Broadway RFD Again

The board for Broadway RFD met again last night. One of our major topics of discussion was show for next summer. Here's three of the four we're considering (I hope I get this right! I don't have my notes here at work, and will update soon.)

West Side Story
The King and I
Kiss Me Kate

Which would you like to see? They're all theatrical wellworns, and crowd pleasers - and each has its own challenges. Which is your favorite?

Broadway RFD Final Report

The BroadwayRFD Board met on Monday to sum up the season.

The tale of the tape gives a fair approximation of the success of Damn Yankees. The overall impression, good show, some problems, many surprises. Attendance was down slightly, particularly in the first week.

A total of 1,039 Lindsborgians officially passed through the ticket counter. The first weekend there were 412 brave souls. We say brave because they were willing to take a chance on a show they didn't know with a director they knew well.

The second weekend attendance picked up - good word of mouth will do that - and 627 folks came to see the show.

What most folks don't realize is how expensive it is to stage a musical. BroadwayRFD total costs this year were $15,433, down slightly from last year. The bulk of that money is tied up in production costs.

Musical theatre is the most expensive to produce, largely because of the demands of the form. The copyright holders demand bigger royalties, the sets are more complex and cost more to build, the scripts and scores have to be rented. BroadwayRFD is a major undertaking in a town our size.

So, the board is grateful for every member of the community who has supported this venture for the 48 years it has been running in the park. We couldn't do it without community support - both the material and financial support - and we look to do it better next year.

Speaking of next year, the last item on the board agenda was the choice of a show for next year. What do you want to see in the park?

I'd love to see Into the Woods, or Sunday in the Park with George - both of which seem to me to fit our community. But what about you?

Send your comments to me - or comment on the blog - and I'll pass them to the board.

Gotta Have Heart

Just back from the Friday night, second week performance of Damn Yankees.

Well done, full of surprises, glad I was there. What a night in the theatre!!!

I mean, overall, the performances were energetic, engaging and fun. I was particularly impressed with Lisa Christopher, Beth Olson and Mary Willard. I knew Lisa had talent, but she really sold me on this nice middle aged Washingtonian transplant. Her first solo, "Six months out of every year," was a great piece of work. Thanks, Lisa, for the song.

Beth and Mary, as the two older biddies who provide a kind of chorus to the Faustian epic, were just wonderfully comic. The obligato on the Gotta Have Heart reprise was just fun as well a funny. It's not that I didn't think these two women could pull off these parts - just that I was delighted by what they did with their small roles.

The major players in the show, well, what can you say but marvelous. Absolutely marvelous.

I have to single out Tyler Johnson's performance, however. Tyler is an old hand at Broadway RFD and at musicals in general. In his senior year at Bethany he played the role of El Gaio in The Fantastics, a role with many similarities to Mr. Applegate (dark, mysterious, controlling). They're not the same role, but these seem to be roles that come easy to Tyler - the dark, mysterious man. He played Applegate like it was the role he was born to play. "Those were the good old days" was worth the price of admission.

Of course, you can't have everything you want in the theatre. It just doesn't happen. Even the highest budget productions have a few things lacking.

This production is no exception. The cast members, particularly the younger ones, sometimes had pitch difficulties. The lack of a follow spot was a problem, since the lighting plot at Swensson bandshell depends on the follow-spot for full illumination. There were two or three par cans that needed new bulbs.

What happened?

I suspect that there was some difficulty getting all of the volunteers Cody needed, and thus we were short on follow spot operators. I know that we don't provide feedback monitors for the stage, and I suspect that it is difficult to hear the orchestra on stage. We need to get in the habit of doing light checks early enough to replace bulbs. In other words, all stuff that can be corrected, and nothing that seriously detracted from an enjoyable evening of theatre.

In the beginning of the process I posted a video interview of Cody. He said then that he hoped he would have a theatre piece the community could enjoy. He accomplished his goal.

It's beginning to feel personal

I glanced through the Lindsborg News Record today. I may have missed it, but I didn't see anything about Damn Yankees, the summer 2007 Broadway RFD production. I wrote and sent a press release to the LNR - or at least I think I did - I used the same e-mail address I used last summer.

The LNR refused to publish anything about Talley's Folly, the show I directed for the college. That was frustrating. I was told that they didn't publish because we mentioned prices and hadn't purchased an ad. Bad journalism. Almost every paper I know of keeps a dividing line between the business and the news, so that we don't have all the news that money can buy. The exception was the LA Times a year or two ago. A new publisher wanted to do what the LNR does as a matter of policy, and the journalists at the paper raised a stink. So did the Columbia Journalism Review and a number of other journalism commentators.

However, knowing the policy meant that I would abide by it. So I sent a press release about the show and the Membership Party on Sunday, June 23rd. Nothing about money in the release. In fact, the Membership Party is free and open to the public. I sent a photo of Cody Whetstone. I got the release to the paper early - Wednesday morning. Nothing. So, is it me? Am I on a banned person's list because I dare to say that there are things about the New Record that could be improved. I also defend some of the things that others criticize. But I have to wonder if it is a personal issue.

I have sent another press release for next week's paper. This one is accompanied by a photo of Rachel Bouza, the same photo I've posted here. I won't be in town to see the photo, so somebody tell me whether or not it shows up in the press. Then I'll know that it wasn't me, but a genuine news judgment that kept notice out of this week's paper.

Lola

Rachel Bouza, a Bethany College rising sophomore, is playing the part of Lola, in Broadway RFD's production of Damn Yankees.

Bouza's from Tonganoxie, Kansas - another small town with an odd name. She's had lots of experience on stage and behind the scenes at her High School, but due to scheduling difficulties she's only worked behind the scenes at Bethany. She designed hair and makeup for Talley's Folly and worked on choreography for Godspell.

My favorite role, among her many, was her role in Philadelphia Story. There she played the Katherine Hepburn role, Tracy Lord. There are several reasons that connection is amusing. One you'll have to google for yourself (or your can check it out on IMDB). Spell the first name with an i and add an S to the last name.

The movie Philadelphia Story, however, is on my list of movies to study to try to understand comic views of Swedish Americans. In this movie the reporter, Elizabeth Imbrie, (played by Ruth Hussey) has a line about being impervious to criticism because she comes from Swedish stock. That's off the point, but this is a blog and anything is fair game for blogging.

So, little Rachel is playing Little Lola, who gets whatever Lola wants. This is, she says, a bit of a stretch. She has the self confidence to play a seductress, but she needs to "fine tune" some of the moves of seduction.

She's got a good grasp of character. She sees Lola as growing through the play - not being a Margaretta (this is an adaptation of Faust, says Director Whetstone) - but Lola grows from being Applegate's tool to being a fan of the game to being in love with Joe Hardy. That should be an interesting transformation to watch on stage.

It almost makes Damn Yankees Lola's play.

Damn Yankees, Week 3

We have to get ready to enthuse the crowds this week. Cody Whetstone's chorus director, Ryan Holmquist gets the crew ready for "Shoeless Joe." They come a long way pretty quick with Ryan's direction. It's going to be an untempo musical. You be the judge:



The stage painting has begun. The singing is being sung. We've got a month yet before opening, but the show is beginning to take a nice shape. Hope you'll see a story in the Lindsborg News Record about the members party this week and next. The members party is Sunday, June 24th, 5 pm - at the Baseball field. Bring your glove and your hunger for great American food! It's Hotdog, apple pie, baseball - you bring your Mom, hear!

First Day of Rhearsal

Tonight the cast of Damn Yankees got its start on the road to opening night.

Director Cody Whetstone explains the details of the setting and its meaning for the show in this little clip



Cody's point about the "ever present metaphor" for the show is an important one. Think about all the things that the ballfield fence does for us as spectators. It defines our view of the game - unlike the sandlot game, this is a "real" game. The game is kept in the park and doesn't spill over into the rest of life. But then again, life is like a game, isn't it. If Shakespeare could proclaim "all the world's a stage," the poet of our time might declare, "all the world's a ball field." And winning and losing on the field have become, not merely metaphorically important, but existentially important. Witness what happened to Tony Johnson when he failed, for the 3rd year, to have a winning season with the Bethany Swedes.

Absent at the opening night was Rachel Bouza, who'll be playing the temptress Lola. Rachel, a Bethany sophomore, is off visiting the Grand Canyon. Hopefully we'll get some video footage posted before heading off for vacation.

Thursday Bethany College announces its new president. I promise to have video footage of the announcement and interview with the new President up on the blog by Thursday midnight - Friday early AM at the latest.

I've got an idea for Wednesday's post, but I have to see if I can get the interview I want, and the tour I'm looking for, by Wednesday afternoon.

A NOTE

I've noticed that my mp4 files haven't been playing properly - those 5 seconds of odd video are annoying. They don't seem to show up at the You Tube site - if you want to see the video without the annoying part, just click on the older video and I think you'll get a better view. This one isn't an mp4, and it has all the video I put onto the web.

First News from Damn Yankees process

A brand new blog, with a brand new name, and a new purpose. I've run into difficulty getting community news through the Lindsborg New Record, so I want to see if I can by pass that outlet and still get news out. I also want to see if I can manage to get the post with embedded video. It's one way to spend at least part of my summer free time and use my cameras and video editing itch.

To start off, here's an short video interview with Cody Whetstone.