Lehman Trilogy – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Sunday Morning Reading

Ok, so I lied last week when I said Sunday Morning Reading would be back this week. We’re still on hiatus because of travels and this weekend more fun ensued than we planned for. This time we’re in Memphis to hang out with The Lehman Trilogy gang and see two of them in a prodution of Hamlet.

To be honest, I could have cranked out a post, but we’re just having too much of a good time hanging together and celebrating being in each other’s company for me to set aside the time and brain space to do so.

Sunday Morning Reading will be back next week. No lie this time.

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. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Brothers On Stage

Challenges met. Memories to cherish.

When our team assembled for The Lehman Trilogy some time ago, the three actors, John Maness, Michael Gravois, and Kevar Maffitt and I never knew that expereince would help us build such a strong, ongoing bond. Well it did.

Last night I had the great pleasure to watch two of the brothers in the Theatre Memphis production of Hamlet, featuring Kevar Maffitt as the Dane, and John Maness as Claudius. I did so sitting along side the third brother Michael Gravois.

CleanShot 2025-09-20 at 10.56.59@2x.

Let’s just say this. Kevar climbed the mountain that is portraying Hamlet brilliantly, captured the play and the audience and took us for quite a ride. Kudos to Kevar and to John, who was also excellent as Claudius, for their excellent work in this oh, so difficult play and oh, so difficult challenge for actors.

We sat towards the back of the house so tha we would not become distrations during the many direct address monologues in the show. That said, the director gave Kevar the freedom to move about the house in those soliloquies and he chose to come up the stadium seating aisle and deliver the end of the famous “to be or not to be” monologue directly to Michael and I.

It was quite a moment among brothers. The bond continues.

One Year Ago After Hell Froze Over We Opened The Lehman Trilogy

Shows come and go. Some create bonds that transcend the impermanence.

One year ago tonight we opened The Lehman Trilogy at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis. Openings come. Openings, and shows, go. This one has stuck with those of us who lived, worked, sweat, froze, caught COVID, and finally got the show in front of an audience. You can watch the trailer below.

My undying love and gratitude to the three gentlemen who played the Lehman brothers (and everyone else) in the show, Michael Gravois, Kevar Maffitt, and John Maness (pictured left to right below.)

Along the way they became my brothers as well. It was one of those shows that creates a bond that will never break, regardless of the adventures we each and all pursue in the future. Those are the rare shows. They are the rare talents I got to work and play with and always cherish.

Onwards.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Winning Night for The Lehman Trilogy

A winning team takes home awards for The Lehman Trilogy.

It was a big night for Playhouse on the Square and our production of The Lehman Trilogy in Memphis. Nominated for seven Ostrander Awards, an annual award celebrating excellence in theatre, we won four: Set Design, Leading Actor, Overall Production, and I was honored with an award as Director. POTS also took home a number of awards for other productions as well.

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We had a more than one blast getting the gang back together over the weekend before, during and after the awards event. Lots of reminiscing. Lots of fun. Lots of “we have to do this again” conversations. And we do.

On the big night, I can’t beign to describe how much joy I felt watching John Maness, Michael Gravois and Kevar Maffitt win the award for Leading Actor as a trio. These three gentlemen tackled a unique challenge and did indeed blend into one and it would have been impossible to single out one from another. It was a terrific way to acknowledge this unique collaboration.

All in all it was a great night for celebrating that rare achievement when you create an amazing piece of theatre and an amazing bond in one of those rare experiences that don’t come around that often and is more than just another show.

Bravos and Kudos to all!

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

Fiction, fears, dreams, and Chicago Corruption dot this Sunday Morning’s reading.

Good Sunday morning. I’m in Memphis for a few days to participate and celebrate in The Ostrander Awards in which my recent production of The Lehman Trilogy was nominated for seven awards, so this will be an abbreviated version of Sunday Morning Reading.

Designer (3). There was lots of joy at the Democratic Conventon in Chicago nominating Kamala Harris as candidate for the presidency. There was also lots of joy (and some disappointment from the media) that this year’s convention didn’t turn into 1968 all over again. Nevertheless, Chicago is still Chicago. Rick Kogan gives us a terrific look at some of Chicago’s colorful and sordid history of corruption in Boodlers, Bandits, and Notorious Politicians. Fun read.

No One’s Ready For This by Sarah Jeong takes a look at the question we’re all going to be asking more frequently in the age of AI: “What the hell is a photo these days anyway? That question has been around for awhile, but in the wake of Google’s release of its Reimagine Tool for the Pixel 9’s Magic Editor, that question might be asked with a bit more urgency in the near future. Or not.

Joan Westenberg tells us Why We Need Fiction.

David Todd McCarty wanders into our dreams or rather how we might be able to realize them by overcoming our fear of failure in The Magic of Failure And The Perils Of The Very Good.

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. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.

The Lehman Trilogy Diaries: Showered with Nominations In Awards Season

Great recognition for a wonderful team of theatre artists for a special production.

Well this is exciting news. Our production of The Lehman Trilogy at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis was nominated in seven categories for The Ostrander Awards. As always any recognition is more than appreciated, but when you have a special production with a special team it is even more special.

Nominated from our team include:

Iza Bateman for Props

J. David Galloway for Scenic Design

Rachel Lauren for Lighting Design

Joshua Crawford for Sound Design

Myself for Direction

Myself and our Stage Manager Emma White for Production

And in a terrific nod to the three amazing actors who carried the load, John Maness, Michael Gravois and Kevar Maffitt were nominated not as an ensemble but together as one Leading Actor in a play. That may not make much sense if you don’t know the show, but these three amazing talents literally became inseparable as one in creating the hundreds of characters that fill this challenging piece of theatre. I can’t think of a finer way to honor the incredible performances they gave and the amazing work it took to get there.

Kudos to all involved as well as all of the other nominees. Thanks to the Ostrander folks for the recognition and thanks to the great folks at Playhouse on the Square for the opportunity for us to tell this amazing story. We’ll find out if we won anything on August 26th.

Photo above by Sean Moore.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

The Lehman Trilogy Diaries: A Powerful Bond Memorialized

Powerful bonds and fast friendships get formed all the time when you’re working in the theatre. There’s an intimacy in the work that sometimes transcends and envelops the work that needs to be experienced to really understand. It doesn’t happen all the time or on every show. Sometimes it’s just a job. But when it does you treasure it, because you know it’s rare.

Our recent production of The Lehman Trilogy was one on the rare ones. And so was the bond that formed.

This past weekend, the three marvelous actors, Michael Gravois, Kevar Maffitt and John Maness, along with his wife Ashley, journeyed north from Memphis to visit me in Chicago. It was a complete and total surprise, aided in no small part by my lovely wife, Thomasin. I mean they got me. Surprise successful. Emotional in every sense of the word. But then, they’ve been surprising me ever since rehearsals began. It was a magical weekend reunion of a magical moment in all of our lives.

Of the many weekend highlights was Michael bestowing a beautiful gift to each of us. Michael is not just an incredibily talented actor, but also a gifted mosaic artist. I’m still finding it difficult to put into words the my experience during this show, so I’m going to excerpt and quote from Michael for the rest of this story:

They may stand independently, but they belong together.

…the week after the Lehman Trilogy closed, I was feeling very melancholy. I began the process as ONE person. One singular person. But over the course of our rehearsals, especially during the week of the snowstorm, a time when the city shut down, four singular individuals decided to brave the elements in order to tame this beast of a show, and I no longer felt like one singular person. I felt like ONE in the plural sense. It was as if we were meant to be together. During the run of the show I felt like a cog in the machine and like the machine itself, both at the same time. We breathed together. We moved together. We thought together. And make no mistake, there WERE FOUR people on that stage. At no time was Warner not with us, even though he was miles away, even though the audience couldn’t see him. For the rest of our lives, no matter where we are on this planet, we may exist as four singular individuals, but at one time we were meant to be together. So I was thinking about this concept of singular and plural oneness, when I remembered this mosaic that I made over twenty years ago. It’s been sitting in my garage all these years, waiting to be framed. I made it with the intention of selling it as ONE mosaic. It was four mosaics, but it was meant to be together.

…we’ll know that at one time, it was intended to be part of ONE group. And this will always be true. As long as these mosaics exist, even after we die, people will look at them as singular mosaics. But somewhere on this planet, three other mosaics will be out there, forever connected to it.

It’s a beautiful gift, a beautiful memory, and a beautiful bond.

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

It’s a Sunday morning of a somewhat lost, yet restorative weekend. Simultaneous with spring daffodils starting to bloom, the cast from my recent gig, The Lehman Trilogy, made a suprise trip from Memphis to Chicago to visit for the weekend. Made we think and feel deeply. Made me laugh. It was glorious. Bonds don’t get any deeper. I needed that. That said, and still recovering, here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share.

First up David Todd McCarty is searching for the answers on why we do the things we do in Frittering Away What’s Left of Eternity. Terrific piece with no frittering. Resonated with me when it was published earlier this week. After this weekend it resonates with stronger vibrations.

Radley Balko delves into The War On the Woke in an excellent piece The War on the Woke Trumps the Truth for Heterodox Thinkers.

Sarah Jones takes a look at The Exvangelicals Searching for Political Change. I think she coined “Exvangelical.” Regardless of the label credit, its meaning sticks.

Jim Sciutto sees current global tensions as a 1939 Moment in his new book The Return of The Great Powers. Russia, China and the Next World War. I’m looking forward to reading it. You should too. In the meantime, David Smith talks about Sciutto’s book in ‘A 1939 Moment’: Jim Sciutto On Russia, China and the Threat of War.

Once a teacher always a teacher. I grew up in a family of teachers. NatahsMH in The Blind Leading the Blind recounts her experiences of teaching young ones what it’s like to experience being disabled for only an hour. I’m not talking comedy, but here’s the punch line: “And you experienced being disabled for one hour. Imagine a lifetime. Now go design the world a better, smarter place.”

It’s been 10 years? On the anniversary David Pierce wonders Who Killed Google Reader? I remember that death. The internet remains, but there’s a hole left by it.

The Lehman Trilogy Diaries: Great Review of Our Work

I’m not one to pay that much attention personally to reviews whether they be good or bad. That’s partially a lie. I like to see the artists I work with get recognition for their efforts. That’s certainlly the case for this Broadway World review of The Lehman Trilogy at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis. It’s nothing short of a rave, and if I do say so myself, the writer nailed it.

Of course I’ll say that. That said, I’m glad for the recognition of our design team and espeically our amazingly talented three actors, Kevar Maffit, Michael. Gravois and John Maness (left to right above). They are exceptional. Give the review a read.

FYI the photos here are from Sean Moore. He also captured the show extremely well.

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: Travel Day

Sunday Morning Reading is taking the week off as I depart Memphis and head back home to Chicago. A new Sunday Morning Reading will be back next week. In the meantime, if you’re looking for something to read this Sunday morning, you might want to check out this excellent review of The Lehman Trilogy, the show I just directed at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis. Sounds like we did it right, at least in this reviewer’s mind.

See you next Sunday.

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.