Kallen Fatigue????

The Commercial Appeal sent Jon W. Sparks to the Orpheum to see us in Traviata and wrote a review that prompted a response from a reader concerning Kallen Fatigue.  The writer said he suffers from this malady as well but still enjoyed the production.   I agree with Michael Ching when he states that regulars are a good thing and all the big houses do this.  If Pavarotti wasn't at the Met one year, there was talk as to what was wrong, not a yippee from the press.  I enjoyed doing the show, not just because of Kallen, but because I thought it carried out the reason I fell in love with Opera at the age of 13-it was a metamorphosis of theatre, art, music, and dance.   

as you like it, traviata

I've been in the wonderful predicament for the last two weeks of rehearsing one show while performing another. As You Like It closes Sunday after three wonderful weeks of performances. We got one "review" so far from Christopher Blank, and I guess you'd call it favorable. He liked the show. He just didn't, and doesn't, really mention the players and their performances.

I've been rehearsing Traviata with Kallen in the afternoon and at night when I didn't have an AYLI performance. Kallen is her usual wonderful self, Quinn Kelsey is the Germont and he is fantastic, Bill Joyner is Alfredo and is simply wonderful. Karen Tiller is directing and she's doing good things. We open next Saturday...come see us! And if you haven't been to the forest of Arden, you need to get there by Sunday!

More later...

Steve

four weeks, you rehearse and rehearse....

Well, here we are at our first preview. We'll rehearse this afternoon from two to five and then our first real audience comes in. I'm at Overton today, so I'm tired, but excited. I think it's gonna be really good-everyone is so talented and Dan has done a wonderful job of using the space, or should I say wide open spaces. Deb came last night after she got out of church and had MacGregor with her. She said it looked good because so much of the woods is being used. MacGregor barked at Dan-I hope it didn't make him mad to have the dog there.:)

Hopefully I'll be able to give you some post-opening thoughts here in a a couple of days...

Steve

as you like it

I am at Overton High School today, but more importantly, I'm rehearsing my first Equity contract in ten years with As You Like It and the Tennessee Shakespeare Company. It's so nice to be able to do this environmental theatre piece. We're going to perform part of the show inside and part outside! The cast is wonderful, and I really hope Memphis gets out and supports this chance for real professional theatre to come here. We're opening Oct 2 and closing Oct 19. After we open, I'll be rehearsing Traviata with Opera Memphis and open that Oct 25. Come see us!!!!

the final countdown

When you read the title of this post, you have to go "tah tah tah tah...tah tah tah tah tah..." to get the full effect. :) If you don't the Europe song, just skip it...

I'm at White Station Elementary and having a wonderful two weeks here in the library. Friday is the end of the school year here, and of course the children are excited. They had a field day last Friday and it really quite fun. Lots of fun things for them to do, all organized by the gym teacher here, Coach Cochran. He really did a wonderful job of keeping everything moving.

I've been offered my first Equity contract in ten years. There is a new fledgling Shakespeare company starting here, and I'll be doing Amiens in As You Like It. Oddly enough, I did Amiens in 1977 at Theatre Memphis in the Little Theatre. The artistic director is a wonderfully nice man named Dan McCleary, and I really hope this could be the beginning of some decent pay in Memphis for actors.

I also did an audition and callback for Les Miz in Little Rock for Arkansas Rep and felt like it went well. I sang the latter half of the Suicide scene and the director asked for Stars. In the callback, I sang all that again and did the Priest's little scene before the candlesticks are stolen. He must be thinking of me for that with a Javert understudy. I don't know if I can afford to do that, but we'll see.

Deb's had some nibbles on an email we sent out about her potential job change and I'm optimistic about it. I don't know if she is as optimistic as I am about it, but I pray something will be settled soon. She gets very stressed about money and it doesn't help to have an actor for a husband if you worry about money.:)

That's about all for now, I have a class coming in.

expelled, les miz, shakespeare

So we had our viewing of Expelled and it was kind of anticlimactic. Far more important was the depressing news of my wife's job being "relocated" to Murfreesboro. She was completely freaked out about it and didn't feel like going. It ended up being me and Janet Bush, Mike and Jo Rutter, Jason Grosser, and Michael Coplon. Most of the other atheists found some reason not to go-and I wasn't really in the mood to have some big discussion afterwards.

I'm very confident Deb will find some other work here in Memphis-I just pray for her peace of mind. I also pray that I'll be able to find something that pays more and is more of a full time job. I'd like to get back into radio and I've made some connections that I hope to bring to fruition.

I'm at White Station Elementary all week in the library and what a wonderful new school this is. I hope I'll have more time to write this week and I hope to do well tonight at an audition for a "Tennessee Shakespeare Company"...I don't know exactly what this gig is supposed to be but it is supposed to be a union job.

Next week I'm singing for Les Miz in Little Rock ...I REALLY need this job...pray for me.

expelled...or not.

Today my quandry is how to deal with my atheistic friends. We're trying to go as a group to see Expelled, the new film by Ben Stein. I thought it would be a good field trip since it deals with freedom of speech, ID, evolution, and the like.

When I mentioned this on Tuesday night's meeting (Occam's Coffeehouse meets at the Atlanta Bread company in Germantown at 6 pm), I was met with a most surprising reaction. A few said they'd go but pay for another movie and sneak in, and a few said they don't need to go at all. My wife had been to a discussion of Lucy with our wife's founder Janet and we've had numerous other examples of listening to an Atheist's point of view about relative topics so I was surprised. The movie was immediately termed "propaganda" and a negative disussion ensued. I actually got pretty worked up at the hypocrisy being sent out by the "atheist" side and had to leave the meeting. I apologized later in person and via email.

I also tried to make my point of how we've been to lectures by evolution-leaning scientists, watched Richard Dawkins videos, read God is not Great as a book choice, and basically been open to trying to listen at least to a point of view that was contradictory to my own.

I was surprised as to the negative emails I got and arguments that came from this. I thought we could go to this movie and enjoy it and go somewhere afterwards and discuss-maybe even argue about it.

I guess not...

More later...