It's hardly worth creating a blog if you can't maintain it, but since rehearsal began for the summer repertory, there has not been time ... nor much to write about except the summer rep.
Great Lakes Theater Festival's The Merry Wives of Windsor opened last night. It has been an exciting process ... if you like to be terrified. This time last week I couldn't have imagined things going as well as they are, everyone pulled out all the stops in time for Friday's preview.Friday's preview audience laughed like hell for two and a half hours. That's a good thing - it's a comedy.
This production is set in the 1950s as a Howard Johnson-esque resort. I play Pistol as a greaser-thug. I have this wicked-awesome blonde pompadour, everyone says I look like Brian Setzer. Gaunt, blonde, no chin. What's really fun is walking into the crowd in the lobby after the show, without the wig, in my glasses - and no one knows who the hell I am.
This is Roy Berko's review. If there were not already a Roy Berko, we would have to devise an algorithm to replace him.
More important, more meaningful, however, was yesterday morning, when I performed my first marriage. Last year Josh and Kelly asked me to marry them. I said of course ... and set about finding out how. I became ordained as a minister in the Universal Life Church (and so can you) and then got certification from the Secretary of State of Ohio. And that was it.
It was a beautiful, bright, warm morning. Kelly was radiant in her white wedding gown (designed by Ali, of course, of course) and Josh was sporting a kilt. It was actually Kelly's family tartan, which was another lovely gesture. We stood before a forked tree (hey, wow - read "On Marriage" in The Prophet!) I wore my mourning coat, I looked very officious.
I was nervous about my remarks - not too much poressure, you know, it's just someone else's wedding in your hands - but I took one look at the couple and realized I couldn't be a fraction of frazzled as they were, and then it became easy.
Look for some pictures soon - we thought we abandoned our camera at the event, and we had, but Marian Fairman who-rocks-my-world picked it up for us.
Summer Reading: The other half of the summer rep is You Can't Take It With You. First show I ever did, as a freshman in high school (and how many of us can say that?) Director Drew Barr strongly suggested we - or anyone - read Moss Hart's autobiography, Act One.
Love theater? Love Broadway? Love New York? Read it.
How delightful to arrive downtown for my first week of rehearsal for 
I was out shopping at a local shopping mall picking the last few things that we needed before going to Germany. I was on a bus when it happened and Henrik texted me wanting to see how I was. I first heard from him in Germany about it. He made me promise to take a taxi home. By the time I was ready to go there were almost no busses even running and no taxis available so I have just walked the mile or so home. I am very glad that it waited to rain until I got home. 