Au revoir à Chicago, bonjour à Madame Christie
First thing's first: I've been cast as Wargrave in BU Stage Troupe's production of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, which is an honor indeed. Three nights of auditions and one night of callbacks saw a hell of a lot of people read for four shows, and I was excited to be called back for two of them. To be cast is really exciting.
There are several student-run theatre groups on campus, the two largest of which are Stage Troupe and On Broadway. Stage Troupe is the longest-running (more than 50 years' worth) organization and puts up several mainstage shows each semester, including the Parents' Weekend (we don't have a Homecoming because we don't have a football team) musical, which plays at the Tsai Performance Center, a cavernous 525-seat theatre. Because it is the Parents' Weekend show, the University advertises for it and the Dean of Students pumps some pretty serious funding into it, the combination of which ensures a packed house of excited people. This year's Troupe musical is Bye Bye, Birdie, which was a temptation because I wanted to do something musical, but because we did it at MHS, it seemed like something to miss. I couldn't make that decision on my own, but luckily Jessie was fully capable of being decisive. So with Birdie out, I was left thinking about The Foreigner, And Then There Were None, and On Broadway's Chicago.
I've already expressed interested in The Foreigner based only on the skeletal structure of the story that I knew before coming here. After reading for four parts for that show, I can say that the pieces I saw were very smartly written and I every indication says that Troupe's production will be fantastic -- they've assembled a great cast and will be under the tutlage of two fine directors, so I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Chicago was out after the first On Broadway meeting I went to. First, there are only two performances, which seems slightly mad to me -- having said that, Troupe has three-show runs, but that extra show has a completely different feel and is for admittedly less work in rehearsal and tech. I simply cannot imagine going crazy to put a show like Chiacago together, only to perform it TWICE. Also, it's going up in the George Sherman Union ballroom, which is a large, open, carpeted space used for banquets, meetings, speeches and apparently, performances. They set up stage decking and rig lighting in one corner and can probably put a couple hundred chairs in the ballroom, but there's no way to make it a theatre -- it's a multi-purpose room like we used to have in elementary school, and in my opinion a show like Chicago deserves to go up in a spectacular space and be performed more than twice. Additionally, you should know that the film and stage versions are different -- while the story and music are the same, the stage production is done all in black; the choreography is Fosse. All that said, I will sure as all hell go to the show and report back. Maybe it'll take my breath away, maybe not.
But at this point, I'm as excited as anything for And Then There Were None. I'm good friends with several cast members and both directors and am really looking forward to getting to work in the coming weeks. We run November 3-5.
I'll post pictures sometime in the next few days, or whenever Ophelia decides she's had enough -- we get the tail-end of hurricanes up here, so everything is a bit screwed up right now.
By the way, Oprah's doing a show today on identical twin sets where one has a sex-change. Interesting poop.
Hope everyone is doing well; I thank my lucky stars every day that I'm in this house and not in my dorm room. EVERY DAY.
Oh yeah: everyone in the show is English, so we all auditioned with accents. Should be fun. :)
There are several student-run theatre groups on campus, the two largest of which are Stage Troupe and On Broadway. Stage Troupe is the longest-running (more than 50 years' worth) organization and puts up several mainstage shows each semester, including the Parents' Weekend (we don't have a Homecoming because we don't have a football team) musical, which plays at the Tsai Performance Center, a cavernous 525-seat theatre. Because it is the Parents' Weekend show, the University advertises for it and the Dean of Students pumps some pretty serious funding into it, the combination of which ensures a packed house of excited people. This year's Troupe musical is Bye Bye, Birdie, which was a temptation because I wanted to do something musical, but because we did it at MHS, it seemed like something to miss. I couldn't make that decision on my own, but luckily Jessie was fully capable of being decisive. So with Birdie out, I was left thinking about The Foreigner, And Then There Were None, and On Broadway's Chicago.
I've already expressed interested in The Foreigner based only on the skeletal structure of the story that I knew before coming here. After reading for four parts for that show, I can say that the pieces I saw were very smartly written and I every indication says that Troupe's production will be fantastic -- they've assembled a great cast and will be under the tutlage of two fine directors, so I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Chicago was out after the first On Broadway meeting I went to. First, there are only two performances, which seems slightly mad to me -- having said that, Troupe has three-show runs, but that extra show has a completely different feel and is for admittedly less work in rehearsal and tech. I simply cannot imagine going crazy to put a show like Chiacago together, only to perform it TWICE. Also, it's going up in the George Sherman Union ballroom, which is a large, open, carpeted space used for banquets, meetings, speeches and apparently, performances. They set up stage decking and rig lighting in one corner and can probably put a couple hundred chairs in the ballroom, but there's no way to make it a theatre -- it's a multi-purpose room like we used to have in elementary school, and in my opinion a show like Chicago deserves to go up in a spectacular space and be performed more than twice. Additionally, you should know that the film and stage versions are different -- while the story and music are the same, the stage production is done all in black; the choreography is Fosse. All that said, I will sure as all hell go to the show and report back. Maybe it'll take my breath away, maybe not.
But at this point, I'm as excited as anything for And Then There Were None. I'm good friends with several cast members and both directors and am really looking forward to getting to work in the coming weeks. We run November 3-5.
I'll post pictures sometime in the next few days, or whenever Ophelia decides she's had enough -- we get the tail-end of hurricanes up here, so everything is a bit screwed up right now.
By the way, Oprah's doing a show today on identical twin sets where one has a sex-change. Interesting poop.
Hope everyone is doing well; I thank my lucky stars every day that I'm in this house and not in my dorm room. EVERY DAY.
Oh yeah: everyone in the show is English, so we all auditioned with accents. Should be fun. :)