Progress

A cool, beautiful day of rehearsal in the park.

I stepped back today and watched -- having discussions with technical crew members, with actors who needed insight, with members of the stage management team -- as my stage manager ran the classic stumble-through. 

I saw some exciting things happen today -- and we also identified some challenges.

We're very close.

I'm trimming the excess roles from the script -- cutting some of the unnecessary lines.  Some of my best ideas have emerged from the cast members playing the roles.

Artists who are unselfish enough to give up moments because they are unnecessary or redundant.  Actors who care about the impact of the whole script.  Thespians who will do whatever it takes to create a dynamic show.

This cast is generous, and giving, and caring.  I feel their love for the story, and for me, and for each other.  We all share the goal of creating a tight, meaningful show that keeps the audience on the edge of their seats.

I applaud them!

What talent has emerged within this company -- both on the stage, and behind the scenes.  This family of artists, this community of theatre lovers -- what a privilege it is to work with all of them as we move closer to opening night.

Low High

I was a little younger in 2000.  Just before 9/11. 

The grey in my hair isn't so apparent.

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Mark this down on your calendar:  November 10, 2006.  8 PM.  Whitmore-Lindley Theatre Center in North Hollywood. 

That's opening night, and the Los Angeles premiere of A Tale of Two Cities.  Tickets are $18 for adults, and $12 for seniors, students, and vets -- with special prices for school groups of 15 or more who wish to attend together.

The show runs Thursday to Sunday each week until December 10 -- except for Thanksgiving Weekend, during which there will be a reading of A Christmas Carol.

On my next entry, I'll be posting an entry with a webpage address where you can go to reserve tickets.

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You might want to attend?

You really do.

Listen.  What if I told you that this show is playing with an incredibly talented cast.  Directing them has been like working with the cast you've always dreamed of having -- but can't believe you'll ever get.

I'm not kidding.

Come.  I promise -- you won't be bored.  Not with this cast.

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It is the lows of theatre that make the highs so worthwhile.

Over the past week, I've experienced my share.

Within three days, I had five actors -- all critical leads in A Tale of Two Cities (YOUNG JERRY, MRS. CRUNCHER, VENGEANCE, SEAMSTRESS, and MISS PROSS) -- withdraw from the show.  They all had excellent reasons:  financial, union, attendance, and serious illness within the immediate family.

As that manager says inPhantom,"These things do happen."

It's times like this that you lower your head to the head-butting, bull-in-the-china-shop, tuck-the-football-under-your-arm position -- and just keep moving towards the goal -- even when it looks like you're about to collide with the entire team of Massillon Tigers.

And then hopefully, like tonight, you realize they're actually the cheerleading squad dressed up to look like linebackers -- and you realize that you're in a nightmare, not actually a football game.

Enough with the metaphors.  Here's the literal story:

I was a mite depressed tonight when I arrived for rehearsal, but I thought I'd pick up my normal triple cappucino anyway at the Indee Coffee bar below the NoHo Actors Studio, where we rehearse.

As I chatted with the barista behind the coffee bar -- she expressed great interest in the show.  As did her friend, a singer.  So I agreed to audition them after rehearsal, when the barista got off work.

I began rehearsal.  My cast was simply wonderful, giving me props -- genuine emotional support.

Then during break, I walked out into the studio hallway and ran into a family of three adorable triplet girls, 7 years old, plus their brother, 12, and their mother.  An acting family.  They auditioned on the spot -- and I had MRS. CRUNCHER and YOUNG JERRY.  The triplets were also eager to appear on stage, so I had them play marbles.  They were brilliant.  Thus, they'll play, respectively, the PEASANT BOY, the MURDERED CHILD, and YOUNG CHARLES.

After rehearsal, in the outside coffee bar after it closed, three of us auditioned the barista.  When she read for the role of the SEAMSTRESS, I was moved to tears.  I cast her immediately.

Following that audition, the singer auditioned.  She perfectly captured the energy of the VENGEANCE.  I make my final decision tomorrow, after I listen to another actress read for VENGEANCE or MISS PROSS.

The highs and the lows.  It takes both.

Upcoming show

This Wednesday, October 25, the cast is doing a preview of scenes -- from A Tale of Two Cities.  This staged reading is being held at the The Bungalow Club in Hollywood (along with a scene from our upcoming production of Hamlet).

Tickets are limited to only 50 guests.  With a $45 non-profit donation, you are paying for your meal, plus supporting the The Charlens Company, the non-profit parent organization of The Hollywood Repertory Theatre.

Our producer, Chuck Harlander, intends this to be a lively evening -- full of fun and good spirits.

If you'd like to attend the show, just email me -- you can pay when you arrive.  First come, first served in reservations!

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Friday, November 10 is approaching fast -- opening night of the Hollywood Repertory Theatre's production of A Tale of Two Cities.

We're about halfway through the blocking process, and we're right on schedule.  That makes me happy.

Within the next week, I'll have a link that you can click to reserve tickets for the show.

          *        *        *

A bright young man that I tutor pointed me towards a link from Sports Illustrated -- the amazing story of Dick Hoyt.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in Marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back Mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. On a bike.  Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame ...

By the way, at the extreme end of the article about Dick Hoyt, there's a link to a Youtube video.  Click on it. 

I was moved by this story.

What the Amish are Teaching America

I'm in the midst of directing A Tale of Two Cities, which I wrote with my co-writer Steven M. Huey and developed in Ohio in July 2003.   The show will make its Los Angeles premiere on November 10, 2006.    I'll keep you posted about how to buy tickets for the show.  It will then run in rep through January, alternating with Dickens' A Christmas Carol.   I'm still looking for three actors:  STRYVER, 40s, (supporting role), LORRY, 78, (major role), and JACQUES ONE, 40s, (supporting role).   Rehearsals have affirmed my belief that I have been too long absent from the theatre.  I'm blessed with some amazing talent.               *            *            *   Several days ago, I decided on some basic limitations for the new play I plan to write next summer.    This new play will be developed out of town in Massillon, OH -- it will be developed in Hartland's Laboratory Studio -- during the Hartland Theatre Festival next July.     The play will then move to Los Angeles, where it will be professionally staged by The Charlens Company, where I now serve as Writer in Residence.   Here are the creative limitations I am setting for myself:   1) The show will be set entirely in one room.  I'm inspired by the simplicity of the Taper's production of Doubt, which took place within a principal's office, and the courtyard of the church.   2) The show will be limited to 4-6 characters.  I've learned not to write plays with massive casts.   3) And finally, I've decided upon the subject of my play:  I want to examine the last few hours of the Amish Shooter's life -- setting the play in his motel room the night before, and then ending the play as he picks up his gun to drive over to the Amish classroom.   My dear friend and composer Myron Fink has agreed already to write the incidental music for the show.   Of course, all of these original ideas will change, and the ultimate product won't look anything like this when I finish the first draft.  I'm used to that.  I've accepted the inevitability of the process.               *            *            *   What would make a person murder innocent children, and then kill himself?   I don't know.   Writing this play means I'll be going to a dark place, something I don't wish. But it's a story that needs to be told.               *            *            *   There are so many BAD ways of writing this play.  Cliches abound.               *            *            *   I thought I'd share an article I got by email.               *            *            *   What the Amish are Teaching America   Published on Friday, October 6, 2006 by CommonDreams.org

By Sally Kohn

On October 2, Charles Carl Roberts entered a one-room schoolhouse in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He lined up eleven young girls from the class and shot them each at point blank range. The gruesome depths of this crime are hard for any community to grasp, but certainly for the Amish — who live such a secluded and peaceful life, removed even from the everyday depictions of violence on TV. When the Amish were suddenly pierced by violence, how did they respond?

The evening of the shooting, Amish neighbors from the Nickel Mines community gathered to process their grief with each other and mental health counselors. As of that evening, three little girls were dead. Eight were hospitalized in critical condition. (One more girl has died since.) According to reports by counselors who attended the grief session, the Amish family members grappled with a number of questions: Do we send our kids to school tomorrow? What if they want to sleep in our beds tonight, is that okay?   But one question they asked might surprise us outsiders. What, they wondered, can we do to help the family of the shooter? Plans were already underway for a horse-and-buggy caravan to visit Charles Carl Roberts’ family with offers of food and condolences. The Amish, it seems, don’t automatically translate their grieving into revenge. Rather, they believe in redemption.   Meanwhile, the United States culture from which the Amish are isolated is moving in the other direction — increasingly exacting revenge for crimes and punishing violence with more violence. In 26 states and at the federal level, there are “three strikes” laws in place. Conviction for three felonies in a row now warrants a life sentence, even for the most minor crimes. For instance, Leandro Andrade is serving a life sentence, his final crime involving the theft of nine children’s videos — including “Cinderella” and “Free Willy” — from a Kmart.   Similarly, in many states and at the federal level, possession of even small amounts of drugs trigger mandatory minimum sentences of extreme duration. In New York, Elaine Bartlett was just released from prison, serving a 20-year sentence for possessing only four ounces of cocaine. This is in addition to the 60 people who were executed in the United States in 2005, among the more than a thousand killed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. And the President of the United States is still actively seeking authority to torture and abuse alleged terrorists, whom he consistently dehumanizes as rats to be “smoked from their holes”, even without evidence of their guilt.   Our patterns of punishment and revenge are fundamentally at odds with the deeper values of common humanity that the tragic experience of the Amish are helping to reveal. Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done in life. Someone who cheats is not only a cheater. Someone who steals something is not only a thief. And someone who commits a murder is not only a murderer. The same is true of Charles Carl Roberts. We don’t yet know the details of the episode in his past for which, in his suicide note, he said he was seeking revenge. It may be a sad and sympathetic tale. It may not. Either way, there’s no excusing his actions. Whatever happened to Roberts in the past, taking the lives of others is never justified. But nothing Roberts has done changes the fact that he was a human being, like all of us. We all make mistakes. Roberts’ were considerably and egregiously larger than most. But the Amish in Nickel Mines seem to have been able to see past Roberts’ actions and recognize hishumanity, sympathize with his family for their loss, and move forward with compassion not vengeful hate.   We’ve come to think that “an eye for an eye” is a natural, human reaction to violence. The Amish, who live a truly natural life apart from the influences of our violence-infused culture, are proving otherwise. If, as Gandhi said, “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” then the Amish are providing the rest of us with an eye-opening lesson.   Sally Kohn is Director of the Movement Vision Project at the Center for Community Change and author of a forthcoming book on the progressive vision for the future of the United States.