Want to know more about Take Flight? Here are a few more videos from our “Live at the Library” series shot during a discussion with the writers, Richard Maltby Jr. (Lyrics), David Shire (Music), and John Weidman (Book). We’ve broken up the hour long discussion into a few segments, and we’ll be posting a few more clips over the next few days.
Take Flight at the Library: The Nature of Collaboration
Take Flight at the Library: The Three Stories
Take Flight at the Library: The 2007 London Production
Take Flight at the Library: On Director Sam Buntrock
Posted by Lauren Medici, Marketing Intern at McCarter Theatre
Want to know more about Take Flight? Here are some great videos from our “Live at the Library” series shot during a discussion with the writers, Richard Maltby Jr. (Lyrics), David Shire (Music), and John Weidman (Book). We’ve broken up the hour long discussion into a few segments that we’ll be posting over the next few days.
Posted by Lauren Medici, Marketing Intern at McCarter Theatre.
This is the first in our Take Flight In Rehearsal video series. We’ll be posting more in the next few days.
In this video, shot during rehearsals for Take Flight, Stanton Nash (Wilbur Wright), Benjamin Schrader (Orville Wright), and director Sam Buntrock discuss The Wright Brothers’ role in history and in the production.
Posted by Lauren Medici, Marketing Intern at McCarter Theatre.
Patrick Andrews and Tracy Letts in Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s American Buffalo. Photo by Michael Brosilow.
Have you seen American Buffalo?
What did you think? Did you think it was the bee’s knees? Do you agree with the newspaper reviews, or disagree? Favorite parts of the show? Things that weren’t to your taste?
Post an “audience response” or read what other people are saying by clicking on the “comments” link below.
We can’t wait to hear what you think!
Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.
Okay, I’m a member of Generation Y. While it has its benefits (Oregon Trail, Where’s Waldo, and the fact that I have a computer in my kitchen), it also means that I lack a certain cultural knowledge about, well, anything that happened before the 1990’s.
So working on Fetch Clay, Make Man—a play about the unlikely friendship between controversial former Hollywood actor Stepin Fetchit and heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali—has been quite an experience. So much for me to learn! Fortunately, as a child of the 1980’s, I immediately thought of digital media and social networking as a way to fill in my knowledge gap. And of course, both Ali and Fetchit are represented on Youtube.
So here’s the first part of our Generation Y video roundup—some excerpts of Stepin Fetchit in performance. If you’ve never seen it—it’s quite something! The first is from Judge Priest, the second is him performing the song “Lazy Richard.”
What do you think? Is he cleverly subverting the social order of his time, or is he perpetuating a stereotype? Share your comments below by clicking on the “comments” link, then come and see Fetch Clay, Make Man and see playwright Will Power brilliantly engage the question.
Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.
I just received this blog submission from Jean Hanff Korelitz, a fantastic writer and also one of the parents of a member of our Young Ensemble for A Christmas Carol—and I thought it would be a great addition to the blog. Got a comment? Just click the “comments” link at the bottom of the article! —Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate
A (JEWISH) CHRISTMAS CAROL
By Jean Hanff Korelitz
This is my ten year old son’s second year in A Christmas Carol’s young ensemble, where he is soon to portray a much put upon young delivery boy who hauls a massive turkey to the Cratchit family at the end of act two.
Having a kid in a show with a three week run means that you get to watch the show in question many, many times, but I never get tired of A Christmas Carol. The fact is, I’ve always loved Dickens’ story. When I was my son’s age, I routinely viewed every available version on television, from Albert Finney’s Scrooge (still my personal favorite) to the much maligned Mr. Magoo version, and I have continued to reread the novella itself every year. My devotion may be a bit strange, given that I’m Jewish and all, but there’s something about this story of magic and personal transformation, so expertly leavened with real sadness and real euphoria, that always sort of called out to me.
Besides, I figured something out about A Christmas Carol, that ultimate Christmas story, that indispensable part of the Christmas season from Princeton to Timbuktu. A Christmas Carol is…wait for it…don’t laugh…really a Jewish story.
Marley was dead Posted by Adam Immerwahr on December 1st, 2009
The original manuscript of A Christmas Carol
“Marley was dead.” Those are the first words of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
If you haven’t seen it yet, check out this fascinating article at the New York Times about the original manuscript of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Apparently Dickens did quite a bit of re-writing as he was completing the original manuscript of the novella, and now you can read every detail (and all the details that were cut) here—in a set of digital scans of the original version. The NYTimes is even sponsoring a contest for whoever can find the most interesting edit that Dickens made.
If you’re in a mood for A Christmas Carol contests, you can visit McCarter’s own contest—and win two free tickets to our production of A Christmas Carol. Visit here for the full contest details.
So I was over at Princeton University’s Mudd Library (which houses McCarter Theatre’s archives), looking for some archival photos of Nicholas Martin—the director of the upcoming production of She Stoops to Conquer. Nicholas started out in the profession as an actor, and he earned his equity card while performing at McCarter in the 1960’s. I was searching for a picture of him in the 1960 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (I think I found some!), but while I was there I also stumbled into the archives for the 1963 McCarter production of She Stoops to Conquer (after Nicholas had left McCarter).
It was fascinating! The archives included the program, the advertisements, the stage manager’s promptbook (with the 1963 blocking), the set design groundplan, a hand-drawn illustration for the show curtain, the lighting design (hand-written on two pieces of yellow legal paper!), and lots of pictures. The show ran in repertory with another play, and I noticed in the calendar that the November 16th 8:30pm perforamnce was followed by a midnight concert by “America’s fastest-rising young folksinger”—yup, you guessed it, Bob Dylan!
According to the program, “illumination” was “created by Mr. Gilbert V. Hemsley, Jr.”. The show featured a grand total of 17 light cues—undoubtedly a far cry from the hundreds that lighting designer Ben Stanton will create for our 2009 production. Of course, Ben has the advantage of computerized lighting operation, while poor Gilbert had to design the show to be run on three “two-scene preset” manually faded boards (and according to his notes, the light board operator had to sometimes take breaks to help with scene changes).
The cast included: Karl Light (as Mr. Hardcastle), Anne Murray (as Mrs. Hardcastle), Clarence Felder (as Tony Lumpkin), Christine Pickles (as Miss Kate Hardcastle), Angela Thornton (as Miss Neville), Grenville Cuyler (as Sligo), Donald Moffat (as Young Marlow—and also the director of the production!), Edward Zang as Mr. Hastings, Edward Groves as Diggory, Virginia DeAngelis as Pimple, Edward Grover as Sir Charles, and an ensemble of Jack Dreifert, Apollo Dukakis, Dennis Gilliland, William Smith and James Stripp.
As I was flipping through the program, I noticed something very, very familiar. An ad for Lahiere’s! Forty-six years later, this Princeton restaurant is still one of our regular program advertisers. Thanks, Lahiere’s, for your sustained support of the arts in your community. Some things never change.
Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.
Last week, 150 community members from Trenton, Princeton, and beyond joined writer/director Emily Mann and actors Yvette Freeman and Lizan Mitchell at a special reception held at Morven Museum & Garden to kick off McCarter’s upcoming production of Having Our Say. We couldn’t have asked for a better setting; the current exhibit, Let Your Motto Be Resistance – African American Portraits, on loan from the Smithsonian Institution, highlights African-American individuals whose passion, determination, and talent played an influential role in shaping our country’s notion of race and status over the past 150 years.
Walking among the photos selected for this exhibit, I got to thinking that despite the many changes that have shaped our world, one thing has always been a constant: the spirit of determination and pride that is at the core of Having Our Say and the American experience. At its heart, Having Our Say is an American story, a true testament to the resilience of ordinary Americans surviving and persevering through extraordinary times. The Delany sisters are one example of this spirit, and the collection at Morven pays homage to Americans who have refused to allow their circumstances to stop their dreams or their hopes—W.E.B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, Paul Robeson, Angela Davis, Diana Ross, and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, to name a few. Despite racism, sexism, and economic hardships, these individuals took a stance believing in themselves and their right to equality and the pursuit of happiness. Surveying the room last night, this spirit of pride was so apparent in our guests. After listening to Emily and the actors share their experiences working on Having Our Say and hearing from Civil Rights pioneer Edith Savage Jennings, the room was filled with excitement, a sense of pride, and a buzz that was so contagious that I know it will create a lasting memory to all who shared in last night’s festivities.
Click the link below for a few photos from the event!
I had the great good fortune last week of listening to two of this season’s plays being read aloud. First, I heard a reading of Fetch Clay, Make Man that we produced in NYC. This was the third or fourth reading of the play that I have heard, and it’s a revelation every time. And then on Friday, I was able to stay for the first read-through of Having Our Say. A few months ago I saw an archival video of McCarter’s 1995 production of Having Our Say, but this was the first time I’ve been able to hear that play read live.
Hearing these two plays in dialogue with each other made me think about some of the themes that run through all of the plays in our season. For me, one of the most powerful and resonant themes is of how we shape (or try to shape) our own self-images. The characters in this season’s plays are interested in creating a version of themselves for others to see, and a great deal of the dramatic tension in this year’s plays comes out of the distance and dissonance between the characters themselves and the image they are trying to create. In Having Our Say, as Bessie and Sadie Delany reflect on their lives one hears a difference in how they speak about each other and how they speak about themselves. As African-American women living through 100 years of American history, their lives were filled with situations in which they had to forge a public identity of themselves that doesn’t always match the inner woman. In She Stoops to Conquer, characters disguise themselves, pretending to be lower class in order to, well, conquer. Fetch Clay, Make Man examines very literally what happens to people as they shape their public images—Cassius Clay becomes Muhammad Ali, Lincoln Perry becomes Stepin Fetchit, and even the supporting characters (Sonji Clay, William Fox and Brother Rashid) are in the process of re-shaping their images. They are changing their names and putting on metaphorical masks as they make the man (or woman!) that they will become. American Buffalo concerns three small-time crooks as they posture for each other and negotiate their relationships, and Take Flight tells the story of four pioneers of aviation, trying to shape their legacies.
So I started to wonder why this theme felt so present this season (in a way that it didn’t, for example, last season). Of course, part of it is that three of this season’s plays are about historical characters (the Delany Sisters, Fetchit, Ali, Fox and Clay, and of course the Wright Brothers, Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh). In writing these characters drawn from America’s history book, the playwrights are naturally intrigued by the questions of identity and legacy–who was the private person underneath the public, etc. But perhaps also maybe there’s something about this moment, at least for us here at McCarter, that drew us (unconsiously, I’m sure) to stories that share in an exploration of shaping self-image. As we enter our artistic director’s 20th season and start our first full season with a new managing director, we’ve all spent a lot of time thinking about who we are as a theater right now, and what our identity is in the world and our own community. And as our nation has undergone a massive shift, with democrats winning two of the three branches of our government, and with a president who represents, for many, a very new (and welcome) idea of the image of American leadership, it seems natural that we would be thinking about these questions. Frankly, as America starts to look toward our sister nations and say: “we are a different country now than we were a year ago,” perhaps we are all thinking about identity differently.
What do you think? Coincidence, or is there an underlying trend here?
Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre
