Ridin' on the Christmas Train

And now we arrive at A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CAROL.  The show was at Centerstage North (where I'd done TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, BABY, and where I went on to do THE FANTASTICKS in February 2011).  It ran in December 2010.  I had committed to doing another Christmas show.  Then I got an email out of the blue from Sarah, who had directed me in BABY, and was directing ACCC.  She asked me if I'd landed a holiday gig yet, because she had a role for me in ACCC.  She told me about the rehearsal and performance schedule, and I told her that I can do all performances, but rehearsals would be hairy for me until Ramona QuimBee performances were done.  I said "are you ok with these conflicts?"  She said "yes to everything, as long as you can do the show during the whole run, I can work around literally anything during rehearsals."  I then told her that I was already committed to doing another show, but I'd rather do her show because I liked the rehearsal/performance schedule better.  (If I'd stuck with Show #1, I'd have been unable to go to Blue Ridge with my family over Thanksgiving weekend.)

Without disclosing all the details of the negotiation, I'll just say that with every curve ball I threw at Sarah, she came back at me with a counter-curve which one-upped everything I said and made it better for me to do her show.  So I cut my ties with Show #1 (rehearsals hadn't even started yet and I hadn't signed anything yet), and joined A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CAROL without looking back.

The show is exactly what it sounds like - a countrified Xmas Carol.  It's set in Marley County, Texas.  Eb Scrooge is a mean old geezer.  Very rich and stingy.  He works his most devoted employee (a single mother named Bobbie Jo) to the bone, and when his drunk nephew Dwight stops by every Christmas Eve to wish him a Merry Christmas and invite him over, he refuses.  You can figure out the rest.  I didn't mention it's a musical.

I thought the script sucked, most of the songs sucked, and (with no disrespect intended toward anybody - people did the best they could with the resources they had) some of the production values sucked.  I'm thinking in particular of some of the performers who wore a huge headset/microphone (the kind usually reserved for stage manangers) and passed it off as a "body mic."

I was telling my wife that it was going to be a so-bad-it's-good show, like The Room.  As a show, it wasn't one of my favorites, but the people in the cast were all lovely people, and I got so much bang for my buck doing this show.  I played Dwight (the "Fred" counterpart) and Young Eb.  I missed most of the rehearsals, got to come in late, kiss a good-looking Australian girl, play arguably the 2 best roles in the show, and got one of the best reviews of my career.  It certainly wasn't the worst holiday show I participated in.  It's not one I list on any bios or resumes, but for a couple of reasons, it's a "slightly guilty pleasure" show of mine.  Here are some pictures.

A collage somebody in the cast made:

A group picture.  I was in the middle of getting dressed for the Dwight character and had to come out for this group pic.  This was at the beginning of the first of a 2-show day, where I'd just come from working a 6am shift at the restaurant.  I really was as tired as I look here.

Me as Dwight.

Another one as Dwight.

Me as Young Eb with the dying Fan (or whatever her character was - maybe it was Fan, or Fannie)

Me as Dwight.

Me as Young Eb, with Shaillie Thompson as Belle.

Me as Young Eb.

Ramona QuimBee

When last I left you, I was double-rehearsing for RAMONA QUIMBY and THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE.  I so cleverly nicknamed it the Ramona QuimBee project.  I rehearsed Ramona for 4 hours in the morning, have about a 4 hour break in the afternoon (not quite long enough to make it worth it to go home, but certainly long enough to eat Chick Fil-A then be bored for 3 1/2 hours), and then Bee rehearsal was in the evening.

The music for Bee was deceptively challenging.  I truly thought at first that I wouldn't be able to get it together by opening night, and that the music director made a mistake by hiring me to play keyboard for it.  I lived, breathed, and agonized over that score, but I didn't give up, and by the time we were about to start previews, I got so confident with the music that when there was a rehearsal called with just me and no band, I was wishing that there wasn't a band at all and that I could just play the whole show by myself.  As a bandleader, it was an exercise in learning to deal with a variety of personalities.  I'm trying to be diplomatic here, so enough said about that.  I'm grateful for that exercise.  Linda, the music director, has taught me more than she's probably aware of.  I learned a lot of what I know about being an accompanist just by watching her.

The cast from Spelling Bee was so nice and welcoming.  They treated me like I was just as important as them every step of the way.

Ramona and Bee had overlapping runs.  I think I literally had a couple of 16 or 17 show weeks.  RQ toured around to schools (in a van), then did a week of shows at the Teaching Museum in Roswell, and then finally ended with a week of performances at the home of Georgia Ensemble Theatre - right in front of the Spelling Bee set.  The Teaching Museum was exactly what it sounds like.  We took a field trip there during rehearsals just to see it, and we walked in the auditorium and were greeted with 44 life-size President cardboard cut-outs - everyone from Washington to Obama.  On our performance week, we had 2 dressing rooms.  We started out in a happy lovey cheerful Dr. Seuss room, and then due to something about space availability, we had to be moved to a replica of Anne Frank's attic.   Not as playful of a vibe there.

I loved the QuimBee project, and was sad when the Ramona part especially was over.  RQ, believe it or not, turned out to be one of my favorite shows of my career.  I treasure the experience, and the cast is one of the 6 best ensemble casts I've been a part of in my 22 year, 95 show career.  It was a hard one to say goodbye to.

[Hopefully] Enclosed are a couple of pictures.  One is of the entire cast and crew of Spelling Bee, and the other one was taken from Ramona Quimby: The Last Supper.  I had a great time writing about this - it really took me back.  Next up, A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS CAROL...

The Off-Season

So, it's been more than 2 years since my last post, though there's been plenty to talk about.  Other than an upcoming school production of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in which I'm playing in the orchestra, I have nothing theatre-related lined up, so I'm going to be spending the "off-season" catching you up on the projects I've had since my last post (which was about RAMONA QUIMBY).  I'll probably make one entry for each show.  There have been some very special ones along the way that I can't wait to tell you about.  Watch this space.

M-M-M-Myyyyyyyy Ramona

I've had so much to say since May. I resolve to do a better job with updating this thing, much like I'm newly keeping on top with writing on my FaceFriends' walls on their birthday to wish them a HB. I'll just talk about what I'm doing now, and when I'm in the "off season" between projects, I'll catch you up.

I am pretty much living at GA Ensemble Theatre now. I'm an actor in RAMONA QUIMBY (the Theatre For Youth department which will tour schools around the area, and perform at both the teaching museum in Roswell and the Cultural Arts Center, home of GET), and I'm playing the keyboard for THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE (their mainstage show). Honestly, it's a little bittersweet that I couldn't be considered for an acting role in Spelling Bee because of my musician situation, but it works out very well for me financially this way.

Our last dress rehearsal for Ramona (before we take it on the road Monday) is tomorrow. I auditioned for this show for fun - because I was invited, and to inevitably see and enjoy the company of people I know at the audition. It was a fun audition. Lo and behold, I got cast. I don't know why, but I am enjoying myself more than I ever have in my history of kid's shows, and even more than some of the grown-up shows I've done. This process has left me filled to the brim with delight every day. When rehearsal ends, I feel a twinge of sadness, and I feel a rush of anticipatory excitement as I drive to rehearsals every morning.

No idea why.

Laurel Farley Crowe is our director. I've had the pleasure of being directed by her dad 3 times (or 2 1/2 times, or 2 times, depending on how you look at it), but this is my first time being directed by her. She says she was the Assistant Director for GREASE, but I honestly don't remember seeing that much of her during that. She tells me that's how she wanted it - she was the invisible woman off in the shadows not saying much, just observing, taking it all in, and occasionally giving her dad feedback. She's a pretty new director - this is only her second time directing. She told me she feels nervous apprehension - what she described to me sounds pretty much what I went through at the beginning of my directing career. I told her that with each show you direct, it will get a little bit better.

Hayley Brotherton is our stage manager. She was one of the ASMs for both Buddys, and for the rock and roll show that we rehearsed but didn't get to do. She was a major factor in making the backstage crew for Buddy #1 literally the best backstage crew I've ever worked with. They NEVER ONCE made me feel like I was in the way, or that I was overwhelming her with my questions/requests. I would say thank you, and all of them would say "No problem. I'm here for YOU."

The cast of RAMONA QUIMBY is off the chain.

Phillip Justman plays a couple roles, but spends most of his time as Mr. Quimby. If you saw either production of BUDDY: THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY, he's the tall Crispin Glover lookalike who stole the show with his unique dance stylings. He also played the most intense radio DJ in existence, in the Apollo scene.

Claire Rigsby is our Ramona - one of only 2 people in the show who only plays one role. I get to play opposite her as both 8-year-old Howie (Ramona's best friend) and future uncle Hobart, who Ramona spends most of the play disliking. One of the best director's notes I've heard was when Laurel told Claire to make sure the front of her overalls doesn't ride down throughout the course of the show, because the illusion that she is 8 will vanish and it will be obvious that she's a nicely "developed" young lady in her 20s.

Mary Saville (who I worked with in 2004 in the show about the big boat that sank) plays my mother, my grandmother, my classmate, an uptight bridal shop owner, and Mrs. Quimby. She is doing an impressive job with different voices for the characters. I wanted her to be in my production of CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, but the stars didn't quite align for that. It's nice to be back with her again in this. She's a smart, courteous, unassuming person and one of the most supportive fellow actors ever. She'll come and see you in anything, and usually does.

Sarah Wallis is Beezus (Ramona's older sister), and probably wins the award for most energy in the cast. She was an intern at Actor's Express during the 09-10 season, and she worked on GREY GARDENS, which I was a part of, but I didn't see much of her. I think she spent most of her time in a little booth in the distance operating a spotlight. But she's wonderful in this - she carries the show, as Beezus - being the narrator - has to.

Paige Mattox as Aunt Bea, the teacher, and the waitress at the Whopperburger is absolutely phenomenal. She impresses me every day with her versatility in the different voices she uses in her roles. The hardass teacher, the cool aunt, the ditzy waitress - she nails them all. I feel very fortunate to get to interact with her pretty extensively in this show, as a lot of our characters cross paths. She was also an intern at AE, and I do remember her during GG, but I sadly didn't get to know that intern company nearly as much as I got to know the previous two I worked with (in ZANNA, DON'T and HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH). Paige is fabulous - she'll be playing Maureen in RENT this December with Fabrefaction Theatre Company, a community theater that is downtown somewhere.

Off to bed for the night - another day of double-rehearsing awaits me tomorrow. I'll continue to give you a taste of what's going on as it all happens.

The Long Drift

Sorry for the long delay with no updating - I'm very angry at myself for that. It certainly hasn't been for lack of things to talk about. I might forget some things and/or plug some holes in later, but here's what's been going on since the last post.

BABY happened. It was wonderful, of course, and I made some great friends. What was supposed to be our opening night was canceled due to snow. I think it's proof that God has a sense of humor. I can just picture Him up there, saying to me: "You've been waiting 7 1/2 years to play this role. I think I'll have you wait one more day." I was angry about the situation, but it's nobody's fault - just something that happens. Nothing I could do but chuckle and say "Good one, God!" I, of course, was the one telling everybody the night before "Nothing will get canceled. We'll be fine. The show will happen." I suck at predicting things. We got one review. I'm very disappointed we didn't get more than one, but at least we got something. You can read it here. On the closing night party, I got unofficially cast in their musical for next year, so I'll be doing that (unless I get some fantastic or extremely lucrative offer that I absolutely can't turn down). I'm not sure if I'm allowed to talk about it completely yet. Let's just say I can't wait and that this theater seems to be the Dream Role Genie for me.

We rehearsed GREASE for 3 weeks, and were all locked and loaded to start that run, when the rights were pulled at the last minute and the show ended up not happening. On one of our days off, the Monday before we were to start previews, we got the official e-mail from the theatre that the show was being suspended. I've heard of productions in this town being canceled, but those have always happened months before rehearsals have begun. This was the first time I'd heard of a situation like this. It's a long story and one that I still don't 100% understand (though I still get a little bit more information here and there), but the theater owners, bless their hearts, did everything they could to try to keep this production alive, and few people seemed more brokenhearted about it than them. They have apologized several times to me - both individually and as part of a group. In my opinion, any apology from them is unnecessary. We were told a few days before the final cancellation that the production was in jeopardy. I thought for sure it'll be fine, the show will happen, and we'll laugh about this down the road. I suck at predicting things.

The night after we found out the plug had been pulled, we all agreed to gather at the theatre and do one last run-through. It was the loosest run-through I've ever participated in, and an absolutely wonderful time had by all in the face of some really shitty circumstances. I'll tell you some stories from that night some time.

The remount of BUDDY: THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY (from the same theatre company who was to mount GREASE), began rehearsals a couple of weeks later, and is enjoying a run at Atlanta's 14th Street Playhouse right now. A sad and shocking chapter to the GREASE situation happened recently when Shayne Kohout, who was to have played our Rizzo, died unexpectedly on May 13. She was 33. It hit extra close to home for us Buddy people - many of whom were from GREASE. On the 14th, when we all heard the news, the artistic director and his wife made a special trip down to the theater to be with us that night and talk to us about it. We all agreed to dedicate that performance to Shayne. It was one of the most difficult times to do a show. Many people were quite visibly upset, and all that were there felt sorrow and love whether they had the pleasure of knowing Shayne or not. I don't know about anyone else, but she didn't leave my mind the whole night. Every word of dialogue and note played from me was with Shayne in the forefront of my thoughts. We did a cool thing at the end of the show. Many of us wore sunglasses for the last two songs (Johnny B. Goode and Oh Boy), in honor of Shayne, who spent most of GREASE (as Rizzo) wearing shades. Then before Oh Boy, Rob - who plays Buddy - said something like "we'd like to send this last number out to a good friend of us all, Shayne Kohout. Let's give it up for Shayne!" This was followed by some nice applause, and then we jumped into the classic Buddy Holly tune and did probably our most emotionally charged performance ever.

These BUDDY people are great. Always there with a funny comment or story, and always there to laugh at my funny comments and stories.

In a couple weeks, I start rehearsals for HAMLET! THE MUSICAL! at the Shakespeare Tavern, and I'll be auditioning for THE BOYS NEXT DOOR at Georgia Ensemble (one of my favorite plays).

Time to get ready to go Buddying.

This post has no title, just words and a tune

Couldn't think of a title for this one. I'd be very impressed if anyone caught that reference without having to look it up.

BABY rehearsals are going well. I need a thesaurus and Google handy whenever I'm around the director. She's very British. I have to listen very closely when she's talking to me, because she might ask me a question and if I'm not on my toes, I won't realize she's asked me a question, because of the way people from that side of the pond tend to speak questions like a declarative sentence, and then tack "are you" at the end. Such as, "You're comfortable with Amanda, are you?" I could tell you many expressions I've gotten from her, but my favorite Sarah-ism was what is apparently the British equivalent of "what am I, chopped liver?" She was giving somebody an idea of what might be their inner thought process in a scene, and came out with "so you're over here thinking 'what am I, scotch mist?'"

I have no idea what scotch mist is - I still haven't Googled it, but I'm picturing somebody pouring Scotch into a spray bottle and misting it around.

I am off-book ish. Off book per se, for all intents and purposes. I can do the run-throughs with no script in hand, but I'm still off to the side looking things over between scenes.

PARADE closed last Sunday. It was a nice closing. There's this sentimental positive Hallmark movie feeling people get when something is ending, and they know they're about to not see as much of each other for a while. Knowing the finality of it inspires people to get eloquent and say the nicest things about each other that they hadn't said yet. This is why messages written in school yearbooks are always so nice, as well as statements people make after somebody dies. I got plenty of those, including from people I wasn't sure I'd hear nice things from. 2 days before closing, I stumbled upon my fellow music director's personal blog.

You see, when the reviews for this show came out, most of the critics were mentioning me and not her. This is likely because I was the only MD for the first half of the rehearsal process. Mid-way through, this girl (who was already in the cast) was brought on board to take some of the burden off me and help out. But by then, most if not all the press releases, flyers, and stuff for the program had been printed with my name prominently displayed. I felt bad about the lack of attention she was getting from the reviewers, so I posted a comment on our local theater reviewing site praising her. I called her the unsung hero of this production, etc. I'd wanted to do that for a while, and it felt good to get that out. A few hours later, I happen upon her blog and sure enough, she seemed to be feeling like scotch mist because of the whole thing. She had a little blurb about me and how much credit I'd been receiving. It was factually true, but I reverted back to my insecure feelings back in mid-December when I was stressing out like crazy thinking people didn't think I knew what I was doing, or didn't like me. Left me in a strange vibe for Friday's show. I posted a comment under the blog which was pretty much a shorter version of what I said on the public site. So she now knows I read it, but she didn't know until it was brought to her attention that I publicly lauded her on the theater review site. I just hope it is known that I posted that before I discovered her blog, so it wasn't just lip service.

It was a minor crisis in my head while it was happening, but I had nothing to worry about. After the closing performance, I said how I felt bad about the lopsided recognition the musical direction was getting from the critics, and she said something like don't feel bad, you did a lot of work for this show, and it sounded great. She actually said she would like the idea of working with me again, and she has RSVPed to my Facebook invite to come and see BABY. She's one of the few "confirmed guests."

The feeling is mutual. She was an absolute life-saver, and I literally couldn't have done it without her. I'm sorry she didn't get more kudos. She certainly deserved at least as much as I did.

Soon, I'll catch you up on the movies I've watched recently. If you know me, you know I always have an opinion about movies.

Baby pictures - too lazy to figure out the caption thing today