Betrayal cast announced

From Joanna, Communications Manager

Just got the latest casting news.

Betrayal (by Harold Pinter, under the direction of Braden Abraham) will feature Cheyenne Casebier (Emma), Alex Podulke (Robert), David Christopher Wells (Jerry) and the lovely local actor John Farrage (Waiter). You might have seen Cheyenne wielding a sword (and other weapons) as Milady in The Three Musketeers (right). I don't have pictures of the other actors, but Braden has been telling me all along that the cast will be "young and sexy." Hot!

Betrayal, if you don't know the play, is a twist on a love triangle. Emma is sleeping with her husband's best friend, but the play is played out in reverse, from the end of the affair to the beginning.

The show opens February 19.

Post-election: Is the apocalypse still relevant?

From Joanna, Communications Manager

The Seattle Weekly just ran this preview of boom, talking with playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb and director Jerry Manning about whether or not audiences want to think about the end of the world now that things are starting to look up (thank you, Obama). I think: yes. This play deals with environmental apocalypse. While we hope President Obama will turn things around on a global warming front, it's still an issue. But more than that, boom is a comedy with a surprisingly optimistic ending and a healthy dose of sex. It's not like the end of the world is a total downer.

A quote from Jerry in the article: "This script avoids what a lot of plays about 'people in the bunker' fall into," says boom's director Jerry Manning, who's a fan of end-of-the-world stories—like that great old Twilight Zone episode with Burgess Meredith in which a meek reader who survives a nuclear war finally gets time for all of his favorite books. "Usually, you can't really sustain suspense with that scenario, and Peter did. There's not a butt-numbing moment in it."

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.seattleweekly.com/2008-11-12/arts/boom-time/

From the Rehearsal Room: I hear voices!

From Hillary, boom Assistant to the Director/Casting Intern

I have the best seat at the house. Back of the main floor, house right. Tech day 2.

Our director is behind me discussing looks with the lighting designer. In the center section, our sound designer is adjusting cues on a computer that somehow connects him with our sound operator in the booth. Down front, our costume designer is talking about some potential changes with her assistant. It’s awesome that I get such a sneak peak as this show’s design team gets boom up on its feet.

But the best view I have is over our stage manager Elisabeth Farwell’s shoulder. I see her script, filled with notes about blocking (where actors move when). I see the funny-looking machine that connects to her headset. While I can’t hear what comes in through her headset, I know she is connected to our deck hand (a crew member who is in charge of moving scenery, props and curtains), our stage management intern (who helps keep up paperwork and round up the actors), the lighting designer, the sound designer, the light-board operator and the sound operator.

That’s a lot of voices to be talking to one ear (I mean that quite literally—her headset covers one of her ears, leaving the other free to hear what’s going on in the room).

Our stage manager is now coordinating what is going on backstage, onstage, and in the booths. By “in the booths,” I mean the cues that the light-board operator executes (i.e. any light changes) and that the sound operator executes (i.e. any pre-recorded sound). It’s amazing to hear her call a sequence of cues- she feels out when the moment is just right (usually a breath or two before we actually want to see/hear the sequence) and then she’s off! It’s a beautiful and amazing thing to listen to: If character and story are one motor of the show, our stage manager is definitely the other.

The end of the world in four hours

From Joanna, Communications Manager

Boom director Jerry Manning just emerged from tech to check in with life outside of the Leo K.

His inside scoop: "It took four hours to blow up the world."

Free New Play Reading Tonight!

This season, we're partnering with Northwest Playwrights Alliance on a monthly reading series of new plays. The readings are totally free and feature some of Seattle's finest actors. I just got the cast list from our Literary Manager Braden for tonight's reading, at 7 p.m. in the Leo K. Rehearsal Hall:

The play is GULF VIEW DRIVE by Arlene "Beth" Hutton, directed by Braden Abraham (who directed My Name is Rachel Corrie in 2007 and is directing Betrayal in February).

Cast includes:
Susan Corzatte
Shellie Shulkin
Alex Tavares
Peter Dylan O’Connor
Samara Lehrman

Just come to the box office door, and someone will direct you to our rehearsal space. A list of upcoming readings is here.

From the Rehearsal Room: An octopus + hilarity

From Hillary, boom Assistant to the Director/Casting Intern

Fresh off of The Three Musketeers, I’m now in rehearsal for boom. Halfway through our second week of rehearsal, I feel ready to give you a glimpse into our world.

Our world is bigger than the theatre. To get a taste of the marine biology that plays such an important role in the play, we took a trip to the Seattle Aquarium where we bonded with Roberta (our tour guide) and Emrich (a Great Pacific Octopus). Roberta even gave us a “backstage” tour of the labs in the aquarium’s basement.

Our world is a hysterically funny one. As we work our way through the show, our actors sometimes have to take a moment to laugh and enjoy each other’s performances before getting back into character and continuing.

Our world is an extremely collaborative one. I’m in daily contact with the playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, who is sending us re-writes and thoughts as we share with him our questions and discoveries from rehearsal. Our fearless leader (i.e. director) Jerry Manning encourages everyone in the room to contribute—each actor, each designer, our stage managers, and even me!

From where I’m sitting right now, the view is looking good. I’ll be back with more updates soon.

Voting is cool

From Joanna, Communications Manager

Happy Election Day. Please vote.

Beer:30

From Kiki, Audience Development

Have you ever heard of beer:30? I haven't, and I'm from Iowa. We love beer and things that happen on the half hour. But it's a big thing at Seattle Rep. Every Friday in the scene shop they turn off their power drills and pump up the keg for a celebration of the week's hard work. I had never actually attended one, but that all changed last Friday.

During the afternoon, two of our lovely board members were scheduled to stop by to get a chance to meet everyone and spread some love around the Rep. Little did we know that they were also bearing gifts of liquid sunshine. Everyone that they ran into got a fluorescent yellow Smiley-Face Antenna to wear as they finished up their work at their desk (see photo to the right for a slice of the magic). These two were everywhere. Even if you weren't at your desk, they cornered you in the bathroom and made sure that everyone got their Simpsons-esque Mickey Mouse ears. Also, try having a serious conversation with those smiley faces bopping around on your head. You just can't do it.

Once work became too laborious to continue, I headed down to the scene shop for some beer:30 action. Everyone and their theatre-geek brother were there. It was amazing. We gathered in a huge circle and sang a rousing "Happy birthday" to Ben Moore and sliced up some of the most delicious cake. (There is a drool puddle on my desk just from thinking about it) Then the two board members announced that it was time for the raffle that they had planned. Here's the thing, I love raffles. Your name on a carnival ride ticket, the fantasies about beating out your fellow co-workers, getting excited when you hear the "K" sound only to have it end in the name "Karen" and then masking your disappointment. This is the real drama folks.

There were 32 envelopes to raffle off and they gave us clear instructions that they weren't to be opened until all of them were distributed. As they pulled names out of the box each person was applauded as they made their was to the middle of the circle to choose their envelope. When they called my name, I put on a great surprise face as I went to get my envelope. I decided earlier not to boast about the fact that I usually win these types of things. I'm just gifted like that. Finally they called out all 32 names, including a Molly that no one knows who the heck she is, and then we opened our prizes. I ripped open the side, and there he was. U.S. Grant staring me in the face. A crisp 50 dollar bill was in my hand and the five-year-old in me started shouting, "This is the best day of my life!" I was shocked, and happy, and overwhelmed, and grateful. I was basically a Lifetime Movie ready to explode. It was such an amazing gesture for these board members to make towards our staff, and it was certainly a day we'll never forget. Once the raffle was over and I stopped hyperventilating we all hung around to drink beer and have a few laughs. It was a great day to be a member of the Rep team and a great way to be introduced to the legacy that is beer:30.

Foxy Grandpa

From Joanna, Communications Manager

The (huge) cast of You Can't Take it With You, plus the design team and director Warner Shook are in the building. They had their first read-through on Tuesday, and beforehand the company had a meet and greet. We learned from director Warner Shook, among other things, that Kaufman and Hart rejected a few titles before settling on YCTIWY (I don't think he was joking):

Foxy Grandpa
Money in the Bank
They Loved Each Other
The King is Naked
Grandpa's Other Snake

Notes from the 5th Musketeer

From Montana von Fliss, Sabine in The Three Musketeers

Editor's note: Montana wrote this blog for Teen Tix, an awesome program we partner with that provides teens with $5 tickets to Rep shows.

I’m sitting in my dressing room at the Seattle Rep after a student matinee performance that had, in my opinion, our best audience ever! Let me back up and tell you that I’m Montana von Fliss, and I work for Teen Tix, but I’m also a professional actor and I’m thrilled to have a part in The Three Musketeers, which is playing right now at Seattle Repertory Theatre. I play Sabine, D’Artagnan’s feisty sword fighting 17-year-old sister, who tags along for the adventure. She’s not in the original novel but has been added as a sort of 5th Musketeer. (D’Artagnan is generally considered the 4th Musketeer so Sabine is, as I prefer to call her, the 5th Beatle – or "Totally Awesome," as I also like to call her.)

The show has tons of sword fighting and swashbuckling and spectacle. It’s sort of an Indiana Jones in olden times. Pure fun. And today we found our perfect audience: people between the ages 13-18. This morning teenagers from all over this fine state packed the Rep’s huge 850-seat auditorium for our student matinee and laughed and hollered and cheered for the good guys and hissed at the bad guys. It was live theatre with a live-wire audience, and it was brilliant!

So if you’re 13-18 years old, please don’t miss this show. Please come and laugh loudly and boo and hiss and ooh and aah, just like the audiences in the good old bawdy days at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Use your Teen Tix pass and get a $5 ticket to The Three Musketeers before it closes on November 9th – don’t wait!

All for one,
Montana
Teen Tix Duchess

Ednotes - The Three Musketeers

From Drew, Arts Management Intern

Ed Boyd, Lead Telemarketer for the Rep, has once again obliged to share his thoughts on one of our shows. This time it's The Three Musketeers!

Musketeers on Arts Zone tonight

From Joanna, Communications Manager

Sorry for all the quiet in the Rep blogosphere. It would seem that the entire theatre has the plague—including me. Conveniently, though, I was on a cross-country road trip all last week during the height of my bronchitis (not convenient for my traveling partner, but c'est la vie. I made it up to her by buying our beer-battered cheese curds in Wisconsin).

Anyway, back on the blog train with this tidbit: Tonight Arts Zone In Studio with Nancy Guppy is doing a little feature on The Three Musketeers. Check it out at 8:00pm on Channel 21.

Dancing With the Stars

From Kiki, Audience Development Intern

I have yet to understand the appeal of ABC's Dancing with the Stars. I mean, I gave it a fair chance. I watched countless child-stars and over-the-hill icons get dressed up in head-to-toe feathered-spandex suits and pathetically parade around to a repertoire of wedding reception classic ditties. I even gasped along with America as Marie Osmond passed out post-samba (I'm guessing Tom Bergeron's cologne might have had something to do with it). But I never quite understood why this show had such a lasting hold on TV viewers. As a devote Lost and The Office fan, I simply wanted more.

And then, I got more.

On Saturday Oct 4th, the Rep held their annual Gala at the Hyatt Hotel. We raised money for our internship program, honored Rep donor and all-around stud Matthew Clapp, and had a few carnies creeping around on stilts. All around a pretty fun night. But once that 80s band started firing up Don't You Forget About Me and Take on Me, all bets were off. The room exploded into a frenzy of peacock feathers and people dancing off the walls. As I whirled and twirled my black jersey baby doll dress I almost lost my footing as I spun around to find none other than Bill Irwin, with a hoard of female interns circling him, jiving up a storm. He was dipping low and jumping high. We made a dance line and he sashayed right down it without missing a beat. He had the biggest grin stretched across his baby face and was quickly turning into the life of the party. I got to dance with my very own star. Jealous much?

I also know for a fact that he got a kick out of it. He was in contact with Sarah Petty, our Assistant Company Manager, and this is what she had to report:

"Bill Irwin mentioned to me that he had a great time with the interns at the Gala. Not only did he express his fondness over the phone, saying they were such a delight, especially with all of the "Gala hub bub," he appreciated being able to relax with them. He also wrote on a little note 'Tell the interns that Beattle songs and Dance lines are a must for their tenure here.'"

*swoon*

Ednotes - The Night Watcher

From Drew, Arts Management Intern

This is Ed Boyd. He works for the Seattle Rep as a Lead Telemarketer. He has obliged to lay down his Cliffnotes variation for our first show, The Night Watcher!

10,984 steps

From Verhanika, Production Management Intern

I have run up and down stairs more this last week that ever in my life. I recently started wearing a pedometer to see actually how many steps I take in a day to run various errands for various departments.

From the perspective of a production management intern, tech (i.e. technical rehearsal) is one of the most exhilarating times of the play-creation process. This is when all of the energy from my land of Production Management—arranging contracts, taking production meeting notes, facilitating the Assistant Production Manager and Production Manager's needs—comes together. We all hope the cosmic forces align and tech goes off without a hitch, but a few bumps are always expected—and necessary—for the learning process.

Before tech started, Diane (the Assistant Production Manager) and I had a conversation about what to expect, what is expected of me and how I should split my attention. She told me that if I have the choice of sitting in Night Watcher tech or Three Musketeers, to always always always pick Three Musketeers. It's just such a bigger production, and she said I would learn more.

She couldn't have been more right. Did she send me there with the intention of learning about theatre? People? People in theatre? Yes, yes, yes.

Three Musketeers has 22 fight scenes in it and a huge number of scenic elements that fly in and out and travel on tracks. Because of the number of things that have to be rehearsed, everyone in the building wants to ensure the safety of the cast and crew in this show. As a result, all the interns are learning a great deal: from how to determine if or when you should or should not offer help, to when to let your particular supervisor have some personal time on their laptop, to what outfit is more appropriate for what tech day (a 10-hour day: yoga pants and T-shirts, first day back after a break, jeans and professional looking tops).

We've also learned that we have a very good-natured, patient cast. If they were any less jovial and fun-loving, tech rehearsals could have been a chore rather than an adventure.

We're not done yet—we're in previews all this week, fine tuning and preparing for the official opening night on Friday. I am sure the learning and walking will continue at a fervent pace- I logged 10,984 steps yesterday, approximately 4 1/2 miles.

Hundreds of Musketeers Invade Seattle Rep

From Joanna, Communications Manager

This Sunday we hosted something like 250 kids plus their parents for a sold-out matinee of The Three Musketeers. Our Family Day kicked off with a "Musketeers Training Camp" in our lobby. Picture tables of kids making hats, tunics, and wooden swords, and then getting some stage combat training before being knighted as musketeers. It was so great and ridiculously cute. Pictured here to the left is Shawn (front desk), Rob (marketing manager), Lindsay (donor relations manager) and Christian (carpenter). They dressed up as musketeers for our season brochure, and were kind enough to come back and play for Family Day.

Because this show is so popular with families, we're offering the same Family Day special for next Sunday's (Oct. 12) 3 p.m. matinee: one free 18 & under ticket for every full-price adult ticket (we're recommending the play for ages 8 and up). The offer is only available by phone, so call 206-443-2222. (The Training Camp was a one-time affair, though).

Fencing—in our scene shop!

From Joanna, Communications Manager

Apparently everyone has musketeer fever around here. I just happened to walk into the production department a few minutes ago to find a crowd gathered around the huge bank of windows overlooking our scene shop. Haley, our paints intern, had squared off against carpenter Patrick—in full fencing gear, wielding foils (thanks, Olympics, for teaching me that technical term for fencing sword). Apparently outside of working in the Seattle Rep shop, they're both fencers (although word on the street was Haley was kicking Patrick's ass in this fight). Wish I had had my camera. You'll have to use your imagination.

The August Wilson Door

From Drew, Arts Management Intern



I don't usually wander down into the scene shop. To administration kids like me, it's an unknown environment that frightens me in a very meaningful way. Bare-handed soldering of huge pieces of metal; huge paintings of Noel Coward's face; super intimidating facial hair; lots of crazy things. However, recently, I happened to find myself deep within its interior (looking for cookies or something) and stumbled upon a giant door. The August Wilson Door.

Acting as a good Rep blog investigator, I looked into it. Supposedly, there is a path in Seattle Center that is being renamed "August Wilson Way" in honor of the late, great playwright August Wilson. Supposedly, there was a request for an "icon" to be designed to commemorate this path. Supposedly that "icon" looks a lot like a door. A twenty-some foot, 3000 pound invocation of 1839 Wylie Avenue, the house that bookends Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle (the characters live in it in the first and debate the demolition of it in the last). And we here at the Rep made it.

And we do tons of stuff like that. I guess our brilliant carpenters/painters/machinists help out with projects outside the Rep all the time. Well, not all the time, but, if you saw Shrek the Musical at the 5th Avenue, the coolest pieces of the set: yeah, that was them. Now, if they do that kind of work for foreigners . . .

Fiduciary Responsibility

From Drew, Arts Management Intern



Seattle Repertory Theatre is a non-profit entity. This means that we make no money so we can make great art and then ask other people for money so people who want to be moved, inspired, enlightened by the art but can't afford the premium price of world-class theatre, can come anyway. This also means that sometimes, we have to make novel use of scarce resources. Thrifty manuevers to keep our financial situation in order/survive to the next day. Case in point: the "Play a Role" buttons. These marvels of design and craftsmanship were first built for an event for the CREW, the group of successful young professionals who love the Rep. Now if we were a for-profit company, or the 5th Avenue, at the end of the night, those buttons would most likely have met the garbage. But, being good financial stewards, since that day I have seen them at meetings with the Board of Trustees, among countless SRT volunteers, on Managing Director Ben Moore, and, today, at the voter registration booth.

Completely Non-Partisan. (To a point)

From Kiki, Audience Development Intern

For those of you who are deaf, blind, and dead I have breaking news for you: it's election season.

You may not believe me, but there are some people out there amidst the barrage of commercials, slogans, yard signs, and lipstick tubes flying in the air that don't know who the candidates are or why November 4th is a great day to try your first Valium. Worse yet, these people may not even be registered to vote.


To help "play a part" this election season, The Rep has set up its very own makeshift voter registration booth. While the effort is small, our glittery, patriotic table toppers are quite large (see right for some such pizazz). Most of the people that have strolled by on their way to previews of The Night Watcher have saluted our efforts...right before they ask where the bathroom is. But we're excited to be mixing it up and trying to affect our patrons in a larger way. I should also note that our efforts are strictly non-partisan. And by that I mean that we will mail in every single sheet that is filled out by a Democrat.


I'm only kidding. (Again, to a point)