The Comedy of Errors at USF

Here are the pictures of my set drawings and the theater.



Also some of our costume drawings.


Egeon is an old man who is the father of twin boys. 33 years ago, they were separated and he lost his wife and one of the twins at sea. Seven years ago, the remaining son set out with his servant (who also has a twin brother who was lost at sea with his master's brother and mother) in search of his twin and mother. At the beginning of our story, Egeon has been looking for his son for 2 years when he stumbles into an enemy city where the penalty for being from his home town of Syracuse is death. When he tells his story, the Duke of the city gives him one day to try to raise his bail.

In the mean time, his son has also stumbled into the town, with his servant. Little do they know, their long lost twin brothers live in this town. And the hilarity ensues.

It should be a fun production! I know the rehearsals have been a lot of fun so far.

More summer work

So here I am in Utah. This is the view from the front door of my office. The stage management team (12 of us) are in a house about a block from the two theater spaces. It's very cozy! The third picture is my apartment. I am in the garden unit closest to where I am taking the picture. It was a busy first week full of prep work all gearing up for tomorrow when all the actors arrive and we begin rehearsals.

Today (Sunday - our day off) we had brunch as a stage management department and several of our crew chiefs and electricians also participated. It was a great meal and good to get a head start on putting names with faces. At the height of the festival, there are more than 400 people here, luckily I don't have to learn all their names at once!!

Only 10 days until Pete joins me here - yes, I am counting down.

Dad's Birthday in St. Louis

Yes, it's a little behind, but I have been very very busy!! Here are some pictures from our celebration of Dad's birthday. There were presents, there was a cookie cake (yum) and it was even cool enough outside for some washers.

After a fantastic lunch of steaks on the grill, we played a game of NHL monopoly and it was an early evening. Which left plenty of time to play more Scrabble and cards!

It was the perfect end to a lovely and relaxing evening.

Summer 2009 baseball begins!

Although we already made it to two Brewer games before my show opened, the official summer baseball season began last week when we headed down to St. Louis to enjoy our Christmas Present from Pete's parents. Tuesday night we drove down to Beloit to start our weekend vacation with a Snappers game.

The Snappers were playing the Cardinals team, the Quad Cities River Bandits and it was typical A-Ball in April.

Cold.

At first pitch there were 14 people in the stands - I love the picture of granny with her umbrella and cracker jack in front of the big sign that says it's fun to be a fan! Pete was in a contest to see how far you could hit a whiffle ball - the first picture is Pete calling his shot! We are pretty hard core fans and even though the temperature was supposed to be 40 degrees, it felt more like 20. The River bandits were winning 13-1, so we left after the 7th inning stretch. The Bandits went on to win 15-2.

Wednesday we headed down to St. Louis for our Christmas present - watching the Cardinals beat the mets 12-8 from Homers Landing, an all inclusive party deck in Center field. We had a great time, the seats were fantastic and the game was great. We saw Albert and Rick Ankiel hit home runs.

It was 82 degrees and a perfect day to spend in the ballpark.

How I Became A Pirate

I opened my last show of the season April 17th - a very cute play about a little boy who joins a band of pirates and discovers that life at home isn't so bad!

It's a fantastic set that starts on the beach and then moves out to the open sea - survives a soccer ball eating shark and a storm before returning back to the home port.

We also had an extremely talented group of musicians in the cast - a pirate band that gave us no end of entertainment. I only rehearsed, teched and opened this world premier musical and then handed it over to another stage manager to run the performances...

I miss me pirate mateys!

Top: clockwise from left: Susan Nicholson, Lee Becker, John Nicholson, Todd Denning, James Valcq, Bo Johnson (and Petey), and young performers Andrew Oppmann, Ashley Patin, Teddy Warren at the wheel and Austin Zdziarski

Center: John Nicholson standing above, from Left to right, Lee Becker, Susan Nicholson and James Valcq

Bottom: Bo Johnson with the book on his head - Clockwise from lower left: James Valcq, Ashley Patin, Lee Becker, Austin Zdziarski, Todd Denning, Susan Nicholson and Andrew Oppmann.