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Cast List Albert - Conrad Mason
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Crew List Director - George Beeby
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ESCANABA IN DA MOONLIGHT KICKS OFF OTP’s 43rd SEASON
Tickets for U.P. comedy on sale September 3
Written
by
Escanaba
in da Moonlight is directed by George Beeby of
The
show runs
Escanaba in da Moonlight is made possible, in part, from a mini-grant from the Traverse Area Arts Council and the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs. Show sponsors include Brauer Productions, Cousin Jenny’s, WJZQ – The Breeze, Thomas Food Equipment and media sponsor Northern Michigan FOX – FOX 33.
For more information, contact the Old Town Playhouse business office at (231) 947-2210. # #
TRAVERSE CITY --- Camouflage alert! Old Town Playhouse is hunting for a few “woods-men” for its upcoming production of Escanaba in da Moonlight. Auditions for the deer camp comedy will be held on Monday, July 22 and Tuesday, July 23 beginning at 7 p.m. in the Old Town Playhouse Studio Theatre, located at the corner of Eighth and Cass Streets in Traverse City.
Escanaba in da Moonlight will be directed by George Beeby of Traverse City, who brings his experience as a native “Yooper” as well as 20 years in OTP shows to the production. Written by Michigan native Jeff Daniels, the play revolves around the Soady clan as the regional rituals and escapades of “deer camp” in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are played out in this hilarious comedy about five “Yoopers” on the eve of opening day of the 1989 hunting season.
The show has roles for 6 adults – five men and one woman. Auditions are open to anyone over age 17 (regardless of U.P. background, experience or hunting license status!). Perusal scripts are available for a refundable $5 deposit through the Old Town Playhouse business office. Volunteers are also welcome to assist and learn about set construction, stage crew, costumes and other production areas. Rehearsal schedule will be “summer friendly” during July and early August.
Performance dates for Escanaba in da Moonlight are September 13-14, 19-21 and 26-28, 2002 at 8 p.m. An additional 3 p.m. matinee is slated for Sunday, September 22.
Escanaba in da Moonlight is made possible, in part, from a mini-grant from the Traverse Area Arts Council and the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs. For more information or to obtain a perusal script, contact the Old Town
Journals:
September 13th, 2002 (Friday the 13th, opening day!)
Monday September 9, 2002
Tech Sunday has come and gone. We open this Friday!
Auditions seem like they were yesterday. Our summer
rehearsals were full of fun and laughter. Bart's laugh is
very infectious by the way. Rehearsing felt like a normal
summer-time festivity such as good BBQ with friends. Perhaps this is
why time has flown so quickly. Still as calendar time marched
into September, and the script with its choppy, overlapping lines
challenged our delivery timing, I felt the pressure hit a few
rehearsals prior to Tech Sunday. Learning my lines on my own
is one thing, but to place my lines on the stage with the other actors
with this script feels like a whole different play. Cues take
on an unreliable meaning as they may be overlapped and drowned out, or
I may miss them altogether. Perhaps this is my own
subconscious playing devil's advocate as Tech Sunday seemed to go
pretty well all around. Plus the set looks fantastic, really instills
the deer camp mood, and puts me in the mood to toss many liquids into
my stomach and onto my head.
Sunday September 29, 11:03pm
The stage has been struck, again. We begin
the process all over.
Gypsy has waited long enough for their rehearsal
space.
We had a very successful run. We played an extra performance. We broke
records.
But in the end we played our passion and now it is time for some one
else's
passion to take over. I wish them well. I wish all of us well.
Monday September 21.
We are halfway through the run, well just a little more then half way, and it goes very well. The audience is receiving this show with laughs and more laughs. I didn't expect this kind of response but then i don't think anyone did. The humor is just too much! As a techie I watch the show every performance. I see the subtle changes made by the actors. As i have said in earlier journals, the director and actors make a bargain about what will be presented on stage. It is up to the actor to remember and hold true to this bargain. Our actors are doing a good job in staying true to the director's wishes for the most part. However, over time the sharp angles of the open performances are softening. It is not as crisp as it once was. To be sure, my lights are not as snappy as i did them early on and we seem to have gotten just a little complacent around the edges. The audiences that will watch the remainder of the shows will never know. For them the show is a good piece of theater. Shows, like people, grow and change over time. The good shows keep entertaining as they grow. This is a good show.
Monday Sept. 17
As a lighting guy on this show, I didn't have to attend the rehearsals
until
they were well along. A director gets to change his/her mind several
times on
blocking before the stage movement makes sense. I can't see me coming
in early
to see "Albert" walk to one area then another and another with me
trying to light all those places. So i waited til the 7th week when
most of the
actors placements are in stone.
Of course, coming in late doesn't give me much to journal about but
there you
have that!
I started lighting the show with hanging instruments on the light
bridge and
side trees. I wanted to get a sense of enclosure, inside a dark and
dingy cabin,
yet be able to see the actors. Another part of the show is the
"Albert" aside, when he narrates the show. Difficult to make these
transitions on our light board without some finagling. Also, I had
several
"specials" to insert. I like to have a set of light cues that will
allow me to take off and let anyone run the show. Little did I know
that a week
before we opened, I wouldn't have a worry about these cues.
Our "old" light board is electronic as a calculator is electronic. Our
"new" board, received a week before opening, is a computer... a high
speed computer. I was able to write my 60+ cue show in just under 20
cues using
the "loops" and "links" and "follows" available
only in the computer world. I have years in the computer industry and
this is
like candy to a baby(goo goo).
We call the light unit you see hanging in a theater an instrument. We
have
several different instruments to create different lighting moods so we
don't use
just "lights". With the new board we received a new instrument. If our
other instruments are just lights this is a computer light! It can
change color,
light beam, and instensity with commands from the light board. some
thing really
interesting to the lighting guy, director and , ultimately, the
audience. We own
one and borrowed one for "Escanaba". A treat to work with!
The show is up now. The review tells it all. We are having fun and the lights work for me with the new board. Hope you get to see the play!
OTP's take on
"Escanaba" hits the target
By Rick Gould, Record Eagle, 9/17/02
As a comedy, "Escanaba in da Moonlight" could be called "Jeff Daniels' Deer Camp Vacation."
As a satire on Upper Peninsula life, it's closer to Daniel's "Dumb and Dumber" than the smarter "Fargo," but the play has been a long-running Midwest hit that later became a movie staring author Daniels.
And now it's the season opener at Traverse City's Old Town Playhouse.
"Escanaba in Da Moonlight" is a farce about five Yoopers and their misadventures at a ramshackle deer camp on the eve of opening day for the 1989 hunting season.
For nearly 75 years, Soady men have gone to their little "home away from home" north of Escanaba to drink, cause a little bit of trouble and bag bucks. But in the words of patriarch Albert (Conrad Mason), "Dat year camp was as tense as a moose's butt durin' fly season."
Eldest son Reuben Soady (played by newcomer Steven Stenman) is in danger of becoming the oldest member in the history of the family never to bag a buck. Known around town as the "Buckless Yooper," Reuben knows that even his wife, Wolf Moon Dance(Niky Girard), is a better shot.
The one-liners and sight gags fly fast in the first act, with flatlanders and flatulence, the DNR and RVs being just a few of the Soady clan's targets - when they aren't aiming good- natured verbal ammo at each other.
As the fateful dawn approaches, Reuben attempts to change his luck by altering several of the time tested rituals and traditions of Soady deer camp. He only succeeds in fueling a series of strange and unexplainable events causing Remnar, Reuben's overly superstitious but not overly bright brother, (Bart Ingraham) to declare that the camp is cursed.
For those who like their comedy grounded in reality, the play's first act rings true with deprecating down-home humor. The Soady clan, Mason's crusty pop and Stenman and Ingraham as his two hapless offspring, share a fine comedy rapport. Together, they bag an illegal amount of laughs.
Following a blinding whoosh of light, Jimmer Negamanee from Menominee (Robert Roush, who shares the role with T.J. Ewing), who was once abducted - and rightly returned - by aliens arrives at camp after his Impala mysteriously catches fire and drives off without him.
Roush has a field day in his scene-stealing role as Jimmer, who's speech is as comically hard to understand as Scooby- Doo's. With his flowing white hair and beard, red long underwear and matter-of-fact gibberish, Roush nails his scenes with the Soadys as perfect straight men.
Department of Natural Resources Ranger Tom (Tom Pritchard) then shows up unannounced to inform the Soadys he's just seen God on their ridge. Pritchard garners laughs when he reveals what this DNR officer wears beneath his uniform.
The second act goes from the U.P. to otherworldly when the men's playing cards change their numbers right in their hands, Albert's homemade Sweet Sap Whiskey turns to syrup and Reuben is blasted by the same blinding whoosh of light from high up on Soady Ridge. Armed with only blind faith, Reuben scales the ridge to face his deepest fear in fantastic finale.
The play and performers got big laughs throughout the entire play from the opening night audience. As a Yooper myself (Manistique, thank you), I far enjoyed the first act more, with it's reality-based humor. The details especially draw chuckles with the ratty plaid shirts, CAT hats, pasties and exclamations of "Holy Wah!"
What's particularly notable about this show is that there are a number of "firsts" in the season opener's first-time production of "Escanaba." Conrad Mason makes a welcome Old Town Playhouse debut, coming with decades of theater experience from Ann Arbor. Steven Stenman as Reuben takes to the stage for the first time with ease. And director George Beeby, involved with OTP for years, makes a solid directorial debut here.
Matt McCormick brings yet another incredibly detailed set to OTP and kudos to Don Kuehlhorn, Cinder Conlon and Sam Clark for lighting and sound that help pull off Reuben's deer camp revelation.
And aside from laughing their
butts off at "Escanaba in da
Moonlight," audiences (and
their posteriors) will also enjoy
the brand new seats at Old
Town Playhouse. All of the
seats in the auditorium has
been refurbished to the tune of
$55,000.
The play continues Sept. 19 -
22 and 26-28. For tickets, call
947-2443.
Rick Gould is Record-Eagle
special sections editor.
