Sunday, November 26, 2006

opening-night review of *Moonlight and Magnolias*

at Actors Rep through Dec. 9

Sometimes even critics can be wrong. (Hard to imagine, I know, but true.) Browse review-snippets of *Moonlight and Magnolias,* a comic retelling of how *Gone With the Wind* was rewritten on deadline and at hyper-speed, and you’ll confront a lot of jabber about excessive silliness and slapped-on political content.

But the revelation about Ron Hutchinson’s comedy, in moving from page to stage, is how plausibly the arguments about racism and the purposes of art spring out of the Three Stooges routines and back-and-forth wisecracks. This is a comedy that offers something to chew on after the one-liners have melted away. Despite some unconvincing moments and flat spots, director Tralen Doler’s production at Actors Rep (through Dec. 9) wrings commentary about politics and power out of its cram-session comedy. There’s a reason that theaters all over the country have been producing *M&M* for the last couple of years: While his play isn’t profound, Hutchinson still offers satisfying repayment for two hours spent laughing at present antics while reliving the past and imagining what the future might hold.

A comedy about the creative process that requires just four actors and a unit set — of course artistic directors are going to go after this one. And because its producer-figure gives pep talks to his two colleagues, in terms of a well-known movie embedded in our cultural fabric, he’s giving pep talks to all of us out there in the dark. His message is to do work that we love, to do it well, to make sacrifices. That’s a message that audiences will appreciate and apply to their own lives even amid all their guffaws. The play’s running debates about politics — the racism and anti-Semitism of the 1930s (not exactly conquered today) and the creative process (yup, still a mystery) — retain their impact.

The plot’s simple: Producer David O. Selznick (Michael Weaver) locks two guys in a room for week so they can collectively rewrite the biggest movie of all time, that’s all. Selznick has stopped production on *Gone With the Wind,* and he’s hired director Victor Fleming (John Oswald) and screenwriter Ben Hecht (Patrick Treadway) to help him beat the clock by throwing together a new shooting script. They work five days straight, and much credit is due to ARt’s trio of actors for looking progressively disheveled. Treadway looks haggard from the start — and he’s got a times-five all-nighter in front of him just to get the *GWTW* script refashioned under the gun. With skeptical mouth twists, resigned shoulder slumps and shuffling, uncooperative feet, Treadway nicely understates Hecht’s reluctance to write schlock (and worse yet, apolitical schlock without a purpose). Stridency would’ve been too much in a wit-display full of men screaming at each other; Treadway limns his character in small and effective ways.

Hutchinson has written in a couple of red-faced showdowns between writer and director — conception and execution — and Oswald, at some points hunchbacked with vitriol, rages at Hecht the mere typist. But the surprise is how Oswald (who has specialized in portraying elderly men in a couple of productions each at Interplayers and at Actors Rep) delivers a spoof imitation of *GWTW*’s Butterfly McQueen as Prissy, the child who don’t know nuthin’ about birthin’ no babies.

Especially in the first act, though, this thing doesn’t run like the wind, not yet. The second act, fortunately, opens with a series of blackout scenes that ratchet up the laugh-o-meter. There are some needless pauses; with some of the historical references, the cast needs to decide whether to go for laughs (and what kind).

One plot device that Hutchinson uses to get Fleming and Hecht isolated in a conversation is ridiculous and hokey — but then so is much of Gone With the Wind. Still, there’s funny-stupid (the histrionic re-enactments, the slapping routine, the running banana jokes) and then there’s just stupid-stupid.

Some the problem lies with Weaver, though maybe that’s because the double-fussy wallop of “The Tuna Project” will still be familiar after just three months to regular theatergoers. There’s only so much hip-jiggling, floppy-wrist circling of the stage one can see before Scarlett O’Hara becomes less character than caricature. Granted, Weaver’s David O. Selznick is frantically trying to re-enact most of a four-hour movie so that Treadway, as screenwriter Ben Hecht, can cobble together some revised pages. But Weaver’s sometimes too campy for a man who feels so much responsibility — to his studio, to the movies in general.

There was a moment when Selznick first waxed eloquent about the movies during which Weaver didn’t seem to have turned the emotional corner from comic mugging to pep-talk sincerity. But then lights dim, music swells, Weaver pulls back a curtain … and the power of theater to persuade, to make us believe that illusion, right this moment, can be truer than mere facts, is maintained.

Costumer Lisa Caryl puts Weaver in a natty green suit that says, just as it should, Big Shot Producer. Set designer Renae Meredith’s sunburst doors use Art Deco flair to complement the room-full-of-powerful-men look (even if these particular power-mongers have bananas stuck in their mouths).

Writing a late-night review hurriedly after watching a frenetic production of *M&M* feels much like the struggles that Hutchinson’s three men go through in his play — sacrificing sleep just to get some words down on paper. One difference, though: I’m writing a small-city review that’s off the stands by next week. They were writing *Gone With the Flippin’ Wind.*
Critics cling to being “part of the process,” and yet some of them, I am persuaded, are actually fallible. Some of them displayed a knee-jerk anti-popularity response to one of America’s most frequently produced plays. So don’t believe the claims of superficiality about *M&M.* Hutchinson plays fast and loose with historical probabilities, but then so did Margaret Mitchell. The five-day rewrite is a myth, and conversations couldn’t have been as rapid-fire witty as this in any case. But frankly, my dears, I don’t give a damn, because Hutchinson’s Moonlight and Magnolias — well presented by Actors Rep — is a comedy worth experiencing. It’ll make you smile, but it will also get you thinking about the sacrifices you’re willing to make in order to chase after your dreams. Tomorrow, after all, isn’t just another day; tomorrow is a chance to reshape your life.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Hecht, Selznick, Fleming


Hecht, Selznick, Fleming
Originally uploaded by Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

Treadway, Weaver, Oswald in Ron Hutchinson's *Moonlight and Magnolias" through Dec. 9 at Actors Rep

*Moonlight and Magnolias* at Actors Rep


*Moonlight and Magnolias* at Actors Rep
Originally uploaded by Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

Nov. 24-Dec. 9, 2006
Actors Repertory Theatre of the Inland Northwest, at the Spartan Theatre of Spokane Falls Community College
Ron Hutchinson's comedy about the rewriting of *Gone With the Wind,* directed by Tralen Doler
Patrick Treadway as Ben Hecht
Michael Weaver as David O. Selznick
John Oswald as Victor Fleming

*Fuddy Meers* at U of Idaho, Nov. 30-Dec. 9

David Lindsay-Abaire's bizarre 1999 comedy at the Kiva Theater on the UI campus in Moscow, Nov. 30-Dec. 3 and Dec. 6-9

*Fuddy Meers* tells the story of Claire – an average woman who just happens to have a rare memory disorder. The play starts off as just another normal day for Claire. She wakes up and her husband Richard greets her with a cup of coffee, and patiently explains that she suffers from a form of psychogenic amnesia that erases her memory every night when she goes to sleep. He explains her condition, and hands her a book filled with all sorts of essential information, and then leaves to take a shower.
Things start to get crazy when a limping, lisping, half-blind, half-deaf man in a ski mask, pops out from under her bed and claims to be her brother, and is there to save her. She is quickly hustled off to the country-house of her mother, a recent stroke victim whose speech has been reduced to utter gibberish.
Claire’s journey gets even more complicated when an ex-convict with a potty-mouthed hand puppet pops up at a window. Her husband, who is determined to find Claire, shows up with their continuously stoned son and a claustrophobic lady that they’ve kidnapped.

directed by Grechen Wingerter
Tickets: $10; $8, seniors; $5, students
Call (208) 885-7212

Monday, November 20, 2006

fullest review of *Mame*

The previous blog review of the Civic's *Mame* (below) is about 450 words long.
In tomorrow's *Inlander* — available a day earlier than usual, on Wednesday, Nov. 22 — we only had room for about 650 words.

So ... for those few of you who might care, here's the whole shebang at 900 words.


If you’re doing a show about fighting the hidebound habits of conformity, you’d better have a unicorn in your show — a character who’s other-worldly, a little forbidding, nonconformist, unique. And the Civic’s current production of Mame (through Dec. 17) has its unicorn, all right — it’s just that the horn’s on the wrong woman. Despite several delightfully varied dance sequences, some amazing costumes, a couple of stellar vocal numbers and a storyline that’s all about living life to the fullest, most of the joie de vivre in the Civic’s Mame lies with the sidekick and not the star.
In the bosom-buddy role of Vera Charles, Kathie Doyle-Lipe shows more exuberance, unconventionality and comic gusto than does Melody Deatherage in the title role. The result is an imbalanced show.
Deatherage never does or says anything in the role that gives us reason to smack our foreheads in disbelief over that unpredictable, sensational Mame. But Doyle-Lipe does: popping through doorways and out of the bedclothes, jamming one-liner retorts right into the maw of her conversational opponents, nearly falling headlong down stairwells, she may be stealing scenes, but she’s alive up there. Doyle-Lipe is a prairie dog, popping her head up and skittering across the stage; in contrast, Deatherage is an Irish wolfhound, elegant but lumbering. Granted, Doyle-Lipe’s Vera is just a martini-swilling eccentric, whereas Deatherage’s Mame has to carry the show with moments both comic and serious. She’s the one who has to wonder if she’s doing the right thing; she’s the one who has a kid.
Which may explain why Deatherage is so transcendently good in the Mame’s big 11 o’clock song of regret: “Would I make the same mistakes / If he walked into my life today?” she asks, right after her adopted nephew Patrick, now all grown up, has gotten engaged to a conventional girl and her conventional lifestyle. For the boy she had taken into her life so long ago, it’s what Mame feared most.
Deatherage’s voice can sometimes strain in the lower register, and she isn’t particularly light on her feet. But director Troy Nickerson wisely plays “If He Walked Into My Life” simply, with Deatherage in an elegant gown, standing her ground, isolated in a spotlight, with here self-doubt and sadness pouring out. She was so busy being unconventional, she forgot to make the best parenting decisions. Deatherage stands and delivers on the song — with her voice a little raspy and a lot anguished — and it’s a moment, rare in the look-at-me-being-silly atmosphere of Mame, when a character’s emotions (rather than the external situation) propel the lyrics. Deatherage delivers the mood of “If He Walked” magnificently.
But it’s only one song. While Doyle-Lipe does the physical comedy and the quick outbursts, Deatherage stands out most in expressing her character’s quasi-maternal love and occasional sadness. And we’re still stuck with an imbalance.


The subject matter of *Mame,* moreover, has dated. Hard-drinkin’, brassy women aren’t the cultural curiosity today that they were in 1938, with the result that Mame’s supposed outrageousness doesn’t seem quite so outrageous at all. Even in the hilarious “Moon Song” sequence, when Vera tries to help out Mame by giving her a small role in a stage show, Doyle-Lipe is so good at slapstick that she simply comes off as more lively and more outrageous than Deatherage.
Yet again, during “We Need a Little Christmas” — a more traditional and serious setting in which Mame needs to cheer everyone up just when everyone’s run out of money — Deatherage conveys touching generosity when she surprises her employees and her nephew with presents. She projects the conventional, more serious side of Mame; too bad that’s only half the job.


Among the more technical elements, Nickerson and Doyle-Lipe have co-choreographed some festive dance designs: a gin-fueled Charleston, some dirty dancing at a nightclub, a horse racing spoof dance, a barn-burning Lindy-hop. Because some of the dances serve as the education that Mame unconventionally gives to her young charge Patrick, they need to have energy, and the dual choreographers supply it.
Even with such a costume-heavy show as Mame, Susan Berger and Jan Wanless continue to do just about the best job in costuming that I have ever witnessed at a community theater anywhere. Three favorites out of many: Deatherage as an over-the-top Southern belle in a peach-colored hoop skirt, complete with ringlet curls and a dainty sunbonnet; Deatherage as a stylish merry widow, all in blindingly bright white; and Doyle-Lipe in her final entrance, with a split skirt, black with sequins, complete with a cigarette holder and a black Theda Bara wig. Costumes like these help complete characterizations without calling attention to themselves overmuch — just as they should do.
Among the supporting cast, again, just three favorites out of many: With a twinkle in his Kris Kringle eye, Kim Berg projects genuine warmth as Mame’s suitor Beau — and he earns extra credit for having the guts to appear briefly onstage in lederhosen. As the nanny, Agnes Gooch, Tami Knoell demonstrates her acting and vocal range — from frumpy to elegant, from a comedian’s mumbled jokes to a soprano’s high-note yearning. Keith Hahto (young Patrick) can perform silly comedy and sing with emotion, even if he is only a fifth-grader.
Something more along the lines of child-like wonder in the main character would’ve helped round out the Civic’s production of *Mame.*

Saturday, November 18, 2006

opening-night review of *Mame*

at Spokane Civic Theatre through Dec. 17

If you’re doing a show about fighting the dull, hidebound habits of conformity, you’d better have a unicorn in your show — a character who’s other-worldly, a little forbidding, nonconformist, unique. And the Civic’s current production of *Mame* (through Dec. 17) has its unicorn, all right — it’s just that the horn’s on the wrong woman. Despite several delightfully varied dance sequences, some amazing costumes, a couple of stellar vocal numbers and a storyline that’s all about living life to the fullest, most of the joie de vivre in the Civic’s *Mame* lies with the sidekick and not the star.

The exuberance, the unconventionality, the comic gusto — in the bosom-buddy role of Vera Charles, Kathie Doyle-Lipe shows more of these qualities than does Melody Deatherage in the title role. The result is an imbalanced show.

Deatherage never does or says anything in the role that gives us reason to smack our foreheads and exclaim about that unpredictable, sensational Mame. But Doyle-Lipe does: popping through doorways and out of the bedclothes, jamming one-liner retorts right into the maw of her conversational opponents, nearly falling headlong down stairwells, she may be stealing scenes, but she’s alive up there. Doyle-Lipe pops her head up like a prairie dog and skitters across the stage; in contrast, Deatherage is an Irish wolfhound, elegant but lumbering. Granted, Doyle-Lipe’s Vera is just a martini-swilling eccentric, the wacky sidekick, whereas Deatherage’s Mame has to carry the show with moments both comic and serious.

Which may explain why Deatherage is so transcendently good in Mame’s big 11 o’clock song of regret: “Would I make the same mistakes / If he walked into my life today?” she asks, right after her adopted nephew Patrick, now all grown up, has opted for the conventional girl and her conventional lifestyle. It’s what Mame feared most for the boy she had taken into her life so long ago.

Deatherage’s voice can sometimes strain in the lower register, and she isn’t particularly light on her feet. But director Troy Nickerson wisely plays “If He Walked” simply, with Deatherage in an elegant gown, standing her ground, isolated in a spotlight, with self-doubt and sadness pouring out of a woman who had styled herself one of New York’s hardest partiers. She was so busy being unconventional, she forgot to make the best parenting decisions. Deatherage stands and delivers on the song — her voice a little raspy, a lot anguished — and it’s a moment, rare in the look-at-me-being-silly atmosphere of Mame, when a character’s emotions (rather than the external situation) propel the lyrics. Deatherage delivers the mood of “If He Walked” magnificently.

But it’s only one song. While Doyle-Lipe does the physical comedy and the quick outbursts, Deatherage stands out most in expressing her character’s quasi-maternal love and occasional sadness. And we’re still stuck with an imbalance.

**

The extended version of this review in the next issue of *The Inlander* (available a day earlier than most weeks -- on Wednesday, Nov. 22) will contain remarks on the choreography, costumes and some of the supporting players in *Mame,* along with a description of the hilarious "Moon Song" sequence.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Vera and Mame ...


Mame
Originally uploaded by Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
... do the Vogue
*Mame* at Spokane Civic Theatre
that's Kathie Doyle-Lipe as Vera Charles and Melody Deatherage as Mame Dennis
music and lyrics by Jerry Herman
book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
based on the novel by Patrick Dennis
and on the play *Auntie Mame* by Lawrence and Lee
with Tami Knoell as Agnes Gooch
Kim Berg as Beau
Jaylan Renz as older Patrick

directed by Troy Nickerson
musical direction by Michael Saccomanno

Kathie and Melody


Kathie and Melody
Originally uploaded by Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
... as Vera and Mame
*Mame*
Spokane Civic Theatre
Nov. 17-Dec. 17, 2006
directed by Troy Nickerson
choreographed by Kathie Doyle-Lipe and Troy Nickerson
musical direction by Michael Saccomanno

*Mame* at Spokane Civic Theatre

Keith Hahto as Patrick Dennis
Melody Deatherage as Mame Dennis

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Mame


Mame
Originally uploaded by Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
Keith Hahto and Melody Deatherage

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Interplayers adds *Christmas Carol* (Dec. 13-23)

Interplayers will present *A Reduced Christmas Carol, or, Scrooge vs. the Stopwatch* (Dec. 13-23)
with Reed McColm, Patrick Treadway, Maynard Villers and Ann Whiteman, with Whiteman directing
Tickets: $10; $5, students and seniors; $2, kids
This is the Dickens adaptation in which four actors play 14 roles and tell the whole Tiny Tim saga — first in a 15-minute version, then in five minutes, and then in just one. Full of audience participation and plenty of high jinks -- performed a few years back at First Night by some of these same folks.

Dec. 13-14 and Dec. 21 at 7 pm
Dec. 17 at 2 pm
and two shows (2 pm and 7 pm) on each of the following four dates: Dec. 16, 20, 22 and 23
www.interplayers.com or 455-PLAY

John Hart will be the fifth cast member._Reed McColm will play Scrooge._Ann Whiteman will direct and narrate some; she and Maynard Villers and Hart are three of the original cast members who first did this show at First Night (on New Year's Eve) in 2001 and 2002._Audience members will be auditioned on the spot for the crucial roles of Gentleman 1 and Gentleman 2._If they don't actually do the one-minute version in 60 seconds, they'll do it over. There is some talk of then doing that version _backwards_._The entire show -- because an intro and audience interaction, etc. -- will take up more than just the 15+5+1=21 minutes -- more like an hour. And it features family-friendly pricing._ Says Whiteman, "I begged Jim McCurdy for a $10 ticket price. We want to help them address their back debt. He's very brave to lower ticket prices like this, to bring the families in. At least we'll help them pay some bills."_Whiteman also sees the show as a kind of homage to Ron Varela, one of the original cast members; Varela died three years ago._"He never got to see it -- he was always performing," she recalls. Whiteman also says that the project had its origin in all the spare time and talking that she, Treadway, Villers and McColm had backstage during Nike Imoru's production of *Othello* in April 2005.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Opening-night review of *Moon Over Buffalo*

at Interplayers through Nov. 25

At one point in Interplayers’ current production of *Moon Over Buffalo,* we’re informed that an unseen actor has quit the play’s fictional acting troupe because he hasn’t been paid for two weeks. “Nobody’s been paid for two weeks!” shouts the exasperated leading actor, and the line replicates Interplayers’ ongoing financial woes, with layoffs caused by the theater’s inability to pay its staff. It’s a sad/funny moment for the production and for the playhouse.

An audience’s experience of shuffling through this particular *Buffalo* is a lot like the experience of those wacky theater folks the onstage actors are portraying: some scattered miscues, a little amateurishness, some brief displays of genuine love for the theater, hammy acting, tonal shifts that don’t quite register, outbursts of physical comedy that are really quite funny. Ken Ludwig’s 1995 comedy is about touring actors desperate to catch a break — and their crisscrossing jealousies, their longing for the limelight, their continual door-slamming. Director Paul Villabrille’s production at Interplayers bungles much of the high jinks — but gets one farce-within-a-farce sequence hilariously right. It misses some opportunities for serious emotions but touchingly captures others.

There are some moments of really fine physical comedy — much of the play within a play (a terrible, hilarious mash-up of *Cyrano de Bergerac* and *Private Lives*) — and a sequence in which the hammiest lead actor, sloshed out of his mind, is hoisted about like a rag doll (by Dan Anderson’s stagehand character) and tossed into a closet. At times, we get glimpses of the leading couple’s playfulness, their genuine enjoyment of their theatrical lives.

Along with a non-theatrical nebbish whom Ludwig plants onstage, we’re supposed to be wowed by the first entrance of George and Charlotte Hay (Gary Pierce and Jean Hardie). They’re the wannabe stars who are currently playing to adoring crowds in … well, Buffalo, but at least it’s in the same state as New York City. Along with Mentzer’s character, we’re intended to be slightly in awe of how unconventional, how utterly without self-consciousness these flamboyant theatrical folk are. Hardie and Pierce duly burst onstage quoting lines from various plays and exchanging rapier thrusts. There are hints of how playful, how sexually charged this little playtime of theirs is, it’s true; but the swordplay is too restrained, the bon mots don’t crackle. The Hays are a couple in their 50s who, on their first entrance, need to act like they’re in their 20s. But in this scene, both Pierce and Hardie seem a little tentative and lot middle-aged. In general, we need to be thrown from one emotional extreme to another in their performances: the rages and anguish are profound, the exasperation and the confusion are extreme. That kind of dynamic, after all, keeps the engine of farce roaring. But this production’s co-stars are both comedic veterans: Pierce going back more than a decade at Interplayers, and Hardie’s 20 years and more at the Civic. The comic mannerisms — buggy eyes, clothes thrown on in exaggerated resentment, — are what predominate even in the more serious moments. Because amid all the tomfoolery, make no mistake — Ludwig has included arias for both characters about how much they love the theater, how much they want to be stars. We have to see and feel how much they love the glare of the footlights, and we don’t.

**

For comments on the set, scene changes, and the best of the supporting cast — along with a revised, fuller version of this review, you can pick up next Thursday’s *Inlander* at more than 750 locations throughout the Inland Northwest.
(Well, actually, you can only pick up one copy at one location. Taking multiple copies at multiple locations … jeepers, it would take you forever to read all that.)

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Ken Ludwig's *Moon Over Buffalo*


Moon Over Buffalo 2
Originally uploaded by Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
Spokane Interplayers Ensemble
Nov. 9-25, 2006
directed by Paul Villabrille
from left: Jean Hardie as Charlotte, Robert Wamsley as Richard, Gary Pierce as George, Dan Anderson as Paul

also in the cast: Damon Mentzer as Howard, Kari Mueller as Roz, Ryan Patterson as Eileen, Alba Jeanne MacConnell as Ethel

Moon Over Buffalo 1


Moon Over Buffalo 1
Originally uploaded by Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
Jean Hardie intends to use her rapier on hapless Howard (Damon Mentzer) as George (Gary Pierce) offers protection (?)

*Moon Over Buffalo*
Interplayers, November 2006

Gary Pierce and Jean Hardie


Moon Over Buffalo 3
Originally uploaded by Sir Andrew Aguecheek.
Moon Over Buffalo
Nov. 9-25, 2006
Spokane Interplayers Ensemble

*Nutcracker!* to run Nov. 24-Dec. 16

a Spokane Children's Theater production, to be staged at Spokane Civic Theatre, 1020 N. Howard St.
This musical play is NOT the ballet, but it does have Tchaikovsky's music.
Dancing toys, treacherous mice, a brave hero and a choreographed swordfights suitable for the whole family
Schedule:
Friday, Nov. 24, at 4 pm
Saturday, Nov. 25, at 1 pm
Saturday, Dec. 2, at 1 pm and 4 pm
Saturday, Dec. 9, at 1 pm and 4 pm
Sunday, Dec. 10, at 7 pm
Saturday, Dec. 16, at 10 am, 1 pm and 4 pm

Tickets: $8; $6, children 17 and younger
Call 325-SEAT

*Talking to Terrorists* as readers theater, Nov. 15-16

*Talking to Terrorists* by Robin Soans will be presented in an abridged form as a staged reading on Wednesday-Thursday, Nov. 15-16, at 7 pm at Gonzaga's Jundt Art Museum auditorium, 202 E. Cataldo Ave.
Soans says the drama asks the question: “Why do people become terrorists?” The play debuted in London one week before the July 2005 transit system bombings that killed 52 people.
*Talking to Terrorists* had its American premiere in Boston in March.
Soans interviewed terrorists from around the world, victims of terrorism, and military, political and humanitarian opponents of terrorism. From those interviews, he wrote a drama that explores the motivations that lead some people to murder and maim others for perceived political gain. The audience will hear the actual words of bombers, hostages, torturers and victims.
A discussion facilitated by GU theater professor John Hofland will follow the 70-minute reading.
Kevin Connell, S.J. will direct.
Donations requested ($1) at the door.
Call 323-3899 or 323-6657 or write English@gonzaga.edu or Hofland@gonzaga.edu.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

CdA Summer Theater set designs, costumes and more on display at NIC

Michael McGiveney's set models for *Oklahoma,* *West Side Story,* and "Annie* will be on display through Nov. 30 at NIC's Molstead Library, 1000 E. Garden Ave. in Coeur d'Alene, along with Judith McGiveney's costumes for *The King and I.*
Free and open to the public.
It's in honor of CdA Summer Theatre's 40th year.
Open Mon-Thurs 7:30 am-9 pm; Fri 7:30 am-4 pm; Sat noon-4 pm; Sun 1-8 pm
Call (208) 769-3355

OSF actors Nov. 14 at SCC

Oregon Shakespeare Festival actors Catherine Lynn Davis and David Eric Thompson will perform excerpts from Shakespeare and other classical and contemporary literature at Spokane Community College on Tuesday, Nov. 14, at 11:30 am and 12:30 pm in the SCC Lair, Bldg. 6, Mission Ave. and Greene St. It's free.
Davis, an eight-year OSF veteran, has played Regan and Hippolyta/Titania at the Ashland, Ore., theater. Thompson has been with the company five years. Call 533-8606.

Monday, November 06, 2006

*Biloxi Blue* auditions Nov. 13-14

at Lake City Playhouse, 1320 E. Garden Ave. in CdA
Monday-Tuesday, Nov. 13-14, at 6:30 pm
seven men and two women needed
director: Todd Jasmin
(208) 667-1323
performances: Jan. 12-27, 2007

Sparky wanted for *Plaid* at Lake City

Lake City Playhouse's production of *Forever Plaid* is being revived for a limited run in February 2007 and beyond — but they need to re-cast the role of Sparky and so they're looking for baritones of any age who can blend in with the remaining Plaids. Call to schedule an audition.
Brian Doig
Executive Director
Lake City Playhouse
(208) 667-1323
1320 E. Garden Ave., Coeur d'Alene
www.lakecityplayhouse.com

Sunday, November 05, 2006

CdA Summer Theatre announces 2007 season

First, a concert version of *Carousel* (March 31, 2007), intended as a fund-raiser.
And then the summer season:
*Thoroughly Modern Millie* (June 9-23)
*The Full Monty* (June 30-July 14)
*Putting It Together* (July 19-29)
*Kiss Me, Kate* (Aug. 5-18)

NOTES:
*Carousel* was Rodgers and Hammerstein's favorite among their musicals. It's based, with major changes, on a 1909 play, *Liliom,* by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar, which was translated into English in 1921 and produced on Broadway in 1932 with Eva La Galliene and in 1940 with Burgess Meredith and Ingrid Bergman.
As refashioned by R&H, carnival barker Billy Bigelow meets Julie Jordan — both are working-class, both lose their jobs, he gets her pregnant. Then he botches a holdup meant to raise money for the baby girl who's on the way. (In Molnar, Billy then commits suicide; in *Carousel,* Billy dies by accident.) Billy goes someplace for 15 or 16 years (in Molnar, purgatory; in R&H, Heaven), where he's granted one day back on Earth to make amends. He attends his daughter's high school graduation and manages to communicate with and inspire her -- at least in the Broadway musical. (In Molnar's original, he fails in the attempt and is sent to Hell.) Famous songs: "If I Loved You"; "June Is Bustin' Out All Over": "Soliloquy"; and "You'll Never Walk Alone"

*Millie* is based on the 1967 movie, directed by George Roy Hill (*Butch Cassidy,*, *The Sting,* *Slap Shot*) and starring Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Channing. It won an Oscar for Best Score (Elmer Bernstein).
It's 1922, and Millie escapes Kansas for the Big Apple, hoping to become a flapper. She gets mixed up with a bunch of zanies and ends up foiling a Chinese-run white slavery ring.

*The Full Monty* (= going all the way) is based on the 1997 movie in which six unemployed British steelworkers decide to make money by forming a male chorus line -- and parading themselves starkers. Factories in Sheffield have been laying off thousands of workers you see. There's the guy who needs money to keep joint custody of his son; the depressed guy worried that his wife is about to divorce him; the suicidal guy who's stuck living with his mother; and the middle-class type who's been lying to his wife and pretending to go off to work every morning for six months. As they're recruiting a couple of other guys into their fat and untalented dance troupe, they discover how much money Chippendale's-type dancers are making -- as a gag, the women in their lives urge them to take it all off during their one-time-only show ... and pretty soon, they're trapped.

"Putting It Together," a musical revue of Stephen Sondheim songs: Premiered in Oxford, England, in 1992 with Diana Rigg in the cast; American premiere in 1993 in Manhattan with Julie Andrews, Stephen Collins and Christopher Durang in the cast. There was a 1998 L.A. production and 1999-2000 New York production, both with Carol Burnett and Bronson Pinchot in the cast. Songs from *The Frogs*; *Dick Tracy*; *Merrily We Roll Along*; *A Funny Thing ... Forum*; *Company*; *Sunday in the Park With George*; *Assassins*; *Sweeney Todd*; *A Little Night Music*; *Follies*; and more

The idea for *Kiss Me, Kate* originated with a 1935 production of *The Taming of the Shrew* during which the two stars, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, argued nearly as much offstage as their two characters did while on it. A producer brought the idea to Cole Porter, who wrote the music and lyrics for the 1948 musical. (The movie came out in 1953.)
*Kate* takes place from 5 pm-midnight on a single day in a theater in Baltimore during a tryout of a musical version of *Shrew.* Fred Graham and his ex-wife Lili Vanessi fight and make up, just like Petruchio and Katerina. For the "onstage" numbers, Porter used Shakespearean language: "I come to wive it wealthily in Padua"; "Were thine that special face"; "Where is the life that late I led?"; and "I am ashamed that women are so simple." For the "backstage" numbers like "Too Darn Hot" and "Why Can't You Behave?" Porter used contemporary language.

a loss for Interplayers

Nov. 7 will be Heather O'Brien's last day as marketing and p.r. manager at Interplayers.
In fact, she's coming to work with us at *The Inlander* as a sales rep.

Friday, November 03, 2006

*The Oldest Profession* in Moscow and Pullman

Paula Vogel's play about older prostitutes in New York during the Reagan '80s
played by five retired Moscow-area women, led by Barbara Kirschner, "one of the grande dames of Palouse theater"
Friday, Nov. 10, at 8 pm at the Kenworthy in downtown Moscow, $20; music and reception at 7 pm; fundraiser for KPAC and SIT
Saturday, Nov. 11, at 7:30 pm at Pullman's Gladish Little Theater, 115 NW State St. (Olsen St. entrance); $12
www.siriusidahotheatre.com or call (509) 336-9664 or write bevw@adelphia.net

I AM guilty: *Late-Night Catechism*

Thursday, Nov. 9, at 7:30 pm; Friday-Saturday, Nov. 10-11, at 8 pm at the Met, Lincoln and Sprague
Tickets: $22-$26
a benefit for CenterStage
Sister has mimeographed handouts and overhead projectors, all ready to show you how the Catholic view of Heaven and Hell is a lot like "Chutes and Ladders." "She" will trample all over your sense of Catholic guilt.
And she's not very tolerant of those who use Web porn while fondling their own piercings. Sometimes you feel guilty because you ARE guilty.
www.ticketswest.com or call 74-STAGE or 325-SEAT

Thursday, November 02, 2006

*Amahl and the Night Visitors*

by Gian Carlo Menotti
directed and designed by Don McLaughlin
at EWU's Showalter Hall, Dec. 13-16 at 7:30 pm

also at EWU next year:
Shakespeare's AYLI, Feb. 23-March 3
Sondheim's A Little Night Music, March 14-17

*Big Love* at EWU

Friday-Saturday, Nov. 10-11, at 7:30 pm and
Tuesday-Saturday, Nov. 14-18, at 7:30 pm
EWU, University Theater, Washington Street, Cheney
across the street and west of Woodward Field
Tickets: $5; free, EWU students; for age 18 and older only
by Charles L. Mee
directed by Jessica L. Sety
Call 359-2459. Visit www.charlesmee.com.

In this refashioning of Aeschylus' *The Danaids*/*The Suppliant Women,* 50 brides flee 50 grooms; pop-culture mayhem and a lot of dead bodies ensue.

One review uses such phrases as "vaudevillian tragicomedy ... justice, revenge, arranged marriages ... a theatrical free-for-all ... domestic abuse, date rape, gender animosities, sexual coercion ... some of the grooms arrive by helicopter ... male-bashing ... there's a long monologue by a mother carrying a basket of fresh tomatoes, each of which comes to represent her sons -- as she talks about them, some of them end up squished." In one sequence, women repeatedly throw themselves to the ground and bounce back up, in defiance of men and their patriarchal complacency and over-confidence.