Great Theater

And no, I'm not talking about any recent political developments.

In fact, I am talking about the play at Interplayers last night. I went with my friend Jennifer to see "Eleesymonia" (or something like that), about a mother and a daughter and another daughter (and, therefore, granddaughter) and their eccentricities and illusions. I suppose is the best way to describe it. We were left with much food for thought. It was a play thick with layers, and welcoming to the analysis. A modern play, it is left with its kinks and quirks, but it was definitely worth the trip.

It plays through this weekend - no Sunday performance. Check out times and dates at www.interplayers.com.

Waiting for Godot

I just saw "Waiting for Godot," at the local Interplayers theater. It was something else. It's that existential play from decades ago. Did you know it was funny? Hilarious. In our production, the funny parts were highlighted - played not as slapstick but definitely as comedic. One of my sisters tells a story of laughing through a different production of "Godot" to the consternation of those around her (who were taking the play mighty seriously). But last night, I wasn't the only one laughing. I do think I laughed loudest at a couple of lines. But at least I was not alone.

I think the best line was when Go Go says, "We don't have any rights?" and his friend explains (as if it makes it better), "We gave up our rights." Now, in print, it doesn't look so funny. But in the theater, it was hysterical. I might go see the play again, to catch more of its nuances. Yes, it was that good. Must be a good production.

The next play up for Interplayers (after the "Godot" run, which ends Saturday) is "The Graduate." I didn't know the movie was also a play. It opens April 23 - right before my birthday, which is April 28. I am turning 48. It's a good age. It will be a good year. Or so I imagine. Jeannie S, another Huckleberry blogger, has a countdown on her blog for turning 60 the day after I turn 48. I'm hoping for a big bash. Hmmm....

Funny story. Once, I told my sister (same one as above) that a friend was coming to town and that we'd probably go out to celebrate because it was our birthday weekend (almost the same day, in fact - something my sister knew). My sister sounded surprised. "Why would you do that?" She asked. I, in turn, sounded surprised. "Well, to celebrate our birthdays," I said. It took a couple more "who's on first" rounds before we realized that I was saying "our birthday weekend" and she was hearing "Arbor Day Weekend." I laugh as I type this, remembering back to how funny it was. It was dialog worthy of a sitcom.

Later that evening, she went to dinner at a friend's house and told this story. Her friend grabbed a calendar. Turned out, my friend was actually coming to town on Arbor Day Weekend, because it's always the last weekend in April, and it happened that the last weekend in April that year included April 28. It was both "our birthday weekend" and "Arbor Day Weekend." What are the odds?

And so, "The Graduate" opens at the Interplayers over Arbor Day weekend this year, which does not include April 28th (which falls on a Tuesday this time). Make a note on your calendars.

photo credit: Carol Von Canon, found here

KNIFVES Event: "Belle of Amherst"

My movie-making group from Idaho, called KNIFVES, attended the "Belle of Amherst" matinee yesterday at the local Interplayers theater. We organized it so the group would get a chance not only to see this wonderful play about Emily Dickinson but also to meet the play's star, Ellen Crawford. (Ellen is from the original cast of ER, and played Nurse Lydia Wright. She had just returned from filming ER's finale.)

We had 16 people attend from our group. It was the third time I had seen the play. I love this play. I love Ellen in it. There are a couple scenes that particularly move me - when she talks about unexpected kindnesses from Emily Dickinson's father, for instance. It also tears at my heart every time I hear the line that she waited "eight years" for this so-called educated critic to come see her at her home town (only to have him tell her that her poetry was spasmodic). It's the story of the writer, isn't it? How we wait and wait.... for this one thing to develop. Which would be okay, if the answer ended up "yes." But what if it is "no"? Or what if - worse - the answer never comes? Ugh.

We also had the "talk back" afterwards, which means a discussion with Ellen and audience members. It was a challenge for her since she also had a show that night. She really did it as a favor to our group. (One thing that I found out during the talk-back was that the monologue pieces in the play that are not poetry are taken almost exclusively from Emily Dickinson's letters.) No one asked her a question about the filming of the ER finale, which surprised me a little. I did see the ER show this past Thursday - thought it was the finale, though it wasn't. I used to watch the show in its early years - felt some kinship with it, since my sis is an ER doc and got her training in Chicago - so was looking forward to the finale. The almost-finale episode did not disappoint, and included a lot of the cast from the first season. Particularly touching throughout the episode was the interaction between Drs. Carter and Benson, especially given the history between the two characters from the early seasons (when Benson supervised Carter). And there was one powerful scene between Susan Sarandon and George Clooney (as Dr. Ross) as they talked about the grandson of Susan Sarandon's character - what he was like.... The way she described him - simultaneously it described both any child and then, very specifically, this child. So heartbreaking. And then, his line in response - well, I won't say it all here. Just watch the scene.

Because the talk-back took awhile, the KNIFVES group didn't get a chance to meet with Ellen one on one. She did sign some posters, and did speak briefly to one of our youngest members whose film is going to be in a competition in Texas. That capped the whole day for me - that Ellen had a chance to wish Katie good luck.

KNIFVES Event and Interplayers

Well, it is all set up. As mentioned here, I was organizing a fundraiser event for my movie group called KNIFVES to attend "The Belle of Amherst" starring Ellen Crawford at the Interplayers Theater at the corner of Howard and Second Avenue in Spokane. We are all set for this coming Saturday's matinee at 2 p.m. (March 14). Though I'm still trying to set up an after-event/presentation for our group. Anyone who wants to attend the play and then stay for the yet-to-be-determined after-event at the theater, be sure to contact me! We also will get a chance to talk with Ellen briefly after the show.

Belle Elle - Ellen Crawford and "The Belle of Amherst"

I missed this posting yesterday, as I spent all day in Seattle on business, but....

I loved "The Belle of Amherst" Thursday night. I knew I would (as I said on Thursday afternoon). After all, it is the story of one of my very favorite poets (Emily Dickinson) performed by one of my very favorite actors (Ellen Crawford) at one of my very favorite theaters (Interplayers). But knowing you will enjoy something ahead of time and actually going through the process of enjoying it are two very different things.

I loved the script. It was nearly musical, as it intertwined Dickinson's poetry with her story. And I so loved Ellen's performance. She brought the script alive. She was stark and sentimental and funny and real. Interplayers has an intimate stage, so the audience and actors are immediately present to each other. I felt transported to the 1800s, when Emily Dickinson lived. Ellen gave me the chance to see things through Emily's eyes. She was so transformed to her character that I almost didn't recognize her, even though I knew intellectually that it was Ellen on stage. Her complete immersion into the role is a tribute to the poet and a gift to the rest of us. I plan to see the play at least two more times.

An exciting sidenote: Ellen had to cancel all the weekday performances for this coming week because she has been called back to L.A. to film the finale of "ER." She was one of the original nurses on the show - Nurse Lydia Wright - you would recognize her if you ever watched "ER" - and actually said the first words uttered on the first show, way back in 1994.

Another sidenote: I've mentioned before that I'm a member of an Idaho filmmaking group called KNIFVES. Well, we are trying to organize a field trip to the show once Ellen gets back in Spokane from L.A. this coming Saturday. I'm hoping to talk the theater into adding a Sunday matinee on either March 8 or March 15, so stay tuned. (BTW, KNIFVES made me board secretary a couple weeks ago. Everyone wants a lawyer on their board!)

The Show Tonight

The preview for Interplayers' "Belle of Amherst," starring Ellen Crawford, is tonight. The actual opening is Friday night. I am going to the show tonight, though, because I am in Seattle on business tomorrow and don't know when I'll get back. Ellen is a wonderful actor; this is a one woman show. There was a nice article in the paper about it. I'll post tomorrow about how the show goes. I'm looking forward to it. I love Emily Dickinson. I can recite a little of her poetry, though I'm sure Ellen can recite a whole heck of a lot more than me. I first met Ellen when she and her husband Mike performed in "Sparky and Fitz" a comedy drama written by a friend of theirs who based the characters loosely on Ellen and Mike. They deny any similarity. That was two years ago. They have been this way again a few times over the years. Tonight will be a treat!

Businesses Can Serve Community Too

In his speech Tuesday night to Congress, President Obama spoke about the diehard spirit of Americans, and the contributions of many, including contributions of our business people:

The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.

I heard the word "entrepreneur" and sat up. Why, that was exactly what I had been wanting to write about, with my "Spirit of Service" stories. In fact, just that day I had been meeting with my friend Mary Ann McCurdy at her consulting office to learn about how she makes her living by working on different projects that make an impact on this community. And here was Obama, highlighting a similar theme.

The synchronicity did not end there. It was the next day that Obama nominated former Washington governor Gary Locke for Commerce Secretary. I first met Mary Ann years ago, when she was Gov. Locke's Eastern Washington director, and I was on an educational board that was trying to get the governor as a speaker at our annual fundraising event. (Mary Ann helped; there were kinks in the plan; the whole thing came together a year later.) I remember being impressed with how efficient and hardworking she was, even in the face of a lot of complications. And when I heard of Locke's nomination, I knew he was an excellent choice. After all, he had the wherewithal to hire Mary Ann back then, didn't he?

It was a few years ago that I actually got to know Mary Ann and her husband Jim (a local lawyer and minor league baseball team owner) through the Interplayers, our professional local theater. They both have been on the Interplayers board; Mary Ann has been its executive director; it is my opinion that they have been more than instrumental in saving Interplayers from near-dissolution. Today it is the only professional theater in Spokane. Both Jim and Mary Ann have been incredibly supportive of my baseball novel, about the 1946 Spokane Indians baseball team that died in a bus crash midway through the season. They even had me do a reading from the novel at the theater. Jim is a minor league baseball guy, so he naturally would be drawn in by the story. But Mary Ann? I think she sees the beauty of the story through the magic of it. They were just great guys, those 1946 men....

One thing I knew about Mary Ann, even before meeting with her Tuesday, is that she is a natural networker. Most recently I ran into her at the Spokane airport as we both waited for flights (she was on her way to DC for the inauguration). She ended up running into two different friends of hers, independent of each other, while we were getting coffee. Within moments, the four of us were sitting and bonding with Mary Ann as the catalyst, gently noting what we each had in common with each other. We now are planning an airport "reunion" (Mary Ann's idea) in the next week or so. She's just a natural at this bridge-building thing. So it makes perfect sense that she should run a consulting business.

When I asked her on Tuesday what she did, exactly, she had to ponder it a little. This is what happens to someone with so many skills. She has been the right hand of a governor, a realtor, a therapist, an educator, a board member (of many boards -still), a theater salvationist (if that is a word)..... Her immediate can-do list was clear: organizational planning and rehabilitation, political communications, and people development. Her projects similarly have been very constructive and broad-based. She has just finished helping Eastern Washington University rebuild its "EWU Friends of the Library program," for instance, which required revamping from the ground up. She has a great knack for matching boards with new, innovative board members. She works one-on-one with clients from topics ranging anywhere from effective political speech to policy reform. Many of the tasks generate income. Some of the tasks - well, she will work on it because the project needs her help. She is the embodiment of this "Spirit of Service," business style.

Mary Ann and I talked a little bit Tuesday about what it means to network. It is not about climbing a ladder; it is about building bridges. And it is about doing so with a sense of joy and service. Sometimes something comes back to the person who did the networking. Sometimes it does not. What matters is the effort. Building a business around that kind of effort takes a true entrepreneur. That is Mary Ann.

Think about it: so often we look at helping our communities solely through the lens of volunteerism. And while that is important, it may be beneficial to view community outreach from more than that one lens. What if we looked at our businesses as a branch of the community? How would that view impact the choices we made in our day-to-day business lives? And what if we took that "spirit of service" directly into the workplace, in every moment? So that even if the task is not directly service oriented, perhaps the attitude can be. Let's not just be Saturday volunteers (or Sunday churchgoers). Let us imagine how to live our lives in service.

It is what Obama says: it is about pulling together, confronting challenges boldly, and taking responsibility for our future. And the answers to our problems lie even closer than within our reach. They lie in the palms of our hands.

Frankly, though I'd love to see us keep Mary Ann in the role of consultant here in Spokane, I would not be at all surprised if she receives a call from the "other Washington" from, say, the Commerce Department, seeking her assistance over the next four years. Our loss, the country's gain. I would not be at all surprised.

Set Design 101

In this new commitment I've made to participate in all parts of production when it comes to movies (and plays, for that matter), I offered to help Interplayers, our local professional theater, break down the set of their most recent play "Cowgirls." I'm thinking that set breakdown is easier to do than set buildup. Because of the quick turnaround time for the next play - a one-woman act about Emily Dickinson called "The Belle of Amherst," performed by a wonderful actress and friend of mine Ellen Crawford - the set needed immediate breakdown last night, after the "Cowgirls" final performance. so I told Maynard (set designer, ofttime actor and director, and all-around theater person extraordinaire) that I'd be there to help.

In the meantime, I got sick. Probably the flu. Achiness, sore throat - you know the routine. And my day yesterday was filled with appointments. So by 5 p.m., the last thing I felt like doing was breaking down a set. But I drove back into Spokane from Sandpoint, Idaho at exactly - you guessed it - 5 p.m., so I figured I needed to follow through with my commitment.

Already at the set breakdown scene were several young people who are involved and integrated with the theater. "Cowgirls" had done so well that there is talk of a summer revival, so we needed to keep the set pieces intact and move them to the basement floor that way.

What I noticed more than anything else (even more than the heavy lifting and subsequent sweating - boy, I sure didn't feel good) was the precision by which all these theater people managed the tasks at hand. It was disorganized organization, like a symphony in the middle of its last movement - the musicians all know the end result and the rest of us are all gifted with the opportunity to watch it unfold.

Kudos go out to all who helped. There was Maynard, of course. We argued over who was older (he is, but not by much) as the punctuation to the fact that I claimed elderly status when I couldn't successfully help him bring the chaise lounge up from the basement. There was Chris - new to me but not to Interplayers, someone who works long and hard behind the scenes to make sure that things go smoothly there. And then there were the "youngsters," as I call them: Gracie, who is in a play down at the local community college but thinks her part might get cut; Ginny, who will be stage manager for "Belle"; Jeremy, who had the unfortunate luck - like Maynard - of carrying furniture with me as his partner, and who even was willing to suffer through the experience more than once; Damon, who (it turns out) performed as one of the customers in a restaurant scene in a movie on autism called "Mozart and the Whale" that was filmed in Spokane using North by Northwest production company; and Brian, who out of the blue asked me about my baseball novel, taking me by surprise that he knew about it in the first place.

There were funny moments - like when I hovered around the baby grand piano as all the men took sides and lifted it from the stage to the floor, and then I asked for acknowledgement of how I "supervised" their work. Maynard and Chris simultaneously said that it appeared I was taking over Maynard's job. But overall, it really was just a lot of grunt work - moving set, sweeping floor, moving on. And not too many people outside of the eight of us will even know what we did, or realize the numer of splinters we got from moving a rustic set in the first place.

In the end, "Cowgirls" will become "The Belle" in part because a small troupe of industrious people chose to help move the view. And I'm glad I was there. Being a part of that group last night gives me new appreciation for what takes place, literally, "behind the scenes." In theater. In general. In life. I should have taken a picture.

Even Cowgirls Sing The Blues

As discussed here, Interplayers Theatre is the last remaining
professional theater in Spokane. Last night I attended the almost-full-house opening of their show "Cowgirls," a combination of classical music with country singing. It's the story of a classical trio musical group named "Coghill Trio" that gets mistaken for "Cowgirl Trio" by a Western saloon set to open up a musical show for the first time in 32 years. The Coghills must become Cowgirls in 24 hours. The show received a nice review in the local newspaper (here's a link, but you may have to pay to see the whole article. Sorry. Spokane's local paper is annoying that way. Quite unimpressive in its stinginess.) What caught my attention the most last night was the incredible performances of the six actors, all women. They had to be able to act, sing, and play musical instruments. What a phenomenal job they did! The very end in particular is amazing. There are several songs I'd like to hear again, which is saying a lot since I'm not a big country music fan. I hope they have a terrific run.

Cleaning Up The Interplayers Theatre

Here is my first entry of a "Spirit of Service" story (which are explained here). There's a theater in Spokane called Interplayers. It is our last remaining professional theater in town, what with ARt (actors repertory theatre) and CenterStage having shut down in the past year. They are the nicest people there, do wonderful theater, and are very welcoming. A year or so ago, they even had me come do a reading of my baseball novel (called "Until The End Of The Ninth," based on the true story of the 1946 Spokane Indians minor league baseball team that died in a bus crash midway through the season).

There is another group in town that was new to me until a few days ago. They are called the Spokane Preservation Advocates (SPA). They are about 10 years old, have about 800 members, and work diligently to "maintain and improve Spokane's historic character by preserving our heritage and pursuing outstanding, compatible new development."

So what happened when these two groups came together this past Saturday? A clean-up, that's what. It was SPA's idea. Once a quarter (or more often), SPA chooses a "doing it" project for hands-on preservation work. This quarter, they chose to clean up Interplayers, itself in a historic building. Interplayers was thrilled. And a mess. When I read about the clean-up project here, http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/jan/13/spotlight-on-interplayers-home/, I thought I'd try to come by and help. It didn't matter that I wasn't an SPA member - one handwritten nametag later, and I was drafted for the project. I got assigned to the "sorters" group. We were in charge of hanging up clothes, organizing hats, and identifying trash for tossing. It was freezing cold! (Interplayers keeps some floors heatless to save on costs.) We wore winter coats as we sorted (at least I did). We took some goofy photos wearing various theater hats which likely will be uploaded on the SPA at some point. It was fun, and fast. Anytime you have five or more people helping, the job can go quickly. We talked a lot, too, about SPA's different projects. My mom's a historian and I'm a storyteller, so I do really honor and respect the kind of work they do. Currently they are working hard to save big trees in town - very important. Also, we lamented how one of our historic buildings got torn down because the owner (from CA, and without a care about this place) refused to sell it at a reasonable price, even to a local building owner (Rob Brewster) who was willing to take on the project to save the building. In the end, they just tore down the building to build a parking
.........SPA folks at Interplayers.................. garage. I will never, ever park there. Ever.

I had decided to help with the clean-up before I knew about the "Spirit of Service" section for this blog. But once I was there on Saturday, I thought this story would make a great first-entry into the foray of celebrating service. These organizations are two of the greatest groups in this community, run by people with a passion for the project but not always with the recognition that they deserve. Hats off (or on!! as the case may be) to both Interplayers Theatre and Spokane Preservation Advocates. Thanks for being here in town.
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The one thing I didn't ask the SPA folks: how did doing this project feel in light of this recent "call to service" by our new president? Feel free to leave a comment below in the "comments" section on that (or on anything else, of course). For me, it was a wonderful coincidence to set the intention of doing something service-oriented and then be able to manifest that intention just a few days later.
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BTW, SPA does things besides "doing it" projects. They even have grants that they fund from their own coffers. Check out their site: http://www.spokanepreservation.org/ Also, here's the website for Interplayers: http://www.interplayers.com/