The faces of Little Women
I really enjoy pictures of faces, especially stage pictures. I have taken shots of all the cast but 1 and much of the crew. I share them with you here.
PEACE!
KT
Day 45
Category: Arts
Through the looking glass
This is the opening week of the show, so I am spending all of my evenings at the theater for rehearsal. So, it should seem obvious that I will be doing posts for the next few days from the Mable Tainter Theater about “Little Women”.
When you spend hours at rehearsal, you start to notice things that you might not otherwise notice. Today I want to share one of those things with you. One of the things that I noticed, was the way that you can watch the various performers through mirrors.
Peace!
KT
Day 44
Move In Day – Little Women
We hit another key moment in preparation for “Little Women”. This week we moved from the MTG Studio to the Mable Tainter Stage. Moving day is an all hands on deck day, with everyone needing to help out in whatever ways they can. I was 10 minutes late (a mortal sin in my book), and by the time I got there it was already well on the way.
Within about an hour and a half, we were in the theater and the set was being reassembled.
Always, we have fun.
This week, we have tech rehearsals, dress rehearsal, and Friday is opening night.
PEACE!
KT
Day 43
Backstage with Little Women
Tonight we are running the whole show for the first time. For me, this means I am getting to see the rest of the cast, though I already know them all. I am learning things about my character I didn’t know, and finally getting to know the story. There are parts of this show that will place tears in the eyes of many of the theater goers. Still haven’t seen Act III at the time when I am writing this, I approach it with trepidation.
For today, I just want to share some behind the scenes photos. The show starts next Friday. You should get your tickets now – Order tickets
PEACE!
KT
Day 40 (I missed day 39)
The future of good employment requires students who are familiar with the arts
I see that there is a meeting in Menomonie tomorrow night, and on the agenda is this item:
“High School staffing and Budget including Music possible district program adjustment”
I have to admit that I am not sure what the conversations have been about to this point, but I certainly hope they are not planning on reducing the funding on the music program again. If they are, I hope they will think again. I would like to take tonight’s blog to tell you why.
I have spent the last 7 years teaching and learning at UW-Stout about communications technology and the influence it is having on our cultures, our communities, our lives. There is no doubt that our world is changing, more rapidly now than in recorded history, at least concerning the way that we communicate.
Because of the rapid changes in technology, there is also a rapid change in the kind of new jobs that are being created. These jobs sit at the crossroads of multiple disciplines that used to be treated separately. Fields like communications, art, design, music, computer science, math, business, languages and others are converging to address the problems of the new world. That is right, I combined math and computer science with art and design. I do so unapologetically.
Music is a form of math
My colleagues and I work really close with industry, and we listen to what they have to say. They are able to see the skills sets that they are going to need long before education can respond to the coming need. And this is what I am seeing.
We have become a society that is really good at producing specialists. We need lots of specialists. Specialists that can tuck right into their left brain or their right brain and think about things that can’t even be conceived by those of us who are not left or right brained, but who manage the world in a more balanced brain manner. We separate our schools into disciplines that don’t allow much cross over, allowing of course for general education credits that are a tip to a well rounded education.
But what I am hearing and seeing is that more and more, the careers that are being created in this technology driven communications world are jobs that require people to think in both sides of their brains. Students who are able to combine analytical and creative thinking are going to have a leg up in the new economy. Technology is not eliminating creative jobs. The one thing that computers cannot do is be creative.
Music, especially in performing it, requires people to cross over between many parts of the brain (see for example Music on the Brain). Performing music is training our brains for the skills we will need in the future.
But when things get tight at the K-12 level, what is always the first thing on the chopping block? Music! And when you really get down to it, music and the arts in general are not very expensive. Especially when you consider the impact of the programs on the schools and our communities. If you don’t believe me, go watch one of the last two shows of “Bye Bye Birdie” at Menomonie High School this Thursday and Friday night. I am not sure how many people are involved in the show, but I know that the cast is approaching 70 students, add a dozen in the pit, and who knows how many technical and support people and you have a significant impact.
But do you know why Director Audric Buhr was able to put together a cast this large? Because music and drama are a consistent part of this school and this community. The key word there is consistent.
The performing arts should not be an easy go to place for cuts to our education system. They should be as important to this community as educating our children in Math and Science, History and English. We should have the same problem in cutting a music program as we would in cutting a science program. Our students deserve no less.
If there is a plan, or a discussion about cutting the music program, please reconsider. This is no time to be cutting the arts from education. I hope the community will join me in voicing support for the arts programs at the Menomonie School District, and any other district that is considering unwise cuts to arts education. Comments welcomed!
PEACE!
KT
Day 37
More from “Bye Bye Birdie”
In my last post, I mentioned how many students were involved with this show. I guessed about 90 people performing, but that leaves out the behind the scenes people doing tech, hair, makeup, costuming and all the rest. Anyway, it takes the entire cast and crew to do a show. This show is well done with the costumes, acting and music. It will be showing tomorrow (Sunday April 26) and then Thursday and Friday evenings at 7:30.
But in this blog post, I want to make some more photos available, and there are even more available on my Flickr page. If you are interested in any of the full sized images I took at the show, they can be downloaded from that location, unedited, many unfocused and in the rawest condition. But I figured with that many cast members, the only place I may have caught them was in an unfocused or poorly shot image. If you or your loved one is in the cast or pit, I hope I caught an image of you.
If you didn’t see your picture here, check out the Flickr page, there are a lot more shots there.
PEACE!
KT
Day 34
Menomonie High School fields a huge cast for musical “Bye Bye Birdie”
Tonight is the opening night for Menomonie High School’s production of “Bye Bye Birdie”. I went and watched the dress rehearsal last night and there were a couple of things that stand out about this show. The first is pretty typical of shows that you see in Menomonie. The quality of talent in this community is incredible. It is a direct result of a strong arts community that has provided support and opportunities for a number of these youth to be involved in many shows in which they have honed their craft.
The next thing that stands out is the huge cast. The cast is so big in this show that it is impossible to get them all into a photograph at any time during the show. The picture below is the closest that I was able to come to getting most of the cast in one picture. When they were first cast, there were around 77 students in the cast. That is almost 1 in 10 of the students in the school. Add the pit, the crew and others directly involved in the show and you are pushing up toward 90 people performing. Talk about herding cats!
Hat’s off to Audric Buhr for running an incredible program, and to everyone who has encouraged all of these students to be involved over the years.
Menomonie has always been known for the large number of students participating in their sports programs, especially football.
But if this keeps on going like this, we might have to start referring to Menomonie as an Arts town. Those of us who are involved in the arts community have always known it is an arts town, but with the numbers of students who are involved with the spring musical, it may just be time to give the arts equal billing and the credit that is due.
Alright, that may not be a realistic expectation. But here is a shout out to all the time, committment and dedication by so many to pull this together. And the really cool thing, everybody gets to perform in every show. That is what I am talking about.
Come on out and catch the show this weekend and next.
PEACE!
KT
Day 33.
Making sausage with Little Women
It is a lot of work to be in a stage production. Many hours are spent reading lines, and blocking, and reading lines, and learning lines, and working lines, and listening to other people doing the same.
Then, we get direction from the director and work it in as we go through the process all over again. Along the way, it stops being about the lines and starts being about the characters. There is much, more to a show than the lines. The lines tell the stories, but the characters are what the show is really about.
I can only speak for myself when I say that I have a real hard time working on the character before I have mostly memorized my lines. When I am sitting on stage trying to remember the next cue, and my lines that come after, I simply cannot focus my energy on character building.
That is where we are at right now. I might have mentioned that I was given a role as the Father (Mr. March) in Menomonie Theater Guild’s production of Little Women. My part is very small, about 38 words, and I am only on stage for about 3 minutes. That is about all I could handle at this point in time. I have only had to show up for two rehearsals, the rest of the cast has been at it for 5 weeks. This is about when people start to make the transition.
Now to be honest, they have been working on characters the whole time, but from the inside it often feels like it has been all about lines. But I have been given the opportunity to walk in fresh just as the magic begins to happen. We have a set, which is extremely helpful for setting the stage. That is after all the purpose of a set.
The cast is getting to know each other, and they are starting to relate to each other as characters. Facial expressions and mannerisms are being tried on for size, then adjusted and readjusted and sometimes adjusted back to where they started.
Today, we got to try on our costumes. This is another magical time when suddenly we start to get a vision for what we are going to look like on stage. It is great fun. Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you think you are going to cry. A tear is a wonderful form of applause.
And, while all of this is going on, the cast that is not working at that moment spends time watching and learning, and reading and practicing, and well, passing a lot of time. I have known more than just a few people who knew everyone’s lines in the entire show by the time we get to dress rehearsal.
So while we are making the theatre sausage, we find things to do. Laughing and singing, knitting and sewing, texting and blogging. Did I mention that I am writing this blog while we are running Act II. I am still starting to know the cast and crew. Having those interesting conversations that you have when you are first meeting people who by circumstances have something wonderful in common.
And you know that this thing is going to come together, probably at the last minute. And when the lights and sounds, makeup and sets, costumes and characters all come together, the curtain is going to come up and you and the audience will join together and step into the long wonderful history that is the theatre. And if you are anything like me, you will be captured by the experience and look forward to the next time you get a chance.
And if you are lucky, really lucky, you will get a part that works just right for you so that you can do it all again. Be careful, this can be addicting.
PEACE!
KT
Day 22
Enter stage Right
I was telling you about how I was going to find ways to get back involved with the arts, you know, something I am doing for me. Well today I began my return to the stage. I started rehearsal tonight for “Little Women”.
Thanks to Katie Shay, the director of the show for finding a little spot for me, and working with my crazy schedule to get me back on stage. I just met most of the cast tonight, but they have already been working together, and the cast has already got a nice culture working.
It is so good to be involved with a show again.
Watch this spot, I anticipate that I am going to have a lot to say about this group of talented people.
PEACE!
KT
Day 11