Tag Archives: Gwen Flager

Theater 2018

This past twelve months has been very exciting, theater-wise. Last fall I directed the Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon play Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley. It was a great success with Main Street Theater audiences, selling out the original run and the extension.

I directed several readings, including a play by Arthur Smiley, The Lady Demands Satisfaction, for Wordsmyth and Christopher Hampton’s translation of Florian Zeller’s The Father for Luciole International Theatre. Clara Ploux is pursuing the rights for a full production in the 2018-2019 season.

For eight months I worked intermittently with Gwen Flager and Queensbury Theatre on her award winning play Girls Who Sing in the Choir, which became Shakin’ the Blue Flamingo. We began with a public reading where Gwen and I worked with a professional cast of my choosing to give voice to the characters. The feedback she received from me, the cast, and the audience was valuable in her rewrite process. Then in February of this year, we rehearsed for a week to put the play on its feet and did a ‘staged reading’ of the play with scripts in hand. We began to discover the rhythm and movement of the play. Our public reading was sold out, with people being turned away. That experience helped Gwen to hone the shape of the play and rewrite the ending. In June we went into full rehearsal and opened in July to several sold out houses. While the overall attendance did not warrant an extension, it was generally considered a great success by everyone who participated.

My involvement with Wordsmyth led me to volunteer to usher and help support the Texas Playwright’s Festival of readings by Wordsmyth at Stages. Three plays get a public reading, a brief chance for rewrites and a second reading over the course of a weekend.

Later this year, I go into rehearsal at MST for the remounting of Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley. The majority of my original cast have again signed on for that lovely holiday play. We get to play together once again!

Until then, I’m open to suggestions.

Claire HP

No More Shakin’ Goin’ On

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Well, as is the way with all good things, the production of Shakin’ the Blue Flamingo is at an end. It was an exciting and rewarding journey. We had some sold out houses and some modest houses. While not necessarily a financial boon to Queensbury Theatre, it was a noble and groundbreaking endeavor. I think it drew audience members that would not normally have ventured outside the loop for their theater fare.

I attended the last performance and stayed after for pictures with the cast. (The one above is courtesy of Jan Johnson, our production photographer.)

There was the usual melancholy task of retrieving all the costume pieces and props that I personally provided to the effort; then the hugs, kisses, and general thanks to each member of the cast and crew who made this a special time. And of course, adieu to our playwright Gwen Flager and her partner Ruth Ann. But I suspect from our conversation there will be more projects in the future.

Now we each go on to the next project, closer friends, but no longer to see each other on an almost daily basis. As is the way with theater friends, we will share email announcements of current projects, see each other on Facebook and on the ‘boards’, and for a few moments after a performance, but probably not spend significant time with each other for months or even years. At some point, I will work with many of these women again and we will pick up our friendships where we left them—still dear and with the measure of trust we have earned.

Sold Out Opening Night

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It’s great to be able to report that Shakin’ the Blue Flamingo was sold out for Friday’s opening night performance. Granted it was somewhat packed with friends and fans of playwright Gwen Flager, but it was gratifying.

There was a small ‘do’ at Brio before the show, where I met dozens of Gwen’s friends who had traveled from Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth and as far away as Delaware and Alaska for the event.

The performance itself was high-energy and fed off the love and laughter generated from the audience. This was a great house, and they not only got all the jokes, they probably knew the origin of some of them. A number of people were folks who have followed the development of this play from its first reading several years ago. Many spoke to me after the performance who were gratified at how far the play had come and how wonderful it was for Gwen to see the play be fully realized. Gwen herself was glowing.

After a small gathering with the cast after, fueled by more good will and a happy staff, I went home and collapsed into bed. It’s been a gratifying and exciting process. But the play belongs to the cast now. Hope it is a wonderful ride.

Reservations for the rest of the weekend are filling up, with Saturday virtually sold out, Sunday matinee is your best bet for this weekend. But there is next weekend. Get your tickets ASAP. Go to:

https://www.queensburytheatre.org/shakintheblueflamingo

Let me know how you liked it.

Claire HP

Turning a Corner: Shakin’ the Blue Flamingo

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Sunday was our extended tech rehearsal for Shakin’ the Blue Flamingo. As we incorporate technical aspects and refine acting objectives, there is always one very long day where it all has to start coming together. Sunday we rehearsed from 1 pm to 10 pm with a break for dinner. We completed two full runs and choreographed the prop crew’s efforts during the scene breaks. I always like to make the changeover look like part of the show if possible, so our prop crew is dressed as if they are employees of Edna’s diner.

The musical segues and interludes are a play list of all the great torchy female vocalists of the 70s and 80s. The mature members of our audience will have a great time trying to remember names of all the singers and the years the songs came out.

Adding costumes and sound can be distracting to some actors, especially when fast changes are involved, so I was pleased to see that this did not derail us. Although, we are still tweaking and accessorizing, the physical personae of each character became clearer. Some actors find that adding the clothes of their characters can give them that last nudge into realizing them as three-dimensional people. And so it seemed to be yesterday.

My lead actress has been struggling for clarity in her character, as she felt the text sent her back and forth in opposing directions concerning what she really wanted. Talking through this in notes, I suggested that she needed to decide what ‘she’ wants to do to the other person and try her best to do that. The emotional baggage of what she secretly wants as opposed to what she is doing is what weakens her resolve occasionally and becomes an obstacle to overcome. She wants to protect herself from being hurt by the person she has been in love with for years. So every time Mac pushes Rosie away, her love pushes right back and opens the possibility of hope. That hope is what undermines her resolve and what she struggles against. She cannot hope and barricade her heart at the same time. She has to choose when to open herself up, and that choice is the crux of the play.

When we came back for the second run-thru, everyone was more energized, pushing the envelope and working their objectives. And suddenly, it seemed like we might be on the brink of having the play I’ve envisioned in my head; the one Gwen Flager wrote and rewrote.

As Geoffrey Rush says in “Shakespeare in Love” when he is asked how something fine can come out of the chaos of rehearsal, “I dunno, it’s the magic of theatre.”

We open on Thursday, July 12, 2018. Hope you have us on your schedule. Currently, the run is only two weeks, and it is in the Black Box theatre. So don’t wait til the last minute to buy your tickets. Our staged reading turned people away. For schedule and information go to:

https://www.queensburytheatre.org/shakintheblueflamingo

Check out my interview about the show:

Check out my interview about Shakin’ the Blue Flamingo on the Queensbury Theatre facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/QueensburyTheatre/videos/1957135634330687/

Thanks,

Claire Hart-Palumbo

Rehearsal for “Shakin’ the Blue Flamingo”

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We are now three weeks into rehearsals and our process is alternately blissful and excruciating. We work subtle nuances of one scene until all seems to click, and then go on to a scene we think already perfected and discover we’ve lost the rhythm or the refinements…or the lines.

Each of my actors is a veteran theater professional, but each with very different experience, skills, and strengths. Some learned the lines almost immediately but struggle to remember blocking. Others get the blocking, but stutter step through the words—which have been changing as we refine this wonderful new play.

Some with a strong vocal instrument and ready access to the ‘psychology’ of the character came in strong, but now begin the torturous journey to dig deeper than their usual comfort level. One actress informed me that I was terrifying, but then admitted that I was only demanding her best. I try never to yell or throw tantrums, but my expectations of these women are very high. And sometimes my frustration has to show. I suppose that can be terrifying if you are used to relying on technique or the usual bag of tricks and I insist on more.

It is a constant ebb and flow. One day five or six of the seven are working at high energy. Another day, someone who has been struggling makes a breakthrough. We discover a ‘moment’ in the play that wasn’t previously defined, and it’s all worth it. Painstakingly, we carve the emotional terrain of this play and hope our audience will find us and recognize the labor and the love that has brought us to the stage.

As we define the action and perfect the emotional pitch, the next struggle will be as we begin to integrate the technical aspects, stop miming the actions and begin working with food and liquids and prop phones. How to master the swing of a kitchen door, time the sound of a chair scraping the floor, or a spoon clinking on a cup? These are the millions of details that go into making the perfect arc of the play. Mastery of one thing only leads to larger challenges and obstacles.

Oh, but the joy of finding the right note, the perfect laugh, the synchronous movement and line. There is the satisfaction that keeps us working for low wages at a craft we are passionate about. At the service of the words, and hopefully the playwright.

Our own dear playwright, Gwen Flager has brought her own energy and focus to this process. She is learning much from this shared experience. For a play may be born of a writer’s mind, but it is birthed by the collaborative effort into a living and breathing thing.

For Gwen’s notes, pictures and musings on this process, go to her website: http://gwenflager.com/blog/.

Above photo by Julye Newlin.

Hope everyone will come share the bounty with us when we open on July 12, 2018.

Phase 3 – Shakin’ the Blue Flamingo

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Queensbury Theatre’s 2017 Playwrighting Competition winner, Girls Who Sing in the Choir, by Gwen Flager, has a new name! Shakin’ the Blue Flamingo will be the title going forward, and hopefully in print. Along with the new title, we have a new ending for the play. Based on the developmental readings and feedback from myself, cast members and audience talk backs, Gwen has reworked the ending in a way that I believe all will find more satisfying and hopeful.

Those of you who have followed my previous posts about the play development project I’m working on at Queensbury will be happy to hear that we have started rehearsals for the full production. There have been a couple of new additions to the cast. We are excited to welcome Susan Shofner and Jennifer Doctorovich who replace two cast members from the developmental readings. Both are Actors Equity Association members.

Blocking rehearsals began last week and the new cast members and new groundplan for the set encouraged me to experiment a bit with the flow. Characters are evolving and being more clearly defined and the relationships are being plumbed to a new level. The general feeling among the cast is one of excitement to be working so closely with the playwright, who is almost instantly responsive to our questions and suggestions. It’s evolving as a true collaboration.

The play tracks a group of former sorority sisters as they sponsor and plan an LGBT prom for gay students at the local high school. In the process, old secrets, lies, attractions, and betrayals are revealed in often hilarious and alternately painful ways. An old love is rekindled, friendships are tested, and at least one relationship will be destroyed.

This full production, the result of an eight-month process, will preview to the press and friends on Thursday 7/12/18, open on Friday 7/13/18, and perform Thursdays through Sundays at Queensbury Theatre, 12777 Queensbury Lane, Houston, Texas 77024. It performs through 7/22, with an Industry Night on Monday 7/16/18. For dates and times and to buy tickets, call the box office at 713-467-4497 ext 1, or go online to: https://www.queensburytheatre.org/girlswhosinginthechoir

Industry rates are available to all working theater professionals if you ask. Otherwise, use Promo Code: PRIDE for discounted tickets.

Hope to see you there.