Images from Ambersons

Long rehearsal last night for The Magnificent Ambersons. I wanted to get through the whole play, but we didn't quite make it. Had to end the stumble-run at 10 pm to work a problem scene (a problem only because it's complicated and I never could take the time to deal with it before) where I won't have the actors for a week. As they had been sitting around for hours (the scene's at the start of the show and they barely appear in it after that), they had worked out most of the problems themselves and brought it to me mostly ready, which was great.

We had 14 of the cast of 21, which is pretty good for a rehearsal of this show, but still hard to work a full run with. It was wonky, and the pace was all over the place (now too fast, now too slow, now just right), but you could see the show in there a bit - we did the stumble under stage lights, a quick general wash as best as Berit could make with the Babylon Babylon plot, and that helped make it seem a show. It made B and I step back and consider how much we might or might not actually need for the rest of the show, as far as shadow puppets and projections are concerned. We probably don't need nearly as much as we thought - acting, sound, and light will take care of most of it. I'd like to eliminate projections entirely, but there are two bits that absolutely need them, so they have to stay.

We started the stumble at around 7.40 pm, after taking photos for a while, and then a (longer than intended) break. We needed to get some kind of publicity photos - as requests are expected - though we don't have any costumes yet, so we worked with what the cast had, and shadowy lighting.

So, here I am (as The Narrator), with some of the company:

Jack Amberson (Walter Brandes) warns his old friend Eugene Morgan (Timothy McCown Reynolds) about his nephew, George:

George Amberson Minifer (Stephen Heskett) courts Eugene's daughter, Lucy Morgan (Shelley Ray):

Major Amberson (Bill Weeden), confronts his own mortality:

Eugene and Lucy discuss George's bad temper:

Aunt Fanny Minifer (Ivanna Cullinan) tries to stop George from interfering in his mother's affairs:

Eugene and Isabel Amberson Minifer (Sarah Malinda Engelke), old sweethearts falling in love again, are watched by her son, George:

Those will work for what we need now.

This week will be a killer, and without any full rehearsals of our shows until Saturday. Today we have to go do the whole restore on The Brick to have it ready for the Tiny Theater Festival this weekend - the lights need to be rehung to the house plot, curtains need to be hung, the whole space needs to be straightened up (I was going to have a rehearsal for Spell tonight, but the new movie screens are getting installed in the space, so no go).

And Berit and I have to try to get that all done today - tomorrow we need to spend cleaning up our home for an impending parental visit we weren't expecting, and the place needs about a week's worth of work it ain't gonna get. And we only have the daytime - tomorrow night we're teching a piece for Tiny Theater.

(ah, the glamour of theatre! here's a recent behind the scenes shot at The Brick featuring an associate artistic director (Jeff), a co-founder of the theatre and artistic director (Michael), and a technical director (me) doing what theatre seems most often to be about, figuring out where and how to move cumbersome heavy shit around - in this case, our seating risers, jammed in the loft and not wanting to come out again:)

(this is what theatre is much more about for me than the shots above, most of the time)

Thursday we're meeting some of the Ambersons cast for scene work during the day, and at the same time, we have to get the set pieces for Ambersons built - six seating boxes and four rolling screens, and I wanted to make a table, but I don't think it'll happen . . . Then in the evening, tech for the rest of the Tiny Theater shows.

Friday, we have the visit from a parent, so we're assuming the day will be spent on that. In the evening, we run the Tiny Theatre program. Oh, and sometime by this point, Berit and I need to sit down and work out charts of scene changes and other movement, and plan out the tech. Sometime. When we have a few extra hours. Oh, right, and find a last actor, too - the one I thought I'd have on board turned out to have a conflict with a show date.

Then, we're into a crazy weekend of marathon Ambersons rehearsals in the day to whip the show into proper shape, with Tiny Theatre on Saturday night and probably a makeup rehearsal for another show on Sunday night.

If I get to Friday night's show with everything else done, it'll all be fine.

Now I need to figure out why the bank has made a check deposit we need desperately vanish from our account after sitting there several days waiting to clear . . .

Video Blitz

Well, despite all the busyness, I still have time for some video watching (generally in a window to the right of whatever I'm working on on the iMac desktop).

So, I've made up some playlists of videos I've been watching recently - longer programs that have been broken up for posting on YouTube, which I've brought back together so you (and I) can watch them straight through.

So, inside each of these cuts, a playlist (or four) embedded for your dining and dancing pleasure.

First, this 66-minute documentary on the career of the Pre-Fab Four, by Eric Idle, Gary Weis, and Neil Innes:

( The Rutles in ALL YOU NEED IS CASH )

I was led to this next one by queencallipygos, a project from 1990 I'd never heard of - One World One Voice, a "chain tape" started by Kevin Godley and sent to musicians all around the world to add parts in a massive jam, with over 250 musicians and groups coming together to try and raise consciousness about environmental issues, becoming a massive jam of musicians of all styles and lands coming together on multitrack tape.

The musicians include Afrika Bambaataa, Laurie Anderson, Bagamoya Players, Cedric, The Chieftains, Clannad, Johnny Clegg & Savuka, Terence Trent D'Arby, Dred, Peter Gabriel, Bob Geldof, Dave Gilmour, Kevin Godley, Eddy Grant, The Gipsy Kings, Rupert Hine, Chrissie Hynde, Howard Jones, Salif Keita, The Kodo Drummers, the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra, Maria McKee, Milton Nascimento, Native Land & Themba, New Frontier, New Voices of Freedom, Nu Sounds, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Courtney Pine, Lou Reed, Robbie Robertson, Michael Rose & Junior, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Shakespear's Sister, Dave Stewart and The Spiritual Cowboys, Sting, Joe Strummer, Steven Van Zandt, Suzanne Vega, Venice, Adam Woods and Guo Yue. And others, who looked familiar, but I wasn't sure (I think I saw Yellowman - annoyingly, I couldn't find a complete list of the players online).

The final 52-minute-long piece is all over the place, from the sublime to the ridiculous, but the ridiculous is at least entertaining, and the sublime is . . . sublime:

( One World One Voice )

In 1997, all four of The Monkees reunite to create a new album, Justus, which Mike Nesmith only agrees to do if they actually write all the songs and play all the instruments themselves, which they do. Then Nesmith writes and directs a pretty-much-ignored TV special, Hey, Hey, We're The Monkees!, based on the concept that TV shows never actually stop when they go off the air - the characters are going on with their stories, they're just not getting aired anymore. So The Monkees are still trapped in their looney show as middle-aged men trying to ignore the "adventures" that come their way and still trying to get their band off the ground. This is a playlist of the bits of this bizarre show I've found on YouTube and stitched together:

( A Lizard Sunning Itself on a Rock )

And, more in the research category, an interview with Orson Welles, back when TV had something like real interviews:

( Orson Welles on the Dick Cavett Show )

And finally, all four parts of John Berger's classic 1972 Ways of Seeing series for the BBC. It seems everyone reads the book version of this in college now, but the video version is a far preferable version of the text, and worth sitting down and watching:

( WAYS OF SEEING, parts 1-4, by John Berger )

Enjoy.