by john | Sep 1, 2009 | Theatre
All I been thinking about lately is Seuss, and Gone with the Wind. If that seems a strange pairing, well, that’s my life kids. I’m smack in the middle of theatre-world again, after continuing to think I’d escaped it. I guess I steered the ship too close to the vortex, and now I’ve been drawn back in, at least for a few more weeks.
The next eight days are all about Dr. Seuss for me. I’m designing lights for Seussical! The Musical (exclamation point not mine) for Theatre Charlotte, which almost goes without saying, since that’s about the only place I’ve designed for a couple of years now. It’s a fun little show melding a bunch of Dr. Seuss stories into a moderately cohesive plot. There’s a Grinch, Horton the Elephant, Green Eggs and Ham, Whos, and of course, the Cat in the Hat.
When the director first contacted me about doing the show, I only had one demand: time. The shows that people want to hire me for are more flashy, more rock-show type lighting. That means I bring in a lot of technology for the shows. A LOT of technology. There’s about $50K worth of lighting equipment in the air for this show, and a new lighting control console as well. That level of tech is a little more complicated than the typical show (in Charlotte) and requires a lot more programming. So I asked for, and got, a full day of programming time dedicated just to little ol’ me in the theatre. So I signed up for a vacation day this Friday and I’ll spend it in a darkened theatre making lights move and go blinky-blink.
One reason I agreed to do the show (in addition to the fact that my fee, after I pay my assistant, will be about equal to the price of two round-trip tickets to Vegas) is because I could take a look at a lot of new LED technology in real-world applications. LEDs are a real hot topic in stage lighting right now, and I wanted to see what we could really accomplish with them. So I can use this show as a sales tool as well as just a show, bringing customers through the venue during the day and showing off the rig to designers, engineers and architects. So I can bring the work world and the hobby world together a little. It should be a pretty good-looking show, I’ll try to post some photos here whenever I get a chance. If you’re around and wanna come see it, let me know.
And in yet more theatrical news, I’m directing a play called Moonlight & Magnolias for another local community theatre. It’s a comedy about the frantic period in film when David Selznick shut down production on Gone with the Wind and fired both the director and the screenplay. The play is set over five days wit Selznick, Victor Fleming and Ben Hecht crammed in a little office rewriting the book into a screenplay at a fever pitch. It’s pretty funny, and I have a decent cast, it’s just a challenge to me to direct something so small after the past few years of only doing Shakespeare.
So I’m back into theatre for a little while before I retire again. I know, me and Favre. But I’m pretty sure I’m done lighting shows after this. I’m tired of taking my weekends and evenings to do theatre when I could be working on my writing or hanging with the wife, who is currently remodeling the upstairs bathroom while I try to make enough money to pay for it. I need to find her a cheaper hobby.
So that’s life here for the next couple weeks, if you need me, I’ll be in a theatre. Somewhere.
by john | Aug 5, 2009 | Theatre
…and never let go.”
That’s a quote from the play I’m directing, Moonlight and Magnolias. The play is about the five days in 1939 when filming was halted on Gone with the Wind, a new director was hired, and an entire new screeenplay was created. By a writer who’d never read the book. Talk about a gig! The play all takes place in produced David Selznick’s office, with Selznick and director Victor Fleming acting out scenes from the book as screenwriter Ben Hecht turns it into a script. It’s a pretty funny show, especially if you’re really familiar with GWTW.
Which I’m not. I, like the play’s Ben Hecht (not sure if this was the case with the real Ben Hecht or if it’s dramatic license on the part of Playwright Ron Hutchinson), have never read the book. I have seen the movie. Once. On a re-release ten years ago for the 60th anniversary of the film I took Suzy to go see it. It was pretty good, I thought. Like the characters in the play, I kinda thought Scarlett was a slut and Ashley was a bit of a fag, but overall I liked the flick.
So why exactly did I pick this play to come out of theatrical semi-retirement? I’m not sure, except that the president of the community theatre’s board is a friend of mine, the space is small enough not to need much set, which is the kind of show I work well with, and I was a little bored. So I submitted my name as a potential director, and then right before they offered me the gig, I tried to back out. Then I found out they were about to offer me the gig, so I did what any money-grubbing whore would do, I asked “What does it pay?” So since it will pay me slightly more than I’ll spend on gas driving to and from rehearsals 45 minutes away, I took the gig. Then I read the play. And I liked it, which is a good thing, since I’m stuck with it for the next couple of months.
So we had auditions this week, and for my 4-person play we had a marginal turn-out. 7 actors. 5 men, two women. The play requires 3 men and 1 woman. Fortunately there were six castable actors that showed up, so I picked four and away we go. One of the first assignments will be for the cast (and director) to read the book. At some point there will be a movie-watching party at my house, and then I suppose we’ll make a play happen at some point. It’s interesting: I really thought I was done with theatre. Again. But I’m not. Again. I don’t have any intent to do the level of productions I did at Off-Tryon, when I was doing 10-12 shows every year. And I will probably move back into happy semi-retirement after October. But I guess I’m not ever going to be done with it, no matter how much of a pain in the ass theatre people can be.
This looks to be a good ensemble, though. My Selznick and I have worked together a bunch, and the lone chick in the cast and I have known each other for several years, plus my friend that dragged me into the show is my stage manager, so I only have a couple of guys to get to know. And it’ll be fun doing something for a change that’s not in iambic pentameter, which is all I’ve done for the past couple of years. And I have a lighting gig coming up in September, I’m once again designing the season opener for Theatre Charlotte, the local community theatre. After they lost the rights to Annie, Ron, the Executive Director and director for the show, settled on Seussical and called me up to see if I’d do the show. I figured WTF? why not, so I’m calling in favors from all over the lighting industry to make a hellaciously bright and colorful Seuss-world this fall. So that oughta pay for my December trip to Vegas.
In other news, I think my time at PokerNews is likely at an end. There’s been a change in leadership, and that has actually very little to do with my departure. I think Matt Parvis will do an excellent job helming the ship there, but as I’ve been doing that gig for the past two years solid, I’m no longer nearly as into the whole poker scene as I once was. And they need someone who eats, drinks and breathes poker. I’m just not that guy anymore, and with the theatre stuff going this fall, and my own writing stuff happening, I just don’t think I can give them the time and focus they need. I’ll still fill in every once in a while when they run short, but the days of me churning out 20-30 recaps in a month are probably done for the most part. It’s been a fun ride and I’ll miss the money, but I think Matt will do a great job over there and wish them nothing but the best. I had it in my head for a while that I was probably done with that gig after the WSOP, so it’s time. It was a good run, but after a few hundred articles I might be tired of talking about some donkey four-flushing another donkey to crack aces with jacks. I’ll miss the money, though. So I’ll have to sell a few books to make up for the revenue.
by john | Aug 4, 2009 | Theatre, Writing
This was in my inbox when I returned from auditions tonight –
Shipped on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 via FedEx Ground Home Delivery
All items in your order have been shipped.
In This Shipment
===========================
100 of Returning the Favor and other slices of life by John G. Hartness (Printed)
Shipped To:
3512 Winterfield Pl.
Charlotte, NC 28205
So by the end of the week (hopefully) I’ll have a pile of copies of Returning the Favor in hand and ready to ship out to those of you who have (or will) purchase the analog version. So far I have sold more digital copies than analog editions, but I expect that to change shortly.So if you want your autographed copy, click on the button the right of the screen and make it happen!
I’ve been really impressed with the service I’ve gotten from Lulu throughout this process. It’s not like they’re doing much for me, I’m laying everything out and making sure it’s ready, but for a straight-up print house, they do good work. And they dealt with the ISBN paperwork for me quickly and easily, so I didn’t have to learn how to do one more thing in the process. I think everybody’s favorite not really ex-stripper (really favorite, not really ex-stripper) is looking at using them for her book as well, so you’ve got that to look forward to.
So yeah, I might have mentioned coming home from auditions. Funny thing, that. So a few months ago, I got a message on Facebook from a director buddy of mine. Seems a local theatre had issues with the rights to their season-opener. Issues like a national tour pulling all the rights nationwide or something silly like that. So they were no longer doing Annie and had switched to Seussical the Musical. Since I’m widely considered somewhat misanthropic and a bad influence on children (all true) my name had been quickly dismissed in discussions of designers for Annie. But when Seussical came about, someone might have thought that I had some experience with bright colors and hallucinogenic substances (also all true). So my buddy asked me if I had really retired from theatre.
My response was a cautious “kinda. Why?” And he mentioned Seussical, and I mentioned that some things might be up in the air with my employment status at PokerNews and I might be interested in the money, and we cut a deal. And along about the same time I had signed on to direct Moonlight and Magnolias for another community theatre in a nearby town. The schedules overlapped a little, but I juggled things around to make them work, and one of the things I juggled was scheduling M&M auditions early. Like tonight early.
Just one problem – nobody showed up. We had four people last night, which almost works out because it’s a four-person show. Except the genders of the auditionees was perfectly balanced, and the genders of the characters are 3:1. So we had one to many vajayjays at auditions last night. And since the characters are real people (the play is about the moment in cinematic history when David Selznick stopped shooting Gone with the Wind, fired the director, shitcanned the screenplay and re-wrote the whole friggin’ thing in five days) I can’t do what I would usually do, which is cast the show gender-blind.
There’s a lot to be said for doing plays where the writer has been dead for a few centuries. Just sayin’.
But basically here’s the deal – I’m directing again, and for the first time in several years I’m directing a show with a living playwright and with language that’s not iambic pentameter. I’m designing again, and was a little bit of a diva and demanded sufficient programming time to make the show look the best that I can. And I’ve got a shitload of books of poetry en route to my domicile, so buy them quick before Suzy kicks my ass for cluttering up the den. Yes, she’s leaning on my shoulder while I’m typing this :). Love you, honey.
