Three Shows To See This Month (+ One to See Every Night)

It seems that this December the Vancouver theatre scene is full of remounts, musicals, musical remounts, pantomimes, and little else.

The Arts Club has brought back This Wonderful Life and Beauty & The Beast which have been huge hits for them. Carousel has back Seussical the Musical. The Playhouse is doing The Drowsy Chaperone. Gateway's choice is Guys & Dolls. And outside of those, there are only a few other shows still running in the city.

So this is my December list of shows I intend to see. Don't know if I'll make it to them all with my work schedule this month (I am down to only 6 days off left this month and I'm away for 3 of them), but here they are:

Seussical the Musical.
I didn't make it to this show last year because of work, but my roommate saw it and told me that I needed to go and see it. And lucky for me they have Sunday afternoon shows, so I have a ticket for next weekend and am looking forward to sitting and being entertained for an hour or two :). It's not that I don't like musicals, its just that usually I want to leave the theatre asking myself lots of questions (if I just want pure entertainment I often choose something cheaper than theatre....which is a little silly, but that's a whole additional post). But I am looking forward to seeing this and being purely entertained. I am seeing it in the midst of a two week period with no days off, so I will see it before my own evening show and it will be nice to just sit and enjoy!

The Sweetest Swing in Baseball
Playing at the Beaumont, this play about the New York art scene & faking multiple personality disorder interests me, and its only $20, so I'm hoping to check it out. Also, I don't think I've ever been inside the Beaumont and something about that just feels wrong.

Confessions of a Paper Boy
The first show in the Vancouver East Cultural Center's Kids series, this play about a paperboy who hears the voice of God. It's a short run, but a great opportunity to see the new studio space at the Cultch as well as a show that I think has the potential to be really interesting. Hopefully I'll be able to see this on Tuesday night. Anyone want to come with me?

And one to see every night:
Jesus, My Boy
The Christmas story according to the Step-Father of the Son of God - a comedy with live music that I'm still enjoying after seeing it 15 times. I'll look forward to the next 15!

The Gift of a Great Audience

Audiences can be fickle beasts. They laugh. They're silent. They cry. They clap. They sleep. They talk on their phones. They throw things at the actors. They leap to their feet with applause. They use their camera phones to take pictures. They spontaneously clap in the middle of a show. They are entirely unpredictable.

At their worst, I wish the from my post in the tech booth I had a paintball gun or watergun and the opportunity to take out the worst offenders (especially those that not only let their phones ring, but then proceed to answer them).

But at their best they make ME want to burst out in spontaneous applause.

Following tonight's performance of Jesus, My Boy we had a talk back. We do it once in the run of every show (and sometimes more often if the show has a more controversial subject matter), and we tend to get a really good turn out. Tonight about half of the audience stayed, and since we had a full house that means that one side of the theatre was full for the talk back.

Now I don't know if any of you have experience with theatre talk backs, but they tend to be pretty much the same every time. People mention how much they loved the show and then they ask the actors "How did you learn all those lines!" Sometimes they go further, but often you really have to prompt the audience to ask questions.

But tonight was different.

I don't know what it was about tonight, but the audience was extremely well educated about theatre and the questions just kept coming. I must have told them that I was only taking one more question four or five times. And the questions were smart:

Q: How did you guys integrate the music with the script? Did you just decided or did you figure it out as you went?

A: Artistic Director Ron Reed had the idea to add music to the script about three years ago and when director Sarah Rodgers signed on to do the show, Ron handed her the script and Sheree & Jeremy's CDs. She listened to them and read the script and sent them an e-mail with the songs she thought would work and where she thought they might go. On the first day of rehearsal at our first read Sheree & Jeremy played the songs in those places and most of them are in the same place (moved by a paragraph or so). But the process was organic - more songs were added (including a little Beatles!), tweaked, & one was even written especially for the show (though it moved around within the script three or four times).

Q: The title of the show is Jesus, My Boy, but you never refer to the child as Jesus or the mother as Mary: you just call them "the boy" and "the boy's mother." Do you know why that is?

A: I directed the audience member to take a look at a letter we received from the playwright, John Dowie, that was included at the back of the program which talks about the fact that the play has gone through a variety of names including "The Joseph Story" & most of the time goes by "The Gospel According to Joseph". And one of the reasons for that is by not naming "Mary" or "Jesus" it allows Joseph's story to be the story of one of a number of men at that time, who work as carpenters, & wonder whether or not those prophecies might have pointed to them. At the same time, as David pointed out, it brings even more wonder to the reality of the story of Jesus & this Joseph regardless of one's religious views.

Q:How do you find acting with the audience so close to you?

A (from David Adams): A play cannot happen without an audience, especially in a space like Pacific Theatre where the audience is so close. That's what makes theatre so special - every show is different based on how the audience responds. We are all breathing the same air together and it is a pleasure to do the show with a new audience each night.

But when an audience is that attuned to what is happening, it is a pleasure for me to bring the show to them each night!

Hanging out with the Step-Father of the Son of God

(From L-R: Sheree Plett, Jeremy Eisenhauer, Lois Dawson, David Adams & Julie Sutherland.)

(Photo by Damon Calderwood.)

When it comes right down to it I am pretty damn lucky. I get to spend my days in a place I love, doing a job I love, and, if I'm lucky (like I am this month!), working with people I love.

This afternoon we did our archival photo shoot for Jesus, My Boy. Photos from the shoot will go on the Pacific Theatre website, in our future season brochures, and will be used for grant applications. Mostly, I just like to have some of the group photos for my personal collection.

The thing about theatre is that it is so transient: Today there is this group of people on these stairs, wearing these clothes and saying these words, but in a month that will be gone. We will be starting again with a new group of people. It's nice to have these reminders of each group when a new group comes in and you miss the way a certain actor gave hugs, or the types of jokes that others cracked. Or if you, like me, sometimes ask yourself why on earth you ever thought that theatre was a good idea in the first place, the photos are a good reminder of why it is that we do what we do. (Of course, I also have a folder of e-mails from theatre patrons that I read at that point as well).

One of my favorite cast/crew photos was from this season's opener; Mourning Dove.

(From L-R: Angela Konrad, Anita Wittenberg, Ron Reed, Laura VanDyke, Kerry van der Griend, & Lois Dawson)

(Photo by Damon Calderwood)

15 Questions with Lois

Date & place of birth:

May 2, 1986; Vernon, BC

Lives now in:

Vancouver, BC

Education:

BA from Trinity Western University with a double major in Theatre & Communications, and a certificate in Media Studies.

If you hadn’t become a stage manager, what might you have done professionally?

I've changed my mind about my career goals many times: the first plan was to do PR in the music industry, but I think that if I were not stage managing, I'd probably go back to school and get my masters in television studies and end up as a professor.

Favourite plays:

Metamorphoses (Mary Zimmerman), Esspresso (Lucia Frangione), Proof (David Auburn), Jake's Gift (Julia Mackey), The Mistakes Madeline Made (Elizabeth Meriwether)

Favourite TV shows (currently airing):

Pushing Daisies (ABC), Dexter (Showtime), How I Met Your Mother (CBS)

Favourite TV shows (no longer airing):

Veronica Mars (UPN/CW), Arrested Development (Fox), Wonderfalls (Fox), Six Feet Under (HBO), Slings & Arrows (Movie Channel/The Movie Network), Joan of Arcadia (CBS) & Dead Like Me (Showtime)

What was the last thing you saw on stage that had a big impact on you?

The last thing I saw on stage that had a big impact on me was UBC's production of Unity: 1918 a couple of week's ago. It is an award winning script (and with good reason!), but this production was so visibly stunning. The image of a spinning lantern dangling from the ceiling, a wounded soldier returning on a train (done with the actor standing on a chair on a revolve while a train track was flown in from the ceiling), a giant bonfire and revival meeting behind a cyc, a room full of dead bodies, a scene done entirely in the dark. Each image had the potential to fail hugely, but rather than fail, they inspired.

And the first?

The first play I ever saw was a local production of Annie when I was about six which sort of set up for me the fact that theatre was out there, but the first play that really had an impact on me was the Art's Club's 2001 presentation of Axis Theatre's Flying Blind. My high school was very arts focused and each semester the theatre teacher would take approximately 60 kids on a trip to either Vancouver, Calgary or Edmonton to see mulitple productions and learn about the education opportunities in each city. The 2001 Vancouver trip was my first of three, and it was a very eye opening five days in regards to what theatre is capable of. We saw Elizabeth Rex at the Stanley, The Edible Woman at the Playhouse, some terrible musical review at the Gateway, & Flying Blind. What stuck out for me about Flying Blind was it's use of design to help shape the world. I've never been an actor - though I can recognize and appreciate good acting - but I've always been impressed by strong visual elements. I remember after the play going out for pizza with the rest of the people on the trip and discussing the show. I was one of only two students who enjoyed it (along with the two escorts). Everyone else "didn't get it" or thought that it was too abstract. I didn't care whether or not I "got" it - I just wanted to do that - create a world similar to our own, yet not our own that causes people to converse.

Favourite books:

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeline L'Engle, the PostSecret books by Frank Warren, & Life After God by Douglas Coupland

Favourite after-show haunts:

Anywhere near Pacific Theatre that still has it's kitchen open when the show gets out: lately that's been either Earls, Cactus Club, or Cafe Barney. We used to always go to Ouisi's but the service there has gotten atrocious and the kitchen has been closing much earlier (besides, who really wants to eat alligator all the time?)

What do you expect to be doing in five years?

I've told myself that if in five years I am bored or burnt out from Stage Managing I will go back to school and do my masters in television studies after all.

What are the personal things that you do in your life simply because they make you happy?

Spend a whole day on the couch watching old TV episodes on DVD even though I've seen them 10+ times, try to laugh as much as possible, take photographs whenever I'm having fun so that I can look at them later and smile.

What would you advice would you give the government to secure the future of Canadian theatre?

I would advise the government that first and foremost, "Ordinary Canadians" really do care about the arts, I would advise reversing the millions of dollars in cuts to arts funding, I would advise the leaders to go take in some of the local theatre - independent, ground-breaking work so that they get a glimpse of the magic being created in their own backyards.

Last but certainly not least, what are you working on, now?

Jesus, My Boy is running at Pacific Theatre until Dec. 27 and I've already begun prep for Holy Mo, which begins rehearsals mid-January.