Big Month of Plays

"Everything Is Okay (and Other Helpful Lies)"
by Melissa T. Crum & Caitlin Lewins
Cleveland Public Theatre
Photo by Steve Wagner

The Dark Room

It’s been a huge month for theater, which is usually the case for October as traditional season cycles begin. The difference this year is that I have actually had the opportunity to attend several of them, which is not often the case.

I actually had the chance to begin the month by attending the Dark Room, Cleveland Public Theatre’s monthly playwriting “open mic.” It’s free, it happens every second Tuesday, and there is beer. In addition to several ten minute plays written by about a half dozen writers, I threw in a few odd pages from a new piece I have started. They didn’t go anywhere, but people laughed, and so I am encouraged.

See you there November 13th.

Hello, Dolly!

The KeyBank Broadway Series at Playhouse Square has begun. First up, Hello Dolly! Featuring the incomparable Betty Buckley. She really was delightful and made a warm connection with the audience.

Waiting for the show to begin.

Personally, I loved when she crossed the stage to kneel and pick up a stray prop that rolled across the stage following a big, company dance routine. She didn’t break character or stop her delivery for a moment, just picked it up and set it aside like it was her job, because she a professional and it is.

Everything Is Okay (and Other Helpful Lies)

Last weekend I had the opportunity to witness a preview performance of Everything Is Okay (and Other Helpful Lies) at Cleveland Public Theatre. Written by Melissa T. Crum and Caitlin Lewins and under the powerful direction of Matthew Wright, this Millennial musical is a breathtakingly ambitious and brilliant event.

It has been very inspiring to watch and listen as Missy and Caitlin first presented this piece as a cabaret of songs at the first Entry Point, later performing an uncompleted version of the book at this year’s Entry Point (there was a point in the second act where character was broken and one announced, “Okay, we’re not sure how we’re wrapping this all up yet, but it may go like this ...”) to this fully-realized performance, executed with urgency and style. And may I say the band is fucking incredible?

The show opens to a sold out crowd tonight!

Colin Holter speaking before "Mamma Mia!"
Great Lakes Theater

Mamma Mia!

The company for whom I am employed, Great Lakes Theater, is currently presenting Mamma Mia! and Joseph Hanreddy’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice in rotating repertory, and these productions are each a smash. The Jane Austen play is entirely sold out, with Mamma Mia! which runs an additional week, almost to capacity. Tickets are still available, especially on Halloween.

As a member of the education department, I often host GLT’s weekly pre-show event, Playnotes, where we engage an area expert to provide historical background to that afternoon’s performance. Last weekend our guest was Colin Holter, composer, teacher, and writer on music. He described to a packed salon the origins of ABBA’s original success in the mid-1970s, the particular techniques they use in their singing to catch the ear and the heart, and their enduring popularity.

Holter brought a guitar and was able to play and sing a few verse to better illustrate these techniques, and the assembled were rapt and impressed. He will speak again before matinee performances on Saturdays November 3rd and 10th, which currently have a limited number of available seats.

"When the Tiger Sneezed" by Toni  K. Thayer
Talespinner Children's Theatre

When the Lion Sneezed

Every year, in addition to their main stage work at Reinberger Auditorium, Talespinner Children's Theatre produces a shorter program, designed for touring. For 2019 that production is When the Lion Sneezed (Tales of Ancient Assyria and Beyond) written by Toni K. Thayer, a beautiful artist, educator, and my spouse.

It is a tradition that this touring show debuts at the annual Harlequinade gala in the fall and this year was no exception. What was unusual was the storm which blew through and knocked over powerlines across the city last Saturday night. The electricity went out roughly an hour and a half before guests were due to arrive, but thanks to smart thinking and a team of volunteers who just kept working by battery-operated lanterns (we have kinds of crazy things in theaters) they were able to procure a generator which lit up the party room upstairs.

The stage downstairs was still dark, however, but as this play was designed to be produced anywhere, they swiftly adapted it to the party room and we had the opportunity to witness and enjoy Toni’s delightful tale of the origin of cats -- and the diverse ways we feel about them.

"Sweat" by Lynn Nottage
Cleveland Play House
Photo by Roger Mastroianni

Sweat

Earlier this week, Chennelle and I saw the Cleveland Play House production of Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat. If there is a contemporary play that deserves a Pulitzer Prize, it is this play, and this local production, directed by Laura Kepley, is outstanding.

It is also a thrill to see that half of the cast consists of Cleveland actors, namely Bob Ellis, Chris Seibert, Jimmy D. Woody and CPH Associate Artistic Director Robert Barry Fleming.

Sweat is an epic take on the decline of American manufacturing jobs and an even-handed observation of the events which led to the election of Donald J. Trump. Not that Trump is the answer, as it is evident that he is absolutely not, but is a clear-eyed explanation of how we arrived at this present moment.

"MST3K Live 30th Anniversary Tour"
The Agora

MST3K Live!

Last night the boy and I attended the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Live 30th Anniversary Tour at the Agora. My goodness, I have not been to the Agora in years and years and years. The movie being taken apart was Deathstalker II, and during the first few minutes the ‘bots made a GWAR joke, which was striking to me because that may have been the last concert I attended there!

Jokes flew fast and furiously, and there is really nothing like laughing together in a packed house. Robots Tom Servo and Crow were joined by both Joel Hodgson and Jonah Ray.

I’ve been enjoying MST3K since the early 90s, so Joel is my favorite, but the Netflix reboot featuring Jonah is also hilarious and the pop culture references are fresh so my son can enjoy they, too. The old episodes are practically Dada-esque to him, most satire is … which may be why his generation loves nonsense humor. It’s good pushback and it irritates the grown-ups.

iGen humor.

The Way I Danced With You

It’s time. We announced auditions for this weekend a few days ago, and the available slots filled up pretty fast. There is a company in there somewhere and I am very excited to discover who they are.

Cleveland Public Theatre presents "Everything Is Okay (and other Helpful Lies)" in the Levin Theatre through November 10, 2018.

Great Lakes Theatre presents "Mamma Mia!" at the Hanna Theatre through November 11, 2018.

Cleveland Play House presents "Sweat" at the Outcalt Theatre through November 4, 2018.

Nine Inch Nails @ The Agora

Trent Reznor

Twenty years ago today Nine Inch Nails played the Agora.

This was a dam-bursting moment. Maybe six people in Cleveland noticed when Pretty Hate Machine was released in 1989. In the months and years that followed, as the record gained recognition and momentum, the people of Cleveland began to claim Trent Reznor as one of their own (he's actually from Pennsylvania.)

The radio station The End trumpeted the impending release of Broken in 1992, but then never played anything from it because, as DJ Maria Farina told me, it wasn’t “radio-friendly”. However, no one could ignore The Downward Spiral, and it was universally lauded when it was released March 8, 1994.

Except in Cleveland, where Scene Magazine queried, “how many times can you rhyme ‘hole’ with ‘soul’, after all?”

“All this nihilistic, self-loathing, misanthropic, suicidal posturing is getting to be a bit much, Mr. Self-Desruct. Either jump or come in off the ledge.”
- John Soeder, Scene Magazine

Rolling Stone would eventually rate the album as the 32nd best of the 1990s, between Dylan's Time Out of Mind and The Slim Shady LP. But, you know. Opinions.

The day tickets went on sale for NIN’s first concert in Cleveland since they broke nationally, due in large part to their performance in the original Lollapalooza in 1991. The Agora sold out in less than ten minutes. I didn’t have a job and so was on the phone (because that’s how we used to order tickets) and bought two moments after the lines opened, unaware of my great fortune.

Opening acts include an entirely forgettable warm-up who I remember had some kind of non-lesbian, girl-on-girl thing, followed by a terrifying, horse-faced clown in a tall, pointed witches' hat who began his set by reciting the Wondrous Boat Ride poem from Willy Wonka. That would be the first time I had seen or even heard of Marilyn Manson.

Diana and I had arrived early enough to get great seats in front, you could see the band perfectly over the crowd on the floor. The place was completely packed by the time the headliner began their set, and what little moshing had started during the opening acts got crazy.

I think I stayed in my seat until they played Closer, and then I couldn’t handle it anymore, I wanted to be down there, not sitting. I gave Diana a little apology, handed her my glasses and shoved my way onto the floor.

 Set List 5/9/94

Pinion
Terrible Lie
Sin
March of the Pigs
Something I Can Never Have
Closer
Reptile
Wish
Suck (Pigface)
The Only Time
Get Down, Make Love (Queen)
Down in It
Big Man With a Gun
Head Like a Hole

Encore:
Dead Souls (Joy Division)
Help Me I Am in Hell
Happiness in Slavery

Once upon a time (because I cannot speak for today) being in a mosh pit was not actually dangerous. Maybe I’m kidding myself. But pushing and jumping and picking people up and moving them around is a very exciting way to enjoy a loud, fast concert.

First time I did what your father used to refer to as “slam dancing” was seeing The Replacements at Mem Aud in 1987. At one point I was body surfing and suddenly they were all gone and I landed flat on my back. About a half a dozen hands reached down and helped me right back up - wind knocked out, suddenly upright. Dizzying. Transcended. Stupid.

[tangent]

The Agora show was my penultimate mosh pit. My last would be exactly eight months later, when against my own better judgement I attended NIN's return to Cleveland at the behemoth CSU Convocation Center on January 9. I ran into Diana and her co-workers, and that was awkward. She had moved out a few days earlier. Previously, I was a svelte, 25 year-old member of an underground theater troupe. Now I was 26 and gaining weight, waiting tables in a chain pizza restaurant, and getting divorced.

Exiting the pit that January in 1995, I had a bad feeling in my abdomen. Two months later I would have a hernia operation. Limping out, I stopped an old lady, incongruous in the surroundings, but recognized her, and assumed she must be a friend of my mother's.

"Oh, hi!" I shouted. "Good to see you!" She blinked her eyes at me, blankly. I had made an error. That was Jane Scott.

[/tangent]

At the Agora show, Reznor did not say much, if anything, between numbers. At one point he asked, "Anybody like Scene Magazine?" The audience response was comically uproarious. Then he added, "Yeah. I like to wipe my ass with it."

Scene's Pete Chakerian reviewed the show as the success it was, however.  Reznor "seized the crowd" and "stalked the stage with reckless abandonment."

"You could just smell the sweat in the air ... the rest of the evening kept the same breakneck pace ... Spectacular ... Reznor started tearing up the joint."
- Pete Chakerian, Scene Magazine

If the editors were embarrassed by the gushing of their critic, they tried to make up for it with a photo in the gossip column featuring a fluffy-haired Reznor with his former 80s synth-pop trio Exotic Birds with the caption, PRETTY Hate Machine.

After just a few songs I was back, seated with Diana … the first song in the encore left me shocked and confounded, because I knew every word of the song and couldn’t for the life of me know from where. NIN had recorded Dead Souls for The Crow soundtrack and like a lot of other folks my age we had “discovered” Joy Division in 1988 when they released a singles collection (more nerdy shit: This is why it makes sense that they are playing Love Will Tear Us Apart in the party scene in Donnie Darko.)

What lingers is the memory of a girl in the mosh pit who was near me for just a moment. She shouted, OH FUCK because she’d dropped her cigarettes, I saw them on the floor about to be dashed to bits when I threw out an arm and shoved this big guy to one side, she didn’t miss a moment but swooped her hand down and caught her smokes.

She threw an arm around me, kissed my face and intimately screamed, “I LOVE you for that!”

Precious

Howard the Duck
Seven-Eleven Marvel Comics Glass
(1977)

Mine broke in 2006.
I miss it very much.

* * *

Precious
by The Pretenders
from their 1980 LP release
"The Pretenders"

I like the way you cross the street
'Cause you're precious.
Moving through the Cleveland heat,
How precious.
Taking rides and all the kicks:
You're so precious.
But you know I was shittin' bricks,
'cause I'm precious.

Made me wanna, made me wanna,
You made me make it.
You're so mean

East 55th and Euclid Avenue
Was real precious.
Hotel Sterling comin' into view
How precious.
Pity that you bruised my hip
'cause I'm precious.
You shouldn't let your manners slip.
You're too precious.

Made me wanna, made me wanna,
You made me make it.
You're so mean

We went around and round and
round and round and round the Shoreway
We was a duet duet duet duet
do it on the pavement
Oh maybe maybe
I'm gonna have a baby
We was a duet oh we do it all night

Made me wanna, made me wanna,
You made me make it.
You're so mean

I was feeling kind of ethereal.
'Cause I'm precious.
I got my eye on your Imperial.
You're so precious.
Now, Howard the Duck and Mister Stress both stayed
Trapped in a world that they never made.
But not me, baby - I'm too precious.
Fuck off!