Exercise Your Acting Muscles with Rhys Lovell -- Classes Begin Today!

I just found out about this, so I apologize in advance for the news not being as up-to-date as it should be. But here's the scoop: Even though original director and instructor Kymberly Harris has moved part of TheatresCool to Los Angeles, the Bloomington component is still alive, with all kinds of classes currently offered by Rhys Lovell, who has worked extensively in the area as an actor, director and, yes, instructor. Lovell has offered acting classes through Heartland Theatre in the past, plus he taught a variety of courses at Illinois State and Illinois Wesleyan Universities. As an actor, he is currently rehearsing for Will Eno's Middletown, which opens April 18.

As you can see from the poster above, Rhys will teach three sections of Acting Technique classes, with sessions planned for children 8-12, teens 13-17 and adults 18 and over. The TheatresCool website gives this explanation and background on the approach to technique:

The basic principles of acting will be explored through reading, discussion, and class exercises. The performance element will focus on development of two contrasting monologues for an audition setting and short scenes from contemporary dramatic literature.

The courses are conceived with the understanding that acting begins with inspiration, with that which is innate, which is unlearned, and is subsequently given shape and made art through the practical application of technique. Both of these elements, the learned and the unlearned, are essential to the actor; to forsake either one in pursuit of the other is to be false to the craft, for neither the person who relies solely on what gifts he may possess, nor the uninspired technician, may call himself an actor.

Registration began back in February and classes are scheduled to start today, but if you're interested, you may want to email theatrescool@gmail.com to see if any spots remain. Classes are eight weeks long and are held on Tuesdays at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts at 600 North East Street in Bloomington.

April Showers Us with Theatre and Dance

It's finally starting to feel like Spring. That means you can go out for an evening's entertainment while it's still light, without having to shovel or scrape your car! So let's celebrate the warmer weather with intriguing theatrical offerings.

Still playing... Illinois State University's production of Constance Congdon's Tales of the Lost Formicans continues through April 6 in the tiny theater space inside Centennial West 207. Click here for ticket information, or click under the title in the previous sentence to see what I thought of the play and ISU's production.

Community Players celebrates its 90th anniversary season with a special show called Broadway in Bloomington that focuses on some of the songs performed at Players throughout the years. The cast of Broadway in Bloomington includes Reena Artman, Cris Embree, Chad Kirvan, John Lieder, Bob McLaughlin, Joe Penrod, Chrissie Strong, Cathy Sutliff, Christie Vellella and Kevin Wickart, with Sherise Kirvan featured as a dancer. Sally Parry directs performances from April 4 to 7.

The University of Illinois Department of Theatre opened Larry Kramer's AIDS drama The Normal Heart in the Studio Theatre at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana last week, with performances scheduled through April 7. Kramer's ACT UP manifesto enjoyed a successful Broadway revival in 2011, earning a trio of Tony Awards and clearly bringing The Normal Heart back to the public consciousness. Henson Keys is directing U of I's production, which features Equity actors Robert G. Anderson, Neal Moeller and Thom Miller in its cast.  

Also continuing is Or, a play by Liz Duffy Adams at the Station Theatre under the direction of Kay Bohannon Holley. This one is a historical (but fictional) romp about Aphra Behn, a spy-turned-playwright during England's Restoration period. King Charles II shows up, as does famed actress Nell Gwynne, as Behn tries desperately to finish a script while distracted by the amorous attentions of both the king and the actress. Lindsey Gates-Markel stars as Aphra Behn in performances running through April 13.

Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine, a classic of American Expressionism about the dire effects of the Machine Age on the human psyche, begins at ISU's Center for the Performing Arts on April 5, with performances through the 13th. David Fisch stars as Mr. Zero, whose job is taken over by a machine (an adding machine, naturally) in director Jeremy Garrett's production for Illinois State University.

The controversial musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, billed as a "comedic Wild West rock musical" takes the stage at Eureka College Theatre from April 9 to 14, in a production directed by Marty Lynch. Note that this show is rated R and that "very little (if any) of the play is based on historical fact -- something which will be discussed in length before and after the show."

Another option for April 9-14 is the Faculty Choreographed Dance Concert at Illinois Wesleyan University, directed by Sheri Marley, part of the IWU dance faculty. The concert is choreographed by Associate Professor Jean MacFarland Kerr, Instructor Sheri Marley, Instructor Dmitri Peskov, and Guest Choreographer/Instructor Jessica Riss-Waltrip.

ISU is also offering A Midsummer Night's Dream this month, with Vanessa Stalling at the helm of this Westhoff Theatre production. Stallings' cast includes Devon Nimerfroh and Abby Vombrack doubling as the fairy king and queen Oberon and Titania and the Duke of Athens and his bride, Hippolyta, with Alex Strzelecki as Bottom, the weaver and would-be actor trying to put on a play. Performances begin April 11 and finish up April 20.

Will Eno's Middletown, a look at life and death, love and connection in a small "Everytown" is the last show of Heartland Theatre's 2012-13 season. Director John Kirk's cast includes Lynna Briggs, Dean Brown, Aric Diamani, George Freeman, Karen Hazen, Megan Huff, Richard Jensen, Kathleen Kirk, Devon Lovell, Rhys Lovell, John Poling and Ann White, all of whom stand in as various denizens of this sweet, scary, familiar and strange little Middletown. It opens April 18 with a special "Pay what you can" preview night, followed by performances through May 5.

The Station Theatre likewise finishes up its season with its second April production, the searing Broadway musical Next to Normal, about a mother sinking under the weight of bipolar disorder. Station Theatre Artistic Director Rick Orr will direct this rock musical, which features music by Tom Kitt and book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey. Next to Normal opens April 25 and closes May 11.

Celebrating Opening Day: My 12 Favorite Baseball Movies (The Reprise)

In honor of Major League Baseball's Opening Day, I am rerunning a piece I wrote for last year's Opening Day. My White Sox don't start till tomorrow, but today is a fine time to revisit this list of my ten favorite baseball movies, originally written in April, 2012.

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My baseball team of choice is the Chicago White Sox. Today is Opening Day for the White Sox, and the first regular season game with new manager (and one of my all-time favorite players) Robin Ventura on the bench.

In honor of Opening Day and Robin Ventura, as well as a piece that appeared in the Chicago Tribune online recently, I am choosing my own ten favorite baseball movies. Actually, I am going to pick twelve, mostly because I have twelve and I can't decide among the last three. My choices are not at all the same as the ones in the Tribune piece, and they are, in fact, likely to be different from pretty much everyone else's list of baseball movies, since I have included musicals and some old gems and I have NOT included the "boy pics" that don't really appeal to me.

By that, I mean that I am aware that "Field of Dreams" and "The Natural" are on everybody's lists but mine. So I feel I should tell you right off the bat (see how I worked that bat in there?) that I find both of them less than appealing. I read "Shoeless Joe," the W.P. Kinsella book that "Field of Dreams" is based on, and I mostly didn't get it. I watched "Field of Dreams," with grown men weeping on all sides, and I mostly didn't get it.

"The Natural," meanwhile, I found to be decidedly odd. The symbolic women characters and mysticism regarding the special bat struck me as silly, and as pretty as Robert Redford was as Roy Hobbs, I just never believed him as a new phenom of a baseball player. Redford was in his late 40s when the movie was made, and for me, it showed. (In case you're wondering if this is a girl thing, my baseball fan husband didn't really get into these movies, either. He wants me to point out that, though he was at my side, he did not shed a tear.)

Without further ado, here are MY top twelve baseball movies:

1. Eight Men Out (1988)
This is both a fine movie (written and directed by John Sayles) and a wonderful recreation of what baseball was like, economically, emotionally and as a game, in 1919. Terrific actors like David Strathairn, John Cusack, D. B. Sweeney and John Mahoney lead the cast in this American tragedy, about how poorly players were treated and how the most wealthy and most educated in society took shameless advantage of the others.

2. Bull Durham (1988)
This one takes place in the minor leagues, where a catcher who had a cup of coffee in the majors and a green, wild pitcher meet up to play some ball. One is on his way out, while the other is on his way up. Coming between them is a veteran groupie who chooses one player each season to focus her amorous attentions on. Kevin Costner plays down-on-his-luck Crash Davis with the perfect world-weary shrug, Susan Sarandon plays easy Annie with more affection than sluttiness, and Tim Robbins is hilarious as "Nuke" LaLoosh, the new kid who needs some strong guidance. Writer/director Ron Shelton clearly loves baseball, and that scuffy, lovable world inhabits every frame of his film.

3. The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
Other people weep at "Field of Dreams." I weep when Gary Cooper starts the famous "Luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech in "The Pride of the Yankees." I honestly don't know if Lou Gehrig was as great a guy as this movie tells us he was, but I want to believe that. Babe Ruth and other Yankees players give the film a touch of truth playing themselves, and Gary Cooper does a fine job, making you believe that Gehrig was a true All-American hero.

4. Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)
When you find out this is the story of a not-very-bright catcher who is terminally ill and the successful pitcher who befriends him in the last year of his life, you'd probably think it's an overly sentimental weeper. It's not. Instead, it's a sweet, low-key movie about friendship, about two guys doing the best they can with the hands they were dealt. Robert DeNiro is terrific as dumb guy Bruce, the dying catcher, while Michael Moriarty is natural and pretty great himself as his more talented friend.Vincent Gardenia was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as their potty-mouthed manager.

5. Damn Yankees! (1958)
And now it's time for a more cheerful choice! Every baseball fan with a losing team can relate to Joe Boyd, who makes a pact with the devil to win a pennant for his Washington Senators. In this movie version of a Broadway hit, Ray Walston ("My Favorite Martian") is a delight as the devil, with Gwen Verdon quite amazing as Lola, the devilish sidekick who always gets what she wants, performing dances choreographed by Bob Fosse. The Richard Adler/Jerry Ross score includes "Heart" (AKA "Ya Gotta Have Heart') and "Shoeless Joe From Hannibal, Mo." Okay, so the baseball part is silly. It's still a fun, crazy movie and a good representation of how hated and how dominant the Yankees were in the 50s.

6.  The Bingo Long Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings (1976)
 Like "Eight Men Out," "Bingo Long" tells the story of players used and abused by ownership. In this case, they're playing in the twilight years of the Negro Leagues, with players not allowed to play major league baseball but still pushed around by white owners. With a cast that includes James Earl Jones, Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor, "Bingo Long" is funny, sad, fascinating and irresistible.

7. Fear Strikes Out (1957)
"Fear Strikes Out" shows a different side of high-level sports, as Jimmy Piersall battles mental illness and a domineering father as he also tries to succeed as a major league outfielder. Anthony Perkins is not my idea of a baseball player and he is never completely convincing as Piersall in that aspect, but he is definitely convincing as someone whose mind is unraveling. Karl Malden is also convincing as his father, the one who demands perfection at all costs and simply won't give up until his son achieves it. Director Robert Mulligan was nominated for a Directors Guild Award for the film.

8. Angels in the Outfield (1951) 
Guffy McGovern, the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates (played by Paul Douglas), is foul-mouthed and hot-tempered, and a female sports reporter (Janet Leigh) keeps blaming him and his mouth for the team's poor performance. But then an orphan and some friendly nuns show up, with divine intervention helping the team win and putting extra angels in the outfield. The Los Angeles Angels didn't exist as a major league team in 51, and it certainly would've changed the tone of the film if it'd been set in LA instead of Pittsburgh, but the angels idea is creative and fun, and the movie works as a sweet redemption pic for crusty old Guffy McGovern.

9. Rhubarb (1951)
As far as I know, there is only one baseball movie with a cat in it. "Rhubarb" is that film. The plot tells us that a rich old man dies, leaving a ton of money and a baseball team to his cat, an orange tabby whose name is Rhubarb. The cat turns out to be good luck for the ailing team, and a few complications later (Allergies! Catnapping!), all is well with Rhubarb and his RBIs.

10. A League of Their Own (1992)
Tom Hanks is hilarious as a manager stuck with a bunch of women in the early years of female professional baseball leagues. With Geena Davis, Rosie O'Donnell and Madonna as baseball players. Madonna! Like "Bingo Long," above, the movie points out the unfairness of only allowing white guys to play America's pastime, using warm characters, humor and drama to tell its tale.

11. It Happens Every Spring (1949)
This is Ray Milland's second appearance on this list, since he is Cat Protector #1 in "Rhubarb." In "It Happens Every Spring," Milland appears as a scientist who accidentally invents a substance that can repel wood. With his special goo in hand, Millan's professor heads for the St. Louis Cardinals, putting the stuff onto baseballs that he pitches at batters who can only swing in vain while their bats repel the ball. The baseball scenes are pretty awful, and the whole idea is pretty idiotic. And yet the movie still works as a little gem from the past, when innocence was a good thing.

12. Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)
Another musical! And a real blast from the past, as Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin portray baseball players (O'Brien, Ryan and Goldberg) in the early 20th century. O'Brien and Ryan tour in vaudeville during the off-season, just like real players Al Schacht and Nick Altrock did, to give Kelly and Sinatra plenty of opportunity for musical numbers. Their team's owner, played by Esther Williams, is a romantic foil for both of them, and the movie includes a song "O'Brien to Ryan to Goldberg" reminiscent of "Tinker to Evers to Chance," the catchphrase about the Cubs double-play combination.

ISU's Poignant LOST FORMICANS Keeps You Thinking

I was just reading about a video purporting to show that there are shapeshifting alien reptile guards looking out for the President. That "evidence" is being used to bolster the theory that President Obama is part of an intergalactic conspiracy between an earthly elite and alien overlords eager to use earthlings like puppets. Or maybe to eat them. (Is the shapeshifting alien reptile guardian force carrying copies of "To Serve Man"?)

The video showing this alleged alien sounds like something just right for the conspiracy theorist character in Constance Congdon's Tales of the Lost Formicans, a 1989 play about life on earth, here, now (or at least in the 80s), with all its earth-bound complications and limitations, framed by a pack of alien archeologists from the future trying to make sense of us.

In Deb Alley's production of Tales of the Lost Formicans for Illinois State University, performed in the small theater space called Centennial West 207, the limitations of life on earth are front and center. We see again and again how ephemeral and impermanent our world is, how each of the things we cling to to give life meaning -- lovers, parents, children, possessions, careers, passion, memory, the place we call home -- will crumble, tumble or go up in smoke. 

Congdon's script is a little funny, a little strange, quite thought-provoking, and in this ISU version, sad, too. There's bittersweet humor in the travails of Cathy, the woman who comes back home to Colorado, her foul-mouthed son in tow, when her marriage breaks up, only to find her old suburban neighborhood is falling apart, Dad is losing his mind, and Mom can't quite deal with any of it.

The story of Cathy's father, Jim, once a man who could fix anything but now just a shell, wandering around wondering where he is and where his mixed-up memories are leading him, is especially poignant, aided by a lovely performance from Joe Faifer, who can nail a comic backwards scene one moment and break your heart talking about sheet rock the next.

Hananiah Wiggins is also touching as the conspiracy nut who has all the wrong moves when it comes to human interaction, while Michele Stine keeps the center of the play steady and strong as Cathy, our Everywoman guide. Jaqueline Dellamano and Carlos Kmet are on target as Cathy's mom and son, and Jenna Liddle adds abundant energy and edge as Cathy's old friend, a divorced mom who is well over the line into a nervous breakdown. Keith Jackewicz rounds out the cast in multiple roles, most notably as the main alien observer who runs the show.

Andrew Sierszyn's off-balance set and its bits and pieces of late 20th century Americana give the production the right sense of unease, especially that upside-down door, while Deanna Durbin's orange and brown and argyle costumes show a period of our fashion past that should probably stay buried.

Tales of the Lost Formicans is not an easy show to wrap your head around -- you'll want to discuss and maybe argue about it with your friends after the show -- but it's certainly worth your while to do so. There are a lot of ways to interpret Congdon's cosmic little script. Mulling it over, I decided it was about mortality, about insignificance, about how we try to make sense of things that just can't be explained. Or, you know, life.

TALES OF THE LOST FORMICANS
by Contance Congdon

The School of Theatre and Dance at Illinois State University
Centennial West 207

Director: Deb Alley
Scenic Designer: Andrew Sierszyn
Costume/Hair and Makeup Designer: Deanna Durbin
Lighting Designer: Meredith Francis
Sound Designer: Eduardo Curly-Carillo
Stage Manager: Kayleigh Walter

Cast: Hananiah Wiggins, Michele Stine, Joe Faifer, Jenna Liddle, Carlos Kmet, Jacqueline Dellamano, Keith Jackewicz and Timothy Jefferson.

Remaining Performances: March 30 and April 2-6 at 7:30 pm, April 6 at 2 pm.

Running Time: 2:20, including one 15-minute intermission

For ticket information, click here.

ISU's KCACTF Entry MOTHER COURAGE Cleans Up in National Honors

As you may recall, Illinois State University's production of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children, directed by Sandra Zielinski, was selected to be performed at the regional level of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. That regional festival was held in January in Michigan.

Mother Courage was a very successful production, one that earned its cast and production staff all kinds of accolades when it first played Westhoff Theatre last October, and again when Mother Courage dragged her cart to Michigan. During the Michigan performance, a national panel of adjudicators watched and evaluated Mother Courage, as they did all the regional selections at all eight regional college theatre festivals. After viewing all of those college productions from all over the country, the national panel selected which shows they wanted to single out for praise and awards, with Mother Courage singled out for some very special honors.

Here's are the awards handed to ISU's Mother Courage by the national Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival judges:

OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION OF A MODERN CLASSIC

DISTINGUISHED DIRECTOR OF A PLAY: Sandra Zielinski

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS: Abby Vombrack

DISTINGUISHED COSTUME DESIGN: Brittany Powers

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMPOSITION: Zack Powell

Vombrack portrayed Mother Courage herself, while Powell created new music for this production of the play. Congratulatons to Zielinski, Vombrack, Powers and Powell, along with everyone else who contributed to this fierce and ferocious production of Mother Courage and Her Children. The cast (with Vombrack pictured inside Mother Courage's iconic cart) is pictured below.

To see the complete list of KCACTF national honors, click here.

Adaptive Playwrights Need Apply: City Lit's THE ART OF ADAPTATION

Chicago's City Lit Theater is big on adaptations of literary work. Their current show is adapted from Grace Metalious's "Peyton Place," that provocative piece of fiction from the 50s that sparked the American imagination and spawned a whole lot of soap operas. In their 30-year history, as their website tells us, City Lit has "explored fiction, non-fiction, biography, essays, and drama in performance while presenting a wide array of voices from classic writers such as Henry James, Edith Wharton, Oliver Goldsmith, Mark Twain, Colette, and P.G. Wodehouse to such contemporary writers as Alice Walker, W.P. Kinsella, Douglas Post, Raymond Carver, Edward Albee and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala."

It's a noble aim, to try to put literature on stage -- there's a huge range of possibilities, from David Edgar and the Royal Shakespeare Company with Nicholas Nickleby to the big boffo musical Les Miserables to Steppenwolf making a mark with The Grapes of Wrath back in 1988 -- and City Lit is doing its best to encourage all of them.

City Lit is once again offering The Art of Adaptation, a contest and festival celebrating non-dramatic works adapted for the stage. Last year's winner was LIAR! a play by Jordan Mann based on one of the stories in the book "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov. Other pieces performed in 2012 included adaptations of work by F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, William Shakespeare and Neil Gaiman.

For this year's competition, the rules for would-be adaptor/playwrights include a time length (5-20 minutes in performances) and simple set requirements. City Lit is looking for six to eight plays, each adapted from a part of a novel, short story, essay, memoir, poem or any other kind of literary material that is not already a play, to perform on their stage in July. For all the submission details -- including info on the $500 prize -- you can check the League of Chicago Theatres Collective Leverage blog, which announced this year's contest. Note that they are looking for a proposal, including a one-page description of the work and ten pages of the script, and the deadline for those proposals is May 31, 2013. That gives you a little time to get that adaptation in order.

What's Coming Up From Heartland Theatre Company in 2013-14

Heartland Theatre Company has announced the schedule for its 2013-14 season, and it's full of mystery, secrets, deception and relationship drama.

Heartland's season will begin in June with the Annual 10-Minute Play Festival, every year presenting eight new short plays by winning playwrights from around the globe. This year's theme is "The Package,” with each play somehow involving a package, parcel or gift.

Next up is the Douglas Post play Earth and Sky, a tense psychological thriller, set for performances in September, 2013, and then Annie Baker's award-winning Circle Mirror Transformation, a sweet and insightful play about the members of an acting class, scheduled to hit Heartland's stage in November.

After the holiday break, Heartland will be back in February, 2014, with Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities, a look at a privileged family with secrets, and Scottish playwright Rona Munro's Iron, moving mother-daughter drama inside a women's prison, in April, 2014.

Heartland's season announcement notes that flex passes to cover this whole season go on sale on April 30th. You can see all the details here.

In the meantime, here's the rundown of shows to whet your appetitie:

Annual 10-Minute Play Festival: THE PACKAGE
June, 2013
Packages have been used as McGuffins in more plays, movies and TV shows than you can fit inside the largest box UPS will deliver. But it’s what’s inside the parcel that counts, whether it’s mysterious microfilm, memories of the past, the key to your heart, an urn full of ashes, a dangerous snake or somebody else’s cheesecake. There’s plenty of dramatic potential inside every package!

EARTH AND SKY by Douglas Post
September, 2013
Doug Post’s neo-noir thriller opens when Sara McKeon, a “would-be poet and part-time librarian” is told that her lover, David, has been killed while involved in terrible crimes. How can she believe what the police are telling her? How can she not? EARTH AND SKY will keep you on the edge of your seat as it vaults from love to betrayal, from mystery to deception, from truth to lies.

CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION by Annie Baker
November, 2013
This look at a hapless acting class in a small town in Vermont was chosen as one of the Best Plays of 2010. There’s warmth and humor as well as all kinds of insight in this lovely piece about the power of seemingly silly acting exercises like the circle and the mirror to transform the lives of the people willing to leap into them.

OTHER DESERT CITIES by Jon Robin Baitz
February, 2014
The wealthy Wyeths of Palm Springs enjoy access to the highest levels of American life. But then daughter Brooke comes home with the tell-all book she’s written about the family’s murky secrets. Baitz is a specialist when it comes to dysfunctional families, and OTHER DESERT CITIES, a nominee for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize, is one of the best.

IRON by Rona Munro
April, 2014
Fay has spent the last 15 years in prison for murdering her husband. When her daughter Josie visits for the first time after all these years, she wants to know why it happened, what he did, what her mum did. She can’t even remember what her dad looked like. But there are no easy answers in Munro’s wrenching look at the justice and injustice in crime and punishment.