The Witches (company)

Test Flight walks a line. Like the Big Box series that came before it (I was in Big Box four times) this is a single weekend of workshop performances. What is a workshop, the layperson may ask? The script is complete, but unfinished, and this is an opportunity to gauge its progress in front of an audience. There are certain professional expectations, but it is not a full production.

There should be design, and the actors should be well-accustomed to the material, at least that material that has not been pitched at them at the last minute. I’m not adding anything to the script for The Witches at this point, but even today I have taken things away.

Thankfully, I am working with a team of incredible artists, some for the first time, several with whom I have collaborated with more than once, and are good friends.

Adrionna Powell Lawrence as Keetchi

The piece is co-directed by Melissa T. Crum and Carrie Williams, who have worked with me at Great Lakes and who I have worked with on projects which have seen the light of day and those that have not. We have directed each other, acted together, and written together, and their work on this piece has delighted me utterly.

Another former Great Lakes colleague and one who has been an invaluable collaborator on so many projects – including and especially during the shutdown – is Chennelle Bryant-Harris. She was due to direct this piece when it was originally scheduled for two years ago, and I was so grateful she was available to perform as dramaturge.

The acting company is a tinderbox of performers who I have either worked with (Adrionna Powell Lawrence, yet a fourth former actor-teacher) or whose work I have enjoyed and admired through the years, including Bryce Evan Lewis, Jaime Bouvier and Juliette Regnier.

Here’s one thing we will not have: video projection. Adri plays a social media star in the model of Liza Koshy (yeah, I know – I started writing this years ago) and so there are meant to be YouTube videos and TikToks. In lieu of actual technology, the team has created some moments that get the point across with clarity and humor.

What we will have are a lot of mannequins, costumes, and shadow performance. Rehearsal was extremely rewarding, with song and humor, frank conversations about tone and a lot of useful suggestions for editing and revision.

And tonight we begin putting the final pieces together in the Levin at Cleveland Public Theatre! I’m really looking forward to seeing this all come together, even more so to how the audience will react this weekend. Maybe we will see you there!

To be continued.

Cleveland Public Theatre presents THE WITCHES as part of Test Flight, a showcase of new works, March 3, 4 & 5, 2022.

Play a Day: The Tongue That Tells Me So (BONUS)

Tonight I saw the premiere workshop performance of The Tongue That Tell Me So, written by Mariah Sage and Bruce Seymour, part of Cleveland Public Theatre's new Test Flight series of new works.

The Test Flight stage of their new works program is like the former "Big Box" program (2003-2016) in which a company receives a modest budget, a free hand, and the keys to the Levin Theatre for four technical rehearsal days and three performance nights.

It is an intense piece, and brief. Mariah also performs, in the character of Anne, a woman who is motivated and driven by her "mentor" - my word - another woman named Simone (Linda Manning). The story takes several significant shifts and my perception of what their relationship truly is changed and changed again. Even after the final curtain, it changed again.

Mariah and I worked together as actor-teachers for the Great Lakes Theater school residency program, my partnership with her in that program was a model for what I believe our work there is supposed to be. She left Cleveland after our year together, and though we have stayed in touch fifteen years is a long time, and I am glad we had time today to have lunch and I am so proud of her in this work. Go see it!

Cleveland Public Theatre presents The Tongue That Tells Me So through Saturday, April 15.

The Times: Youth Culture

These are "The Times"

Elia Kazan said that 90% of directing is casting. Maybe John Huston said it. Who knows? The point is, it is true. By the same turn, it can be said that 90% of producing is choosing the right director. By this turn, there is an 180% chance of Times being a very good show, indeed.

Last night I attended my second rehearsal for this Big Box production, and as scheduled it was a rehearsal of the second act ("The Times") and not the first ("Centennial"). As much as I am looking forward to seeing all of the great work I have been hearing about from that act, the great thing about last night was seeing how far the four main central characters have come in only one week.

Tonight we resume rehearsals for Double Heart, and I will not have another opportunity to attend rehearsal until Valentine's Day.  Yesterday, Eric posted on Facebook that it is a month before The Times opens. A month? Bags of time!

The great thing about writing plays that feature young characters (Times, Double Heart) is that you get to work with young performers. The great thing about being surrounded by young performers, if that you can fool yourself into thinking you are also young.

 Your eyes, they make me INSANE.

"I Hate This" at Big Box (2003)

August 2002, the people at Dobama Theatre were kind enough to let me use their theater on Coventry for a staged reading of a new, autobiographic work I had written about my experience losing our first child to pre-eclampsia and stillbirth. Titled I Hate This (the play without the baby) what the people saw that night wasn't very different from the finished product, with me slouching about the stage tell our story ... I didn't have the piece memorized, there were various music stands about on which to balance the script as necessary. I was even wearing the green sweater.

The audience was invitation-only, but I did invite a lot of people. Friends and family, yes, but also a large number of theater people, writers, actors, directors, producers, from around town. I have never felt the need to create an "event" like this for a new script before, and I probably never will again. I was forgiven for my grandeur, everyone knew what had happened, though sure most didn't know these details, they wanted to support me and my wife, and to be a part of it.

One of the attendants was (then) CPT artistic director Randy Rollison. As it happens, his company was already in discussion to suspend the second half of their previously announced 2002-2003 season because of financial difficulties and to create a plan for the future -- which, for anyone who has been paying attention, was a decision which has worked out for them extremely well -- and was formulating an idea of still satisfying their mission for the rest of the season of providing exciting new work.

Having witnessed this reading, he asked if I wouldn't be interested in participating in a series of new works which they would call "Big Box" which that year meant inviting artists already in process of a new project, giving them a couple hundred bucks and use of the space. I said yes, absolutely.

The final weekend of February 2003, a scant one month from the birth of our first living child, we put this show on its feet. Following each performance we provided a talkback, where the audience would get to ask us very personal questions -- my wife participated in these -- and pop the lock on prenatal demise.

 
Post-Show Talkback
Saturday, March 1, 2003
Sorry the audio is so poor.

The day before the show opened, the Plain Dealer ran a piece by Tony Brown -- a preview piece. The show hadn't opened, so he couldn't review it, but he had read the script and talked to me (I remember the interview, I was on break between classes presenting the residency program at Bay High School, hanging on the phone in the English Lit. office) and produced an article which felt like an actual review. It helped a great deal in getting the word out, and encouraging people to take the risk on seeing the show, and I have always been grateful to him for that.

It also meant that folks heard about the show who do not live here. I received a letter from a man who lives in North Carolina, who had read the piece online, and wanted to thank me for sharing this story which had much in common with his own. He and his ex-wife had lost a boy at 30 weeks. Our sons even shared first names, only he lost his boy in 1987. He told me a story of planning a lunch at his son's grave that last September when he would have been fifteen. At the last minute he impulsively bought a stuffed animal to have a present to leave at the site. (We do those things.)

As he placed the gift on the stone, he thought he heard a fifteen year-old boy say, "Dad! That is such an age-inappropriate gift." It was reading that letter that I understood, maybe for the first time, even after coping with this for almost two years, that it would always be this way. This will never end.

My correspondent did add, however, "Life is good."

The script for "I Hate This (a play without the baby)" is available from Amazon. 

Twenty-Thirteen

Last night we attended the second annual Talespinner Children's Theatre benefit at Mahall's in Lakewood. Theme for the evening was "Glam Rock" which for some reason the kids today confuse with Hair Metal ... my wife almost cried when we had to explain to one of our party exactly who David Bowie is.

Regardless, it was a tremendous evening. My favorite moment of the night was before we'd even left my parents' house, watching the girl spraying my wife with glitter in the driveway. Precious moments. I knew I wasn't going to swing any kind of Lou Reed look, I can't fit into those pants right now. But a headpiece in the education department rehearsal space gave me an idea, and so I cobbled together an ensemble inspired by Ming the Merciless. I am glad to say there were several on hand who didn't even recognize me at first glance.

Followers of this blog may notice a certain slacking off since Styles closed last March. Henry VIII inspired numerous entries about production, and there were the occasional events which warranted mention in a Cleveland-writing blog. But there's not much research going on, not much to share Just my day-job, and my home-life. This will all change very shortly.

Next year will be busy indeed. I have three productions in 2013, one of which was announced at the benefit last night and I am now free to discuss all of them.

"DOUBLE HEART (THE COURTSHIP OF BEATRICE AND BENEDICK)"

Every year, Great Lakes Theater offers a free play which tours 21 locations in Cuyahoga, Summit and Lorain Counties that is tied to themes represented in one of its mainstage productions. This March they will present Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Several years ago I saw a production and a certain exchange jumped out at me:

Don Pedro: Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.
Beatrice: Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for a single one.

And their history as lovers, or one potential history, was revealed to me. I was elated when Daniel gave me the green light ... on one condition.

He asked, "Can you write it in verse?"

Uh. Sure! And that's what I have done. One hour tragic romance told in verse, including humor both high and low, a sword fight, and dancing! For those who can't get enough of me, I will be playing four different roles in this one. Sigh.

"THESE ARE THE TIMES"

Yes. At long last, the so-called "Cleveland Centennial" which inspired this blog will come to a stage near you. You have three chances, March 7, 8 & 9 to experience this fictional panorama of Cleveland during its heyday at Cleveland Public Theatre.

Ten years ago, CPT started its popular Big Box series, giving local artists the opportunity to showcase new works. That year -- 2003 -- I had the unique chance to share my first solo production, I Hate This (a play without the baby). I can't express how excited an apprehensive I am about having the chance to get a reaction to this new piece from a Cleveland audience.

"ADVENTURES IN SLUMBERLAND"

For the 2013 Holiday Season, Talespinner Children's Theatre will present this world premiere adaptation, based upon characters created by Winsor McCay for his groundbreaking comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland. For Pandemonium I developed a five-minute treatment. It was a delightful experience, and made me feel confident that I could expand it into an hour-long piece for kids.

We decided not to use the name of the main character in the title, because everyone would think it was about a fish.

Last night at the benefit I won for Best Costume: Male. It's going to be quite a year.

October In The Chair

"October In The Chair" "by Lady Anna
The snows came, strong enough to postpone a family road trip to Bellefontaine, but not enough to keep us from making other plans. Cleveland Public Theatre's Big Box series is in full swing, this week presenting an hour-long adaptation of Neil Gaiman's short story October In The Chair.

We have a new friend in town this year, someone who went to grad school with the wife and who found a job here in Cleveland and moved from Boston, here to Cleveland to live and work. We will call her Kim. Kim also happens to be a big fan of Neil Gaiman, and she claims October In The Chair is her bestest, most favorite short story ever. What better night to show her the sights and excitement that is the Gordon Square Arts District?

Good Lord. I am a cupcake.

Speaking of cupcakes, while we were dining and drinking at the xyz (don't ask me what we ate or how good it was, I don't do that) I spotted a cheery band of Millennials sitting in the window, and in particular a woman sitting at the far end furious texting. I recognized her face - it was Amanda from Clue Into Cleveland! I'd never met her before.

I walked up and asked, "Are you a blogger?" We introduced ourselves, and professed our mutual admiration. She admitted Centennial confuses her, and I said that's all right. You just need to know exactly what I am thinking about at any one moment.

I mean, I'm my blog isn't that obtuse, is it? Could be worse. Could be even*cleveland.

I asked if she was going to see the show and she told me no, that they had just come from Progressive Field Snow Days and after warming up with cocktails at the XYZ Tavern they were going back to one of their stylish downtown loft apartments to cook up some locally sourced produce from the WSM.

I made that last part up. They were just going home after.

The Bog Box production was exactly what I wanted to see on a cold January evening, and just why I go to Cleveland Public Theatre. I do not know what to expect, I am always glad to see familiar faces on stage (and in the house) and to become acquainted with new artists.

Unfamiliar with this particular story, it was obviously Neil Gaiman. People representing abstract concepts (in this case, months of the Julian calendar) sit around and tell stories. You're not allowed to do that yourself, Neil Gaiman does that.

Produced by Danielle Hisey, Rose Sengenberger and Benjamin Gantose, this adaptation of October includes plentiful, enjoyable shadow plays. Part of the thrill of seeing a show at Big Box is knowing they have only a few days to knock their technical elements together, and to see how much our artists can accomplish using so little. Sheet, lanterns, ropes, lights and a generous amount of keenly-shaped luan to create sailing ships, mountains and graveyards.

The most delightful moment of the evening for me came when one of my favorite former actor-teachers, the honorable and decent Annie Hickey, playing a bridge troll, had to yell the word "SHIT!" into the face of our ten year-old protagonist.

The ending was a bit confusing -- I mean, not to me, I read Neil Gaiman, and if a live young boy has a conversation with a dead young boy, then that live young boy is either in the process of dying, or will be dead very soon. That's not a spoiler, Neil Gaiman does that. You're not allowed to do that. But the story ended so abruptly in this adaptation, it left me worried for all of the children sitting in the front row, just as I would have been if I had my own kids with me.

Why? Because the certainty of death is something my children understand. Fear of the unknown in this world is what scares them. Watching the boy walk into that decaying house is a symbol I understand. Receiving it on a literal basis (Boy Walks Into Scary House) and being left to imagine the monsters and terrors that await him would have meant for a long night sitting up with my shivering son.

I am very sorry I cannot use my pulpit to further promote this show, you should have seen it. I love seeing kids doing good acting onstage, it was so nice to be in the same room with Anne McEvoy and Robert Hawkes and Annie, as always, and there are some new faces that I am becoming accostumed to that I would like to see again.

They changed the schedule for Big Box this year or last to include a Thursday evening performance and to eliminate the Sunday matinee. You know what? That's right, screw old people, they don't want to see this new-fangled shit, anyways. I've done Big Box a few times and it is a drag to follow two sold-out evenings with a Sunday house of 10. Check out the complete BIG BOX 2012 schedule!

Afterthe show, our happy trio ambled up the frozen Cleveland boulevard to imbibe bourbon soda pop at Luxe.


Bonus: New specs.