The Director Sector

Last night I had the honor of seeing The House Theatre’s “The Rose and the Rime”.  When I walked into the theatre, I saw these men and women dressed from head to toe in white and, quite frankly, it made me think “Oh geez, this is gonna be lame.”

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The show opens with Rose (Carolyn Defrin) chasing bunny rabbits in the snow and then returning home on her birthday.  The opening sequence of Rose walking through town and being cheerily greeted by the townspeople reminded me of the opening sequences of those classic Christmas films that we’ve all watched when we were kids (and sometimes still watch today).  Like those sequences, everything in The Rose and the Rime’s first few minutes is portrayed as hunky-dory, happy-go-lucky, everything’s-perfect life in a small town in winter.

Also like those movies, when the opening sequence is over, we find that Radio Falls isn’t quite as cheerful and perfect as we thought.

Rose’s uncle tells her the same story he tells Rose every year, but this year, Rose wants to know more.  As her uncle expands the story she’s always heard, Rose begins to suspect that this isn’t just a fairy tale — it’s a true story.

The rest of the show deals with her adventures in finding the secrets within the story and the aftermath of her discoveries.

I’ve read other reviews and talked to at least one other person about the show, and the consensus seems to be that it’s too cute.  The first few minutes are too cute.  The beach scenes are too cute.  Everything’s too cute.

I couldn’t disagree more.

This is a fairy tale — it lends itself to cuteness.  It’s darkness is only dark compared to its light-hearted beginnings.   From the moment Rose began chasing the bunny at the beginning, until the (adjective redacted) ending, I was pulled along for the ride, the cutesy moments tickled my inner child and the more serious moments brought back thoughts of consequences and lessons learned.  With the exception of the summer scene in the middle (which I felt was about 5-10 minutes too long), I was entranced from start to finish and gripped by the story of Rose and her people.

The choreography was inspired, the music used creatively and excellently performed by the cast, the costumes were spot-on.  In short, it was one of the best put-together productions I’ve seen since I arrived in Chicago.  More than once I found myself thinking “Wow! That’s a great idea!” as Rose threw her bag across a gaping chasm, climbed a mountainside, survived a blizzard and tossed around the magic coin.

The magic coin, by the way, was awesome.

The ensemble did their jobs perfectly, flowing from “snow fairies” to townspeople and back with ease.  Their characterizations were memorable and creative, their dancing was great, and they set the mood in each scene perfectly.  I was really impressed with their musical abilities, especially the bottle scene.  Great stuff.

Don’t let the term “fairy tale” fool you.  This story is a little dark for little kids, but if you walk into this show with an open mind and expecting a compelling story, superlative acting, and artistic vision worthy of… well… me, then you won’t be disappointed.  Let your inner child enjoy the experience.

It’s worth it.

Last night was our first blocking rehearsal for Devilvet’s Devils Don’t Forget.  As assistant director, I just waited and watched and kept my own counsel while I watched Devilvet block the first few scenes.  

And let me just say this, folks.  This show is going to be good.  

The actors came in ready to work and acted professionally from the moment they entered the room until the moment they left.  And even before and after, I’d imagine.

I’ve mostly been on the receiving end of directors’ instructions, but during the times I’ve been behind the wheel, so to speak, it’s been difficult to get actors to remember staging directions, to get them off-book and to develop that chemistry that performers need to bring that extra jazz and energy to the stage. 

Scene after scene, Devilvet gave instructions and didn’t have to repeat himself.   The chemistry between the lead guy and the girl was palpable, even as the pair held scripts in their hands!  By the time we’d blocked the scene, they’d mostly put down the scripts or, if they held them, didn’t look at them often.  They remembered the blocking without mistakes and adapted to Devilvet’s direction instantly.  Let’s just say I’m very impressed.

Don’t let me mislead you.  There were plenty of things that came up that need to be worked on — it was the first blocking rehearsal, after all!  The actors still had scripts in their hands, they were still working out the kinks and quirks in their characters, and they still had to conform to Devilvet’s vision.  However, the potential is staggering.

Since I’ve never worked with Devilvet before, I decided to keep my trap shut, watch, and shared my observations after the rehearsal.  Good choice, I think.

Regardless, I’m looking forward to helping Devilvet shape this show into something you guys would be excited about and that will leave a… memorable… impression upon you.

Until next time.

I sat down on the third row, house-right next to Devilvet.  The set was dimly lit in the house lights.  Empty bottles were everywhere — on tables, on desks, on the refrigerator and even on the floor.  A picture of Jesus Christ was on the wall near the stairwell, with its light out.   The room portrayed on stage had all the elements of a lived-in home of alcoholics.

Fortunately, that’s exactly what the play contained.

The lights went out and slowly rose up and the show began.

The Seafarer by Conor McPherson addresses a group of old, alcoholic friends, one of whom is the object of the devil’s obsession.  Sharky’s soul is in the balance during a card game with his inebriated, oblivious friends and the devil himself.

Despite an initial acclimation period where I had to take time to adjust to their Irish accents, the show was phenomenal.  The Steppenwolf lived up to its reputation for quality theatre, putting on an excellent production of McPherson’s tale.

I thought that the weakest character was Nicky, whose purpose seemed to be only to introduce the antagonist and frustrate the protagonist.  However, once Sharky faced off against his nemesis halfway through Act 1, I was hooked.  The tension was overwhelming.

I didn’t leave my seat at intermission, as I was pondering the implications of the first act and turning over possibilities in my mind as to how Sharky would avoid losing his soul.

The second act lived up to my expectations.  While I didn’t shed a tear at the end, I sympathized strongly with Sharky’s plight and was rooting for his success the entire while.

I’ll leave the details of the second act to you, my dear reader, as an exercise of buying a damn ticket to the Steppenwolf production of The Seafarer.  Do it.

Do it now.

Or I’ll eat your soul.

My day job deals in the futures market for live events.  Seeing as how I had no idea what that was before I started here, I’ll give a short description and example.

Let’s say you want to see the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLIV.  At our website, you buy dibs — or reservation — on face-value tickets to see the Bears at the Super Bowl.  The reservation cost for Super Bowl tickets generally starts out at 20 bucks.

You buy dibs on the Bears at the Super Bowl.  If the Bears make it, you’re only paying $20 + face value for the ticket.  How much is street value for Super Bowl tickets?  At least a thousand bucks.  If the Bears don’t make it, you’re only out $20.  The condition here is that the Bears make it to the Super Bowl.  If they make it, you get tickets.  If they don’t, you don’t get tickets.

This is genius for us, because it allows us to sell the same tickets more than once.  There are 32 teams in the NFL Playoffs.  That means for the Super Bowl, we can sell the same tickets 32 times.  We only have to pay out for the two teams that make it to the Super Bowl.  If each reservation goes for $20, and we sell 100 tickets per team, then we’ve made $60,000 per team and had to pay out $4,000 in tickets.   Make sense?

We’ve decided to branch out into other markets, including music concerts and theatre.   

So here are my questions to you guys:

1)  Would this model be interesting to you?   

I understand that most of you don’t want to take money from patrons if they’re not going to get anything in return (unless, of course, they’re donating money).  Totally understandable, and I even agree with you.  However, think about it this way:  You don’t have to guarantee all your tickets.  Just take however many tickets you usually wind up with at the end of each run and put them up.  Say you have capacity for 300 seats over the course of the run, but you usually only sell about 250 tickets.  You can put the other 50 up with our system — you probably weren’t going to sell them anyway).   This way, you’re only putting up tickets that probably wouldn’t have sold in the first place — win/win situation!  The minimum reservation fee is $5, so you’d get (5 dollars) x (number of tickets reserved) x ( possible outcomes ).  This leads to my next question.

2)  What conditions, if any, could be imposed on storefront theatre to determine who gets tickets?

There has to be a condition.  We don’t sell tickets — just reservations.  There has to be at least two possible outcomes, or else the whole model is pointless.   This is the part we’re struggling with.  For larger theatre organizations, like Broadway in Chicago and The Goodman, we can set up a “If Show X comes to town before 2012, we guarantee face value tickets”.  In fact, as far as I’m aware, we already have a set-up like that with Broadway in Chicago.  The question here is for storefront theatres.  What conditions can be established on a storefront theatre, most of whom generally focus on world or regional premieres?  How would anyone else know about those to request them?  The “If Show X comes to town” condition wouldn’t work here.  

What other conditions could there be?

As I said, I understand that some of you are opposed to this idea.  It sounds like gambling.  It kind of is, except instead of getting cash, you’re getting tickets.  However, many theatres already do this kind of thing.  Wicked, for example, would raffle tickets an hour before the show.  I think that if thought out properly, this model could generate some much needed extra cash for shows, generate publicity (through our website), and give more people an opportunity to attend our shows.

What do you guys think?

I’ve realized that I really suck at the whole review thing, so I’m basically just gonna say that you all need to see  “Maria’s Field” by TUTA.  While the concept of the play isn’t exactly my thing (literally tying space and time together), the rest of the show was phenomenal:  acting, scenery, costumes, etc.  Great stuff.  Tickets aren’t that expensive ($15, I think) and you can grab them the DCA Theater.
Last night I went to see “And They Put Handcuffs On The Flowers” by The Right Brain Project.  It was pretty amazing.  Again, I suck at reviews, so I’ll just leave it at “Amazing.”

Afterward, Bob and I went with the cast to a bar where we proceeded to… okay, I take that back.. where THEY proceeded to drink (and I watched).  The first little bit was a little awkward for me, because I’m not great at social situations like bars.  Partly because I don’t drink.

Anyway, I met a ton of my fellow bloggers and got to see a few people I hadn’t seen in awhile, so all-in-all, it was a great great evening.

This coming weekend I’m going to try and make a performance of Touch, as I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews about the show, from the direction of Jessica Hutchinson to the lights and sound to Dan Granata’s Don-Hall-Bawling-Like-A-Baby inducing performance.  I’m really looking forward to it and to getting back out there and into theatre again.
If any of you readers in Chicago want to meet up for dinner, drinks, shows, or just plain sit around and talk, hit me up.

More thoughts to come soon.