Tag Archives: Queensbury Theatre

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

Theatre – Post Harvey Update

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Between difficult subject-matter-experts at my day job, Hurricane Harvey, and having to redesign my online Film Appreciation class multiple times around the delayed start of the Fall semester, I’ve been very busy and not a little stressed.

But the good news is that this is a busy autumn season for me theatre-wise. While some theaters were adversely affected by Harvey, causing delays or cancellations, some of the mid-sized theaters are very busy. I’ve tried very hard to make time to support the theaters that are still producing by attending a variety of different offerings. This is a great season for edgy new plays like Ayed Akhtar’s Disgraced at 4th Wall Theatre Company, Wallace Shawn’s Evening at the Talk House at Catastrophic, and entertaining additions to established franchises like The Ensemble’s Sassy Mamas by Celeste Bedford Walker. But it is an even better season for some wonderful and often over-looked classics like Maxim Gorky’s Enemies at Main Street Theater, George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession at Classical Theatre Company and its upcoming production of An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen.

Last weekend, we launched the eight-month development process on the 2017 winner of the Queensbury Theatre Playwrighting Contest. My cast and I met to do table work and hold an initial public reading of the most recent revision of Gwen Flager’s The Girls Who Sing in the Choir. Gwen and I will meet in consultation over the next few months as she does additional rewrites. Then in February, Queensbury hosts a staged reading of the play. After additional workshops, revision, and rehearsal, the play will receive a full production in the summer of 2018. It is an exciting inaugural project and I hope that Queensbury will commit to making this an annual event.

I’m confident that MST’s production of Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley will bridge the gap between the lovers of classic literature and edgy new playwrights. It should prove a welcome holiday alternative to the usual Dickens fare and The Nutcracker.

I am directing this homage to Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice characters, as reinvented by playwrights Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon. Named the Most-Produced Playwright of 2016, Gunderson also wrote Silent Sky and The Revolutionists, which were featured in recent seasons at Main Street Theater.

Our first read-through of the play, held last night, was a “Part of the Art” offering to our loyal MST subscribers and longtime supporters. People on the MST list serve were invited to experience this sneak preview of the play in its purest form. Folks attending last night’s table read will be able to compare their impressions to the actual production later and more completely appreciate the journey a play makes before it is fully realized.

Joining the audience and myself were my Stage Manager, Lauren Evans; Assistant Director, Joanna Hubbard; Costume Designer, Deborah Anderson; and the cast: Chaney Moore, Brock Hatton, Spencer Plachy, Laura Kaldis, Heidi Hinkel, Blake Weir, Skylar Sinclair, and Lindsay Ehrhardt.

I like to think that one of my strengths as an actress-turned-director is putting together a dynamic and talented cast. That was reaffirmed by last night’s gathering. While the cast has had their scripts and my research notes for several weeks, most of them have been working hard doing other shows. Nevertheless, the reading showed preparation and thought and was as close to production level as I’ve experienced with any cast in recent memory. It will only grow and deepen over the next three weeks as we learn to work together and create art.

For me, this is a moment filled with excitement and anticipation, fully appreciating the adventure and the possibilities before us, and not yet overwhelmed by the physical and design demands of the show.

I hope you will join us for the adventure.

Miss Bennet will run at Main Street Theater November 11 through December 17, 2017. For information, visit www.mainstreetheater.com or call the box office at 713-524-6706.

Claire Hart-Palumbo