Get Down With the Bard in Summer Camp!

If there's a middle-schooler hanging around the house who a) likes to dress up and play games, b) likes English class, and c) thinks Shakespeare is kinda cool, that child needs to sign up for the special summer camp hosted by the Illinois Shakespeare Festival.

There's Shakespeare’s Apprentice Camp, offered in two one-week sessions, intended for "middle school students who are interested in an introduction to acting, theatre vocabulary, improvisation combat and the life and times of William Shakespeare. Students will research and perform a fun adaptation of a Shakespeare play at the end of the week for family and friends. Using Shakespeare’s language to tell a story will give the students the skills needed for the Advanced Shakespeare Camp."

Apprentice Camp is offered:

Session 1: June 13th – 17th, at the Western Avenue Community Center

Session 2: June 20th – 25th, on the Illinois State University campus

Students who have attended Shakespeare Camp before or have other experience that makes them think Apprentice Camp isn't intense enough may want to consider Shakespeare's Advanced Acting Camp instead. Advanced Acting Camp is offered as a two-week session on the ISU campus.

Advanced Acting Camp takes a deeper look at Shakespeare's language, as well as stage combat and more concentrated rehearsals, with an end goal of "a performance of scenes, monologues and soliloquy from Shakespeare’s plays." Advanced Camp also includes a question and answer class with guests who are working with the Illinois Shakespeare Festival this summer.

Shakespeare's Apprentice Camp is $200, while Shakespeare's Advanced Acting Camp is $350. For more information or to register, click here and scroll down the page till you see Summer Camps.

ISU's Clayton Joyner Wins Irene Ryan National Acting Scholarship

Clayton Joyner, a sophomore theater major at Illinois State University, recently won the prestigious Irene Ryan National Acting Scholarship at the annual Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in Washington D.C. Joyner was one of two students chosen as national champions and 2011 Irene Ryan Scholarship Award winners; the other was Daniel Molina from Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.

Joyner was previously chosen as one of two actors to advance to the national competition from the Region III Festival, which took place in January. Region III consists of colleges in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Joyner's acting partner at the KCACTF National Festival was Zachary Powell, an MFA candidate in acting at ISU. Powell took home the The Kingsley Colton Award for Outstanding Partner, an award sponsored by Actors Equity Association.

Joyner appeared in ISU's production of "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" last fall as beautiful little Olive Ostrovsky, as well as "Rock 'n' Roll" earlier this month, while Powell played J. Pierrepont Finch in ISU's "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" in February.

You can read more about the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival here or visit their blog here.

Grinding Down "The Tooth of Crime" at ISU

So what exactly is "The Tooth of Crime," and why did Sam Shepard call his play -- which on the surface involves neither teeth nor any major examination of criminals or criminal law -- by that name?

Well... Who knows?

Shepard's play is weirdly poetic, with words that are either made up to sound like the pop-culture slang of some cowboys-and-rock-stars Futureworld or stretched beyond recognition. Everybody is sussing here and choogin' there, throwing barrages of Markers, Keepers, Matars, vectors, bits and choppers, down booga, throwdowns and slowdowns. Yabadaba Honk Man. Chingaflack!

You can call it gibberish, nonsense, or (as my husband put it) Madlibs, but there is poetry here. The question is whether you can get beyond the distancing effect of all that crazy talk to hear the poetry or find a story in "The Tooth of Crime."

The characters -- including Hoss, an aging rock star involved in The Game, wherein players kill each other off, or perhaps just amass points, under an elaborate system of rules and regulations, some of Hoss's hangers-on and enablers, and a Johnny Come Lately/New Kid in Town named Crow who aims to take Hoss down -- are definitely intriguing. And Shepard's main plot thread, the battle between the old king and a contender for his throne, is one that has carried drama since the dawn of man.

But then there are those words... It's not just that most of them don't make any sense in the order and velocity in which they're delivered. My main problem with the script is that it doesn't go anywhere for most of its two-and-a-half-hour playing time. Hoss angsts about being over the hill, various advisers tell him End Times are coming, he angsts some more, the New Kid arrives, they battle, not with guitars or swords or even that nifty combo guitar and crossbow we got a glimpse of, but with... Words. Cowboy words, bluesman words, proto-faux-cryptic-Shaman-Matrix words... It's kind of disappointing.

The mix of Old West mythology with a little dystopic fantasy and some rock 'n' roll is cool enough, and T Bone Burnett's music, added to the play in 1996 (along with a "Second Dance" subtitle) is moody and compelling, making a positive impact on the material. Even so, "The Tooth of Crime" is just too pretentious, too muddled, too full of its itself to work for me. Yes, the world has gotten complicated and old, yes, pop culture lingo is idiotic, and yes, rock 'n' roll has sold out. And fame is fleeting and there's always a newcomer nipping at the heels of even the biggest star.

But why this vehicle? Why are the songs where they are? Why is the climactic battle with words instead of rock 'n' roll? What throne are they fighting for? How could Hoss and the seven people on his side not be able to smack down one small interloper? Is it all a metaphor for something else? Or just an empty exercise?

Director Brandon Ray gives "The Tooth of Crime" a good go in ISU's Westhoff Theatre, with excellent commitment from his cast, especially when it comes to the physical side of the action, and sharp technical support. Eric Moslow's set design looks like the dungeon of a castle, which seems appropriate, but it comes with microphones and video, too, to showcase the musical side of this "Tooth." The work of Movement Choreographer Gaby Labotka, Fight Director Tony Pellegrino and Media Designer Matthew Harter adds dark energy and style.

Among the cast, Josh Innerst commands attention from the get-go as Hoss, the rock 'n' roll warrior nearing the end of the road. Innerst puts his voice and body on the line, although he's more handsome and healthy than you might expect from the latter-day Mick Jagger/Keith Richards/Iggy Pop mess of a man Hoss must surely be by this point in his career. As Crow, Matt Bausone similarly goes hard and strong when it comes to the choreography, and he definitely looks young enough to be the upstart kid in the proceedings, but he's fighting in shaggy manpris and flip-flops, with hand-made snake symbols marked on his torso and face. He's believable as a punky adolescent who might try to steal cigarettes from the Mini-Mart, but not as a deathly, other-worldly Crow.

Innerst and Bausone both sing, as do Michael Parrish, as somebody named Chaser who hangs out in Hoss's circle, and Jenna Liddle, playing grungy groupie girl Becky. They're all good singers, but they also sound too sweet and pretty for this set of people. There's no whiskey or gravel, no years of being "rode hard and put away wet" in this crowd. Liddle wears stiletto boots and a mini-dress with jangly, jingly metal on the front; she looks far more dangerous than Crow and makes you wonder why she didn't stab him with her boot or slash him with a piece of her dress and stop the plot cold.

The singers are backed by a group called the Hygienists, who arranged Burnett's music for the ISU production. They sound great, too, but I couldn't help wondering whether they were supposed to be Hoss's band, which would presume sort sort of camaraderie, or just some guys who waft in and out of the dungeon and handily provide music when the other characters want to sing. I'm coming down on the side of guys who waft in and out.

All in all, I'm not sure what to make of "The Tooth of Crime." It's tough material, to be sure, and a lot to ask of college actors and designers. It's also a lot to ask of audiences.

THE TOOTH OF CRIME
A play by Sam Shepard
Music and lyrics by T Bone Burnett

Westhoff Theatre at Illinois State University

Director: Brandon Ray
Scenic Designer: Eric Moslow
Costume Designer: Xiachen "Carol" Zhou
Lighting Designer: Cassie Mings
Sound Designer: Sarah B. Putts
Media Designer: Matthew Harter
Hair and Makeup Designer: Lisa Hempel
Dramaturg: Elisha Viccone
Fight Director: Tony Pellegrino
Movement Choreographer: Gaby Labotka
Stage Manager: Ariel Mozes

Cast: Josh Innerst, Jenna Liddle, Matt Hallahan, Matty Robinson, Michael Parrish, Johnny Oleksinski, Matt Bausone, Evan Henderson.

Music arranged and performed by the Hygienists: Karl L. Kieser, Chris Wiman, Zachariah Robert Oostema, Brian Feldkamp.

Remaining performances April 28, 29 and 30 at 7:30 pm and April 30 at 2 pm.

Box office information

Read a Little "Snobs" to Get Ready for the Royal Wedding

If you were a fan of "Monarch of the Glen," you may remember Julian Fellowes as the actor who played aristocratic troublemaker Kilwillie. If you were a fan of the movie "Gosford Park," you may recall Fellowes taking home an Oscar for his screenplay.

And if you fell in love with "Downton Abbey," the smash TV series that ended its first season on PBS a few months ago, then you should certainly recognize Baron Fellowes of West Stafford as the man behind all that delicious drama.

Luckily for those suffering "Downton Abbey" withdrawal, Julian Fellowes is also a novelist. The wit, the sly humor, the intimate knowledge of class and money and position and the never-ending drama inherent in haves and have-nots having a go at each other... It's all there in "Gosford Park," in "Downton Abbey," and also in "Snobs," his 2004 novel.

"Snobs" is a look at contemporary British society, as Fellowes' narrator stand-in, an actor who happens to have gone to the right sort of schools and grown up with the right sort of people, befriends a beautiful young woman who aspires to escape the middle class. Our narrator introduces lovely Edith Lavery to an earl, Charles Broughton, who happens to be an unexciting but ever-so-eligible bachelor, and then watches as Edith snares the Earl, his family doesn't react well to the interloper, she meets a much more dashing man, she strays, society treats her like dirt, and then our social-climber Edith has to decide whether it's better to get good sex on the wrong side of town or to be rich, pampered and terribly bored with the Lord of the Manor.

It's not the specific plot points that make "Snobs" so entertaining, but the inside look at the British class system. We may think, because we know a bit about the Donald Trumps and Paris Hiltons on our side of the pond, or because we've seen "The Philadelphia Story" a million times, that we understand the the spectacle of the "privileged class enjoying its privileges." Au contraire!

For one thing, England's privileged class is very different from ours. Landed gentry, titles, hounds, horses, clubs, generations of learning how to make others feel small... Donald Trump has a lot to learn. Fellowes knows this milieu and portrays it with affection as well as some measure of cynicism, and it's hard not to try to figure out if he's really talking about somebody specific in his tale of an unsophisticated girl marrying a man who is so far above her station.

Whoever he's dishing on, whatever point he was trying to make, Fellowes is definitely funny in "Snobs," and the book can fill a few hours while you wait for more "Downton Abbey." Or wait for the newest Royal Wedding, wherein Kate the Commoner will exchange vows with Prince William the Charming. Kate seems a lot smarter and less self-destructive than fictional Edith, and I hope Prince William has more on the ball than deadly dull Charles Broughton in the book. Let's hope so!

"Lucky Nurse" Sings About Life, First Ladies and Loneliness at IWU

Michael John LaChiusa is one of a new generation of composers in American musical theater, a generation that seems to be trying to push the boundaries of what kind of music, what kind of songs, what kind of stories belong in a musical. LaChiusa is, to my ear, the most experimental and least accessible of that group, but that seems to be the way he likes it. In fact, he's on record taking issue with the bright, pop stylings of other, more popular Broadway composers, decrying their lack of "risk, derring-do or innovation."

LaChiusa is also the one of that group most inclined to delve into the messiness, griminess and despair of modern life. There's plenty of darkness there, with relentless, discordant, fragmented music and sharp, pointy lyrics that jab us repeatedly with his bleak world view.

In the short musical plays presented as a showcase for IWU's spring 2011 Music Theatre Workshop class under the direction of Scott Susong, the themes of work and its worth, life and its worth, and how we keep trying to feel something in this world, come up again and again. Susong has chosen the pieces included in the "Four Short Operas" collection -- "Break," "Agnes," "Eulogy for Mister Hamm" and "Lucky Nurse" -- all dealing with down-and-out denizens of New York City leading hopeless, unhappy lives in different decades of the 20th century, as well as "Over Texas" and "Eleanor Sleeps Here" from LaChiusa's "First Lady Suite," and two brief selections involving Medieval Japan from "See What I Wanna See."

This is difficult music to perform and to communicate, and all of the students involved have clearly dug in and worked hard to pull it off.

For me, the two "First Lady" pieces emerged as the strongest in this program, as we see how women who work for Jacqueline Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt struggle with the lives they lead, the menial work they do, and the things they've given up to be where they are. It helps that these are the most approachable stories, too, since we all know a little bit about presidential wives coming in.

In "Over Texas," Caitlin Borek was sympathetic and sweet as Jackie's assistant, worrying about her cat and suffering bad dreams about what will happen when they land, Abby Root was capable and strong as Evelyn Lincoln, JFK's secretary, Kristen Evensen was tragic and beautiful wearing Jackie's trademark pink suit and pillbox hat and living one moment over and over, and Laura Martino provided comic relief floating through as Lady Bird Johnson.

"Eleanor Sleeps Here" offered the most accessible, most melodic music, performed very nicely by Melina Rey, who played "Hick," Mrs. Roosevelt's right-hand woman. In Rey's hands, Hick became the most fully-rounded, most interesting character of the evening, whether she was chafing at the lack of attention she got or supposedly smoking a cigar while perched on the wing of an airplane flying over Washington DC. Kristen Evensen did a 180 from her previous role as Jackie Kennedy by taking on Amelia Earhart in this one, while Erika Lecaj contributed fine work as Eleanor herself.

I also found "Lucky Nurse" strangely compelling, although I don't pretend to have understood what it added up to. But Brooke Trantor was intriguing as the titular nurse, thinking through whether to put her dog down as she arrives at the hospital where she works, Nicholas Reinhart and Marlee Turim went all-out as the boy and girl involved in a sleazy hook-up, and Andrew Temkin hinted at something scary and dark as the cabbie who completes a rainy late-night circle involving an umbrella and an abandoned baby.

I also didn't really get "Eulogy for Mister Hamm," where three people who live in a low-rent apartment building in New York in the 70s wait for the one bathroom on their floor and talk about whether their super is dead, but I could still appreciate the performances of Chase Miller as a going-nowhere guy, Laura Martino as an odd woman clutching a boot and obsessing about death, and Abby Root, looking like a doppelganger for Jodie Foster in "Taxi Driver," as a sad young woman with related kidney and boyfriend issues.

Marcia K. McDonald's costume design made all of the decades represented pop perfectly, with excellent use of bad old fashion and bad old eyeglasses, while director Susong's scenic design added pop art panels and doors to add mood and texture to the black box and intimate surroundings of the E. Melba Johnson Kirkpatrick Lab Theatre at Wesleyan.

I don't think LaChiusa's stripped-down music and characters will ever be my favorites, although I'm willing to keep listening, hoping there's more like "Eleanor Sleeps Here" in his body of work.

LUCKY NURSE AND OTHER SHORT MUSICAL PLAYS
Words and music by Michael John LaChiusa

The E. Melba Johnson Kirkpatrick Laboratory Theatre
Illinois Wesleyan University

Director: Scott Susong
Musical Director: Gloria Cardon-Smith
Additional Staging: Chloe Whiting Stevenson and Sheri Marley
Scenic Designer: Scott Susong
Costume Designer: Marcia K. McDonald
Lighting Designer: Armie Thompson
Stage Manager: Nicholas Reinhart
Percussion: Jacob Bisaillon
Piano: Gloria Cardoni-Smith

Cast: Caitlin Borek, Blake Brauer, Josh Conrad, Ian Coulter-Buford, Kristen Evensen, Vince Gargaro, Erika Lecaj, Laura Martino, Chase Miller, Roz Prickel, Nicholas Reinhart, Melina Rey, Abby Root, Peter Studlo, Andrew Temkin, Brooke Trantor, Julie Tucker, Marlee Turim and Laura Williams.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Almost Time for Ebertfest

Roger Ebert will soon be back in Champaign, the place where it all began for him and his film-reviewing self, for his annual film festival. Ebert himself selects the movies; they're all films he likes and thinks deserve another screening or two. Ebertfest happens at the historic Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign, beginning Wednesday, April 27, with the 2010 restored version of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and ending Sunday, May 1, with "Louder Than a Bomb," a documentary about a 2008 poetry slam in Chicago, directed by Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel, who happens to be the nephew of Ebert's old partner-in-criticism, Gene Siskel.

In between, you'll find everything from Vittorio De Sica's 1952 neorealist classic "Umberto D" to last year's "Tiny Furniture," about a modern young woman drifting through post-college life, with director Lena Durham starring as that young woman. There are lots of different choices if you want to look over the whole schedule.

The Ebertfest website tells us that they have long since sold out all the all-Festival passes, but you can still buy tickets to individual films at the Virginia Theatre box office. Directions, guidelines and ticket info are located here.

Auditions for Heartland's "Back Porch" Plays Next Monday and Tuesday

Heartland Theatre Company will hold auditions for their annual 10-Minute Play Festival on April 25 and 26 at the theater, One Normal Plaza in Normal. This year's theme is "The Back Porch," and all of the winning plays are set on a back porch. That's Monday, April 25, from 7 to 8:30 pm, and Tuesday, April 26, from 5:45 to 8:30 pm.

The winning plays and their casting requirements are:

BEDTIME STORY, by Christopher Lockheardt, Andover MA
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess, and a brave woodcutter's son who knew just the right story to tell to help her sleep. Or maybe they're just a boy and a girl, here and now, and Happily Ever After is only a fairytale. 1 male and 1 female, 20s

COLORED ENTRANCE AROUND BACK, by Teesue H. Fields, Floyd Knobs IN
It's 1955, and Beatrice needs a job. She's more than qualified to be Doris's housekeeper, but there's a problem. It's 1955. Beatrice is black. Doris is white. And Doris isn't at all sure she can tolerate a black woman in her home. 2 females, 1 20-30, the other 40-something

CRICKETS, by Bruce Boeck, Normal IL
Relaxing after their daughter's wedding, Emily is blowing bubbles while Richard complains. The cost, the excess, the new son-in-law who inseminates cows for a living… But what's really at the heart of his post-wedding blues? 1 male and 1 female, 45-55

DON'T FORGET TO PLAY MY NUMBERS, by Joe Strupek, Bloomington IL
When it comes to fathers and sons, there may be some big, important words of wisdom to pass on. Or there may be years of small conversations – moments on a fishing boat, riding in a car, sitting on a back porch – that speak volumes. 2 males, 1 50+ and 1 25+, and 1 female, 25+

ELEANOR'S PASSING, by John Patrick Bray, Riverhead NY
Now that Moe's wife Eleanor has passed away, his old friends Gus and Tall Glass stop by to cheer him up. Share a beer. Help him out with his house. And his garden. Move in. With a dog. Friends gotta stick together, y'know? 3 males, 50+

HOW TO WEED YOUR GARDEN, by Jerry McGee, Brooklyn NY
It's Olivia's 68th birthday, but she doesn't feel like celebrating. Not with her "friend" Diana moving in on her husband, stealing her special cake recipe, and hanging around like a really stinky weed in this garden. 3 females, 50+

TOO MANY AIR CONDITIONERS, by Thomas Mollica, Milwaukee WI
Grandma knows what the problem is these days. Used to be you sat on the porch to catch a breeze and watched every coming and going. But now… Now Grandma's memories of the Old Days – before air conditioners – are all she has. 3 females, 1 50+, 1 20s, 1 any age

WHEN SHE DANCED, by Andrew Bailes, Gainesville FL
Bob will never forget the day he met his wife at a Neil Young concert. He drank too much, tried out a pick-up line for the first time ever, got in a fight right in front of Neil Young… And met a woman who changed his life forever when she danced. 2 males, 1 45+, 1 under 20

For more information, visit Heartland's audition page here or email: boxoffice@heartlandtheatre.org