SURVIVOR: TECH WEEKEND

I am happy to report that the cast and crew of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE have survived tech weekend. We are moving forward into tech week with Monday and Tuesday the last remaining days before we have an audience. Come Wednesday, our final dress rehearsal, we have people in the seats ready to see the story come to life.

With Thanksgiving Day off, we lose one day of tech rehearsal. (Tech rehearsal? What’s that?) The week before an opening of the show is when all those pieces finally come together. The set is built (or nearly finished), we run the show with all of our costume/wig changes, use real props, real furniture, the lights change, there are sounds effects, music is playing, the whole shebang. One week. And then we’re off and running! We’ve got to be absolutely solid on lines, entrance cues, because a lot of new sights, sounds and costumes will be thrown at us, and the show must go on!

Tech weekend is for tech – not necessarily for actors. The actors have to be at beck and call for running cue lines and scene changes. The orchestration of these scene changes can be complex. Actor A and K are moving upstage panel to gray while Actors F, G, and H are rotating the platform and Actors J, B and L move the furniture. I am most proud of our young actors who have been patient, quiet and focused. It is difficult enough for us adults to stay on task.

It is this weekend that most beautifully showcases the collaborative nature of the art of theatre. There are a myriad of individual who collaborate to put on a show. Everyone is given a specific task and responsibility to help tell the story:

• Actors have lines and physical movement to portray the character of the story
• Costumers dress the actors appropriately staying true to the time period of the show
• Scene designers gives the story a physical space
• Technical crew builds, paints and decorates the set
• Lighting designers makes sure to light the set with appropriate colors and intensities
• Sound designers give us music and make sure our telephone rings
• Props masters (or mistresses) give actors the necessary objects to use onstage
• Stage managers makes sure everything happens at the correct time
• And the director makes sure we’re all telling the same story :-)

Obviously there is much more work that goes into each of these roles that simply could not fit in this limited space. Hundreds of VOLUNTEER hours (you read that right, volunteer cast, crew, costumes, props...) have been logged for IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

Maybe it's your favorite movie, maybe it's not, but I hope that each you reading this entry makes time to come and enjoy the story that we have been working diligently on for the past four weeks. Yyou have 19 opportunities to see the show – no excuses :-)

It really is a beautiful story of struggles, hope, and friendship. Personally, this story reminds me that no mater what choices you make in life, no matter what circumstances you find yourself in, your friends and family are worth so much more. Even if you don't feel like you've made a difference, you definitely have impacted the lives around you in ways you might not even know. A simple hug can mean more than thousands of words; simply saying "hi" to a stranger can make the world of difference; a "Thank you" can brighten someone's day. And sometimes it is in adversity that we can truly see what a Wonderful Life it is.

I hope to see you soon. Have a great Thanksgiving!

-Sarah T (Violet Peterson)

Wonderful Life, Part Two

“Hasn’t Sunset done It’s a Wonderful Life before?”

Ah, how quickly they forget! I’ve been getting this question, or some version of it for weeks now, and the answer is YES. Sunset Playhouse previously produced Wonderful Life in 2008, under the direction of Howard Bashinski, and it was a fine production. Like every show I’ve ever worked on, though, there were certain aspects of the show that I loved, certain aspects of the show that I felt were just OK, and certain aspects that I’d rather forget.

What’s really interesting for me is that after 70+ productions at Sunset Playhouse over the last 9 years, this is the first time that I’ve had to re-design a show. We’ve come close a few times. Escanaba in Love was the prequel to Escanaba in da Moonlight, and was set in the same hunting cabin only 40 years earlier. Both of those were directed by Sunset Artistic Director Mark Salentine, and we were both happy with keeping the same design but simply making it newer-looking with older furnishings.

A few years ago, we produced Oscar and Felix, which is Neil Simon’s modern re-telling of The Odd Couple. Sunset’s 2001 production of The Odd Couple, directed by former Artistic Director Michael Duncan, was my first design for Sunset, and I chose to re-create the design with only minor modern updates for Oscar and Felix.

Our 2010 production of It’s a Wonderful Life is a completely new production, directed by Mark Salentine, with a different concept and therefore different designs throughout. The holidays are all about tradition, and one could say that tradition is basically doing the same thing with just a few differences year after year after year. We hope you’ll come see what we hope will become a new tradition for us!

As a bonus for those of you that remember the last production of It’s a Wonderful Life, here are two behind the scenes photos of our new production for your enjoyment.

J. Michael Desper

Resident Scene Designer/ Technical Director

Lessons from a Frog and Two Witches

As the Administrative Assistant at Sunset, I do a little bit of this and that for almost all of our productions, so I feel some ownership for all of our shows. That said, I do play favorites: as a mom, I find that I most enjoy my experiences through the School for the Arts. Over the summer, my daughter attended our summer camp for two weeks, and she loved every second of it. Our whole family got a kick out of seeing her on stage for the first time, barking like a dog, in the camp’s final production, and she can’t wait to go back next year. As a parent, I was impressed by how much fun all of the kids had, while still learning a little about the theatre experience; as a staff member, I enjoyed hearing the kids chatting throughout the day.

Besides the School, we also have a series of interactive childrens shows called bug in a rug. All of the bug in a rug shows are originals, from the genius of Erika Navin, our School of the Arts director. This weekend we premiered SWITCH WITCH, the story of an unlikely friendship between a good witch and a bad witch. The show was also about something all kids need to hear and re-hear: that being yourself is the best way to be, even if being yourself makes you different. As a parent, I appreciate being able to take my children to see a show where they will laugh and help cast silly spells and still come away with an important lesson. Especially when the lesson is taught to them by a frog and two witches.

So as a mom, and as a staff member, I just have to say: to the SWITCH WITCH cast and crew, to Erika Navin, and to all the staff and volunteers who help behind the scenes and with craft time, thank you for creating such a fun show and for reminding all of us that being different is just fine, and for reminding our children- and us parents, too- that we should value ourselves, no matter how different we may be.

Michelle Tucker

Administrative Assistant

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR ACTOR

Take a person, give them all the words they need to say, tell them when they need to say the words, then tell them where they need to move, put them on a stage and what happens? They forget how to be human. Movements are rigid, almost robotic; words come out but are not convincing; people walk into furniture, into walls, even walk backwards up stairs. Or my favorite, the phenomena that occurs in group scenes where the actors somehow end up shoulder to shoulder in a straight line across the stage rather than clumping together. (this mysterious force is often lovingly referred to as a chorus line, kick line, or dummy line).

The actor’s job is equally tough: take instructions from the director on where to move and how to say a line, and make them seem real. Sometime actors are given a place to move to and the freedom to figure out how and why their character will move. This can be a wonderful, creative endeavor – or a creative nightmare:

“Sarah you need to counter-cross down stage right when he says that.”

“Okay! Um, why would my character move over there? That doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Good question. Well, we need to move your character down by the settee, so figure out some sort of motivation and make it work.”

“Okay so I could decide to get a book and read?”

“Sure”

“Or I could decide to look at the vase of flowers”

“That’s fine”

“Or could I look out the window?”

“There won’t be a physical window there, but if you want to pretend, sure”

“Ooo what If I realize that my forbidden feelings for him are too strong and that even looking at him causes me excruciating pain?! I could stumble towards the bench, in agony because he doesn’t know I love him, then look longingly out the window reaching towards the heavens asking my dead mother to give me strength to carry on as I have a single tear run down my cheek right before I pass out. ”

“Uh…No. I think reading a book will be just fine.”

No question the director’s job is a tough one: guide and train actors to take the playwright’s words and the pre-planned movements and have them perform it all in a spontaneous, realistic manner. An effective and most trusted method director use to help actors overcome the “I’m-going-to-walk-to-this-spot-turn-45-degrees-towards-the-audience-wait-politely-for-the-other-person-to-stop-speaking-and-then-deliver-my-line” syndrome, is repetition. If you repeat it enough, muscle memory steps in to make the words and movements seem to flow naturally.

Another unrealistic, but potentially effective method, would be to put up electric fences. The director could zap the actors when they step too far upstage, come on too early, miss a line, or when groups of actors form the forbidden dummy-line. This practice would most assuredly be frowned upon.

The earlier the actor memorizes his lines, the more he/she can practice with the props and “explore his character” (fancy theatre term for trying out a variety of ways to say the same thing and picking which is best). The first few weeks of rehearsal are always the most interesting. Actors are studying their lines at home and trying to get memorized enough to actually hold props during a scene. However, with a script in hand it’s rather difficult and almost comical. Imagine trying to answer the phone, while holding your purse, bags of groceries and a child all while trying to read your lines from the script you have wedged between your elbow and the sack of potatoes.

So, for now, we’ll set the props aside (until we are "off book"), work on memorizing our lines and stick with repetition, repetition, repetition. Working, re-working, adjusting here, tweaking there, try again, go back to the top of the page, to the top of the scene, to the top, act over and over and over again so that this carefully orchestrated masterpiece will be audience ready in as little as four weeks.

Cheers!

- Sarah T (aka: Violet in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE)

Switch Witch and the Meaning of Friendship

Get ready for the first show of our bug in a rug children’s theater series, Switch Witch! The bug in a rug crew is getting so excited for this weekend! Take a look at this video taken during rehearsal…and then make sure to buy your tickets.

This is our third season of bug in a rug children’s theatre at Sunset. And it’s so hard for me to believe that this dream is a reality. It all started from reading Love, Ruby Valentine with my daughter and saying “wouldn’t this be a cute play.” February of 2009 was our first bug in a rug production of “Love, Ruby Valentine.” And is has been an amazing journey ever since.

Someone asked me the other day – where do you come up with your ideas for your plays? Well, we are lucky enough to get the rights to some great children’s books, and a lot of times I take a cue from an old fairy tale, but often it comes from a lesson I am trying to instill in my children. As my daughter finished kindergarten and started first grade I found us talking a lot about friends and friendship. I was answering questions like: "What is a best friend mom?" "Can I have more than one best friend?" "How do you know who is your real friend?" Of course I tried to give all the perfect mother answers and even joked that my definition of a real friend is someone who can walk into your kitchen and open your refrigerator without asking (and I do believe that).

In all these conversations, we somehow ended up talking about how a good friend is someone who you can just be with no matter what – good/bad, happy/sad, tired/giddy, whatever the day may bring. Of course, she immediately responded by giving an example of how she and her best friend can not agree on something, but she always knows that the next day they will be friends again, or how she can just tell her best friend she wants to read alone and she goes away and then comes back again later to play. I figured these are great first grade examples of what a true friend is. More than that I hope that she is learning something about herself and building her own self- confidence and realizing that people we call friends are people who, as the quote says, “know all about you but like you anyway.”

As we put together Switch Witch, I thought about how a good witch and a bad witch could become true friends – by accepting who they each are individually and as a friend. And of course I tried to find the humor in it, so that we can all enjoy a good story with a little lesson and a lot of fun!

Put on your jammies, head on over to Sunset bug in a rug theatre, and snuggle in to laugh, participate, learn a little about friendship, and being true to yourself. Besides those great lessons, you also get to introduce your little one to the awesomeness of live theater. See you at the Playhouse!