POPTARTS (by Joel Dwight Shoemaker)

When I asked Joel Dwight Shoemaker to write a piece about his experience in "Fantastic Mr. Fox" at Community Players, I already knew he was hilarious as an actor. But who knew he was this hilarious as a writer? So here's a short piece from the Fantastic Mr. Joel, all about Poptarts, Toasters, Foxes and Rats, oh, my!


Firstly, a great many thanks to Julie for asking me to write this brief article for her blog. This is something that I promise I would have said all along, but perhaps even moreso after this posting – this is one GREAT blog with OUTSTANDING content! So, thanks Julie. And thanks for promoting the arts in general throughout our community.

Secondly, did you know they were 200 calories? Poptarts, that is. I believe blogs are still calorie-free.

Used to be, I would eat two for breakfast. This seemed to me a good idea as there were two to a pouch, but, I don't do this anymore. No, three cups of coffee and but one calorie-packed poptart shall do just fine. I prefer the cherry flavor. Ice cream sundae doth intrigue me, but probably not for breakfast.

Most mornings you'd find me at work on my second cup of coffee by 7:30 AM. And, these days, the second cup of coffee cues the cherry poptart. It's artificial cherry and I'm pretty sure that's why I like it. I usually find myself pretty busy in the morning so I either rip open or unfold the top of the silver packet, extract the pastry and quickly dispose of or place the packet into the box, as needed.

Following?

That is most mornings. However, this morning I took an extra second to look at the packet. And did you know there are cartoons on the package? It's actually a toaster AND a poptart, just like the consumable ones save for the arms, legs and face the cartoon includes. They're really quite hilarious. Today, Mr. Poptart was in combat mode, arms extended above his head, stick-leg in the air, ready to put some serious karate moves on the defenseless, limbless, faceless toaster. Poor chap.

The karate move is EXACTLY like one we see in Fantastic Mr. Fox, now playing at Community Players (remaining performances are June 15-18 and June 22-25, nightly at 7:30, Sundays at 2:30).

You knew this had a point, right?

And, in EXACTLY the same manner, both the cartoon this morning and the fight-scene I see from the wings nightly put into motion one massive smile upon my face, along with some good ol'-fashioned healthy laughter.

I don't know what you expect from live theater. I know often I attend expecting to be challenged. Educated. Given choices. Made to think. Moved. Provoked. Whatever.

But this show is a little different than most of those things I've seen or of those that I have been a part. The cast is thirty-some strong and probably seventy percent children under 12. It's directed, assistant directed, produced, lit and costumed by first-timers. The cast is often mothers or fathers alongside their children. It's short. It's a play, but we sing songs. And, its target audience is probably children. Although I think it's great for adults as well.

Oh, I feel I should mention that the karate fight is performed by foxes and rats rather than poptarts and toasters. You know, so that's more normal.

So, I beg you not to expect to be challenged or educated or made to think too much. Except for maybe to enjoy yourself quite a bit for an hour or so. And to leave with one massive smile upon your face.


Cast of "Fantastic Mr. Fox" in action: Left to right, Hunter Bartram, Melea Hauck and Vivian Johnson.

All My Children Meets Ottawa Riverfest

Are you a fan of TV's long-running soap, "All My Children"? The one with Erica Kane and all nine husbands? (She may be over nine by now. I admit I haven't watched in awhile.) One of her former husbands, the stalwart Jackson Montgomery, is played by Walt Willey, a native son of Illinois. And one of Erica's chief rivals over the years was Brooke English, played by the lovely and charming Julia Barr.

Willey is coming back to Ottawa, Illinois, and bringing Barr with him, as the two will perform in Joseph Kesselring's screwball classic "Arsenic and Old Lace" at the Ottawa High School auditorium. They'll be joined by Kim "Howard" Johnson, Willey's childhood friend, billed as a "noted Monty Python diarist and improvisational actor."

The production is part of Ottawa's Riverfest with performances on Friday, July 23, Saturday, July 24 and Sunday, July 25, 2010 in the OHS Auditorium.

Willey, Barr and Johnson will play three members of the crazy Brewster clan, with Willey as Mortimer, the only sort-of-normal one, Barr as his Aunt Abby (even though she's only two years older than he is in real life) and Johnson as Jonathan, the creepy one who looks like Boris Karloff. Ottawa actors will fill out the rest of the cast, including Mortimer's love interest, Elaine, and adorable Uncle Teddy, who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt and the Panama Canal is in the basement.

Riverfest's press materials note that "Arsenic and Old Lace" is WilleyWorld Community Productions’ second annual effort in developing a self-sustaining theater for the Ottawa community as well as a mentorship program for youths in the Ottawa area.

For more information, visit the Riverfest link above. Or pick up a copy of "Arsenic and Old Lace" at your local bookstore and get a headstart on the plot before you go. It's a fun, crazy play, perfect for all audiences.

Jane Austen, Online in Her Own Hand

A friend has alerted me to an exciting new development from the University of Oxford and King's College London.

To be brief, it's Jane Austen's original manuscripts, now digitized and available online! We can all gaze on her own script, her own words, and dig into her writing process. The goal of this Jane Austen Manuscripts site is to "create a digital resource reuniting all the known holograph surviving manuscripts of Austen’s fiction in an unprecedented virtual collection." And it's gorgeous.

The site describes the project this way:

Jane Austen’s fiction manuscripts are the first significant body of holograph evidence surviving for any British novelist. They represent every stage of her writing career and a variety of physical states: working drafts, fair copies, and handwritten publications for private circulation. The manuscripts were held in a single collection until 1845, when at her sister Cassandra’s death they were dispersed among family members, with a second major dispersal, to public institutions and private collections, in the 1920s.1 Digitization enables their virtual reunification and will provides scholars with the first opportunity to make simultaneous ocular comparison of their different physical and conceptual states; it will facilitate intimate and systematic study of Austen’s working practices across her career, a remarkably neglected area of scholarship within the huge, world-wide Austen critical industry.

Many of the Austen manuscripts are frail; open and sustained access has long been impossible for conservation and location reasons. Digitization at this stage in their lives not only offers the opportunity for the virtual reunification of a key manuscript resource, it will also be accompanied by a record in as complete a form as possible of the conservation history and current material state of these manuscripts to assist their future conservation.

So far, I've only looked at the front board of Volume the First. In her own hand! Excitement!

Still Time to See Kathleen Kirk Reading from Living on the Earth Today at Heartland Theatre!

I don’t know whether to blame jet lag or general discombobulation from being in a different time zone all week, but somehow I have failed to preview Kathleen Kirk’s poetry reading at Heartland Theatre at 2 pm this afternoon.

But if you work quickly there is still just enough time to put on your best poetry-appreciation attire (Purple poetry pumps? Pink poetic parka?) and head over to Heartland, where Kathleen will be performing poems from her newest chapbook, Living on the Earth, published by Finishing Line Press. Admission is free, and you can buy a copy of Living on the Earth at the reading, or get an autograph from Kathleen if you already have a copy of the chapbook.

Kathleen shared this information about Living on the Earth with us back in February:

“This is a book, quite simply, about ‘living on the earth’ in some pretty basic ways: standing and walking with the earth’s gravity, eating what grows on the earth and even cultivating our food, living among the beauties of nature, living with earth’s various creatures, living with other humans, and living with our own struggles and imperfections.

“Sometimes it even means living with alienation—there’s a poem called ‘Living on the Moon’ in which I imagine literally living on the moon as a way of expressing the feeling of being alienated from fellow citizens of earth. There’s another called ‘Resurrection on the 4th of July’ in which I imagine I have come back to life (like a lady Lazarus) from some period of deathlike estrangement.

“But most of the poems are set in nature or my own backyard, observing the gently cultivated nature of gardens, say, or a spider interacting with a water bottle or a laundry basket. In another poem I encounter a coyote in the parking lot of a swimming pool in my own hometown; he’s hungry enough to come into town for pigeon roadkill. What does that say about 21st-century American life? In this book I look at cornfields and wildflowers, I listen to women and crickets singing, and sometimes I become things other than myself.”

The book is also available at Babbitt’s Books in Normal, if you are unable to make the signing, or online at Amazon.com. Her previous chapbook, Broken Sonnets, is also at Amazon. Babbitt’s also carries Kathleen’s first poetry chapbook, Selected Roles, which contains theatre and persona poems and references to Heartland Theatres in its “program notes.”

Sample Poem:

Blind Gentian

I was ready to open: dew hung from my leaves.
I was like all the others
in a wet thicket beside the tall trees.
A boy asked me why I didn’t kiss him—
so I did, his lips soft as petals, closed.

I waited.

You are waiting now for what will happen
next. I cannot tell you. I wait, still.
I have spread into the damp meadow now,
toward the ragged creek. The meek, the meek,
I pray daily, bare toes digging in

The Sweet Life: Sugar Creek Arts Festival in Normal This Weekend

Uptown Normal's annual arts extravaganza – the Sugar Creek Arts Festival – returns tomorrow and Sunday, with 149 booths worth of paintings, photography, ceramics, sculpture, glass, fiber and jewelry offered by artists from all over the Midwest.

The Festival opens Saturday, with art, food and music from 10 am to 5 pm, and then starts up again on Sunday, opening at 11 am and closing at 4 pm.

Artists’ booths center around North Street and Beaufort between Fell and Linden, snaking around the new traffic circle in the middle of Uptown. See the McLean County Arts Center’s map of all the goodies here, including food vendors on the south-east side of the circle.

Musical acts will be stationed at North Street and Broadway, with performers ranging from the Sugar Creek Cloggers to Southside Cindy & the Sliptones and the Sally Weisenburg Trio. It's always nice to have a little musical accompaniment as you select your art!

Of special note is how Babbitt’s Books is participating this year. On Saturday, during the Festival, poet Kathleen Kirk will offer guidance in making collages (collage poems or bookmarks) from “Things Found in Books.” Kathleen says that materials will be provided. “Meaning glue, cardstock, my fabulous wheel of trim scissors, and actual things found in books we receive at Babbitt's.” She invites all comers to “Cut stuff up, glue it together, and take it home. Free! (And the books are cheap if you want some!)”

She’s also thoughtfully provided examples.


This year, not only can you shop for all kinds of art made by other people, you can make your own. What a deal!

Fantastic Mr. Fox Steals His Way Onto Community Players' Stage

You might've seen the film version of "Fantastic Mr. Fox" last year, an animated little romp featuring the voices of George Clooney and Meryl Streep as Mr. and Mrs. Fox, with the likes of Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and Michael Gambon (AKA The Great Gambon) rounding out the vocal cast.

The film and the play version opening this weekend at Community Players are both based on a Roald Dahl story by the same name. Here's a look at the film and the book art, which illustrates some of their differences:














The film is a little slicker, with an expanded plot and those celebrity voices, while the book and the play are going for something a bit more folksy. All three involve a Fox family that has a habit of stealing food (including chickens and ducks, crossing the animal solidarity line) from three wealthy farmers, which makes the farmers cranky enough to try to destroy the Fox family home and demolish a whole lot of other animals' warrens and dens while they're at it. So the animals launch their own counter-plots in an attempt to end the siege, save their houses and snatch some food right out from under the evil farmers' noses.

The play version, adapted for the stage by David Wood, opens with a preview tomorrow night and runs through July 25 on stage at Community Players. It stars newlyweds Nick and Laura McBurney, the Bloomington-Normal version of George and Meryl, as Mr. and Mrs. Fox, with the always-amusing Joel Dwight Shoemaker as Badger, a co-conspirator, and Desiree Taylor, Kiley Bronke and Thom Rakestraw as the bad guys.

Community Players, currently in its 88th season, bills "Fantastic Mr. Fox" as "Theatre for Young People," with some younger actors in the ensemble as well as expected in the audience. Evening performances are at 7:30 pm, with Sunday matinees at 2:30 pm. Tickets are available on-line -- just click on the Community Players link at left and follow your way to "Fantastic Mr. Fox."

Wondering What To Do in July?

Better grab a pencil and get out your calendar. July is already here, and it's packed full of fireworks, theater, movies and music. Not to mention art, bookmarks, poetry, ice cream and hot guys!

First up, of course, is the 4th of July. There are concerts and celebrations all over central Illinois, starting with music and an ice cream social in Bloomington's historic Franklin Park tonight at 6.

Also in Bloomington, the Pantagraph Holiday Spectacular will Celebrate America at the Miller Park Bandstand at 7 pm on both Saturday and Sunday, and the Normal Theater will offer "Yankee Doodle Dandy," the shiny bright 1942 musical all about George M. Cohan, the All-American song-and-dance man who is often called the father of the musical comedy. In "Yankee Doodle Dandy," Cohan is portrayed by James Cagney in what has to be his tappiest, fizziest performance on film. That's also playing Saturday and Sunday at 7.

Normal will celebrate on the 4th, with splashy water fun and activities at Fairview Park's Family Aquatic Center during the day, a concert from The Bygones, a nostalgia rock act, at 6, and the big fireworks display after the sun goes down.

And, of course, many other towns will set off their own fireworks, including Peoria, where I grew up, with its Red, White and Boom Festival held on the banks of the Illinois River. This year, the good old Marshall Tucker Band ("Heard It in a Love Song," "Fire on the Mountain") will perform Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8 pm at Riverfront Festival Park.

If you prefer to head east, you can try Champaign-Urbana instead. The Champaign County Freedom Celebration begins at 9:30 am on the east side of the Assembly Hall with a Youth Run and goes on all day, launching fireworks at approximately 9:15 pm.

You can find other 4th Festivities in LeRoy, Downs, Heyworth, Eureka, Towanda, Lincoln, Pontiac and Chenoa. FMI, the Pantagraph has kindly listed all the pertinent times and locations.

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival continues its magical "Tempest" and smashing "Three Musketeers" into July, as well as the "theater for young audiences" version of "As You Like It" that plays every Wednesday and Saturday at 10 am. The ISF opens its third show, "The Merry Wives of Windsor," directed by Catherine Weidner, on Friday, July 16th with an 8 pm performance.

Don't forget there are also ice cream socials, live jazz performances, green shows and madrigals, backstage tours and other special Shakesperiences offered throughout the summer.

Heartland Theatre's Young at Heartland acting troupe continues its performances throughout the month, as well. This year's theme is Surprises, and the vignettes and scenes performed by senior actors will definitely surprise you. You can catch YAH between July 12 and 23 at various locations around town.

If you're looking for theater to take the kids to, Community Players and "Fantastic Mr. Fox" will surely fit the bill. This charming play, adapted from the Roald Dahl story by David Wood, opens July 9th and runs through the 25th.

Community Players is also collaborating with Heartland Community College to offer Theatre Basics for Adults, a theater enrichment class for adults beginning July 12. The Community Players website has more information on class times and cost.

Big news in July is the Sugar Creek Arts Festival, the annual arts extravaganza held on the streets of Uptown Normal. Music, food, artwork... Heaven! That's July 10 and 11, and as always, a do-not-miss occasion. Babbitt's Books has announced a fun new addition to the festivities, inviting everyone in to make a bookmark (or some other piece of art) out of "Things Found in Books." That'll be held on Saturday, July 10th from 10 am to 6 pm. Who can resist the power of art found in serendipity?

Kathleen Kirk, the poet who will be leading the "Things Found in Books" fun, will also read from and sign copies of her new poetry chapbook, Living on the Earth, from Finishing Line Press, on Sunday, July 11, at 2 pm at Heartland Theatre in Normal. It's free and you get theater AND literary merit.

Speaking of irresistible... "Mad Men," my favorite TV show, returns on AMC on July 25th. I have a major crush on Jon Hamm, who plays the Cary Grant-like Don Draper, the charismatic ad man who can't be stopped in the board room or the bedroom. This season, we find out what happens with the new advertising agency that Don and his clever, rebellious colleagues are creating. Look out, world! It's Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce!



Is it a coincidence that the Normal Theater has scheduled Cary Grant movies ("Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" and "To Catch a Thief") that very same week? Jon Hamm's take on Don Draper is as close to Cary as we're going to get in 2010, so I choose to believe this mini Cary Fest at the Normal Theater from July 22-25 was very much planned. And I will definitely be there!