write about because it exemplifies so much of why I never automatically rule out all-volunteer shows even when I’m looking for art more than community.

Playwright/Novelist Adam Rapp

If you’re a regular reader of Indy Theatre Habit, you know that I earn my living as a librarian working mostly with teenagers (aka “young adults.”)  I know Adam Rapp as a young adult novelist more than as a playwright. 

The four YA novels I’ve read by him are Missing the Piano (a bleak story about an unloved boy sent to a harsh military school), The Buffalo Tree (about two abused boys in a bleak juvenile detention center), The Copper Elephant (about an abused child in a bleak post-apocalyptic world), and 33 Snowfish (a bleak story about three abused children on the run with a baby they kidnapped and hope to sell.) 

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) named Adam Rapp’s Punkzilla novel a Printz honor book in 2010 for its literary quality.  I haven’t read that one yet but I’ve heard it is bleak.

In fact, it is hard for me to suggest Adam Rapp’s novels to most teens that ask me for “a good book” simply because his books are so darn bleak.  And harsh.  And shocking.  And chilling.  And almost unrelenting in their depressing world view.

But words like “lyrical” and “hypnotic” and “breathtaking” apply to his writing, too.

And his novels are, in spite of everything else they depict, hopeful.  I insisted that 33 Snowfish be on the required reading list for a young adult literature seminar that I co-taught several years ago for people that were working on their Master of Library Science degrees.  It was a good book to trigger a discussion of why books that make adults uncomfortable are sometimes worth defending for teens.  It is also a good trigger for discussing why adults (maybe especially American adults) think that every book a teenager reads has to be hopeful.  I confess that I look for hope myself – truthful hope – in stories, not only for teens but for all of us.

After I started writing this theatre blog, I read some interviews, reviews, and other things about Adam Rapp’s work as a playwright.  He has had several plays produced in New York City and is apparently quite well known there.  Wikipedia says that one of his plays was one of the finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2006.  However, I knew I wouldn’t get many chances to see his plays produced here in Indiana.

In spite of all this, I almost didn’t go see the Indianapolis premiere of “Nocturne” because I didn’t know if I had the energy that night to sit through two hours of bleakness to get to a glimmer of hope, especially if the production was mediocre.

I didn’t know anything about “Nocturne” and it had been so long since I had been to a Stageworthy production that I couldn’t remember how I’d felt about it.

This Play

I can tell you now that “Nocturne” is about a teenaged piano prodigy in the Midwest that accidentally kills his little sister when the brakes go out on his car.  His parents can’t forgive him or help him forgive himself – his father even comes close to shooting him – so he flees to New York City. 

There, he “reads his head off” for a couple of years while working in a book store.  He even builds furniture for his studio apartment out of books.  Eventually, he begins to write, too, on an old typewriter.  A girl he meets at a reading helps him get his novel published even though he is impotent in terms of making love with her.  Meanwhile, his mother moves into an institution for the clinically depressed and his father’s physical health deteriorates. 

Years later, when his father is near death, he calls his son back to him.  Though still uncomfortable with each other, they reconcile in a way.  It is far from sweetness and light – very far – but after the father dies, the young man moves back to New York City – and his typewriter and his girlfriend – with fresh energy.

See?  It’s basically a hopeful story, even though there’s a lot of horrible stuff along the way.  The quiet reconciliation, the redemption, is so good!  So cathartic for the audience!

And the show is basically a monologue, which makes it even more interesting artistically. The Son tells his story like the gifted and now-polished writer he is, almost as if he is reading aloud his own work – with lots of metaphors and other literary devices – but from memory, and at the same time as a conversation with the audience.  There is no Fourth Wall in this piece. 

On the other hand, there are four other actors that appear on stage when their characters appear in the narration.  They say their characters’ words and create little scenes within the monologue, rather than The Son telling the whole story himself.

Beyond the satisfying story and the somewhat unusual presentation of it, the language in this play, like the language in Adam Rapp’s novels, is a pleasure.  It is a pleasure to hear in the moment and it makes you want to get a copy of the script to read it for yourself.  (I borrowed a copy from my local public library.)   The two hours at the theatre flew by.

This Production – the set, costumes, lighting, sound, etc.

I don’t know how this play is produced by professional theatres with relatively large production budgets.  In Stageworthy’s all-volunteer, low-budget production, the descriptive language in the script and the skill of the director and actors did the bulk of the work rather than elaborate sets, props, costumes, etc.  However, the few theatrical devices that were used were well chosen.  The minimalism highlighted the strengths of this particular theatre ensemble, which made it a treat within a treat, if that makes sense.

For example:  The Son sat on a stool and mimed driving the car, singing along to Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen,” a recording of which was actually playing in the background.  The Father pointed an actual gun but a wooden desk was the only furniture we actually saw in his den.  In The Son’s New York apartment, there were actual stacks of books tied with string and an actual old-fashioned typewriter, but we imagined the bathtub in the middle of the kitchen.  In The Father’s end-of-life apartment, we saw the actual worn La-Z-Boy recliner that had become his sick “bed” but we imagined the large black piano that had belonged to his father (The Son’s grandfather) and that he had somehow kept with him all those years. 

As The Son told his story, he moved back and forth between two blond bar stools set on either side of a low set of steps on a kind of apron downstage, where the lighting was brighter.  Scenes with the other actors took place on the upstage area where the walls, floor, and ceiling were all painted black  or draped in black or were otherwise dark.  The lighting there was precise enough to divide the area for different scenes and set various moods, and always bright enough that we could see clearly what was going on, but there was a definite “blond/black” contrast in the staging overall, which subtly echoed other “blond/black” themes in the story.

The Mother made a whole hospital room out of one plain little chair and a running suit that “crackled like fire” exactly as described by The Son.  The Daughter didn’t get any actual furniture at all in her scene, but the dress the actor wore was exactly like the Son described: a “small white dress with blue flowers.  Anemones.  Buttercups…The quality of the white Roman somehow; the flowers so blue it’s as if they are singing.”

I loved the sound design, too, and asked the director about it after the show.  He said that the script only calls for a specific piece of piano music at the end: Grieg’s “Nocturne.”  Other places the script only says something like “the sound of piano music can be heard in the distance.”  I loved the other bits of piano music the director chose, and I loved that he played Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” for intermission music. 

The blocking was just the right mix of movement that made sense and that kept the audience engaged without being movement for movement’s sake.  Also, there was attention to things like clearing away the bar stool so that it didn’t block our view of the La-Z-Boy recliner in the reconciliation scene. 

(“Please move that stool!” I breathed during that scene change.  “I’m sitting in what you said was your best seat.  Please don’t make me watch this pivotal scene through the rungs of that stool.  Please move it out of the way.  Please, please, please!”

And they did!  Yay!)

Director John Kastner designed and decorated the set.  Matthew Wardwell was the stage manager. John and Matthew assembled and/or made the props.  Set crew included John and Matthew plus Deborah Colter. 

Angela Kastner and John Kastner produced the show.  Lighting and sound design was by Susan Gaertner and John Kastner.  Susan was the lighting technician.  John was the sound technician.  The cast members found or made their own costumes.

This Production – the acting

Robert Webster, Jr. was beyond excellent in the role of The Son.

Rob told me later that he auditioned because he wanted the challenge of what is basically a solo show.  I think “Nocturne” is even more challenging than a solo show, however, because there are occasional scenes with other actors.  I’ve done solo storytelling shows myself so I know that if you’re the only one talking, you can let the story carry you along to some extent and if you forget something, you can weave it back in yourself.  Yes, it’s all up to you, but on the other hand, you’re the only one you have to worry about, other than the audience, of course.  But if other actors are waiting to hear their cues, you really have to make sure you stick to the script as written.

In any case, Robert nailed it!  He delivered all of the beautiful verbiage crisply and clearly but also made it sound natural.  It was so moving!  So convincing!  I believed that he was the off-the-charts-gifted-but-damaged guy telling the story in his writerly way and that all of it had actually happened to him. 

I also believed that he thought of us as real, too.  I mean that he had an easy rapport with us, his audience.  He made eye contact with us often and in a natural way.

The other four actors were good, too.  They perfectly enriched the telling.

Dan Flahive gave The Father an expertly nuanced mix of strength and weakness, rage and fear.  Susan Rardin gave The Mother an expertly nuanced blend of cold depression and helpless good intentions.  Sari Lott beautifully portrayed The Red-Haired Girl with the Grey-Green Eyes as the angel that The Son believed her to be. 

And Samantha Whitlock, in what the director told me later was her stage debut, was charming and whimsical and adorable and rascally as The Sister, which made her death all the more poignant of a loss.

All five actors, under John Kastner’s direction, brought out the humor in the story as well as the horror and the sadness and the growth.

Stageworthy/Encore Association

The last time I attended a Stageworthy show was in 2009, when they were in a church in the Broad Ripple area of Indy and I was an Encore judge.  Stageworthy is one of the eleven members of the Encore Association of all-volunteer community theatres in the Indianapolis area.

John told me they have been in their current location in the Broadway United Methodist Church at 609 E. 29^th Street for three years and are very happy with the partnership.

He also said that his/their mission is to do shows that haven’t been done in the Indianapolis area for at least the past ten (correction: five) years.  This doesn’t necessarily mean premieres, but “Nocturne” was an Indianapolis premiere.

He also said that because they are an Encore member they are not supposed to do any pre-casting.  He said he lucked out when Rob walked into auditions.  Lucky, indeed!

Stageworthy does two shows a year, I think.  I saw “Nocturne” during its final weekend.  Auditions for their next show, “Based on a Totally True Story” by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, are coming up next week – March 25 and 26, 2013.  The show itself will run for two weekends:  June 7-16, 2013.  It will also be an Indianapolis premiere.  More information about both the auditions and the show are now up on Stageworthy’s homepage:  http://www.stageworthy.org/.

I agree with John that the new location is a great space.  It has a proper stage, for one thing, rather than just a platform.  Also, there is free parking in a well-lit lot right next to the church.  I also love that for $2 extra you can sit on a cushy sofa in the front row instead of in a folding chair.  (All tickets are cash only.  Regular tickets for “Nocturne” were just $10.)

However, if you are in a wheelchair, be sure to let them know when you make your reservations (317-750-6454) so that they have access to the elevator key and a non-staired entrance.  Otherwise, you have to go up and down several sets of stairs to get to where the theatre is in the basement of the church.

‘See you at the theatres!

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com and @IndyTheatre on Twitter.

Note: Photos for this post were taken by John Kastner and provided to me with permission to use them on my blog.  Roll your mouse over each one to see the actors’ names.
©2013 Hope Baugh

I don’t know much at all about classical music and I confess that I had never heard of Anne-Sophie Mutter.  I accepted without knowing anything about the show simply because I wanted to spend time with my friend. 

However, the concert itself was a sublime experience on many levels.  I am in the middle of writing some theatre reviews but I want to write a quick post about this right now in an attempt to capture a few of the details.

The Visuals

The stage was bare except for the piano in the middle of it.  The house lights dimmed a bit at the beginning, but not so much that the artist would have to squint to see the audience.  Other lights came up to illuminate the stage, but the brightness was warm, inclusive.  Light glinted off the polished surface of the black piano and, after the concert started, the equally polished, tawny wood of the violin, but it did so in a natural way.  There were no sharp-edged spotlights or razzle-dazzle lighting colors, for example. 

The overall effect of the staging was one of mutually respectful intimacy, which I loved.  There was respect for the musicians, respect for the music itself, and respect for the listeners.  The feeling of intimacy surprised me because the Palladium space is several stories high.

The artist wore a floor-length yellow silk gown with sparkling embroidery at the strapless bodice and mermaid hem.  It was sexy, dramatic, and glamorous – a compliment to the audience and the music as well as a complement to her body.

I confess that I didn’t notice what her recital partner, Lambert Orkis, wore.  Something dark and formal, so probably a tuxedo?  Yes, I remember now that he had to flip out his tails when he sat down at the piano.

What I did notice about the pianist’s appearance (his costume, if you will, although I don’t suppose he was even aware of wearing it) was the delighted little smile that appeared on his face whenever he looked up at Anne-Sophie Mutter for cues.  Along with the delight in that tiny smile were respect and pleasure and humble self-confidence.  It made me feel happy whenever I saw it.

The two musicians left the stage and re-entered between each piece.  Except for at the very end, when Anne-Sophie Mutter announced the name of the encore piece before they played it, neither musician said a word.  However, she made eye contact with everyone – in the front rows, middle rows, far rows, box seats on either side, even the box seats way up near the ceiling behind her – and gave grave little nods to acknowledge our applause.  This, too, added to the feeling of mutually respectful intimacy.

The Music

I don’t know if I was truly worthy of respect since I was there on a whim. (Courtesy, yes – everyone deserves courtesy – but I hadn’t earned any respect as a classical music listener because I simply had not heard very much.) 

However, even I could tell that the music was definitely worthy of respect, and the way that Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lambert Orkis played it certainly was. 

The program included four pieces:

The first was “Sonata No. 27 in G Major for violin and piano, K.379” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

It was beautiful.  I know that “beautiful” is an over-used word but it is the only one that will do here.  This piece of music was about beauty.  It set the bar for beauty.  It exemplified beauty.  If I write “beauty” too many times the word starts to look odd to me, but then I remember how this piece made me feel, what it made me think of, and “beauty” is again the right word.

The second piece was “Fantasie in C Major, D. 984” by Franz Schubert.

“Ah,” I thought as I listened.  “This piece is about communication in a partnership.”’

Then I thought, “Oh, Hopie, that’s probably dumb.  Probably every piece of classical music written for two different instruments – in this case a violin and a piano – is about communication in partnership.  How could it not be?”

But dumb or not, that’s what this piece made me think of:  a successful relationship between two people.

There were two strong voices – two strong personalities – living together in the same piece of music.  Sometimes they followed one another around; sometimes they spoke in a kind of unison; sometimes they spoke over each other; sometimes they politely waited for each other to speak.  But neither ever overpowered the other.  Both were changed by being in this combination but neither one was blended out of existence.

Then came an intermission.  As the house lights came back up, my friend and I looked at each other and said, “Wow!”

After intermission, the third piece was “Partita” by Witold Lutoslawski.  The second “l” in “Lutoslawski” should have a little line through it but I don’t know how to do that on my keyboard.

This piece sounded like science fiction.  It made me want to laugh, but I didn’t laugh because I didn’t want to miss a word – I mean, a note – so instead I listened with my mouth open, and more tears streaming down my face. 

(The first two pieces had made me cry, too.   Even though each of the four pieces made me think and feel different things, the intensity of each experience made me cry.  I tried to cry quietly, of course, but otherwise I just let the tears flow.  I loved that the music was having such a cathartic effect on me.  It was a healing and a blessing as well as an artistic treat.)

The notes in the “Partita” piece fell into place in a satisfying way but in a storytelling way rather than a lyrical way, if that makes sense.  There was a lot that was unexpected to my ear, but I enjoyed it.

The fourth piece was “Sonata No. 1 in D minor for violin and piano” by Camille Saint-Saens.

This piece seemed to be about power and transformation. 

In the middle of it I flashed on to the fact that it was Friday night and therefore all over the city at this moment in time there were many excellent performance artists doing their thing.  They were drawing on years of developing their gifts in order to create amazing art for their audiences tonight.  Their art could never again be experienced in exactly the same way because it was alive in a precise time and place.  For a moment, I felt connected even to the cosmos.

Then I zoomed back into my own time and place in which I was being paradoxically both transformed and restored by music that was so exquisite I almost couldn’t stand it.  I reminded myself to keep breathing.

“Please keep playing forever,” I thought.

But of course, nothing lasts forever.

At the end of the fourth piece, we all applauded madly until Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lambert Orkis came back out and gave us an encore.

“’Habanera’ by Ravel,” she announced.

It was brief but lovely – just right for sending us on our way.

Graciousness

The ushers told us that there would be a “meet and greet” in the south lobby so my friend and I hurried to stand in line.  We didn’t have the money to buy a CD but the artists were willing to sign programs and have their pictures taken, so we asked for that. 

The ushers also told everyone that the musicians had a plane to catch so no one lingered long at the signing table. Then a young girl spoke to Anne-Sophie in German…and the movement of the line stopped while Anne-Sophie chatted warmly with the girl and her family.

I don’t know German but I imagine that the young girl said something like, “Thank you for this evening.  I hope to be a concert violinist, too, some day.”

I imagine that Anne-Sophie said something like, “I look forward to hearing you.  Keep practicing!”

Everything about this incredibly gifted artist was gracious.  I am very glad she included the Indianapolis area on her tour, and very glad I got to hear her and her recital partner play.

‘See you at the theatres!

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com and @IndyTheatre on Twitter.

© 2013 Hope Baugh

A week ago Thursday night, a friend and I minced our way over icy sidewalks, clutching our umbrellas against sleet (not snow, not rain, SLEET) to see the opening night of NoExit Performance’s production of “Yellow Wallpaper” at Q Artistry’s venue: the Irvington Lodge.  The weather was so challenging, I think there was only one other paying audience member.

I tell you about the weather not only to brag about our dedication as theatre-goers, but also to tell you that the struggle to get to and from the theatre that night was worth it.  “Yellow Wallpaper” is a treat:  an intense and beautifully done theatre piece that continues to resonate with me a week later.

What It’s About

Director Ryan Mullins adapted the original short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which was first published in 1892 and which is now considered a classic.  

It is about a woman who is suffering from post-partum depression (it seems obvious to me here in 2013) but she is living in the late 1800s so no one – not her doctor-husband nor her doctor-brother nor her unmarried sister-in-law nor Charlotte herself – knows what’s really going on with her.  They don’t know why she has not taken to motherhood “like other women do.”

Charlotte knows what is NOT helping her: the “rest cure” prescribed by her doctors.  She is in a room on the second floor of an isolated mansion that may or may not be haunted.  She is forbidden to exercise or have company or read or write.  However, whenever she respectfully tries to explain her fears related to motherhood or suggest to her husband or brother that it actually helps her to write and read and go for walks, and that it would make a difference if she could even just move to one of the several other bedrooms in the house so that she didn’t have to look at the garish wallpaper in this one, they dismiss her words, her intuition, her experiences.  And lock her in.

I’d go crazy, too.

Layers of Resonance

If this were just a show about watching a person go insane…well, maybe that would be interesting on some level and I’m sure I would feel sympathy at the time, but I doubt I would still be thinking about the show a week later.

I love a good historical piece so maybe that is why this show continues to interest me so much.  “Yellow Wallpaper” definitely gives a glimpse into what life must have been like for American women and/or anyone with health issues in the second half of the nineteenth century. 

My friend and I both thought of Mary Todd Lincoln as we were talking about this show afterwards.  She was another example of a misunderstood woman in this time period that refused to be meek and was therefore accused of being crazy.  She did have problems, but the culture she lived in didn’t support her in figuring out how to even ask for the help she needed.

And man, if anyone ever wonders why doctors are not allowed to treat their own families any more, this show shows why.

I love a good haunted house story, too, so that’s another reason this show is compelling.  Why IS the bed nailed down in this room?  Are those dark red splotches on the wall part of the wallpaper pattern or something else?  Is that one wall…breathing?!?

Another reason I like this show, I admit, is that I like experiencing famous pieces of prose literature as well-done live theatre adaptations.  It makes me feel more culturally literate, and that makes me feel virtuous, like when I read Moby Dick by Herman Melville when I was in my 40s because I hadn’t had to read it in high school and I suddenly felt I should.  However, this show is MUCH more engaging than that novel was.  This show makes me want to read Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s original short story, but if I never get around to doing that, at least I have been introduced to it in an enjoyable way that respects the original.

Maybe the main reason I love this show is that even though it is an historical piece it has relevance for our lives today.  For example:

1)   More than 100 years later, we human beings are still struggling with each other over control issues.  I don’t just mean husbands and wives, either.  Just this week, for example, I read in the December 1, 2012 issue of Kirkus Reviews about a new young adult novel called The Ruining by Anna Collomore.  The Kirkus reviewer said:

“…This intriguing take on the classic story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” finds Annie, a refugee from poverty in Detroit, moving to a mansion in San Francisco to become the nanny for a wealthy couple’s 3-year-old girl, Zoe. The couple pays Annie’s tuition at San Francisco State University and promises her a measure of freedom to study and have a social life. Almost immediately, however, Libby, Zoe’s beautiful mom, takes over Annie’s life, giving her clothing, choosing her university classes and deluging her with advice. Annie idolizes Libby, but she finds her increasingly hard to please. Libby finds fault with minor things, becoming especially unhappy when Annie begins a romance with Owen, the handsome, smart and super-nice guy next door. She demands most of her time, takes the door off Annie’s room and begins to install hideous yellow wallpaper there…”

2)   We’re also each still struggling within ourselves in our own ways to wake up or become conscious or whatever you want to call it.  Maybe it is simply a part of the human life journey, but it is still chilling to see how self-involved, and therefore clueless, Charlotte’s husband and brother are in this story.  John, the husband, doesn’t see that his needs to be right and to advance his medical career are blocking his ability to actually help the woman he loves.  (And I do believe that he loves her and wants to do the right thing.)  Robert, the brother,  refuses to even consider the possibility that sibling rivalry from childhood might be getting in the way of his ability to make good decisions now.  He says things like “Our mother managed to take care of her children so why can’t you?” even though he was a child himself when their mother was “managing” so he really doesn’t have a clue about what she may or may not have been feeling about motherhood or what help she may have had that Charlotte does not, never mind the fact that women are individuals.  But even though the men in the show are finger-wavers, the show itself isn’t.  I love that the show honors the complexity of human cluelessness.

3)   Charlotte wasn’t writing about electronic social media in the late 1800s, of course, but there was one line in “Yellow Wallpaper” that triggered a response in me related to a conversation I had recently with a friend who is a teacher in an elementary school.  His school had sent him to a workshop on social media and the presenter had encouraged the teachers to tweet photos and happenings from class throughout the day to the parents.  I use and enjoy social media very much but I was appalled by this advice.  If I had a child, I would want his (or her) teacher to be fully present and engaged with my child and his classmates when they were together, and when my child came home at the end of the school day, I would want to be fully present to listen to my child about what he had experienced.  No electronic updates could truly replace either of those two things.  In “Yellow Wallpaper,” John puts his wife on a schedule so that he can “know” what she is doing every minute of the day while he is at work.  He says in so many words that this comforts him, makes him feel secure.  I’m sure that’s true, I can even relate to it, but it’s really just more cluelessness since he doesn’t truly see or hear her when he is physically with her, and ultimately he can’t control her mind or her spirit.

There are other ways in which this historical piece speaks to modern times.  If you go see it and feel like telling me about how it resonated with you, I would enjoy hearing from you.

Of course, another main reason I loved this show was because there are craft-related pleasures for theatre junkies in every aspect of it.

The Pacing and the Acting

The pacing is exquisite: slow enough to feel realistic and to build tension but fast enough that we don’t feel bogged down or bored.

The individual performances are skillful, too.  I don’t know Julie Mauro at all in real life and I didn’t realize I had seen her on stage before until I read the program later.   (It was in “Beer Can Raft,” by Lou Harry, at the 2011 Indy Fringe Festival.)  So I don’t know if playing Charlotte was a stretch for her or not.

But in any case…my word, she is good as Charlotte.  I completely believed and sympathized with Julie’s portrayal of Charlotte’s combination of timidity and strength, love and fear, wisdom and increasing insanity.

(I am very sorry, now, that I did not see the two shows that Julie wrote and directed for Divafest in 2010 and 2012.  I was delighted to read that she will be in EclecticPond Theatre’s production of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” by Oscar Wilde .  That was already on my calendar for April for more cultural literacy.  Yay!)

Matthew Goodrich as husband John, Sam Fain as brother Robert, and Molly Tucker as sister-in-law/housekeeper Gennie all convey their characters’ complexities well, too. 

I’ve already mentioned the men’s cluelessness.  Matthew and Sam show, convincingly and subtly, that along with the cluelessness there is arrogance (Robert’s more overt than John’s because he is more confident in his career) and, paradoxically, true love (for spouse or sister) and a sincere sense of duty.  Matthew and Sam show us that, like all of us, John and Robert are doing the best they can with who they are and what they know at this moment in time.

Molly as sweet, youthful, well-meaning but passive Gennie brings a bit of humor to an otherwise dark piece in her attempts to discreetly find out more about Charlotte’s handsome, successful, unmarried brother, Robert.  Molly also does a good job of showing us through her portrayal of Gennie that everyone is clueless and self-involved in one way or another, which means no one is all villain.

My friend and I had heard about “Yellow Wallpaper” when three NoExit artists (Matthew Goodrich, Ryan Mullins, and Georgeanna Smith) were the featured performers in the monthly “Going…Going…Gone” improv show at the Indy Fringe Theatre in January.  We both love going to that series when we can.  We also both loved Acting Up Productions’ “A Steady Rain,” which Sam Fain co-starred in in 2012.

So…it was a treat to see two of my favorite destination actors and two good new-to-me actors in one show.

The Design Elements

My notes for this show say “The costumes! The music! The set! Zach’s melty videos!”

My program says that Ben Asaykwee designed the costumes.  They are richly detailed, they fit the actors’ bodies well, and they put us firmly in the right mood and historical period with their dark colors, bustle-y undergarments, and more.

My program says that videographer Zach Rosing designed the sound as well as the video elements.  (More about them in a moment.)  My program does not say who composed the music but it is perfectly chosen to enhance the mood of the show: beautiful and filled with yearning.  It incorporates (I think) cello and flute.  Other sound elements – a baby’s cry, etc. – are also well done.

My program says that Andy Darr designed the set, but that is all it says about him.  In any case, I admire the way his set design manages to communicate both claustrophobia (via the bed with its imposing frame being at an angle in the small space) and the sense that this one cramped room is part of a large house on a vast, isolated estate (via the large, barred window and the door leading onto a hallway that we can sort of see but that also winds off into the dark of our imaginations.)

The largest wall is the special effects wall.  This is obvious even before the show begins, but you don’t mind because the porportions are just right and the coverage of the wallpaper pattern from regular walls to special wall flows so seamlessly.  Also, the blocking (i.e., where the director told the actor to go on the stage) and Julie Mauro’s excellent acting make us believe that she sees something disturbing in all four walls, including the invisible one between stage and audience. 

All three walls of the set, of course, are covered by the “wallpaper,” designed by Michael Burke.  It is almost a fifth character in the show, it has so much…personality.

On second thought, I am not going to further describe Zach Rosing’s video design except to say that it is clever and creepy and fun.  And it enhances the show without overwhelming it.

I do want to mention director Ryan Mullins’ lighting design.  It, too, contributes to the paradoxical feelings of claustrophobia and boundary-less-ness in this show.  Also, Ryan’s bio in my program includes several other lighting credits, which makes me think of the Phoenix Theatre’s artistic director, Bryan Fonseca:  He, too, has a lot of lighting as well as acting experience and he was the first person to make me realize how important the lighting design can be to the artistic success of a show.  I wonder if all of the great directors have lighting backgrounds as well as acting backgrounds.  Anyway, I feel a sense of approval whenever I read that a director brings lighting experience to the table with him or her.

Other credits for this show:

Producer – Ben Asaykwee

Stage manager – Audrey Stauffer

Production manager – Matthew Goodrich

Master carpenter – Rock Hermantin

Set painters – Michael Burke and Tommy Lewey

Hair designer – Daniel Klingler

Marketing – Michael Burke and Lukas Schooler

Program designer – Michael Burke and Scot McKim

Photography – Scot McKim

Seating Advice and Box Office

“Yellow Wallpaper” actually begins in a charming way in the upstairs lobby of the Irvington Lodge, so if you go, try to claim one of the throne chairs to sit in while you wait for the house to open. 

Then, once you’re inside the “Mexico” room*, try to grab a seat in the second row or further back, and slightly house left, if you can.  See if you can see the pillows on the bed AND all three walls of the set, including the baseboards.

If you can’t, it will be okay, but if I go again (and I would like to) I will try to sit further back.  We sat in the front row, which is where I usually like to sit so that I am a) close to the sacred mystery that is live theatre and b) less likely to be distracted by my fellow audience members, but in this venue, or at least for this show, the stage is raised and the chairs are on the flat (not “raised” or slanted) floor, so if you sit in the front row, the stage is almost at eye level.  There is a scene in which Charlotte and Robert are talking in bed and I couldn’t see them because the footboard of the bed blocked my view.

But I suspect, based on the raves I have already seen in my Facebook feed, that this intimate show will sell out its final weekend so you may just be lucky to get any kind of seat. 

To make reservations, visit either company’s website.  Here is a link to the “Yellow Wallpaper” page on Q Artistry’s website:  http://qartistry.org/yellow-wallpaper/.   Here is a link to NoExit’s: http://www.noexitperformance.org/#!buy-tickets/cwj6.  The show runs Thursdays-Saturdays through March 9, 2013. 

*Q Artistry’s artistic director Ben Asaykwee told me that they call the two performance spaces in the Irvington Lodge “Canada” and “Mexico” because one is larger and colder and to the north and the other is smaller and warmer and to the south. 

He also told me that they have signed a relatively long-term lease.  I congratulate both the owner of the Irvington Lodge and the board of Q Artistry!  I am delighted for myself, too, because I love going to shows there.

‘See you at the theatres…

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com and @IndyTheatre on Twitter.

(Photos above were taken by Scot McKim and provided to me by NoExit’s marketing director, Michael Burke.)

©2013 Hope Baugh

However, whenever someone asks me, “Hope, what’s good?  What should I see this weekend?” I hesitate to answer.  I am a professional librarian, so I’ve been trained to never just hand someone a book but to instead ask a few nonjudgmental questions in return so I can understand more clearly what the person is looking for when they come to the Readers Advisory desk.  “A good book” means different things to different people.  It even means different things to one person in different moods or at different points in his or her life.

The same goes for shows.

Answering is made even trickier by the fact that unlike books or movies, live theatre productions are available for a very limited time.  You really have to “seize the day” with live theatre.

So what should you seize, I mean, see next weekend?  I have no idea without talking with you directly. 

And even then, whatever I suggest, you’d still be taking a risk.  Thank goodness!  The risk is part of the fun of having a live theatre habit.

Below are some thoughts about five shows that I enjoyed recently and which will still be on next weekend.  The shows are (in alphabetical order by title):

• “9 to 5: the Musical” at Beef and Boards Dinner Theatre (through March 24, 2013)
• “Cinderella: Unscripted” at ComedySportz (Fridays, 10pm through…?)
• “The Musical of Musicals: the Musical!” by Actors Theatre of Indiana at the Studio Theatre in the Center for the Performing Arts (Thursday-Sunday, February 24, 2013 – final weekend)
• “Naked Boys Singing” at Theatre on the Square (through March 2, 2013)
• “Next to Normal” at the Phoenix Theatre (Wednesday-Sunday, February 24, 2013 – final weekend)

“9 to 5: the Musical” – Music and lyrics by Dolly Parton. Presented by Beef and Boards Dinner Theatre on the northwest side of Indianapolis.

One of the many reasons I love going to Beef and Boards is that if you go with a friend or family member that you haven’t seen in a while, there is plenty of time in which to catch up and enjoy each other’s company as well as enjoy the show. 

My good friend Dawn and I went to see “9 to 5” and had a great time noticing the ’70s references. (Remember typing with carbon paper? Remember when a female CEO was truly unthinkable as opposed to merely unusual?) We also talked about how the musical compares to the movie.  They added a love interest to the show, for example.  And, of course, they added songs – including one about not being afraid of change.

We also talked about the B&B production itself.  I especially admired the deft use of the small stage.  Dawn especially admired the dancing.  We both laughed out loud at the humor, which includes some risqué-for-B&B bits.

We didn’t talk about the fact that this is a show about friendship as well as a show about inequalities in the workplace but as I write about it now, I realize that that probably added to our enjoyment, too.  The three actors that play the three main characters not only sing beautifully, they have wonderful friendship-chemistry together on stage.  (Annie Edgerton plays feisty single mother Violet Newstead.  Sarah Hund plays timid divorcee’ Judy Bernly.  Crystal Mosser plays “Backwoods Barbie” Doralee Rhodes.)

The basic story is that three women who initially mistrust each other in a toxic work environment get a chance to join forces and improve it.  Unfortunately, they get that chance because they sort of accidentally kidnap their boss, Franklin Hart (portrayed with overt, era-appropriate sliminess by Andrew Lebon.)  It doesn’t matter that he is a “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.”  If they don’t figure out a way to prove he was at fault before he is missed by his would-be love slave, Roz Keith (portrayed by Joanna Krupnick as a hilarious Harriet-the-Spy gone sour), they will be in big trouble.

Other Credits:

• Director – Eddie Curry
• Musical director – Kristy Templet
• Lighting design – Ryan Koharchik
• Choreographer – Ron Morgan
• Set design – Michael Layton
• Costume design – Jill Kelly
• Doug King plays both Judy’s playboy ex-husband Dick and the company’s affable owner, Mr. Tinsworthy.  Kevin Scott plays the tender young accountant that wants Violet to overlook the difference in their ages and “Let Love Grow.” The ensemble of singer/dancers includes Julia Bonnett, Danny Kingston, Sarah Ledtke, DJ Petrosino, Jeremy Sartin, Peter Scharbrough, Sally Scharbrough, Karen Webb, and Deb Wims.
• Photo above is by Julie Curry.

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“Cinderella Unscripted” – an improv show conceived by the players at ComedySportz in downtown Indianapolis.

Unlike for ComedySportz’ regular shows, for this Friday 10pm show you must be 17 years old or older. 

The basic plot is the traditional story of the downtrodden girl that only gets to go to the ball with the help of her fairy godmother, and who drops her shoe after falling in mutual love with the prince but before telling him her name.

However, everything else – from Cinderella’s new name to the quality of the Prince’s relationship with his parents to the vehicle that he rides to look for his true love – is created out of input from the audience on the spot.  You can buy beer (and hot pretzels! yum!) during this show, so sometimes the audience gets drunk and unimaginative, but I’ve seen at least half a dozen performances of ComedySportz’ “Unscripted” shows, with different members of the ComedySportz team every time, and every time the performers have taken whatever they got from the audience and made it work to tell a story.

The show also includes improv songs and sound effects improvised by the narrator up in the sound booth.    The whole experience is a lot of fun.

Instead of credits I will refer you to the ComedySportz ensemble webpage.  The cast for “Cinderella Unscripted” could include any of the players shown there.

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 “The Musical of Musicals: the Musical!” – By Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart.  Presented by Actors Theatre of Indiana at the Studio Theatre in the Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel. 

I was wrung out from laughing after this one, and I’m sure I didn’t catch even half of the jokes!  It doesn’t matter if you are an expert on musical theatre or if this is your first time at the theatre, this is an entertaining show. 

It features five talented performers:  Cynthia Collins, Don Farrell, Judy Fitzgerald, Dave Ruark, and musical director Brent E. Marty as narrator from the on-stage piano.  They act/sing/dance/accompany the familiar “I can’t pay the rent” story five times.  Each time is in the style of a different musical theatre genius or pair of geniuses:  Rodgers and Hammerstein (“Oklahoma,” etc.), Stephen Sondheim (“A Little Night Music,” etc.), Jerry Herman (“Hello, Dolly!” etc.), Andrew Lloyd Webber (“Jesus Christ Superstar,” etc.), and Kander and Ebb (“Chicago,” etc.)

You can follow along by looking at technical director Bernie Killian’s colorful set design, which features theatre marquees of the five spoofs with the real names of the writer/composers.  The spoofs are irreverent but never mean-spirited.  You laugh in affectionate recognition and/or mystified delight rather than with guilt, if that makes sense. 

There are funny theatre references in everything from the words to the music to the acting to the dancing to the costumes to the lighting and sound designs.  Richard J. Roberts directed this and you can bet he incorporated every delicious reference possible.  He is the resident dramaturg for the Indiana Repertory Theatre and the kind of knowledgeable theatre junkie I aspire to be.  I wish I could have gone to his talk-back session this past Sunday and heard more about the layers of theatre lore embedded in this show.

But even without that, I left the Studio Theatre last week feeling as if I had received both a musical theatre education and an entertainment treat.

Other credits:

• Choreographer – Michael Worcel
• Lighting designer – Erin Meyer
• Costume designer – Margaret Ozemet
• Props Artisan – Sandra Belles
• Production Stage Manager – James W. Carringer
• Master Electrician – David Lapham
• Production Assistant – Beth Knight-Crum
• Production Assistant – Jeremy Cales
• Run Crew – Judy Smith
• Run Crew – Doris Schwandt
• Photo above is by Adriana de Aguiar.

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“Naked Boys Singing” – conceived by Robert Schrock; written by Stephen Bates, Marie Cain, Perry Hart, Shelly Markham, Jim Morgan, David Pevsner, Rayme Sciaroni, Mark Savage, Ben Schaechter, Robert Schrock, Trane Thompson, Bruce Vilanch and Mark Winkler.  Presented at Theatre on the Square (TOTS) in downtown Indianapolis.

I went with three friends to see our friend Asia LaBouche (Doug Mellinger in everyday life) emcee a special late-night performance of this show to benefit the Damien Center.  Asia is one of the resident drag artists at Talbott Street nightclub.  I love her unique blend of larger-than-life glamour, wicked humor, and merciless-when-merited-yet compassionate-when-merited rapport with her audience.

If you go to “Naked Boys Singing” another night, you won’t get to see Asia, but this piece (heh) is now on my “see any chance I get” list for a number of other reasons.

For one thing, there was so much variety among the private parts of the eight attractive young men in TOTS’ production (and yes, they all sing and dance most of the show without wearing any clothes at all) that for a while I was curious about all other men.  One premise of the show is that everyone is curious so, during this show at least, “it’s okay to look.”  I wonder how many different productions of this show it would take to satisfy my curiosity. 

Actually…no offense to male private parts, but this one production is probably enough for me.  Speaking of curiosity, though, I am sorry I didn’t happen to be in Houston or New York City when dreamboat Paul Nicely was performing in this show.  And I am still curious about how he approached directing the show for TOTS after starring in it twice.  I imagine he brought several insights with him on how to make actors feel comfortable.

I laughed a lot – and yes, blushed a lot – at the explicitly sexual references in this show (no one actually has sex or even kisses on stage but this is not a “family-friendly” show), but I also liked that this show is not just about physical nakedness but also about emotional nakedness and other kinds of vulnerability and courage.  There is no story arc to the show as a whole, but each song tells a kind of story.  Many resonate beyond the (admittedly complex enough) world of gay men.  

For example, there is a serious song in which a man tells his former lover that he has moved on to another relationship but still misses him, and hopes his former lover misses him, too.  Who among us – gay, straight, bi, transgender, etc. – can not relate to that? 

In another song, a man who makes his living as an entertainer sings about how it is more challenging than it looks to an outsider.  I bet that’s true of almost every job.   

My favorite song is a tie.  “The Naked Maid” made me want one for myself (or really just anyone to clean my house, naked or otherwise) and I liked that it was not just a funny song about a fetish but also a song about a man owning up to his love of being looked at.  On the other hand, I was most attracted to the actor (Shannon Wise) that sings “Robert Mitchum” (that deep, rich voice! those rich, warm eyes! and yes, that cuddly-strong body!) and I love that the song is about liking what you like, “imperfections” and all, whether it fits the trendy definition of attractiveness or not.

I also like this show because – well, I don’t know what I expected but I was pleasantly surprised by the attention that had been paid in the TOTS production to all aspects of the show as a theatre piece.  I admired the choreography (by Christopher Noffke), lighting design (by Brian Noffke), and costumes (by Therese Burns, Rachel Godollei-Johnson, and Zach McGuire.)  Mind you, the costumes are mostly there because it’s arousing to watch the men take them off as they sing, but the costumes still do a good job of embellishing the show.  The live piano accompaniment by A. Paul Johnson is lovely, too.

Some of the men are more skilled and/or more experienced singers than others, but they are all good actors and dancers, and they all sing with an appealing, heartfelt conviction.  I think the vocal director, John Phillips, must be responsible for that, and I applaud him for it.

Most of all I like this odd show because after a while the usually private body parts become just part of the whole, but without shame.  And that’s huge.

Other credits:

• Stage manager: Andrew Tillman
• Costume/Properties: Therese Burns
• Set/Costumes: Rachel Godollei-Johnson, Zach McGuire
• The cast:  Ryan Dunne, Drew Eberhard, Ramon Hutchins, Doug Messinger, Evan Reed, Matt Winings, Shannon Wise, Jessiah Yoder. 

(Okay, I thought I could write maturely (whatever that means) about this show and leave it at that but I find I have to indulge in a tiny “Eeek!” after all:  I know cast member Doug Messinger from seeing him in several other shows around town.  During this show he chose me to banter with!  He took my hand under the spotlight and asked, “Are you feeling uncomfortable being dressed while I’m naked?” and I had to admit, “Yes!”  I’m laughing again, remembering.  I didn’t recognize Evan Reed during the show, but he stopped me in the lobby afterwards to thank me for giving him his first review.  He said it was for when he appeared in the Indiana Repertory Theatre’s production of “Macbeth” five years ago under the name Evan McCullough!  Both of my interactions with these boyish men made me feel sort of motherly and protective, and then – because I am not their mother and yet I had seen them naked (“eek!”) - I felt sort of off-kilter.  I feel even more so now, telling you that “my boys” Doug and Evan did a good job as “Naked Boys Singing.”  But they did.)

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“Next to Normal” – I wrote in detail about why I loved this intense and controversial musical about mental health in another post.  I’ll just remind you that this final weekend at the Phoenix Theatre in downtown Indianapolis includes a 7pm Wednesday performance as well as the usual Thursday-Sunday.

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Mostly I write this blog for myself and for people that are already pretty adventurous about experiencing live theatre, but I also hope that sharing my thoughts about what I’ve seen will help others to give theatre-going a try. If there is a show that calls to you but I don’t happen to have written about it, I hope you will go see it anyway.  See it and form your own opinion of it, your own relationship to it.  There are MANY choices for performance art in the Indianapolis area, with intriguing new shows opening almost every weekend.

‘See you at the theatres!

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com and @IndyTheatre on Twitter.

©2013 Hope Baugh

Civic will open THE FOX ON THE FAIRWAY this evening with a heavy heart.  Our dear friend and Resident Costume Designer Jean Engstrom passed away yesterday.  As Bob Sorbera reported to the staff, “In a fashion becoming of a theatrical she passed away at the precise moment that the steel magnolias of the costume shop were raising their glasses in her honor.”  Our condolences to Jean’s family and friends.

I offer them my condolences, too.  I don’t think I ever met Jean in person, but I felt as if I knew her, or at least a part of her, through her beautiful costume designs.  I always looked forward to seeing them and invariably they wowed me.

Here are just a few examples (for most of these, if you click the link you can see a photo or two of Jean’s costumes in the full review):

From my review of “Aida” on Indiana Auditions:

Each of the costumes designed by Jean Engstrom is a work of art in itself. Even the “simple” costumes, such as the handmaidens’ turquoise nail-filing outfits, show wit and careful attention to detail in their individualized high heels and sparkly earrings.

From my review of “Thoroughly Modern Minnie” –

I gave up jotting down notes about the costumes that I loved because there were so many of them. Designer Jean Engstrom created and/or gathered a wealth of 1920s fringed, beaded, feathered, and sequined gowns and hats that are just the cat’s meow.

From my review of “Enchanted April” –

Jean Engstrom’s costume design includes several gorgeous 1920s gowns, a fun bathing outfit, and the unexpected pleasure (for me, anyway) of a man’s damp towel. That form-fitting “costume” made me sit up and say, “Hey!” but also left just enough to the imagination.

From my review of “Twentieth Century” –

The 1930s costume design is by Jean Engstrom. I especially loved the fur stoles of the women. 

From my review of “Evita”:

And the gowns! Eva Peron came from poverty, so when she made it big in the Argentine “big apple” – Buenos Aires – she apparently gorged herself on gorgeous clothes and jewelry. Jean Engstrom’s numerous costume designs and Debbie Williams’ numerous hair and make-up designs are glamorous.

From my review of “The Elephant Man”

Jean Engstrom’s period costume designs are lovely, especially the ladies’ richly-bustled skirts and the men’s cutaway coats. The clown-like outfits of the “Coneheads” side show act are somehow simultaneously charming and creepy.

From my review of “The Belle of Amhurst”

Emily tells us that as an adult she always wore white. She does, in fact, wear only a long, white cotton dress for the whole show. However, Jean Engstrom’s costume design includes several appropriate accessories as well: a white apron, a softly colorful shawl, a funeral bonnet, and a long black cape, for example. Carrie smoothly and subtly employs these as props to aid in her telling of Emily’s life story. They add yet another layer of texture and movement to the piece.

That is what a good costume designer does for any show, actually: she (or he) adds yet another layer of texture, movement, information, and meaning to the piece.  She has to have a good imagination and a wealth of creativity.  Jean Engstrom had both.

I think a good costumer at a large theatre like Civic has to have not only top-notch design and “building” (i.e., making) skills but also excellent people skills.  Almost every Civic program lists several volunteer costume assistants and interns.  There is often a separate hair and makeup designer, too, not to mention the director and the rest of the professional design team.  A good costumer has to get along well with all of those people. 

Also, of course, there are the actors themselves.  At Civic they are all volunteers but, like at any theatre, they want to look good and they have to be able to move and maybe even dance in their costumes in order to do their jobs.  They may be sensitive about their measurements; a good costumer has to work diplomatically around that, too.

Jean Engstrom’s obituary in The Columbus Dispatch says that her career included several years in New York City, where she freelanced as a costume designer and fashion stylist and worked with Patrick Demarchelier, Wes Anderson, Betsy Johnson, and Emmy and Bill Irwin.  It says she also designed costumes for several independent films, and more. 

All of this tells me she was good not only at the creative side of a costumer’s job but at the “getting along with people” side, too.

When I Googled “Jean Engstrom” to find her obituary, I also found a lovely interview that Whitney Smith did with her in 2008 for the Indianapolis Star’s “Metromix”, soon after Jean first started working for the Civic Theatre.  In that conversation Jean mentions that a good costume designer needs to be able to draw (which makes sense, of course, but I had forgotten about that) and needs to be able to find the costumes that she’s not going to design herself.  In other words, she needs to have good hunting and shopping skills.

In the interview with Whitney, Jean also says that a good costume designer has to have “a sense of story, a sense of history.”  I love that Jean said that.  Ultimately, maybe that is why I always loved her costume designs.  In any case, I am grateful that I got to see so many examples of her costume “storytelling” for Civic.

I pray for the repose of Jean Engstrom’s soul, and I wish peace and comfort to her family and friends.

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

P.S. – The obituary says that “Jean will be remembered in a memorial service on the 8th of June (noon), at the home of James Van Winkle, 25420 Lunda Rd., West Mansfield, OH, 43358. Memorial contributions may be made to: Booth Tarkington Civic Theatre 3 Center Green, Suite 200 Carmel, IN, 46032.”

©2013 Hope Baugh

I saw the Phoenix Theatre’s production of “Next to Normal” a couple of weeks ago.  I am still thinking about it, especially as more and more people see it and ask me what I thought of it.  Not everyone likes it, but everyone wants to talk about it.

I loved it.

It is a musical, but it feels like a deeply engaging play with great lines that happen to be beautifully sung.  The music is unusual but the notes fall into place in a satisfying way.  The show doesn’t feel like “Musical Theatre.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with musical theatre…unless it’s not what you’re in the mood for.)

“Next to Normal” nails so many things about mental health and grieving and family patterns over generations and the medical profession and buffers and invisibility and denial and happiness and fidelity and more…without being black-and-white or even too judgmental or prescriptive about any of it.  It invites emotional response AND intellectual discussion.

It is intense and it made me cry, but it isn’t depressing.

The ensemble cast under the direction of Bryan Fonseca and musical director Kevin D. Smith is splendid.

Should you go see it?  Of course you should, if for no other reason than it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama plus some Tony Awards.  Go see it and form your own opinion.  I bet it will be a strong one.

The show runs Wednesdays-Sundays at the Phoenix for two more weeks, through February 24, 2013. While you’re at the theatre, I’m going to write the rest of what I want to write about this show without worrying about spoilers.

Seriously, it’s better if you go see the show first and then come back and read the rest of this post.

If you don’t like spoilers, don’t say I didn’t warn you about the spoilers below.

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The Basic Plot

The plot of the piece is that a mom/wife named Diana has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  Her husband, Dan, and their teenaged daughter, Natalie, have lived with her erratic behavior for quite a while now and are as worn-out as she is.  They hope that a new doctor will be able to cure Diana.  In the meantime, Natalie never brings friends home from school because she is too afraid her mom will be acting crazy.

No, actually, the plot is that there is this nice suburban family: a mom named Diana, a dad named Dan, a teenaged daughter named Natalie, and a teenaged son named Gabe.  One day, Natalie’s new boyfriend, Henry, somehow slips in to dinner…and when Diana brings out a huge cake blazing with candles because “it’s somebody’s birthday!” Henry and the audience realize what Dan and Natalie have known for a while now: that only Diana and the audience can see Gabe.  He is the young man her baby would have become if he hadn’t died at eight months old when Dan and Diana were teenagers themselves.

The appearance of the birthday cake means that yet another medicine prescribed by yet another doctor has failed to help.  So…when another doctor suggests ECT (electroconvulsive therapy, what used to be called “shock treatment”), Dan (eagerly) and Diana (reluctantly) sign the waiver for it.

The Characters

This is mostly Diana’s story, but each of the other characters gets a full life via the script and the actors’ portrayals.

Will Hutcheson plays Gabe, the endearing/terrifying imaginary young man that is Diana’s secret confidant, comfort, and nemesis.  Sometimes an almost demonic rage flits over his features: he may be a figment of Diana’s imagination and illness but he does NOT want to be smoothed out of existence by meds or any other treatments, and he cheers when Diana flushes her pills down the toilet.  But at other times Will shows us the joyful, loving son (and attractive dance partner!) that Diana knows Gabe would have become.  We believe it, too, and we understand why she does not want to let go of him.

Charlie Clark plays Dan, the good and patient man that promised to stay married to Diana for better or worse and is therefore keeping his word.  He is as supportive of her as he knows how to be.  He does his best to make love to her.  He takes her to doctor after doctor.  He hugs her and calms her down when the madness takes over again and she is in a panic, covering the kitchen floor with bread slices to “get ahead” in making cheese sandwiches for the children’s lunches.

Yet Dan never, ever says his son’s name.  Later in the play, after Diana comes home from the hospital and has been so affected by the ECT that she doesn’t recognize even her husband or daughter, Dan shows her family photos and other mementos to help her recover, but he hides everything that might remind her of Gabe.  One of the great things about Charlie’s nuanced portrayal of Dan is that we don’t want to blame Dan, either, for dealing with his grief as best he can.

Still, a turning point is when Diana does remember everything and shouts to Dan, “Say his name!  Say his name!  Say his name!”

When Diana is finally able to let go of Gabe – not ever forget him, but move on with her life on her own – Dan sees the teenage Gabe that Diana has seen all along.  The simple “Hi, Gabe,” “Hi, Dad!” conversation between father and son is both heart-rending and healing to watch.  Like something breaking and repairing all in one moment.  There is nothing demonic or avaricious in Gabe’s face now, only a pure and innocent gladness.  Dan’s response is more complicated, but it includes relief.

I didn’t take this scene to mean that Dan has now caught the bipolar disease or that the teenaged ghost of Gabe is now going to haunt Dan but rather that Dan is finally at a place where he can begin to process his own grief in a meaningful way, without the excuse, the buffer, of Diana’s problems.  Especially if he accepts professional help, which he does, at the very end.

Speaking of professional help, Eric J. Olson does a brilliant job of portraying several different doctors in such a way as to cumulatively show that doctors (and therapists and any kind of helper) are human, too, for better or worse.  Even the kindest, most compassionate doctor has his or her own baggage and blind spots.  Each is doing the best he can with what he and other members of the medical profession know at the time, which is never everything.  There is no such thing as a doctor that is perfect for every patient.  About one doctor, for example, Diana sings “He knows everything about me, I only know his name.”  I’m still percolating on the appropriateness of that one.

Eric also does a great job of portraying Diana’s fantasies and hallucinations about some of her doctors.  Man, if you want someone to play a sexy rock star, ask Eric J. Olson.

While all this is going on with the grown-ups, daughter Natalie is doing her best to grow up almost all on her own, using the only role models available to her.  Olivia Huntley shows us Natalie’s fragility, her resentment, her strength, her confusion, her despair, her concern and love for her parents, and her yearning to have hope for her future.  Natalie is a perfectionist and a workaholic, doing anything she can think of to make her parents wake up and see her.  She’s not being the stereotypical self-involved teenager – she truly has absent parents.  No one comes to her piano recital, no one notices when she gets drunk or tries her mom’s meds to “quiet the hunger.”

No one except Henry, the pot-smoking jazzy contrast to Natalie’s (until recently) straight-laced classical music personality.  He admires her and he comes to care for her, in spite of her resistance.  Without knowing that he is echoing Natalie’s father’s pattern with Diana, he promises to do the best he can to always “be there” for her while she eventually promises, I think (or maybe she just wonders if they can be) “perfect for each other.”  They sing something like, “I’ll be perfect for you…Maybe I’ll be crazy, we don’t know…but that will be perfect, too.”  As with Dan, the audience is left wondering how they will move forward, and we feel hopeful about their futures, but we don’t know for sure how their stories will turn out.  Tyler Sarkis gives Henry an appealing earnestness and just the right, believable blend of mature compassion and youthful inexperience.

And Emily Ristine as Diana?  Outstanding.  I admired the whole cast, the whole show, but I leapt to my feet to applaud at the end mostly because of Emily’s exquisite singing and completely believable portrayal of the wife and mother, Diana.  Emily conveyed Diana’s complexity, vulnerability, and strength in subtle ways that wowed me.

I was surprised when I heard later from more than one person that they thought Emily was too young for the role.  That thought never entered my mind during the show, and I still say she was completely believable, both as Dan’s same-age wife and as teenager Natalie’s mother.   Thinking about it now, I realize that Emily’s presence or her energy or something came across as matured-by-life enough to me, while at the same time conveying that she was stuck in her youthful past, so that I didn’t think about the actor’s physical age.  Or maybe some beautiful women just read as ageless to me?  Maybe it’s because I don’t know Emily Ristine at all in person?  I don’t know what else to say about this, and I respect the fact that what does not distract one person does distract another, so I don’t need everyone to agree with me.  It is art; therefore people’s responses to it are varied and personal.

However, I’m not going to change my mind on this point.  I thought Emily Ristine WAS “the mother,” was Diana.  And my heart just went out to her.

Themes – The Medical Profession

I already mentioned the theme of the medical profession’s fallibility.  Near the end, Diana reveals that back when her baby died, a doctor told her that if she wasn’t “over” her grief after four months, it would be “toxic grief” and therefore wrong.  I felt outrage on Diana’s behalf.  I do believe there is such a thing as toxic grief – it’s what happens when someone hangs on to the feelings of sadness and loss for too long – but I also believe that the right amount of time for grieving is unique to each person.  How dare that doctor set that arbitrary amount of time and then scold Diana with it!

On the other hand, some of the doctors do help Diana.  There are hints at Diana’s problems being genetic and/or inherited, too.  I love that the show offers a nonjudgmental opportunity for audience members to think about their own experiences – positive and negative – of the medical profession and their own family patterns and experiences.  The show offers the comforting idea that I’m not the only person whose healing/personal growth/path to adulthood/whatever hasn’t followed a Step One, Step Two, Step Three, Ta-dah! pattern.  Maybe no one’s does.

Themes – The Importance of Feelings

Early on in the show, when doctors are trying one medicine after another with Diana, one set finally makes her say groggily, “I don’t feel anything.” The doctor says, “Good!” and writes on his clipboard, “Patient is stabilized.”

“What?!” I wanted to shout.  “Not feeling anything is NOT good!  Our feelings are an important source of information!  Doc, you are the one that’s nuts!”

And in another part of the show, when Diana sang “I miss the mountains” as she poured out the pills that “stabilized” her, I flashed back to two girls I’d known when I was younger.

One was a 12-year-old girl in my cabin group when I was a camp counselor.  This was years ago, when it was still unusual for children to be taking prescription medicine for behavioral issues.  (And yes, I know I’m being judgmental when I say that.  I have my own biases.)  This girl came to camp with her “normal” sister, who told me that “you have to watch my sister because if she can get away without taking her pills, she will.”  But what broke my heart was that the drugged sister – who was a behavioral handful, I admit, even with the meds – confided to me during a hike one day that she wished she didn’t have to take the pills because they “make me forget who I am.”

The other was a woman in college – a co-worker at the restaurant where I waitressed – whose girlfriend broke up with her because she was “too manic when she went off her meds, and she’s always going off her meds.”  I was so naïve, I thought their lesbianism was the most interesting thing about them.  Now, however, years later, what I remember most is the other woman telling me that she knew the pills made her easier to live with, but if she didn’t take them, she got these wonderful surges of creative energy that produced art she was proud of.  “How can I give that up?” she asked me.

Writing this now, I’m also remembering a conversation with a friend a few years ago in which I was ranting about the evils of prescription medicines.  My friend listened, and then quietly told me that her depression meds had saved her life, that even now they gave her enough of a break in which to do the talk-therapy work she needed to do in order to get truly better.

Which shut me up and cracked open my mind a bit more, too.

I tell you all this to show that “Next to Normal” is the kind of theatre piece that makes you remember and want to share stories from your own life.

I love that the title of this show, “Next to Normal,” refers to a conversation that Diana has with her daughter, Natalie, near the end.  Diana tries to promise her daughter a normal life, now that she (Diana) is truly on the mend, but Natalie says with love in her voice something like, “Normal is quite a ways off, Mom.  Let’s go for next to normal.”

Theme – Wounds

I also love that part of what helps Diana finally move forward is the realization that maybe some wounds never do heal completely.  She says/sings something like “What if what’s broken is not merely my mind but my soul?”

Again I flashed on a person from my own life: a widower I dated a few years ago that cried every time we went out.  He dutifully shared his feelings with me and then allowed himself to cry because someone had told him that was what he was supposed to do to “get over” his wife’s death.  I did my best to be a friend and listen compassionately because I liked him and I do believe in the healing power of “sharing feelings and crying” but after a while the whole thing just got old.  He confessed to me that it was getting old for him, too.

“I just don’t understand it,” he said.  “I cry…why don’t I feel better?”

I didn’t have an answer for him.  He tried dating other people, changing his job, moving away, but he still died young.  I went to his funeral and many of his close friends and family said he had died of a broken heart.  I only sort of accept that.  He had physical health problems that finally caught up with him, but he was taking pleasure in the music that he loved, and in his new job, and his new location, right up to the end.  I admire his bravery in trying to keep going without his wife.  Some wounds never do heal completely but we can find ways to live our lives fully even so.

I wish I could take my friend to see “Next to Normal.”  I bet he would agree with me that one of the best lines from it is “You don’t have to be happy to be happy to be alive.”

Themes – Visibility

The theme that resonated most strongly with me was the subtle theme of “visibility.”  Something that I’ve been working on lately is becoming more visible to myself rather than waiting for other people to see me clearly and acknowledge me.  It’s a life journey, of course, but seeing the characters in “Next to Normal” struggle in their own ways with the idea of “visibility” was useful and comforting to me.

Most poignant was young and very-much-alive Natalie’s feelings of being invisible to her parents, no matter how many perfect scores and awards she accumulated.  Her parents did not abuse her at all.  But they didn’t SEE her.

I also realize as I write this that even though the show is wonderfully non-judgmental about mental health-related experiences in general, it does not say that being “non-judgmental” is the goal.  Being able to see clearly in each moment and make wise decisions is the goal.  The life journey.

The Design Elements

Bernie Killian’s multi-level set seems made of jagged pieces of white vellum framed in black.  Combined with Nolan Brokamp’s emotional (I mean that in a good way!) lighting design, it does a clever job of enhancing the themes, contrasts, and actions of the show.

One element in Ashley Kiefer’s costume design made my mental wheels spin for several moments during the show: Natalie’s black coat.  It was shortened from very long to pretty short.  You can tell because all of the extra fabric was doubled under instead of being cut off, making for a distractingly bulky hem.  It looked weird, but I finally decided it must have been done on purpose, as another way of showing that nobody was really parenting Natalie (maybe she hemmed it herself without any help from her mom or other more experienced seamstress), and that people in the family were hiding stuff that needed to be let go of.

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Whew!  I feel as if there is even more still to think and talk about with this show, but if I don’t post this today I may never get around to it.  If you go see “Next to Normal” and feel like talking about it afterwards, let me know.

Credits

Music by Tom Kitt.  Book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey.

At the Phoenix:

• Producer, director: Bryan Fonseca
• Musical director:  Kevin D. Smith
• Assistant director: Brandon Allmon-Jackson
• Set design: Bernie Killian
• Lighting design, technical director: Nolan Brokamp
• Choreographer: Mariel Greenlee
• Assistant stage manager: Chelsey Wood
• Stage manager intern: Hailey-Brooke Barham
• Run crew: Courtney Blossom
• Costume design, props: Ashley Kiefer
• Sound mix engineer: Ben Dobler

Band:

• Conductor and piano: Kevin D. Smith
• Keyboard 2: Kevin Kiser
• Cello: Laura Cones
• Guitar: Patrick Wright
• Bass: Greg Geogeine
• Percussion: Larry Molnar

Box Office

Call the Phoenix Theatre at 317-635-PLAY or visit their website – phoenixtheatre.org – for more information and to buy tickets.

‘See you at the theatres!

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com and @IndyTheatre on Twitter.

(Photos for this post were taken by Zach Rosing, provided by the Phoenix Theatre, and are used with permission.)

©2013 Hope Baugh

This is my fourth week of an eight-week “Intermediate Improv for Adults” class at ComedySportz in downtown Indianapolis. 

What I Love About the Class

I love that the class is teaching me about story crafting as well as about acting.  It is not a writing class, but it makes me want to try writing fiction again.

I love that the class is teaching me about generosity, boundaries, and community on stage.  It’s too soon to tell if these lessons will affect the rest of my life, but I bet they will.

I love that the class is both mentally and (for me) physically demanding but not crushing.

I love that the class is thoughtfully structured, with a notebook of lesson plans that the instructors refer to, but within that structure, the instructors make each night unique.  They respond very specifically in the moment to our attempts, pulling from their own years of improv experience to offer advice.  I love that the instructors take the work seriously without taking themselves seriously. 

I love that the fifth rule of improv at ComedySportz Indy is “Have fun.”

“There’s no way to do this wrong,” instructor Michael Davis said on the first day.  “However, there are always choices.  Some choices are stronger than others, so I’ll be giving you feedback to help you learn how to make the stronger choices more often, but don’t worry about…” making a mistake, being imperfect, looking foolish, whatever.

I “failed” again and again that first night (and in the nights since) but it was in an atmosphere that made me want to keep going, keep trying, keep working, keep playing.

The Rules

There are actually all kinds of rules in improv, but here are the five we started out with:

1.   Pay attention.  (For example, if your scene partner mimes putting a chair in the middle of the stage, don’t walk through it a few moments later.)

2.   Agree. (For example, if you enter a scene thinking you’re going to be in a garden shed and your scene partner says, “Welcome to Disneyland!” then just go ahead and turn your imaginary rake into an imaginary mouse balloon or whatever.)

3.   Put the ensemble first. (Don’t judge or blame.  Do contribute.  Don’t overwhelm.)

4.   Commit. (For example, if you find you’ve become a frog in a scene, then hop your little heart out.  Use all your energy.)

5.   Have fun.

6.   There are no rules.

Other rules that have come up along the way so far:

• Don’t ask questions.  Michael said that asking questions is what we’ve all been trained to do, socially, to show that we’re interested in other people, but in an improv scene it just means you are making your scene partner do all the work.  So, for example, don’t say, “What are you holding there?” say, “I love that machete you’ve got there.”  Don’t say “What are you going to do with it?” say, “Boy, I hope you’re planning to use that machete on the weeds in the back yard rather than on my neck” or whatever.  If you forget and do ask a question, fix it yourself by turning your question into a statement.
• Begin in the middle.  Use names and other things to show that you and your scene partner have pre-established relationships.  The “hi, nice to meet you” stuff is boring. 
• Get out the names, place, and situation as soon as you can.
• Don’t block other people’s ideas. (Wait, that’s the same as the Agreement rule.)
• Listen, watch, remember.  (Wait, that’s the same as the Pay Attention rule.  Hmm.  Maybe everything is a version of those basic five rules after all.)

Warmups and Tools

So far, we have had three instructors: Michael Davis, Jon Colby, and Ed Trout, all excellent.  I think Michael will be teaching most of the rest of the sessions but it is nice to work with other gurus once in a while. 

No matter who is teaching, each week we first stand in a circle and stretch and chat a bit.  Then we play games in a circle:  to warm up our mouths and vocal chords; to raise our energy; to focus our attention; and to hone our imaginations.

Then we take turns getting up on the tiny ComedySportz stage and doing various kinds of scenes.  Michael said this week that both the warm-ups and the scene work are meant to give us tools that will come in handy with any kind of improv work.  I think they will come in handy with life, too, but as I said earlier, it’s too soon to tell.

My Take-Aways So Far

Each two-hour class is filled with experiences and ideas.  Here are some things that particularly resonated with me:

Week One:  Most people that do improv will tell you that “Yes, and…” is the most important thing to remember.  I realized as we worked that first night that this expression does not mean “be a doormat.”  The “and” is as rich and important as the “yes.”  Yes, I accept what you’re saying and doing AND I’m now saying and doing such-and-such to help us move forward in the story.  The story on stage or the story of our lives.

Week Two:  Today is the day that _____ happens.  ComedySportz shows are funny but actually, improv work is not about being funny.  This surprised me.  Improv is about being honest and open and strong and vulnerable and present in the here and now.  People like to laugh, but even more, they like to watch authenticity.  Also, people like to watch someone going to the place where they want to go but are reluctant.  Improv is about the unusual, even the unique. If it happens every day, why show it?  In improv, today is the day that a meek man tells off his boss, asks out his neighbor, takes a voyage, whatever he wants to do but would normally not do because of his inhibitions.  And what an optimistic, exhilarating approach to real life, too!  Today is unique! Today is the day a drunk man stumbles into our class, thinking ComedySportz is a bar, and our instructor, Jon, says firmly, “Yes, and I need you to leave now.”  Today is the day a gorgeous man offers strong, independent me his hand to help me down a tricky set of stairs, and I accept and am simply grateful for the help.  Today is the day that _____ happens.  I wonder what the “blank” will be today!

Week Three:  We worked hard this week on discovering and developing characters, first by “walking them” and then by using their inner and outer wants to drive scenes.  We practiced building tension with silence, too, and other improv tools.  It was all fascinating and more complex than anything we had done before, and by the end of the night I was exhausted and very aware of the opportunities I’d missed in our scene work.  Ed said, “Forgive yourself.  If you missed opportunities, eh, it’s improv.  You’ll never have to see it again.  Of course, the reverse is true, too.  If it was brilliant, you’ll never get to see it again, either.”  In either case, that’s just life.  I mean, improv.

Week Four: This week we continued to work hard.  Michael told us afterwards that the black notebook calls this lesson “Keeping the Story in the Scene.”  We did “freezes” – where two people do a scene for a few moments until Michael says, “Freeze!  Hope, change places with ___.” Then I go up on stage and put my body in the exact same position as my classmate’s. She or he leaves the stage and then my other classmate and I start a new scene from that frozen position.  We also practiced doing 3-person scenes in which the first two people give the 3^rd person usable information about himself (or herself) before he enters, through their conversation.  It is much more helpful to say something like, “you know, my friend Joe that limps” than “my friend Joe who has brown hair,” for example.  We also practiced paring down minute-long scenes into 45 seconds, then 12 seconds, then 6.  Then we practiced expanding a 6-second scene into a minute, which was much harder to do.   I realized that even though I am taking this class for personal growth rather than from any desire to get back on stage for a paying audience, I am still interested in the artistry of the work as well as the therapy of it.  Michael said, “One difference between doing improv and just playing make-believe on the playground is that in improv you say, ‘Later, at the barn’ or you open an imaginary door and walk out to the barn.  You don’t just appear there.”  Improv is a lot of fun, and it offers food for thought about life, but it is also worthy of respect as an art form.

Homework (aka Icing!)

This 8-week, 2-hours-per-week course cost $195, which is a bargain in and of itself, but guess what else?!  Everyone in the class received a handful of free passes to ComedySportz shows so that we can go to them for observation and enjoyment as “homework” in between classes!  What a treat!

‘See you at the theatres, including Comedy Sportz…

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com and @IndyTheatre on Twitter.

(Photo above taken by me with my trusty old iPhone.) 

© 2013 Hope Baugh

I have been writing this blog for five years as of today.  Happy birthday, Indy Theatre Habit!

And to everyone that reads my blog: thank you for reading!

‘See you at the theatres…

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com and @IndyTheatre on Twitter.

©2013 Hope Baugh

Photo above was taken by Chris Gladis (MShades on Flickr.com.)

I leapt to my feet to applaud at the end of “Jackie and Me” at the Indiana Repertory Theatre a couple weekends ago.  It is funny, moving, informative, fun…and, based on what several people have told me, it appeals to baseball fans and others across generations.  I loved it completely and would like to see it again before it closes.

Gutman and Dietz

Playwright Steven Dietz adapted a kids’ novel from a series by Dan Gutman in which a boy named Joey Stoshack has the ability to travel back through time by holding baseball cards.  Apparently, each book in the series lets Joey meet a different significant player.  In Jackie and Me, Joey has to write a report for African-American History Month for school, so he goes back in time to the late 1940s to meet the first African-American to cross the color barrier in major league baseball: Jackie Robinson. 

I haven’t read any of the books in the series (I have Jackie and Me on hold at my local public library but it hasn’t come in yet) but I enjoyed another book by Dan Gutman called Getting Air, about three 12-year-old skateboarders that defeat terrorists and then survive a plane crash in the wilderness.  I like Dan Gutman’s wholesome but far from bland sense of humor and his ignore-the-unimportant-details sense of adventure. 

In “Jackie and Me,” for example, Joey’s parents don’t question the fact that Joey can travel through time.  His dad just gives him his grandfather’s satchel to carry instead of his backpack so that he will fit in better, and his mom just packs him a lunch to take along and reminds him that he will need the same baseball card to get back.  On the other hand, important things like bullying, racism, offensive language, temper control, and keeping promises are not ignored.  They are addressed in non-condescending, family-friendly ways that help all of us sort through what’s worth fighting for, and how best to do it.

Playwright Steven Dietz did a good job of capturing Gutman’s storytelling style in his “Jackie and Me” adaptation.

And the IRT’s production, directed by Courtney Sale, brings it to life delightfully.

The Actors

Young Joseph Mervis’ portrayal of Joey Stoshack is a treat.  For example, when Joey says a line like “See? This is why we learn math!” that could be disgustingly saccharine, Joseph delivers it to the audience with a twinkle in his eye that gives it just the right combination of sincere joy and teasing.  Joseph/Joey is on stage the whole time; it is truly a great pleasure to be on the adventure with him. 

The other child actor, Brett Wainscott, is also good.  He is convincing as Joey’s nemesis in both time periods.  He shows us that bullies may be different people (opposing pitcher Bobby Fuller who goads Joey for his Polish heritage or Dodgers batboy Ant who goads Joey for being black, as Joey becomes when he goes back to 1947) but they all have things (fear, resentment, etc.) in common.

The adult actors are all crackerjack, too.  Four of the adult actors are local IRT favorites.  Two are visiting from New York.  All except one play multiple roles.  All are excellent:

Ryan Artzberger is a divorced dad doing his best…and a 1940s white baseball player that resists change.

Jennifer Johansen is Joey’s loving, suburban mom…and a 1940s feisty Brooklyn grocery store owner that serves anyone as long as they’re not Yankee fans.

Rob Johansen is Flip, the baseball card store owner that tells Joey that you can’t sell your memories…and Pee Wee Reese, a 1940s white teammate that sticks up for Jackie Robinson without saying a word.

Robert Neal is the 1940s Brooklyn Dodgers’ visionary manager, Branch Rickey…and the retired but still beloved Yankees player, Babe Ruth.

Lanise Antoine Shelley is Joey’s exasperated but dedicated teacher, Ms. Levitt…and Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s brave and intelligent wife.

And Beethovan Oden as Jackie Robinson lets us see both his incredible strength of character and his humanity.

The Design Elements

This piece is presented on the IRT’s upperstage, which means the audience sits on three steeply-raked sides and the actors can enter from the front corners as well as from behind the set.

When this show opens, a man is “painting” a white baseline of light on the Astroturf-covered set.  The whole show is this kind of lovely mix of actual materials and polished theatrical make-believe. 

Scenic designer Robert M. Koharchik placed a tall, chain-link wall with doors at the back and provided a few key pieces of furniture and props that the actors use with the help of Betsy Cooprider-Bernstein’s lighting design to gracefully (as graceful as a baseball game!) convert the space in moments from Joey’s baseball field to Joey’s home to Joey’s classroom…and then through a whirl of time travel back to Branch Rickey’s office, the Dodgers’ locker room, the Robinsons’ home, and more. 

Alison Heryer’s carefully-researched costume designs clearly and authentically delineate the two time periods in everything from Joey’s Nikes to Rachel’s pocketbook. 

Todd Mack Resichman’s sound design enriches the whole experience, too.  One of my favorite scenes is the one in which Jackie and Joey play a late-night game of catch in the alley outside the Robinsons’ apartment.  It includes several satisfying “thwacks” of the imaginary baseball hitting their gloves.

Delia Neylon is the stage manager.  Be sure to read dramaturg Richard J. Roberts’ interesting background essay in the program.

Box Office

The IRT obviously put this show in their season to be of interest to the schools that send their students by the busload to the IRT on field trips, but don’t dismiss this as being just for kids or just educational.  It holds many kinds of satisfactions for many kinds of audiences.

“Jackie and Me” runs through February 16, 2013 at the Indiana Repertory Theatre.  Check www.irtlive.com for showtimes and to make reservations.  I saw one of the 3pm Saturday performances.  It was an unusual showtime for Indianapolis, but a great time of the day and week to see a show!

‘See you at the theatres…

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com and @IndyTheatre on Twitter.

Photos used with this post were taken by Zach Rosing and are used with permission.  Roll your mouse over each photo to see the actors’ names.

©2013 Hope Baugh