Day Off - 1/29/06

Fairmont, VA - Upon waking up this morning, the sound of rain pattering off the roof combined with the grey light struggling to peek through the blinds meant I had a tough decision to make. Should I go out on the field trip arranged by some of the theatre students to a local state park for hiking and sightseeing? Or should I play it safe, nurse my aching and dripping sinuses, and stay in bed for another hour? Well, the fact that I am writing this at the moment already tells you what decision I made. I wussed out and decided to linger in bed that extra hour. It's a bit disappointing, since I really enjoy hiking and wanted to get somewhere off campus before I left Fairmont, and the last four days have really been sunny and relatively warm. But I felt I couldn't take the risk to go out in damp 40-degree weather. I've really not the gear for it, and I can't risk catching another cold. So, having already poured and downed the cup of coffee that I saved in my thermos from yesterday (still a bit warm!), I decided to spend this hour before the Falcon Center opens for breakfast writing in the blog and catching you up with the rest of the week. Always thinking of my reader(s).

We've completed our set of evening performances, and I must say that the audience response has been incredibly effusive. We're a big hit in Fairmont. The Thursday night performance of Planet was greeted with much laughter and enjoyment. Greg's William Shatner imitations brought down the house. But it was a funny show in some respects plagued with these little troubles: Alyssa's first dress had a busted zipper, so she had to wear Jessica's dress from MA; Greg's uniform pants split right up the crotch during my first entrance and song, and when I finished the number he was gone from the stage, so we all had to do a little ad-libbing until he returned in jeans and his leather jacket over his uniform top; I forgot my X-Factor bottle and so had to empty a pill vial backstage as a substitute. Stuff like that. Richard III was greeted with attentive seriousness. I believe they liked Andrew's weird humor in his characterization, and it was a good audience in that the lanuage held their attention.Much Ado was greeted with a storm of audience laughter and enthusiasm that was off the charts. We had to hold for laughter so many times in Much Ado that I think we added maybe 10 minutes or more to the running time. We also got a late start because the line to get in and see the show was out the building. The house was sold out. They told me backstage after the gulling scene with Benedick that it took me 90 seconds to get out the line "My Lord, will you walk?" which concludes the scene. Tyler had ended up in the audience with his butt sticking up in the air over a row of seats, and Daniel, Greg and I lost it on stage, me most of all , I guess. I made one attempt to get the final line out, but the audience just continued to laugh at the sight of Tyler in the air like that. Just about every funny line in the play was greeted with gales of laughter. It was almost surreal. And when we got to the wedding scene and the rejection of Hero, you could hear a pin drop. It was quite a way to wrap up three nights of performances. On top of that, last night Jessica and I (with Alyssa's help) sold $617.00 worth of merchandise, which I believe has to be an all-time record for a single night's sales on any tour. The two autographed copied of the Arden MA scripts went, we are out of small tour T-shirts, mugs, etc. When we packed up our merch bins the amount of room now in the was surprising. So all in all, I think we have made quite an impression in Fairmont, and I'm sure the company will be visiting here again. The people were wonderful: Rhonda, our contact, was phenomenal, the theatre is a great space in which to perform, the theatre staff and students were helpful in every way, the college president and his wife came to see all three shows (when has that ever happened on any of our tour stops?), and the audiences were super. Given the right sort of cultivation, this stop could become as much of a "rock star" stop as Shreveport or St. Lawrence University. All they have to do is give us better accommodations and life here for a week would be outstanding. Nice job, Fairmont!

Life apart from the shows has been at times relaxing and at times boring. The Nashville group (Chris, Greg, Alyssa Jessica and myself) had a rehearsal Friday for our gig which went very well. I still have some work to do on learning "Go Now" but I think we sound very good. Other than that it's pretty much about sitting in the Falcon Center, chilling, surfing the web, some workshops, eating, working out. After a treadmill session I walked the campus yesterday (sunny and 56 degrees) and took some shots around the campus, which you can see on my Flickr Photo page (you can also click the badge on the sidebar). I also converted some movies which I'll put up on the movie page probably sometime later today. Today is the company day off, and there's not much to do again other than getting my laundry done this afternoon and packing up. We are leaving early tomorrow morning - 6:00 AM - so as to get into Chicago by maybe 5:00 PM and have an evening in the Windy CIty. We have a very quick gig in Chicago, and then off to Iowa and Minnesota (Fairmont, MN in fact!). Please, powers that be, let it not be snowing up in MN.

And finally, before I forget, I'd like to thank all those Fredonia alum who wrote to me following Eddie's Fish Night. I've gotten a lot of pictures and some email messages from you all which I am going to respond to very soon. I see from some of the pictures that my image was scattered throughout the party. Leave it to Eddie Schneller to think of a somewhat excessive but very touching and loving way to get my presence into the party. Thanks, Ed - and thanks to all who who wrote and those who attended that made it a special night for all. I am sure Tim had as wonderful a time as the rest of you. -TWL

Mountains and Valleys - 1/26/06

Fairmont, WV - The stay so far in West Virginia has certainly been one of highs and lows. So far I'd have to say that the high has been the President's reception on Sunday evening when we arrived, and meeting all the good people we've met so far at Fairmont State who have been eager to welcome us and make us feel at home. The low has been being cooped up in my dorm room most of Tuesday with a touch of the flu. Today I am just recovering, having managed to make my way through Wednesday as well. But it was no fun.

So, to bring you up to date: The reception was very nice. President Dan Bradley and President Blair Montgomery of Fairmont State Community College gave us a nice welcome, along with members of the faculty and arts community. Dan was kind enough to have the playoff games on his wide-screen TV (we are in serious Steelers country) so we managed to catch the football games while socializing. The food was terrific - roast beef, some fancy chicken, meat pies and assorted vegetables - and there was an open bar. I am afraid I have to report that I consumed three alcoholic beverages - a martini and two gin and tonics - and not having had that much to drink in quite a long time probably contributed to my brief illness.

We have had three matinees of Much Ado this week, and so on Monday morning we got right to it. They were all supposed to start at 10:00 AM but schools came late so none of them really started on time. On Monday we started the show about 20 minutes late with one of the schools still not there. They came in so far into the play that I find it hard to believe they got anything out of it. But there they were nonetheless. All the matinees had Q&As after them, and the questions ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. One young kid asked so intelligent a question on Tuesday that it took us all by surprise, comparing the idea of realism with Shakespeare's use of language. And Alyssa was asked by one smarmy kid if she was single. That's the paradox of doing school shows: you have to do them because the kids are the hope of building theatre audiences for the future, but at the same time the large percentage of them won't be affected in any way at all and just find small ways to be obnoxious. So it goes.

So anyway, after Monday's performance, I had lunch and then, during the day, began to feel weaker and weaker. By about 5:00 I knew I was coming down with something, so I started to take everything I could find. There's a lot of stuff out there, I've found: Airborne, Emergen-Cee, Dayquil, Nyquil, all sorts of pills and vitamins. I had Jessica take me to Rite-Aid after the workshop and bought a bottle of 1000mg Vitamin Cs as well as some daytime cold pill. I got back to the dorm room and climbed into my tiny little bed and tried to go to sleep. Now, living in the dorms has been, shall we say, unpleasant. The dorm I am in is a 1960s style corridor dorm showing its age. The bathroom is halfway down the hall. It's almost like I've been transported to my undergraduate dorm days, except I'm not quite 19 anymore, and it's a LONG walk to the bathroom when you have to pee out all the liquids you've been taking every 20 minutes. Plus the dorm is not exactly quiet, nor is the heat easy to control. The air is so hot and dry that I had to shut the heat completely off in order to breathe, and with the thin blankets they gave us, I have to dress fairly warm in order to sleep. I did manage to get some sleep over the nightly 2AM din, and got up to do the Tuesday matinee feeling pretty shitty.

I did get through the matinee performance OK, sweating quite a bit, but that probably got some more sickness out. I swapped out workshop times with Jessica and immediately had some lunch and went back to my room. Now I suppose a dorm room isn't too bad if you've got a bunch of your stuff in there and made it your home, but with nothing in the room but my suitcase and me it's kind of barren and sterile. So between trying to sleep, pee, and eat I found that my computer was a good source of entertainment. I watched a number of Northern Exposure episodes, listened to public radio and some of my music as well. I called home and also talked with Eric a bit, which passed the time. This time I knocked myself out with some Nyquil and got a good night's sleep, so that when I got up to do Wednesday's matinee I felt a bit better. I took some Dayquil before the show, and that helped as well. After eating lunch Wednesday I felt well enough to sit in the student center and pass the time before my evening workshop rather than return to my room. I did not have to get up early this morning for a matinee, so today I feel better yet, although I haven't tried to sing. Yesterday, when I started talking, all the phlegm started coming up from my lungs, so I had a few coughing fits. But so far today so good - I haven't taken anything but my vitamins, and I have nothing to do until tonight's show. Now we do each of our shows over then next three nights, and then a day off and a drive to Chicago on Monday.

I suppose being sick the past few days has colored my impressions of Fairmont a bit, but notwithstanding my illness, the place is both a nice place to stay and sort of depressing at the same time. The Falcon Center, where I am right now as I write this, is a very nice complex housing all the common activities. The dining hall, workout center, basketball courts, student center, bookstore, minimart and gameroom are all here. It is clearly the place to hang when you have nothing to do in particular, and it's a cool place to be. The dorm's internet connection is rather lousy; I suspect the bandwidth is very low and there are some firewall controls on it, but in the Falcon Center the wireless connection is nice and speedy, though there is a curious lack of power outlets. I've not had the energy to much exploring of the campus other than the center. The college itself is not in close proximity to any sort of shopping or downtown area, so going to any off-campus hangouts requires a bus trip or something, and again, I haven't the energy for that. I've also not worked out at all to conserve energy, but hopefully I can pick that up again starting tomorrow. I want to get into the sauna this afternoon before the show to clear out all the nasal passages and such. I'll probably get to the library sometime, but other than that being confined to the campus is sort of, well, confining. I have no idea what I'm going to do on Sunday's day off. I can't imagine there's a lot to do on campus on Sunday, nor much happening downtown. I thought of renting a car and driving up to Pittsburgh for the day, but of course that costs $$$ and I'm a little low on funds at the moment. I suppose I should look at it as an opportunity to fine-tune my video page and do some tagging and fill in descriptions of my photo site. Why not?

This is the first time Blackfriars has visited Fairmont State, and I hope we are making a good enough impression to get a contract from them for next year. The people have been very nice. Rhonda, our main contact, has been to Staunton a number of times, and I can tell she's very excited to have us here. Workshop attendance has been a bit small but enthusiastic. I met a few theatre students and they are excited to have us here as well, which is a good sign. On balance I would say this is a good stop, and had I not gotten sick I'm sure I'd like it here a lot. The theatre itself is a nice place to play, almost perfect in many ways for what we do. it's a small, acoustically good space which seats about 400, although it doesn't look like that at all. We've been able to use their laundry facilities for company laundry, and since I'm one of the laundry captains this week that's been a blessing. In fact, this place has done everything right so far with the exception of the dorm rooms, which I think nobody really likes. Now that I feel better, all I have to do is figure out how to spend my day with the least amount of time in the room, and I'm OK. I haven't got a lot of pictures yet of this place, but I'll start snapping again today and get some more pictures for you to see with the next post. I am looking forward to the evening performances for sure, as I think we're going to get some enthusiastic audiences. So I'll sign off now, get some lunch, a svitz and maybe a walk, and then off to Planet D'Ylliria. -TWL

Anchors Aweigh - 1/22/06

Between Annapolis MD and Fairmont WV - A full week has past since I got back from vacation, and here on the road everything now seems once again quite familiar. I'm sitting in my "office" in the back of the passenger van typing out this particular post, listening to the BBC on XM Radio, while Kevin, Daniel and Andrew are having some sort of esoteric conversation. Lacking at the beginning of this leg is the initial excitement of the fall leg, but of course that's to be expected from us "seasoned road pros." We've done Much Ado once at Hot Springs VA (Bath County High School) and R3 once at Blue Springs Community College in Weyers Cave (about 15 minutes from Staunton) and twice at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis MD. We're now heading for a week's residence at Fairmont State College in Fairmont WV, where we do three 90-minute matinees of Much Ado for area high schools and then a weekend of all our shows at the college. We also have several workshops to do, so it will be quite a busy week. It's the first time the ASC has been to Fairmont. They are putting us up in dorm rooms, so it's from a beautiful motel in Annapolis to dorm living and campus food. It's almost an exact replica of the beginning of the fall tour, where we went from a nice motel in Elon NC to the shortened residence in Shreveport LA in the large house.

The time in Staunton before leaving got real busy. Wednesday was the trip to Hot Springs, and it was a cold but beautiful, sunny day. We went up "over the mountain" to Bath County, and apparently there is a hot spring there which is a major tourist attraction. We did not get a chance to visit the hot spring, but I think during the spring residence at the Blackfriars I'll be paying a visit up there. It's right in the Appalachian range maybe about 90 minutes SW of Staunton. The high school was set right in the mountains, and it was snowing a bit when we got there, but nothing accumulating. These 90-minute high school shows are a result of our NEA grant to bring Shakespeare into local high schools that would not ordinarily get a chance to see a live WS performance, and the stated mission is to keep language-based literature and entertainment alive in rural and remote regions. This also accounts for the HS performances coming up in Fairmont, which as I take it from looking at Google Earth (and if you don't have Google Earth, you should get it) is about 20 minutes or so SW of Morgantown WV. High school audiences are so varied in their responses that you never know what's coming. This audience was somewhat typical, with a mix of bored kids and some interested ones. They laughed at the humor when they finally realized it was OK to laugh, and were attentive and quiet (or asleep) during the dramatic parts. We did a Q&A with a selected group of students after the show and got the usual array of questions ("How do you memorize all those lines? How did you get into the company? What's your favorite role?"). Once sort of funny incident happened when one of our troupe members (who shall remain anonymous) had accidentally place costumes for Much Ado into the R3 garment bag, and so did not have the proper costumes. Adjustments were made, costumes were borrow and adapted, and all went well, except for the vain, aborted attempt Carie made to drive to Staunton to recover the proper costumes.

Thursday was spent accomplishing a lot of tasks in preparation for leaving Friday. I helped Joyce analyze her computer because it was running slow, and then met Jessica to get everything together to sell merchandise. I also ended up getting a flat tire during the day, so I had to go out to Wal-Mart and get that fixed. A few shopping trips, a small laundry load, a little errand to UPS to send a poster of Christmas Carol to my father, some packing, and then the show at Blue Springs CC that evening. A rather typical performance, set in a multipurpose room where we had to use the aisles for entrances. A good audience, somewhat subdued, with two women in the front row following along in their complete works until they got hopelessly lost trying to follow our cut. There was one guy sitting center right who was just loving it; every expression on his face was one of pure delight and involvement from moment to moment.

Friday was a very busy day. I got up early to collect my tire and put it back on the car so I could park it while off on the road. Then I got the passenger van suited up again for traveling with the power converter and the new 2-way radio setup with rechargeable cradles (no more batteries). Then I had to do final packing and moving stuff over to basement storage in 605. We left Staunton at around 11 AM for the trip to Annapolis and a 7:00 PM performance there.

Performing for the Brigade of Midshipmen was quite interesting. Apparently the first-year students - plebes - are the ones required to see the show. You initially think you're performing for a disciplined collection of well-trained and polite people, but in fact they are really college freshmen, 18-19-year-old boys in basically an all-male environment. The few female contingent of plebes do not seem to have any mollifying influence on the overall testosterone feeling of the gathering. The evening crowd on Friday night was rowdy as they gathered, and during the "house music" pre-show (in which I now play lead guitar!!) we could hardly hear ourselves play on stage over the din. During the pre-show that Greg and I do, when we announced that the seats on the stage were available for sitting, there was an actual scrum to get to the seats, and on stage right one of the chairs got knocked right off the stage as two guys fought over the seat. A little overenthusiastic. During the show they were somewhat attentive, and did get into the show when we needed audience response, but you could also see a significant number of them sleeping. But they really got into the last act during the war and fight sequences, and of course reacted with intense enthusiasm during the broadsword fight and subsequent death of Richard. Richmond's victory brought cheers aplenty, with a great cry of "Amen" to Richmond's call. So what they liked, they liked a lot. A nice reception with the members of the Foundation (our sponsor) was held after the Friday performance, and it was interesting tot talk to the military people and civilian members of the Humanities division. I got my picture taken with the Superintendent of the Academy, Vice Admiral Rodney Rempt. That's about the highest military brass I'll ever meet!

The Saturday performance for the other half of the plebe class was essentially the same, and you could tell that they had been briefed in some manner by their comrades. However, there were far more sleepers in the audience on Saturday morning - maybe almost a third of the audience was napping at one time or another. Favorite locations were the balcony and the back rows. But they were there again for the fight. it was quite interesting getting a small insight into the general atmosphere of a military academy. We also perform for the cadets at Virginia Military academy towards the end of the tour. That should be another interesting time.

The grounds of the academy are very beautiful, and after the Sat. matinee I stayed on campus to tour about. The Mahan Theatre itself it an interesting architectural sight, and many of the buildings on the campus are very solid in that sort of military granite way. I visited the crypt where John Paul Jones, apparently the primary iconic figure of the US Navy, is interred. The chapel, unfortunately, was closed for a wedding and I could not get in. Dalgren Hall, which houses an ice rink, was quite the place, and I had lunch there. The residence is off limits, so I went to the Visitor's Center. There was a nice view of the harbor there, and some history on the founding of the academy, as well as an exhibit honoring graduates of the academy who've been in the NASA program. I did get to see freedom 7, the Mercury space capsule which took Alan Shepard up into space. It is surprising how small that capsule is, just barely big enough for one man to sit in.

Annapolis is the MD state capital, and right downtown sits the Statehouse and various historical sites. Alex Haley's novel Roots identifies Annapolis as the place where Kunta Kinte first comes from Africa to the US, and there is a display to commemorate the event. The downtown harbor area is full of quaint shops and restaurants, and I decided to have dinner at Barry's Ribs and Crabs. I went for the all-you-can-eat buffet, which was OK but not spectacular. However, I did eat all I could of the crab legs, clams and shrimp as well as some of the other dishes. Some of the tables had whole Maryland-spiced crabs which looked quite good, but I did not mind being able to pass the time eating my fill. I should have taken some pictures of the statehouse, but I seem to be out of practice carrying my camera about. Annapolis is quite pretty but pricey, as you might expect a DC-area place to be. I had breakfast this morning in what must be a well-known "delly" in the area, very old-fashioned and quaint. And then off to Fairmont.

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Fairmont, WV - So we got into Fairmont and after settling into our nice comfortable dorm room (add sarcasm here) we were trundled off to the President's house, where we had quite a nice reception. I'll do more about the reception and the living situation in a later post, because for tonight I think I've had it. Besides, the internet connection in the dorms here is pretty slow and miserable, so hopefully I can get this posted at all.

By the way, a special HELLO tonight to Cathy Wilmoth, Alyssa's mother, who I understand is a regular reader. Alyssa is doing fine and says hello to you. Here's a nice picture of her at Annapolis, waving Hi just to you. -TWL

Fish Party Greetings - 1/21/06

Annapolis, MD - The following is an audio post greeting for all those attending the Fish Night reunion to celebrate Tim Jensen's life. I only wish I could be there in person. Have a great evening, all!! -TWL

Act IV: The Winter Leg - 1/16/05

Staunton, VA - Vacation is over, and with this, the 50th post to this blog, Act IV The Winter Leg begins. Let the rejoicing begin! I am writing this in between brush-up rehearsals of Richard III and Much Ado About Nothing, so I may not get in as much as I want, but I felt I had to get the ball rolling again because I suspect that by tonight I will be too tired to write much of anything. Besides, at the moment I have internet access only by modem at my new digs, so better to write this in the theatre with wireless broadband than a modem connection.

We all arrived yesterday, although I got in late because on Saturday I had to take Eric to an audition he had lined up at the University of Cincinnati, and that was a round trip from Dunkirk and back. About 11 hours in the car for a ten-minute audition. Such is theatre. Then I drove to Staunton early Sunday morning after asking permission to arrive a little late. I got to the theatre just in time to catch the matinee of Greater Tuna with Paul Fidalgo and Jessica Dunton playing all the character (although Joyce Peifer has a pretty big role in the show as well). Funny stuff. Then a music rehearsal for Planet and a run of Planet. Then unpacking and some sleep. Everyone looked pretty much the same. Andrew arrived with a mustache, but shaved it off today already. Chris hasn't shaved, and I trimmed my beard down. Many people mentioned that I looked even skinnier, but I think the lack of a beard is creating an optical delusion. Over the vacation I did my best to watch my weight, but also did some indulging as well. I only got out to walk once because the weather, as grey as it was, was never inviting. Of course there were greetings all around, but as soon as everyone got back to business it seems like we never left. Two weeks seems like an awful long time until it's over, and then it feels like it never happened.

We do not actually leave for the road until Friday, when we travel up to Annapolis MD and perform for the Naval Academy. The veterans tell us that the audiences there are somewhat unreceptive. I've never been to the Naval Academy, so it should prove an interesting visit. Then our next stop is in Fairmont WV, where we spend a full week doing workshops and shows. So it begins.

I am now living at 607 W. Beverley, the actors complex. I am in the east downstairs room at 607. It's small, but it has its own bathroom. The desk in the room sucks. It's something like a convertible chair that doubles as a desk. The kitchen is on the second floor, so I have to climb two flights of stairs to get there. It is better than going outside. When we do Act V - In Residence - that will be my space for the duration. One great disadvantage of the space is that it has only one window, which does not face south and is covered by a porch. Hence I will probably get poor satellite reception for XM radio. I have to figure out some way to remedy this. Rene, who is in the upcoming Renaissance season, lives next door to me, so getting internet from his network will be no problem (temporarily down at the moment). It should be interesting to live in the complex, my third living space while in the company. The Market St. house was nice for its convenience, but everyone tends to be a bit isolated there. The complex is more social, but I discovered last night that the noise level is increased because of that. My natural sleep cycle may be more than a bit affected. And the heat in the room is pretty noisy. The unit is like one of those units in a motel, and it cycles the heat on and off. When the motor kicks on it makes a grinding noise. So either I have to get used to it, sleep with the heat off, or keep the heat on and the window open to regulate the temperature. but by April the weather may have moderated enough down here that I won't have to worry about heat.

Well, my time is running out, so up this goes to the blog and then perhaps more later. Or another day. New pictures are up on Flickr (click the badge on the right sidebar) and I will try to organize them on the road. It will take some time, as there are many pictures unlabeled and I have a lot up there. Might take up the entire tour. I'm working on movies as well, and if you haven't seen the Christmas ones, check those out. I'm experimenting with Google Video and YouTube for video upload as well. Do searches on those sites if you want to look. Later. -TWL.

Interlude - 1/8/06

Dunkirk NY - Vacation is a little more than halfway over, and so far it's been relaxing, pleasant and thoughtful. I spent the first three days sort of vegging out, through New Year's Day. I sort of watched the various college bowl games, but not with any real attention (except for the Rose Bowl, which was a great football game). Then over the course of last week I slowly got a few things accomplished that needed to get done. I also attended a few social affairs, both here and in Buffalo, as well as getting to the opening night performance of the Irish Classical Theatre's production of Good. And tonight - well, a small addition to the blog.

I find myself, however, in something of a quandary as to what to write. During the time we're on tour, there are so many things to write about because we go to a number of places and see a number of sites, That makes writing easy, because each day brings some new subject matter and experience to write about. But being home produces nothing but introspective ramblings, and I never really intended to have this blog become about that. But perhaps it's sort of proper to have some sort of mid-year assessment and reflection about this particular effort I have undertaken, and so I'll try to organize some thoughts in that direction. So, in no particular order, here are some personal mid-contract reflections:

• I love being on the road. Everyone has asked me that question since I've been home, and I've always responded that way. I do like traveling, and I do like facing the challenge each venue brings. I like seeing new places, and I really don't mind too much living in motel rooms. Motel rooms are, in fact, quite efficient and comfortable. With wireless access and a little TV, they turn out to be not so bad places to be in. About the only thing I dislike is not being able to travel independently when the opportunity arrives. And the food - I do get tired of mass prepared food.
• I like the people in the troupe. By now I know them pretty well, and for the life of me I can't really find anything to complain about. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, of course, and you learn to understand each person's particular quirks and eccentricities. But I have to honestly say that they're all pretty good people. That's made me feel somewhat better about the state of young actors in this country. There's a little hope there.
• I do wonder about the viability of touring, however. I've taken in each type of venue and each type of audience, and I begin to wonder at times what sort of lasting effect we have on the people for whom we perform. This is quite a complicated issue, and I don't really at the moment want to go much deeper into this, but suffice to say that our audiences are overwhelmingly white, middle- to upper-class, educated, or the children of the same. And in non-college venues (of which we had few), they are old; 50 or above. I see few people in the age range of my colleagues attending our performances. The issue goes beyond simply touring of course; it strikes at the very heart of theatre as a viable American art form. The reason I've been thinking about this question this week stirs partly from my attending the performance in Buffalo as well as going out to see the Capital Steps perform in Erie PA, and partly from some frustration in choosing a play to direct once I return to Fredonia. Of course, I've been thinking for a long time about the notion that Shakespeare festivals are really nothing but the Disneyworlds of rich educated white people, and being on tour is doing nothing but confirming that in many ways. To probe the matter even further, one can put forth the notion that in the seemingly endless bog of this nation's culture wars, all Euro-centric cultural values - and with them the truths they might hold - are becoming nothing more than another commodity for sale to a niche market. Shakespeare is merely a niche within a niche. But you'll have to wait for the book for any further explanation of this notion.
• It is easier to maintain freshness of performance when you have three shows in rep to perform than having to do one show over and over every day.
• Sooner or later, even the thing you adore doing more than anything else becomes reduced to a job. Anyone who says different is probably lying just a little. Now, I have one of the greatest jobs in this country - college teaching - and I have been most fortunate to be able to combine something I like very much doing with a job. But no matter what, you will have those days when going to work is no more than getting the job done. Obviously, the trick is to find a way to continually make the job seem new. That's challenging under any circumstances.
• The weather in the southern half of the nation is better than in the northern half. There is more sunlight. Western New York recently set a record of 13 consecutive days with 0% available sunlight. I have been here experiencing more than half of those days. It is noticeably more dreary up here.

Since I seem to be staring into space at more than regular intervals at this point, I will take that as a sign that I can't think of anything more to write. It's going to be a mess getting back to Staunton - my son Eric has an audition for the University of Cincinnati's Conservatory Training Program on January 14th at 5:30 PM, so I have to figure out this transportation thing so as to return to Staunton the next day by noon. Always complications. In the meantime, happy new year to one and all. Don't let the winter get you down. -TWL

Intermission - 12/31/05

Dunkirk, NY - Well, it's time for the intermission after Act III. Christmas Carol has completed its run, and the members of the Atomic Fission Tour have scattered across the country for their well-earned two-week vacation. My family - parent, wife and two boys - came in to see the show on Thursday evening, and by all accounts they enjoyed themselves. Not uncritical, of course, but overall the reviews were positive. My dad wanted a copy of the lobby poster, which I had already anticipated, so hopefully that's being ordered and delivered. After the final show and strike on Friday I had thought Ann Marie and I would spend the evening relaxing and then leaving for home early today, but instead, when strike was over before I knew it, we just got in the car and sped home. Seven hours and two stops later we were back in Dunkirk, and happy to be so ("My own Bed! I'm in my own room!"). Today I got a belated Christmas and opened my presents, which included many items for touring (a laptop carrier, iPod case and mini-speaker, and a mini-reading light which clips onto your earlobe). Nice items.

So I won't spend too much time this evening writing anything like a review of the first part or anything. I will save that for an "interlude" posting after the new year. And I also suspect there may not be too many postings during the vacation, because I intend to "vacate." So hopefully those of you who have been faithful readers of this poor blog will re-join me in full force when Act IV begins at noon on the 15th of January, 2006. We will be in brush-ups for the first few days and head out on the road about Jan. 20th for our first road date at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.

But before I go, let me give you one small web tip. If, like me, you try to read a lot of news and blogs online, you may have a hard time keeping everything together and getting notification of new postings or items. So let me suggest to you a fine website called Bloglines. It is an absolutely wonderful site which organizes and updates all your news sites, blogs, or whatever else you read online which has an RSS or Atom feed (just about everything from the New York Times to this blog). Consider it my offering at helping you keep that New Years resolution to make your life more organized and your web reading more efficient. Also, you can now view Atomic Fission photos on Flickr. Search for my name or Atomic and you'll get the stream, or click on the Flickr badge in the sidebar. Also look for Atomic Fission videos on Google Video. Getting better all the time!

Happy New Year to one and all! -TWL

O Night Divine - 12/25/05

Staunton, VA - This has been a most unusual Christmas season. I have been struggling with playing one of the most well-known literary characters in western literature. I did not experience the end-of-semester rush and the release of semester break. I have seen no TV since Thanksgiving, and therefore no Christmas commercials. I did my share of the shopping for the family online, and so went to few stores other than for normal shopping. I wrote the family Christmas newsletter while here and sent it back home to be printed and mailed out. Today I talked with my family back in Dunkirk and my parents back in Massapequa. The snow has all but vanished. So all in all it hardly ever felt like Christmas time to me. Yet here I've been for more than three weeks engaged in telling a timeless Christmas classic to over a thousand people, wishing them a Merry Christmas after each show, and saying "Merry Christmas" over and over again (with still 6 more performances to go - sort of anticlimactic). And all day today I've felt displaced, with really nothing to do until I went to dinner at 605 Bev (the actor's house). I went for a ride in the car to get outside and walk through some mountains or by a lake, but the day was wet and rainy and not conducive to being outdoors for very long.

While all these things were unusual, they were, for the most part, not unwelcome. The difference was good. I liked being mostly alone all day on Christmas Day. It has been my tradition for many years to find a few hours for myself each Christmas Day, whether a walk on the beach when I am visiting my parents, or a walk in the woods when I am home. Winter is my most meditative season, and especially during this dark time of year. So to have the entire day free was different, but welcome at the same time. And not being bombarded with Christmas commercialism through the media was a great relief. I only wish I had had the forethought to find some place where I might have served a meal to the displaced or poor, that's all. I did not think of that in time, and I regret that.

In lieu of family celebrations we have been having company celebrations. Before the Christmas Eve performance there was much gift-giving going on. I gave everyone a $5 "Bean Buck" for coffee at the Daily Grind. I got a "Baaa Humbug" jelly bean dispenser, one where a sheep dispenses jelly beans out his butt when you press him towards the floor. I also got some sparkling cider from the Plump Sister (Andrew), who passed out Christmas goodies to one and all. and I got a lump of charcoal from Santa. The, following that performance, the Koogler family, whose father, Sam, is the company techie, gave us a Victorian England feast, complete with turkey, ham, raisin sauce, gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, wassail, egg nog, squash casserole, mashed potatoes, pecan, apple and pumpkin pie with Cool Whip, plum pudding (which he lit up). There was much mirth and merriment had by all. I ate far too much, ruining my fat intake with the egg nog alone. Then today we once again gathered together for a meal at 605. Another turkey was cooked, the leftovers from yesterday came over to the house, and we ate again! We also lit two Hannukah candles in a small hannukiah that Andrew had with him, while Jessica said the Hannukah prayer. She also made some delicious latkes. I wanted to have two, but I limited myself to one, with sour cream and applesauce. So good! And the highlight of the evening was frying the homemade donuts that Andrew had prepared. I put my old graduate school skills to use once more to fry the donuts (which was what I did while emplyed at Dippy Dounts in Lincoln NE during my first year of graduate school), and Andrew made a vailant effort to fill them with raspberry jam. Carie brought her mom and dad while the entire Bowles family was also there. So not a bad time at all.

The company, I think, is ready for a break. While onstage I am sure we look as fresh and vigorous as ever, backstage the talk is how to keep things alive and fresh and interesting for us. I think at this point I have finally found some freedom with Scrooge, and that's been a big help for me. Just letting him get onstage and go. I found that the first week I was just sort of boxing in the character, just trying to make sure I was getting the mechanics correct. But there was one matinee performance where I felt the character finally open up, where I felt I could play the role and not think about the role. That was a mini-breakthrough for me, and since then I think I've been more free with letting the character have more space inside me. But nonetheless, the show does become repetitive and rote, and i think we're all fighting against that in some fashion. One thing that keeps it fresh is audience contact, especially with children. There have been children sitting on the stools onstage, and when you get one or two who are really into the show, it's fun to play with them a little. Tyler, Greg and I were reminiscing about some of those incidents tonight at dinner. One little girl on Christmas Eve was quite into the whole thing, covering her eyes during the Marley sequence, asking questions during Tiny Tim's wake scene, talking to Tyler as narrator. When you can contact the audience like that it makes it more interesting from moment to moment and show to show. The last few audiences have been most receptive to the show, and of course that helps to keep things alive and actors motivated. But doing the show night after night does become monotonous, and really points out the value of rep playing. I'm also getting a taste of what a long Broadway run might be like as well. Same show, 8 times a week, for week after week. I certainly think I'd get bored.

Many people during this past week have had family or significant others down to visit. It's fun when all these people come, as if the family has been extended. Tyler, Daniel, Andrew and Chris and Sarah each had their respective girlfriends/boyfriend down for extended stays. Kevin, Carie and Sarah have their family members visiting with them. All this visiting is making people pretty ready to head wherever for their respective breaks. My parents as well as Ann Marie and the boys will be coming down later in the week, and I will caravan up home with my crew on New Year's Eve for my two weeks off. I am sure the next five days will go by pretty fast.

And now the night has descended, and another Christmas has come and gone. Soon the troupe will scatter for their vacations, to refresh and renew during the New Year's beginning, and then back at it again towards the end of January. Just about half over, but I can't help feeling the sensation that it should all be over. My own rhythms of the year and season have been very displaced in this process, and I am sure I am in for more of the same during the winter leg. Actually, I long now to get back to the road, where each day brought something new in a different place. I'm going to enjoy resting up, but this being in one place and doing one show is becoming, well - work. Come the spring, when we are working in rep, it won't be as bad as this, when you're doing a different show every night. But on the road, a different show in a different place is where the fun is at. Endings and beginnings - just what this time of year is all about. -TWL

Solstice Night - 12/22/05

Goethe's final words: "More light." Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry, "More light." Sunlight. Torchlight. Candlight. Neon, incandescent lights that banish the darkness from our caves to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier's field. Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and footcandles. Light is metaphor. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Lead kindly light amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on, the night is dark and I am far from home, lead thou me on. Arise, shine, for thy light has come. Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light.

(Music - Ebudae by Enya)

From the TV Series Northern Exposure

A New Look - 12/19/05

Staunton, VA - A day off. I moved across the hall. A new room. I added some new photos to Flickr. I did some investigation into a new Google service - Google Video - very promising. I helped Kevin re-do his resume. A new resume. I ate a hot dog at the new hot dog place in town. Steamed brat, mustard (spicy brown), relish, kraut and onions. Dill pickle on the side. I got a "new" radio from the antique mall (a 1970s Radio Shack table model; these are now antiques?). I got a new book in the mail - The Shakespeare Company 1594-1642. I tried a new ready-to-eat Kroger "Meal Made Simple" - Linguine with Shrimp. Not bad. I watched a new movie (at least new to me). I am trying a new template on my blog. Still needs some tweaking. I'd like to learn how to do these templates on my own. Studying the code. I saw a new open-source web design program I want for my computer but I have to wait to download it when I get to Coffee on the Corner and use their network.

I have three shows tomorrow. I am now going to bed. Same old shit there. -TWL

Movin' On - 12/17/05

Staunton, VA - The other morning Jaq Bessell, who directed Much Ado for us, came and visited us with her new baby, who's maybe about 4 weeks old or so. I had a chance to hold her, and of course took the opportunity to expound on my fatherly wisdom and know-how. It was comforting to hold the new child in the wake of Tim's passing. I didn't really want to let her go. Life comes, life goes, life returns again. And so we move on....

---

Today (Dec. 17th) is the anniversary of the first publishing of Dickens' original Christmas Carol story in 1848, 157 years ago. Amazing how popular and how so engrained into the culture it's become over those years. I've not been engaged in much more than doing the show over the past week. This week had promised to be a killer, with 12 performances scheduled in the week. Fortune smiled somewhat upon us, however, as a fairly large ice storm came in and shut down schools for two days. So we had the Thursday and Friday matinees canceled. And the Thursday evening performance had something like 12 people in the house, as the falling ice scared just about everyone away. However, we don't get away scot-free, as we found out this afternoon that we have to do two school matinees this coming Tuesday; that's three shows in a day. I wonder how I'll feel once that day is over.

I did not do much over Thursday except try to talk my son Eric through a computer makeover via phone, and Friday was a busy day, as I did laundry, shopping, and also went out in the morning and took pictures of the ice storm results. I think I posted them to Flickr, but I still have to post them to Yahoo! as well. I have posted some pictures of the rehearsals for CC, but there aren't many, as the opportunity to take pictures were small. I also did some online shopping for the family and made some Christmas CDs for Ann Marie. I also took the time to compose our family Christmas letter. We usually send that out every other year. If you would like to read the PDF version of our family newsletter, feel free to click here.

The review of the show is also in, and here is the PDF version of that. It's a little embarrassing in the sense that the review seems to be a review of my performance moreso than the show as a whole, and I regret most of my fellow performers hardly got mentioned. The unique use of sound goes unnoticed. I also think it's something of a reflection of how much baggage there is attached to the role of Scrooge and how people like to see their expectations fulfilled. I just wish the reviewer had looked at other elements of the production as well and placed my performance in the context of the entire production. Good reviewing is so hard to come by. But if it will put butts in the seats, so much the better.

One thing I am learning is how hard it truly is to perform live onstage at this rate. I find it hard to fight the tendency towards tedium, which is no doubt caused by doing the same show over and over. You have to concentrate hard to fight the numbness and the fatigue. I find sometimes I have a lot of trepidation in getting ready to do the show because I know how tired I'll be at the end of it, and I don't want to be that tired. I enjoy passing the day doing frivolous things like reading, sitting in Coffee on the Corner and surfing the internet, riding around the county's back roads just for the pleasure of it. Part of me looks forward to doing the show every night, and part of me dreads it at the same time. I don't get that feeling during rehearsal, and when working in Buffalo (only Thur-Sun performances) I don't get that feeling either. It could be just this particular show, just the fact that it's CC and not one of our other ones. I don't think I'll feel the same way when we return in the spring, and I know I didn't feel this was on the road in the fall. It could also be just the fact that I don't like playing lead roles like this, and going out and being the center of attention night after night doesn't sit well with my soul. I can't shake the nagging idea that something is lacking in the performance, but perhaps nothing really is lacking. Perhaps it's just my subconscious not letting me sit easy and having that slight uncomfortableness at being out front. Doesn't seem very actor-like to me. Yet I've always known that my reason for not pursuing a professional career at all was my inability to blow my own horn and call attention to myself. Sometimes that makes me wonder why I ever pursued this craft in the first place. I actually had that thought at the end of this evening's show as I was leaving the building.

But it's not something I want to get into now. I have been thinking somewhat lately about life after ASC and this experience, and what I'll do next apart from teaching. I have finished listening to Will in the World; it's an interesting book, and over this past week I heard the end of the book where the author speculates on Shakespeare's final plays and his subsequent retirement. He points out how Prospero in The Tempest seeks to return to the world of men while he is at the height of his powers on his mystical island, and he draws a parallel to Shakespeare's own personal retirement at a time when none of his playwriting abilities had diminished. I wonder how one knows when it's time to get out. Will seems to have known. But there are yet so many roles to play.... -TWL

Tim Douglas Jensen - 12/12/05

Staunton, VA - For the third time since I began writing this weblog, I find I must write on the passing of a theatrical colleague. Last night, after the conclusion of the evening's performance of A Christmas Carol, I received word that Tim Jensen had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away from pneumonia. A member of the Fredonia theatre class of 1990, I was fortunate to have had him in my classes and shows for my first two years as a teacher at Fredonia, and also most fortunate to have kept up with his career in New York City and spent some time with him when he returned to Fredonia to direct Les Liasons Dangereuses and teach for a semester. It was then I saw his one-person show Shoes. His death is not only a sad event but a shocking one as well, as he was a young man in the prime of his life and his career. Many good people, myself among them, deeply mourn his passing.

When I first arrived at SUNY Fredonia in the fall of 1988 as the third acting teacher in as many years, I was all of 36; brash, eager, excited at starting what I considered the opportunity of my lifetime. In hindsight, of course, I knew very little then about what it meant to be a teacher of acting. My knowledge and practical skills were little more than those I had learned in graduate school, and my stage experience to that point had been restricted to my work in grad school and a couple of seasons at Wisconsin Shakespeare Festival. But of course I wanted to do well, and create a good impression.

The class of 1990, juniors when I first met them in '88, were an extraordinary collection of individuals. Talented, smart and energetic, they had forged a strong bond among themselves. Upon meeting them, I sensed this strong bond almost immediately. Almost to a person, these young actors had strong individual personalities and sensibilities, but it seemed to me that one of them, Tim Jensen, appeared to be at the center of this group.

I think I'm on pretty safe ground when I state that Tim was the hardest-working and most serious-minded of any person I've ever had in my classes. A careful reader may note that to this point I have avoided calling Tim a "former student," because that would imply that I taught him something. Such was not the case. As a teacher I was too young and inexperienced to teach someone with the work ethic and talent Tim possessed anything at all. He seemed to me so confident, so self-assured, that the best thing for me to do was stay out of his way and give him whatever opportunities I could to work on his craft. I remember envying him a bit as well, because I was never as self-assured and hard-working as he was when I was his age. I doubt I am even now.

Of course it wasn't like Tim couldn't have fun. I recall the first time I saw him do "Dreamgirls" with Ed and Jim (or was it David? The curse of failing memories!) at Fish House when I was invited to a party. Omigod was that funny! I had not ever seen anything quite like it before, and subsequent performances during Studio Hour were always a treat. And of course this class had great fun at poking fun at me whenever they could; Tim had an imitation of me (although Chris Springer's was the best) that was quite good.

Tim was in my first production at Fredonia (ironically enough, A Christmas Carol), and I got the chance to work with him on stage when Dr. Bob directed Equus. I played Martin Dysart while Tim played Alan's father. But of all the memories I have of Tim, the most lasting and the most powerful is his portrayal of Rev. John Hale in my production of The Crucible in the spring of 1989. The production contained a wealth of talent - Chris Springer, Christine Fuchs, Ed Schneller, Gerard Gentleman, Jim Patrick, Kathy Puma, Kathy McLean, John Cordaro, Todd Giglio, Fran Curry and others - and for me remains one of the finest productions I've ever directed. While much of the play's central action focuses on the relationship between John Proctor and Abigail Williams, I've always thought the character of John Hale to be the most pivotal one in the play. He is the portrait of a man who has a strong set of beliefs in the beginning, only to see those beliefs be severely questioned, tested, and ultimately repudiated. The role calls for an actor capable of conveying not only a strong sense of moral surety, but ultimately a man caught in the throes of the deepest crisis of conscience. He is, in effect, the audience's conscience. There was never a doubt in my mind that Tim was the man for that role.

As I recall, with a memory now tinged with sadness and sweetness, Tim gave everything he had to that role. He had much to give: Tim himself was a man who had a strong moral code and a high sense of ethics, he was driven to succeed in his work and to constantly improve himself, he was sensitive to others and had the ability to empathize with others in suffering or sorrow. There was even a nobility to everything he did in the theatre, as if he knew what he was doing had a high purpose. He brought all these characteristics to the role of Rev. Hale, and in a remarkable production he gave a remarkable performance. I believe I still have a piece of the courtroom scene digitized which is not with me in Virginia, but which I hope to dig out and put up on the web for people to see.

Of course there was no question Tim was going to New York to pursue a theatrical career. He went on to get his MFA at the Actors Studio Drama School and to perform in and around New York City. Those of you not Fredonia graduates can get a short biography of him here. He developed his playwriting skills to go along with his acting skills, and I recall bumping into him once quite by accident in a New York City coffee shop, where he was sitting with a huge cup of coffee, hard at work scribbling in a notebook, totally absorbed. Same hard-working Tim, I thought. Some things never change. And I got a kick out of the fact that this summer we were both doing Leonato from Much Ado About Nothing at the same time; he in NYC with Riverside Shakes, and I down here in VA. I got a look at some pictures of his production in the Times, I believe, and felt sort of proud of myself, that I was doing the same role as Tim Jensen. Maybe I had finally made it after all. :-)

Those who truly want to understand what the theatre is all about, what the heart and soul of theatre really is, would do well to look at Tim's life and contribution to it. His death will not be a cause for the lights to dim on Broadway; rather, it will be a cause for the light which theatre can bring to us all to become dimmer. His work was full of the stuff that makes humanity the messy-sweet, sloppy "ugly cake" that it is (yes, Jean, that's really Tim come to visit you. Give him a hug from me). Shoes is the kind of work which embodies the soul of the theatre: reflections on how even the most seemingly insignificant person in the most absurd circumstances can offer us glimpses into the universal. While playing Scrooge and watching audiences react to CC, I have been recently reminded of this theatrical reality: the theatre - and only the theatre - brings to us directly and immediately the stories we need to hear to remind us again who we are as humans, and what we mean to each other. As with Ellen Opelia and Bess Brown before him, Tim brought to the theatre not just his craft, skills and talent, but his soul and heart as a human being, and willingly shared them with those who came in contact with him as audience or friend. His stories became our stories as he shared them with us. At its most fundamental, all theatre is community theatre, and Tim's passing is, to those of us within his community, a greater loss than the passing of Arthur Miller, for it is more direct, more immediate, more shocking and more present to us all.

It is not surprising that humans through all ages have tried every means at their disposal during the dark days of the winter solstice to ward off the darkness with celebrations and festivals of light. Perhaps in its infinite wisdom, the cosmos has decreed that Tim's passing will be for us who knew him, not a deepening of the seasonal darkness, but a deeper celebration of the light, the happiness and the joy he brought to his friends and audiences. May we all celebrate that light! -TWL

Screw-ged 12/9/05

Staunton, VA - The minute you think there maybe is no God, a small little blessing comes to make you think twice. I am sitting in Coffee on the Corner writing this entry because this morning's matinee of Christmas Carol has been cancelled due to the fact that schools in the area have a snow day. This is the second snow day of the season down here, and what they call a "snow day" would make the average Western New Yorker laugh in utter disbelief. As I look out the window, there is barely an inch of snow on the ground. To be fair, a good portion of it is ice, and I take it from the weather reports on the radio this morning that the roadways are icy, with two major accidents on local interstates. But the other "snow day" came before any snow ever hit the ground. Schools in Augusta County closed in anticipation of a snowstorm coming which dropped maybe two inches of snow. Pretty funny. But I will take it!

It's hard to believe that six days have actually passed since I last posted. The days have been incredibly full and busy, and I've come to know the definition of "bone-weary." I've been getting to bed at about 10:30 every night after pretty much a full day's rehearsal, and getting up at 7:30 AM to make a 9:00 AM call for CC or rehearsal. We've been doing matinees since Wednesday, with dress rehearsals and polishing rehearsals since Sunday. We also had a music rehearsal for Planet prior to the benefit performance last night at Washington and Lee University in Lexington VA (about 35 minutes SW of Staunton) for the recently closed Lime Kiln Theatre. I have actually managed to do a wash and do some shopping amidst all that as well, and even had a bit of time the other night to watch The Magnificent Seven, but that's about it. I don't think I'm alone in feeling this tired; there seems to be a general sense of fatigue that everyone is battling to keep spirits up and keep us moving. I will tell you this - the American Shakespeare Center is certainly getting their money's worth from us.

So let's get into the heart of the matter - playing Ebenezer Scrooge. Back when we were in rehearsal and before we went on the road I was hoping that the two characters I would get to play would be Jacob Marley and Old Joe. I had figured that Chris, one of our three-year vets and the guy who had been playing Scrooge for the past two years, would reprise the role. But the director had other ideas, and lo and behold when the cast list came there was my name listed as Scrooge. Honestly, I wasn't too thrilled. As a lifetime character actor I've come to be comfortable in character roles, which are usually secondary roles and not the focus roles of plays. My other two roles here, Leonato and Prospero, fall neatly into that category - nice roles but not the focus roles of the plays (some might argue that Prospero has a lot of focus, but the play is so evenly balanced among characters that I think no one character dominates the show). But if CC is anything, it is Scrooge, and the role carries with it a tremendous amount of baggage, tradition and expectation. And of course, amongst the community of theatre people, CC is regarded as little more than a cash cow designed to raise a lot of money and subsidize whatever else you're doing for your season.

Now, let it be clearly understood (to mimic the Dickensian style of writing) that I have nothing personal against CC in and of itself. It's a heartwarming, fun story, and deservedly a classic of English literature. In my family it's been a tradition to watch some version of CC after all the packages have been wrapped and placed under our tree on Christmas Eve. I am torn between the Alistair Sims version (never, NEVER watch the colorized version!!) and the George C. Scott version. The Patrick Stewart version sucks, and my kids of course liked the Muppet version (I can tolerate it). I've never seen the Bill Murray version - perhaps I should rent it. So it's not like I don't like the story or anything along those lines. Of course, it is quite sentimental and mushy, and no doubt even in Dickens' mind it was written as a commercial venture to make him some money. Yet there are things in it which I truly think are insightful and poetic. As an example, there is the section during Christmas Present where Dickens talks about everyone in the Cratchit family having, for once, enough to eat. There are other passages within the fable which clearly and vigorously rail against the social ills of the times. But over the years I think the story has been so commercialized that these aspects of the story have lost their impact or disappeared altogether to the point where CC is barely more than the story of an old disgruntled codger who becomes a Christmas fanatic, and thank goodness he does. So it goes.

However, having been given the role, I have of course given some thought as to how to play him within the confines of a 90-minute script which basically hits the highlights of the main plotline. It has not been easy, partly because the rehearsal time has been so short and partly because there are long stretches of time where I do nothing but stand and watch events unfold without commenting. Also, because we are doing this play within the "original practices" tradition of the ASC, we have no special effects, lights, scenery or anything else to help us create mood or atmosphere. Dickens' text does that extraordinarily well, but I am not yet sure whether it's more successful as read text or spoken text. I will say one thing - getting your mouth around Dickensian "dialogue" is difficult. As I noted in an earlier post, I've had difficulty memorizing these lines so fast, and it's only been within the past few matinee performances that I've been working to make the dialogue and performances organic and natural. The other day I finally discovered and developed a through-line for myself to take me along the journey, and I am glad I've found those keys.

My concept of Scrooge has been from the beginning that he is basically a misunderstood man, living an austere life in contradistinction to the world around him. He is stereotypically portrayed as a grouchy misanthrope, but I have tried to cast him as a man who has become what he is because, early in life, his emotional life was crushed out of him, leaving him nothing to live with but cold reason. If you study some of the things Scrooge says in that famous first scene, much of he says is not particularly harsh or unreasonable, and some of it is true. "What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money" - how many of you out there will go into credit card debt this Christmas (I will)? "Keep Christmas in your own way and let me keep it in mine...Let me leave it alone then." "It's enough for a man to understand his own business without meddling in the affairs of others." Plenty of truth in those statement. He exhibits the same response to the poor and homeless that the majority of society expresses by its actions if not its words. He does not pay his clerk well, but apparently at least enough to keep a roof over his head and some food on the table (nothing indicates that the Cratchits are destitute, just poor. Think Wal-Mart and the resistance to raising the minimum wage in this country to something liveable). So in response to this I've tried to portray a man who lives by cold reason and logic and has little emotional life, and has reached an accomodation with those around him. While others may perceive him as grouchy or unreasonable, it's only because Scrooge has decided to live a life where he plays the rules of business extremely well and always to his advantage (there is no evidence that Scrooge is a cheat), and speaks harsh truths in ways which people find irritating. He is undoubtedly a cold man, and can become cruel when pressed (the charity fundraiser, for example, presses him to his limit). But I sense in the character no genuine meanness, and hence that becomes the vehicle of his reclamation.

His journey with the spirits, then, is one of reclaiming his emotional life. He is not "beyond hope" because, as we find out, there is still emotion in him which he is suppressing. He himself does not understand this emotional life, and that is what the journey is all about. His sojourn into the past is to remind him of a time when his emotional life was full and how it was slowly squeezed from him by life's circumstances (my backstory on Scrooge's past is, of course, extrapolated from hints in the text and story, but this production cannot fully bring that out. Suffice to say that Scrooge has a few things happen to him, such as Fan's death and his breakup with Belle, which leave him emotionally handicapped). His journey into the present is designed to reveal to him the value of human relationships, of family (Cratchits) and friends (Fred's party), as a source of wealth beyond that of money. His sojourn into the future is designed to remind him of death and all it entails - the limitations of existence, the desire to leave behind a legacy, the notion of "now or never" as it pertains to living life. All these aspects of his journey have nothing to do with logic or reason, and each time he tries to present a logical argument to one of the spirits (even to the Ghost of Christmas Future while staring into the grave) are one by one rebuffed through a response which encourages him through the heart. But even further, Scrooge has to realize that even a reasonable approach to emotion is not enough. It is emotional existence itself, as represented by an open heart, that is necessary for a full life. The man who misunderstands Scrooge the most, of course, is his own self. His reclamation comes when his heart is fully opened by the Spirits. Even though Scrooge, in each section of his journey, expresses a degree of intellectual understanding of each lesson he is learning ("I learned a lesson which is working now" he tells Christmas Present, as well as telling Future "I hope to be a changed man from what I was"), he only fully realizes it at the grave, and it is by facing the reality of his eventual death that his heart opens up.

It took me awhile to piece this all together, as for much of the rehearsal period I was simply trying to get the mechanical aspects of the role together. These ideas have only fully developed over the past few days, and are designed to get me honestly through each point in the play. I doubt much of this will read to an average audience member, because there isn't much action or text for me to express this, and also because they are coming to the show for much different reasons than bearing witness to Scrooge's emotional reclamation. And again, it is difficult to achieve the proper mood (Shakespeare is so much better than Dickens at that, and the expectations are so different). But I think for me playing the role it gives me some foundation and roots. I'm sure that,even though we officially open tomorrow night, I will be working on this throughout the run.

As for the overall production itself, it has been a workout not only for me but for everyone in the troupe. Keep in mind that, except for Tyler - who is playing the Narrator - and myself, everyone else is playing several roles as well as executing all the scene changes and technical effects. Jessica, Sarah and Greg are doing all the music and sound, which is the main method we have of creating mood. There are an incredible amount of costume changes, and even though everything is about down to as minimum a show as you could possibly have, there is still plenty to do for everyone. Since I am on the stage for all but maybe one minute total of the entire show, I have not seen the backstage activity, but I have been assured by my cast mates that the backstage situation is wild. Between costume changes and set changes everyone is busy every moment of the production. There is no down time for anyone. I had this odd experience for the past few days as being somewhat isolated and removed from the show, and I finally figured out that the reason was that I could not contribute anything to the running of the production backstage. I can't help with set changes or costume changes or any of that, and as we were putting the final stages of the technical aspects of the show together it was sort of odd sitting there on my "island of Scrooge" and not being able to volunteer to help with anything. It's nine people backstage pulling off everything, and it's no wonder everyone's tired. I really believe in some aspects people backstage are working harder than I am. It's always a miracle to me that any show actually gets up and running, but in this case the miracle of 11 people pulling off CC in about 10 days of rehearsal is a miracle of Christmas proportions.

I am sure after writing all this I've left something out, but I'll try to keep some notes so I don't leave too much out. Even though I've been saying "Merry Christmas" until my lungs give out, I still don't quite feel in a Christmas-y mood. I think working this hard through the holidays has somewhat dampened any Christmas spirit I have, and I just don't have a "real-world" sense of the holiday season. I'm surprised to find the Salvation Army person at Krogers when I go shopping. Dave doesn't dress up Coffee on the Corner for Christmas (Hooray! Another reason to like it!). My little room has no Christmas decorations. The best I've done is spruce up my computer desktop to reflect some Christmas spirit (a tree, lights, and a CC desktop picture). So hopefully things may slow down as we get into the performance schedule and I can slow down a bit. Looking ever so forward to my day off Monday. Can't say I'll write before then. Whatever you may do this holiday season, don't Screwg yourself! -TWL

PS - There are some new videos from the final leg of the tour available on my video page. Feel free to check them out!

Act Three - 12/03/05

Staunton, VA - I don't know why I get the feeling that there will be less to write about now that we're off the road, but I sense that's the case. Perhaps it's because there aren't new places to go to or to see and then write on what I'm seeing. All I can see at the moment is the Blackfriars Playhouse, which is right across the street. I'll be seeing a lot of that in the days to come, no doubt, but no new things to see and experience. Daniel has described the whole year's experience as a five-act play: Act One - Rehearsal; Act Two - Fall Leg; Act Three - A Christmas Carol; Act Four - Winter Leg; Act Five - Blackfriars Residence. So, consider this the beginning of Act Three.

I did promise a bit of a review about the fall tour, so I think I'll begin with that. I just finished uploading the last of the fall leg pictures to the Yahoo! website, with some videos left to go, and in winding that up it seemed the best idea to sort of put the wrap on the fall tour. So, in no special order:

• Best Stop on the Tour - New London, New Hampshire. It was mid-October, the leaves were in fine color, the weather was fantastic, the hike up Mt. Sunapee was breathtaking, the New London Inn provided fine accomodations, there wasn't a sign of MallofAmerica for miles, and the three opera houses were charming locations. About the only thing that maybe wasn't so fine was the fact that the Northeast Shakespeare Ensemble did not do a good job publicizing the fact that it was the ASC, and not the NESE, that was performing. It seemed to upset others more than me, but beyond that I think it was perhaps the nicest, most restful, most peaceful and most beautiful stop on the tour.
• Worst Stop on the Tour - Bangor, ME. The people and all were quite nice, but the space was abysmal. We turned the space around to play on the floor rather than the stage, and the stage left exit led immediately to the outdoors on a fairly chilly night. Just a lot of things seemed to go wrong that particular evening. I was late for two entrances in Richard III because I couldn't hear the cues from outside. Tough venue.
• Best Moment on the Tour - Very tough call. Getting a lobster dinner with Jessica seems to be the gut call, however. I thought I wasn't going to get a lobster dinner after missing the Bar Harbor stop. Hitting the summit of Sunappe with Jessica was also right up there. As was returning to the tour in Burlington VT.
• Worst Moment on the Tour - Leaving Orrville OH to go home. No contest.
• Best Audiences - Centenary College, Shreveport LA. When those kids jumped onto the stage during the encore of Planet I thought that was very cool, mostly because I was running to the merchandise booth and wasn't on stage, which looked like it was going to collapse at any moment. It was also fun to watch them get Greg to wave his butt at them. Centenary just loved us, and it was a shame we had to leave early.
• Hardest Audience - Maybe that has to go to Lawrenceville VA, mostly because the audience was the smallest we played for. It was hard to get them going with Planet.
• Best Moment on the Stage - It should be noted that the midnight show at St. Lawrence University has a tradition of being, shall we say, loose, with a lot of improvising going on for the fun of cast and audience. So this goes to the look on Tyler's face during the midnight show at St. Lawrence University when he made his first entrance as Ariel in Planet and the whole cast looked at me and asked, "Is he gay?"
• Worst moment on stage - Probably the performance of Prospero at Centenary. I don't know why it was so wretched, but I remember being really pissed at myself for a day afterward. I know I screwed up a lot of lines and my singing was atrocious that night. Coming in a close second was during a performance of R3 when I could not totally manage to control the urge to sneeze. One small one escaped during IViv, and I could see Tyler as Cateby begin to look towards me slowly. I did not dare meet his eyes.
• Best Drive - From Danville to Fredericksburg VA along Highway 350 (I believe). It was just a slow, even, pleasant drive, spectacular day, and not very long.
• Worst Drive - Maybe Birmingham to Shrevesport. The air conditioning was broken in the van and it was maybe 97 degrees outside. That's the drive where I took the picture of myself without my shirt. Some guy from England saw that picture and claimed he lost his job because his boss caught him looking at that picture and sacked him for viewing obscenity.
• Best Motel/Hotel - The New London Inn. A close second was the first motel we stayed in in Elon, NC. I believe it was a Country Suite or something like that. Kudos and thanks also have to go to Bruce and Karen in Canton NY.
• Worst Motel/Hotel - The Stratford Inn, Dansville VA. Just weird. Close second was W. Hartford CT, but we weren't there too long.

Tell you what - I'll stop there, and if you have any best/worst categories you'd like me to list, I will do that for you. Now here comes the list of Things I've Learned Along The Way:

• The hardest thing to give up on tour is your personal freedom. The schedule is tight, you're constantly on the move, and when you get someplace, your mobility is limited simply because you do not have unlimited access to a car. For example, in Fredericksburgh, all I got to see was a huge mall/shopping area, the motel, and Lee Hall. I never got to downtown Fredericksburgh where all the history is. Days off sometimes mean just hanging at the motel, partly because you're tired, partly because you can't get anywhere.
• I thought I'd have the worst bladder in the troupe. I don't.
• How they ever did things like this tour before cell phones and wireless internet I will never know.
• XM Radio rules. Period. Best investment I made.
• Garmin GPS units also rule. Not perfect, but it got us out of a couple of jams.
• You don't need quite as much entertainment as you thought. I have DVDs I haven't played, and I seldom crack out my iPod simply because the XM radio is sufficient. There really isn't much time to sit and entertain yourself. I saw one movie on the whole tour. Sleeping, performing, writing and keeping all the pictures and movies I take ordered and updated takes up pretty much all the time.
• Clothes are boring and overrated.
• Eating well can be a challenge. My heart goes out to the troupe vegetarians. Subway is good, but even that becomes old after a while. And they don't give you cards or a stamp card anymore. What's up with that?
• Most coffee in hotels/motels is swill. We travel with a coffeemaker I bought in Shreveport and Jessica keeps it stoked in emergencies. I've always tried to avoid Starbucks when possible, but on the road you can be sure you will get a good cup of coffee there.
• Touring is wearing on you physically and psychologically in ways you don't expect. You're not tired, but you're fatigued. Your voice is not totally shot, but it becomes weak. Your sense of time and space becomes cramped. The day of the week is inconsequential. Your whole sense of "body clock" can become totally whack. Exercise is spotty. It is almost impossible to settle into any sort of routine beyond the time when load-in begins and ends. And as far as you're concerned, there are only 11 people in the whole wide world besides you.

And if I come up with any others within the next month or so I'll be sure to put them in here. It's good to be in one place for a while, and losing $13 in poker last night to Tyler, Andrew and Chris seems to have relieved my tension and anxiety level a bit. I'll give you some thoughts on Christmas Carol as we move along with that as well. And in the meantime, you all should go over to another Atomic Fission blogger's site. Sarah Bowles has a blog going on right here, so give her a read as well and get another perspective other than this poor player's twisted view. -TWL

I Have Not The Power - 11/30/05

Staunton, VA - A neglected or ignored blog is a terrible thing. It calls out to you, a little whining voice in the back of your head, saying, "Write in me! Write in me!" I have heard the voice over the past few days, but admit that, at the moment, I have not the power.

So quickly: I went home for Thanksgiving, a drive back through the night, which included a 90-minute wait on I-79 between Pittsburgh and Erie so as to clear out a multi-car accident caused, apparently, by a black ice spinout. I couldn't make it all the way home, so I grabbed 4 hours' sleep in Grove City PA and drove straight to Jamestown NY for my Wed. morning MRI (which, by the way, showed all clear). The I drove home and tried to stay up most of the day checking on the weather. Jenna was driving home so I wanted to make sure she had a sense of the weather conditions for her drive. Thursday was, of course, spent with traditional Thanksgiving activities, and all the kids were home. Friday we sort of relaxed most of the day and went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in the afternoon (I'm sort of "Pottered out" at this point) with chili for dinner. I left on Saturday soon after Jenna left, taking Brian with her to Syracuse so he could visit his girlfriend, then into rehearsal for Christmas Carol Sunday afternoon.

Rehearsal has been furious, hard, stressful and exhausting. I'm a little tense, depressed at coming to grips with my declining memorization skills, and wound up as well as tired. I do not learn lines as efficiently as I used to, so I've had to put in extra hours to get them, and I am still stumbling over them. We only have about 8 days total to get this production going, so the time pressure adds to the stress. And just this morning, we have had added to our plate a benefit performance of Planet so as to help a local theatre in Lexington (the Lime Kiln Theatre) which just closed its doors, fired all its artistic staff and is endeavoring to raise funds so as to re-open. Thus it is that I have had to shove aside just about anything else but rehearsal. Thus it is that I have not the power to write much.

So if you are one of those kind people who have actually been reading this poor player's blog with any regularity, I hope you'll be patient and forgive me while I get this show and this part (Scrooge, by the way, in case you did not know) up on its feet. Once I feel more comfortable in what I'm doing and have reached a better comfort level for myself, I'll get back to writing something more interesting for you to read.

Bah! Humbug! -TWL

'Tis So Concluded On - 11/22/05

On I-64W - We have just finished our last performance in Goochland, VA, and are now currently heading home. I am taking the advantage of the ride home to write this entry, and then take a Thanksgiving break. We are all getting off until Sunday, when we begin to mount A Christmas Carol. We have seven days to get that going and then perform it until December 30th.

Well, we did the Sunday afternoon performance of MA, and then took off for Bethesda after getting a bite to eat. I ate at a new place for me, something called Baha Fresh. It's a Mexican-style place which served tacos, burritos and such. It seemed familiar to the west coasters in the troupe, so I gave it a shot. I ordered a "Burritos Dos Manos" which I thought was just an extra-large burrito. Turned out it was two extra-large burritos, way more food than I could handle. I ate one and saved the rest until last night, when I had it for dinner (refirgerating it overnight). Very tasty.

The show at Holton-Arms Academy was for a private all-girls school. We stayed most of the day there. Thye show they asked for was R3, which is a big surprise for any high school. But Holton Arms apparently is not any high school. Being private, it costs quite a great deal of money to attend there. I saw one young lady drive up to school in her red Audi sports car. The building is all practically brand-new. The theatre was very nice. Everything about the place just exuded dollars. Of course, it was located in a toney section of Bethesda, a suburb of DC, so I suspect many well-off families sent their daughters there. And of course, the ladies were not stupid. I am assuming the school takes high academic achievers, given its private standing. They were an attentive audience, but of course some references referring to women did not get past them. When Alyssa, as one of the murderers of Clarence, says "'tis cowardly and womanish" you could hear the laughs go on. Similarly when Richard talks to Elizabeth about her womb as the "nest of spicery" there were some interesting reactions, from giggles to ooohhs and aaahhhs. It sort of gave the play an interesting spin to have an all-female audience listening to the show. After a rather raucous lunch in the cafeteria, we have several simultaneous workshops going on. Kevin and I did the one we call "Shakesfeet," which tries to give the students a few tools for getting Shakepseare "on his feet" by using paraphrasing and understanding of verse. That took an hour, and then we headed back to Staunton through the pouring rain. When we got into town we unloaded the cargo van of everything that we did not need for today, and headed off to sleep. I got a room in the Frederick House for the evening, whose wonderful proprietors, Denny and Karen, made me feel at home. A little Monday Night Football, and then a little sleep.

Today's gig was in Goochland, and it was a bit difficult. We thought the show was scheduled for 1:00, but they had changed the time to 1:30 for their schedule. We left Staunton at 9 AM and had a lot of time to kill before 12:30, as they had classes in the theatre before then. So some of us went to Tracey's Cafe, where they served a lot of fried death. I tried the meatloaf and mashed potatoes, one of two not-fried sides, and it was OK. Heading back to the theatre, we discovered that the audience would also be made up of elementary kids as well. I've no idea why they includedelementary kids in the mix, but they did. Turned out these were the kids who sat on the stage! Right at the beginning of the show two kids moved their chairs stage right to get to the front and ended up blocking the stage right exit. I had to go over in the middle of the first scene and move them away from the exit (kindly, of course, in my best "Uncle Leo" style) so we could use it. Thank goodness for "direct audience contact," or I never could have moved them! So the audience was a little restless at times. We sort of sped through the play, because we had to be done by 3:15 in time for the buses, and we really did not get started until 1:35 or so. It was a bit difficult, but not impossible, and Carie gave us thanks for getting through the show so well under the conditions.

So - the fall leg is now over. Everyone I think is suffering from some form of fatigue or another; some have tired voices (me), Kevin just barely made it through today's run and seems to be getting flu-like symptoms; others are just generally weary and looking forward to the break. I will probably ruminate on touring in another entry, but there is no doubt that touring takes its toll on you physically and psychologically. I am looking forward to seeing my family over the break (all the kids are coming home). I need to get my lines down for CC and then get set to perform through Christmas (won't be back home until after the New Year). But of course, I still have the 7-hour drive home ahead of me as I write this, so I think I'll kick back in my "office," have a cup of the coffee sitting in my thermos, and prepare the head. A Happy Thanksgiving to you all! - TWL