My Blue Castle

It's sort of sad but also the way my life is going lately, when I end up being linked on an LJ of someone living in Chicago to something that is taking place in my town (sort of) ... but thanks to copperbadge 's monday linkie post ... I now have a ticket for a screening of a televised performance of the National Theater's production of Frankenstein starrring Benedict Cumberbatch!

He and Jonny Lee Miller are alternating Frankenstein and the monster/beast. Can't tell from my local performing arts center's crap description which way it'll be when I see it ... but whichever way it is cast I think it'll be fascinating. Read some review just now that said the script is  a bit weak, but time will tell I guess. So March 27th I'll be sitting here in Central PA watching a performance of a show in London (um. I'm assuming). Anyway...

Pretty much all anyone had to say were the words "Benedict Cumberbatch." LOL

Linkie: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/jan/17/a-monster-role-frankenstein-danny-boyle
( piccie under the cut. )

So I'm back in the land of community theater. Went to auditions Friday night with no real expectations.

This particular group has a mass audition in the spring and casts it's whole summer's worth of theater in one fell swoop. So depending on whether you are going for a play or a musical, you have different hurdles to get past. Since I only ever audition for plays I don't have to do the dance and singing auditions, which makes it one stop shopping for me. But you still have to sit in a room and have four directors looking at you as you read for 45 seconds and they move on to the next person in your group.

And there's the usual flurry of paperwork and picture taking when you arrive. Then you stand around clutching script pages in damp hands (it was VERY warm in the waiting room) until they come around and call your name. I happened to get there the same night as my BFF. I hadn't seen him since January, so it was nice to get a chance to catch up.

We were there the second weekend of auditions, and we were only auditioners 40 and 41. This rather explains the personal Facebook note from the prez of the organization to me asking if I would be attending, I think. Over and above the fact that we did a show together year before last and had a great time.

Anyway, you do you thing, with the usual standard speech about "just because we don't read you for a particular role doesn't mean we're not considering you for that show. We can tell a lot from your audition, from whatever reading we give you." Which is true and all, but it does rather mean that your chances of getting cast come down to a reading of maybe a minute or two in length. It's a distinctly unfair process to newcomers. If you've already worked with a director, they know what you can do ... if you're an unknown quantity, you've got to sell yourself IMMEDIATELY. And if you happen to get a reading that's not a good fit -- or as has happened to me, you're reading with someone really inexperienced -- it can be hard to break through. But that's the way the cookie crumbles in this kind of a set up.

In years past, the directors have gone right from the Saturday morning auditions into the casting room where they all sit around and fight over the talent pool. This year they waited a day, so we didn't get our calls until Sunday afternoon. So right after I got to my parents house for Sunday dinner, my phone rang, and lo and behold it was the director who's cast me in 4 out of the 5 shows I've been in with this group! Not having done any prep work for auditions I had no idea what the part was that I was agreeing to. She just said "I want you to be Eva, one of the sisters" and I said yes.

The play is Mrs McThing ... and I haven't read a really good synopsis yet. It was written by Mary Chase of Harvey fame. Something about witches and gangsters and a boy turned into a Stepford-y version of himself. I found an excerpt on Google books which had a bit of some of my lines, from which I can see that I am the bossy sister (of three), and that "Radcliffe taught us how to dress." Over-dressed and bossy. Hmmm... Okay, make with the wise-cracks. LOL. Hey ... Helen Hayes was the lead in the show when it was on Broadway in the 50s. Also Ernest Borgnine and Fred Gwynne -- who went on to be in a little show called The Munsters. I sort of hate hokeyness.... but it's summer theater in a BARN for goodness sakes...

Also good is that the BFF is also in the show as the mobster man. Of course he's also in Streetcar as Mitch, so he gets to be busier than I this summer. They did a lot of double casting, especially among the men, but that could be partially because the first show the season is Twelve Angry Men. Which needs at least 13 men. That's a LOT for a smallish community theater to put together, especially when there are three other plays and two other musicals to cast. And I about fell over when I saw the chorus of 30 in Hello, Dolly. Where they're going to put them all I just don't know. The "stage" (it's theater in the round, so it's more like "the open bit in the middle of the seats") is like 20 by 30 feet. It's TINY. But the way these things go, the more actors, the more audience, especially when there are kids in the chorus, so you have to factor that into the formula.

I get to go and pick up my script tomorrow, so I'll be able to tell more then what I'm in for. But it's going to be one wacky May/June!!

So unless I type like a hellucat... I will probably not get this posted today (too much time reading about my flist's interesting lives... me I just sit inna corner punching buttons).

So opening night went ok. Perfectionist me prompts me to fess up that the clock chime cue was four seconds late that first performance. Which sounds like nothing... but four seconds for an actor waiting on stage for the cue that prompts their next line... eternity. But no sub-etheric resonators were damaged by this small flux in time... so no lasting worries. (And I nailed the fuck out of that cue second show today).

Pretty good houses -- for this particular group. They do small shows, and we do it in a small room -- we're at somewhere around 50 seats max with this particular set up. So 44 for opening night, and then 22 for the matinee and 19 for tonight's performance are OK numbers. And I think we've already sold 35 for tomorrow. So yay. (petty me likes that the better the show sells, the more of a honorarium I usually get. far thinking me is glad for the co-artistic directors that run this outfit!)

Ah. The set. I have pictures. Well... I'll post A picture and you can fill in your own thousand words. The flash from my camera makes it look a lot starker than it really is. Dig out some bastard amber gelz and put them in your 3-D glasses and look again for correct levels of moody awesomeness. I picked this one -- which is taken from my little seat in the corner -- mostly as it actually includes one lighting fixture you can identify as "theatrical." And that's the annoying fixture that keeps whining all the time. Stupid lights.

Oh, what the hell... I like my staging of Emily's desk... so here 'tis...




So the theater thing has pretty much eaten my weekend so far, and it will kill tomorrow what with another matinee. Then we get to pack it all up and take the week off. I will be so glad to get my life back when this is over. I have writing to be doing, and lots of teevee I should be looking at.

But as long as we can keep annoying the audiences with a certain amount of participation, it continues to be a hoot. You should see them when we hand them recipe cards and pencils and make them write down the longest fruitcake recipe known to mankind. (It calls for 19 eggs and bakes for 7 hours... ) They freak out. But we give them samples. Well, of something close. And it's cake baked by a guy who just got home from the hospital LAST WEEK after open heart surgery.

Theater with love and cake. Does it get any better?

And I'll close with another stanza from the "bits of emily's poetry that didn't make the final cut" department:

Perhaps the "Kingdom of Heaven's" changed --
I hope the "Children" there
Won't be "old fashioned" when I come
And laugh at me -- and stare

 So I finally got (got around to) watching the first three episodes {thanks Netflix} of "Slings and Arrows."

My more erudite/knowledgeable/drama-heavy theater pals had seen this Canadian satire and have been raving about it for nigh on years.

Being a theater nut, any fond insider-trading type satirical nonsense is always good. {drunk and raving stage managers a definite plus} I wrote down... "Six Feet Under meets Waiting for Guffman" as I watched the first episode. Took a couple of episodes to get rolling and get all the cast introduced, but I have a feeling its only going to keep getting funnier. And having the lead character be an ex-actor who cracked up playing Hamlet having to deal with being haunted by his former friend who was run over by a Ham semi truck is just a delightful piece of nonsense.

and those stuffed sheep in the giftshop... la... too funny... apparently I am one of the 41% of the 81% of people who visit the gift shop who want one...

it's no "Noises Off" ... or on the literary end of things "Downwind of Upstage" ... but it's a definite giggler if you are at all into the absurd business of show business...

[and of course being all Whovian and whatnot lately the words "Tennant" "Shakespeare" and "Hamlet" have a whole 'nother level of resonance...]