Back to School!!!

It's that time of year again! After a wonderful two weeks off, the summer is over and it's back to school time. I spent some time at home, where my brother and my dad were working on sanding and refinishing the floor in our kitchen/living room area, and then went to Maine for a week with Mike, the electrics intern I started seeing during Playhouse, to meet his brother's family and get to know his parents and to just relax. It was a very nice time :) I had my first lobster, which was wild.

Now I'm moved into a suite with 7 other girls at SMC. Actually, we have an empty room- it's only 6 other girls for the moment. We spent the weekend moving in and decorating, and although my room is tiny, it has 2 big windows, and the common room is very comfortable :) Today was the first day of classes and between Psychology, Directing, and Spanish III, I ran around doing errands. From getting a parking permit to working on my study abroad application to photocopying scripts to going on an advertising rampage about our drama club, I think I covered pretty much everything there is to cover in one day as a theater major at St. Mikes :) The script was actually for a show I'm stage managing professionally for Champlain College this fall called The Shape of Things. (Professionally=getting paid!!!!!) So that is coming along.

I'm very excited for some of the things the drama club is planning for this semester and the rest of the year! Coming up first we have the 24-hour play festival, which is just like it sounds, 24 hours of writing and directing and acting in skits. It's madness! It's particularly great for interested people who don't necessarily have experience; it's a good chance to try things out. That's sort of our hope with the drama club: that it becomes a way for people interested in theater to try their hand at directing or designing or acting in one of the 4 shows we are hoping to do per year.

Besides the 24-hour play festival, exact date TBD, also in September we are doing something new. The Saint Michael's Drama Club created a team, thanks to the efforts of Vice President Rachel Strashnick, that will be walking in Burlington on September 24th with the Light the Night Walk, a fundraising effort to support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of Patrick Devlin. Our goal is to raise $1000 before September 24th, and we're a little over halfway there right now which is really, really amazing! Many thanks to those who have donated. I have a link to our website on the left under "sites I follow" called Light the Night Walk, so if you are interested or can donate, please follow that link or click here. Every little bit counts!

Vacation time :)

The good thing about being a student or a teacher is the summer vacation. While working at Playhouse takes a hefty 10 weeks out of it, I woke up this morning, the day our Saint Michael's Playhouse contracts ended, looking forward to almost 3 weeks off. Right at this moment, I'm taking a break from packing my room to write this, as it's been a while since I've written a real personal entry.

Patsy Cline closed Saturday night with great reviews. The end-of-the-season show is always carefully chosen as a crowd-pleasing musical with everyone's favorite tunes, and summer 2010 was no exception. We struck the set Saturday night til 3am, and cleaned staff/actor townhouses out yesterday (ah, the life of an intern) and concluded our time together with a dinner at Chuck Tobin's house. Chuck and Sarah are amazing people to work for and with, and they make exceptionally wonderful dinners for exhausted interns : ) I told them, if they ever have a lot of food in the house and feel like cooking, we would come from all over the country to help them get rid of it.

Now it's packing the car and heading home for the night. Although I'm storing stuff at the apartment here until I move into school, a lot of it is coming home today, and Dad and I will get my furniture out next week. Wednesday and Thursday I'm heading to Salisbury beach to see family and relax there; a week from Friday I'll be celebrating my birthday with Mom and Dad and the family, and then headed to Maine for a week to enjoy time off in good company. (Not that the family is NOT good company, of course!). It's time for a small respite from the hectic world of theater.

Though I'm not sure that it will be much of a break, given that the Drama Club at Saint Mike's is planning already for the upcoming year. We are organizing workshops, shows, events, and all sorts of things for the 2010-2011 year. It's very strange to be President for a semester and then handing the reins off...but when hoping to study abroad, that is how it has to happen. I've learned a lot this summer about what it means to choose a career in the theater world, and though next spring will not involve much theater, I still know this is what I need to do with my life. Between stage managing, working with lights, and learning about props and furniture building, this summer has narrowed my focus and passion for working in the theater. I hope a semester off will not inhibit this choice. Already my mind is on next summer, wondering where I'll be accepted to work, hoping I'll get in somewhere...when I should be focusing on this fall! As President of the drama club, paid stage manager on The Shape of Things at Champlain College, and potential study abroad student (plus taking 17 credits of classes....) I'm going to need that drive to get through.

End of the Season

I can't believe it's August already! This summer has flown by so fast...I guess it just goes to show what a good time I have been having here at Saint Michael's Playhouse! Tonight begins the second week of performances of Always, Patsy Cline at the Playhouse, and this week is almost entirely sold out. Get your tickets now for this heartwarming musical featuring all your favorite Patsy Cline hits, based off a true story about a Patsy Cline fan who had the chance to meet her star.
Driving the story of this friendship is Sarah Carleton, UVM professor and a familiar face at the Playhouse, in the role of Louise, who exchanged letters with Patsy for years after meeting her one eventful night. Lucy Sorensen hits home as Patsy Cline herself, a sweet country girl belting those tunes away. Accompanying Sorensen is a 6-piece country band, a glossy set designed by Tim Case, and vibrant lights from John Wylie. Performances run Tuesday to Saturday, 8pm with a 2pm matinee on Saturday.

Also in the area that I recently had the privilege of seeing was Lucky Stiff performed by the Commons Group at the Skinner Barn in Waitsfield, Vermont. Having worked there for two summers starting in 2007, it was strange to be a guest at the Skinner Barn, but I was very excited to attend and enjoy a musical I was not familiar with. The Commons Group, as always, stunned me with their professionalism and sheer talent. Lucky Stiff is the story of Harry Witherspoon, played by recent UVM graduate Matt Trollinger, who comes into a windfall inheritance with one condition: he must go on vacation to Monte Carlo and take the body of his uncle along for the ride. With this twist comes hilarity and confusion as Witherspoon is followed by Annabel Glick (played by Micaela Mendicino) to make sure he completes all the activities laid out in his uncle's will. The seductive role of Dominique Du Monaco was played by Taryn Noelle; Peter Boynton played the mysterious guide and plot twister Luigi Gaudi. With a tremendous performance by Kris Holz as Vinnie De Ruzzio and Mary Wheeler as Rita La Porter, as well as a variety of roles and scene change effectors such as Doug Bergstein, Judy Milstein, Karl Klein, Michael Halloran, and Emma Walker, the audience was captivated from start to finish.

One of my favorite things about shows at the Skinner Barn is the way the set connects the story and provides an acting space that is thoroughly danced, jumped, and trampled on without needing to be location-specific. And as always, the beautiful Vermont air at the Barn was a refreshing change of pace from 8+ weeks of hard work at the Saint Michael's Playhouse.

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.  

Sweating our way into July....

I can't believe it is July already... where is this summer going? Two days ago I was celebrating the marriage of my brother Dan to his girlfriend of 8 years, Kate, and my own gain of a wonderful sister : ) They are high school sweethearts, both music students and (now) music teachers who spent their college years hours away from one another. My oldest brother, Andrew, took this picture. Check out my pictures here. The wedding was at 5:30pm on July 3rd at the Monitor Barn in Richmond, Vermont, with an outdoor ceremony that actually had sweat rolling for many of us... too much information? The past two days have been at least 10 degrees hotter! At least the McCarthy building is well air-conditioned, enough so that I wear long sleeves and jeans to work. That's right, it's back to the grind after a beautiful day for my family.

It has been a while since I've actually had the time to sit down and write. Or sit down and do anything, for that matter, unless you count being on book during rehearsal. Since I last wrote, we completed the changeover from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee into Around the World in 80 Days, which is currently showing through this Saturday. Because of my involvement in the wedding, I got the run of 80 Days off (which doesn't mean much, as I've been in rehearsal every night about as long as the performances) and my whole life is consumed by rehearsal for Blithe Spirit, our 3rd show of the season.

I can't say I'm bored since things in rehearsal are hopping with props and line notes and setting things up and doing paperwork, but I am finding I miss working in the shop...and not just because of the good company I'm sure. It seems that stage management is something that a certain personality takes to, an organized and thorough personality, and I feel that I have that personality but stage managing just doesn't have a creative nor a physical outlet. It is not as rewarding as other positions in the theater world, and this summer among many changes I am going through, I feel that I am moving on from the stage management world.

I have to say, so much has happened this summer and I can't imagine a minute of it without my friend Molly, and the friends I've made here. This fall will be very strange, going back to school without Molly, Liz, and Heather (all of whom are going to England to study abroad), and without the person I've spent the past two years of college with. All I know is everything happens for a reason, and change is a scary, scary thing, but the world would never grow without those changes. And some of them, as this past weekend of celebration and dancing and seeing family proved, can be a good thing.

Spelling Bee

So almost 3 weeks into Playhouse, and here we are with another day off under our belts (1 every 14 days!) ready to face another week of Spelling Bee performances! The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a hilarious musical that will make you think, laugh, and possibly shed a tear or two as we follow these quirky kids through their spelling bee. Starring 9 fabulous actors and actresses, two of whom are actually students/recent graduates at Saint Michael's College, Spelling Bee opens our eyes to a lot of things that kids have to deal with in this day and age. Performances are 8pm Tuesday-Saturday this week, with a Saturday matinee at 2pm as well. The last week of shows went very well! It is nice for those of us who have the whole thing memorized to get a little variety every day with some new audience faces and reactions.

After Saturday's last show, we will start changeover into our next play: Around the World in 80 Days, a play based on the book by Jules Verne. In 68 hours before NEXT tuesday's opening for that play, we will have struck the Spelling Bee set entirely and assembled the 80 Days set, lights, sound, and had at least 15 hours of rehearsal with actors onstage. It is a crazy, fabulous time.

As for me, I will not actually be on the run crew for 80 Days. Having a wedding to be in in early July, it would be hard to train me backstage and then need someone to take my jobs over for two performances. So I will be off in the evenings for the two-week run of 80 Days (June 29th-July 10th) and then be back on board for the rest of the season, perhaps allowing another intern a break for one of the final two plays this summer. Right now I'm working in the scene shop, which is a nice change from photocopying and being on book in rehearsal all day : ) Having just gone through a break-up, I find myself relishing the summer stock schedule, as there is no time to think and be confused or upset; the show must go on and I'm learning that that is going to be a way of life that I have chosen, at least for a while before I ever think about settling down with a family.

Speaking of which...time to get back to work. Another update (maybe someday I'll get those pictures in...) to come.

Looking good so far!

So we're in our second week in at Saint Michael's Playhouse, and the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is running way ahead of schedule, both in rehearsal and in terms of getting the set built! Things are pulling together nicely for the start of the summer stock season here. The most complex aspect so far seems to be lighting, since the show involves plenty of dream-like moments and flashbacks and isolated moments, and even electrics is right on track with things getting done. We open on Tuesday, which leaves just enough time to get everything in working order. Better get your tickets now if you haven't already!

I think my favorite time of the rehearsal day is after the actors break for dinner and after Hannah and I move all our props onstage to set up for the evening's rehearsal; then I might go up to the booth to chat with John Devlin, or into the shop to see what's happening today. The shop is miles ahead of schedule. They started building for the next play, Around the World in 80 Days, several days ago. It's nice to be a stage management intern and sit in on production meetings and get an overall view of how things work.

Yesterday I ran into Chuck Tobin, the producing artistic director for the Playhouse, in the lobby looking concerned. We chatted for a little while and determined that no one was yet avaliable to run lights for the children's theater performances this summer. There are 2 children's shows each summer (this summer is The Wizard of Oz and then Pinkalicious) and usually interns or staff cover the technical needs as best as possible. The set and lights for the larger Playhouse shows are used and might be added to to make the set for the children's plays. It will definitely be interesting to manipulate John's complicated plot into a Wizard of Oz mood : )

The one downer so far this summer is the weather! It's bee rainy and about 60 degrees every day for a week... although the theater building is pretty frigid no matter what it's like outside, it is nice to escape into a sunny world when we break, and that just hasn't happened lately. At least the social life is pretty fun; the other interns and I hang out often after rehearsal (Molly, one of the administrative interns, an actress in our third show this season, and Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, is a close friend of mine from SMC, also blogging this summer) and we see the cast and staff out and about sometimes as well.

Tonight, however, is my brother's fiance's bachlorette party, and thank God we don't start tech till Sunday because it means I can meet them in Burlington tonight after rehearsal! Exciting! I can't believe Dan and Kate are getting married in under a month. I really need to buy some shoes for the wedding... maybe I'll find time before then to do so. Molly and I took the 3 guy interns shopping on our day off (we were going to show them Church street, but it was raining of course so we went to the mall) and they were pretty funny. They came into all the stores with us and gave us advice about which shoes looked cute and which ones were ugly.

Anyway, hopefully I will actually take some pictures and put them up...I know the last few posts have been only writing which is getting a little boring! If it ever stops raining maybe I can get some good ones of the beautiful campus at St. Mike's, or of the friends I'm making here : ) Maybe even of my 3 room mates (Abby, Em, and the dog). The apartment was a good choice for this summer, even if it does mean driving back and forth in the rain to rehearsal and to hang out with everyone. More later, with pictures and news on our first show opening!