As the days get shorter and the temperature drops, we hope that you and your loved ones have a lovely holiday season full of laughter and fun. See you in the new year!
Showing posts with label A Tuna Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Tuna Christmas. Show all posts
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Happy Holidays!
As the days get shorter and the temperature drops, we hope that you and your loved ones have a lovely holiday season full of laughter and fun. See you in the new year!
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Special Discount Helps KC Area Communities
American Heartland Theatre is teaming up with Harvesters, Kansas City’s only food bank, to make this holiday season a little merrier for Kansas City residents in need. From November 6 through December 28, any patron who brings a can of tuna or other canned, non-perishable food item to the AHT Box Office will receive $5 off their ticket for A Tuna Christmas. This discount is available for the entire run of the production, which is special as discounts are not typically available between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve at AHT.
Harvesters is a clearinghouse for the collection and distribution of food and related household products in and around Greater Kansas City. By providing food they give sustenance and hope to those in need. Harvesters also works toward long-term solutions through nutrition education, hunger awareness and advocacy. Their network includes more than 550 not-for-profit agencies throughout the 13-county direct service area, including emergency food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, children’s homes, homes for the mentally disabled and shelters for battered persons. Their network provides food assistance to nearly 60,000 different people each week.
We're proud to be able to offer this discount to our patrons and partner with Harvesters to make a difference in the lives of Kansas City area residents.
Harvesters is a clearinghouse for the collection and distribution of food and related household products in and around Greater Kansas City. By providing food they give sustenance and hope to those in need. Harvesters also works toward long-term solutions through nutrition education, hunger awareness and advocacy. Their network includes more than 550 not-for-profit agencies throughout the 13-county direct service area, including emergency food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, children’s homes, homes for the mentally disabled and shelters for battered persons. Their network provides food assistance to nearly 60,000 different people each week.
We're proud to be able to offer this discount to our patrons and partner with Harvesters to make a difference in the lives of Kansas City area residents.
Friday, November 14, 2008
UFO Snafu
When it comes down to it, the difference between a live performance and a prerecorded one is that when it’s live if something goes wrong everybody sees it. When you pop a CD into your stereo the band gets it right every time. But put the same band up on stage... if that guitar player trips over his cable and falls on his face it’s not going to sound pretty and there won’t be any hiding it.
The “magic of theatre” happens when the band makes it look easy; when the juggler keeps all the balls in the air; when the dancer glides down the stairway and never misses a step. At the beginning of the show, when we fade the lights and raise the curtain, we are essentially uttering the most powerful incantation of theatre magic: When dump the houselights and haul out the grand rag we are saying to the audience, “Watch this!”.
Not coincidentally, these are also the most famous of famous last words.
Pretty much without exception our preference at AHT is for our audience to see us "making it look easy". The audience for the first preview of TUNA CHRISTMAS, however, got to see us make it look hard.
To set the scene.... We’re midway through Act 2. Didi Snavely has just told her husband, R.R. that her Christmas wish is that "one of your UFO's would pick you up tonight and haul your dead weight off to kingdom come.” R.R. crosses left to right, whistling “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. We hear the sound of an approaching UFO and a whirling light effect sweeps across the stage to hit R.R. downstage right. As R.R. looks upstage a lighted model spaceship (two large foodservice type colanders with a lightbulb inside and pieces of acrylic rod sticking out all over them) descends from the catwalks.
Okay, right. So if you were here for the Thursday 11/6 performance, here’s what you were supposed to see. You were supposed to see a chunk of the set wall flip down to become a four step stairway leading up into a small chamber lined with gold shimmer curtain, pulsing lights and smoke. R.R. was supposed to walk up the ramp, do a double armed “to heck with you” wave in Didi’s general direction. Then you were supposed to see the ramp close behind him.
Usually this gets a good laugh, and some applause.
Now, if you weren’t here for the Thursday 11/6 performance, here’s what you missed. The door in the wall opened about 2 inches and stuck. R.R. stood downstage right looking puzzled. Smoke began to emerge from above the set. After a few moments the door in the wall bumped a couple times but didn’t open any further. R.R. crossed upstage to the door and knocked on it. The door bumped a couple more times, obviously hopelessly stuck. Jim J. Bullock as R.R., improvising a line to cover his exit, said “That’s okay, I’ll come in the back door”, and exited upstage right. After a moment the model UFO flew up into the catwalks.
For the record, Jim J.'s ad-lib got a good laugh, and some applause.
After that, nothing really worked right for a few minutes. The turntable bringing Vera Carp’s Christmas tree out for the next scene was late coming out, and then late leaving. When the turntable was late revolving off, that threw off John-Michael Zuerlein’s timing as he tried to exit as Vera in her motorized wheelchair which caused him bump into a wall as he went out the door. And then the turntable for Pearl’s christmas tree didn’t work.
Really, we love to make an audience laugh, but this isn’t how we like to do it.
After the show, I went backstage to ask the crew what had happened. As expected, I found out that until the ramp stuck everything was fine, and that after the ramp stuck everything that went wrong happened because crewpeople who had been trying to troubleshoot the stuck ramp had gotten out of position and were playing catch-up.
As for why the ramp stuck, the answer was devilishly simple. Following the afternoon rehearsal the carpentry crew had come in to make a change to the stairs that the actor comes down backstage after going up the ramp onstage. When they screwed the new step unit into place the tail end of the pull rope used to raise and lower the ramp got pinched between a couple of pieces of wood. The carpenter didn’t think to test the ramp before leaving, after all he’d only worked on the steps; the crew didn’t think to test the ramp before showtime, after all it had worked fine all day.
Fixing the problem took about two minutes. The devil’s always in the details. You think you’ve got everything covered and then you get blindsided by a something simple.
Lots of times people talk about the “magic of theatre” to describe bits of technical wizardry: but all that stuff is just a bag of tricks. The truth is that any magic that happens in the theatre is something that hangs in the air between the audience and the performer.
Stagecraft has no magic to offer. Every so often you lower the lights, raise the curtain, say, “Watch this!”, and the balls get dropped and the actor falls down the stairs on top of his guitar. What’s cool, though, is when the real "theatre magic" survives the technical snafu. The room is dead quiet. The actor gets up, dusts off the guitar, says, “And now, for my next trick”, and it brings the house down laughing. Now that’s something....
The “magic of theatre” happens when the band makes it look easy; when the juggler keeps all the balls in the air; when the dancer glides down the stairway and never misses a step. At the beginning of the show, when we fade the lights and raise the curtain, we are essentially uttering the most powerful incantation of theatre magic: When dump the houselights and haul out the grand rag we are saying to the audience, “Watch this!”.
Not coincidentally, these are also the most famous of famous last words.
Pretty much without exception our preference at AHT is for our audience to see us "making it look easy". The audience for the first preview of TUNA CHRISTMAS, however, got to see us make it look hard.
To set the scene.... We’re midway through Act 2. Didi Snavely has just told her husband, R.R. that her Christmas wish is that "one of your UFO's would pick you up tonight and haul your dead weight off to kingdom come.” R.R. crosses left to right, whistling “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. We hear the sound of an approaching UFO and a whirling light effect sweeps across the stage to hit R.R. downstage right. As R.R. looks upstage a lighted model spaceship (two large foodservice type colanders with a lightbulb inside and pieces of acrylic rod sticking out all over them) descends from the catwalks.
Okay, right. So if you were here for the Thursday 11/6 performance, here’s what you were supposed to see. You were supposed to see a chunk of the set wall flip down to become a four step stairway leading up into a small chamber lined with gold shimmer curtain, pulsing lights and smoke. R.R. was supposed to walk up the ramp, do a double armed “to heck with you” wave in Didi’s general direction. Then you were supposed to see the ramp close behind him.
Usually this gets a good laugh, and some applause.
Now, if you weren’t here for the Thursday 11/6 performance, here’s what you missed. The door in the wall opened about 2 inches and stuck. R.R. stood downstage right looking puzzled. Smoke began to emerge from above the set. After a few moments the door in the wall bumped a couple times but didn’t open any further. R.R. crossed upstage to the door and knocked on it. The door bumped a couple more times, obviously hopelessly stuck. Jim J. Bullock as R.R., improvising a line to cover his exit, said “That’s okay, I’ll come in the back door”, and exited upstage right. After a moment the model UFO flew up into the catwalks.
For the record, Jim J.'s ad-lib got a good laugh, and some applause.
After that, nothing really worked right for a few minutes. The turntable bringing Vera Carp’s Christmas tree out for the next scene was late coming out, and then late leaving. When the turntable was late revolving off, that threw off John-Michael Zuerlein’s timing as he tried to exit as Vera in her motorized wheelchair which caused him bump into a wall as he went out the door. And then the turntable for Pearl’s christmas tree didn’t work.
Really, we love to make an audience laugh, but this isn’t how we like to do it.
After the show, I went backstage to ask the crew what had happened. As expected, I found out that until the ramp stuck everything was fine, and that after the ramp stuck everything that went wrong happened because crewpeople who had been trying to troubleshoot the stuck ramp had gotten out of position and were playing catch-up.
As for why the ramp stuck, the answer was devilishly simple. Following the afternoon rehearsal the carpentry crew had come in to make a change to the stairs that the actor comes down backstage after going up the ramp onstage. When they screwed the new step unit into place the tail end of the pull rope used to raise and lower the ramp got pinched between a couple of pieces of wood. The carpenter didn’t think to test the ramp before leaving, after all he’d only worked on the steps; the crew didn’t think to test the ramp before showtime, after all it had worked fine all day.
Fixing the problem took about two minutes. The devil’s always in the details. You think you’ve got everything covered and then you get blindsided by a something simple.
Lots of times people talk about the “magic of theatre” to describe bits of technical wizardry: but all that stuff is just a bag of tricks. The truth is that any magic that happens in the theatre is something that hangs in the air between the audience and the performer.
Stagecraft has no magic to offer. Every so often you lower the lights, raise the curtain, say, “Watch this!”, and the balls get dropped and the actor falls down the stairs on top of his guitar. What’s cool, though, is when the real "theatre magic" survives the technical snafu. The room is dead quiet. The actor gets up, dusts off the guitar, says, “And now, for my next trick”, and it brings the house down laughing. Now that’s something....
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Getting Ready for the New Season
Summer is in full swing, and, along with it, so is Always...Patsy Cline. We've been so overwhelmed by ticket sales that the decision was recently made to extend the show a week! We've gotten some wonderful feedback about this production, and audiences are really enjoying it. Becky Barta stars as Patsy Cline, and has an eerily similar voice, while Cathy Barnett brings all the laughs while she tells the story of how her character, Louise, accidentally became friends with Country music star, Patsy Cline. We will be sad to see this show come to a close on August 17 - it's been great having these two lovely, funny women hanging around the AHT offices!
Currently, everyone in the office is starting to prepare for our 08/09 season. We begin with a special engagement of the hit show Menopause The Musical®. Contracts are being finalized, but so far we do know that Licia Watson will be returning as the Soap Star and Nedra Dixon, who recently directed Once Upon This Island at The Coterie, will join us as Professional Woman (formerly "Power" Woman). Because of the extension of Always...Patsy Cline, Menopause's opening has been shuffled back a week to August 23 and runs through October 26.
We're also already looking forward to the holidays! Most of the staff are excited that our holiday production is A Tuna Christmas, which is a show so wacky and funny that I can't even begin to include all of the jokes here. Our Box Office Manager often quotes the Tuna shows - we're pretty big fans around here of Tuna, Texas. The best part is that we've been able to secure local actor John-Michael Zuerlein (A Dog's Life, Perfect Wedding) to star, and we're hoping he will be joined by Jim J. Bullock, well-known from his roles on '80s sitcom "Too Close For Comfort" and the celebrity game show "Hollywood Squares".
See you at the show!
Currently, everyone in the office is starting to prepare for our 08/09 season. We begin with a special engagement of the hit show Menopause The Musical®. Contracts are being finalized, but so far we do know that Licia Watson will be returning as the Soap Star and Nedra Dixon, who recently directed Once Upon This Island at The Coterie, will join us as Professional Woman (formerly "Power" Woman). Because of the extension of Always...Patsy Cline, Menopause's opening has been shuffled back a week to August 23 and runs through October 26.
We're also already looking forward to the holidays! Most of the staff are excited that our holiday production is A Tuna Christmas, which is a show so wacky and funny that I can't even begin to include all of the jokes here. Our Box Office Manager often quotes the Tuna shows - we're pretty big fans around here of Tuna, Texas. The best part is that we've been able to secure local actor John-Michael Zuerlein (A Dog's Life, Perfect Wedding) to star, and we're hoping he will be joined by Jim J. Bullock, well-known from his roles on '80s sitcom "Too Close For Comfort" and the celebrity game show "Hollywood Squares".
See you at the show!
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