Steven Dietz, the wonderful American playwright (his latest play Becky’s Last Car will open shortly at ETC), related a lovely story to me. He had been commissioned to write a piece for Seattle Children’s Theatre. Opening night he sat behind a family of four. Steven sensed that the father and both children were loving the show. That was not the case with the mother, however. At intermission the father turned to his wife and asked for her opinion. “I think,” she said, “the man who wrote this made the whole thing up!” So much for imagination and fantasy.

Perhaps that woman would still love How? How? Why? Why? Why? Kevin Kling weaves an evening of storytelling about his life. They are absolutely terrific to hear. Funny, touching, remarkably human —they are stories that ultimately make us feel more human. The humor is real — never forced — and the dramatic passages are also coming from an honest place. Listening to Kevin, I never feel the incidents have been doctored for dramatic effect. He shares these tales with us, drawing us in more and more.

It is an honor to welcome Kevin Kling to Cincinnati.

"You want me to paint what? On what? By when?!"

These were my first words following the first design production meeting for our production of The Fall of Heaven. I probably threw in a few expletives but I was told to keep this blog entry clean!

My name is Lisa Molyneux and I am the Charge Scenic Artist for the theatre. I’m in my 19th season at the Playhouse and this show is a great example of how I’m continually challenged by each show. It is my job to take the scenery and props, provided to me by the carpentry and prop departments, and make them fit into the designer’s vision.

David Gallo, a current, popular Broadway designer, created the set for The Fall of Heaven. David is, by far, one of my favorite designers. Other sets that David has designed for us include In Walks Ed, Sweeney Todd, Dark Paradise and Company. When I heard David was doing the new Walter Mosley play, I knew we were in for a challenge. I knew that the set would be incredible and I would be close to my death by its completion. A quirky guy, with cascading eyebrows, he brought his set model to Cincinnati for our first discussions. He had lived up to my expectations. The set was ginormous, made up of many layers of translucent painted images of Harlem, with a crazy, raked deck, complete with manhole covers and chunks of broken asphalt. How cool!? How the hell are we going to do it?!  It's always best for me to freak out in the beginning of a project because one week later I will be too busy to.

Looking at the model, I'm running through my mind all the possible conventional methods to use on a show like this. I assumed we would apply paint to translucent scrims for there to be cool lighting tricks. Easy. Done it a million times. Oh, wait. It's David Gallo. Never mind that paint/scrim thing. He says he wants me to paint the images on this "Great stuff I found! You know, that gauzy crap that covers the bottom of your box spring mattress. I wanna use that." This is where there might have been an expletive from me. Finally, I found my sense of adventure and said to get me some of this great stuff.

Veronica Bishop, the Technical coordinator and "go to person" of the scene shop, found a source for it and informed us it is called Chameleon cloth. She handed me a small piece. It looked and felt like a dryer sheet. To paint it, I was going to need something very thick, paintable and black. We chose our favorite goo, a rubbery roofing cement called Jaxsan. Suddenly, I understood everything. I was going to paint sixty feet of a Harlem Street scene with black, rubbery goo on a big dryer sheet. I was never warned about these things in grad school.

We projected the images, made patterns, blew up and transferred drawings and painted for about 4 straight weeks. I was a wreck until it hit stage. Was it really going to work?! Yes, and it looked better than I could have imagined. This is definitely one of the most exciting projects I've been involved with at the Playhouse, and I've been here a long time.

Not only is it a great set but it's a fabulous production all around. I've seen it many times now and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. Whatever you do, don't miss this one!

We are also lucky enough to have David Gallo designing the production we are currently building for the Shelterhouse, The History of Invulnerability. David is far from being conventional with this design either. I won't ruin the surprise, but you've got to see this. The Shelterhouse will have never looked so different.

Thanks for taking a look behind the scenes. If you want to hear more about it, stop in for the Playhouse Scene Shop tour during Fine Arts Fund Weekend on Saturday, February 20 and I'd love to chat with you.

Tonight we open the world premiere of THE FALL OF HEAVEN by best-selling author Walter Mosley.  There was a feature article in yesterday’s The New York Times on this play and our production. That is certainly exciting for the Playhouse. More importantly, I find it exciting that Walter Mosley, the author, gets important recognition. Not that Walter isn’t used to this kind of exposure. One of America’s leading novelists, Walter is remarkable for the range of his work. 29 books — fiction, non-fiction…you name it and Walter has done it. A man of this stature frankly does not need to go into, of all things, theatre. Is it a risk — absolutely. Walter knew that going in and is thrilled to have this play on our stage. American theatre needs more unique voices to be heard on our stage. And Walter’s voice is absolutely original. Hip. Inventive. Singular. Funny. Touching. Powerful. If Walter will continue to write for the stage, we will all be beneficiaries. I hope in years to come our audiences will be able to say, “We saw Walter Mosley’s first play!” And follow that with the post script: “And we loved it.”

Well, here we are! Tour #2 of the season is just getting started and already shaping up to be a fantastic run. Cyrano opened this past weekend following two wonderful open dress rehearsals here at the Playhouse. We hit the road stopping at the Cincinnati Woman's Art Club, the Sharonville Arts Center, and the Mayerson JCC for opening weekend. The show went really well at all three places. Then on Tuesday we had our first school performance. Our first school was the School for Creative and Performing Arts, which was a lot of fun. These kids are already passionate about theatre and performance so they were totally eager to watch and interact with us.

The intern cast (pictured above and made up of Jonathan Self, Tim Abrahamsen and Kelly Pekar) are joined for this show by percussionist Grant Cambridge. It truly is a unique show and one that loves to surprise and delight its audiences. A typical day for us includes a 7 a.m. call time, driving to our first school of the day, setting up and then performing. Then we pack it all up into the van again, find a place for some much-needed coffee and repeat the process with the second location. We have a lot more schools and community centers on the circuit and lots more stories to come!

Half a season has already come and gone … unbelievable. The wonderful mysteries of Sleuth and Victoria Musica (the search for truth created its own mystery) were terrific season openers in both theatres. Yes, I know there was controversy regarding Three Sisters (would people have loved a traditional production of Chekhov? … I wonder). Many people left feeling the show was so depressing. I certainly am not an objective party about this: I loved it. How can something be so depressing when the acting is so exhilarating? What an honor to have such great actors and a remarkable director and design team here at our theatre. The drama critic for City Beat references that we must be disappointed in the weaker than expected box office for the show. That is purely the “business” side of this institution — an important element, to be sure, but not the core of who we are. The quality of the show shined forth.

We followed that with our Christmas “family” coming back for A Christmas Carol and another “family” for Sanders Family Christmas. What a fine way of celebrating the holidays! Now we are in rehearsal for The Fall of Heaven, an absolutely unique new play by Walter Mosley. And a special treat to have an entire company made up of returning actors to the Playhouse. Another family! I wish all of you a joyous new year. Ed

So A Christmas Carol has been running for a few weeks and has a few more to go. I had to go into the Marx Theatre during one of our matinee shows to look for a tool hidden in one of many tool boxes backstage. After I found what I was looking for, I hung out in the trap room for a bit and watched the show from below. It was pretty amazing. The precision and choreography of the crew and the automation is quite impressive. I could hear the muffled actors up on stage saying, singing, yelling their lines while their stamping feet overpowered the exact words. It was like I had my ear to the door of great conversation that wasn’t intended for me. Then all of a sudden, a huge cloud of theatre smoke came shooting out of the smoke tube and the pneumatic lifts played their leap frog game with the trap doors. Down came the Ghost of Christmas Past and the once-muffled words came booming out of her mouth as she vanished from the audience’s sight. Once the traps shut, fans came on to clear the trap room of smoke. Before I even noticed what was going on, the run crew had deftly removed and replaced large furniture props on the lifts and were waiting to help actors in and out of the trap room. Our regular crew has worked on this show many times before, so a lot of this is second nature, but it is amazing to see it all in action. There is a ton of work that goes into these shows and, if all goes well, the audience should never realize it. But for those of us who do realize it … Well done, crew! You guys are really something!

So much to say! So last week we had two invited dress rehearsals, one for sponsors and one for friends and family on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then on Wednesday, we had our first student matinee where schools come during the school day to see the show. Thursday, there was a 7:00 preview — our first public performance! Friday was (finally) the opening!!!!!!!!! It went great, and afterward, like always, we had our opening night party for cast and family. We all stayed pretty late that night.

The next day, after our Saturday matinee performance, we caroled for the first time to collect money for a couple different charities. So far this week, we've had three more student matinees.

Everything's been running smoothly — well, except for one of the weekend performances. We had some technical difficulties at the beginning of the show: the Scrooge and Cratchit accounting house desks didn't come up in the first scene, so there were just two big holes in the floor. We held the show for about five minutes, then everything was okay.

The Q&A's after student matinees have been great. The two most frequently asked questions are” 1) How old is Tiny Tim? (Answer: 7, always followed by an "awwww" from the audience because Owen is so adorable when he says it) and 2) How old is Scrooge? (Answer: 52, although one day Bruce said seven and half as a joke). There are also a lot of questions about the set and how it works. After yesterday’s student matinee, Jocardo, the house manager, ran the Q&A. One kid asked what the houses on the set were made of and all of us actors were like '"uhhh...." Out of the blue Jocardo came out with, "Candy and happiness." Everyone cracked up. That's all for now. BYE!!

One of the most notable parts of A Christmas Carol is Tiny Tim’s line “God bless us, everyone!” Owen, the little boy who plays Tim is totally adorable and talented. There are eight other children in the production as well that each have their own unique personalities and talents. Owen, as I mentioned, is as cute as can be and is an awesome artist. Darius, Richard and Katie all attend SCPA and love acting. They are so much fun to be around! Eben is one of the oldest of the kids and is super energetic. He and Mitt (this is his third year!) are always on the move. Kendall, Maraia and Julianne are as sweet as can be. They are a really wonderful group of kids!

Some of our backstage activities include coloring contests, Mario Kart races, drinking hot chocolate and tea, lots of homework and even some Secret Santa. It’s not all play though; these kids work hard on and off stage. They have practiced a lot and are even understudying one another this year.

Be sure when you come to save a dollar or two to toss in a hat for their post-show caroling!

And yes, Cincinnati, there is — again — A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Believe it or not, after all of these years I really do look forward to this production. Reason Number 1: It is really good. A wonderful company of actors, adults and children come together yearly and create a real family on stage. And we have always been extraordinarily lucky with our Scrooge. Alan Mixon — wonderful. Joneal Joplin — wonderful. Bruce Cromer — wonderful. Each different, but each bringing the great Dickens character truly to life. Reason Number 2: It is always a pleasure seeing families coming into the Marx Theatre for this show, sharing the joys of this holiday season with each other and with us. What a great tradition to be part of. Reason Numbers 3 through 99: The children. So many have not seen any theatre or seen just a little. They sit transfixed by the magic of theatre. They laugh, they scream and they love. They are the best. I hope you enjoy this show almost as much as I do. AND have a wonderful holiday season.

Here are the answers to last week’s trivia questions from Properties Manager Anna Goller:

Q: What type of yo-yo was popular in 1954? A: Even though the yo-yo has been used in mostly the same form since 500 B.C., the popular toy that we know invaded America around the 1920s. Its shape and material choices have changed over the decades since its invasion, but in 1954 the “imperial” shape was the wooden yo-yo of choice.  The butterfly style didn’t show up until 1958.

Q: What did a play program look like during Shakespeare’s time? 
A: They did not have programs.  They posted play bills on a board outside of the theatre on the day of the performance and wandered through the town announcing their shows. It would have been extremely expensive and waste of resources to print programs since most people couldn’t read.

Q: How do you deal a hand of faro? 
A: The dealer will pull two cards from a deck. The gambler gets to bet on which card will win - the first card or the second card. This game fell out of favor at most casinos due to the 50% chance of the gambler winning. The house wanted better odds. 

Q: What is the most common fingerprint type?
A: Loop.

Q: Is it legal to hunt seagulls?
A: Nope. You also can’t get them stuffed by a taxidermist.

Q: When did items start getting a bar code?
A: The first widespread commercial use was in 1974.