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.

The Baptism

Pete and I are very excited that we are the Godparents of our nephew Gavin Henry. The baptism was a lovely private ceremony in Madison 3.28.09. Just family and friends and afterwards, lunch at Ridges Golf Course.

















We gave the 4-generation picture another shot, but there were still a lot of eyes closed! This is a pretty good shot!

Barney & Bee

Pete's show - BARNEY & BEE opened tonight!! BARNEY & BEE tells the tale of Jo and Stephen, hosts of an ill-fated dinner party to which Stephen has asked Barney, the husband in a newly separated couple. Unbeknownst to Stephen, Jo has also invited the wife (Bee) and her new boyfriend - a recipe for social catastrophe! Two talented actors play all five comic characters in Frayn's witty, fast-moving farce.

It was great and the actors were working very hard but they couldn't have done it without Pete's props which included a fully set table that Pete has tricked out so that everything (plates, bowls, full silverware setting, napkins, place mats and wine glasses) smoothly slide from one end of the table and back!

It's a cute play and Pete did a GREAT job - more pictures as they become available!

Spring Training Day 4 - Mets vs. Nationals

Our last spring training game, we opted to see another park rather than drive back to Jupiter to see the Cardinals. Conveniently, the Mets were playing the Nationals only about 45 minutes from where we were staying in Harmony. So we got a new park! Also, though this is the Nationals training facility, during

the regular season it will be the park where the Brewers' Florida State League team will play - so a Mets game for Karen, Steven and Anya and a home-town connection for us! It's a beautiful park and we had great seats behind home plate in the sun! We didn't want to return North without a little color!

Because of it's location Space Coast Field has a lot of Cape Canaveral tie-ins including foul poles that commemorate the lost space shuttles Columbia and Challenger. Unfortunately, the Mets lost - 8-3, but as we said earlier, the top 15 Mets are not with the team as they are spread among their home countries teams in the World Baseball Classic. After the game, we went to The Melting Pot for a dinner of bread & vegetables soaked in Melted Cheese and fruit & Cake dipped in melted chocolate. Good friends, Baseball & Sun, tasty food - the end of a perfect vacation!

We had one non-baseball day, Monday we were forced to amuse ourselves around Harmony before our flight home. It was torture to walk to the pool for a swim and then sit in the sun and play cards. Torture!

Back home in the rain and fog, it's still 27 days to opening day. *sigh*

Spring Training Surprise

So as a special Spring Training surprise, instead of meeting Karen in Downtown Disney for dinner, we went to the Magic Kingdom for dinner and an evening of rides, shows and magical fun!

Pete was in seventh heaven with his Camera - Just when he would think he had the perfect shot, the subject would change colors! I think he has the castle in Pink, Green, Blue, and Yellow, but this is my favorite shot.










We started our evening on Mainstreet and dinner at Casey's Corner, it's a great little restaurant with (you guessed it) a baseball theme! They serve hot dogs, corn dog bites, chili and cracker jack! In the eating part of the restaurant there are tables, but also bleachers so that while you are eating you can enjoy all of the Disney baseball and other sports themed cartoons. The walls were also a museum of baseball history. It was a perfect start to our Spring Training Disney surprise! We rode the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, watched a parade with lighted floats, rode a run-away train roller coaster which we were on when the fireworks started! Then we were off to a 3D musical movie it was amazing! After the fireworks we continued through Frontier Land into Liberty Square and the Haunted Mansion ride. After that it was into the world of tomorrow. There was too long of a line for Space Mountain, but we rode through the whole world and wound up in the Monsters Inc. Laugh floor - kind of a cartoon/live action stand up show.

And because you can only have so much fun, it was time to head home! But not before Pete tried his luck at pulling the sword from the stone and becoming king! As you can see, he did not succeed.

We also couldn't leave Disney without some home-made fudge!


It was a great surprise and we had a blast, Pete hasn't been to The Magic Kingdom since he was 4-5 years old and I haven't been there in 20 years so it was great to see all the updates and new attractions.

We're really not much for group pictures! What a motley crew we are here! But it was a long day and an exhausting but fun evening in the happiest place on earth!

Spring Training Day 3 - Cardinals vs. Astros

For our third Cardinal game of our Spring Training dream vacation, we get a new park! The Osceola County Stadium is the only park on our trip that is only used for Spring Training, and doesn't have a team during the regular season. It kind of looks like that in it's plainness. But it was a great game and the Cardinals won 5-1! Karen wasn't able to join us because she had to work (more on that later) but with Pete's help, Anya is making headway on her game scoring. It's very strange, it feels like a minor league game with major league players, it's great to see all of our favorites this close!

Spring Training Day 2 - Mets vs. Cardinals

So on our second day of spring training we convinced Karen, Steven and Anya (Big Mets Fans) to play hooky from work and school and come to Jupiter with us for a Cardinals v. Mets game. I don't recall that it took too much arm twisting! We headed to the game and it was another beautiful day. The game was good, the Mets have 16 players out at the World Baseball Classic to the Cardinals 2, so we joked throughout the game that the Mets had thrown uniforms on the front office staff for the game, unfortunately, they still beat the Cardinals! It was OK though, it was a good close game and a couple of VERY Questionable calls could have easily thrown the game the other way. After the game we wandered around Jupiter, which is a really cute community, and found an Irish Pub to sit and talk and have dinner. We made it an early night. It's a beautiful sunset and a nice bite of summer!