Happy New Year's Eve Eve

Okay, partiers:  one more day until the New Year's Eve murder mystery radio show, "A Murder for Auld Lang Syne". We're working to get everything ready here for the live audience: tables, chairs, set-ups, etc.  But since we can only fit around 65 folks in the Nickel Manor (48 at tables, the rest in chairs alone), I suggest if you're coming, get here early.  We've got reservations for about 20 already! Tickets are $10 at the door only...first come-- first served.

Doors open at 6:00 PM (CST) and the broadcast/live stream begins at 7:00 PM (CST).

If listening in is your preference, there are 4 choices for the live broadcast:

• 93.5 FM Smooth Rock  [East Texas, USA]
• Facebook @ John Lamb
• Twitch  @ PART_501
• YouTube @ Nickel Manor

The last three will host the cast recorded so you can watch (or re-watch) starting at 11:00 PM so that the countdown at the end of the performance coincides with the actual New Year's countdown.  Cool, huh?

Coming on February 8, 2020 we'll be turning the place into a Comedy Club. Keep watching the Nickel Manor Facebook page and here for more details.

January Auditions in Palestine, Texas

OPEN AUDITIONS for PALESTINE COMMUNITY THEATRE's:

Love, Sex, and the IRS      (don't let the title throw you)
by Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore

at the Historic Texas Theater
213 W Crawford St, Palestine, Texas
Directed by Jim Vincill

Saturday  January 24, 2015  @ 10:00 AM

Synopsis:
Jon Trachtman and Leslie Arthur are out of work musicians who room together in New York City.  To save money, Jon has been filing tax returns listing the pair as husband and wife.  The day of reckoning comes when the IRS informs the "couple" they're going to be investigated.  Leslie masquerades as a housewife, aided by Jon's fiancee Kate.  Complicating matters further, Leslie and Kate are having an affair behind Jon's back.  Jon's mother drops in unexpectedly to meet her son's fiancee and Leslie's ex-girlfriend shows up demanding to know why Leslie has changed and won't see her anymore.  Like a cross between I Love Lucy and Some Like it Hot!

5 men and 3 women

Leslie Arthur------------musician and Jon's roommate
Jon Trachtman----------musician and Leslie's roommate
Mr. Jansen---------------the Landlord
Floyd Spinner-----------IRS agent
Arnold Grunoin---------Shady character

Kate Dennis-------------the girlfriend
Connie--------------------Leslie's ex-girlfriend
Vivian Trachtman------Jon's mother

Chicken Fried Tuna

October 15, 2014
It has been a long time since my last post.  And that has been intentional.  I stand before you a coward.  Six months have passed, and I still am gathering courage to tell the truth.  I have been afraid to offend...even people that don't really care about what I write or say... and I have been loathe to hurt feelings.  We in the arts have such delicate egos at the best of times.

But it's time to saddle up and ride the wild keyboard.  Last weekend saw the close of a six show performance of Greater Tuna at the Texas Theatre in beautiful downtown Palestine, Texas.  The show was decently attended and well received.  I was happily one of the two actors on stage in this production.  The other was Gerry Goodwin.  I have wanted to do this show...with Gerry...for a while now.  We are a Mutt and Jeff pair that fit the casting to a sweet tea.  I really wanted to do this show to see if I still could.  It's a very challenging show full of rapidly shifting characterizations and costumes.  Voices, postures, facial tics, movements all change even more rapidly than the clothes.  Gerry was amazing.  His comic timing... flawless.  His pathos... heart-wrenching. He is always a pleasure to work with.  I struggled, as we older actors sometimes do, but I feel in the end I did credit to the material, the theatre, and my costar.

Aunt Pearl and Vera Carp of Greater Tuna

When I say the show was well received, I was giving faint praise.  Each performance saw someone gasping for breath from laughter.  We had a woman nearly fall out of her chair...literally.  A man complained that his ribs hurt.  One woman, as she exited the theater paid us what I consider the creme of compliments:  She told us that she remembered seeing us perform the show several years ago in Austin and thought we were still at least as funny now.  She thought we were the originators of the award winning show!  My hat size expanded exponentially.

None of this would have been possible without several heroic people serving in the shadows.  Of course Carol Moore, our talented director is first on the list.  Her vision and drive and passion made the show a reality.  But I must really applaud our "Tuna Helpers"- the backstage ladies who dressed us in seconds, kept our costumes and changes straight, and never sent us out as the wrong character.  And don't forget lights and sound.  And the set design and construction.  Oh the armies of Thespis thundered along.

Anyway, I'm back.  I'll be writing more now that I have regained at least a modicum of spine.  See you on the boards.

Taking a Chance Again

Here we are, a week before another opening.  Ghost of a Chance opens March 28 and runs for two weeks.  We're in the crunch time where small things make a difference.  We've actually had extra time to learn lines, but it is a wordy play and a long play.  The problem I am having is not "too many lines" but rather too much space between entrances.  Having a small role means large chunks of time offstage just waiting.  It is so easy for me to lose focus at these times- to maintain character and keep my lines straight.  I don't appear for nearly an hour into the first act, appearing on in the last three pages.  I have a little more in the second act, but the problem is the same- focus.

For an actor, focus is a huge priority.  An actor must be able to split their focus successfully into three parts: regurgitating their lines, but with feeling; puppetting yourself to be in the right place at the right moment; and listening truly to your scene partners so as to react as genuinely as possible and to catch variations in their lines that change the scripted lines and require a different response.  Lose focus on any of these and you're pulling curtain on the next show instead of taking bows.

On another note:  This weekend I will be attending The Mystery of Irma Vep at the Liberty Theatre in downtown Tyler, Texas.  It is produced by APEX Theatre20.  The review will be my next entry on this blog.

and scene!

Ghost of a Chance

Thursday February 6, 2014
Okay, kiddies, we're off again on another adventure.  This time the play is Ghost of a Chance by Flip Kobler and Cindy Marcus.  It's the story of a young widow who's come to sell the hunting lodge of her very late husband along with her fiancee and mother-in-law-to-be.  Things are rocky to start with but become downright crazy-making when her late husband shows up... still dead, but back all the same in a somewhat more non-corporeal way.  And the laughter ensues, which is why in this play, timing is soooo important.  We have a good cast to whom I will introduce you in the coming weeks.

The play is directed by Jim Vincill with music by nobody.  (It ain't a musical folks.)  And that little fact makes this somewhat unusual.  Most years, the Dogwood Trails show is a large-scale musical- generally a familiar face in the entertainment crowd.  Last year we departed from that model with a brand new musical- Ghosts.  This year we stray even further, but with a hauntingly familiar plot device...a ghost.  No spoilers...I mean...it's in the title.

More on Sunday as I begin introducing you to the cast along with a "how things are going" insider's view of the production.

And don't forget:::

Coming Summer of 2014

Auditions in May TBA

Wonkauditions

Oh my Gawd! This Saturday and Sunday we held open auditions for "Willie Wonka". Actors and dancers frequently call this kind of open audition "cattle calls" because anyone can come and try out. This was more like a stampede. Over 70 auditioners on Saturday and nearly thirty today (Sunday). That was amazing! What makes that amazing is that it gives me a lot of folks to choose from for our cast. What makes it not so amazing is that way too many of them were way too good. I have to let really talented people be put into good, but not great roles just because there were a lot of really talented people. I actually could have cast the show three times over...in three completely different ways. Fortunately for me, I had the help of two wonderful people helping me. Assistant director Jan Sikes and Vocal director Paula Ellis. Both very talented in their own right, they helped me move through the different combinations to find one that we think will really work. We will post and notify tomorrow. I hope everyone accepts their parts. It will be an awesome show. First read-through will be Friday, May 25 at 6:30. More as the week goes on.

P.A.R.T.ners for Children

This Saturday, April 28, 2012, from 7PM to 8PM, the Palestine Area Radio Theater company will present its latest program as a benefit for the Anderson County Champions for Children. It will be performed LIVE in front of a dinner audience and broadcast over KNET radio, Palestine (95.7 FM, 1450 AM, and at www.youreasttexas.com) courtesy of Lee Parkinson, station manager. The family friendly program will feature the unusual suspects doing some "Golden Age of Radio" stuff and some live original comic musical numbers from the Wahooligans! Tune in for a rollicking good old-fashioned evening!