Music Hall!

Music Director Eric Schmiedl

Music Hall is a form of entertainment which was extremely popular in England during the Victorian Era, featuring comedy performances and rousing, boisterous songs.

Subject matter for music hall songs could be thought unsuitable for “respectable” audiences, focusing on and making light, as they often did, on subjects such as poverty, crime and inappropriate social behavior.

Each of the songs that I selected for inclusion in the play script for Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street were written in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, though some of the lyrics have been adapted to suit the plot of the play, and the age of its intended audience.

For example, we use the song “Oh my! How the Money Rolls In!” which uses the traditional Scottish melody for “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,” which allows Miss Barnaby to describe the illegal activities committed by her young charges:

Young Annie steals fruit from the corner
Which Sylvia sells in the square
Then brings all the pennies she’s made up
I’ll give her back one as her share!

Young Darla she sneaks into houses
Takes all of the silver and plate
Her talents have grown exponentially
And the darling sweet robin’s just eight

Those are my original lyrics, suitable for an elementary school audience. The original song (titled “My God! How the Money Rolls In!”) is much more lascivious. Over the years a variety performers created increasingly obscene lyrics describing how each member of the family turns tricks; it was “The Aristocrats” of its day. For example:

My mother's a bawdy house keeper
Every night when the evening grows dim
She hangs a red light in the window
My God, how the money rolls in!

My grandma makes cheap prophylactics
She pierces the end with a pin
And grandpa does quickie abortions
My God, how the money rolls in!

"The Mystery of Edwin Drood"
(Great Lakes Theater, 2009)

Ten years ago, Great Lakes Theater produced The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’s final, unfinished novel of the same name, with music, book and lyrics by Rupert Holmes (no relation) the creator of "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)".

Utilizing the fast-paced and ribald style of the music hall, Holmes was able to tell Dickens’s sordid tale of opium, prostitution and murder with humor and audience interaction. The murderer, in fact, is chosen each performance by the audience!

Now, any casual consumer of Holmesian mythos (and here I am referring to the detective, and not the composer of "Him") knows that Sherlock plays the violin. Yet as I plunged into writing the plot for the Bully of Baker Street, I knew it would be more sprightly and fun for the company to sing their stories to our proposed child audience rather than subject them to a recital. And so we return to the Music Hall.

Note: I love violin recitals. Here is a really good one.

Rehearsals began this week, and our musical director is none other than the masterful Eric Schmiedl. Eric penned the last two "Classics On Tour" productions for Great Lakes (Huck Finn and Treasure Island) in which he was also a performer, and the arranger and lead musical performer. Including period music has now become a trademark of these touring performances for children, and I didn’t see why a Sherlock Holmes mystery should be any different.

The songs include "The Artist" by A.J. Mills and B. Scott, in which a painter describes her bohemian pose, and "Broken Down" by Harry Clifton, a woeful tale of loss of status. Eric has arranged the former to be in the style of Gilbert & Sullivan, the latter as bluesy yet ironically upbeat. Each is a showcase for one of the characters, with supporting vocals provided by the rest of the company.

To be continued.

UPDATE: "Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street" is now available from Pioneer Drama Service

Source: Traditional Music Library

Play a Day: King Lear

This is a year of many auspicious anniversaries.

Thirty years ago I performed my first Shakespearean role, that of Friar John in Romeo and Juliet. Twenty-five years ago I directed my first Shakespeare, which was also Romeo and Juliet. In that production I provided a recorded voice over for Prince Escalus.

Twenty years ago I directed Hamlet, and did a walk-on as the Ghost of Hamlet’s father.

I have performed a few other Shakespearean roles. Petruchio in the Guerrilla Theater Company production of The Taming of the Shrew. Bardolph in Henry IV for Cleveland Shakespeare Festival. Pistol in the Merry Wives of Windsor at Great Lakes Theater, and also in The Tempest as Adrian.

What? You don’t know who Adrian is? He is the least-consequential named character in all of Shakespeare. He has a name, "yet--" he does nothing and provides absolutely no information we do not already know. In this production his signal contribution was to get his head bitten off by a harpy.

The fact is, in spite of being regarded as a Shakespeare guy, I have performed very little Shakespeare. This summer, however, I will be playing one of my very favorite roles, that of the Earl of Kent in the True Chronicle Historie of the life and death of King Lear and his three Daughters, or as more popularly known, King Lear.

As Adrian with Dougfred Miller as Antonio
The Tempest, Great Lakes Theater (2007)

Is it just me, or is this play going through something of a renaissance in the 21st Century? Is it because the Baby Boomers are entering their final years and want to redefine him for a new age?

I have had the opportunity to witness a couple iconic performances of King Lear in my time. In 1990 we and a college group visited London and Stratford and saw Lear performed by John Wood, who most Gen X Americans would know as Professor Falken from the motion picture War Games. The two standout performances were that of the non-yet-famous Ralph Fiennes and Alex Kingston as Edmund and Cordelia, respectively.

Several years later, Toni and I were in London and saw Ian Holm play Lear at the National, following his long hiatus from the stage. On that trip I picked up a copy of the book Shakespeare Made Fit: Restoration Adaptations of Shakespeare edited by Sandra Clark.

In that I learned of Nahum Tate’s adaptation of Lear, in which he created a much happier conclusion, one in which Edgar and Cordelia (who never speak to one another in Shakespeare’s original) fall in love and overthrow Edmund to live as King and Queen of a united England. Published in 1681, “Tate’s Lear” was the favored version until around 1863, when William Macready staged the first truly popular restoration of Shakespeare’s original tragedy.

David Troughton as Tom, right
With Penelope Wilton
The Norman Conquests, BBC (1977)

It was Tate’s version that was to be my third Shakespearean production, announced for Cleveland Shakespeare Festival’s 2000 summer season. When it became necessary to abridge that year’s production schedule from three productions to two, Tate’s Lear was cancelled. We had a wonderful cast who were tremendously disappointed, and it still pains me to remember that I let them down, having made the proposal myself not to move ahead with the production.

Ironically, perhaps, one of the other two productions that year was a compact and modern production of Love’s Labour’s Lost, directed by Eric Schmiedl. Referred to as “The GQ Love’s Labour’s,” Eric had cut the text down to just the lovers’ story (no Don Armado, sorry, no Holoferenes) punctuating the narrative with a few passages from popular magazines describe what the modern person wants in a relationship.

My relationship with Eric goes back to our tenures briefly overlapping at Karamu in the early 90s, later we were in the Cleveland Play House Playwrights’ Unit. He has directed me in Sarah Morton’s Night Bloomers, Eric Coble’s The Velocity of Autumn, David Sedaris’s The Santaland Diaries, and now we are entering the rehearsal process for a streamlined, studio production of King Lear at the Beck Center for the Arts.

Kent is such a desirable role for a man my age, and I hope I can do him justice. He has the first line of the play, and it is entirely unassuming, one of the rare circumstance in Shakespeare when the action just starts, right in the middle of a conversation, Kent speaking with the Earl of Gloucester about a point of interest which has marginal bearing upon the issues of the narrative.

He is pressed into action, having to suddenly bridge a confounding gap and is forced into action he couldn’t have considered five minutes previously. He is not particularly remarkable, except for his absolute devotion to those he loves, sharp wit, and his ability to kick a young man’s ass.

David Troughton as Earl of Kent, right
With Linda Kerr Scott and John Wood
King Lear, Royal Shakespeare Company (1990)

I have seen two men whose performances as Kent rest upon my shoulders. The first was David Troughton, whose work I had first seen when he played Tom in the BCC production of Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests. Why a ten year old would be watching a British comedy about intimate relationships you can blame on my brother, regardless I remembered him when our school group visited Stratford that 1990.

Troughton was a then-member of the RSC, and in addition to leading workshops and acting as a mediator between our team and the company, he and his wife Alison welcomed us into their home and they were just remarkably kind and thoughtful people.

He and Ciarán Hinds conducted the final battle between Achilles and Hector (respectively) from Troilus and Cressida for us during a stage combat workshop. I saw him play Holoferenes in Love’s Labour’s Lost onstage, and he was Kent to John Wood’s Lear.

It was a remarkable week.

Most recently, I saw the production at Great Lakes Theater, directed by Joseph Hanreddy. That was four years ago. Hanreddy has done such marvelous work with our company, and this was no exception, a towering performance by Aled Davies in the lead role. His Kent, his "Caius" was Dougfred Miller.

I first met Doug the summer of 2005, when we played Merry Wives of Windsor at Great Lakes. Doing summer shows, my birthday often overlaps rehearsal or performance (this has happened numerous times) but I don't tell anyone. There's too much, I want it to be about me. That July 26 I walked into Becky's after rehearsal, on my own, prepared to drink a solitary toast to my own 37th anniversary. Doug was there at the bar and invited me to sit with him -- I hadn't really gotten to know anyone in the cast yet, and he expressed a deep, sincere interest in me, which was very gratifying on such a day.

Dougfred Miller as Earl of Kent, right
With Cassandra Bissell
King Lear, Great Lakes Theater (2015)

The next year we created a great moment together on stage for The Tempest -- the one in which I played the least consequential named character in Shakespeare. Doug was Antonio, the usurping Duke. Director Andrew May had stage these moments where Ariel was literally playing with us -- we were like puppets on strings. She paused us as I (as Adrian) had made a fist, as to strike Antonio. We were released and I hit him, Doug (as Antonio) reeled from the impact, as our "strings" were cut, sending us crashing to the floor.

Not remembering having been in this state, I rose from the floor, rubbing my hand as he rose rubbing his chin. We looked at each other -- and then away. A marvelous take. If anyone in the audience caught the exchange, I have absolutely no idea.

A performer possessed in equal measures great compassion, dedication to craft, an unparalleled wit and god-like sense of comic timing, his Kent was to me emblematic of Doug's work at its finest.

As we begin rehearsals for King Lear this evening, I enter the only way I could, following the example of such generous men, with humility and hope.

Beck Center for the Arts presents "King Lear" directed by Eric Schmiedl, May 31 - June 30, 2019.

Classics On Tour: Treasure Island

Each year at this time, Great Lakes Theater presents a free touring production for children, the "Classics On Tour" series. And this year, it’s Treasure Island, Cleveland Heights playwright Eric Schmiedl’s playfully original take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic pirate tale.

Last summer I read the book from which this script is based, and under the most pleasant of circumstances -- on the beach!

Stevenson's fascination with the sea fueled his imagination, and his bouts of illness and a desire to please his step-children with exciting narratives kept him writing.

Pirate tropes like the parrot, the treasure map, buried treasure -- these are all original ideas Stevenson created for this book!

Playwright Eric Schmiedl and friend.

This "Classics On Tour" production is perfectly suited for an elementary school aged audience, with bright sea shanties, colorful characters, and a wide variety of puppets, designed by Talespsinner Children’s Theatre (TCT) artistic director Alison Garrigan.

Treasure Island brings together performer from last year’s Huck Finn tour; Chelsea Cannon, Chennelle Bryant-Harris, James Rankin and playwright Eric Schmiedl. The show opens Tuesday night at 7:00 PM at the Reinberger Auditorium (home of TCT) in the Gordon Square district. It’s free and open to the public. Join us!

Great Lakes Theater presents "Treasure Island" at fifteen locations around Northeast Ohio, February 5 - March 9, 2019

The Santaland Diaries (2017)

Photo by Steve Wagner

It happened last month in a cottage in Yalding, England, where I received an email from Beth Wood at Cleveland Public Theatre, asking if I would like to perform the stage adaptation of The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris and Joe Mantello.

For several years now, CPT has produced this holiday favorite. The Santaland Diaries is one of the most produced plays in America, and has consistently been for over a decade, so much so that American Theatre magazine has stopped including it in their annual list of most-produced plays.

Actors who have played the role in Cleveland include Ray Caspio, Doug Kusak and (for Bad Epitaph) Curtis D. Proctor.

I was excited to have been asked. So, I have spent the past several weeks rehearsing with director Eric Schmeidl, who played the role of "Crumpet the Elf" himself for CPT three years ago. I love working with Eric, who has previously directed me in The Velocity of Autumn at Beck Center, and Night Bloomers for Dobama.

When I first announced the production and my place in it on Facebook the other day, I was delighted by the strong and happy response. I was inspired to put out a call for questions, because folks were so curious about my finally playing Crumpet the Elf. Here are my responses.

Q: Explain the juxtaposition of tragedy and comedy in this this line; "Today a child told Santa Ken that he wanted his dead father back and a complete set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Everyone wants those turtles."

A: Actually, Donald, I think the line speaks for itself. The line you should be asking about is; "I am a thirty-three year-old man applying for a job as an elf," and how exactly I am going to play that when I am certainly long past thirty-three. 

For this production, and in fact when Eric himself performed the role in 2014, there is a set piece which makes it clear this play takes place in the past -- 1989, to be exact -- and that we are treating it as a memory play.

When first produced in Cleveland at Bad Epitaph Theatre in 1999, we tried updating the line you ask about. The boy wanted Pokemon cards. When I directed the show at Beck Center in 2002 the boy wanted a "SpongeBob SquarePants BackPack. Everybody loves SpongeBob." 

You have to admit, "Everybody loves SpongeBob," is a funny thing to say. But now we leave the line as is.

Q: Have you seen David Sedaris in person and what did you think?

A: Good question, David. Sedaris read at the Ohio Theatre in 2000 when he was promoting his collection of essays "Me Talk Pretty One Day." He was on a certain medication and at one point had to ask the audience if it was all right to take a much needed pee-break, and we all thought that was fine.

Q: What's your favorite emoticon?

A: 🎅

Q: Reflect on being a writer who creates and performs autobiographical one-person shows performing another writer's autobiographical one-person shows.

A: Insightful query, Phil. Yes, I have written and performed my own solo shows, "I Hate This" and "And Then You Die." Standing on stage and talking for an hour without interruption is not unfamiliar to me. Those who are close me are no doubt aware that sitting in bars and talking for an hour without interruption is also not unfamiliar to me. 

It is perhaps because of these stage experiences that, while I had a few concerns about whether to accept the offer, actually being able to perform the piece wasn't one of them. I have at least that much ego.

Performing someone else's story, especially one as lighthearted as this, is particularly liberating. I just need to say the words and it's funny. Sedaris is really good that way. But it is also a thrill channeling my own feelings through the words. I don't have to play a character. Just as with those other solo plays, I still get to be myself. 

Q: Compare and contrast your Crumpet with Eric Schmiedl's Crumpet. I'm assuming you have seen Eric Schmiedl's Crumpet, yes?

A: No.

Q: How did you levitate that box (see photo)?

A: Well, Carolyn, how do you know that box is not slowly floating down into my loving arms, like a drunken cherub? 

Q: Have you ever actually worked in a retail store during the holiday season?

A: Thanks for asking, Nina, though your use of the word "actually" makes me a little defensive. 

I am happy to report that almost every Christmas season since 1991, I have been employed by one theater company or another. This means my holiday contributions to society have included productions like "Stealing Christmas" (Karamu 1991), "The Wayward Angel" (Bad Epitaph 2000), "Adventures In Slumberland" (Talespinner Children's Theatre, 2013), educational programs surrounding Great Lakes Theater's annual production of "A Christmas Carol" and that Yuletide favorite, "Simpatico" by Sam Shepard (Dobama Theatre, 1995).

However, during my college years I had several holiday jobs in mail rooms, wholesale outlet stores, performing data entry, and packaging and labeling volatile chemicals. I have also had my turn as a server at several restaurants, but have never "actually" worked retail during the holiday season.  

Q: What's with the knickers?

A: Yes, Halle. The knickers are satiny and very comfortable.

Q: Where?

A: The Outcalt Theatre at Playhouse Square, 1407 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Susan! See you there!

(Many thanks to Blayne, Bob, Carolyn, David, Donald, Halle, Nina, Phil, and Susan for all the great questions!)

Cleveland Public Theatre presents "The Santaland Diaries" at the Outcalt Theatre in Playhouse Square, December 6 - 17, 2017

Boy Camp 2013

For four years now, the female contingent of our little family has gone on an all-girl retreat the second weekend of July leaving the two of us to be dudes on our own for a couple days. I chronicled this last year, and while certain traditions hang, others get created as we go.

Friday evening we made our pilgrimage to Freeway Lanes in Solon, joined once more by Dr. Dean and Mr. Boy and I was killing until halfway through the second game when I just blew it out. The Dr. can attest, I was on fire, but then handed him my mojo which was entirely fair.

Mr. Boy (not to be confused with my son, who is simply "the boy") and I seem to have entirely identical taste in music. He was encouraging the boy to break out some moves but that usually just leads to my son grabbing the nearest boy in the room around the neck and wrestling him to the floor.

I took a picture of my food.

Lately, not just this weekend, we have been dining outside, on the side porch. Some days this is because every available surface in our house is covered with books, bills or fall preparatory materials, but even when they aren't it is a habit we have grown fond of.

Saturday morning I made whole wheat pancakes with (frozen) blueberries, with syrup, a little whipped cream and what was left of the blackberries from City Fresh. The rest of the morning was spent reading and coping with the boy's recent absolute, unabated obsession with Clash of the Clans.

The boy has coach-pitch baseball at noon on Saturdays, which is pretty grueling. In spite of my having remembered to find and apply sunscreen, I still found a slight burn on my scalp from that gap in the back of my ballcap. Geez.

Earlier this week the wife and kids has visited friends out in Chagrin and came home with a bunch of big tomato plants, all ready to put in the earth. After several days of getting mightily watered by recent storms in their little travel cups and boxes, and then wilting in the unforgiving heat, I figured this was as good a time as any for the manly business of gardening.

We worked as a team, ripping up a great, long path of weedy mint, hoeing and mulching and finally planting them in four great towers. The work took longer than it may have as every time the boy found a worm he needed to put it in the compost barrel, which I believe currently has a 1:1 ratio of worms to compost. I don't know. I am afraid to look.

In the meantime, we entirely forgot to eat. Late lunch/early dinner was had at the new Katz Club Diner. We were big fans of the original Dottie's Diner, which was open briefly around the time the girl was born. That was a decade ago, and in the meantime several concerns have tried to make a go of it. I stuck my head in a couple times and the decor alone told me those people had no idea what they were doing.

The rumors are true, the place is beautiful, the food is good, and its entirely too expensive if you are the kind of person who liked to spend hours drinking of coffee and smoking cigarettes at Chucks. This is not that kind of diner.

The boy was entirely taken by the style and structure of the dining car, pointing out the features which told him this was once a real train car, and not just an imitation. His words, "This is a very welcoming place. It's beautiful, makes you want to come back." Really, my eight year-old talks like that.

We were both satisfied with the Reuben I ordered, and the homemade chips and fires, though he chose to add mayo and vinegar to his chicken salad sandwich, which he believes didn't have enough "pop" for his taste. I admit it was mild, but I found it flavorful, not overpowering. We're looking forward to sharing this place with the ladies some time in the near future. I hope it succeeds.

To conclude the evening, we furthered the boy's Marx Brothers education by taking in the bravely plot-free Monkey Business (1931) which features the absolute worst hand-to-hand combat ever recorded on film.

Poor Thelma Todd. She really was hilarious.

Now, it had been my intention to rise this morning at the not unreasonable hour of 6:00 am to do some much-needed writing, but after one slap of the snooze bar I had to ask myself, and I am waking up at 6 am on Sunday because why, and just turned the alarm off.

Sunday has been low-key, as it should be, reading, playing video games, watering tomatoes, feeding gerbils (no really) finally getting down to learning the rules to Ticket To Ride, before heading to the Lantern Theatre for this year's family-friendly, historical fiction drama John Henry, written by colleague and neighbor Eric Schmiedl.

John Henry (center) and friends.

Anybody can enjoy these plays Bill Hoffman and his crew at the Lantern Theatre offer (last year's Boy Camp we saw Singin' On The Ohio, which I am happy to say will be revived starting next month) but I strongly recommend them for my friends with elementary school aged kids. They tell good, interesting stories, with a lot of great history and very enjoyable characters.

And really, that's it. For the weekend, I mean. The boy is off into the neighborhood riding bikes with the local kids and I am going to sit on the sideporch with a beer and book. That's Daddy Camp.

The Kardiac Kid (play)

Eric Schmiedl got me my first professional theater-related job. It wasn't really his doing, he was slated to remain with the education department of Karamu Theatre for a second year, but decided in stead to go off and get married or get another graduate degree or something and there was need for a tall, thin, guitar-playing white guy for their touring production My World If ... Someone else in the company knew my name, I got the call, and could stop waiting tables at Friday's.

I also needed to learn to play the guitar in 24 hours. Three chords. Who can't play three chords?

My World If ...

Eric and I first worked together when he directed Sarah Morton's Night Bloomers in 2006. That's an interesting story unto itself, for another time, perhaps. He also directed me in Eric Coble's The Velocity of Autumn at Beck Center last spring. But most of our time together is at the Playwrights' Unit, where I am constantly delighted by the pages he brings in from whatever he is currently working on.

Last summer, the boy and I saw Singin' On the Ohio, Schmiedl's two-hander about the Ohio & Erie Canal presented at the Big Red Barn Theatre. He wrote and was one of the performers in it, and spend the entire summer -- two performances every Saturday and Sunday -- spinning this historical yarn about an Irish-born canal boat captain and the once-enslaved young woman who came on board as his assistant. After the show I asked if these were real, historical people. He said, no, he'd made up the whole thing. But the Ohio & Erie Canal is real, the setting, the history is real. I wanted to believe.

Nathan Lilly, Eric Schmiedl, and a complete douchebag.

The Kardiac Kid opened this weekend at CPT, ostensibly a story of the 1980 Cleveland Browns Season, but fortunately it's not. I missed his last homage to the Browns, the collaboratively conceived Browns Rules because I was under the impression that it was supposed to be a big, funny, loud pageant of Browns Fever, and if I did not care to watch football, I wouldn't really enjoy it. That, and it had Nick Koesters in it, and I hate him.

Last night I took the kids and some friends to check out this new, solo performance. Watching Eric perform his own work is something not to be missed. He's just so warm, engaging, so very, very real. More human than human. In this ninety-minute show (there is an intermission) he tells five stories of Browns fans during the entirety of that non-championship season, a reminder that it's not the game, it's how that fits into the rest of your life that's important.

As the sun will cross the sky, the Browns lost today. Score was a laughable 41-27. No idea who they played, don't imagine it makes any difference, could have been anybody. The Cleveland Browns are just awful, and I have never understood why my fellow citizens put themselves through this misery year after year for what I find to be a painfully slow, boring game. Eric didn't change my opinion of football or the Browns one bit last night. He just made me love people more.

Lombardi by Eric Simonson closed at Cleveland Play House this weekend, a play about Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, who -- if you can believe his pain -- went three whole years without a championship. The story tales place in 1965, as Lombardi somehow (it's not clear) guides his team back to preeminence.

It went without mention that the city they had to beat to win 1965 championship was Cleveland.  The 1964 Cleveland Browns was the last championship team Cleveland will ever have.

Cleveland Public Theatre presented "The Kardiac Kid" from October 4 - 12, 2013

Boy Camp 2012

For three years running, the wife and girl have journeyed to the Land Project Feminist Girls' Camp in western PA to get their empowerment in. Two years ago, when the boy was only five, he was less than pleased with the idea that his sister got special mom-alone time. What was going to happen for an entire weekend without Mom in the house?

I swiftly replied, "Boy Camp."  What is Boy Camp, he asked. I said I was pretty sure it involved bowling.  He was no longer disappointed.

Really, Lassester? Really?

The first year was pretty simple, father-son bowling, burgers and beer (for Dad.) Last year we also walked up the movie theater to watch Cars 2, which is without question the worst thing Pixar has ever produced.

Last month at a bowling birthday party I was sharing the joys of Boy Camp with a fellow father and an invitation was extended to Dr. Dean and Mr. Boy to join us. This was a good move, as my boy has become more interested in racking up tickets-for-crap from the arcade than tossing the ball which he is now finally strong and tall enough to sling properly. Mr. Boy provided a third-way, which was to introduce the extremely welcome art of hip-hop dancing into the mix. As everyone knows, Party Rock Anthem was written for seven year-olds, and they each had the chance to get their groove on.

Can I also mention that during our second game, a had a turkey -- and then a double? Oh, I guess I did.

Boy Camp also means super-late bedtime. He was knocked-out cold by 10.30.

The next morning it was sleeping-in, pancakes and a long-awaited haircut. The boy asked for a buzzcut over three years ago, but his last was last fall he's become quite the moptop since. I have not forgotten how much I enjoy cutting his hair.

Cleveland, 1845

The summer baseball season came to a conclusion with 44-14 blowout (which cannot be independently confirmed) after which we drove to the Lantern Theater at Canal Corners Farm and Market to see Singin' On The Ohio by Eric Schmiedl.  The Lantern is a former dairy barn adjacent to the former Ohio & Erie Canal, and the show is an historical-fiction about an adventurous young woman (Andrea Belser) and a flinty Irish canal boat captain (Mr. Schmiedl) making their way down the canal to Portsmouth. It's fun to watch the eternally cheerful Eric S. play someone aloof and grumpy!

East Bank Images

Yesterday was also my very last chance to catch Henry VIII, this time at the Shaker Colonnade. The boy had already seen the show twice, so I promised him ice cream after if he remained a good audience member. There was some dude in the crowd who was recording the song on his iPhone. If anyone knows who that was, I'd really like to see it -- the song was the most powerful I'd heard it last night. I think having them so close to the audience really helped.

The Maple Bacon will slap your grandmother.

We rounded out the evening -- another late evening -- at Sweetie Fry. If I were a cupcake I would write an entire post on how this one corner ice cream store puts Cleveland on par with any major city in America!!!  (In spite of, you know, everything else.) The boy got Key Lime Pie, I got New York Cheesecake with blueberry compote, and we shared the chicken tender fries ... which I assumed would be chicken tender-seasoned fries or something, but no, it was a basket a fresh fries with three fried chicken strips on top. No complaints!

The boy observed, "This is the kind of food you eat when you are up past your bedtime."

Just evil.

The day before, as promised, we got a copy of Epic Mickey from Redbox. The boy tried it out during various downtimes yesterday, but gave up on it and went back to Pokemon. I uttered those fateful words, "Let me give it a try ..."

Thing is, I don't play video games anymore. They bore the hell out of me. Five minutes, tops, I'm done. Repetition, repetition, repetition, ugh. Since we got the wii my only interaction with it has been to watch Poirot on Netflix.

Before I had realized it, and with the boy's encouragement, I had plunged headlong into this game, completed three levels, two and a half hours had passed, I was sick to my stomach and had a splitting headache, which took the rest of the day to abate.

But seriously, once I had emerged from the world of Epic Mickey, I could not articulate a thought, I could not speak in a complete sentence, for at least a half-hour. I just made lunch, brainlessly, and ate it with my son saying, "huh?" and "what?" and "I'm sorry, would you repeat that?" over and over again.

Suck it down.

This hasn't happened to me since I spent every day of 1999 doing absolutely nothing but playing Duke Nukem. It is my personal belief that the emergence of ADHD in the 1980s, which afflicts a disproportionate number middle-class, white boys, in often the misdiagnosis of symptoms brought about by video games. Or maybe that's just with this middle-class, white boy.

The rest of the day was spent reading epic battles from The Dangerous Book for Boys, watching small children catch very large fish on YouTube, hacking low-hinging limbs from the tree by the sidewalk, and engaging in the manly art of hair dye.

Then the ladies returned, and we were very happy to see them.