Author: Charleston Stage

Charleston Stage staff spent a beautiful day in Fort Motte SC on the Wiles family farm. There were paddle boat and canoe rides on the pond, walks through Mrs. Wiles beautiful flower gardens and tours of Mr. Wiles (Sr.) restored 1930s General Store. Personally I found a hammock that needed stretching and enjoyed watching the activities from there. Since May of 2007 Charleston Stage has produced 12 shows in 2 brand new venues, from the world premiere of Denmark Vessey at Piccolo to our Sottile and American theatre series. I needed a break. No Charleston Stage event is complete without food and Jenny Hane, Julian and Mrs. Wiles took care of that. We were invited for lunch, but stayed through dinner and all left with goody bags. Thanks to the Wiles family (Jr & Sr) for a great day! Marybeth Clark Associate Artistic Director 

 Season 30 is starting to wind down, we have one last week of performances of Greater Tuna and one more week of theatreschool classes. It means it is time to start saying goodbye to our five member Professional Resident Acting Company.   Autumn, Charlie, Nicole, Patrick and Sam arrived in Charleston in the beginning of July 2007.  They drove from West Virginia, North Dakota, New Jersey, Illinois and Wisconsin and moved into new apartments, met new roommates and within 3 days were teaching more than 60 kids in SummerStage.What an amazing 10 months we have had together. From Gershwin at Folly to Tick Tick Boom, Beauty & the Beast and Fiddler on the Roof to our family shows James and the Giant Peach and A Year With Frog and Toad these young actors have delighted audiences and enhanced our 30th season.  So where do they go from here?    Autumn Seavey will be performing at Hershey Park for the summer and then relocating to the D.C. area. Charlie Retlaff will be touring with Olney Theatre’s National Players, performing Shakespeare around the country. Nicole Nicastro will spend the summer at The Great Plains Theatre in Abilene Kansas and at Maples Repertory Theatre in Macon, Missouri . In the fall she will tour with Veggie Tales Live as Bob the Tomato. Patrick Tierney will be moving to Chicago to pursue acting a bit closer to home.  Sam Weber will spend his summer at Maine State Musical Theatre and then perform with the Oregon Cabaret Theatre through the end of the year.   For ten months they have given Charleston Stage and the Charleston community dazzling  and moving performances.    Along the way hundreds of young people enjoyed the classes they led and taught.  We will miss them and wish them well! 

Goodbye from Marybeth Clark, Associate Artistic Director

 

 

Last Wednesday,   90 minutes before a Great Tuna performance our backstage crew discovered that the laptop computer that held all of the thirty-something sound cues for Greater Tuna had been stolen from what we thought was a secure location.     Since many of the sound cues for this show are voiceovers that cover costume changes, without the sound cues the show couldn’t go on.  Our crew immediately called me and Mike Christensen our sound designer (thank God for cell phones)  but we were a ways away . . . I was at a cocktail party.  Fortunately I had many of the voiceovers on my Apple laptop but it was at home so my wife Jenny dropped me off at the theatre and then raced home to retrieve my laptop. As we waited I think we all began praying. The minutes ticked by and at last, two minutes before curtain Jenny arrived.  I met her in front of the theatre then raced upstairs to the sound booth.  Just as I  plugged  in my computer the show began.  But then I realized I didn’t have all the cues! Some critical ones were missing.   Fortunately, Mike arrived just in time with his laptop and the other sound cues and during act one we transferred those cues from his computer to mine using a flash drive. (The magic of technology!)Though there was lots of adrenalin flowing that night, the audience never knew of the drama backstage and the show went off, thanks to our great actors and crew,  all without a hitch!Our prayers were answered!

Julian Wiles, Director, Greater Tuna

POST SCRIPT: The next day Mike recreated the sound plot, we even made a few improvements and the sound for Greater Tuna is now better than ever.

Today more than 1600 Lowcountry students delighted in the antics of A Year With Frog and Toad.   Along the way, through the magic of this kid-sized Broadway musical, students learned valuable lessons of friendship and getting along . . . even when your best friend is all wet!   Over 2000 additional students will meet  Happy-go-lucky Frog and the Grump Ol’ Toad over the next two days at the College of Charleston Sottile Theatre.  On Friday and Saturday April 11th and 12th  at 7:00 PM there are public performances for area young people and their families.    

    

 

Charleston Stage’s TheatreSchool weekly spring classes ended this week with a “BAM” or a “KABAM” to be exact. Taught by members of Charleston Stage’s Resident Professional Acting Company, more than 100 kids took the stage to present Classically Colossal Comic Book Capers. (The Theatre School theme this session.) These imaginative and creative young performers used the comic strip format to create their own amazing comic book capers —they wrote the scripts themselves. These Mini-extravaganzas (some of which could rival such blockbusters as Spiderman and Batman, were presented for an audience of family and friends. Here’s a glimpse of these young super heroes and villains from the kindergarden and first grade class performing their original works. Scenes include a party of evil villains dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and a scene from You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown . Registration for Fall 2008 Classes begins on April 15,2008. Visit the Classes Section (under Education) on our website.

Before a show “officially” opens in the theatre we have a final dress rehearsal (sometimes with a small invited audience)  and in the case of  Greater Tuna a  near sellout pay-what-you-will preview.     These performances allow us to fine tune the show, adjust timing for lights and sound and for the actors to adjust their comic timing.   In the old days Broadway shows would go out of town for weeks of tryouts on the road in other cities before  landing in New York for their Broadway openings.  The Marx Brothers even created stage versions of their film scripts that they took on the road to fine-tune the laughs in vaudeville houses before they began filming.  They said this helped them perfect their timing and figure out where the audience would laugh since they had no audience on their sound stages.For Charleston Stage and most regional professional theatres we can’t afford to take a show on the road so we have previews  to help us put the finishing touches on a show.  This is a very important part of the process for adding the  audience is almost like introducing another actor into the play.  The actors need time to get used to this new partner and to gage audience reactions and laughs.  (And where  they don’t laugh too!)Though you may not realize it your reactions as an audience member create much of the magic in live theatre.  This is why live theatre is so different that seeing a film or TV show.  No matter what you do at the movies or at home watching TV that actor up on the screen isn’t  going to be affected.   But in the theatre it’s just the opposite,  your enthusiasm and response actually fuel  and guide an actor’s performance.   For Greater Tuna, preview audiences have really been playing their part wonderfully, laughing uproariously and adding extra energy to every performance.   You can play your part as well, come join in the fun!Greater Tuna opens tonight, Friday April 4, 2008 at 8PM at the American Theater.   Professional actors Brian Bogstad (right)  as Vera Carp and Victor Clark (left) as Pearl Burris attending the funeral of Judge Buchner in a scene from Great Tuna.
  

When you hear the word “dresser” in the theatre you might think of a pampered actor backstage who is too lazy to dress himself but that’s far from the true role of a theatrical dresser. Usually they’re there to help with lightning quick changes  and in the case of Greater Tuna, there are dozens of  lightning quick  changes.  Veteran actors Brian Bogstad and Vic Clark have 42 costume changes and if they had to dress themselves each performance of Greater Tuna might be eight hours long!   
With the help of our four amazing dressers, the costume changes in Greater Tuna take place almost within the blink of an eye, some taking place in only 10-20 seconds!   To accomplish this, the actors and their dressers have been rehearsing each costume change, over and over for the past week.   Backstage the Greater Tuna dressers  look like a polished  Nascar pit crew at work — calm, precise, efficient and FAST!   
This amazing backstage costume crew is led by Charleston Stage Costume Assistant  Erin Cary who joins TheatreWings High School apprentice Taylor Wentworth as the dressers for actor Brian Bogstad.     Here they are getting Brian into his outfit for Didi Snavely who runs Didi’s Used Weapons in Tuna, Texas. 

 

  On the other side of the stage are TheatreWings High School Apprentices Aidan White and Jake Pensmith, dressers for actor Victor Clark.   Here they help him into his Act Two Sheriff duds.

 

 Audiences won’t get to see the drama going backstage but that’s part of the magic of the theatre, magic that in this case, wouldn’t happen without the skill and hard work of our terrific dressers on this show.  Our (cowboy) hats are off to you.

 

Charleston Stage Resident Professional actors Patrick Tierney (Frog) and Charlie Retzlaff (Toad) play the leads in Charleston Stage’s upcoming Broadway Musical for kids, A Year with Frog and Toad.  They hopped in recently for an interview.

 

Q:  So, you’re starting your final show, are you excited that it’s Frog and Toad?

  Patrick: Oh man! Of course.  I have been waiting for this zany show all season.

Q: What’s the difference between a frog and a toad? 

Charlie:  I had a chance to actually look this up before we began the show and it turns out that a toad is, in fact, a frog!  The difference between the two types of frog are that the toad tends to live in dry environments and sometimes walks on it’s hind legs, whereas the frog lives in wet environments and hops instead of walks.

Q:  How did you physicalize your character.  Did you do any character research to fully realize you’re character? 

Patrick: The stage version of Frog and Toad focuses more on the importance of friendship.  It less about becoming fully realized frogs and toads.  We have a few select movements to help get the idea across, but the story itself is far more important.

Q:  What do have in common with your character? 

Charlie:  Well, I guess I would consider myself quite like Toad sometimes. I do look at the glass as half empty sometimes and I do get frustrated in some circumstances, but I have had many friends like Frog that help me along the way and make my fears go away.

Patrick: Like Frog, I try to stay as positive as possible in all situations.  I also get great joy from helping my friends out whenever I can.  I especially relate to the song “Alone” that Frog sings in the first half of the show.  I won’t give away the message of the song right now…so come see the show!

Q:  When did you first hear of this show? 

Patrick: I first heard the show when I was a sophomore in college.  A friend of mine lent me the CD and after a 1st listen, I immediately thought how I would love to play Frog someday…seriously.

Charlie:  I first fell in love with CD too. The music is just great and I was pleasantly surprised at how funny the script is, it really has stuff for adults as well as kids

Q:  Did you ever read these stories when you were a child?

Charlie:  My mom says she read them to me.

Patrick: I had never even heard of the children’s stories until hearing about the Broadway musical.

Q:  If you had to sum up your character in one word, what would you use?

Patrick: Frog is positive

Charlie:  Toad is gloomy

Q:  How does this production differ from the ones you’ve already been in?

Patrick: The musical score of Frog and Toad is surprisingly the most challenging we’ve dealt with.

Charlie:  Much of the getting to know how to work with other actors is a lot easier in this production.  I feel like we have such a great sense of ensemble, mostly because we have worked together for 9 months now.  We have really jelled as a group!

A Year With Frog and Toad Plays April 11 and 12, 2008 at 7:00 PM at the College of Charleston  Sottile Theatre.

 

The morning after Fiddler on the Roof closed I started rehearsal for A Year With Frog and Toad. Frog and Toad has just 2 public performances April 11th and 12th. No cast of 40 just the 5 Resident Actors, no 35 piece symphony orchestra, just Wendell on piano and I am having a ball! It is one of the great things about my job, it is certainly never boring.A Year With Frog and Toad is a musical based on the popular children’s books by Arnold Lobel. I read them as a child and read them to both my daughters. They are deceptively simple tales that really stay with you. The score is just amazing, it has been a favorite around the business office since we first started listening to it last season. If you call for tickets you may overhear the box office staff singing “Getta Loada Toad” at least that is what I caught them singing yesterday.This will be Autumn, Nicole, Charlie, Sam and Patrick’s last show with Charleston Stage, at least for a while. Our Resident Actors stay with us 10 months. This makes it particularly special to work together on this show. They have grown so much this season, as performers and as educators. We are really enjoying this rehearsal process. It really is a fitting end to the season, a beautiful story of friendship, great music and an ensemble working together to bring a show from Broadway to the children and families of Charleston. Tickets are on sale now, but in the meantime……read the book.

See you at the theatre,

Marybeth Clark Director, A Year With Frog and Toad 

 Patrick Tierny as Frog and Charlie Retzlaff as Toad.