Blog Post
Protect Your Neck: Author, throat puncher Jen Mann hosts a moms' night out at AADL
by christopherporter
When you put the wrong date in your calendar for an interview with Jen Mann, the blogger/author behind People I Want to Punch in the Throat, you kind of fear that you’ll be added to the list.
But Mann -- who will be coming to the downtown library for a moms’ night out event on Wednesday, October 11 at 7 pm, as part of a book tour to promote her latest humorous essay collection, Working with People I Want to Punch in the Throat -- couldn’t have been more understanding, despite her famously feisty, tell-it-like-it-is persona.
Mann first appeared on most readers’ radars back in 2011 when her caustic blog post about failing to keep up with other Elf on the Shelf mommies went viral. The response took Mann (a realtor at the time) by surprise, but she also knew that she needed to act fast if she wanted to keep her new readers engaged.
“I had a lot of emotions,” said Mann. “On the one hand, I was terrified. I’d never had a million people read something I’d written. And while most responses were positive, there were also five percent of them that were people who were threatening my children and things like that. ... I decided then and there what to do. I wouldn’t post photos of them or use their real names on my blog. But I’d also wanted to be a writer since I was five, and I had 17,000 fans by the end of that first night, so I had to figure out how to keep them fed.”
Some major media outlets also came calling at that time, but because she didn’t want her identity revealed at that time, nor did she want reporters or camera crews to come to her Kansas home, Mann decided to work around them by instead focusing on developing and growing her blog.
“I thought, ‘I’ll just have to do it on my own,’” said Mann. “But I knew I had to take the opportunity I had and do my best to catapult it into something bigger while still respecting my family’s privacy. That was the balance I was looking for.”
Of course, none of us exist in a vacuum, so writing about personal experiences inevitably means writing about those we come into contact with or love -- a tricky paradox for bloggers wanting to write their truth while also respecting others’ privacy. According to Mann, she always honors friends’/family members’ requests to speak “off the record,” and keeps some people out of her writing altogether.
“You do figure out quickly who your real friends are,” said Mann. “There are a few people I’m no longer friends with. ... But this is by far the best job I’ve ever had, and I feel like, if you can’t support my dream, then I can’t be friends with you. ... But then some people treat me like I don’t have a job. When I worked in real estate, people asked me about my work all the time. Now, we’ll be at a party or something, and people don’t even ask. Like they don’t want to know.”
But on the other side are readers who only know her through her posts, which veer toward self-deprecating snark. The blog launched in spring 2011 after Mann’s husband encouraged her to start it -- not only as a creative outlet, but also as a daily means of getting enraging or frustrating things off her chest. (He even convinced her to give the blog its distinctive name, based on how often she used the phrase when complaining about various incidents.)
“To me, my brand is me, and my blog is me, and whatever I’m feeling that day, that’s what I’m writing,” said Mann. “There have been times when I’ve said, ‘If you’re looking for funny, today’s not the day.’ ... My blog and my brand are about being honest, pulling the veil back, and showing how we’re not all perfect. Social media’s always showing us what’s good in other people’s lives, not so much what’s hard, and what bothers us. I think that’s why Elf on the Shelf went viral. ... But there have been tons of times when publishers and agents have told me, ‘It would help if you’d tone down your rhetoric.’”
As you might expect, Mann’s response to this suggestion involved unprintable expletives (she’s been called “Erma Bombeck with F-bombs”).
Instead, she’s stayed true to her voice, maintained a fan base of 3 million on social media, and published numerous books: anthologies (with work by fellow mom bloggers she admires); essay collections; and earlier this year, a well-received young adult novel called My Lame Life.
“I wrote it because my kids asked me to write something they could read,” said Mann. “They never read the Punch in the Throat stuff -- it’s not appropriate, and it doesn’t appeal to them. It’s not for kids. ... But My Lame Life is done in the same vein as Punch in the Throat. It’s about a young girl using her voice for those who don’t have a voice. It’s a love letter to my daughter, really. I want her to be strong and speak up for herself and others. She’s in fifth grade now, and will be in middle school next year, and we all know how much middle school sucks. But I felt like, if someone had told me the things I say in this book when I was that age, it wouldn’t have sucked as much.”
Mann is currently working on a follow-up to My Lame Life, and then plans to pursue a women’s novel in the spirit of Bridget Jones’ Diary or Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
If you’re thinking this leaves less time in her life for blogging, you’re right, but Mann feels that her book projects are a better use of her time. She now only blogs a few times a month -- down from every weekday, following her first viral success -- and is generally more likely to split her work days between writing and keeping up with social media.
But Mann seems to be enjoying her current book tour, particularly events that bill themselves as a moms’ night out.
“Nothing against the guys, but when women get together and laugh at themselves, there’s nothing more fun,” said Mann.
Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.
Jen Mann hosts a moms' night out at the Ann Arbor District Library's downtown branch on Wednesday, October 11 at 7 pm. Free.
Blog Post
Cantina Jams: A2SO plays the music of "Star Wars"
by christopherporter
Not so long ago -- last year, to be precise -- in a venue that’s close, close by, the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra (A2SO) played two sold-out concerts featuring John Williams’ music from the Harry Potter films. The audience response was so enthusiastic that A2SO immediately started making plans to perform two concerts featuring Star Wars music, and those concerts will happen Saturday night and Sunday afternoon (October 7-8) at the Michigan Theater.
“We were so overwhelmed (last year) ... and the audience, some of whom had never seen a live symphony concert before, told us that the music evoked powerful images for them, even though there was no visual component accompanying the music,” said A2SO conductor Arie Lipsky. “They also told us that they’d never thought that music had played such a vital role in the movies, and they thanked us for highlighting the music on its own. So many said, ‘Now we’re hooked on seeing live symphony orchestra shows,’ and we responded by investing in music from all the Star Wars movies.”
In fact, the John Williams Signature Edition Orchestra Score only recently became available, so A2SO’s timing couldn’t be better.
“Before, we’d used an arrangement that was available for a band or high school orchestra, but this is the real deal for us, and it’s a challenge,” said Lipsky. “John Williams’ music is very, very demanding, very difficult. When the musicians realized we were getting the Signature Editions, they asked for the music to be made available to them as early as possible, so they could practice. So we’ve all been very excited.”
Though video clips will not be part of this weekend’s symphony concerts, Ann Arbor-based Ring of Steel Action Theatre & Stunt Troupe will perform some fight (or light saber?) choreography; attendees are encouraged to dress in Star Wars costumes; and Sunday’s matinee concert, designed with families in mind, will be preceded by activities and an instrument petting zoo.
A2SO’s lineup for both performances includes the original movie’s “Main Theme” and “Imperial March” (from A New Hope), as well as “Parade of the Ewoks” (from Return of the Jedi), “Duel of the Fates” (from The Phantom Menace), “Battle of the Heroes” (from Revenge of the Sith), and “Scherzo for X-Wings” (from The Force Awakens).
What sets John Williams’ movie scores apart? “When you play that ‘Main Theme,’ every kid, from second grade and up, knows what it comes from,” said Lipsky. “His music is so upbeat and soaring, and there’s a sense of looking to the future that’s typical of (Williams’ work). When he portrays Darth Vader, the bad guy, the music is dark and in your face. ... And when he portrays Princess Leia, the music is so loving and lyrical. You can just imagine the features of the princess. And then there’s the funny and ridiculous cantina music. I don’t know of any other composer who can describe that scene so well in music. It’s just so funny and clever.”
But Lipsky also recognizes that Williams draws inspiration from the best. “Williams is such a fine composer ... and he knew whom to take after: Wagner, and Prokofiev, and Holzt, and Strauss. He uses their techniques at times to really make his music that much more brilliant.”
And given the concerts’ theme, you won’t need the Force to figure out what kind of baton Lipsky will use to lead the A2SO on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. “Use your imagination,” he joked.
Related:
➥ "Variety Show: A2 Symphony Orchestra's new season offers something for all" [Pulp feature]
Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.
A2SO's "The Music of Star Wars" concerts are Saturday, Oct. 7 at 8 pm and Sunday, Oct. 8 at 4 pm. A photo booth and cocktails are available from 6:00-7:30 pm on Saturday. On Sunday, there will be pre-concert activities from 2:30-3:30 pm, including a photo booth, hands-on museum, and an instrument petting zoo.
Blog Post
Visceral Violence: "Sweeney Todd" is Encore Theatre's finest production yet
by christopherporter
In 2015, I pronounced Into the Woods to be Encore Theatre’s strongest overall production since the Dexter company opened its doors in 2009.
Well, move over, Into the Woods. There’s a new Sondheim show in town, and when it opened on Friday night, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street quickly established itself as the best thing yet to happen on Encore’s modest, black-box stage.
This is largely due to director/choreographer Matthew Brennan, whose distinctive vision makes the classic show, which debuted on Broadway in 1979, into an entirely new theater experience. With seats integrated into the 1940s-era, London factory set -- thus creating an immersive, thrust stage experience -- Encore’s gruesomely comic Sweeney achieves an intensity and an immediacy that’s downright visceral.
With a book by Hugh Wheeler and music and lyrics by Steven Sondheim, Sweeney tells the penny dreadful-inspired story of a wronged man -- a husband, father, and barber -- who was sent to prison 15 years earlier by a corrupt judge. When the man returns to London, now calling himself Sweeney Todd (David Moan), he learns that his beloved wife -- molested by the same judge -- drank poison, while his daughter, Johanna (Emily Hadick), has lived all this time as the judge’s isolated ward. Todd’s mission thus shifts from one of reclamation to revenge, and to this end, he befriends failing Fleet Street meat pie shop owner Mrs. Lovett (Sarah Briggs). For she offers to not only provide Todd with his former barbershop space upstairs but also hatches a mutually beneficial, macabre plan for their success.
Encore’s tech team for Sweeney works in perfect concert. Tyler Chinn’s film noir-like lighting design makes as much use of darkness and shadows as it does blue and red gels, particularly as the show takes its most grisly turns. Plus, atmospheric details aside, one key to the success of Brennan’s in-your-face approach to Sweeney involves using the lights to focus our attention precisely where it needs to be at all times, and Chinn nails this challenging task.
Meanwhile, Brennan’s meticulously plotted, bi-level set design, masterfully executed by Sarah Tanner, allows cast members to venture routinely into all areas of the performance space, so that audience members are almost always mere inches away from the players. Plus, harkening back to Hal Prince’s 1979 production -- wherein pieces from an old foundry in Rhode Island were integrated into the set to re-create a factory aesthetic -- Brennan and Tanner use utilitarian parts of Encore’s performance space, like an I-beam that hovers over Sweeney’s barber shop, as a spot to store his deadly blades, and add subtle embellishments (like an industrial fan and pulley) to the grimy backdrop.
Props like Sweeney’s red blades, and meat shop customers’ red plates, were overseen by Anne Donevan; and Sharon Larkey Urick’s effectively restrained costume design initially employs mostly blacks, whites, and grays in the show’s first act. Yet after Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett make their ghastly pact, they both appear in tones of red, and that color -- through victims’ gushing blood and other means -- becomes a stark signal of the evil overtaking everyone.
Sound designer Chris Goosman helps establish just the right aural balance, and music director Tyler Driskill helms a vocal ensemble that’s among the best I’ve ever heard in this region -- despite the inherent difficulty of spreading cast members across Encore’s space while they’re expected to sing in tight unison.
My one qualm musically involved the production’s orchestra, which sounded, particularly in the first numbers on opening night, tentative and spotty. But the vocalists, from top to bottom, were terrific.
Jamie Colburn gleefully hams up the role of charlatan hair tonic salesman Pirelli, delivering vocally while stealing each scene he appears in. Sebastian Gerstner (Antony) and Emily Hadick (Johanna), as the show’s young lovers, manage to bring sparks of humor to the couple’s usually-generic courtship, and Gerstner’s lovely rendition of the yearning, soaring theme “Johanna” will stay with you long after you leave. The same goes for Billy Eric Robinson’s heartstring-pulling take on “Not While I’m Around,” one of the production’s most moving scenes, wherein young Toby professes his affection for and gratitude to the seemingly maternal Mrs. Lovett; and Keith Kalinowski’s Judge Turpin is humanized by the inclusion of the character’s oft-cut song “Johanna (Mea Culpa)” -- though the scene’s primary action (self-flagellation) feels somewhat murky.
Moan is a younger-than-usual Sweeney, for sure, but his raw, slow-burn intensity, paired with his assured baritone, paint a Fleet Street barber whose rage mostly boils beneath the surface. This choice, alas, turns out to be a bit of a double-edged sword. As with Judge Turpin, Sweeney is presented not as a monster, but as a “normal man” capable of terrible things; and while this psychologically grounds the character in reality and makes us question the assumptions we make about people, it also de-fangs the character, so that the dread and anxiety that normally accompanies his appearance on stage is undercut. In addition, Brennan’s staging choice involving quick throat slashes in the barber shop, followed by each victim descending a set of stairs in a zombie-like fashion, reinforce the odd banality of Sweeney’s murders.
Yet in the end, the Encore production’s main attraction is Sarah Briggs’ hilarious and surprisingly touching breakout turn as Mrs. Lovett. If you’ve seen Briggs in other Encore productions, you already know she’s got serious pipes, and that she could read mortgage documents on stage and somehow make it hysterical, using her ultra-expressive features and immaculate comic timing to maximum effect. But even given that, Briggs demonstrates, by way of Mrs. Lovett, that she can do dizzying complexity, too, so that right after she cracks us up with “The Worst Pies in London” and “A Little Priest,” she makes us feel dreamily wistful via “By the Sea,” and then achingly sympathetic as she processes Toby’s familial love for her in “Not While I’m Around.”
Though Mrs. Lovett is often interpreted through a funhouse lens, Briggs’ humanized Mrs. Lovett feels simultaneously jaundiced and hopeful -- and we do, too. That is all part of taking the ride now on offer at Encore. Brennan’s unique staging makes us part of the Greek chorus of ensemble players, who almost never leave the stage, but it also places actors among the spectators, thus breaking down the divide between performance and artistic consumption. What can we glean from this old tale of obsession and revenge, the production presses us to ask, when we’re witnesses ourselves to senseless violence?
On a day when we’re all grieving and reeling from the worst mass shooting in American history, it seems a question worth asking.
Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.
"Sweeney Todd" is at The Encore Musical Theatre Company, 3126 Broad St, Dexter, through October 22 Visit Encore's Facebook event page for more information and tickets.
Blog Post
America's librarian, Nancy Pearl, penned her own novel for the stacks
by christopherporter
Nancy Pearl -- coming to Nicola’s Books on Wednesday, October 4 at 7 pm to talk about her new novel, George & Lizzie -- may be the only person in America who could be referred to as a “celebrity librarian.”
For she’s regularly featured on NPR, where she recommends and discusses books; and she was the model for a librarian action figure that boasts “amazing shushing action!”
But locals who’ve heard Pearl on the radio may not realize that she has deep local roots. Though she now calls Seattle home, Pearl grew up in Detroit and studied library science at the University of Michigan.
“I remember being addicted to Judy Collins and Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell -- that was the soundtrack for my time in Ann Arbor,” Pearl said during a recent phone interview. “The other thing about being in Ann Arbor at that time, of course, was the bookstores. That was when Borders was still this little bookstore. And I lived in the co-op system while I was at Michigan. I have a lot of fondness for those times.”
Regarding Pearl’s chosen profession, the die was cast early on.
“I grew up in Detroit, in a lower-middle-class family, and home was not a place where I felt welcome or loved,” said Pearl. “So I’d go to the library all the time. I’d go every day after school, and on Saturdays, I’d ride my bike there in the morning. Those librarians -- particularly Francis Whitehead -- I felt loved by them and welcomed by them. I think they recognized early on that I was a reader, and they helped me discover these wonderful, wonderful books to read that gave me a way of looking at the world in a way that wasn’t how I was seeing it. They gave me kindness and the gift of reading. And when I was 10, I was a do-gooder, and so I felt like I wanted to be a children’s librarian and help other kids like she helped me.”
As an outgrowth of her work as “America’s librarian,” Pearl has previously published books packed with suggestions for what to read when in certain moods or situations (“Book Lust,” “More Book Lust,” “Book Lust to Go,” “Book Crush”). But her latest release, George & Lizzie, marks Pearl’s first foray into novels -- though writing a work of fiction wasn't a longtime desire.
“It was a great surprise in a way when it did happen," said Pearl. "I had written a lot of poetry in high school, in Detroit, and in college, and a few years after that, until I was probably in my 30s. There were always these lines that came to me where I thought, ‘That’s clearly poetry.’ But at a certain point, these things stopped coming out as lines of poetry, and I recognized that they were instead prose.”
The genesis of George & Lizzie, though, involved the characters simply appearing in Pearl’s mind. “These two characters just came into my head, and I loved thinking about them,” said Pearl. “For several years, I didn’t consider writing anything down. I just told myself stories about them before falling asleep each night.”
Eventually, during a time when Pearl felt an “inchoate longing for the perfect thing to read” -- a feeling all book addicts can likely relate to -- she thought, “Well, I have these two characters in my head, and by that time, I knew everything there was to know about them. What if I put those stories, those episodes and vignettes, down on paper? ... I was really just writing it for me. ... It would be impossible for me to write something where I was worried about whether my agent would like it, or could sell it. You just have to do it for you. And I was lucky because I already knew what I liked in books. I’d analyzed my own reading enough to write a book just for me. It wasn’t until I reached the end that I thought, maybe this is a book, and maybe I should get in touch with my agent.”
George & Lizzie has elements of both a romantic comedy and a domestic drama. The titular married couple first meet as students in Ann Arbor (locals will note that in the opening scene, the two are bowling in an alley on Washtenaw), but they come from vastly different situations. George grew up in a generally happy, loving home, while Lizzie believed herself to be little more than a lab rat for her famous psychologist parents. Her intense desire for love and attention led her to hatch a foolhardy plan: to sleep with each starter on her high school’s football team. And because the “Great Game” continues to haunt Lizzie well into adulthood -- in the form of making her obsess over a college boyfriend who broke up with her upon learning of her past -- George and Lizzie’s marriage eventually arrives at a crossroads.
How did Pearl come up with the racy secret that shadows Lizzie’s life? “The simple answer is, it’s just the way it happened,” said Pearl. “I know this sounds bizarre and very woo-woo -- I don’t have a woo-woo bone in my body -- but that’s just what I learned about Lizzie. This is what she did.”
Of course, being on the other end of book reviews can be tricky for a librarian whose recommendations get a national audience; yet because Pearl has long made a point of only highlighting books that excite her -- rather than critiquing those that don’t -- she’s taking the feedback in stride.
“Everyone brings to a book their own life, their own experiences,” said Pearl. “The majority of reviews and feedback has been positive and wonderful, but the few that have been negative have indicated to me that this is simply not the kind of book this particular reader wanted.”
Other noteworthy things about Pearl include: her master’s degree in history; her oft-quoted Rule of 50, wherein you read 50 pages of a book, and if it doesn’t engage you, you stop reading (“The rule only works well if you know you can always go back to a book. It’s not like not reading it is the death knell for that book forever,” said Pearl); and her insights about the role parents play in their children’s reading life.
“One of the best ways to spend quality time with a child is to read to her or him, and to not stop reading to them when they’ve learned to read,” said Pearl. “Too often, parents stop reading aloud to their children after first or second grade, thinking, well, they can read to themselves now, they don’t need me. But there’s something so special about sharing those books together. I think that needs to be emphasized more.”
Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.
Nancy Pearl visits Nicola’s Books, 2513 Jackson Ave., on Wednesday, October 4 at 7 pm to talk about and sign copies of "George & Lizzie." Visit nicolasbooks.com for more information.
Blog Post
After cancelled flights, Darlingside hit the road to sing harmonies for The Ark
by christopherporter
In order to play at The Ark’s nearly sold-out fall fundraiser on Sunday night, Darlingside had to skedaddle out of Kansas City after a show on Saturday night. The Boston-based quartet packed into a minivan with its sound engineer and drove through much of the night.
This hadn’t been the original plan, but the sudden appearance of a 200-mile-wide storm system meant that Darlingside's flights, scheduled several months earlier, weren’t going to happen. “So we arrived in Ann Arbor this morning, badly in need of a shower,” confessed cellist/guitarist Harris Paseltiner.
Blog Post
Warm, interactive "Every Brilliant Thing" addresses depression and its fallout
by christopherporter
There’s a moment in Duncan Macmillan’s play Every Brilliant Thing -- a University Musical Society presentation of the U.K.’s Paines Plough and Pentabus Theatre Company production -- that straight-up gave me chills.
For actor/comedian Jonny Donahoe, playing the son of a woman struggling mightily with depression, briefly discusses how suicide tends to beget more suicide, and that the year after Marilyn Monroe killed herself, the rate of suicide in the U.S. rose by 12 percent.
Why did this pronouncement split the air in the Arthur Miller Theatre like a lightning bolt?
Because many in the community are still processing a young man’s death-by-suicide near the end of last week, in addition to a 15-year-old male’s completed suicide in May. The idea that these deaths might perpetuate even more like them feels unbearable to contemplate.
Yet Every Brilliant Thing nonetheless provides perhaps the best possible means for having a public conversation about depression and its fallout. Based on Macmillan’s short story Sleeve Notes -- a reference to what we call an album’s liner notes in America -- Brilliant begins with Donahoe cheerfully chatting up audience members and handing out pieces of paper, each with a number and an entry from his character’s constantly growing list of things that bring him joy.
Why does he make this list? Because when he’s seven, his mother makes her first suicide attempt, so the boy decides -- with the encouragement of a sock-puppet-wielding school counselor (played by an audience member) -- that presenting his mum with hundreds of things to live for might help her remember the good stuff.
We then follow the boy through his teen years, when his mother tries to kill herself again; his college years, where he’s inspired by a professor, and he falls in love with a young woman he meets in the library; and his marriage, which goes from blissful to strained.
You might balk at the idea of “interactive theater” -- I generally do, too, believe me –but Brilliant employs the gentlest, most humane approach to audience participation I’ve ever seen. The lights never go completely down in the crowd, thereby building a communal sense of togetherness among strangers; patrons with list entries in their hands do nothing more than announce their “thing” from their seat when Donahoe calls their number; and although a handful of audience members are asked, at various times, to stand in for the narrator’s father, professor, girlfriend/wife, counselor, and a veterinarian, their parts are simple, brief, and straightforward, and there’s little-to-no pressure to improvise.
Plus, it’s fun to see the ingenious ways Donahoe -- dressed in casual, contemporary clothes, so that you almost mistake him for an audience member gone rogue -- works around the inevitable challenges of this format. For instance, following an audience member’s marriage proposal, he tenderly accepts and says, “Let’s kiss later!”
This gets at why the hour-long Brilliant succeeds so well, and manages, in its sharply edited efficiency, to strike a profoundly resonant chord. The play's good-natured, openly candid approach, paired with Donahoe’s often comic, endearing warmth -- sometimes conveyed through his deep love of classic American soul music -- acknowledges the unshakable darkness of depression while simultaneously trying to fight it back.
The show’s single prop consists of boxes on a cart, reportedly packed with thousands of paper scraps with, well, brilliant things scribbled onto them. And you might initially assume that an enormous volume of joys would be a thing of childlike wonder. But then you realize that the size of the narrator’s ever-ballooning list of reasons to go on must also mirror the growing interior pull not to.
Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.
"Every Brilliant Thing" runs through Sunday, September 17 at Arthur Miller Theatre, 1226 Murfin Ave., Ann Arbor. Visit ums.org for showtimes, tickets, and more information.
Blog Post
A2CT's “Seussical, the Musical” will transport viewers to a magic kingdom
by christopherporter
The fanciful world of Dr. Seuss will come to life on the Mendelssohn Theater stage this weekend when Ann Arbor Civic Theatre presents Seussical, the Musical
“We were looking for a family fare kind of show,” said director Denyse Clayton. “Most every show for families is a ‘feel good’ show, but in the particular political climate we’re living in now, I think that to buy a ticket and go someplace magical to escape it all for a while feels particularly good.”
Seussical, with music, lyrics, and a book by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, made its Broadway debut in 2000. Combining characters and situations from a number of different Seuss tales, the show’s framing story involves a sweet-natured elephant named Horton (of Hears a Who fame), who struggles to protect not just an invisible, fractious population of Whos living on a speck of dust, but also a nearly-ready-to-hatch egg that’s carelessly thrust upon him by Mayzie. Meanwhile, Gertrude McFuzz pines for Horton, and a Who named Jojo, the mayor’s son, has unbridled, imaginative “thinks” that cause disruptions in his school and in his family.
Speaking of disruptions, Seussical’s just-after-school-starts production dates resulted in significant rehearsal schedule challenges for Clayton.
“Yeah, I just had to say, ‘OK, I know everyone has a life, and everyone needs vacations, but come August 20, you all have to be here,’” said Clayton. “Especially this week. We’ve got students and teachers in the cast, so while I think it’s going to be a letdown next Monday -- it’s always like the day after Christmas when a show closes -- this is going to be a pretty challenging week for a lot of our people.”
Seussical’s 24-person cast is made up of mostly adults, with kids in a handful of roles, and Rob Roy stars as the iconic Cat in the Hat, who narrates and fills various small roles in the show.
“I don’t like to work with casts of thousands,” said Clayton. “I like to have a lot for the actors to do, so I keep them busy, changing hats and costumes backstage. But I also like that this tends to make for a more cohesive cast that works well together and really comes to trust each other.”
Of course, from a design perspective, Seussical demands costumes, props, and set pieces that evoke the author/illustrator’s sublimely whimsical style; but translating that airiness into our gravity-ruled world can sometimes prove to be a thorny challenge.
To solve this riddle, Clayton developed a guiding aesthetic vision for A2CT’s Seussical from a surprising source. “There’s this restaurant on the Disney Cruise called Animator’s Palate,” said Clayton. “When you walk in, the whole restaurant appears in black and white, but as you have dinner, and make your way through the courses, the room starts to colorize until, by the time you walk out, everything’s just bursting with all this full-blown color.”
Seussical attendees can thus expect a similar kind of on-stage transformation, with the help of lighting and other tools. In the end, however, Clayton knows that audience members will primarily be coming to the theater to be transported to the magical world of Dr. Seuss.
After all, Clayton herself has felt relieved to live in that world for much of the last few weeks.
“Every morning, I turn on the computer and think, ‘What fresh hell awaits me today?’” said Clayton. “But then I just breathe, and I remind myself that I can go back and be a kid again tonight at rehearsal.”
Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.
Ann Arbor Civic Theatre presents “Seussical, the Musical” September 7-10 at Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, 911 N. University, Ann Arbor. Showtimes are Thursday at 7:30 pm, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, and Sunday at 2 pm. For ticket information, call 734-971-2228 or visit a2ct.org.
Blog Post
Leave the Kids at Home: Grown Folks Story Time at BookBound
by christopherporter
As adults, we often forget how pleasurable it can be shut everything off, stop talking for a while, and just listen to someone read a story out loud.
But Ann Arbor educator -- and frequent Pulp contributor -- Patti F. Smith remembered that childhood joy while skimming local event listings.
“There were all these different storytimes for children, and I thought about how much I loved story time as a kid when I was in school,” she said, adding that she then noticed that a group of young Detroiters “had an event that had interesting people reading interesting things. I went to it, and a woman -- not an author -- brought a book she just really liked, a memoir, and read some quick little lines from it. There was a brunch with mimosas, and it was just a lovely event. It wasn’t political, it wasn’t deep, it only lasted about an hour, but it just made me remember that it’s really, really nice to be read to. So I thought, well, why not have something in Ann Arbor?”
With this in mind, Smith has planned Grown Folks Story Time at BookBound on Thursday, August 24, at 7 pm. The theme is “childhood,” since the three participants will read from books they loved as kids.
Smith will likely read from a Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle book, while Ann Arbor novelist David Pratt (Wallaçonia, Bob the Book) is still undecided. "For a while, it looked like 'pigs' was going be a theme," he said. "Well, Charlotte's Web is a big fave of mine, and I also have a unique and interesting piece of writing hanging around that would interpret "pig" in a whole different way. I am also attracted to 1980s queer activists, including David Wojnarowicz, Leslie Feinberg, and Karen Finley -- straight but kinda "queer," if you know what I mean. The time sure seems right for some of their messages!"
Ypsi horror-fiction writer Ken MacGregor said he's narrowed down his choices to two short stories: "The first, because the title sounds a lot like the one Patti is reading, and the second because it's it's one of my favorites; it's not speculative fiction, which is what I mostly write, but it's funny and sad and a little hopeful."
“This is not a book launch, it’s not ‘come buy my book,’ nothing like that,” said Smith. “But I want to get local some local authors out there because depending on the kind of artist you are -- and I’m not saying it’s easy, but if you’re a musician, you can get gigs. If you’re a writer, unless you have a book launch or something, there’s not a lot of opportunities to really get out there in public and share something in a performance setting. One of my first thoughts was that I’d love to hear authors read stuff that’s not their own.”
Attendees should note the “Grown Folks” part of this event, which is decidedly not for kids. Smith plans to bring cheese and snacks for attendees, and as the event’s Facebook page notes, “There may be profanity, wry humor, and pseudo-intellectual banter.” Even so, attendees are encouraged to bring blankets and get cozy while listening to the evening’s stories.
“I didn’t know the folks at Bookbound [Peter and Megan Blackshear] before,” said Smith. “I’d just bought stuff there. But then Ken MacGregor made an introduction over email. I wrote saying, ‘I don’t know if you’d want to do this or not, but ...’ and Megan and Peter immediately said, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’ We met and Megan showed me the space where we would be, and we just immediately clicked. She just got it right away.”
Megan Blackshear concurs. "I can't count the number of times we've overheard customers react to our signs for children's story time with comments like, 'When do we get story time?,'" she said. "While they are generally joking around, I think it does reflect a real sentiment about fond memories of being read to as a child, and a desire to sort of recreate that in a more adult way."
Grown Folks Story Time may become a regular series at Bookbound if the first gathering goes well. "As a small mom-and-pop shop, we don't do a whole lot of traditional author events," Megan Blackshear said. "We do occasionally host book launches for local authors, and a monthly open mic poetry series, usually with a featured poet. I expect Grown Folks Story Time will be more festive, raucous, and unpredictable than most of our other events."
And given recent world events, a lot of people may be in the mood just now for gathering together to listen to a beloved book from childhood.
“This event is not going to solve any world problems, it’s not going to stop the Nazis," Smith said, "but it will be this comforting, safe thing so many of us remember from childhood, which is circle time, or story time. But at this one, there will be swearing.”
Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.
Grown Folks Story Time happens at Bookbound, 1729 Plymouth Rd., Ann Arbor, on Thursday, August 24, at 7 pm. The event is free.
Blog Post
Ann Arbor in Concert’s "Spring Awakening" was lovely and heartbreaking
by christopherporter
For a few moments during Ann Arbor in Concert’s production of Spring Awakening on Saturday night at the Power Center, all the heightened hormonal chaos, longing, joy, freedom, and frustration of adolescence was on resplendent display.
The number, which I’ll politely refer to “Totally F-ed,” arrives late in the Tony-winning stage musical, and in the words of Rohit Gopal (who played Moritz) during the talkback, “It’s a banger.” The entire cast embodies revolt through song, and at one point Christopher Campbell’s deft choreography clearly dictates that each performer “rock out on your own as the spirit moves you.”
And boy, does the overall effect work.
Which is good, because although A2iC’s Spring Awakening didn’t hold back at all in some ways -- the graphic adolescent sex scene between intellectually sophisticated, handsome Melchior (Ben Walker) and curious, stifled Wendla (Natalie Duncan) that ends the first act and opens the second included partial nudity, just as the original Broadway production did -- it generally felt a bit muted, emotionally and vocally, throughout the evening.
Inspired by Frank Wedekind’s controversial 1891 play Spring Awakening, the Tony Award-winning 2006 musical adaptation -- with a book and lyrics by Steven Sater, and music by Duncan Sheik -- focuses on a group of 19th-century German teenagers who are dealing with sexual and physical abuse, homelessness, suicide, illegal abortion, depression, and homosexuality, all while living within a repressive society that refuses to acknowledge, let alone talk about, their issues.
A2iC, meanwhile, is a town-and-gown theater company -- notably heavy on the “gown” end this year, given that Spring’s focus is young people -- that has presented, in its four previous years, one big, splashy staged concert of a musical, with scores of musicians, singers, and performers from the community worked into the mix. These concerts have generally featured lighter-fare shows like Hairspray and 42nd St., and this year, A2iC founders Mike Mosallam and Eric Lofstrom originally planned to produce the Meredith Willson classic The Music Man. However, the intense political climate inspired Mosallam and Lofstrom to not only take on something darker but something smaller and more intimate -- and thus more like a full production, involving just 15 actors and 8 musicians.
Largely thanks to U-M’s top-ranked musical theater program, Mosallam (who directed Spring) managed to draft some pretty impressive talent for the show. Duncan, a U-M senior, conveyed the right mix of yearning and vulnerability, alongside strong vocals; Gopal and Matthew Kemp (as unabashedly “out” Hanschen) -- a U-M senior and junior, respectively -- both dug deep for their roles and didn’t shy away from their toughest moments; and Walker, a U-M senior, was the production’s beating heart. With emotionally clear, resonant vocals that matched his depiction of Melchior as an unheard, rational voice of reason, Walker pulled the whole show together.
Bringing various ancillary adult characters to life, meanwhile, fell to Eva Rosenwald and John Seibert, who gleefully reveled in tossing German names back and forth, but also had the tough job of humanizing sometimes-cruel characters. Indeed, it’s a tremendous credit to Seibert that when he resumes his brief role as Moritz’s abusive father, who’s presiding over his son’s funeral, and finally breaks down, I did, too.
Some of Mosallam’s staging choices worked better than others. A new approach to the show’s coda, “The Song of Purple Summer,” involving a small pool where pairs of characters anointed each other as a kind of rebirth, was quietly lovely and moving in its awkward way; and Andrew Howell’s multimedia contributions, and John McCarthy’s video backdrop work, were quite well done.
Yet the choice to film a scene in which Moritz’s father strikes his son over his poor performance in school, as the actors stand on stage and watch in darkness, felt odd and a bit jarring, particularly when a show’s raison d’être is to make us face and talk about things that make us uncomfortable. And vocally, Spring’s original Broadway production had all the characters using individual microphones, in part to visually contrast past and present eras, but also so that the unleashed punk quality of the score screamed through. While handheld microphones aren’t themselves the issue, the attitude, intensity, and feel they seemed to achieve are; and some of A2iC’s Spring numbers -- like “The Dark I Know Well,” wherein two girls trapped by incest give voice to their pain and rage -- simply lost some of their edgy, hard punch in translation.
Drew Hill designed the costumes (and hair and makeup) that gently suggested the era without being too fussy, and Noemi Ybarra designed the show’s atmospheric lighting.
All these elements combined to make A2iC’s Spring a lovely, heartbreaking night of theater, despite the aforementioned minor bumps. The show became a hit for a reason: if you’re in the midst of adolescence, with all of its trials and flashes of beauty, you’ll see your life writ large on-stage, while if you’re an adult, songs like “Touch Me” will time-travel you back to your own teen years, when you thought you might actually die with longing.
Plus, Mosallam’s fresh take on the show’s end worked like a balm, particularly in a political climate that’s caused many of us to feel both more fragile and more hardened simultaneously. It was surprisingly healing to watch a small gesture of forgiveness between characters -- to such a degree that when I arrived home, and Melchior’s philosophical anthem “All That’s Known” began playing on my phone, I took a moment to stand in the wet grass of my front yard, listen to the lyrics, and stare at the dark sky and stars above me.
Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.
To learn more about the play and this production, read our preview article: "Serious sentiments in "Spring Awakening" flip the script for A2 in Concert."
Blog Post
Controversy and Comedy: Michigan Shakespeare Festival 2017
by christopherporter
The Michigan Shakespeare Festival’s board votes on the plays for a specific season -- pitched by MSF’s Producing Artistic Director Janice L. Blixt -- 18 months in advance of the curtain being raised.
So in early 2016, when MSF’s board voted to approve Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar, and Chekhov’s The Seagull for 2017 (the season kicks off in Jackson on July 6), the company had no idea that it would be staging Caesar shortly after New York Public Theater’s production of the play (which depicted Caesar as Donald Trump) made national headlines and drew protestors.
“I expected Shrew to be the controversial show, where I’d be fielding questions like, ‘How are you dealing with the misogyny?’” said Blixt.
Not so much. Although Blixt, who is directing Caesar, had her own vision for the play -- a take that bears no resemblance to the Public’s political lightning rod production -- MSF has received phone calls, emails, and Facebook comments from across the country recently.
“We’re getting it from both sides,” said Blixt. “Some people are angry that we’re doing the show at all. Others are angry that we’re not giving it a more political bent. Both of our venues (in Jackson and Canton) have gotten a lot of calls about it. Enough so that I finally had to issue a statement.”
Blixt has largely built her production around this key passage from Caesar’s Act III, scene I: “How many ages hence/ Shall this our lofty scene be acted over/ In states unborn and accents yet unknown!”
“(These characters) talk a lot in the show about the situation they’re in in Rome,” said Blixt. “They feel like they’re losing their Republic to the power of one individual, so they feel like they have to do something. Historically, this is the basis for nearly every government overthrow, be it a military coup, or an assassination, or some other kind of turnover of power. It happens again and again and again.”
Blixt’s production features a set that combines traditional columns with modern graphics, and Roman Senate togas appear alongside more contemporary looks. According to Blixt, this works to underline the fact that “Rome has stood this entire time, and the traditions and rituals of ancient Rome are often still what are used today.”
The production’s primary focus, though, is drawn from the text itself: how Brutus must weigh his own feelings against the needs of the state, and what comes of his decision. “We see how far he has to be pushed to see that Rome is more important to him -- the traditions and rituals of Rome -- than even his friend, a man he cares about a great deal. But Brutus is terrified that Caesar’s changing the republic, so he and the other conspirators choose to use violence, which inevitably means the whole thing will end in violence. That’s just how it works in Shakespeare. It tends to be true that the first guy to draw a sword ends up dead.”
Blixt takes several factors into account when putting together a season proposal, but two broad-stroke starting points involve pairing of a Shakespeare comedy with a tragedy or history, and an oft-produced work of the Bard’s with a lesser-known one. Caesar was intended to fill the latter slot, which Blixt acknowledges seems strange, given that it’s pretty famous. “But we’d checked in with our patrons, and we were surprised to find that an incredibly big number of them had never seen it,” said Blixt. “They’d read it in high school, but they’d never seen a production of it.”
The Taming of the Shrew, filling the “more familiar Shakespeare show” slot this season, will not only surely be a lighter, sillier night of theater than Caesar, but it will also feel celebratory, as it marks the 20th anniversary of a special production that brought three key MSF figures together.
Back in 1997, when the fledgling company was called the Jackson Shakespeare Festival, artistic director John Neville-Andrews cast Blixt (née Waldron) as Kate and David Blixt as Petruchio. The two young actors had never met before, and not only did they go on to co-star in subsequent MSF productions helmed by Neville-Andrews (Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth), but they also got married, and they honeymooned in Petruchio’s hometown of Verona. (Neville-Andrews stepped down as MSF artistic director in 2009 and Janice Blixt stepped in.)
This trio of artists that helped establish, and build on, MSF’s foundation are reuniting this year for a brand new (yet more Elizabethan) production of Shrew, with Neville-Andrews back in the director’s chair. The comedy tells the story of a Paduan lord whose beautiful youngest daughter, Bianca, earns the attention of many suitors, but her father won’t allow her to marry until her older sister -- headstrong, willful Kate -- finds a husband. When Petruchio comes to town, looking to marry a woman of means, his friend, Bianca-smitten Hortensio, convinces him to marry Kate. After the wedding, Petruchio goes about “taming” Kate by way of denying her food and clothing (claiming nothing’s good enough for her), and reflexively disagreeing with everything she says.
Obviously, Petruchio’s treatment of Kate often makes Shrew disturbing for modern audiences. “But I think audiences will be pleasantly surprised,” said Blixt. “Without major script changes, we are creating something a little different. The heart of this relationship is -- they’re going to end up happy together, and it’s not about Stockholm Syndrome, or starving her until she listens. It’s about learning to play the game, where a partnership is a partnership. You, scowling angry woman, you don’t get to be leader, just as I, goofy ebullient man, can’t be the leader. We will not have happiness until we’re truly partners.”
Not that there haven’t still been challenges along the way. “As a 40-year-old woman, I hear these words come out of my mouth, and I think, ‘I don’t like this. I need to figure this out,’” said Blixt. “But we all knew the product we wanted to make, so it’s a matter of how we use what’s there to get to that product. And I think we’ve done it.”
Twenty years ago, the couple approached Kate and Petruchio as two people who fell in love at first sight, but -- because of where they were both coming from -- they couldn’t communicate it or acknowledge it until going through one hell-week of marriage. But that’s not the only difference.
“Last time around, I didn’t have to take a hot shower and an ibuprofen after every rehearsal,” said Blixt, referring to her role’s physical demands. “I mean, we’re trained as classical actors, so before, I’d always do things like warm-ups because it was the right thing to do, but now, if I don’t, I’ll really be hurting for a few days.”
Finally, MSF will present a new adaptation (by Blixt and the company) of Anton Chekhov’s classic dark comedy The Seagull, about an aging actress, her famous author boyfriend, her pretentious aspiring playwright son, and an ingenue who’s both a threat to her and a painful reminder of what she’s lost.
“I was looking for something that was going to be funny, but I didn’t want anything that’s ‘silly funny,’ since Shrew would have that covered,” said Blixt. "Even when (The Seagull) gets painful toward the end, the humor is dark and biting. It’s more like a modern sitcom, like The Office, than something that’s lighter and sillier. And it’s got great characters and terrific roles for women.”
Blixt is directing The Seagull (as well as Caesar), and she’s excited by what she’s seen thus far in rehearsal.
“I hope audiences walk in and can slough off the idea that they’re in for three hours of Russian angst, which is what most people think of when it comes to Chekhov,” said Blixt, who says the company’s new version clocks in at closer to two hours.
And because it combines tragedy with comedy, The Seagull seems to round out MSF’s new season nicely. “We’re doing a bit of a mix of shows, and trying to look at each one a little differently,” said Blixt. “We’re definitely going for a ‘something for everyone’ mentality.”
Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.
Michigan Shakespeare Festival runs July 6 to August 13. Visit michiganshakespearefestival.com for tickets and showtimes.