First Day in Nebraska

The day started off rough with the flight from Chicago. We loaded on time and all seemed well. Then we sat on the tarmac for around 90 minutes continuing to listen to the captain thank us for our patience but letting us know that storms were developing in our route and that it would be unsafe for us to proceed in that weather in our very small aircraft. We finally loaded back into the airport, waited another 90 minutes or so and re-boarded. Then we sat on the tarmac about another 45 minutes before finally leaving. We ended up arriving about 4 hours late. My wife told me later that Chicago would later cancel all flights and clear people away from the windows because the storms were so dangerous. I'm glad we got out before it got too bad and that I wasn't stuck in Chicago, though I did hate to leave.

Here's the view of the dorms from the cafeteria window. Nebraska sure is FLAT, FLAT, FLAT. When we were finally landing I noticed giant grids of green space, and as we neared the ground I noticed that roads between large square patches of land were dirt roads.

Here's an interesting sculpture on the campus of the University of Nebraska. This festival is huge and has brought about 3,000 students from all over the country together for one week to celebrate the art form of theatre. Below are pictures of two fellow theatre teachers rummaging through the local bookstore for good used plays for our students. I had already found a goldmine of plays in Chicago, but I still found a few more good plays to take home here as well.

I've already seen two presentations tonight, including a show called Making Magic, Defying Gravity which featured 12 young thespians performing onstage with two Broadway stars (Mr. Michael Mahany & Ms. Carla Stickler from the musical Wicked). Despite a few minor mic problems the musical revue was quite a success and it was great to see the young artist onstage with professionals from the industry.

Here's a picture of the Lied (pronounced Lee Yed) center theatre where the performance took place and where all mainstage shows will take place this week. It seats around 2,000. They have to divide the shows up between this theatre and another one that seats about 1,000 so all kids can enjoy the plays. Tonight they did Making Magic, Defying Gravity twice so all kids could see it.

The show also featured introductions from members of the board from the Educational Theatre Association (EdTA), the organization that oversees the International Thespian Society. Two members of the EdTA were interviewed during the show on how they got into theatre and how they maintain success in an industry that is full of rejection. One member was a stage manager for a $14 million dollar show and the other had worked his way up to a leadership role at Disney where he worked alongside 2,000 Disney workers (he made sure NOT to say that his co-workers operated underneath him though it was clear he was the boss.) The gentleman who worked for disney started as someone who played tapes as filler music for a show in Epcot and the other gentleman who was a stage manager also started from meager beginnings.

It was a great introduction to the festival

Here are a few more sculptures from right next to the theatres.

Next I saw a one-act play by Davenport High School. This Iowa troupe #3994 presented I Never Saw Another Butterfly which was a dark, yet uplifting, story of hope in the hell that was the village of Terezin. This was a nazi ghetto occupied by Jews, many of whom would then be sent to Auschwitz never to return. The statistics in the program were staggering stating that 15,000 children were sent there and approximately 100 children survived. Some of these children were inspired by a teacher named Irena Synkova and as the play progressed a slide show was being featured above the actors' heads showing actual artwork from the Jewish children. One little girl kept saying, 'Today I missed my daddy' and having a daughter who has been saying that for 8 days now to my wife really struck a chord with me. The kids told of horrors they witnessed in the camp such as death, bed bugs, fleas, lice, starvation, the death of everyone they loved, and typhoid. However, there was a marriage in the play and new love by the main character of Raja. The other uplifting part was the effect Irena had on these young girls who found hope in singing, writing, drawing, dancing, playing games & laughing in a hellacious reality. The two actresses play Irena and Raja were super talented. Sometimes that makes a high school production more difficult to watch because certain parts stand out so much that the show as a whole might seem unbalanced, but the show was strong. All actors were doing their best, but it was clear that the most talented girls had two of the most pivotal roles. Great casting.

 

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Sunday, 6-23-13

It is with great sadness that my trip to Chicago has come to a close. On Sunday I saw my last show and it was pretty cool. At first I did not enjoy it and I wondered why I had sprinted around 1/2 a mile in the rain after hopping off the red line to Berwyn. This was the furthest north I had been during my entire trip in Chicago and the theatre was located a long way from the red line stop. I had about 13 or 14 minutes to make it before the show started at 7 PM. A thunderstorm was rolling in. The show was called Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind and was performed by a group of artists called the Neo-Futurists. This play has been running for years and over the course of all their shows they have produced over 8500 short plays.

When you walk into the space, you roll a dice to see how much you pay. I believe the format was $10 + the roll of a 6 sided dice. So the price is between $11-$16. However, I bought my ticket ahead of time and so I was given the dice to roll and they gave me some money back. I had paid $22 online and I got $4 back. When you go through a passageway to the theatre, someone yells at you REALLY LOUD asking you what your name is. I told them 'Clint' and then they wrote a name tag for me that said 'Spaghetti Legs'. The girl who yelled at me had headphones on and she said this is what I heard you say, when I began to spell it. I threw on my name tag and went to my seat.

The goal of the show is to perform 30 short plays within an hour. They put the clock on at the start of the show and rush from show to show trying to complete their objective. Strung over the stage is a thin rope with 30 sheets of paper on clothespins, each with the numbers 1-30, facing the audience. On the back of the number (facing upstage towards the actors) there is a title of the play. Audience members are given a 'menu' with the 30 show titles. We are given some practice on how the show works before it gets going. Every time a show ends, someone in the cast will call 'CURTAIN' and at that point you will refer to your 'menu' and call out the number of the show that you want to see. They pull down that number, scream out the title and shift immediately into the next short play. Once they are set up, an offstage actor will say _______________(the name of the show) and GO! The actors also talk about how they will be interacting with the audience, moving through the space, etc.

The first few scenes (or plays if you want to call them that) were not very interesting to me. I was disengaged and a little annoyed. I felt they were thrown together and not too interesting, funny or dramatic. However, after a while, I started to settle into what was happening and I started to enjoy it. Before the show the leader also spoke about how all of the scenes were about things that had happened to the cast, or were inspired by their actual lives. That is what made me eventually start understanding and enjoying the piece. There was a piece about a young man (it was all played with a voiceover of the actor performing) and he unraveled a lot of little objects and spread them out on a table. I still don't know the point of the story/play, but it was about his relationship and memories of his grandmother and a specific moment in time that he recalled with great detail. Another story was about an actress (her play number was #27 and I kept hollering it out) entitled Where Iwas and WhereIam now and it was the story of her brother who apparently committed suicide about a year ago and how when she found out the news she was sitting on the shore of Lake Michigan with salt in her skin and her eyes and the powerful realization that she was a part of something greater than herself. She went on to say something along the lines of 'the next time you are there, look for my footprints, there are hundreds of them' and soon thereafter the stage went to black.

There was another actor onstage and he had short hair, but some female-like features and I wasn't sure if they were male or female. My wonder would be directly addressed during Malik/Molly's scene. Malik stood down center with two actors just upstage of him, both with a hand on each of his shoulders. The story of Malik/Molly was told. He grew up with some internal physical characteristics that point to the fact that he is female. He had a battery of tests performed on him which proved to be inconclusive and he was deemed 'abnormal'. Though he had some of these characteristics, his body did not produce estrogen, so for a period of time he was given estrogen. Eventually he was classified as 'intersex' and that was explained as someone who is not necessarily female or male but someone 'in between'. A few years ago he shed the name Molly, stopped taking estrogen and took on the name Malik because he identified more as a man.

Another actor read from cards that had different stories from his past. Before reading from a card, an actor upstage would flip a coin to decide if he was pulling from the right stack or the left stack of cards. He talked about living in Cincinnati with his girlfriend and their apartment being infested with bed bugs. He also talked about the way they had to get rid of bed bugs from his girlfriend's beloved stuffed animals (putting them in the freezer for a few days). He also talked about a medical issue that his girlfriend had that endangered her life and how that took a toll on them. In the end he stated that many of the biggest decisions in his life had been decided through a coin flip (just like they were doing throughout the scene) and that when he and his girlfriend decided to return to Chicago it was from a coin flip.

The type of theatre the Neo-Futurists explore is called meta-theatre. It is not conventional in an manner but proved to be thought provoking. They did get through the 30 plays and it was pretty neat. One scene was where all the actors (males included) put on thick lipstick and crawled through the audience kissing audience members on the cheek, forehead, arm, etc. By the end of it everyone in the audience had big kiss marks on their neck, face, head, etc. It was pretty funny to see. Another seen lead to a weird build-up, all of the actors sported swimming goggles and were holding water guns, until finally they turned their water guns on us and sprayed us for about 10-15 seconds. One was about a talking ostrich that railed on about politics while talking into a microphoned-megaphone. They were truly across the board.

Although some of the shows were not entertaining to me, overall I enjoyed it conceptually and I really enjoyed the true stories from the actors. It built a bridge between the performers and I and it made me care.

Now I journey to Nebraska. From the big city and the mass transit and the floods of people every single day, to the open country that is Nebraska. Instead of professional theatres and professional actors I will be surrounded with thousands of high school actors and witnessing their shows. It will be quite a shift, but I am excited about all the workshops and learning I'll experience during this part of my fellowship.

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Saturday in Chicago (6-22-13)

I was pleasantly surprised when I awoke to find a full fledged street market 1/2 a block from my hotel where there is usually loads of traffic. The street of Division was shut down for a few blocks and local farmers, chefs and gardeners were out selling their wares. It was really neat.

The next thing I did was go to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I was incredibly let down by the MCA. The best part of this adventure was that I saw Tom Hanks and his wife rushing into a blacked out van with a bunch of other folks while walking to the museum. I was in Chicago about 15 years ago and the MCA blew me away with its exhibits. On Saturday, there were limited exhibits (one had ended earlier this week and two were slated to open on 6-29-13 and the museum was a complete letdown. Usually I am excited to see what types of weird installations a museum has and occasionally and I've been known to be inspired by that artwork and it has helped me create on my own. Not today. Here are two pictures of an artist's installation.

Wow, they're Christmas lights, really....................and you got paid to do this???????

A series of glasses glued to the wall. Maybe that means we are putting our glasses up against the wall because we are nosy (we want to hear through the wall of our neighbors) and we are a product of the 'Kardashians' TV reality show society. Who really knows what it means, but it means boring to me. There were also bits of confetti glued to the floor.

There was an interesting group dance (seen below) taking place in front of the museum, but as far as things inside the museum, the best things in there were in the museum store.

After the mundane stroll through the museum and a lunch I attended one of the funniest plays ever produced.

This play was outstanding. Although I've built my life around theatre, I've not always been a huge fan of musicals. However, the creators of South Park hit a homerun with this one. It is NOT for the faint of heart. There are enough curse words in this play to make someone have a minor stroke. This play was brilliant from top to bottom. The songs were hilarious, the actors were pitch perfect, the dancing was magnificent and it told a wonderful story. All I can tell you is that if you're not too uptight, go see this play at your first opportunity. If you are made uncomfortable by some strong language, you better go to something more predictable. If you notice the quote under the sign 'So good, it makes me angry', I wonder why it would make someone angry when I came out of the theatre nearly crying with joy. I guess someone could be angry because these two guys have never written a musical and have taken Broadway (and anywhere else it has played) by storm. It won 8 Tony Awards and will surely be touring soon to a theatre near you.

The night concluded with IO's presentation of Whirled News Tonight which turned out to be one of the greatest performances I saw in Chicago. You enter the space and there are loads of newspapers on a table on the stage, along with pairs of scissors. The house manager tells you to go cut out some articles and put them on the billboards on stage. The improv actors will build scenes from these articles. About 8 actors come onstage. One of them pulls an article down from the board and reads it to the audience. As soon as the article finishes, the group starts an improv about that article. It might be 2 actors onstage or 4-5. Anytime someone wants to step in, they come and wave their hand at the person they are replacing and continue on. They can start a new scene, or build on what is happening, but it still is focused on the article at hand. These guys (and one girl) were brilliant, fast-paced, relaxed, open, confident, intelligent comedic actors. They were just so fast, it was thrilling to watch. They did that for about an hour, took a small intermission and the second part of the show was also all improv and would based on a question from an audience member that they needed help answering. Examples were, "Should I get married?", "Should I get Lasik eye surgery?", "Should I let my 18 yr. old daughter go to beach week?" Once again the members of IO were tight and thorough and keep the audience rolling for another hour.

These were definitely the funniest shows I saw this week. One completely scripted and choreographed and sang and one flying without a net. The art of improv is young, but it is alive and well in Chicago.

 

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Final day at Second City

Friday was my last day of classes at Second City. The day was incredible, with both classes having nice conclusions to the week's learning. In the improv class we worked on partner scenes. The writing class was completed overflowing with information and we worked right up until the end. The instructor was nice enough to continue to give me other improv exercises after class and talk to me about the structure of improv and good exercises to teach to my students. When I left the building around 5:30 PM I felt like I was on top of the world because of all the great information I had gathered throughout the week. There is so much information that I have recorded in my iPad and in my notebook that I will have to wait until I return to Alabama in order to sort it all out and put it together in cohesive lesson plans for my students. Today (Saturday), I am excited to go so the smash Broadway hit The Book of Mormon. One of my classmates went this week and he was raving about how incredible it was. I will close the evening out tonight the iO's presentation of Whirled News Tonight. iO was formerly called Improv Olympics but was later sued by the 'real' Olympics for using the name. Evidently the only institutions in the world that can use the term 'Olympics' are the 'real' Olympics and the Special Olympics, so now they go by the name iO. iO comes strongly recommended from all the folks at Second City. I'll let you know how those shows go later on.

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4th day at Second City classes

Today was another great day in class. During the morning improvisation class I was becoming a little disengaged because some of the exercises seemed to be repeating themselves. However, I just allowed myself to enter into the exercises and make the most of them. I've really become engaged in the writing class in the afternoon and our teacher Jay (female) flies through the work at a breakneck speed. I love her energy and how quickly she attempts to cover as much material as possible. During class she asked how the improv class was going and I said 'well', but then I asked to speak to her about it. I told her that some of the exercises were not as challenging as I would like and I was hoping to go back to my high school ready to teach some basic improv work to students. She was nice enough to stay after class and give me some extra pointers on things I could bring back to my students in addition to what I am learning in the class. She said sometimes her students say she is going too fast while other say the improv teacher is going a little slow; so I was glad that she understood where I was coming from. Even though the activities in the improv class are helpful and useful, I have worked on many of them before and I was hoping for a little bit more advanced training, but anyone who comes in must start at the ground level. She was also advising me on what I might do if I try and come back in a future summer for additional classes. I wasn't sure if the second level class would be what I was looking for or not. I'm going to follow up with her some more tomorrow with recommendations. The writing class is going great and we had some great discoveries in the improv class as well. Each night in the writing class I have to complete homework which is truly one of my favorite parts of the class. It is specific and we are asked to complete it in a specific amount of time. In a moment I've got to get cranking on it.

Tonight I saw a production of Neil Labute's play In The Company of Men by Profiles Theatre. It is a horrifying look at people who do bad things just for sport. The play opens with two men in the company bathroom who have been jilted by their girls. There are 3 main characters: Chad, Howard and Christine. Chad instigates the plot by telling Howard it's time they find a victim and ruin her life. He says they must find a woman who is vulnerable and then both seek out her attention (separately) and then break her heart, just for the heck of it. Howard seems less eager to do this, but eventually agrees to assist Chad in this sick game. They find Christine, a temp at the office, who is deaf and Chad decides this is the perfect target. Chad first courts her and then Howard steps in soon after. Chad sleeps with her Howard really falls in love with her. When Howard tells Christine how he feels she says that she's in love with another man. Howard is so upset he tells her their entire plan. The Profiles Theatre is a small theatre in Northern Chicago and it is celebrating its 24th season. The playwright did a re-write of this play for the theatre and this was the World Premiere of the revised script. Here are pictures of the set before the play.

The character of Chad was truly a disgusting person. Christine helped close the play out with a monologue about something that happened to her when she was 15 yrs. old and how her first date had told a distasteful joke about deaf people on their date. She didn't acknowledge that the joke affected her in front of her date but went home and balled her eyes out. She made a point of saying that the first date had come back to her house with a box of chocolates and apologized (he was forced to by his mom). The point was made clearly that even when people like to say they are 'joking', if it is hurtful to someone else, it is not acceptable. The play was outstanding and you really wanted to slug Chad in the mouth by the end of it. However, we all know someone in our lives who is simply hateful, just because. Maybe they do it to your face, maybe they simply ignore you when you've tried on numerous occasions to reach out to them, or maybe it's all done in hushed whispers behind your back. Whatever the case may be, it hurts and it's human nature at its worst.

 

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Big Lake, Big City at the Lookingglass Theatre

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This was the show I saw tonight at the Lookingglass theatre. The theatre is celebrating its 25th season right now and it is located in the Chicago Water Works building. Here are some pics.

The picture above is of the Lookingglass Theatre's ensemble. David Schwimmer is near the middle in a white robe, along with an assortment of other Chicago actors. Our second city instructor today explained how Chicago theatre is all based upon ensemble work. If you are unfamiliar with that, it means that each theatre has a core group of actors that helps perform in shows and push the company forward. Below are pictures of the show's set. The show's set represented an amazing variety of location by flying in simple set pieces, rolling them onto the stage, or transitioning existing set pieces into a new formation. Unfortunately it is illegal to film any live theatre because of copyright laws, so you'll just have to take my word on all the scenes that took place in this space. Some of the locations used in this play were: a garden patio @ a restaurant, a host stand, a construction site (the rafters where theatrical lights hung is where one actor spoke from, while the other actor was on the floor), an apartment, a cheap hotel room, a police precinct, a dentist office, a travel agency, a bus stop, a morgue, a park bench, a function where there was a guest speaker + a few more.

Below, I was able to capture a few shots during intermission. You will see how the closet in the above picture transitioned to a bed in the picture below. The bed was the site of a love scene (in the first act and the second), but at the close of the first act a fire has killed two people and their badly burnt corpses are still in the bed below.

The acting was phenomenal. Tonight was the very first preview. A preview is when audiences are allowed in, but in reality the show is still in final rehearsals before the actual opening. It gives actors a chance to hear where audiences are laughing and also an opportunity to fix technical mistakes. The gentleman who did the introduction even stated that at some point an actor may call for line or if there is a mistake the stage manager may stop the show.

There were two really interesting technical elements. A Ferris wheel box dropped from the ceiling at the end and lifted 3 actors into the air during one of the last scenes. Another scene featured a 2 ft. by 5 ft. piece of wood that was lowered out of the ceiling and two actors rode that piece of wood about 10 feet in the air to perform a short scene. They did clip onto a safety harness before lifting into the air. The scene was re-creating a construction site.

The play was a dark comedy in which there were quite a few dead characters by the end. It had elements of film noir and began with a conflict between two brothers. One responsible brother was trying to help out the other because he was family, however the irresponsible brother kept wasting his opportunities to do better. At one point the irresponsible brother told his brother he was sleeping with his brother's wife. He was chased offstage. The next time we saw the irresponsible brother on stage, he had a screwdriver stuck in his head. It was stuck there for the rest of the play.

The play also dealt with a lead detective in the Chicago PD. This detective was married and soon his wife was cheating on him. The wife and her lover, another married man, pretended to be burned alive in a hotel room in order to cheat the married man's wife out of money. The plot is so difficult to follow it would be hard for me to sum it up, but it was very interesting and the actors handled the material well. This was a brand new play and I saw it on the first night audiences were let into the theatre.

It was quite an experience, once again.

 

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2nd City Day 3

Here is my morning improvisation class. We had an incredible class this AM.

Here is my instructor and I, his name is JJ and he is great.

I have so much to say, but I've got a show at 7:30 and so I've gotta run. I will update you with the day's activities tonight. I'll have to say I'm super excited about seeing the show Big Lake, Big City by David Schwimmer. I'm confident it is going to be hilarious and I've got to get down to the loop in order to be on time.

 

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