The TEMP: an origin story
by Michael Wilhelm “You’ll never work in this town again.” That’s what they tell you in Hollywood if you don’t quite live up to their expectations. The truth is, there are all sorts of interesting jobs in that town. An…
My Life as a Theatre Director, part 1
by Lauren E. Nichols I did not always want to be a theater director. Those who have known me in the past couple of decades may find that surprising. But it’s true. My aspiration as a girl was to be…
Reflections on A Peculiar People
by Lauren E. Nichols “For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person; similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave.” (I Cor 7:22 NIV) It has been…
As I Promised in the Program…
Our current production of A Peculiar People by Rick Najera gives me an opportunity to recount again a curious story of the persistence of theater memory. Around the year 2010, our friend Michael Wilhelm (actor, playwright, teacher, artist) found a playbill in his…
Multiple projects
As I drive to the afO office for the third time in four days, I reflect that I don’t recall the last time I was able to work on three distinct projects in such a short span of time. Over…
Understudies – to cast or not to cast?
The use of understudies in community theater is a debated topic. There are directors who prefer to have understudies available in case illness or emergency were to make the principle actors unavailable. Others feel that understudies gets short changed because…
Reflections on The Christmas Express
The cast of The Christmas Express; photo by Rachel Wilhelm Photography As the artistic director of a faith-driven theater, I often find myself walking a theological tightrope when choosing plays for our company. We are always looking for shows with…
All aboard THE CHRISTMAS EXPRESS!
Just in time for the start of the holiday season, afO's feel-good comedy chugs into the PPG ArtsLab for two weekends, November 11-13 and 18-20! It's Christmas eve, 1958, in a small town somewhere in the Midwest. Hilda Trowbridge dutifully…
Reflections on afO’s production of The Little Prince
by Lauren Nichols, Artistic Director Antoine de Saint-Exupery's lovely novella, The Little Prince, is a story which repays repeated visits and grows with the reader over time. I first read it in high school, many, many years ago, and was moved…