Play Out the Play!

Murder in the Cathedral tomorrow night.

Just a quick note about Murder in the Cathedral:  it's up and ready to go for Saturday night.  The cast worked hard over three nights to deal with a very complicated script.  And it is a tough script.  Highly intellectual!  But they've all rolled with the challenges of the projects-- whatever those challenges might have been for each of them.  Several of them were introduced to a slightly new way of approaching theatrical staging. 

The project has been good for me.  I love working in the lobby and figuring out what to do with "that damnable pole" right in the middle of it.  (I haven't truly found an effective way of dealing with it, but I keep exploring).  But this staged reading is good ground work for the kind of experiential version of classics I enjoy staging. 

Woodward Shakes Measure for Measure

In a strange and winding road, I've wound up being offered the directorship of a staged reading of Measure for Measure for the Woodward Shakespeare Festival next month.  I'm actually very excited about it, but a little trepedatious, at the same time. 

On the one hand, it'll give me an awesome opportunity to explore the text with actual actors a full six weeks before I have to stage it.  Do you realize what a gift that is to a director?  Especially since most of the actors I'll be working with on the staged version of M4M aren't as familiar or comfortable with Shakespeare as one might like them to be.  I'll be doing a lot of teaching during that production and having gone through a staged reading might help get a lot of ideas solidified in my head before tackling them with a performing cast. 

On the other hand, it is gearing up for something in the next month that I wasn't prepared for.  Hopefully, I'll hit something of a roll with the Murder in the Cathedral reading and I'll feel like my joints are oiled up and in good working order for the M4M reading. 

But I am excited.  Honestly .. .I'm really quite pleased!  (*wink* to B-). 

Nod in Macbeth Review

How often does it happen that lighting design actually gets a nod in a theatre review?  Not terribly often around here.  Mine was good!

"When a furioius Macbeth charges off to confront the Three Witches, the ensuing scene-- shrouded in fog and bathed with Heather Parish's menacing red lighting design-- is a vivid moment."

BOOYAH!!

(The review is "Woodward's futuristic twist on Macbeth mostly works" by Donald Munro of the Fresno Bee.  Sept. 1, 2006).