[NOTE: If you are a theater company considering producing The Music Lesson, we are happy to offer our complete sfx CD for a modest fee. Please leave your contact information in the comments section below, and we will contact you…
I asserted in a previous post that The Music Lesson is not a play about the Bosnian civil war, per se. It is about humans dealing with intense conflict, the effects of such trauma on children, and the sustaining power…
Tammy Ryan's The Music Lesson is not really a play about the Bosnian war. It's not even really a play about music or teaching music, per se. But three of the six actors are supposed to be Bosnian natives--they even…
In spite of winter weather, our production of Tammy Ryan's The Music Lesson is right on schedule. This is a piece which has been on our "short list" for a couple of years, just waiting for the perfect time to…
Playwright Laurie Brooks suggests using traditional 19th century music to enhance her play, A Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas. And she points to a valuable resource, a compilation of all the songs mentioned in Wilder's Little House books. The Laura Ingalls…
We are several weeks into our rehearsal process for the second show of the 2014-2015 season. While we all agree that it's something of a misnomer, A Laura Ingalls Wilder Christmas, by Laurie Brooks, is--we've recently discovered--based on good…
Great thoughts on acting from Sam Ward, who plays Alan in our upcoming production of Interval...
Note: This post is full of links to other really interesting websites. Each link opens a new window. Enjoy exploring!
The setting of a play can be as detailed and exact as the playwright, the director and/or the producer want or need it to be. In the musical The Fantasticks, which has the feeling of a parable, the setting is a nearly bare stage with a trunk and a ladder. In Larry Shue’s The Foreigner, the single large hunting lodge set (which needs to include a trap door) benefits from a loving attention to realistic detail. [NOTE: both this excellent shows are running right now in Fort Wayne, at IPFW and First Presbyterian, respectively.]
Jeannette Clift George sets her two-character play, Interval, in the heart of New York City, Manhattan. Perhaps because for Americans, NYC is the quintessential Big City, it is a fitting backdrop for a play about two lonely people who are having a hard time finding a place to belong. Audience members who know New York well may have a bit of a job suspending disbelief that there could actually be a “forgotten corner” of Riverside Park, which runs along the Hudson River. We have tried to suggest that it is a sunken section of garden (steps down from street level).
You will notice several things about this garden:
Here are more thoughts directly from Sam Ward, who plays Alan in our upcoming production.