This item is to announce upcoming public performances by Grexers, 
just in case you want to see your online friends practicing their 
real life arts.

101 responses total.

Leslie Smith (arabella), as part of the UMS Choral Union, will be singing
in Mahler's 8th Symphony this weekend.  The Grand Rapids performances
are Friday and Saturday evenings, and then there will be an Ann Arbor
performance at Hill Auditorium on Sunday, March 23.  The Hill date is 
an afternoon show; I don't have the exact start time.
 
    (((  classical #11  <--->  music #31  )))

I'll be doing a children's concert this Spring or Summer, for the
greater Ann Arbor area. It will feature folk music that kids can
appreciate, rather than kid's music that adults have to sit through.
No sing-songy stuff.

My wife and daughter (vitti) are skating in Melody on Ice this weekend.

i'll be on the crew removing the stage lighting for melody on ice this
weekend.

steve taylor (grimaldi) is involved with King and I at Ypsi.. I'm involved
with Student Productions by Theater Guild, but not nearly as invovled as I
was witht hte last two shows.

Hmm . . . I just hope that I can get into Oral Interpretation fall quarter
- or I guess that would be first semester, since we're switching to semester's
next year - which is also when we're supposed to become "University of
Minnesota at Winona".  O well, . . .
set drift = off

bands in reveiw, a concert including 8th grade bands from all 5 middle
schools, and all 3 bands from each Huron and Pioneer will be held tomorrow
night, 7pm in the Large auditorium at Pioneer, tickets, i believe are 6$ per
person, and 8$ for a family ticket.  I'll be there:) so will snow, eskarina,
nika, and others that i probably can't think of right now.. so come!

some bands will be cool.. but I heard slauson rehearse the theme to jurassic
park and it sounded hideous.  jsut a warning.  if you hate it anough, go next
door to the little theater for student productions, sort of a variety show..
very funny, and it has the Pioneers (sort of a 50's choral group thing)
playing at 7:30. the plays start at 8.  having already done one show, I can
honesly say that it kicks :)

I was finally suckered out a tendonitis-based retirement from playing bass
guitar.  I'll be playing at the annual banquet for my dojo (Asian Martial Arts
Studio).  The tendonitis seems to me mostly dead.  :)

oops, i made a mistake, individual tickets are 3$, not 6$, i knew 6$ sounded
a little high... but yeah.. to tell ya the truth, most of the middle school
bands aren't too good, save tappan, they've always had a pretty good band..
come later if ya just want to see the high schools...

senna--you're in theater guild?  do you know someone named Adam Chase, by any
chance?

well, i'm not in theatre guild, much less go to pioneer, and i know
adam...but, you already knew that dan ;)

Would Adam perchance be related to Bobbi in any way shape or form?

I know adam.  short, wiry kid, kinda introverted.  Why? 

heh, introverted..... ;)

Why?  With my Experience with FARCo I was dealing with Bobbi for 2 years. 
She's cool.

Introverted would be one way to put it....  And no relation to
Bobbi that I know of, but I don't know who Bobbi is, which doesn't help much.

What's his deal, anyway?

dan, why're you asking about adam?  you still friends with him? ;)

The Mahler 8th in which arabella appeared got a great review in 
the Grand Rapids Press.  Sunday's performance at Hill Auditorium
was even richer than the one reviewed in the GR paper; that could just
be the superiority of Hill Auditorium.

i'll be stage managing the final road production for comic opera
guild's _merry widow_ april 4/5/6 in alma.  weird, weird stage
up there. horizontal fly gallery (gawk!) <no, i don't uderstnd it myself>
  

Horizontal?  You mean the pep er pipes fly horizontally?  That must be
something to watch.  However it works.

the little trucks run horizontally on teh pipes. flying-stuff clutters
up the wings a whole lot. stuff that must be hung, instead of being
on trucks, is 'roped' to other pipes (actually framework that was
not initially intended for this) and is *by hand* lugged up/down.

Spanky: "Hey gang, lets put on a show!"

WEird.  Our theater works great, eexcept that booth people always want to have
computer control of the curtains.. we always ahve to coordinate with the floor
manager. major pain.

I hate theaters based on some new approach, or, worse yet, a pet theory of
the theater teacher.  Screws students up for "normal" venues.

Scott!  I am surprised at the narrowmindedness of that remark.  Unless, of
course, you are being sarcastic.  Theatre, like all worthy endeavours, will
live or die on the strength of its ability to change, to retain relevancy.
New forms will develop, old forms will persist, or not.  And the same people
will partake of and contribute to both the new and the old, because the more
flexible they are, the more work they'll get.

It *is* sort of an "old guard" remark, isn't it?  :)

I can recall working as a stagehand on an MSU student production, and they
were planning to run the follow spots from the lighting console (for dimming).
Seems that the LD's teacher had *always* done it that way, probably not
trusting his/her students to do it right with the controls on the spot.  Ol
course, tha approach only works where the spots won't be damaged by using an
external dimmer.

I guess I'll partially retract that remark.  I have no problem with new forms
of theater venue, except in cases where a real purist has decided to enforce
the new system by taking away all vestiges of the old.  From the description
given, it sounds like there way even room for conventional vertical battens,
but none were installed.  So an expensive facility is reduced to sometimes
having to resort to really crude hacks in order to provide a standard effect.
Which is an issue, since the standard effect may be part of the vision of the
playwright.

the playwright's vision however, is not the responsibility of the production.
The playwright expresses his/her vision as much or as little as they want
strictly through the script.  The real vision of any given production is that
of the director.  Unfortunately, this can result in a great script seeming
like crap because the director lacked comprehensive or consistent vision, or
the ability to express it.  Conversely, a great director can do wonders with
a mediocre script.  I have yet to hear of any director doing anything good
with a really rotten script.

I had a reallyt great response saturday afternoon, but my connection died :(
The gist of it was that my theater sponsor's approach was to teach us to adapt
to other theater companies, and that nothing was run the same way.  And to
back that up he esposes us to many different theater people with different
philosophies.   

thre are some extrordinary sorts of effects possible with a horizontal
fly  -it's a 'neat idea' however, having that exclusively instead of
a 'real' fly gallery (or *both*) is the galling factor. 
 
all of which reminds me thta i better get to work on the junk for 
(ah-hmmm) this weekend. 

Speaking of being on stage, I had the opportunity to examine the
stage area at Scarlett Middle School in Ann Arbor.  I was amazed
to see that the stage has SIX parallel sets of opening and closing
curtains, each one with appropriate pulleys and so on, to split
in the middle and draw back to the left and right.  And this is
in a *middle* *school*!

Ya, the auditoriums in Ann Arbor schools seem positively palatial compared
to the auditorium in my old high school, junior high school, and elementary
school.

I refuse to comment on the auditorium at Ypsi High...I've worked in it three
years and I hate having to piece schtuff *whew* together just to get the show
to look presentable. Some of the equipment? Oi....The lighting control board
in the booth and the light patch backstage look like props from Star Trek the
Original Series.

Ann Arbor auditorieums are all pretty much good.  Pioneer's is state of the
art, right down to the air conditioning system.  .  One of the best proscenium
theaters in the city, actually.

Speaking as someone intimately familiar with the technical equipment of most
of the theatres in Ann Arbor, Pioneer has *the* most state of the art theatre
with only the possible exception of the new space at Greenhills, which I have
not yet seen.

What's your basis for that conclusion, eric?  And yes, we do have one of the
mos state of the art theaters, but I don't go piping it around :)  How big
is Grenhills' theater?

I work or have worked in most of the theatres in Ann Arbor as a technician.
I have not seen Greenhills' new theatre, so I don't know how big it is.

I'll also be on the stage for the final productions of _The Merry Widos_ this
weekend.  Er, Widow.  I dance and sing and provide scenery and a place to ahng
period clothes.  :)  

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