Tibbits Opera House: Room Service

Showing posts with label Room Service. Show all posts

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Room Service Giveaway

Hello again, faithful readers. This is Charles. I hope by now we have tantalized you into seeing Room Service, the classic Broadway farce now playing at the Tibbits. If you need a little more encouragement, how about a a free ticket?

That's right we are offering a buy-one-get-one-free incentive ONLY to the readers of this blog. It is good only for Saturday night, July 19th. That's closing night of the show where the laughter is bringing down the house.

You must mention the code: RSBlog#1. Since we are doing this at the last minute, you will need to call the Box Office at 517-278-6029 as it is not set up in the online ticketing program.

I would love to see how many readers we have--and rather we have piqued your interest with Eric's behind the scenes look at putting up the show. See you there!

Friday, July 11, 2008

Room Service Performance, Shows One and Two

The rehearsal process is over now, and today we hit the stage and performed for an audience for the first time - and the second time. Today was a double run, meaning we had both a 2pm matinée and an 8pm evening performance. Our volunteer ushers had their work cut out for them preparing enough program flyers for the day.

First, though, for the morning session. I'm also performing in The Tortoise and the Hare and Other Fables by Aesop, part of the Tibbits Popcorn Theatre series for children. We have two more shows Friday and Saturday morning, but we haven't done the show since last week. To refresh our memories - and make sure that the set changeover from Little Women to Room Service hasn't created any problems for us - we had a brush-up rehearsal Thursday morning. It went great, and we'll have no problems re-opening the show tomorrow.

On to the afternoon. The stage manager of a show determines what time the cast is due to report in for a performance. That check-in time is referred to as call. Call times vary with the needs of the show. If the whole cast is in very elaborate costumes, or special makeup, or in a musical that requires time to warm up the voice, call may be an hour or more before the curtain goes up. Room Service has fewer pre-show demands on the actors, so Justin set our call at half an hour.

We're free to show up early, of course, and an actor who doesn't appear on stage until late in the show may be given a call time later than the rest of the cast. We each, by now, have a pretty good idea how long we personally will need to get ready, and we each have different ways of using the time. Some actors prefer to arrive early and get ready long before curtain time, then spend the extra time relaxing in the dressing room or greenroom. Some actors would rather get everything done just in time to hit the stage, because extra time spent waiting makes them nervous and jittery.

Either way, we're kept on track by Justin, who makes regular announcements of the time remaining before the show begins. One important timing mark comes just under a half-hour before curtain, when we hear that the house is open - meaning the ushers have begun showing the audience to their seats in the auditorium. The final announcement comes at two minutes to curtain time, when the stage manager calls us to take our places for the beginning of the show.

Then the house lights go dark, the stage lights come on, the curtain rises - and we begin. I'll talk more about what goes on backstage during a performance in later reports. Today, I'd like to tell you about some of our friends in the community of Coldwater, Michigan, and the special things they did for us on opening day.

The good folks at the United Methodist Church have a kind spot in their hearts for the Tibbits company, and on the days when we have two back-to-back performances they take special care of us by having the whole company over for dinner between shows. After washing off the makeup and changing back into our own clothes, we walked three blocks over to the church, where they had a great buffet with chicken casserole, tacos, rolls, salad, fresh fruit, iced tea, orange juice, coffee and dessert laid out for us. They've hosted meals for us on double-run days for many years now, and besides being grateful for the food, those of us who return to the Tibbits season after season are always happy to see them again. It's a delightful time spent catching up with friends. In the photo above, we raise our glasses to United Methodist volunteers Linda Luce, Diane Godfrey, MaryAnne Bair, Jerry Welborn, Carol Tinervia, and Marianne Hodson. Thanks again for your love and support!

We're just as grateful to the Northwoods Coffee Shop and owner Michelle Milnes, who started a new tradition this year. On opening nights, Northwoods re-opens late after the show, and we have the chance to relax and mingle with some of the folks who've just seen us on stage. It's wonderful to be able to meet and chat with the audience in such a pretty and comfortable place, and both the coffee and the food are excellent. Many of us at Tibbets make Northwoods a regular stop during the day, and the opening night receptions are a special treat - Michelle gave us each a beverage and dessert of our choice on the house!

As for the shows themselves, we couldn't be more pleased with how much the audiences enjoyed themselves. A lot is said about how much actors like the sound of applause, but there's one thing we love even more - the sound of a whole houseful of people helpless with laughter. Our double run on opening day left us very tired, but very very happy. We hope you'll come down and share the fun!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Room Service Rehearsal, Day Eleven

Well, our final dress rehearsal is over. All the last-minute details have been seen to, all the choices have been made, everything about the show - from the sets to the props to the costumes to the lines to the blocking to the bowl of fruit snacks backstage to keep our energy up - are ready.

Other than to thank all of you for joining me backstage by reading the blog, there's little left to say before the curtain goes up. I'll be back with more reports as the show continues its run, but for now I'll leave you with a little gallery of photographs taken during one of our final pre-dress rehearsals by my partner, Rhett Ramirez. Hope to see you at the show!

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Room Service Rehearsal, Day Ten

Prior Reports:
Day 1 - Sunday, 29 June: Read-Through and Act One Blocking
Day 2 - Monday, 30 June: Act Two and Act Three Blocking
Day 3 - Tuesday, 1 July: Act Three Blocking, Publicity, and Working Act One
Day 4 - Wednesday, 2 July: Working Act Two and Meet the Cast
Day 5 - Thursday, 3 July: Run-Through and Meet the Cast
Day 6 - Friday, 4 July: Run-Through and Meet the Cast
Day 7 - Saturday, 5 July: Work Session and Designer's Run
Day 8 - Sunday, 6 July: Load-In*, Hang and Focus, and Running Lines
*Including one-minute timelapse video of the set going up!
Day 9 - Monday, 7 July: Costumes, Props, and Adjusting to the Stage

Tuesday, 8 July: Stage Management, Box Office, and Dress Rehearsal

Hi again! I'm Eric Silvertree, a member of the cast of Room Service, the rollicking farce opening Thursday, 10 July at the historic Tibbits Opera House in Coldwater, Michigan.

Time is speeding by as the show gets ever closer to opening. During the morning session, the technical crew - set, lights, props and costumes - were hard at work finalizing all the details, from repairing the facing on a step that one of us accidentally kicked in, to finishing a hat for one of the ladies, to finding the right mix of Coca-Cola and 7-Up to simulate champagne.

The afternoon session was a run without costumes (except for garments changed on stage as part of the show) and in the evening we had another full dress rehearsal. Yesterday, our biggest concern was adjusting to the move from the rehearsal space to the stage. Today, we were back to concentrating on our acting, polishing our performances, and establishing our personal routines for the show. We and the crew all rely on each other backstage to keep things running smoothly. For example, Robert helps Whitney and Sarah by remaking the beds during the first intermission, Brian and Steve help J.R. with a tricky little bit of costuming before he makes a re-entrance, and I help John maneuver the breakfast cart into place so when the door opens, he can wheel it right on.

You've caught sight of the stage management staff here and there in previous posts, but let's get to know them a little better.

In front is Justin Carroll, the production stage manager. Justin started working with Tibbits Summer Theatre five years ago as an assistant, and is now the man in charge when the show goes live and the director turns over control to stage management. Justin is working toward a degree in theatre technology and design at Central Washington University.

Behind him is Whitney Shouse. Whitney is the assistant stage manager for mainstage shows, and serves as primary stage manager for the Tibbits Popcorn Theatre series for young audiences. Whitney is a theatre major at Hanover College in Indiana.

At the lighting control console in back is Ben Paciorkowski, the master electrician. From this nest off to the side of the stage, Ben and Whitney perform the technical aspects of the show - raising the curtain, ringing the telephone on the set, controlling the lights on stage and in the auditorium - while Justin gives them their cues from his post in a booth behind the last row of seats in the balcony. Justin, Whitney, and Ben are in constant communication by headset microphone, and Justin also makes announcements to the actors thorough speakers in the dressing rooms.

We also have dedicated folks keeping things going at the Tibbits year-round. Joan Spaulding is the darling lady in charge of keeping things tidy throughout the building. Cleaning our individual dressing room spaces is each actor's responsibility, but then there's the auditorium, the lobby, the downstairs intermission space with art gallery and gift shop…

Dave Brown is the house technical director, making sure the lights and fans work for us on both floors of dressing rooms, for instance, as well as working with the community theater and other performance groups that use the opera house when Tibbits Summer Theatre is not in season. I never know when I'm going to come across either Joan or Dave when I zip through the place at random odd hours, and Joanie always has a sweet smile and a laugh for me, and Dave's always ready with a new joke.

There are a lot of people involved in mounting a production - not just the actors you see strutting their stuff in the light. We all work hard to bring the show together - and by now, I hope you're as eager to see the production as we are to present it. Here are the friendly people to talk to for tickets!

That's box office manager Jo Summitt on the left, with assistant manager Vanessa Bloom on the right. In the second photo are Shannon McKinney and Sam Haberl.

They'll be very happy to reserve your seats - either in person, or at 517.287.6029. The box office is open from 10am to 5pm every weekday, 9am to 4pm on Saturdays, plus at 7pm (an hour before curtain time) on all dates with evening shows. Room Service opens on Thursday with two shows - a matinée at 2pm and an evening performance at 8pm. We continue Friday and Saturday at 8pm both nights. The following week, we re-open on Wednesday with a 2pm matinée, then complete the run with 8pm shows on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) we have our final rehearsal before we open the doors and bring up the curtain - and your backstage pass with me on the blog will go on all through the run of the show. More coming soon!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Room Service Rehearsal, Day Nine

I'm sure you noticed some props and furniture pieces gradually replacing the folding chairs that stood in for the real things during rehearsals at the Jefferson Elementary School gym. On Monday, however, we got our hands on all the genuine articles we'll be using in the show. Minor additions and changes will continue right up to the final rehearsal, but all the departments try to make sure that the technical aspects of the show are as close to finished as possible for the first on-stage run.

Properties master Sarah Simrau had her work cut out for her - there are three and a half pages of fine print on the last pages of the script, listing the props called for in the action of the play - and none of them are allowed to look as though they were manufactured in the twenty-first century. Period suitcases, doctor's bag, dinnerware, linen and towels, a typewriter in a carrying case - all have to be either found, made, or modified from items in the Tibbits stock.

It all looks like a pile of mess as it's brought in, but Sarah and assistant stage manager Whitney Shouse quickly get things organized. Props are either pre-set in the right locations on the set or laid out on tables backstage, with a specific place for each prop, so that we actors always know exactly where everything is and can easily grab what we need and get back on stage.

Lights and set also have some details to attend to, like wiring the lighted sconces attached to the wall above the side tables by the beds. Here you can see Whitney and master electrician Ben Paciorkowski hooking up power to a bell ringer that has the right sound for a 1930's telephone and can be controlled from the light operator's station.

During the morning session, while the crew was busy working on the stage, the actors met in the greenroom. Nobody can agree on why the room set aside for actors to relax offstage as they're waiting to go on is called the greenroom, but it's been called that since at least the beginning of the eighteenth century. Ours is down a flight of stairs from the door opening onto the back of the stage, and it's the perfect spot for the whole cast to go through the dialogue of the whole show from beginning to end, talking our way through the script one last time before we start doing it on a set with stairsteps and doors and furniture and props in our hands.

After lunch, we walked around on the set for a few minutes to get used to the space, and then we began our first onstage run-through. We've been rehearsing on a flat floor without walls up until now, pretending to be holding papers and dishes and things, so we were all a little distracted the first time through, and kept forgetting our lines. That's not a problem - the director expects it to happen, and so do we. When an actor goes blank in rehearsal, he or she doesn't (and shouldn't) waste time apologizing for it. Instead, we just shout "Line!" Someone - usually Justin Carroll, the stage manager - has a script right in front of him, ready to feed us a few words to get us back on track. There comes a point, of course, when we're expected to recover from problems on our own (since we can't shout "Line!" during a performance) but that point doesn't come until we've had a chance to get used to the stage.

For the evening session, we added costumes to the mix. We've paid individual visits to the costume shop for fittings at various times during the last week, but this was our first time wearing them for a dress rehearsal, or rehearsal in costume. Getting used to our clothes, and when we change them for different scenes, is another distraction, but we all settled in very quickly. In fact, I think I was the only one who called "Line!" during the evening dress.

Costuming a show set in the 1930's - or any other historical period - presents the same challenges as gathering props. All the garments have to have to be in the right style, with no obvious color or fabric choices from the wrong era. Some of the clothes are simply pulled from the Tibbits inventory, and some are constructed from scratch. Let's meet the costumers!

In front is Melissa Swanson, the designer for Room Service. Behind Melissa is Kathleen Reid, and behind Kathleen is Em Rossi. Kathleen recently earned her BFA at the University of Central Missouri, and Em is working toward her MFA at Wayne State University. They all share the work as stitchers for every show, but they divide the design responsibilities up. Em designed Little Women, which just closed, and is working on the upcoming show The Goodbye Girl, which follows Room Service. Melissa will design again for The Bop She Bops, and Kathleen is in charge of all the shows in the Popcorn Theatre series for children.

Now that we're on the stage, and into the dress rehearsal phase, we're almost ready to open. Tuesday and Wednesday will be our time to work out the last of our hesitations and uncertainties as we prepare to open the show to the public on Thursday. I'll talk to you again soon!

Monday, July 7, 2008

Room Service Rehearsal, Day Eight

Prior Reports:
Day 1 - Sunday, 29 June: Read-Through and Act One Blocking
Day 2 - Monday, 30 June: Act Two and Act Three Blocking
Day 3 - Tuesday, 1 July: Act Three Blocking, Publicity, and Working Act One
Day 4 - Wednesday, 2 July: Working Act Two and Meet the Cast
Day 5 - Thursday, 3 July: Run-Through and Meet the Cast
Day 6 - Friday, 4 July: Run-Through and Meet the Cast
Day 7 - Saturday, 5 July: Work Session and Designer's Run

Sunday, 6 July: Load-In*, Hang and Focus, and Running Lines
*timelapse video

Hello again! Eric Silvertree reporting from the Tibbits Opera House in Coldwater, Michigan, on all the preparations here for our production of Room Service, the classic 1937 comedy by John Murray and Allen Boretz.

After the Saturday designers' run came the final performance of Little Women. Once the audience had gone home and the actors changed out of their costumes and cleaned off their makeup, it was time to strike the set. To strike something is to move it off the stage, and everybody in the company - even those not otherwise working on a particular show - participates in strike at the end of a show's run. Chuck Griffin, our technical director, is the man in charge at strike, and under his well-organized leadership, we had the Little Women set dismantled, piled on a trailer, trucked over to the scene shop, and unloaded in just a little over an hour.

Of course, we were all pretty tired at the end, but we were in a very good mood, because earlier that afternoon at the end of the designers' run, our director for Room Service, Charles Burr, had announced to the cast that he was making a change in the schedule. Because the show is so fast and takes so much energy to perform, and because rehearsals had been going so well, he'd decided to give us the whole day off on Sunday! After a few seconds of stunned silence, we all cheered. Imagine playing tennis or basketball flat-out for three hours at a time, two or three times a day, for a whole week, and you'll have some idea how most of us were feeling Saturday night - even before we started striking Little Women.

I spent a leisurely Sunday morning at the laundromat, and then a few of us who have a huge amount of dialogue (or have been memorizing more than one show at a time) got together on the front porch of the company house to spend a few hours running lines. Running lines is something actors do on their own time. One actor, or a helpful friend, will hold the script and follow along while the others practice. The book-holder will read any parts that belong to an actor who isn't there, and will interrupt the rest of us if we skip a line or make a mistake. We concentrate purely on the words, without worrying about movement, emotion, or delivery. It's a very intense memorization technique, even more focused than working a scene. If one of us keeps getting stuck on a particular line or two, we may do that half-page over and over dozens of times until it's perfect.

Meanwhile, on the stage, Chuck and Lex were overseeing the rest of the load-in process. Load-in, for a set, is the opposite of strike. Let's meet the fine folks on the set construction crew.

Chuck Griffin, the technical director, is in the center, and Lex vanBlommestein, set designer, is all the way to the left. Kyle Garrelts, our technical theatre intern, is standing between Lex and Chuck. Kyle starts working on his BFA in technical theatre this fall at the University of Wyoming. The gentlemen on the right are Charlie Cochran, carpenter, and Chris Otwell, master carpenter. Charlie has a degree from ITT in Phoenix, Arizona, and Chris is working toward his MFA at Wayne State University.

The set was constructed and pre-painted at the Tibbits scene shop, and we carried all the pieces of Room Service in and stacked them against the back wall during the Little Women strike. On Sunday, it was time to put it all together. Thanks to Chris, we have a series of photographs taken at five-minute intervals, enough to make a short video showing the construction of Room 920 at the White Way Hotel in Times Square, New York City.

^ ^ ^ Click the play button above to watch the video

Once the set is up, it's time for the lighting crew to work their magic. Lights for theatre are referred to as instruments, and each instrument needs to be hung in place, aimed, and focused to make sure both the actor's faces and the entire set are clearly illuminated, without unwanted shadows, hot spots, or gaps. The color of the light is controlled with gel, sheets of colored heat-resistant plastic held in frames in front of each instrument's lens. Even shows without visible color effects have a gel in every light.

That's Kat Lanphear, lighting designer, on the left, and up on the ladder adjusting an instrument is Ben Paciorkowski, the master electrician. Ben has a BA from Hanover College, and starts working on his MFA at Purdue this fall. Together they test each instrument, individually and as part of the complete lighting scheme, until the whole setting has the right atmosphere for the show.

On Monday, we actors get our first chance to rehearse on the actual set. More about that, and about the props and costumes for Room Service, in my next report. So long for now!

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Room Service Rehearsal, Day Seven

Prior Reports:
Day 1 - Sunday, 29 June: Read-Through and Act One Blocking
Day 2 - Monday, 30 June: Act Two and Act Three Blocking
Day 3 - Tuesday, 1 July: Act Three Blocking, Publicity, and Working Act One
Day 4 - Wednesday, 2 July: Working Act Two and Meet the Cast
Day 5 - Thursday, 3 July: Run-Through and Meet the Cast
Day 6 - Friday, 4 July: Run-Through and Meet the Cast

Saturday, 5 July: Work Session and Designer's Run

Hello! I'm Eric Silvertree, a member of the acting company with Tibbits Summer Theatre in Coldwater, Michigan, bringing you yet another backstage report on the rehearsals for Room Service, the mile-a-minute comedy opening this Thursday, 10 July.

This is the end of the first week of rehearsal, and also the opening morning of the other show I'm acting in at the moment. The Tortoise and the Hare and Other Fables by Aesop is part of Tibbits Popcorn Theatre for young audiences. The Popcorn shows are performed on Friday and Saturday mornings at 10am. Because of the holiday, the theater was dark all day yesterday - which means there were no shows scheduled. Also because of the holiday, our audience for Aesop was relatively small. A little over a hundred kids came to see the show, which was pretty much what we'd expected.

Besides the free popcorn and juice during intermission, Popcorn Theatre shows feature a meet-and-greet after every performance, where the audience can get autographs and their parents can take pictures of them with the cast. With a small audience, the reception went by quickly, and I was able to make it to the morning Room Service rehearsal before it was halfway over. When I got there, we were in the middle of working Act 3.

The afternoon session was the designer's run. The heads of all the technical departments were in attendance for a complete run-through of the show. The designer's run is a final check for props, costumes, lighting, and set, so that they know - for example - whether a water pitcher on stage will actually need water in it or not, and which corners of the set need to be lit for actors' faces, and which just need lighting for atmosphere.

We'll be moving onto the actual set on Monday, and although there are always a few minor surprises and hiccups when we make the transition, all the departments (including the actors) do everything they can to make the transition as smooth as possible. You've met the cast. Let me introduce you to the designers.

First, on the left, is Sarah Simrau. Sarah is the properties master. Properties, or props, are any objects in the show which are moved or handled by the actors. In Room Service, that includes things like luggage, newspapers, champagne bottles, a stuffed and mounted deer's head, a serving cart of real breakfast for three of the actors to wolf down on stage, and much much more. Sarah has a theatre degree from Mid-Michigan Community College, and interned at the Florida Studio Theatre before joining the staff at Tibbits.

Next is Lex vanBlommestein, the set designer. Sets are anything on stage that doesn't get moved around. The walls and doors are part of the set, of course, but so are the furniture and decorative objects arranged on them. Lex holds an MFA in scenic design from Wayne State University, and is soon to take up a professorship at Southern Illinois University.

Moving on, we come to Melissa Swanson, costume designer. Costumes, obviously, are the clothes that the actors wear on stage, but her department also covers things like the actors' hair and makeup styles. Melissa is a student at Western Illinois University majoring in both art history and costume design.

And on the right is Kat Lanphear, the lighting designer. In addition to the lights for the show, her department has a hand in anything on stage that requires electricity and remote control. Kat has a degree from Alma College, and is working toward her lighting design MFA at Wayne State University.

The boundaries between these departments are not rigid. Lex and Sarah collaborate on the knickknacks that dress the set. Sarah and Melissa work together on the items of clothing that aren't actually worn but are tossed around as props. Kat and Lex consult on the light fixtures mounted on the walls in the room. And, of course, they all work together with the director to make sure that the actors look the way he wants them to in their costumes on the set when they're lit and carrying props.

My next report will be a closer look at the stage as the set goes up and the lights get focused on Sunday. Be back soon!

Room Service Rehearsal, Day Six

My daily routine is pretty familiar to you by now: rehearsal for The Tortoise and the Hare and Other Fables by Aesop in the morning, Room Service in the afternoon, and the evening off to study my lines and run my errands - not actually part of the schedule, you understand. I only have evenings off because I'm not in the current mainstage production of Little Women.

Today would have been different if it weren't a holiday weekend. Aesop is part of the Tibbits Popcorn Theatre series for young audiences, and Popcorn shows have their opening "nights" every other Friday morning - but families' plans for the Fourth of July usually don't include dropping the kids off for an hour. It's not cost-effective to burn electricity to light a show when everyone's out of town or at the lake. Therefore, Aesop will open on Saturday instead, and we used the time to get in another round of rehearsal. For the same reason, there's no performance of Little Women tonight. We figure everybody in Coldwater will be at the fireworks show instead - and since Tibbits is giving everyone in the company the evening off, that includes most of us!

So, in a roundabout way, the fact that it's a holiday means my workday worked out to be exactly what it's been all week. At 2pm, I and my fellow cast members were in the gym at Jefferson Elementary School for another run-through of Room Service. Each run-through gets smoother and sharper as we gain confidence in our lines and refine our acting choices under the watchful eye of our director, Charles Burr.

Enough about the schedule - let's talk about the rest of the cast. Some scripts are written with one or two dominant characters, called the leads, while others are written as ensemble pieces, in which the entire cast has roughly equal stage time. Because farces depend so much on multiple relationships and interactions among wildly different characters, even a farce with an identifiable lead (in Room Service, that would be the role of Gordon Miller) has a strong ensemble feel, and needs strong actors in every part.

To the left is Ken Washburn, who plays Senator Blake, president of the company which owns the White Way Hotel. This feisty Southern gentleman has a strong opinion on every topic, from the right amount of credit to extend a guest, to the kind of message a proper American stage play should present - and from his position of power, nobody else's opinion matters at all.

In the center is Kevin McDaniel, playing Simon Jenkins. Jenkins is an investing agent who represents a man so wealthy he can afford to bankroll an entire Broadway production just to give his stage-struck mistress a little something to occupy her time - as long as nobody knows the money came from him. Jenkins handles his business with the utmost discretion, and his job has never caused his heart condition the least bit of stress - until he met Gordon Miller.

To the right is Robert Dozzi, as a messenger from the bank that handles the hotel's finances. With the Great Depression in full swing, high-powered executives are just as nervous about money as any group of starving actors - if not more so. In that kind of atmosphere, whole fortunes depend on the messengers, and this young man doesn't do his job halfway. If he can't find you in your office, he'll track you down, and one piece of paper in his hand can spell the difference between success and ruin.

And finally, our cast is rounded out with the presence of George Spelvin. No authentic photographs of Mr. Spelvin exist - and who am I to buck tradition? His name has appeared in literally hundreds of stage programs, in a career that has spanned decades. He's a legend in the American theatrical tradition, with roles in comedies, tragedies, and musicals - there's nobody better to portray Timothy Hogarth, the representative of a collection agency called We Never Sleep.

Now you've met the cast - in my next report, you'll meet the designers, as they attend a run-through held specifically for them. Stay tuned!