Blithe Spirit at Saint Michael's Playhouse

We are three days into the performances of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit here at Saint Michael's Playhouse! I can't believe it is the third show of the season already. It feels like the summer just barely began....and yet it also feels like the staff and interns have known each other forever. Starring Paul Bernardo, Sarah Carleton, Bill Carmichael, Kathryn Markey, Agnes Cummings, Audra Wahhab, and the delightful Molly Ziegler, Blithe Spirit is a ghostly, funny play by Noel Coward about the events at a dinner party one fateful evening at the house of Charles and Ruth Condomine and the consequences that follow. It is showing Tuesday through Saturday this week and next week, 8pm with a 2pm matinee on Saturdays as well.

For two weeks I have been in rehearsal for Blithe Spirit, taking lots of props notes and at the ready on book for when actors called for a line. Changeover from Around the World in 80 Days went very well, and the set pieces and lights for Blithe were placed Saturday night. Tech was a different story. The backstage area is fairly crowded, and although I appreciate the responsibility I've been given on this production as the only ASM backstage, it seems that the powers that be need to learn to trust myself and the rest of the crew even now, two days after opening. But the opening was successful and although things are a little choppy in terms of lines for the actors, we are settled in and the backstage crew for Blithe got a compliment from the Burlington Free Press.

Now, rehearsals and building for Always, Patsy Cline have begun! With only two actresses and very few props in this musical I am going to be bounced to the shop to build. The set will involve a series of platforms, stairs, and glitter, as is customary for a production directed by Keith Andrews and designed by Tim Case. We are all looking forward to relaxing somewhat during our days as Patsy shows during the evenings the last two weeks of Playhouse; the shop will clean and hold workshops for the interns, and everyone will wrap the season up and head home.

I'm thinking about taking a road trip after leaving Playhouse this summer. With about 2 weeks free in the end of August, I can visit my relatives at their traditional rendezvous at Salisbury beach, and then head west. I have visited Florida, Montreal, Quebec, New York City, and Boston, but otherwise I haven't seen much of the country. It's something to think about and plan ahead for, anyway. Playhouse consumes almost every thought and moment over the course of these 10 weeks, so it is hard to think about going back home, and coming back to school after that. It will be a busy semester, for sure, but no amount of involvement in Saint Michael's College Drama Club and theater department can compare to the intensity of Playhouse. I'm sort of disappointed to think I should apply somewhere else next summer to get a different experience in...but no matter where I wind up next summer I think I am done being a stage management intern.