By Amanda J. Bucher,  Dancer

On Halloween night, as the Rocky Mountain Rockstarz Dance Team walked into The Denver Center’s Seawell Grand Ballroom, eyes lit up with anticipation and excitement. As a new member of the Rockstarz, I can honestly say that I did not know what to expect from the organization and its affiliates. I found myself hypnotized by the hustle and bustle of the crew while they delicately draped green, white, black and gold décor throughout the ballroom making it a magical, mini Emerald City. As I observed the careful and strategic preparation of music, food, entertainment, and drinks, my heart skipped a beat and I immediately knew that performing at the Irresistibly Wicked Party would be an experience I would never forget.

 

After hours of practice at our own facility, it was now time to transfer our routines into this new, magnificent space. At this point, I began to realize that we were about to perform in front of the talented Wicked cast members. The thought of performing in front of performers proved to be both exhilarating and terrifying. I believe it’s safe to say that we all stepped up to the challenge.

 

Around 9pm, the eager party-goes began to trickle in. As we mingled through the crowd, it became increasingly clear that this was the place to celebrate Halloween 2009! Finally the party exploded into full swing and we were given the cue to make our way back to the dressing room in preparation for the opening performance. Nerves escalated while we stretched our sore and anxious muscles. This was it; almost time to go on!

 

We quickly changed from our cute and sassy Halloween costumes into the Rockstarz signature white-men’s button up shirt and tie, cute black shorts and leg warmers. While we danced to “I Put a Spell on You,” the crowd reveled at this unexpected treat on the dance floor. We had broken the ice with a solid routine and now we were ready to escalate our game. The intimacy of our performance was a little intimidating. Dancing pretty much on top of our audience was something that many of us hadn’t experienced since our pro-dance team days. Again, it was both refreshing and scary all at once.

 

Our next performance was to Shakira’s “She Wolf.” Our costumes for this piece seemed to match the overall color scheme of the party perfectly. We enthusiastically changed into our black vests, green tutus, bright-green gloves, chokers and accents. This routine pumped up the crowd immensely. We played off of each other’s energy and felt the success of the performance even before the crowd’s profound applause. Two down, one finale to go!

 

As we set up for Michael Jackson’s classic Halloween song “Thriller,” members of the Wicked cast playfully poked and prodded my pseudo-dead, lifeless, hanging body. I tried my best to keep a straight face because, after all, we were performing in front of amazing actors and actresses! Later on in the dressing room, we all got a great kick out of this. Our costumes consisted of old, torn-up prom and bridesmaid dresses, which we took lighters, mud, leaves and red lipstick to. We wanted to create the “fresh-out-of the-coffin look” that we all know and love! The piece was a big hit. The crowd and cast-members’ approval radiated as we ghoulishly dragged Michael Jackson’s girlfriend (from the video) off the stage. The performance was a hit and we couldn’t have been more thrilled —no pun intended!

Popularity: 12% [?]

By Chris Arneson, Guilty One

 

We’ve all got our junk.

 

But while some have unhealthy obsessions with sports teams, shopping, felines and footwear, my guilty pleasure isn’t too conventional.

 

Hi, my name is Chris…and I love musical theatre.

 

Yeah, I said it. I’m a full-grown straight guy from Wyoming and nothing makes me happier than blasting a cast recording from a Broadway rock musical and simultaneously singing along in my car—something I do rather often. (My inner windshield has horrible spit-splatters to prove it.)

 

But, you see, my favorite tunes aren’t really your grandparents’ idea of “show tunes,” nor are they anything close to the likes of High School Musical, which I cannot tolerate. I tend to stick with an edgier vibe.

 

Ever since I obtained my driver’s license, my vehicle has been my own personal venue. As I grip my steering wheel that doubles as a drum set, my head pounds, and I can release into my own world—eyes open, of course. I’m operating an automobile.

 

This release is key to my sanity. It’s almost as if I live a double life: student-journalist by day, unstoppable leading man by…well, my own time. And the biggest contributor to my one-man show is a musical called SPRING AWAKENING.

 

This show, based off a banned play from the late 1800s, explores the lives of a bunch of German teenagers experiencing all-too-familiar angst and discovering themselves and their sexuality…accompanied by a mixture of hardcore ballads and striking lyricism written by a guy you probably haven’t heard from since the late 1990s, Duncan Sheik. (Look up “Barely Breathing.” It’s his iconic radio tune.)

 

I discovered my future obsession in January 2007 through a free iTunes Discovery Download, which I downloaded simply because it was called “The B**** of Living,” and I was intrigued. I actually thought Spring Awakening was a band.

 

In the months that followed, I obtained the entire CD and became hooked. The more I listened to each song, the more I related to every lyric…and I didn’t even know the show’s synopsis yet.

 

You know how addictions go. Something in those tunes gave me a high, and I was constantly searching the Internet for a fix…whether it was finally discovering the storyline through its Wikipedia page, or searching nightly for hours for clips of anything related to Spring Awakening.

 

The songs were on a constant loop in my car, and I never grew tired of them.

 

I became a guru. I even obtained leather high-top sneakers exactly like the ones worn on stage by the lead character, Melchior, that were oddly enough from a line by rapper Snoop Dogg called “Doggy Biscuitz.”

 

Finally, after more than a year of feeding my obsession through late-night lurking and sporadic show-related purchases, I made it to New York City to see Spring Awakening, still with some of the original cast, live at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in the summer of 2008.

 

My family even stayed in the hotel next door. I literally could have slept on the roof of the theatre if our windows opened more.

 

But I didn’t just see the show. I experienced twice in one week…front row center and what’s called “stage seating,” where audience members actually sit on each side of the stage alongside cast members and fellow fans in wooden chairs from the show, and the rest of the audience gets basically to watch you watch the show…not bad for $50.

 

These two nights in June were one of the pinnacles of my teenage years. As an actor, I had never been so completely mesmerized and blown away by a performance before, watching a cast of people my age leap around a stage in turn-of-the-century German attire shouting, “Totally f*****!” among neon lights and brick walls. I can still visualize sitting on stage while the spotlight simultaneously hit me and the character Moritz as he rocked out with a microphone stand—an act my driver’s seat knew all too well.

 

It was funny to think, just months before I’d seen that same guy getting killed by an arrow on “Lost” as Karl, and now we were feet away from each other.

 

That’s why nothing can top the theatre. I even got to meet the cast and get my Playbill autographed at the stage door after the show, where I was referred to as “the savior with the silver Sharpie,” because I planned ahead and knew the Playbill was mostly black.

 

But even after experiencing Spring Awakening live, my obsession didn’t dwindle. The songs were still my daily vehicular release, and I bore a striking resemblance to Moritz on Halloween.

 

However, in January, just day before I write this, Spring Awakening closed after nearly 900 performances. Embarrassingly enough, it was really tough for me to get through. This show that had helped me through so many tough times and gave me a much-needed release wouldn’t be awaiting my return to Manhattan.

 

I found snippets of the closing night curtain call and speeches as well as pictures of set pieces piled onto the sidewalks of 49^th Street. My wooden stage seat was piled amid others in a truck bed, awaiting shipment away from the Eugene O’Neill.

 

No one really understood my loss, either. Sure, I have some friends who know the show, but they were connected to it as I was. They hadn’t experienced the raw intensity of “The Song of Purple Summer” live, nor had they rocked out to the songs as much.

  

Spring Awakening was a huge part of me for two years, and without it I’m missing an integral piece of myself that wearing a wristband with the show’s logo just can’t replace.

 

And until the national tour makes its way to Denver in December, at least I’ll have my cast recording to rock out to in traffic.

Popularity: 68% [?]

Borrowed from Broadway Fan Club’s November Newsletter

 

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE,

the beloved children’s book, is now a new musical that is currently touring the US.  Melissa Gilbert, who rose to fame playing “Laura” in the 1970s TV series based on the book, stars as “Ma.”   We asked Donna Di Novelli, the show’s lyricist, to share one of her lyrics with the Fan Club. She gives us some insight on the writing process for lyrically adapting a book for the stage.

 

The Prairie moves,
All around it moves
All the time it moves.

 

The land transforms
Every day reborn
Every morn.

 

Its grasses bend and bow
Its flower petals blow
Its stars will sow another prairie night.

 

The bison thunder by
In a whirl of dust and sky
Barely shy of a swirling storm.

 

We’ll build a home
A homestead home
From where you’ll watch the prairie move.

 

Through windows open wide
To catch the morning air

 

You’ll see the mustangs ride
You’ll see the leaping hare
And geese that fly beyond the countryside.

 

Along with them you’ll grow
Learning lessons as you go
From the glory the prairie’s own

 

We cannot stay the same
As we rise with each new day
On a land that the wind has grown.

 

-From “The Prairie Moves,” lyrics by Donna Di Novelli. Reprinted by permission.

 

Q: Why did you and your collaborators choose this moment to be a song?

 

A: This was one of the first songs Rachel Portman and I wrote, almost four years ago. Prompted by Laura Ingalls Wilder’s words, we started our collaboration by writing two love songs: one to the sky, one to the land. “Endless Sky” did not make it into the final script but “The Prairie Moves” did because of its strong dramatic function.

 

What were you trying to accomplish in this particular musical moment?

 

Several dramatic moments come together at this point in the musical. On the most basic level, Pa is trying to convince Laura that her restlessness can find a home on the prairie, that she doesn’t need to keep moving because “The Prairie Moves.”

 

On another level it is an ode to the beauty of the land, which is not static but alive with movement. The land and all its motion is a gift in song that this father gives to his daughter.

 

And on a third level, it is Pa trying to convince himself that HIS wanderlust will find peace on the prairie. At the end of the song what was second person singular addressed to Laura: “Along with them you’ll grow learning lessons as you go, from the glory the Prairie’s own” becomes third person plural “We cannot stay the same as we rise with each new day, on a land that the wind has grown.”

 

Why is this one of your favorite lyrics?

 

You can’t write a work called Little House on the Prairie without falling in love with the Prairie–and that beautiful French word. This song is also emblematic of the entire piece. The land will transform and the settlers will be the ones that change this open grassland to farmland. The struggle to tame the land parallels the story of Laura’s taming and her resistance to that. The entire staging of this musical is about the Prairie’s movement and transformation: the people, the sky, the set, the protagonist. 

 

To what extent, if at all, did you base these lyrics on text from the novel?

 

We based it both on the books and on historical research. “The bison thunder by in a whirl of dust and sky, barely shy of a swirling storm.” The swirling storm is, of course, in reference to the buffalo’s inability to outrun their own destruction. While allowing the actual geography of the plains into the song, the dramatic function comes from Laura’s desire to go “on and on” and follow the sun. Pa and Ma are always dealing with this middle child’s defiance of convention and decorum–it’s woven into her character, and reining her in is part of theirs.

 

Was the lyric or music written first for this song?  How were most of the songs written for this show (music or lyrics first or alternating)?

 

Rachel Portman likes to work lyrics first, but at an early point in her composing, she often asks for the lyrics to adapt to her developing musical structure. There are a few songs, “Old Enough,” “Thunder,” “Faster” which were set basically “as is”, but mostly we alternate after the lyrics are initially on paper and go back and forth until satisfied.

 

Popularity: 30% [?]

Continuing its commitment to supporting new American playwriting, the Denver Center Theatre Company has recently commissioned plays from four exciting playwrights: Marcus Gardley, Lisa Loomer, Theresa Rebeck and Octavio Solis. Their projects, which will come to fruition over the next year or two, are all part of Artistic Director Kent Thompson’s keen interest in supporting new playwriting. Since coming to the Denver Center five years ago, Thompson has established a vigorous commissioning program (at least four plays per season) as well as the COLORADO NEW PLAY SUMMIT, a dynamic weekend each February featuring full productions and readings of brand new work.

 

Both Theresa Rebeck and Octavio Solis have received prior DCTC commissions, their plays going on to full productions during the Company’s 2007/08 season. Rebeck’s Our House, a satirical look at reality TV, has had a second production at New York’s Playwrights Horizons. Solis’ Lydia, a dark and haunting family saga set in El Paso, Texas, went on to receive four subsequent productions last year at theatres from coast to coast that included Yale Rep and the Mark Taper Forum.

 

Theresa Rebeck’s past New York productions include The Understudy, Mauritius, The Scene, The Water’s Edge, Bad Dates, The Butterfly Collection, Spike Heels and Omnium Gatherum (co-written, Pulitzer finalist). All of her plays have been published in acting editions by Samuel French. Publications also include Collected Plays Volume I-III and Free Fire Zone with Smith and Kraus. She has won the National Theatre Conference Award, the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award, Boston’s Elliot Norton and IRNE awards, a Writer’s Guild Award, and Edgar and a Peabody.

 

Octavio Solis’ past productions include Man of the Flesh, Prospect, El Paso Blue, Santos & Santos, La Posada Mágica, El Otro, Dreamlandia, The Seven Visions of Encarnacion, Bethlehem and Gilbralter. His adaptation of Quixote based on the novel by Miguel de Cervantes was recently produced at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He received the 2000/01 National Theatre Artists Residency Grant from TCG and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

 

Lisa Loomer’s play Living Out was produced at the Denver Center in the 2006/07 season. Her recent play, Distracted, played at the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York in 2009, had its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum, and is currently being produced in regional theatres and in Europe. Her other plays include The Waiting Room, Expecting Isabel, Birds, Accelerando, Bocon! and Broken Hearts. Her awards include the Jane Chambers Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award.

 

Marcus Gardley recently received a Helen Merrill Award for an Emerging Playwright. His most recent play is Love is a Dream House in Lorin. Other produced plays include dance of the holy ghost, (L)imitations of life, and like sun fallin’ in the mouth. He is the recipient of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Gerbode Emerging Playwright Award, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Award, a Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation Grant and an NEA/TCG Playwriting Participant Residency among others.

Popularity: 42% [?]

By Christy Montour-Larson, Director of WELL, Denver Center Theatre Company

 

We have been rehearsing WELL for 4 weeks and it is going… WELL! Very well, in fact. Today we moved from our rehearsal room in the Newman Center to The Ricketson Theatre for the first time for a “spacing rehearsal.” This is the day we explore how the movement and choices we are making in rehearsal transfer over to our actual performance space.

 

Although we had a scale model of the Lisa Orzolek’s wonderful set and excellent approximations of the scenic elements for our rehearsals, it is always is an adjustment to get used to the actual size of the entire theatre, walking up actual stairs, using the actual scenery pieces.

 

 If you were there today, you would have seen us rehearsing the choreography of the transitions, (Me: “Great idea, Rachel – let’s have you move that table instead of Shauna”), marveling at the beginnings of set decorations, (Kathy Brady: “That collection of bird figurines reminds me of my mom!”), and figuring out how Kate Levy as Lisa can ride a bike around the Fourth of July float. (Kate: “If we move the float over 4 inches, I can make the turn.”) I am so pleased how the work we did in the rehearsal room has transferred over and how we were able to find creative solutions for the inevitable challenges we came across.

 

I can’t help but be reminded of my first experience in The Ricketson Theatre — ten years ago as an audience member. On my very first day in Denver, I saw my first Denver theatre production: Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde with Jamie Horton. If you saw that amazing production, you understand why I knew Denver would be a great city for me to put down my artistic roots.

 

And over the past ten years, I have directed at several local theatre companies like Curious Theatre Company, Arvada Center for the Arts & Humanities, Paragon Theatre and Town Hall Arts Center. I even directed Jamie Horton in Curious’ Trumbo a few years back.

 

And over the past ten years, I have seen many marvelously funny, insightful and heart-breaking plays in The Ricketson Theatre. I especially recall Dinner with Friends, The Laramie Project and Doubt. I am so excited and honored to be making my Denver Center Theatre Company directorial debut in “The Rick” with WELL by Lisa Kron – a play I find marvelously funny, insightful, and heart-breaking at the same time!

Popularity: 28% [?]

It’s Culture Day in Japan AND the first Tuesday of November, which means it’s time for a new episode of “10 Minutes to Curtain”
 
 
Charlie begins this episode with a theatrical exploration inspired by Well, a play about the creation of a play. Then join the characters from Absurd Person Singular in couples therapy as they deal with the stresses of the holidays. And get an exclusive look at A Christmas Carol kid auditions and find out what it takes to be Denver’s next Tiny Tim.

Popularity: 25% [?]

 

What does a stage manager do exactly?  I could say something trite and vague like “manages the talent” {yawn} but why not exercise the creative side of my brain by creating a list of some things that come across my “to-do” list daily?

 

And in the spirit of Christmas….

 

In the last weeks of rehearsal my bossman gave to me:

 

 

1 Director

2 Dogs

3 Kitchens

4 Assistants

5 Sound Minidisks

6 Members of the Cast

7 Parts of a Scenic Trick

8 Liquids that Appear Onstage

9 Rolls of Tape

10 Hours of Work Each Day

11 Furniture Units on Wheels

12 Days of Christmas… a Musical “Button” to the End of Act 2

 

Are you curious now?  Does my job seem absurd?  If you have a few more seconds then here are more details.  If not, see you opening night!

 

1 Director — The artistic guru, the person whom I report directly to for scheduling, tech notes, cueing, etc.  (in this case, Sabin Epstein)

 

2 Dogs — Sabin’s dog, Emma, can be found quietly minding her p’s and q’s beneath the director’s table.  Dog #2 is a special guest Chihuahua named Titus who belongs to the fight director, Gefe.  We have a few harrowing moments with knives that require fight expertise.  The dogs get along, by the way.

 

3 Kitchens — The play has 3 acts that each take place in a different kitchen: OCD ships galley, unkempt disaster zone (enhanced by some bits with a dog), and antique Victorian/turned dance club

 

4 Assistants — Rebecca, Dennis, Katrina, and Cassie all track props, fetch rehearsal clothes, take line notes, choreograph one kitchen moving offstage and the next kitchen taking its place, and nod and smile when I ask them to do something that makes no sense at all.

 

5 Sound Minidisks — Cues pivotal to rehearsal: rain, dog barks and growls (Emma doesn’t like those), party chatter, doorbells, and Scottish reels.

 

6 Members of the Cast — The 6 actors play 3 married couples and boy are there some classic marital moments.  And some bits with a dog.

 

7 Parts of a Scenic Trick — The main body, the bulb, the shade, screws, fake wires, a socket, and pyro…. can’t disclose further details.

 

8 Liquids that Appear Onstage — Sherry, coke, gin, scotch, tonic wine (higher alcohol content than traditional wine), brandy, water, and bitter lemons (Brit soda).

 

9 Rolls of Tape — Painters tape (to spike paint-sensitive surfaces), masking tape (to label props tables), black gaff tape (fixes anything), and 6 colors of spike tape (yellow, red, green, blue, aqua, and hot pink).

 

10 Hours of Work Each Day — On a good day.

 

11 Furniture Units on Wheels — Various combos of kitchen cabinetry, appliances, and countertops that roll on and offstage in scene shifts thanks to a pressurized air tank (and some smart carpenters).

 

12 Days of Christmas —  You have to see Act 2 to appreciate this traditional Christmas carol, and the bit with a dog.

 

Time to shut off the laptop now and get some shuteye before the next day of absurdity!

Popularity: 44% [?]