Behind the Wings

The Film Version of Marvin's Room

2012-02-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

I was offered first pick of stage managing shows for the 2012 season at Dragon so I sat down and read them all. And while I actually really enjoyed all the scripts, Marvin's Room was the one that really resonated with me, for a number of reasons. I knew that there was a film version of it, but I chose not to watch it, as I'd heard it was quite different from the play, even though the playwright wrote the script for the film. I finally got around to watching the movie this weekend and man am I glad I waited.

On it's face, the film version has a TON going for it. Diane Keaton is Bessie, Meryl Streep is Lee, young Leonardo diCaprio is Hank, Robert DeNiro is Doctor Wally, and on and on. It's truly an all-star cast. It's directed by Jerry Zaks, who has an amazing directorial resume. And yet. The play, which really is quite funny, because it's SUPPOSED to be funny, is really NOT FUNNY. They stripped out all the humor and left it a sad, sorrowful mess.

I did some digging because I knew that Scott McPherson, the playwright, passed in 1992 from complications related to AIDS. The film came out in 1996. In the interim, John Guare, another playwright with an outstanding resume, was brought on board, both to produce and to tighten up the script. So I'm blaming him for the changes. I'm not sure that's fair but that's what I choose to go with.

They showed Hank burning down the house. What?! And Marvin himself gets a fair amount of screen time. The ending was different and I didn't like it. But my biggest problem with the film was that Lee was the center of the story. And, on the one hand, I get that if you have Meryl Streep, you want to feature her. But on the other hand, it's not really her story.

There were a few things that worked for me - if you've seen the show you'll remember the story that Bessie tells about her boyfriend Clarence James. It made me tear up and I've heard that monologue approximately a thousand times now. Dan Hedaya kept the funny as Doctor Wally's brother, Bob.

The film runs 98 minutes, including all the credits, so despite everything they added, they did make a bunch of cuts.

All in all, if I'd only seen the film I would have passed on the show, which is a shame because I think that it's one of the best scripts I've read in an awfully long time. There's so much happening on the page that, with the cast that they landed, they could have really worked with.

Anyone else see the film? What'd you think?

Marvin's Music: Sonny & Cher

2012-02-05T09:49:00.000-08:00

The one song, more than any, that gets the Marvin's Room audience singing every night is definitely this one.

Marvin's Music: Dia Frampton

2012-02-04T11:07:00.000-08:00

A song that we really like for Marvin's Room is by female vocalist Dia Frampton (no relation to guitar legend Peter). It's called "Broken Ones" and it really sums up the characters of the show. Plus, it's just a pretty pretty song.

Marvin's Music: Eddie Izzard

2012-02-03T10:44:00.000-08:00

When we were talking about a scene that happened at Disney World and then got a little strange, director Laura Jane Bailey mentioned wanting some weird carnival type music and then mentioned the song by the Beatles, Mister Kite. To which I replied "Done! Two birds with one stone!" So here's Eddie Izzard doing his rendition of "Mister Kite" from the movie Across the Universe.

Flash

If you're not familiar with Eddie Izzard, he's a brilliant British comedian. He's been known to refer to himself as an "executive transvestite" and he makes all kinds of crazy awesome historical references. To wit (this clip is not safe for work because of some language, but it's pretty hilarious):

Flash

Happy Friday!

Marvin's Music: Pete Yorn & Scarlet Johansson

2012-02-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

Another song we are digging is a surprising combination - Pete Yorn and actress Scarlet Johansson teamed up to release an album a while back and they turned out a song that's pretty darn good. And catchy. It gets wedged in my head, all the time now.

Here's "Relator" to get us back into the groove of Marvin's Room for weekend number 3.

If you're not following us on Facebook, you should be, because we're offering a special ticket deal. Like us to get all the dirt!

Marvin's Music: Goyte

2012-01-28T10:11:00.000-08:00

I am currently slightly obsessed with a new album by New Zealand artist Goyte. On his new album, Making Mirrors, there's a song that's totally Marvin's Room, and it blows me away that it was made in 2011. Because I love this album so much, you get a Saturday Goyte twofer.

"I Feel Better"

"Somebody That I Used to Know" (featuring Kimbra)

Marvin's Music: Etta James

2012-01-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

We had talked about wanting to select music that Bessie and Marvin might be familiar with, and since neither of them is exactly current, we talked about artists like Etta James. Etta, sadly, just passed away after a long battle with leukemia, making the addition of her music extra poignant for us. There's an excellent interview with Etta here.

Here's "My Dearest Darling" by the always fabulous Etta James.

Flash

The Music of Marvin's Room

2012-01-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

One thing Laura Jane Bailey (the director) and Jeffrey Lo (the sound designer) talked a lot about when coming up with the concepts for Marvin's Room was the music to play before, during, and after the show. With the wall rotations we knew early on that we'd need to fill some time in blue light with some music, and that the music in these scene transitions would really be instrumental to setting the tone of the show. Laura Jane had some requests and generally thought that the show should be influenced by the music of the 1960/1970s - upbeat but with some occasionally darker lyrics. She shouted out artists like The Beatles, Dusty Springfield, Sonny and Cher, and the like as examples. Jeffrey did an amazing job of coming up with some songs that really captured the flavor of the show. We'll highlight a few songs and artists over the next few weeks - some that we used in discussion to really shape the show.

First off is a song by singer Diane Birch called "Rise Up" that we all really dig. This girl can SING.

Flash

One thing I love about doing a show with Jeffrey is that I always learn about some female vocalist that I'd never heard of - for Private Eyes last year it was Adele - right before she blew up with her monster hit "Rolling in the Deep." So far everything I've heard from Ms. Birch makes me want to go run and buy her stuff. I did enjoy a comment on iTunes though as I was researching her: "Diane Birch is to Carol King as Oasis is to the Beatles." This is hilarious as we referenced both Oasis and the Beatles for this show, but more on that later. Enjoy the bluesy voice of Ms. Birch!

See you at the theatre!

--Kim

Fun Facts About Disney World

2012-01-24T12:23:00.001-08:00

Part of Marvin's Room takes place in Disney World in Orlando, Florida. We wanted to know more about the happiest place on Earth and here's what we dug up:

It's Not a Small World, After All . . . Covering 40 square miles, Walt Disney World Resort is about the size of San Francisco. Of the more than 25,000 acres, less than 35 percent has been developed with a quarter designated as a wilderness preserve.

Disney’s Magic Kingdom Park, which encompasses approximately 107 acres, is itself larger than Disneyland, which only covers 80 acres in Anaheim, California.

Approximately 46 million people visit Walt Disney World – including Disney’s Magic Kingdom Park, Epcot, Disney's Hollywood Studios, Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park and Downtown Disney Area – annually.

The 60-foot-tall Swiss Family Treehouse in Adventureland weighs approximately 200 tons and is made of concrete and thousands of polyethylene leaves.

A Cast of Thousands . . . around 62,000 to be more precise. That’s how many people it takes to create the magic at the Vacation Kingdom. Not surprisingly, Walt Disney World Resort is the largest single-site employer in the United States.

If you were to wash and dry one load of laundry every day for 52 years, you’d clean as much as the folks at Walt Disney World Laundry do in a single day. The cast members there launder an average of 285,000 pounds each day. In addition, between 30,000 and 32,000 garments are dry-cleaned daily.

More than 75 million Cokes are consumed each year at Walt Disney World Resort along with 13 million bottles of water. Guests also gobble 10 million hamburgers, 6 million hot dogs, 9 million pounds of French fries and more than 300,000 pounds of popcorn.

When laid end to end, there are enough of the famous “Mouse Ear” hats sold each year to stretch 175 miles or cover the head of every man, woman and child in Orange County, Fla. There are also enough Disney character T-shirts sold to put Mickey Mouse’s smiling face on the chest of every resident of Montana.

The Hall of Presidents had its origins as an audio-animatronic exhibition called “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,” which premiered at the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair.

You Could Save a Life

2012-01-18T09:54:00.000-08:00

Dragon Productions Theatre, in cooperation with Be the Match, is pleased to announce a marrow drive at the Dragon Theatre on Sunday, January 22nd following the play, Marvin’s Room.

Every day, thousands of patients with leukemia and other life-threatening diseases hope for a marrow donor who can make their transplant possible. 70% of patients don’t have a match in their family and depend on people in the registry.

You could be that match. You have the power to heal, the power to save a life.

Take the first step and join the registry!

Registering is simple, and involves completing a health history form and swabbing your cheek. To join you must be between the ages of 18 and 60, be willing to help any patient in need, and meet the health guidelines.

Please give what you can. Every $100 raised helps us to add one more person to the registry.

To make a donation without registering, go to: www.bethematchfoundation.org/goto/trinasteam

The Playwright Speaks

2012-01-17T10:03:00.000-08:00

Here's a reprint of a 1990 interview with Marvin's Room playwright Scott McPherson.

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, SCOTT MCPHERSON...

THEATER: At the Hartford CT Stage, "Marvin's Room"
By Alvin Klein, The New York Times
© November 18, 1990

Ask Scott McPherson why people laugh during his play "Marvin's Room," which concerns illness - lingering and terminal, physical and mental - as well as such incidental details as drowning, child abuse, arson and overall desperation, and he briskly answers, "Why not?"

In all seriousness, the first scene of "Marvin's Room," which opened at Hartford Stage Company on Friday and is to run through Dec. 15, is meant to be funny, he said. "It tells people it's O.K. to laugh," Mr. McPherson said before a recent rehearsal.

Conceived as a vaudeville-style doctor's sketch, the scene involves the fumbling, absent-minded Dr. Wally and his selfless patient, Bessie, who has come in for a checkup. She has devoted herself to the care of her father who has been dying for 20 years, the victim of a stroke and of cancer. He is the mysterious Marvin who "collects diseases as a hobby," the playwright said, and who remains a shadow throughout the play - bedridden behind a wall of 1,624 glass bricks.

After the comical visit to the inept physician, Bessie learns that she has leukemia. The play's other characters, who have been described as quirky, eccentric and loony, include the paralyzed Ruth, Bessie's aunt, and Lee, her estranged, hard-hearted sister. Ruth has three collapsed vertebrae and wears an electronic anesthetizer that is implanted in her brain. When she turns the dial, her pain is alleviated - and the garage door goes up. Lee has two teen-age sons, one of whom was confined to a mental institution after he burned down the family house.

To those accustomed to standard "disease of the week" television movies, "Marvin's Room" may well sound like a "diseases for all seasons" play. But it had a well-received premiere last February at the Goodman Theater Studio in Chicago, where such major works as "Hurlyburly," by David Rabe, and "Glengarry Glen Ross," by David Mamet, were first seen.

David Petrarca, the 28-year-old resident director of the Goodman Theater, staged Mr. McPherson's play, which has been praised by Chicago theater critics as a "deeply moving drama about dying and a very funny comedy about life."

On the play's shifting styles, the director commented: "Those changes are abrupt. The play can turn on a dime, from farce to realistic, brutal honesty, and one can undercut the other, but Scott always grounds it. It takes a while to commit to both - the bizarre and the poignant - and to find just the tone. Once it gets in its groove, it goes along on its own volition and doesn't fall off the track.

"It has to be recognizable. Everyone will find a family member on that stage and relate to the need to care for an aging parent or the fear of illness and the anxiety produced by that."

The 31-year-old Mr. McPherson, a former actor who has written one previous play, " 'Til the Fat Lady Sings," and is currently working on the screenplay for "Marvin's Room," which has been sold to Paramount Pictures, recalled the play's genesis:

"I was in a nice, warm Christmas play in Chicago three or four years ago, and I remembered how my Christmases were never like that when I was a kid. My family would go to St. Petersburg, Fla., to visit old, sick relatives I have fragmented memories of. I thought of Christmastime - the forced mood of the season and the reality of the situation. I don't think that's really the way it happened, but it sounds good."

"I thought of getting that into a play, and at the same time, I was working on a one-act play about an AIDS testing clinic, and somehow the two got fused. Although AIDS does not figure into 'Marvin's Room,' it covers the same emotional terrain. But I found I could not maintain a singular tone. I didn't sit down and consciously aim to make it funny, but it is all pretty absurd, and you have to deal with that. You can't ignore it.

"So I let the play go wherever it wanted to go. A world where both joy and sorrow exist was created, instead of two separate worlds. They both have to be played full out. The play isn't about disease, but about choosing to care for other people, or not. And how love creates transcendence. But that wasn't preplanned. I discovered it in the writing. And it is mainly funny."

Back in the Saddle

2012-01-05T11:03:00.000-08:00

Well 2012 is still all shiny and new, but for the cast of Marvin's Room, our first show of 2012, this week has been a chance to see how close we are to having a really fine show. The good news is that everyone came back energized, refreshed, solid on lines, and running a fabulously sharp, funny, poignant play that we're excited to show off on January 20th.

I snapped a quick (lousy) photo from last night's rehearsal.

One of my favorite lines from the show happens right here "My feelings for you, Hank, are like a big bowl of fish hooks. I can't just pick them up one at a time. I pick up one, they all come. So I tend to just leave them alone."

That's Ronald Feichtmeier as Hank, and Meredith Hagedorn as his mother Lee, by the way.

This cast is doing some incredible work. On Friday we do our first full run of the show in front of the design team so they can see the shape of the show and get some final ideas for the technical aspects of the show. I can't wait to see this come together as a whole!

Tickets for Marvin's Room by Scott McPherson are now on sale. You can buy them online or, better yet, get set up for a season's worth of shows - you save money and make sure you get seats at our tiny little house. We have three pack and full season (5 show) subscriptions available.

See you at the theatre!

The Quiet Man

2011-11-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

In our current play, Stones In His Pockets, one of the characters, Mickey, is proud of the fact that his claim to fame is that he's one of the only living extras from the John Wayne film, The Quiet Man. My mom is a huge fan of the Duke, but I never was growing up, so I decided to do a little digging into this film.

The Quiet Man stars John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and was directed by John Ford. It's based on a Saturday Evening Post short story, and the story is pretty simple. Sean Thornton (Wayne) is an American boxer who returns to the land of his family, Ireland, to reclaim his family's farm. He meets Kate (O'Hara) who's spirited and beautiful, and the sparks fly. They fall in love. Kate's older brother, Will (played by Victor McLaglen), is pugnacious and unhappy about his little sister wants to marry this foreigner who outbid him for some land. Wacky hijinks ensue and they all live happily ever after. The film was released to rave reviews in 1951-1952 (so we're actually celebrating the 60th anniversary of the film) and was nominated and won a bunch of Oscars.

The trailer actually gives a ton of plot away so check it out if you're not familiar with this classic film.

Fun Facts About The Quiet Man:

1. This was the second of five films that Wayne and O'Hara did together.

2. At the film's conclusion, after the credits, we see Kate and Sean standing in their garden waving good-bye. Maureen O'Hara turns to John Wayne and whispers something in his ear, provoking a priceless reaction from Wayne. What was said was known only to O'Hara, Wayne and director John Ford. In exchange for saying this unscripted bit of text, O'Hara insisted that the exact line never be disclosed by any involved parties. In her memoirs she says that she refused to say the line at first as she "couldn't possibly say that to Duke", but Ford insisted, claiming he needed a genuine shock reaction from Wayne. The line remains a mystery to this day.

3. During the scene where Wayne first kisses O'Hara, she slaps his face. When they blocked the blow in rehearsal, she broke a bone in her hand. Since the movie was being filmed in sequential order, she couldn't wear a cast to fix the broken bone. Yow!

4. John Wayne and John Ford decided to play a prank on Maureen O'Hara during filming. They chose the sequence where Wayne drags O'Hara across the town and through the fields. Before shooting the scene, Wayne and Ford kicked all of the sheep dung they could find onto the hill where O'Hara was to be dragged, face-down, on her stomach. O'Hara saw them doing it; with the help of several friends, she kicked the dung off the path, only to have Wayne and Ford kick it back on. O'Hara and her friends kicked it off again, and Wayne and Ford kicked it back. This went on and on until right before the scene was shot, when Wayne and Ford got in the last kick. According to O'Hara, "Duke had the time of his life dragging me through it. It was bloody awful. After the scene was over, Mr. Ford had given instructions that I was not to be brought a bucket of water or a towel. He made me keep it on for the rest of the day. I was mad as hell, but I had to laugh too. Isn't showbiz glamorous?" And she worked with Wayne on 3 more pictures?! Brave lady!

5. Charles Fitzsimons and James Fitzsimons were Maureen O'Hara's real life younger brothers. In this film, James was billed as James Lilburn, though he was later better known as James O'Hara. Barry Fitzgerald and Arthur Shields were also brothers in real life, and Francis Ford was John Ford's elder brother. Ken Curtis, later of Gunsmoke fame and newly married to John Ford's daughter Barbara, has a small role as the accordion player.

6. Wayne brought his four children along on location, and Ford gave them parts in the film's race scene.

7. The famous kissing scene between Wayne and O'Hara is shown in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, when E.T. watches television. E.T. is interested and moved by the scene, his telepathic contact with Elliot causes the boy to re-enact it while he is at school.

8. John Ford's real birth name? It's Sean Aloysius O'Fearna.

Academy Awards

Award^[4]^[5]	Person
Best Director	John Ford
Best Cinematography	Winton C. Hoch Archie Stout
Nominated:
Best Picture	John Ford Merian C. Cooper
Best Supporting Actor	Victor McLaglen
Best Art Direction	Frank Hotaling John McCarthy Jr. Charles S. Thompson
Best Sound	Daniel J. Bloomberg (Republic Sound Department)
Best Adapted Screenplay	Frank S. Nugent

There's also apparently a ton of Quiet Man fans, Quiet Man tours, and even a fan club.

(Facts culled from IMdB, WIkipedia, and Amazon)

Irish (American) Soda Bread

2011-11-14T15:59:00.001-08:00

At Dragon, we take our opening night galas seriously. Lots of yummy treats, lots of drinks, much laughter. Opening night of Stones In His Pockets was no exception. Since we could have an obvious theme, we opted to trot out some yummy Irish inspired treats. Our stage manager, Elizabeth, made some awesome Irish car bomb cupcakes that were to die for. Our Executive Artistic Director, Meredith, made what I'm now calling hot cheesy Guinness dip. With bread? So good. And I made some good old fashioned Irish soda bread. Though I chose not to go authentic and instead made the Americanized version that most people are familiar with. Turns out that real soda bread doesn't have raisins. It MIGHT have caraway seeds, but even that would be considered fancy. Since a few people asked, and it wasn't exactly an old family recipe, here's the recipe I used for the bread on Friday night. It's incredibly easy to make (trust me, I rarely cook.) It's definitely best to serve it soon after baking - it's meant to eat same day and doesn't keep very well.

yield: Makes 1 loaf

active time: 20 minutes

total time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Nonstick vegetable oil spray
2 cups all purpose flour
5 tablespoons sugar, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons butter, chilled, cut into cubes
1 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray 8-inch-diameter cake pan with nonstick spray. Whisk flour, 4 tablespoons sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in large bowl to blend. Add butter. Using fingertips, rub in until coarse meal forms. Make well in center of flour mixture. Add buttermilk. Gradually stir dry ingredients into milk to blend. Mix in raisins.

Using floured hands, shape dough into ball. Transfer to prepared pan and flatten slightly (dough will not come to edges of pan). Sprinkle dough with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.

Bake bread until brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Cool bread in pan 10 minutes. Transfer to rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Facts About County Kerry, Ireland

2011-11-10T12:15:00.000-08:00

Our last play of 2011 opens this week at the Dragon Theatre and it's Marie Jones' smash hit, Stones In His Pockets. The story takes place in County Kerry, Ireland, and follows two local Irishmen who are cast as extras in a big Hollywood movie filming in the area. Because Ireland plays such a key role in this story, I thought it would fun to look up the location, County Kerry, to see what it's like. Here's some interesting facts about the region:

County Kerry is located in southwest Ireland
The population of the county is 145,048 according to the 2011 census.
Kerry is the 5th largest of the 32 counties of Ireland by area and the 13th largest by population.
Uniquely, it is bordered by only two other counties: County Limerick to the east and County Cork to the south-east.
The capital of Kerry is Tralee. The diocesan see is Killarney, which is one of Ireland's most famous tourist destinations.
The Lakes of Killarney, an area of outstanding natural beauty, are located in Killarney National Park.
The tip of the Dingle Peninsula is the most westerly point of Ireland.
Because of the mountainous area and the prevailing south-westerly winds, Kerry is among the regions with the highest rainfall in Ireland.
Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective describing a dark complexion.The suffix -raighe, meaning people/tribe, is found in various -ry place names in Ireland. The county's nickname is the Kingdom.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Kerry became increasingly populated by poor tenant farmers, who came to rely on the potato as their main food source. As a result, when the potato crop failed in 1845, Kerry was very hard hit by the Great Irish Famine of 1845–49. In the wake of the famine, many thousands of poor farmers emigrated to seek a better life in America and elsewhere. Kerry was to remain a source of emigration until recent times. Another long term consequence of the famine was the Land War of the 1870s and 1880s, in which tenant farmers agitated, sometimes violently for better terms from their landlords.
In the 20th century, Kerry was one of the counties most affected by the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and Irish Civil War (1922–23). In the war of Independence, the Irish Republican Army fought a guerrilla war against the Royal Irish Constabulary, and British military. Violence between the IRA and the British was ended in July 1921, but nine men, four British soldiers and five IRA men, were killed in a shootout in Castleisland on the day of the truce itself, indicating the bitterness of the conflict in Kerry.
Famous sightseeing stops in Kerry: Killarney National Park, Ardfert Cathedral, Muckross House and Gardens, St. Mary's Cathedral, the Skellig Islands, the Dingle Peninsula, and the Blasket Centre.

This Is Halloween!

2011-10-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

We're big fans of Halloween here at the Dragon so I couldn't let the holiday pass without a blog post.

Two fun videos for you today.

The first is a video trailer for playwright Colette Freedman's upcoming novel, The Thirteen Hallows, which comes out in early December. Colette, as you know, wrote our recent play, Sister Cities, and co-wrote the novel with NYT bestselling author Michael Scott, author of the wildly popular Nichola Flamel fantasy series. Check out the trailer (I had no idea they did movie style trailers for books now - kinda fun!)

The second is a Halloween classic - The Nightmare Before Christmas, just because I love it.

Happy Halloween!

About Female Writers

2011-10-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

In her interview, Colette Freedman touched on a hot topic in the theatre community - the lack of female playwrights being produced. It turns out it's not just the theatre industry though, a recent study has shown a decline in female writers in television.

In the 2006-2007 television season, 35 percent of the writers of broadcast network, prime-time programs were women, according to an annual study by San Diego State University's Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film. In the 2010-2011 season, that number had dropped by more than half, to 15 percent.

Maureen Ryan, from AOL TV, decided to investigate this by talking to some people in the industry. Her anecdotal findings are interesting.

Any thoughts? Do we think women just aren't submitting? Are they avoiding the industry altogether? Are they being overlooked and ignored? I will say, I find it interesting that, quite without any planning, the bulk of Dragon's 2011 season was written by women. Theresa Rebeck. Ellen McLaughlin. Colette Freedman. Marie Jones. There are women writing scripts worth producing. How many female writers were produced on Broadway this year?

Playwright to Playwright: Our Interview With Colette Freedman

2011-09-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

Our Artist in Residence, Jeffrey Lo, recently had the chance to talk to playwright/author/all around fascinating person Colette Freedman, about her play, Sister Cities, how she got into writing, and what it means to be a woman writer in America.

Jeffrey: Hi Colette. Can you tell us briefly about your writing background? At what age do you think the writing seeds were planted into your brain and when do you realize you wanted to start taking it seriously?

Colette: The first play I ever wrote was in fifth grade when I penned my eleven year old masterpiece, An Archie Bunker Thanksgiving. Okay, I realize that totally dates me, but it was a fun play with every kid in the class playing a 70's sitcom character. And it was a big class, so one of the families coming to dinner at the Bunker's ended up being the entire clan from Eight is Enough. I was in a Jewish youth group and used to write plays for them as well. But I had always leaned more towards acting than writing. I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my acting dream and, along the way, discovered a lack of great women's parts in the theatre. After Chekhov and Shakespeare and Ibsen – yes I’m a classics snob - I felt left out. I didn't have a voice as an actress... so I started to write my own plays. At first I did them under a pseudonym (Naomi Lefkowitz for those who are interested), but as soon as people started to want to produce them, I came forward. And I haven't turned back. I still love acting and find that sometimes I'm better discovering characters as a writer from the inside out, I originated Austin in Sister Cities, but now I've turned to novels and screenplays so I'm constantly learning and expanding as well.

Jeffrey: That's great! Why did you originally write under a pseudonym and how was it when theaters began contacting you with interest in producing your work?

Colette: I wrote under a pseudonym because I was working with a great theatre company called Circus Theatricals and I wanted my work judged fairly. We had a ten minute play festival and I was on the reading committee. So many of the plays were crap that I decided to write one myself. It was called First to the Egg and was about a nerdy sperm convincing a self-important egg that he was 'the one'. Everyone loved it and it was my first professionally produced play. After that, the company's artistic director, Jack Stehlin, was very generous producing my work and he produced several of my shows. We're still in touch and he actually just commissioned me to do a modern film adaptation of Uncle Vanya for him so it all comes around - Chekhov to Chekhov!

Jeffrey: So at what point did you start writing full lengths and how did Sister Cities come about?

Colette: I wrote Sister Cities in 2005 because my best friend, Jill Gascoine, who was a famous actress in England, told me that she was retiring from acting and would not act again unless she played a corpse. So I started with the idea that I needed to write a play about a corpse which made me give the corpse a back story and a family. I had an aunt with ALS (more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease) and always thought it would be one of the most tragic ways to die.

Also, I love writing female characters, so I gave her four very different daughters who don't like each other very much; yet, must come together to fulfill their mother's wishes.

Before Sister Cities I wrote two full length plays which were produced: Iphigenia at Aulis, which was a modern day adaptation and Deconstructing the Torah.

Jeffrey: When you were acting in the first production of Sister Cities, what are some things that you discovered during the process?

Colette: How much fun it was! As a writer, you observe everything. You watch and you listen; yet, as an actress smack dab in the middle of it, I got to use my other senses too: taste, touch, smell. It informed the character of Austin and, in turn, informed the play.

Jeffrey: Looking through the Sister Cities website, performing the play at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe Festival seemed like a real blast. How did the idea to bring it to Edinburgh come about and how was the overall experience?

Colette: The Edinburgh Festival was, by far, one of the best experiences of my life. I strongly recommend it to any writer, actor, direct, producer - anyone involved in the theatre. I had acted in a few plays with Sidewalk Studio Theatre and the guys who ran it, Kurt and Marc, absolutely loved Sister Cities and wanted to take the play there. So, the entire original cast... plus the NYC Dallas went and it was amazing. I cut the play down to an hour. All of the plays had a 10 minute load in, 55 minute run and 10 minute load out, talk about guerilla theatre!

We performed for 30 days straight from 6:45 to 7:45. We performed at The Gilded Balloon, which was mostly a comedy house; however, we got great audiences for being a play. Five star reviews. The rest of the time we saw loads of theatre, met some amazing people, took in the sites and took full advantage of the bar/social scene. It was a different world there and I want to go back.

Jeffrey: Earlier this season, Dragon produced Theresa Rebeck's Bad Dates. At around the same time - her great keynote speech regarding women playwrights was getting a lot of attention. Can you tell us a little bit about your early experiences about being a female playwright and if you feel your gender is still making a difference when trying to get your work produced today?

Colette: I loved Rebeck's speech regarding women playwrights; however, I'm a big fan of producing the best theatre out there, no matter which gender writes it. I make it a point to try to nurture young women playwrights because, frankly, I think the problem is that there are not enough of them. There's always been a huge gender disparity in Hollywood: women screenwriters, TV directors, executives, etc. So the fact that there are so few produced women playwrights doesn't surprise me, and it doesn't depress me; rather, it inspires me to work harder and try to make my plays as good as possible so that it is impossible NOT to produce them.

If you want to hear more about her upcoming projects, her work on Sister Cities, or more about her amazing Archie Bunker Thanksgiving play, Ms. Freedman will actually be attending opening night of our production of Sister Cities. A ticket to the opening night show and gala will also allow you to meet the playwright and you can ask her about her Jackie Collins play and upcoming book! See you at the show!

The Writer Behind Our Next Show, Sister Cities

2011-09-06T16:39:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I enjoy about Dragon Productions Theatre Company is the variety of programming. We can go from a behemoth American classic like A Streetcar Named Desire, to a smaller, more indy play like Sister Cities, and back to an Olivier winning, Tony nominated former West End smash hit like Stones In His Pockets, and it all makes sense. The other cool thing about Dragon, is that we generally don't produce the shows you're familiar with, or the shows you've seen a dozen times before. Even with Streetcar, the number of people who came into the theatre who said "you know, I've only seen the movie, I hear the play is really different" was a really large number. And sometimes we find plays and playwrights who are just really getting to the top of their game.

We think that we've found one of those hidden (but about to become hugely discovered) gems with Colette Freedman and Sister Cities. The show was a big hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2008 and it featured actress Jill Gascoine as well as the playwright herself. There's a fun video with Colette and Jill from the Fringe Festival up on YouTube that you can check out.

Colette has a number of projects in the works right now. She's just co-written a play with long time novelist Jackie Collins. The play is called Jackie Collins' Hollywood Lies and Jackie plans to mount it as a touring show rather than launching it on Broadway. There's a great piece on the show in the LA Times that explains Jackie's vision. Colette also has a novel coming out this December that she co-wrote with author Michael Scott, author of the popular Nicholas Flamel series. Their joint work, The Thirteen Hallows, is slated for release in December this year. You can check it out on Amazon.com.

Colette, however, is not to busy to talk to us Dragon folks. We've got an exclusive interview coming out shortly so check back in a couple of days for that, as well as an exciting announcement regarding Sister Cities.

More About Tennessee

2011-09-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

Our production of Streetcar just closed so of course a week later I receive two theatre magazines in the mail with pieces profiling Tennessee Williams.

This month's issue of American Theater Magazine has some interesting articles on Tennesee Williams. There's a look at some current productions of Streetcar currently in production, as well as a really great look at the many, many writings of Mr. Williams. There's also a general overview and look at some of the early works of Mr. Williams.

This month's Theatre Bay Area magazine also has an interesting piece on Tennessee Williams, but it's not yet up on their website. I guess you'll just have to join TBA to read all about it (or, you know, ask me nicely to borrow the issue).

In other Williams news, it was just announced that James Franco has dropped out of his planned performance on the Broadway revival of Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth. This would have been Franco's first appearance on Broadway. Nicole Kidman is signed to play the female lead. The production is being directed by David Cromer (The House of Blue Leaves) and doesn't have a production date as of yet. A shame, I think Williams would have approved of James Franco. Or am I the only person who thinks this?

Latest Work From Rebeck to Hit Broadway

2011-08-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

Theresa Rebeck, author of our earlier production, Bad Dates, has been a busy bee. I mentioned earlier that she's got a television show coming out this fall and now she's got a new show, Seminar, being prepped for a Broadway opening. And she's lining up an all-star cast: Alan Rickman (swoon), Lily Rabe, and Hamish Linklater are signed to the show, which begins previews in October.

The show's blurb is kind of intriguing:

"four young writers who are thrilled to be participating in a private seminar taught by the brilliant but unpredictable Leonard (Rickman), an international literary legend. But as Leonard deems some students more promising than others, tensions arise. Sex is used as a weapon, alliances are made and broken, and it's not just the wordplay that turns vicious…"

Who wants to send me to New York this fall? I promise I'll write a good review for you in return. ;)

Large Versus Small Theatre

2011-08-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

It's been interesting on the internet this week because there's been some discussion of large versus small theatre. The first piece that I ran across was entitled "Is intimate theatre 'decadent'?" From the article:

One thing that really intrigued me, though, was Greig's contention that intimate theatre – the kind of one-on-one, small-scale experiences that have been such a feature of recent Edinburghs, and indeed the subject of two festivals at London's BAC – is "decadent" in these austere times. It is, he argued, a resource-heavy theatre that makes its experiences available to the few rather than the many. Whereas "there is an app," he said, "that you can open in any city in Europe, western Asia, Australasia and North and South America. It is called a pros-arch theatre. Like a lot of people in theatre, I used to see the traditional proscenium arch stage as elitist. Now I regard it as rather democratic. A lot of people can see it. It's much more available than having to go to a special place on your own, wearing headphones."

In contrast, Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, writes this on the Huffington Post:

Smaller arts organizations are typically those which serve unique segments of our communities (the elderly, the disabled, communities of color, rural communities, etc.). Many of our nation's greatest artists were first exposed to the arts through these more specialized arts organizations.
Smaller organizations are also more likely to champion new adventuresome work. While larger organizations are challenged to risk large sums on a ground-breaking project, smaller organizations, with smaller project budgets, are more often the crucibles for new exciting artists and art forms.
Smaller organizations also provide a classroom for young artists who learn their craft by experimenting with less expensive and less visible projects. We would not have a large cadre of experienced artists without the smaller organizations that gave them their training and first opportunities to create work.
It would be disastrous for the future of the arts if large arts organizations -- with larger staffs and greater brand recognition -- sucked all the resources and left smaller organizations without funding.
We need to train arts managers of small organizations to market their offerings, to identify potential donors, and to develop relationships so they can compete with their larger counterparts for funding. And we need our professional donors, foundations and major individual philanthropists, to recognize the vital role played by smaller organizations.

Fascinating. Obviously, working at Dragon, I fall on the side of Kaiser. I think the most important thing he mentioned was the opportunity for young artists to develop - this is the heart of Dragon's mission statement, and it's something we take seriously. It's hard enough to be a "working artist" in this world. We try to use our limited resources to mentor younger or, in my case, maybe not young but career-transitioning, artists and arts managers so they have a solid foundation and work ethic, to give them some exposure, and to help them bolster their resumes however they need to.

To support this part of our mission, next year we're going to give a new works staged reading festival a shot. There are a ton of talented writers in the Bay Area and young playwrights need to be able to develop too. Jeffrey Lo is spearheading the effort and is getting support for other Dragon staffers. We're currently accepting scripts from writers located in the Bay Area. We have the submission requirements on our website. As this new series progresses, we'll be taking a look into the whole process, from start to finish, so check back on this site for future updates!

Streetcar Headed Back to Broadway

2011-08-08T10:47:00.001-07:00

A headline caught my eye this morning that I thought was so appropriate. There's a new version of Streetcar headed to New York in 2012. Nicole Ari Parker (Soul Food, Remember the Titans) will play Blanche DuBois and Blair Underwood (L. A. Law) will play Stanley Kowalski. This marks the Broadway debut of both Parker and Underwood. The production is set to be helmed by Emily Mann, and will feature original music by jazz musician (and NOLA resident) Terence Blanchard.

I think it sounds pretty interesting. It's being produced by the same team who did the 2008 production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Terrence Howard, and later Sanaa Lathan. I was really bummed that I missed that as it sounded fantastic. Any Dragon fans happen to catch it while it was up?

Production History of Streetcar

2011-08-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

A Streetcar Named Desire Production History

The original Broadway production workshopped at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut (see poster to the left) a few weeks before it opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on December 3, 1947.

Produced by Irene Mayer Selznick

Directed by Elia Kazan

The original Broadway cast

Jessica Tandy as Blanche DuBois
Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski
Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski
Karl Malden as Harold “Mitch” Mitchell
Rudy Bond as Steve Hubbell
Nick Dennis as Pablo Gonzales
Peg Hillias as Eunice Hubbell
Vito Christi as Young Collector
Richard Garrick as Strange Man
Ann Deere as Strange Woman
Gee Gee James as Negro Woman
Edna Thomas as Mexican Woman

Selznick originally wanted to cast Margaret Sullavan and John Garfield but settled on Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy, who were virtual unknowns at the time. Brando was given car fare to Tennessee Williams’ home in Provincetown, MA, where he not only gave a sensational reading, but did some house repairs as well. Tandy was cast after Williams saw her performance in a West Coast production of his one-act play Portrait of a Madonna. Tandy won the Tony for Best Actress in a Play in 1948.

Later in the run, Uta Hagen replaced Tandy and Anthony Quinn replaced Brando. It's interesting to note that Hagen's portrayal of Blanche was NOT directed by Kazan - and as a result, this new production refocused the story back on Blanche and pulled it away from Stanley.

I found a great anecdote on IMDb about Brando's performance in Streetcar. I've copied it here for ease of reading:

The problem with casting Brando as Stanley was that he was much younger than the character as written by Williams. However, after a meeting between Brando and Williams, the playwright eagerly agreed that Brando would make an ideal Stanley. Williams believed that by casting a younger actor, the Neanderthalish Kowalski would evolve from being a vicious older man to someone whose unintentional cruelty can be attributed to his youthful ignorance. Brando ultimately was dissatisfied with his performance, though, saying he never was able to bring out the humor of the character, which was ironic as his characterization often drew laughs from the audience at the expense of Jessica Tandy's Blanche Dubois. During the out-of-town tryouts, Kazan realized that Brando's magnetism was attracting attention and audience sympathy away from Blanche to Stanley, which was not what the playwright intended. The audience's sympathy should be solely with Blanche, but many spectators were identifying with Stanley. Kazan queried Williams on the matter, broaching the idea of a slight rewrite to tip the scales back to more of a balance between Stanley and Blanche, but Williams demurred, smitten as he was by Brando, just like the preview audiences.

For his part, Brando believed that the audience sided with his Stanley because Jessica Tandy was too shrill. He thought Vivien Leigh, who played the part in the movie, was ideal, as she was not only a great beauty but she WAS Blanche Dubois, troubled as she was in her real life by mental illness and nymphomania.

Interesting. Anyway, the play went on to open on London's West End with the following production staff:

The Original London Production (1949)

Directed by Sir Lawrence Olivier

Featured Vivian Leigh (Blanche), Bonar Colleano (Stanley), and Renee Asherson (Stella)

The smashing success of the play led to the now famous film version in 1951.

Most of the original Broadway team brought the play to the silver screen.

Directed by Elia Kazan

Vivian Leigh as Blanche DuBois
Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski
Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski
Karl Malden as Harold “Mitch” Mitchell
Rudy Bond as Steve Hubbell
Nick Dennis as Pablo Gonzales
Peg Hillias as Eunice Hubbell
Wright King as A Collector
Richard Garrick as Doctor

A large number of changes had to be made to the script in order to conform to the Hollywood Production Code. The ending is much more ambiguous, and a number of references had to homosexuality and suicide had to be removed from the script. It still ran into problems with various decency groups. The film was nominated for 12 Oscars and won 4 - Best Actress (Vivian Leigh), Best Supporting Actor (Karl Malden), Best Supporting Actress (Kim Hunter), and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration Black & White (Richard Day and George Hopkins).

Note that Elia Kazan and Marlon Brando were both nominated but did not win. Kazan lost to George Stevens for A Place in the Sun and Brando lost to Humphrey Bogart for The African Queen.

There have been a few notable revivals since then.

1992 Broadway Revival (at the Barrymore)

Featured Jessica Lange (Blanche), Alec Baldwin (Stanley), Amy Madigan (Stella), Timothy Carhart (Mitch), with James Gandolfini and Aida Turturro in support roles.

1997 50th Anniversary Production - New Orleans

Music by the Marsalis family

2005 Broadway Revival

The 2005 Broadway revival was directed by Edward Hall and produced by The Roundabout Theater Company. It starred John C. Reilly (Stanley), Amy Ryan (Stella), and Natasha Richardson (Blanche). The production would mark Natasha Richardson’s final appearance on Broadway owing to her death in 2009 in a skiing accident.

2011 Dragon Productions in Palo Alto

Directed by: Jeanie K. Smith

Featuring:

Blanche DuBois- Meredith Hagedorn*

Stella Kowalski - Katie Anderson

Stanley Kowalski - Andrew Harkins

Harold "Mitch" Mitchell - Troy Johnson

Steve Hubbell/Doctor/Understudy - Charles McKeithan

Eunice Hubbell/Understudy - Monica Colletti

Pablo/Paperboy/dead husband - Phillip Raupach

Flower Girl/Nurse - Mary Lou Torre

*Member of Actors' Equity Association

Join us as we celebrate this classic on the centennial of one of America's greatest playwrights. We've sold out every show to date, so buy your tickets in advance - the show must close August 21st!

Artist in Residence: Jeffrey Lo

2011-08-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

At Dragon, part of our mission is to foster the growth of young, up and coming artists, be they directors, actors, or designers. To support this mission, we sometimes have an "artist in residence." Currently, Jeffrey Lo is serving as the Dragon Artist in Residence. Since he's involved with Streetcar we thought we'd sit down and talk to him about life at Dragon. Here's what he had to say.

Q: So Jeffrey, what does it really mean to be the "artist in residence" at Dragon Productions Theatre?

A: Defining my role as Dragon's Artist in Residence can be a little difficult to do because it involves so much and evolves every day. At it's core, my role is to support any and every Dragon production utilizing my artistic skill set. I am a playwright, director and sound designer so if you track my work at Dragon you'll see that I've shifted from being an assistant director for Turn of the Screw and Streetcar, to sound designing Private Eyes, to finally producing the upcoming New Works Factory in April 2012. The great thing about being the Artist in Residence at Dragon is that while I'm able to use my different skills to support Dragon - I am able to call Dragon an artistic home where I am able to learn, experiment and grow.

Q:Well that leads us to another question - you're Assistant Directing for our current production, A Streetcar Named Desire. What exactly does the assistant director do?

A: The assistant director's role really depends on the director and the show. For Streetcar, Jeanie was the first director who actually gave me a couple of scenes to direct myself. Those two scenes being the scene with Blanche and the newspaper boy and the following scene with Blanche and Mitch right after the date. Jeanie and I met before the days we would block those scenes and she gave me an idea of what her vision for those scenes were and the direction we wanted them to go in. Once the actors came in, Jeanie was wonderful about allowing me to get my feet wet and direct those scenes myself while pulling me aside and giving me pointers and suggestions along the way. It was a really great experience for me.

Q: That's awesome! Do you find one aspect of the theatre more challenging or rewarding that the others? Is there one thing you tend to love the most, or that you aspire to focus on in the future?

A: It'd be hard for me to just pick one because there are different things I love about each area of theater that I work on. I love to work sound because I'm constantly listening to music and get so inspired by how different songs, lyrics or even instruments can affect the way I'm feeling. I have a lot of fun trying to support what the directors and actors are doing on stage and really working the audience through sound. I love directing because I really love the sense of community I work to build within a cast. I really enjoy comparing the group of people I have on the first day of rehearsal and the mini family that I have by closing night. But if someone were to put a gun to my head and told me to pick just one thing to do in theater I wouldn't hesitate to pick playwriting. A part of that answer is cheating because I can heavily influence the sound and direction when writing a script but there's something special about getting down to the core of a show and basically mapping out its blueprint - which is really what a script is.

Q: What other projects have you got coming up?

A: The big thing I'm working on right now is a play that I wrote and directed called

Barcelona Love Song. This project is really special to me because I'm getting another chance to work with Skyler Garcia and Irene Van who I love to death and I worked with 5 years ago on a show called All I Have which is the show where I feel I made my first true artistic breakthrough. The three of us are working on the Barcelona Love Song with a group of 8 students - mostly high schoolers - and I'm just really enjoying the opportunity to reach back to an energetic and youthful period in my career and try and help these students have that same breakthrough I had way back when. For more info on the show, you can check it out at www.06ensemble.blogspot.com.

Anyone else have questions for Jeffrey? Feel free to shout them out in the comments!

Talking Tennessee

2011-07-29T06:05:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about my job is the research I get to do on authors and plays. My inner history geek rears her sexy head (history geeks are sexy, right?) and we just go online and spend hours reading. I have been looking forward to digging into Tennessee Williams because he lived in my hometown, St. Louis. A lot of his works are very midwestern feeling, and several plays take place in St. Louis. But it's funny, while I can reel off a ton of random facts about other local celebs, Tennessee Williams doesn't get a lot of press in St. Louis. In fact, this year there was a centennial celebration, but not for Williams. This is the year of the Vincentennial - the celebration of the 100th birthday of Vincent Price. I've not heard a peep about St. Louis' other famous son's 100th birthday. And, in doing the research, I'd guess it might be because Williams wasn't so terribly fond of the city.

Thomas Lanier Williams was born on March 26th, 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi. If you thought he was a bit younger, and born in 1914, it's because he lied on a form to enter a writing contest.

When Williams was 13 his family moved from small little Columbus to St. Louis, Missouri, and by all accounts, Williams was miserable there. They lived in a crowded, low-rent tenement, Williams was often picked on at school, and he just didn't like big city life much.

His father (Cornelius) was a shoe salesman and worked at a shoe factory in St. Louis; his mother (Edwina) a southern minister's daughter. His father was reported to drink and gamble heavily, and often got into big, violent, fights with Williams' mother.

Williams was close to his older sister, Rose, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic in her late teens. There was an incident in which Rose accused her father of making sexual advances toward her. As a result, Rose was institutionalized and eventually lobotomized, which completely incapacitated her. Williams cared for his sister for most of his life and was often tortured by the thought that maybe one day he might also lose his mind. Williams battled depression, alcoholism, and drug abuse for most of his adult life.

He hopped around universities and eventually graduated from the University of Iowa. Upon graduation he moved to New Orleans and took the name Tennessee. He was often referred to as "Tennessee" by his college frat brothers because of his southern drawl. Tennessee was his father's home state so it could have been a bit of an homage to his roots.

His first successful production was The Glass Menagerie, which opened in Chicago in December of 1944, and moved to New York in March of 1945. Menagerie won Williams the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.

A Streetcar Named Desire was Williams' biggest hit. The show opened in New York in 1947, with the then unknown Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy in the show's starring roles. Williams actually wrote the role of Blanche with Tallulah Bankhead in mind, but Tandy impressed. When Streetcar opened on Broadway, the audience was stunned. There was silence as the curtain descended. And then the house erupted into applause for a full 30 minute ovation. The play's frank look at brutality and sexuality was revolutionary. The play went on to win Williams a Pulitzer Prize and then the team was contracted to create a film version.

For the film, director Elia Kazan went with Vivien Leigh, who played Blanche in the London production under director (and husband) Lawrence Olivier. Leigh got the film role, partly because the studios wanted a "name." Leigh, who was diagnosed as bipolar, wowed Tennessee Williams with her performance (he said that Leigh brought to the role "everything that I intended, and much that I had never dreamed of"), and later Leigh commented that playing Blanche "tipped me over into madness."

Williams had some success after Streetcar, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof came out in 1955, but nothing could come close to the success of Streetcar.

For further readings on Tennessee Williams and A Streetcar Named Desire, I suggest the following:

Our next blog will focus more on Streetcar itself so stay tuned!

Preparing to Ride the Streetcar

2011-07-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

We're about ten days from opening our next show, the American classic, A Streetcar Named Desire. Streetcar is widely considered one of THE American plays by one of THE great American playwrights. It has iconic roles that actors would kill to play. This weekend, on Twitter, someone asked Alec Baldwin what his dream theatre role would be and he replied "I played that when I did STREETCAR in 1992."

Want to brush up on your Streetcar? Instead of watching the Elia Kazan film with Vivian Leigh, Kim Hunter, Marlon Brando and Karl Malden, check out "Who Am I This Time?" with Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon. Based on a Kurt Vonnegut short story, it tells the story of a small town hardware clerk who finds himself while treading the boards of his local community theatre. Directed by Jonathan Demme, it was filmed as a part of the American Playhouse TV series.

Here's a sneak peek at our Blanche (Meredith Hagedorn) working her feminine wiles on Mitch (Troy Johnson).

Want another tease? Peninsula Backstage, the local television show covering Bay Area theatre, is working up a piece on our production. They've released a look at some of the rehearsal footage here. This was taken during the designer run through so it's not a real rehearsal - the designer run is for the people on the design side (the costumer, set builder, light and sound folks) to get a feel for the look and atmosphere and progress of the production a few weeks out. Peninsula Backstage will have a whole Streetcar episode coming out with footage and interviews coming out soon so stay tuned!

Opening night is sold out, as is the August 6 performance and the rest of opening weekend is darn near sold out so if you want to catch this show, and it's only running for four weeks, get your tickets as soon as possible either online or by calling the box office (open 27/7) at 1-800-838-3006. See you at the show!

The Confessional Poetry of Anne Sexton

2011-06-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

One of the things that Lessa Bouchard, director of Tongue of a Bird told me early on was that, in her mind, the script was similar to the female confessional poetry of the late 1950's/early 1960s. In our chat she specifically referenced Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath as touchstones. Since it's been approximately a million years since I studied poetry in high school I had to hit the books to refresh my memory. Here's what I dug up from Poets.org on the subject.

Confessional poetry is the poetry of the personal or "I." This style of writing emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s and is associated with poets such as Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and W.D. Snodgrass. Lowell's book Life Studies was a highly personal account of his life and familial ties, and had a significant impact on American poetry. Plath and Sexton were both students of Lowell and noted that his work influenced their own writing.
The confessional poetry of the mid-twentieth century dealt with subject matter that previously had not been openly discussed in American poetry. Private experiences with and feelings about death, trauma, depression and relationships were addressed in this type of poetry, often in an autobiographical manner. Sexton in particular was interested in the psychological aspect of poetry, having started writing at the suggestion of her therapist.
The confessional poets were not merely recording their emotions on paper; craft and construction were extremely important to their work. While their treatment of the poetic self may have been groundbreaking and shocking to some readers, these poets maintained a high level of craftsmanship through their careful attention to and use of prosody.
One of the most well-known poems by a confessional poet is "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath. Addressed to her father, the poem contains references to the Holocaust but uses a sing-song rhythm that echoes the nursery rhymes of childhood:
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And what that explanation, I can see why Lessa was struck by the similarities between the poetry and Tongue of a Bird. Lessa mentioned the Sexton poem "The Double Image" which I wanted to read. It's a bit long so rather than copying it here I'll link you to it.

Much like Tongue of a Bird, "The Double Image" deals with the grandmother, mother, daughter relationship with elevated language and poetic imagery.

McLaughlin is a difficult and interesting writer. She's translated a number of ancient Greek tragedies to contemporary English productions and in many ways, Tongue of a Bird, seems to be her stab at a Greek tragedy. Greek tragedy was poetic and used imagery to convey meanings, but it was much less personal and confessional and more often offered worship to the Greek gods or memorialize a war. I found an interesting interview online with McLaughlin, and, when asked which work she was proudest of she said

As a playwright, I’ve written about a dozen plays now, many of which are adaptations of Greek plays. The adaptations vary widely in terms of how closely they cleave to the original work, but all are inspired by what I perceive as the primal formative power of that ancient work. One of the productions I’m most proud of was a version of The Trojan Women I wrote for refugees from the Bosnian War who had fled the former Yugoslavia and were living in NY in the mid 1990s. I received a grant from the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund that allowed me to organize the project with a psychiatric social worker who had experience in Yugoslavia and with the American Friends Service Committee, which helped me to recruit participants in the project, none of them professional actors, all of them traumatized to some extent by the war.

What we were able to achieve in the project was a real confirmation of the community-building and healing capability of the theater.

And, in my mind, this is the central purpose for Tongue of a Bird - healing. It's not an easy show, but it's elegant and lovely, and has stuck a chord in a number of our audience members. Theatre isn't always easy, and often it's inspiring, even in small ways. Based on the reaction from some of our patrons, Tongue was worth doing, as hard as it is to produce and live in as an actor, and watch in the small darkness of the theatre, because it's really resonated with some people in a really great way.

Clearly we should do a light-hearted comedy next. Oh wait, next up is A Streetcar Named Desire. Nevermind. ;)

Did you see Tongue of a Bird? Did it dredge up some emotions for you? What did you think of McLaughlin's choice of language and themes?

Little Wings

2011-06-08T17:07:00.001-07:00

As I work up a new post full up with interesting information related to Tongue of a Bird, I give you this song that I really dig that kind of reminded me of the show.

The performer is Kris Delmhorst and the song is called "Little Wings."

Happy hump day! Enjoy!

Flying High In Palo Alto

2011-05-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Last week the cast of Tongue of a Bird (minus 1), the director (Lessa Bouchard), and I took a field trip! Since the show revolves around an aerial search and rescue story we thought it would be neat to shoot photos of the actors inside and around Cessna airplanes. So we headed to the Palo Alto Airport where the nice folks at the West Valley Flying Club offered to let us inside some planes and walk around the tarmac for the shoot.

Now, I don't know much about anything when it comes to planes, but I do like things that are shiny, and things with cool buttons and dials and levers, so this was kind of awesome.

The first plane we shot with was a Cessna 150. It's a tiny little two-seat plane that's largely used for training. When I say small, I mean that I'm 5' 3" and I had to duck so as not to hit my head on the wing of the plane. It's practically pocket sized - the Kristin Chenowith of airplanes. I wanted to take it home with me. And frankly, it was really kind of pretty. Look at its nose.

And the instrument panel? Totally cool.

It looks even better with a fly-girl in the pilot's seat.

Kateri Rose

Next up was the Cessna 172 - this plane was a bit bigger. It's a four-seat plane with a surprisingly decent amount of room in it. This is hands down the most popular light plane in history - models of this plane have been in production since the late 1950s. Here is a shot of two of the ladies in the Cessna 172.

Kateri Rose and Leah Kolchinsky

We got some other great cast shots and you can see them in our photo album here.

While the ladies were getting into costumes and makeup and getting set up, I wandered with the camera to see what was happening. I got to watch someone getting a plane ready for take off.

It wasn't nearly as loud as I thought it would be. And you know, while I understand the physics of flight - the principles of lift, thrust, drag and all that jazz (I was raised by a high school physics teacher so physics is the only science class I ever worked hard enough to get As in) - watching that tiny little plane take off was still kind of like watching magic.

In any case, we got some cool photos (my random scenic shots can be seen in full here) and had a great time. Huge thanks to Gianni and Ashley at West Valley Flying for setting this up for us. They do offer flying lessons and the rates were surprisingly cheap (honey, I have a birthday coming up...) so if you've ever wanted to learn, give them a call. They're really nice, even to dumb girls with cameras.

See you at the show!

Theresa Rebeck In The News

2011-05-11T21:26:00.000-07:00

If you saw our last show, Bad Dates, like me you probably wondered what other Theresa Rebeck shows you could see. Well, oddly enough, today as I was skimming entertainment news her name popped up.

Ms. Rebeck has had a new television pilot picked up by NBC. Called Smash, the pilot was written by Rebeck and is being developed and produced by Steven Spielberg. That's not too shabby! The shows is said to follow the creation of a Marilyn Monroe musical on Broadway. Debra Messing (Will & Grace) and Anjelica Huston (The Royal Tennenbaums) are set to star. The music for the fake show was written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, the guys who scored the currently running musical Catch Me If You Can.

I kind of love that Rebeck is getting her big fat TV paycheck now for writing about her love - the stage.

Glee for grownups? That I might watch. How about you?

Revisiting the Past

2011-04-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across an interesting article yesterday. John Kolvenbach, the writer of the play Love Song (which Dragon produced last fall), is directing his own work, five years after its London debut.

Fun fact: Cillian Murphy and Neve Campbell originated the roles of Beane and Molly in the West End premiere. Then the play moved

And what struck me as interesting is that now, as a director, the playwright is confronted with such things as budgetary issues in producing some technical effects. And as a result he may rewrite the script. As a stage manager, that kind of cracks me up.

My question is this: if you're a playwright, do you consider the technical needs of producing a script? Or do you just write what needs to be written and leave it up to the techies and directors to implement it creatively within their budgetary constraints?

[Via @stagedirections]

Talking Bad Dates: An Interview With the Actress and Director

2011-04-13T10:43:00.000-07:00

I sat down with director Eddie Kurtz and actress Laura Jane Bailey to see what drew them to wanting to bring Bad Dates to the Dragon stage. Here's what they had to say:

Q: Laura Jane, you suggested this show to Meredith Hagedorn for production in the 2011 season, correct?

LJB: Meredith came to me and said "I'm trying to fill out the season and I need more comedies" and I said "I have a comedy" it's a one-woman show and it's unique. And she said "let me read it" so she read it and called me back the next day and said "I love it, I'm putting it on the schedule for next season."

Q: What made you say I have to do this show?

LJB: Originally I chose the show for just an audition monologue. I though there's something in here I can use, this woman talks like me, she's funny, it shows everything I want a casting director to see. But when I read the play, I was like "oh wait, there's actually a story here, it's actually pretty good" and I wanted to tell that story and me importantly I wanted to see if I could do the job.

Q: How has it been in terms of preparation? I imagine it's different since it's just you - you have to develop the character by yourself, you're not bouncing off other people. As an actress has that changed how you've prepared for this?

LJB: Yes. No. *laugh* I'm totally lying. It hasn't. You would think that it would. It's the same work. I used the director a lot more than I normally would about talking about the character and things. I would probably talk about it with my fellow actors more. I had to bounce things off the director more.

Q: Now were you the one who recommended Eddie as the director?

LJ: Yes

Q: Why did you think "Eddie! He totally gets a one woman show!"

LJB: I have worked with 3 amazing directors in my life. And he is one of them.

Q: So Eddie you've been out of the theatre in awhile right? What made you get out of retirement to do this?

EK: I think there are very very very very few scenarios that would have gotten me to direct again. And given some previous experience, having people that I trusted implicitly and that I would enjoy being around that much, Laura Jane was one of those people. To back track a little, I had a small creative experience doing a little minute and a half iMovie that I did. I had gotten into politics a lot - I've made a whole career change. I worked at the Berkley Repertory Theatre previously and as a part of my leaving theatre and changing careers I wanted to find something I really wanted to do in the world. So I' d had an experience making a creative thing, I'd gotten home from work and was tired and decided I'd give it a shot on my Mac and then, like, four hours passed and I was exhilarated and it made me think I need to work those creative muscles a little more. So theatre was in the back of my mind. And then about a year ago Laura Jane sent this to me and I was kind of laughing and I told her to send me the script and my fiancé was more excited than me and I was feeling very protective of my time.What I realized I missed most was not performance but rehearsal and acting class. I think I learned more about myself and my life through acting class in college and I missed building things and building moments. So when I finally did read the play I was just filled with ideas of these moments and and oh that would be fun, we could do this and how to stage that and do that. So I mailed Laura Jane and I was excited. I cannot think of a single actor in the Bay Area that I frankly had the faith in. She's been in two of my shows - Pericles and Night of the Iguana - and I just always loved working with her. She takes notes, she's smart, she's just talented. There's really no one else I would have said yes to.

Q: Now Laura Jane I heard that you went to New York City for a week?

LJB: I've been to NY maybe five times in my life and it's always been to see theatre or something. So this time I went to try to find Haley. I just looked for her everywhere. I saw her a couple of times. Big learnings were "oh my gosh people in NY look just like people in the midwest and the west coast." That was a big learning because I literally thought I'd have to dye my hair or you know...

Q: Dress weird because that's what they do on Sex in the City?

LJB: Right! Exactly! No they are normal people just like we are. But it was really more about the pace. Here on the West Coast, things happen when they happen. In New York, things happen when you make them happen. You attack your day. If you don't attack your day things don't get done. So I think that's why people perceive Manhattanites as rude but they're just getting their stuff done and I was able to witness that. And I saw it that first day there and I tried to live the next four days like that.

Another fun learning was people in New York take their kids places. There are kids everywhere. We don't really do that here. You get on the subway with the kid. You take your kid to work with your because your daycare is next door. And in Chicago your kid is out in the suburb and you're out in the city so that was really helpful. Haley's a working mom so her kid is constantly near here or in her head.

Q: Well this has been really great, thanks so much for sharing this!

There are still a few more chances to see Laura Jane as Haley in Bad Dates - the show closes this Sunday and there are still some tickets available. Thursday is nearly sold out so buy your tickets today!

A Little Peek at Bad Dates

2011-04-09T13:35:00.001-07:00

Haven't seen the show yet and curious about it?

Here's a little sneak peek for ya. Enjoy!

Bad Dates, Mildred Pierce, And Other Ramblings

2011-04-08T11:23:00.000-07:00

In the play Bad Dates, the central character, Haley, relates a story about a film she watched - Mildred Pierce. She draws come parallels between her life and Mildred's. Oddly enough, Mildred Pierce is currently airing on HBO as a mini-series. The HBO production has a stellar cast - Kate Winslet (swoon) as Mildred, Guy Pierce (Memento) as Monty, her love interest, and Evan Rachel Wood (The Wrestler, True Blood) as Mildred's naughty daughter Veda. The production is directed by Todd Haynes (I'm Not There) and runs a total of five hours only on HBO. I found a couple of really interesting articles - one is an interview with Todd Haynes on why he chose to film this for HBO, and another is a great interview with Evan Rachel Wood, a talented young actress tackling a tough role.

And, on a lighter note, to get you in the mood for our production of Bad Dates, I've found a couple of websites for your viewing pleasure:

A Bad Case of the Dates - The story about the woman obsessed with orange soda made me laugh out loud.

My Very Worst Date - The tale of the Biker is truly outstanding.

And there is, of course, an app for that.

If you haven't seen the show yet (and you really should), we've been collecting some bad date stories from the audience and man oh man have we gotten some doozies. They're posted in the lobby so check them out.

Pay What You Can Preview

2011-03-31T10:46:00.000-07:00

Tonight is our Pay What You Can Preview for Theresa Rebeck's play Bad Dates featuring Equity actress Laura Jane Bailey. The idea is simple - show up between 7:30 and 8pm at Dragon Theatre tonight with some cash or a checkbook. Pay whatever price you can afford - maybe that is $5 maybe that is $25, maybe that's some amount in between. See the show. This is a great way to see a show on a budget, maybe on a night that's better for you too. We love offering them - it's kind of a "final dress" with an audience for us and it's a way to offer a discount to our patrons. And look how fun Laura Jane is:

A timely article came out today with a slightly different perspective, and I think it's worth a read. Does your company do a "pay what you can" preview? What's your experience been?

Happy 100th Birthday!

2011-03-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrate the 100th birthday of Thomas Lanier Williams - you probably know him as Tennessee Williams though. He was born on this day 100 years ago in Columbus, Mississippi.

A brilliant writer who had a troubled adolescence, many of these earlier experiences informed his works. His father was abusive. His mother was often hysterical and overprotective. His older sister, Rose, was mentally ill, diagnosed with schizophrenia, and when she made claims that her father made sexual advances toward her, was lobotomized.

You can see echoes of Rose in The Glass Menagerie, his breakout play. Set in St. Louis (where the Williams family lived while Tennessee was in high school and college), it tells the tale of the Wingfield family, specifically the attempted set-up of fragile daughter, Laura, by her fading Southern belle mother Amanda. Tennessee has called the play a semi-autobiographical tale of himself, his mother, and his sister. The play was a success and moved to Broadway in 1945 where it won the NYC Critics Circle Award.

Williams then moved on to his second play, and arguably his greatest work - A Streetcar Named Desire. Tennessee won his second NYC Critics Circle Award and his first Pulitzer. The show was such a success that it, along with most of the cast, were transferred to a film version. It features the now famous and widely acknowledged master performance by Marlon Brando. It's also easy to argue that the fragile Blanche is another echo of his sister Rose and Brando's bullying abusive Stanley is an echo of Williams' father.

With Streetcar, Williams made himself financially secure, and established himself as one of the great American writers. He met and fell in love with Frank Merlo, who he remained with until Frank's early demise from lung cancer in 1961. Williams had battled depression for most of his life and the loss of his partner combined with an addiction to drugs sent him into a downward spiral. Tennessee passed away in 1983 after choking on the lid of an eyedrop bottle. He is buried in St. Louis.

His legacy, however, lives on in his writing. He continues to be one of the most produced playwrights in America and is certainly one of the greatest. Dragon will produce A Streetcar Named Desire this summer in his honor.

Some quotes from Tennessee Williams.

[Image 1 | Image 2 ]

Sources:

Gradesaver.com

How Books Got Their Titles

Wikipedia

PBS

Looking For Something to Do This Weekend?

2011-03-18T09:30:00.001-07:00

Since Dragon is dark till its next show, you're probably looking for something to do. I mean, you DO sit at home ticking off the minutes until you get to see the next Dragon show right? (Humor me, say yes, even if it's to your computer screen.)

One of Dragon's board members, Monica Cappuccini, is currently performing in the City Lights production of Equus. Yes, THAT Equus, the one where Harry Potter, I mean David Radcliffe, was naked on stage. Equus was written by Peter Shaffer, the author of the excellent Amadeus. Equus is a disturbing, thoughtful, powerful piece of theatre that you should definitely catch. It runs March 17 - April 17 so make some time to see some theatre and support one of Dragon's own!

More Than Just Theatre

2011-03-17T10:30:00.001-07:00

One thing we're proud of here at Dragon is that one of our core goals is to provide opportunities. Everyone needs a little help sometimes - maybe you're new to town and want to get "in" to the community, maybe you're an artist with an idea, maybe you're just wanting a cool place to throw a birthday party for your kid. Dragon really works to support the community.

And it's not always about the theatre.

Recently you might have noticed a new sign up in the front window.

Backstage Coworking is a new effort that we're helping out with. The idea is simple - many of us work from home and, let's face it, if you're like me eventually you need to get out and, you know, interact with real actual people face to face or run the risk of being an unshowered unsocialized hermit. (It's not just me, right? Right??) At Backstage Coworking you can rent desk space with free WiFi and coffee and come work in the Dragon studio for the day. And you can meet other like-minded people and be a part of a community. Pretty cool. This notion has taken off in a number of tech-friendly areas in the U.S. and we're proud to offer such a service in downtown Palo Alto at Dragon Theatre. Dave, the leader of this initiative, has really worked to make it social too. There are a number of planned open days and happy hours and whatnot. It's pretty cool. If you go to their website you can see all the options, plus their calendar of events.

Like I learned from watching PBS - sharing is caring!

Welcome: Kim Wadycki

2011-03-09T10:00:00.000-08:00

Hello Dragon Fans! My name is Kim and I'm officially Dragon's new Marketing and Development Associate. I'll be spearheading the Dragon marketing and advertising campaigns, as well as assisting with the annual fundraiser event and corporate and individual donors. In short, I'm gonna be a busy little bee and am LOVING it.

Here's a few little bits about me.

Q: Where are you from? Here? A transplant?

A: I grew up in St. Louis, MO. Went to college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where I got a bachelor's in political science. Moved back to St. Louis after working at the HR/Operations manager of the university's public computer labs for a bit. Got married to an amazing guy that I met in college. We moved to California about 4 years ago when my husband got his geek dream job.

Q: What's your theatrical background? Actor? Director? Techie? Fan?

A: Techie. I'm generally a stage manager (I did Private Eyes earlier this season in fact) but I've done props design and am pretty fluent with sound and light boards.

Q: What's your favorite part of doing a live show?

A: I absolutely love listening to the audience response. That instant feedback is really interesting and gratifying. It's always nice to know that the work your doing is being appreciated.

Q: Why Dragon?

A: I approached Dragon to be a volunteer/intern in the fall of 2010 because I liked their season programming. I've done a lot of Shakespeare over the past decade, and while I do love it, I wanted to do something a little more indy and a little more contemporary. I interviewed with Meredith Hagedorn (the founder/executive director) and Lessa Bouchard to see if Dragon and I would be a good fit for each other and I had a blast at the interview. I came home and told my husband that I wanted to work with these women. And I've been really impressed with the professionalism and artistic excellence since getting involved.

Q: Anything else the Dragon readers should know about you?

A: I love the 80s. I'm currently a contributing writer to Culture Brats which is so much fun. If it's weird and/or cheesy I probably like it. I also want a dog, really really REALLY badly. I hope to start graduate studies this fall working toward a Master's in Non-profit Management.

So that's me!

Welcome: Emily Ota

2011-03-04T16:57:00.000-08:00

Today we're introducing Emily, the new Dragon Rentals Coordinator.

Q: Where are you from?

A: I'm from Menlo Park, CA born and raised.

Q: What's your theatrical background?

A: I started theatre when I was a freshman in high school. I attended Menlo-Atherton High School, and joined the Drama I class my first semester. I began as a techie, then for the winter show was cast in my first role ever as Diana in "Lend Me A Tenor". From there, I received several supporting and lead roles, such as Helga, in "Night Watch" (which went up at the Dragon Theatre!), and Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (Menlo-Atherton). My junior year, I joined up with Peninsula Youth Theatre and was Ms. Darbus in their 2008 production of "High School Musical". In 2009, I worked for Palo Alto Players, and was an ensemble member in "The King and I" with Kerie Derner (Anna) and Don Masuda (the King). Also that year, I performed as Madame Thenardier in PYT's Les Miserables. Currently, I am a 2nd year student at the Foothill Theatre Conservatory, graduating from the program this June.

Q: Are you working on anything now?

A: I am currently in the show "Working, The Musical" with Foothill Music Theatre, which closes on March 6th. And I am also in Foothill Theatre Conservatory's "One-Acts: American Hypnopompic" which goes up March 17th-20th.

Q: Why Dragon?

A: I think that Dragon is a wonderful asset to the theatre community. I know when I was in high school, Meredith welcomed my theatre troupe (The Vagabond Players, which put on a couple of shows here) with open arms, and encouraged us to explore what it was like to put on your own show. Plus, I love small theatre companies and what they stand for: supporting the arts, and bringing entertainment to an intimate setting.

Q: What's the most exciting/fulfilling part of being the rentals coordinator?

A: I think the best thing about my job is being an active part of bringing more theatre to the community. With my job, I am ensuring that the theatre is being used whether its for the Dragon's seasonal shows, or for classes, etc. Just knowing that people are still so passionate about sharing their talents by putting on a show, or teaching people in an acting class is wonderful.

Welcome to the Dragon Family Emily!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2011-03-04T16:25:00.000-08:00

We may not have been blogging much but we sure have been busy at Dragon lately. While we're waiting for our next show, Bad Dates, to open, we've been doing lots of work, partly because our super fabulous staffer, Lessa Bouchard, has decided to leave Dragon as the marketing and rental and intern coordinator to pursue other things. If you're subscribed to our newsletter you got the scoop from Lessa in her own words. (If you're not getting our email newsletter, go here to sign up! You'll be missing out on deals and news and stuff if you're not signed up.) Because Lessa's so amazing it's actually going to take several people to carry on her work.

Tomorrow we will introduce Emily Ota, Dragon's new Rentals Coordinator. She's the woman to talk to if you want to book the space for your own show, corporate event, movie night, birthday party, whatever else you can think of.

On Wednesday we will introduce Dragon's new Marketing and Development guru - that's me.

If you know Lessa and see her around, tell her how much we'll miss having her around - but she's not TOTALLY gone as she is directing our third show of the season, Tongue of a Bird.

Happy Valentine's Day From Eve Ensler!

2011-02-14T09:00:00.000-08:00

As you probably know, there's something of a V-Day theatrical tradition - Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues. It's theatre by a woman, for women, and it includes vagina-centered pieces on sex, masturbation, rape, birth, and so on. The idea is that the vagina is a tool of life and female empowerment and individuality. Anyway, some ladies of the Dragon Board of Directors are involved with a V-Day production. The event is free but it's a fundraiser so they will be collecting donations to support Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence.

The details can be found on this lovely flier (of which we have a large PDF copy that you can print and distribute if you want - leave a note in the comments if you'd like me to send you a copy).

Happy V-Day!

The Music of Private Eyes

2011-02-10T11:49:00.001-08:00

One of the things I like about Private Eyes is the music. Steven Dietz was fairly specific throughout the script and had very specific songs (and sometimes specific verses of the songs) to play during and between the scenes. Our sound designer, Jeffrey Lo, supplemented these choices throughout the play and I really dig the overall sound of the show.

One of my favorite pieces is kind of hard to find but here's a recording from YouTube. It's Tom Waits and the song is called "I Want You."

The other piece that I love (as does the audience some nights as evidenced by their singing and/or snapping along) is Peggy Lee's classic song "Fever."

See you at the show!

Three Interesting Articles

2011-02-09T21:56:00.000-08:00

I was going thru my newsfeeds today and came across three different articles that I thought were worth a read.

The first is an essay by Wallace Shawn (who, in my head, is always saying "Inconceivable!).

The second is a piece on Twitter and professional theatre.

The third is a piece on why cutting arts funding matters.

Thoughts on any of these articles?

In Review

2011-01-29T11:53:00.001-08:00

Private Eyes has received three lovely press reviews. My mom asked me this week if reviews mattered. I think it depends on who you ask.

If you're an actor, not necessarily. A lot of actors that I know prefer to not read reviews. They don't want to be influenced away from the director's vision. Designers I think are different. I think it's always nice to see technical recognition as most people aren't aware that a lot of work goes into, say, lighting a show. And it is nice for the portfolio and getting future work.

If you're in the business of theatre, a good review is free press and a great way to get the word out that you have something special going on

Speaking of reviews though, one of the best reviews you can get is from audience members. If you've seen a show you loved, something you as an audience member can do to help is to spread the word. Go on Facebook and post a link to the show. Write a review on Yelp or Artsopolis. Write your own blog post about the show. These things all really do make a big difference. People like to hear about things that their friends like.

What are your thoughts on reviews? Do they influence you? If you're a techie or actor do you read them?

The Importance of Audience

2011-01-21T10:37:00.000-08:00

Last night was the audience preview of Private Eyes. We had a BLAST. Audience is so very important to a show, and not just because they pay the bills. ;) The energy of everyone performing is affected by audience. For example - last night's audience was AWESOME. They laughed a lot, groaned at puns, booed and hissed, and were generally entertained (and were entertaining). I wish that audience was in the house every night! It was so energizing and rewarding to see all the hard work pay off - the actors were just bouncing with delight when they realized that people liked their show. We loved hearing people's comments about the play - people were talking about it at intermission and afterward trying to lay the whole thing out.

I left after doing the dishes exhausted but exhilarated - it was a great reminder of why we all do what we do, and that's put on something that is entertaining and thought provoking and interactive with people.

We're doing it again tonight at the official opening. Tonight's performance costs a little but more because the show is followed by the opening gala - there's champagne and snacks and you can meet the actors and director.

See you at the show!

Private Eyes Teaser

2011-01-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Lessa, one of the talented Dragon staffers, and Steve, Dragon's genius graphic designer, put together this really fun teaser video for Private Eyes.

Tonight is the Pay What You Can Preview- this is a great way to see theatre on the cheap. Here's the deal. Show up at the Dragon Theatre at 535 Alma St. in Palo Alto between 7:30 and 8:00 tonight. Bring some cash. You can pay $5 or $25 or anything in between!

See you at the show!

The Usual Suspects

2011-01-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

Steven Dietz did an interview in which he explained that Private Eyes was originally conceived and written under the title The Usual Suspect. He wrote the play, had a staged reading of the script done, and then Christopher McQuarrie had a film script produced - the film called The Usual Suspects that came out and went on to be a big hit. Dietz decided to re-title his play.

It occurred to me recently that it's kind of funny as both stories are similar in that in both cases, the story being told isn't all that it seems. In The Usual Suspects the question is - Who is Keyser Soze? Have we met him? In Private Eyes, not all is as it seems. For example, in this photo, it looks like a fun party, right? There are sparkly hats!

You'll never expect how this party ends. It's fun.

How many of you figured out who Keyser Soze was in The Usual Suspects? I saw that film in theaters back in the day, and about 20 minutes in my friend leans over to me and says "I bet he did it" as a joke. He was right. I could have killed him, he ruined all the fun. We've been deliberately vague about Private Eyes so you can enjoy watching it unravel. But I will say this - pay attention. Some things are said for a reason.

See you at the theatre!

Tech Week of Private Eyes

2011-01-18T10:10:00.000-08:00

Private Eyes by Steven Dietz is the first show of Dragon's 2011 season and it opens to audience previews in two days. My name is Kim and I'm the Stage Manager for this production. This is the first show I've worked in about six years so I'm feeling a little nervous - and I don't even have to look pretty!

I'm often asked by my non-theatre friends "what does a stage manager DO anyway?" The short answer is: everything. The long answer is this: the stage manager, in many respects, is the unseen heart of the show. (And I'm not just saying that because it's me this time around.) The stage manager's job is to be the connection between the actors and the director and the show's designers. The stage manager has to figure out how to make things happen. The director starts a production with a vision. The designers are hired to make that vision become a reality. The actors are responsible for bringing that vision to life and delivering it to the audience. The stage manager is the person who juggles all that so it's an actual workable plan that gets consistently delivered every time the show is performed. Stage managers need to know a little about everything - lights, sound, costumes, props, and how to mesh it all together. A stage manager sometimes has to say "no" but then come up with an alternative or compromise.

At Dragon the stage manager runs both the lights and the sound during the show. Sometimes a stage manager just "calls" a show - that is, the stage manager is on a headset and tells everyone (the light operator, the sound operator, people backstage, etc.) what to do and when to do it. Sometimes the stage manager does more, like in this case. It's pretty fun and is actually an art in itself - I have to practice button hitting like I'd have to practice the piano to make sure my hands are moving at the right time to get certain looks timed correctly.

Stage management isn't for everyone. In fact, I'd argue it's for the insane. ;) It requires organization and flexibility and creativity - and the ability to work on no sleep sometimes. I, however, find it terribly fun. I get to be creative and bossy and and anal retentive all in the same job! No two days are ever really the same. The problems that come up are often hilariously bizarre. Today, for example, I'm mixing up juices to get the right shade of merlot, but will have to taste test it to make sure it's palatable enough for the actors to drink it live on stage.

I've been really very fortunate that my first show back has been a dream to work on. The cast has been just outstanding to work with - no drama (no pun intended) and they're all so willing to work and help me out. Lennon, the director, is fabulous - she has a very clear vision but is very down to earth in her approach. All the designers have been incredible and true professionals in every sense of the word. I've had such fun getting back into the theatre and I'm genuinely excited to go to work every night. I think we've put together a really funny, thought provoking show and I can't wait till an audience sees it this week.

If you've ever wondered what a stage manager sees during a show, here's a photo I snapped on my phone last night during a tech run.

Anyway, I should get in gear - I have a show to put on!

I hope everyone comes out to see Private Eyes - it's really quite funny and unlike any show I've ever seen. I guarantee you will leave the theatre at the end of the night talking about (and possibly arguing about) the show. It's fun like that.

January 21 – February 13, 2011

Thursdays – Saturdays @ 8pm, Sundays @ 2pm

Pay-What-You-Can Preview, Thursday, January 20th

Opening Night Gala, Friday, January 21st

Talk-Back with cast Sunday, February 6th

Buy your tickets today online or by calling 1-800-838-3006!

2011 is an All New Year

2011-01-18T10:03:00.000-08:00

Welcome Dragon friends to the new Dragon blog. The goal of this website is to peek behind the scenes of Dragon Productions Theatre to allow a look at what it takes to put on a show and keep a theatre company running. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears are poured into every theatre production and we thought it would be fun to sometimes highlight the people who don't often get the spotlight and the ovations. We'll be showing photos of rehearsals, talk to some of the designers and builders and people who make the pretty happen. We'll talk to some actors to see why they do what they do - they have to learn lots of words, do crazy things with props, and look good while doing it - and it's harder than it looks. We'll talk about the business side of running a theatre. And we'll solicit input from you, the audience, to see what your thoughts are on why you choose to go to live theatre performances.

So welcome - we hope you will enjoy the blog!