The Quiltmaker's Gift

My show opened Friday and it is extremely cute. Based on a children's book, it is the story of a King who thinks he'll find find happiness in 'things'. He meets a Quiltmaker who makes quilts only for people who need them, not for sale. She refuses to make the king a quilt unless he learns Charity. She promises to make a quilt for him adding a piece for everything he gives away and when he gives away what he treasures most, the quilt will be done.
I would love to take credit for these beautiful pictures, but they were taken by our talented lighting designer, Jason Fassl. The first picture is our Quiltmaker, Liz Baltes, directly above is the Quiltmaker where the king strands her on an island and below, the Quiltmaker dancing with a Bear (Lee Becker - who you may recognize as Ernie the Moocher from my tour of Guys on Ice)


It's really a cute show and our King, local actor/teacher John Maclay is fantastic. The design of the show makes it look very much like a story-book and the characters have done a great job of making our little audiences giggle.



Not to give away the end of the story, but the King does find charity and the Quiltmaker makes him a quilt. There are three beautiful quilts used in the production. The one pictured above is a crazy quilt. All three were made by Milwaukee's Northshore Quilters Guild. They were made specifically for this production and they are fantastic.

Above is part of the cast, all of the children's roles are double cast, so our complete cast is 6 adults and two casts of 10 young performers each. Below are a couple of rehearsal shots. This line of cuties watching rehearsal from under the directors table always made me smile, and the last picture is one of our final rehearsals, our fabulous director, Todd Denning, giving a few last minute notes to the actors.

Conference in Chicago

The Monday and Tuesday after my Birthday I got to go to an expanded board meeting for my union - Actors' Equity Association. It was a great time. We have a new president and executive director and discussed the many positive aspects of the Union and then things that need work and how to make them better.




















Because I am in a liaison city (Chicago is the office city) when I participate in board meetings and committee meetings, it is always by telephone hook-up. The best part of the weekend was getting a chance to put a face with the other liaison voices.

After a long, unseasonably hot day, we all took open air trolleys to Navy Pier and the Skyline room of Chicago Shakespeare for the Regional membership meeting. It was a wonderful view of the city and a great meeting, very exciting.

Overall, it was a little like work, but it was a great birthday weekend!

Bye Summer

I've been back at work for two weeks and it feels like two months! I'm working at the Children's Theatre on a cute show called The Quiltmaker's Gift, a lot of hard work and some fun challenges, and suddenly it's October First!! When did that happen?


But before I went back to work, we had a lovely day at the beach with our friend Jay and his son Dylan (see Pete's Pix for more pictures). It was a beautiful Sunday and we drove up to Kohler/Andre state park and hung out on the beach. Dylan and the dogs dug in the sand and chased sea gulls on the beach while Pete, Jay and I relaxed in the sand and enjoyed some cold adult beverages! It was a great way to say good bye to summer.


We also got to see one more Cardinals game at Miller Park. Of course, as they have been want to do this season, they lost 13-5. But it was still fun to see our boys, or at least the Memphis Redbirds, one more time. We tailgated with friends and had a beautiful night for baseball! Check out that moon!


Even though the summer is over, doesn't mean we have to stop going to the dog park. Our pups still love romping through the trees, the creek and the mud. We had a great time the last Sunday we were there. We hooked up with a pack of about 5 other dogs including two shepherd type mutts that had the same personality as our mutts. There was a lot of running, chasing and rolling around! It was a great day and we had two VERY SLEEPY mutts when we got home!