Surprise Sign on Our Van!

On Monday this week we performed at Madison Simis School in Phoenix. After our third show we were loading up the van, and we found this AWESOME sign on the windshield! Thanks to Mrs. Gordons class for making our day!

On the Road

Three weeks of tour have taken us to Tempe, Paradise Valley, Phoenix, Glendale, Anthem and Tucson so far. As a cast, we are starting to settle into a bit of a routine on the road. Being a cast of six actors, we rarely ride in the van together. First of all, there are only five seats in the van. But most days, Anthony Toudjarov (The Captain) and Eric Boudreau (Lelio) who live on the west side of Phoenix will save some time and drive directly to the school where we are performing. On trips out of town, like our trip to Tucson last week, we have to take two vehicles.

In the van, or the following car, we have had some serious and not so serious conversations. The favorite topics of conversation currently seem to be about the Fox television shows “So You Think You can Dance” and “Glee.” Kate Haas (Isabella) has won the award of grossest story so far, although Jeremiah Neal (The Lion) came in a close second after a conversation about the Big Texan Restaurant in Amarillo, Texas where you can get a free 72 ounce steak if you can eat it and all the trimmings in an hour. Kate is a master of the word puzzle and we all enjoy trying to find answers to fill-in-the-blank pun puzzles like: “Is it mutton and veal you have a hankering, or is it for ______________ ?” (The answer is at the bottom of this posting.)

We’ve fallen in to a rhythm loading and unloading the set, and everyone seems to know what his or her assignment is although we never discussed it. For instance, Jeremiah is the van packer. He is the one who has figured out where each piece of the set goes in the van so it all fits. His nemesis is a bar stool that never fits in the van the same way twice. We’ve only left a couple of dollies behind us at Roadrunner Elementary, which were rescued promptly by the cast of Ferdinand the Bull who performed there two days later.

Before the show begins we get a personal concert from Jesse or Jeremiah on the guitar. Recently we’ve been inspired by the Dubie Brothers and George Micheal as Jeremiah riffs on his guitar strolling over the stage while we all warm up and sing along. We have success performing Lazzi with the students as they file in to see the show, and the younger students have a clear affinity for the slapstick.

As with all tour shows, our performances differ each day according to the space we are in. Sometimes the students are really close to us in an intimate space and sometimes they are in cavernous gymnasium, and we struggle to articulate over the din of a ventilation system. But these struggles are small ones. I often feel that I’m being paid lavishly in smiles. I’m thinking of one performance in particular.

That day we had a group of students enter the cafeteria just as we were beginning our show. It was an after-school program so there was a mix of grades spilling into the space. There were some girls who looked to be sixth graders whispering and laughing with one another. I immediately thought that they may be too old for the show and would talk a lot during our performance. However, I was proved wrong. They quickly got engaged in the story. One girl in particular sat with her chin resting in her hands and just smiled almost the entire show. Every time I looked out in the audience and saw her, there she was smiling again. It wasn’t the kind of smile you often see. She was relaxed and her smile was for no one but herself. She wasn’t smiling at her friends or at us as performers. In fact, I don’t even think she was aware she was smiling. She was lost in the story.

Those smiles are priceless. That’s what makes the road a fun and rewarding place to be. Oh, and the answer is porcupine. But you have to say it like this “porc-u-pine” for the pun to work!

Tour Begins - Day 1!

Our first day on tour took us to Faith North Montessori School near downtown Phoenix. We arrived in our Childsplay logo wrapped vehicles (thank you NASCAR Angels) and of even some of the actors were decked out Childsplay tee-shirts. It was a very exciting, official beginning and everything went very smoothly. Our stage manager, Alfredo Macias and Childsplay’s Assistant Production Manager, Gretchen Schafer, joined us today, which really helped us succeed.


A tour show requires us to drive out to the school, unload our set into the space provided, do the show and the reload then set back into the vans before we depart. After a few months on the road everything becomes clockwork, but the first day everything feels unfamiliar. “What box is my stomach pad in?” “Where’s my mask?” “How does this go together again?” “Which way do the rocks go (in the van)?” These were a few of the questions actors posed today.


So the logistics of touring Andorcles and the Lion were brand new to all of us. However, we’ve been doing the show for weeks now and performing it is very familiar to us, except for the slippery floors that is. At the top of the show we looked more like figure skaters than actors. But we quickly got our feet underneath us (with very small steps all day) and the show turned out to be a fun one.


My favorite moment from our day today was the reaction from the students to the Lion’s entrance. A school show is so different from a show in the theatre. First of all the children are much more comfortable in their own cafeteria than in a theatre. So you get reactions from the kids that are completely uncensored. Second, the kids are so much closer to the actors than in the theatre, so they are even more involved in the story and tend to talk directly to you. The actors can see every student and every teacher, and today I literally could have reached out and touched the children in the front row from the stone I sit on down stage.


So, now that you get a feel for the intimacy of the space we were in with three-hundred children, you’ll understand why all of them, and especially the kindergartners who sit in front, screamed their heads off when Jeremiah entered as the Lion. He rushed downstage growling and they all screamed at the top of their lungs!! It was pandemonium for a few moments.


There is also a moment in the play when all the actors make birdcalls and the Lion demands “silence.” Well all the children today joined us and made birdcalls too! This leads me to what I (re)learned today: kids will get ahead of you if you let them because they are SMART!


Fun tidbit for tomorrow’s show: Eric Boudreau, who plays Lelio, committed to bring doughnuts for the entire cast! Yum!!

Back in Our Masks!

This past week has been a hectic one for our cast and crew at the Tempe Center for the Arts (TCA). We spent last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in rehearsals creating a new show with a new Lion: Jeremiah Neal. As I mentioned in my last blog, Jeremiah took on the task of replacing Scott Jeffers as the Lion. We started working on the music on Tuesday morning, and we had our first run through by Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday we had two dress rehearsals and by Friday we were in front of our first audiences as a new cast. By any standard Jeremiah’s dedication to the task and mastery of the part was an amazing feat to witness. Of course it helped all of us to be back up with the show and moving forward after losing Scott.


Saturday afternoon was particularly special as we had many, many friends attend in a strong show of support. For me, it felt wonderful to hear laughter again all weekend, but Saturday afternoon filled all of us performers with energy and appreciation for our friends. We received flowers, cards of encouragement, cookies, doughnuts and even best wishes from our friends at the Seattle Children’s Theatre, all of which filled the day with joy for our work.


Monday was a much-appreciated day off for the cast and crew. We returned Tuesday morning for a show that included a particularly exceptional mishap on stage. In the play Androcles and the Lion have a fight part of which includes Androcles pulling on the Lion’s tail. Well in this performance the tail decided it didn’t want to be pulled and tore right off of Jeremiah’s costume! The tail became an instant hot potato between us, and Jeremiah had to carry the tail around with him for the rest of the scene, which was quite amusing to me. Once Jeremiah was off stage, the rest of the cast tied the tail onto Jeremiah’s costume with twine. A Lion cannot go on without his tail!


This coming weekend will be our last at the TCA. It will begin with Scott Jeffer’s memorial service on Saturday morning at 10AM in the main theatre. A memorial picnic is planned at the Tempe Town Lake Park from 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM that afternoon. We will be performing Androcles and the Lion at 1PM and 4PM on Saturday, and a final two performances on Sunday afternoon at 2PM. We hope you can join us for any or all of what will certainly be a celebration of life.

Opening Day: October 31, 2009

Our opening performance surprised all of us. So many little things happened this day to make it very special: a beautiful gift basket delivered to our dressing rooms from the Managing Director of Childsplay, Steve Martin, lots of friends and family members in the audience, gifts (Aesop’s Fables books) and cards from our director D. Scott Withers, origami lions from Kate Haas, Smucker’s Uncrustable sandwiches (a tradition started by Jon Gentry), and of course the extra adrenaline that comes with opening day. On-stage trick-or-treating for all the kids who came also added a sense of excitement to the day. What we didn’t know was that it would the last performance we would share with Scott Jeffers, the Lion.

Scott Jeffers passed away around 8PM, October 31, 2009 after suffering a heart attack in the dressing room immediately after the show. He was thirty-eight years old, and that afternoon he gave all of us the performance of his life.

From the very beginning, when we started our pre-show lazzi, things were clicking. We finished to a long and appreciative round of applause at the end of the show.

It was Scott’s final expression of his life and all of us on the cast and crew will hold this performance close to our hearts for the rest of our lives. He got a huge round of applause after singing his “Roar How You Feel” solo, featuring a high A note that is the envy of all the men on the cast. I have an entrance immediately following this song, and I had to hold for several seconds hesitant to enter and cut off the appreciation he was receiving.

You have to understand that Scott worked very hard on this role. I would often arrive early to the rehearsal hall only to find Scott already there. He would be working in front of the mirrors with his mask or working on his choreography. He and I ran our thorn scene many times outside of rehearsal as he mastered “talking” as the lion. During those rehearsals we would fist-bump before starting the scene. That tradition continued to our performances. Before this scene we would have a few moments to ourselves behind the cave curtain. Scott would always hold up a fist for me to bump and then we would tear out onto the stage together.

Beyond the singing, dancing and acting, the role Scott played included about fifty different Foley cues, which are short sounds played on small percussion instruments to accent actions on stage. It also required Scott to accompany other singers on the guitar. He also had to play a tune while delivering lines… not an easy task. And yet he mastered all of it and made it look easy. As we got closer and closer to opening day his timing only improved, and it made our opening performance very tight.

Scott relished this role. He was proud to be an actor for Childsplay, and he was very proud to play the Lion. I told him during preview week that when he put on that lion mask, he was so committed to the character that he ceased to be Scott to me. He became a lion. He made some superb comic choices that everyone enjoyed. A couple of favorite moments: picking berries from a bush and mocking Androcles for saying “I thought a lion was brave….”

Scott’s death created a huge void in our show and cast. So much happened the 48 hours after his death. Shows were canceled for the week. A memorial service was arranged for Scott on November 14, 2009 at 10:00 AM at the Tempe Center for the Arts. Childsplay offered the beautiful main theater at the TCA to Scott’s family for the memorial. It will be a fitting location. As well, Stray Cat Theatre, where Scott worked on multiple shows, set up a memorial fund to help Scott’s family with the hospital bills. Easley’s Costume Shop, where Scott worked for years, generously agreed to take care of the funeral costs.

Losing an actor had never happened before in Childsplay’s history. After a two-day break to deal with the loss, our cast gathered at the home of Childsplay’s Artistic Director, David Saar. We discussed what to do next and shared our favorite moments with Scott. The evening was necessary and healing for all of us. Outside in the cool of a beautiful Tempe evening, we all felt lighter and happier for the time we had with Scott. David Saar also took the occasion to let the cast know that he and Scott Withers had found a replacement: Jeremiah Neal agreed to take on the role. Jeremiah is an accomplished musician with his own band and has worked at Childsplay in previous seasons.

So this week we are back in rehearsals creating a new show. It will be a new Androcles and the Lion. We are all determined to continue, as Scott would have wanted us to. Our new cast member, Jeremiah, has spent the last two days trying to learn a complex and demanding part and is doing wonderfully. He has already started to give the show new life with passionate accompaniments and some new comic choices that have us all laughing. We plan on performing this weekend with shows on Saturday and Sunday at 1 and 4 PM. We are all grateful to have Jeremiah with us so we can continue the show and complete our tour.

Scott Jeffers died doing what he loved. He ended his life with a beautiful expression of joy, love, friendship and true artistry. Everyone who witnessed his final expression here on Earth will hold it sacred. Thank you, Scotty! We will carry you to every performance in our hearts.

Preview Week at Androcles and the Lion

This week at the Tempe Center for the Arts, Androcles and the Lion has had a week of previews. There were five preview performances in all, with our final preview performance tomorrow Saturday, October 31 at 1:00 PM. Our opening performance will follow at 4:00 PM.

So what is the difference between a preview performance and a regular performance? A preview performance is really important for the actors, the director and the crew of a show. Let me explain why.

Preview performances give the actors an audience for the first time. A show is never complete until the audience is added. During rehearsals the actors and directors work very hard to make the show just right, but until they see how the audience reacts to the show they can’t put the finishing touches on it. Preview performances give the actors and directors the chance to collaborate and make final adjustments that make a show even better than it was in rehearsal.

After each performance during this preview week, the director, D. Scott Withers, the music director, Jonathan Ivie, the stage manager, Alfredo Macias and the actors all gather backstage to review how the show went. The director, music director and the stage manager give each actor “notes.” A note is a direction to help the actor improve their performance or the show as a whole.

For example, yesterday, Scott and Jonathan felt that the final number of the show needed some tweaks. So after the preview and completing our “notes session” we all returned to the stage to work on the final number. We added some new vocals to make the song even better.

This week we were fortunate enough to have full houses for all of our preview performances. Each audience shared generous laughs and lots of reactions that have made our show even better. So next time you go to a preview performance remember that you are really part of the making of a play!

Commedia del Arte

Androcles and the Lion is done in the style of Commedia del Arte.

Commedia del Arte is a style of comic theatre started in Italy and was extremely popular from the mid-1500s to the mid-1700s. It is the style which gave us "slapstick" comedy (think The Three Stooges). In fact, the term "slapstick comedy" comes to us because of a prop called a slapstick that was used by some of the characters to hit or beat other characters in a comic way.


Commedia performances always had stock characters, many of whom wore masks. Stock characters that you will find in our production are Arlechino, Pantalone, Capitano and Lelio and Isabella (the lovers). Often these characters had very specific ways that they moved and acted and audiences in Italy came to expect certain behaviors and actions from each character.


The story lines were often very similar in structure, but were very rarely scripted...the actors would improvise their lines (make them up as they went along) to tell the familiar stories. In our show, the typical plot of the lovers being prevented from marrying by the miser, Pantalone, becomes a key element.


Below are some illustrations of what the stock characters would have looked like back in the time of Italian Commedia. Look at them and see how they compare to what we have done with costumes when you come see the show!

Comedy and Candy!!

Hi All!

I hope you will all plan to join us for our opening performance on October 31st at 4pm at the Tempe Center for the Arts!

Androcles and the Lion was a total blast to direct and this cast is so much fun to watch. Not only are they great actors with amazing comic abilities but all of them play instruments throughout the show! Who knew that David Dickinson (Androcles) was a virtuoso on the violin?!!

And don't forget, as an added bonus, if you wear a Halloween costume to either show on Saturday (1pm = final preview and 4pm = opening) you can trick or treat at the actors "houses" on stage. Comedy and Candy!! What could be better than that?

Hope to see you all this weekend!

Scott Withers
Director

Welcome to the Androcles and the Lion Blog!

Welcome to the official blog of Childsplay's Androcles and the Lion! My name is David Dickinson, and I'm playing Androcles in the play. We will be opening this coming Saturday, October 31, Halloween Day! We will be performing the show at the Tempe Center for the Arts until November 15th. We will then go on the road with the show all year throughout the state of Arizona completing the tour in May 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. This blog will chronicle our trek over the boards and across the state.

We started a month ago with our first read of the play, and after a stream of crazy creative rehearsals, our cast is very excited to finally be able to perform in front of audiences. We had our first preview to a packed house yesterday the Studio at the Tempe Center for the Arts.

The play is in classic Commedia dell'arte style. This means music with the actors playing all the instruments, masks, singing and dancing and highly stylized acting. We begin each performance with "lazzi" which are semi-rehearsed, but mostly impromptu, comic situations that a commedia troupe would perform. The lazzi start the fun and are different every day.

Each of the actors is playing a stock character from Commedia. For example, Androcles is actually the stock character of Arlecchino or the Harlequin. We also have the Captain (Anthony Toudjarov), the Pantalone (Jesse Berger) the two Lovers (Kate Haas and Eric Boudreau) and of course a lion (Scott Jeffers)! The Commedia dell'arte style not only gives a young audience constant and captivating action, but gives the play a connection to theatre's roots which makes this play a unique experience for all theatre goers.

The play is written by Aurand Harris, directed by D. Scott Withers and scored by Glenn Mack. However, the music is adapted beautifully by Jonathan Ivie. The play is a classic for young audiences. I hope you can come out and see this story of friendship come to life!