Category: Culture

The Lehman Trilogy Diaries: Standing O!

We’re open. The Lehman Trilogy opened last night to a well deserved standing ovation from the first night crowd. Well deserved, if I may say so.  It was a great night for all associated with the production, a great night of theatre for all attending, and a great moment of recognition for some pretty damn good storytellers.

This story begins with the script, but in the moment in the theatre it’s all about the actors. These three, John Maness, Michael Gravois and Kevar Maffit, did a remarkable job and captivated the audience from the first moments in this challenging tale that unfolds over three acts. Actually, the word remarkable sells their efforts short. Individually they are each terrific. Together they are beyond whatever dynamic means. They made strings of numbers and lists of names sing and moments of truth cut like a knife. I’m so grateful for their efforts and my association with them.

As we kept meeting challenges in this final grueling week there were moments when you could feel just how badly the three of them just wanted this show. Tireless and relentless, they wouldn’t let a moment pass when they weren’t working like madmen. I was right there with them. Some shows are just another show. Some are just jobs. This one was and is one of the special ones. Because of the plays length and its heft it’s not going to be put on many theatre schedules. We consider ourselves lucky to say we’ve done The Lehman Trilogy. We’ll have that forever. And boy do we have stories to tell and laughs to share that only a few people will ever understand.

Kudos to all who worked on the show. To those who will see it in the weeks ahead, you’re in for a rare treat. I hope you enjoy the story and much as we enjoyed telling it. Because we enjoyed the hell out of it.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome and check out The Lehman Trilogy Diaries here. 

The Lehman Trilogy Diaries: Dancing on the Edge of the Light

We’re right there on the edge. On the edge of completing this production of The Lehman Trilogy. On the edge of creating something special. It’s all there, ready to come into complete focus. Everyone can feel it. It’s like dancing on the border between the light and the dark. One step either way and you have a good show or a great show.

We’ve got two more rehearsals left. Some gaps to close. Some hard decisions to make on those we can’t. The rest is about sharpening the focus. Everyone’s working full tilt.  We’re like the tightrope walker in the play. He eventually falls. We won’t.

Onward.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome and check out The Lehman Trilogy Diaries here. 

Sunday Morning Reading

From deep in the heart of the frozen South here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share. A slimmer list of links this weekend as we head into the final week of rehearsals for The Lehman Trilogy fighting the cold, burst water pipes and other winter wonders. Looking forward to putting the tech touches to this show and heading home to Chicago. Oh, wait. It’s winter there too. Meanwhile stay warm and enjoy this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

As someone who wakes early, even in the crazy late night weeks of directing a play, Scott-Ryan Abt’s What Do You Do at 3am? feels very familiar.

Richard Zoglin takes on all the pre-movie promotional stuff tossed at movie goers in When Is This Movie Really Going To Start? I’ve Been Here Half an Hour. My going to the movies habit began changing long before the pandemic because of this.

NatashaMH takes us on a tour of life through a visit to a bookstore in Small Wonders In A Big World.Wonderful.

David Todd McCarty takes us the long way around in telling this story about story telling in ‘Round The Outside. He’s also wondering Where Have All The Hitmen Gone?

Steven Levy takes us through the evolution of the Mac in Apple Shares The Secret Of Why The 40-Year-Old Mac Still Rules.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviews Kevin D. Roberts the head of the Hertiage Foundation in Inside The Heritage Foundation’s Plans for ‘Institutionalizing Trumpism.’ If you want to know where the crazy comes from on the right, talk to Kevin.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.  You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

The Lehman Trilogy Diaries: Pure Adrenaline

Adrenaline is a funny thing. It can drive you further and faster. Call it a high. Stories are legion of an adrenaline rush giving folks superhuman-like powers in extreme circumstances. But the bill always comes due once the rush is over and the crash happens.

I’m rehearsing this beast of a play, The Lehman Trilogy, while suffering a bit with a pulled groin. Yeah, that slows you down. During the day I do my usual treatments to ease the pain and get around as best I can doing a bad Walter Brennan impression.  I’ve had this problem before so there’s a ritual and a regime. But in the moments before rehearsals begin I feel things easing up and never notice it at all once we commence and push through rehearsal.

One of the characters in the play ends a monologue with the following:

LEHMAN CORPORATION. Created by Philip Lehman.

Pure finance.

Invest money only to make money. No companies to fund.

No industries to launch. No markets to explore. Pure money.

Pure adrenaline

Well, we all know how that ended.

Sure enough, once rehearsal ends though I pay for it as the pain comes back bit by bit and so it’s back to the ritual. Unitl the next rehearsal. Probably not healthy to be doing things the way I am, but hey, we open a week from tonight.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome and check out The Lehman Trilogy Diaires here. 

The Lehman Trilogy Diaries: Jacks of All Trade

When you’re in school (which was ages ago for me) learning your craft and finding out if you have a voice worth sharing as a theatre director, no one teaches you many of the lessons you will one day need to apply in doing what you love. I’m guessing that applies to most pursuits in life. There are times though that can try your patience unless you were brought up with a father like mine who taught you how to deal with the crazy curve balls that get thrown at you from plumbing to staying warm to how to navigate unexpected weather disruptions.

As I sit here this morning in this lovely Southern town beset by the vagaries of winter, compounded with the already slower rhythms native to the region, we’re having lots of fun trying to keep The Lehman Trilogy ship sailing along. Winter weather is playing havoc with all the usual fun things that come with it: icy conditions, burst pipes, power outages, travel and delivery woes, and a pulled groin from bailing water from one of those burst pipes. I’m not blaming anyone for the choices they are making. Life sucks here for most right now and folks have to make their own choices.

Fortunately, we’re reasonably self-contained as an ensemble and have kept our work on course as we head into technical rehearsals this weekend. I’m sure (hope?) we’ll find our footing and head into next weekend’s opening in good shape. Things usually work out that way in this game.

Onward

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome and check out The Lehman Trilogy Diaries here. 

The Lehman Trilogy Diaries: A Show Finds Its Home

We spent the weekend taking the stage for the first time in rehearsals for The Lehman Trilogy here at Playhouse on the Square. What a joyful and glorious weekend of rehearsals it was.

Pictured above is me (on the right) with this astounding cast, Michael Gravois, Kevar Maffit, and John Maness. We’re all smiling because we’re really enjoying this process. These three are putting their all into this beast of a play. Their roles require as much work as if they were each doing Hamlet.. They are rising to the challenge and then some.

Let me tell you it’s not often that you feel this joyful at this point (transferring from the rehearsal room to the stage), but the work is so good, so rich, so fun, and most importantly so collaborative that there’s no other way to express it. The other day I wrote about my fears of missing the intimacy of the rehearsal room before we moved. Well that intimacy transferred right along with our props and all those bankers boxes. That’s rare. The four of us, plus our stage manager, Emma White, continue to experience the work and the story almost like we don’t want each day to end. That’s a bit silly of me to say because we push each other so hard that by the time we call it a day we’re exhausted.

The best part of our transfer from the rehearsal room to the stage is that a good 85% of our work translated intact. Often in that kind of space shift you lose quite a bit. That 85% has allowed us to continue advancing the story instead of spending time adjusting what we wanted to do to new realities.

Don’t get we wrong. We’ve still got a long way to go as we begin adding the technical artistry. Those technical elements are behind so we’re working to keep the cast focused on their part of the story telling and getting a little ahead before the inevitable begins.

Today is our final day off before opening so we’ll get a brief breather. Then onward.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome and check out The Lehman Trilogy Diaries here. 

Lehamn Trilogy Diaries: Moving to the Stage

Last night was our final rehearsal for The Lehman Trilogy in the rehearsal room. Rehearsal rooms are often not sufficiently matched to the space a show will occupy on stage which means the first few rehearsals on stage turn into what is called “spacing.” Simply put that means you transfer the staging from a smaller space to a larger one and adjust a few things.

Often that requires quite a few adjustments. This show should require less than most as we gain more space, because our scenic anchors for the action, though somewhat different, have set our parameters and those parameters will be largely intact. It’s also an opportunity to actually stage some moments that just couldn’t be achieved in the confines of a rehearsal room with no ceiling height. This show has an overabundnce of those. That will be what today’s work will be about.

Things will feel different. Things will feel out of sorts. Things will get corrected to find their sorts. And some things will actually take on new meaning as the stage provides new opportunities. What I’ve been seeing in the “little theatre in my mind” that we’ve been rehearsing in the smaller rehearsal room, will now get its chance to take real and actual steps instead of imagined ones.

I’ll also get a chance to get some proper perspective on the story as I simulataneously get closer to it by stepping farther back. In the rehearsal room staff is literally on top of the actors. In the theatre we get to finally take the seats the audience will in viewing the story. Being able to see the big picture focuses things tighter as the aperture widens.

Most importantly, the story will get a chance to breathe. As we adjust, the wings will spread a bit.

Looking forward to this day. But I have to say I’ll miss the intimacy of the work this team has accomplished in that smaller space. There was indeed a palpable tinge of sadness as we wrapped last night.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome and check out The Lehman Trilogy Diaries here. 

The Lehman Trilogy Diaries: Expanding the Team

We’ve been hacking away at The Lehman Trilogy for a few weeks now. Three cast members, a director, and a stage manager in a rehearsal room, collectively working through an extremely fun, yet densely challenging script, beat by beat, moment by moment. I can speak for that small cadre that we feel very good about our work so far, and a bit terrified by the work ahead. Tonight we do a run-thru for the design team and the production staff and the inner circle expands.

The designers and production folks have had their brains on this for awhile now, but tonight is the first time they will be in the room where it happens, exposed to more than just my words and rehearsal notes about what is exactly is happening with the story we’re trying to tell.

I have a love and hate relationship with designer run-thrus. First, they are a necessary part of the process. Challenges become more real and collaboration becomes more possible. On the other hand, it also kicks things into another gear for the actors. All of a sudden they feel ike they’re performing instead of just advancing the work reherarsal to rehearsal. The atmosphere becomes less safe. Not in any dangerous way, but in a way that usually invovles a step or two backwards before allowing things to begin moving forward again.

We’re still in the rehearsal room, safely tucked away on the 5th floor, anxious to get to the stage. But we’re not done here yet. As inhibited as this room is compared to the actual less confining confines we’ll be inhabiting soon, it’s become home, familiar and comfortable, yet growing tired and small as the cast’s work is begging for the space the stage will provide.

As an example, a good portion of the staging features actors standing on a conference room table, and we don’t have the ceiling height to make that possible in the rehearsal room without the actors crashing their heads into the drop ceiling tiles.  We’ve come up with some interesting, occasionally humorous alternatives for those moments, yet they yearn to play in the full height and freedom of the stage.

So, embracing both the love and hate, we’ll grow the team tonight as we prepare for the next steps. Should be fun. Should be scary. Should be quite a show…er…um…rehearsal.

Some Things We Just Know On The Merry-Go-Round We Call Life Today

On the merry-go-round of life some things we just know. Some things we just know but find that others want to pretend something different. Here are some things we just know.

Donald Trump is a criminal, a rapist, an insurrectionist, a scumbag, a loser, a lousy liar, and more beyond redemption than most of the evil people in recorded history. He’d love to top even that list. He wants to dismantle the US Constitution and any other aspect of governance as long as he can stay out of a prison jump suit that might clash with the color of his makeup while grifting his way to the grave.

The Republican Party is the largest collecton of cowards and liars ever gathered under the guise of a political party, afraid of any shadow with a hint of orange in it, and terrified of the ignorant constiutents they represent and claim to love. They deserve whatever comes from their cowardice and lying. The rest of us don’t.

Elon Musk is a drug-addled fool who just happens to control a few companies, somehow has a national security clearance, a hoard of wealth, and could care less about anything other than for whatever is in his brain at the moment. Or the next.

Too many American voters don’t know which way to turn because either fork in the road seems like a tortured path. Too many American voters need to pay better attention, because if they are not careful they’ll lose the ability to make choose how severe the torture is going forward.

Big Tech isn’t Big Tech anymore. Big tech, like most other human endeavors, is in the Big “Let’s Make All The Money We Can before the merry-go-round stops” game. The merry-go-round always stops.

Artificial Intelligence can be both a boon and a bust. It will be both. You don’t have to be intelligent or real  to see that coming. 

Social Media can be fun. Social Media can be harmful. In either case, only if you let it. 

Wars are destructive, foolish expressions of ego and and desire. Rules and Laws of War are silly made up sing-songs  to allow men to destroy each other and anyone in their way in service to those egos.

The Media is a mess of its own making in covering any of the above, and seems to enjoy swimming in its own slop with its mouth agape. Anyone in their right minds would have stopped the bleeding by now. Unless they just enjoy self-harm. But if it bleeds it leads. Even it’s draining the lifeblood out of you.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

We just commemorated the anniversary of the history altering events of January 6th. So some of thse links in this weeks’ edition of Sunday Morning Reading will reflect that. Not all. But some. If that turns you off, apologies in advance. Not to you. Because of you.

Kicking it off is David Todd McCarty’s Who’s Teaching You a Lesson? Read it damnit.

Driftglass offers up The Art of Persuasion is Over. Short. Sweet. Persuasive.

David French offers up The Case of Disqualifying Trump is Strong. I agree. Too bad the judges it will be argued in front of are not.

David Graham tells us How Trump Taught America to Tolerate Brazen Corruption. We’ve always tolereated corruption. Most of us just don’t want it flaunted openly in our face by a bunch of bragadocius buffoons.

Changing the tune, check out To Own The Future, Read Shakespeare. Not what you think. It’s about tech and the liberal arts. Great read.

NatashMH wonders how the plot got lost regarding feminism in We Were Once Dragons and Phoenices. Another great read.

And then for something completely different, check out Dana Milbank’s I Killed A Deer From My Bathroom.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.  You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.