Theater 101

Having survived the first week and slim crowds on opening weekend, The Good Doctor is doing quite well. Kim had to replace two actors the week the play opened with one of them starting right off on opening night and the other taking over his new role just last night on the first performance of our second weekend. Surprisingly, and with much relief, our replacement actors both preformed as if they had been rehearsing for a month instead of the one and two weeks they actually had. I was very proud of these two talented young people for coming in at the last minute and working hard to rescue our show.

Of course, for me, Ryan’s performance is wonderful, and like his grandfather said, it’s just too bad that he can’t make a living at acting. He probably could if he didn’t care so deeply for paying his bills. Ryan plays the part of the writer and narrator of the nine vignette type stories. His character is supposedly the playwright, Neil Simon or perhaps Russian storywriter, Anton Chekhov, the inspiration for Simon’s play. The writer is supposed to be writing the short stories he and the rest of the troupe is acting out throughout the evening. It is a most entertaining performance by Ryan and the rest of the cast.

This play has taught me a lot about putting a show together under different circumstances from which we were previously accustomed. Our beloved Little Theater was comfortable from the standpoint of having a moderate collection of props and costumes at our ready disposal. That is not to say that we didn’t have to construct or search for an appropriate prop or call on a seamstress to sew up a dress or suit every now and then. Though for the most part, our theater attic housed a treasure of stuff to browse through as if visiting a flea market. I missed the convenience of simply climbing the pull-down staircase to venture into the emporium likeness of our theater’s attic.

A lot of back and forth between the church-turned theater, our garage and the old theater set shop took place during the construction of our sets. Being a bit displaced, Kim and other cast members, cut and hammered wood for flats and platforms in our garage. We painted the completed products inside of the church fellowship hall working hard to keep paint off of the floors. I brought furniture pieces home to apply painted stencils and then went back to the theater set shop where I sweated in our Texas heat to apply stencils to our flats that were awaiting transport to the church. It is a relatively simple set, but nice.

The biggest challenge of all for working on this play was the sharing of the building with a religious group that was also renting the space. They were in the building first and we have tried to accommodate and respect their scheduled activities in the building by striking our set before each Wednesday and Sunday. This weekend is particularly difficult because we have a matinee on Sunday afternoon. This means that we not only strike after the performance Saturday night, we then have to return as soon as the church group has completed their Sunday morning services, to reset our stage for the matinee. Even though our set is not too difficult to put up and take down, it does take time and hands of several helpers to get the job done.

At the end of our run in another week, I just hope we won’t be forgotten. The Good Doctor has been a good play. It wasn’t a big musical and not near as many people have come to support us as did Titanic that took place right after the crash, but I think the ones that see it, will be glad they saw the first show of this 2007-2008 BLT season.

Just Hanging Out

Pink flamingos at the Fort Worth Zoo. They look so carefree.

For a retired person, I sure have been busy. The Good Doctor, a play by Neil Simon and directed by Kim, opened this past weekend. (Which, BTW, you should see if you are near Baytown. Ryan is such a good actor!)

Everyday last week I was running errands for the play, finishing sets and getting things completed for opening night. Kim and I had the cast and crew to our house for an opening night party that went on way into the morning with a small number of us sitting around our patio table talking about the play. I enjoy conversations after a play I've seen or worked on. Discussing the play, the performances of the actors and hearing the interesting viewpoints from others can be a lot of fun.

So, with the play underway, my days are not as busy. This morning I've been online writing and reading email, on the web reading blogs and taking it very slow and easy. I've made a couple of lunch dates this week and hope to do some volunteer work for a friend at her school library and perhaps tomorrow at our church.

A friend that has already retired once told me that when I retired I would have not trouble staying busy. She was right and I like this kind of busy. It's not near as stressful to me as teaching school always was.

Well, I've got to get up and get moving this morning. Don't want to be late for my lunch date.

ML's Update

(top) Rehearsal for "The Good Doctor". Zak, Mackey, Jessica, Joy, & Ryan.
(bottom) The Martins in Fort Worth at the Grey/Rose wedding. Kim, Amy, Ryan, ML, Kari, Aidan, Jason, & Regan.
It has certainly been a busy September. My cousin's son, Trevor, just married last Saturday. We drove up there Friday after Kim got off of work, to the rehearsal dinner. Jason and family left early Friday and were already in Ft. Worth as we were unfortunately delayed by Houston traffic getting out of town. Even though Kim and I were very late to the rehearsal dinner, so was the wedding party. So, we didn't miss a thing.

Then, on Saturday Kim and I joined Jason, Kari and the kids at the Ft. Worth Zoo. It was so much fun watching how excited Aidan would get at seeing the animals. A four year old is the perfect age for the zoo. He was very enthralled by it all. However, our little venture to the zoo made us all rush around to make it to the 5:00 wedding. Also, Ryan and Amy were speeding their way from Baytown to make it on time to the wedding.

Everyone made it to the ceremony in time. The wedding was beautiful. Courtney was a gorgeous bride and Trevor just beamed as he watched her come down the aisle. I was so glad that we could be there to celebrate this special day in our family. Trevor and Ryan are the same age with Trevor being 2 months older. It sure is weird to think that our youngest children are now married.

The reception was just a blast. Courtney's family spared no expense and threw a most exceptional party. However, I don't think that anyone in that whole place including the bride and groom had as much fun as our Aidan. He met the flower girl, Ashley, who is 2 years older than him. They danced and played the whole evening. By the time Aidan was going home, he was exhausted from dancing so hard at the wedding.

Sunday morning Kim and I had to rush back to Baytown. We are in our last week of rehearsals for the Baytown Little Theater's production of "The Good Doctor". It opens this Friday, September 28th and there is still so much to do. Kim is the director and I am trying my best to be his assistant. Ryan is playing the lead actor and we were all in a hurry to make it back in time for our 7:00 rehearsal which involved costumes and photos with the newspaper. This volunteer gig with the Little Theater has kept me pretty busy all month. We got a late start on the play due to the relocation of the theater after the car crashed through our building last July. Kim and I managed to rent the space of a nearby church building that is up for sale. Its been a trial though because we are sharing that space with a religious group that is meeting there on Sunday and Wednesday. That necessitates our breaking the set down at every rehearsal before their meeting days. What a huge hassle!

The show has had other problems too with a cast member telling us two weeks before we open that he can't perform the last 5 shows (out of 7) with us. So, a new person is frantically learning his lines. I earnestly hope he will know them in 1 1/2 weeks from now when he'll have to step into the part for the first time. The wonderful costumes I rented from University of Houston have not worked out very well. The men's pieces are not fitting like they were supposed to and I've had to track down costumes used by the BLT on our last show. Which was a challenge in itself since most of the things were at other people's houses and the theater's very packed storage unit here in town. Of course, now that we have another actor to costume that is no where near the same size as the original actor, that's a whole other matter. Fortunately, he was in the last BLT show, "Titanic, the Musical", which was set in about the same time period. So I told him to bring up all the costumes he wore for that show and we'd make them work.

So, I'm busy even though I'm retire. That's not bad, except all of this busy has been for no pay. After the play finishes, I'll get serious about finding a job to help our finances and give me something else to do.

Well, that's about as much as anyone would want to read about what I've been up to. Until next post...good bye. ML