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A Dream Cast Delivers a Dreamy Dream of Autumn by Jon Fosse
Fantastic! That’s the first, but not the last compliment I’ll issue to the remarkable cast of our staged reading of Jon Fosse’s play Dream of Autumn last night. Matt Keely, Thomasin Savaiano, Gabrielle Brite, Amy Stricker, and Kevin Grubb were each, and as an ensemble, gloriously fantastic. They deserve all the praise that came flying their way after the reading. Producers should hire them.
Dream of Autumn was presented as a part of this year’s International Voices Project festival. Each piece is given a one-night only reading after a limited rehearsal period (more on that later).
For those unfamiliar, the actors read from their scripts, but are expected to bring full life to the text. This group sure did. Dream is a tricky play, dwelling in the realm of magical realism, with time shifts, and in this story character shifts, that can turn on the edge of dime. In a full production there would be production elements to help the audience follow those shifts. In this very barebones reading style, with the actors sitting in chairs and reading from their scripts from behind music stands, those shifts were handled via the reading of stage directions and the acting choices made by each member of the cast. According to the audience during our post-performance talk back, every one followed each twist and turn.
We only had about six hours of rehearsal to prepare, and the cast took the direction that was given and ran with it, culminating in a very “in the moment” experience for themselves as well as the audience. This was the first time this cast had read the play start to finish, together, without stopping. It was also the first time I had heard it. You could feel the entire room caught in the moments of the play and the moments of performance, breathing as one.
Having directed a number of these staged readings I’ve seen similar quite a few times, but rarely as well and as thrilling as last night’s effort. I often maintain that one of the true tests of an actor’s mettle is watching them carry the day with little preparation, trusting their skill and instincts. This team certainly carried this play last night further than most.
My hat’s off to each of them. Job exceptionally well done.
All photos by Scott Dray.
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. Check out the categories for this blog to read more about my theatre work.
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Next Up: Dream of Autumn by Jon Fosse
Monday night, November 18 at the International Voices Project we unveil a staged reading of Jon Fosse’s Dream of Autumn. Fosse won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2023 for his work.
Dream of Autumn was translated into English by Sarah Cameron Sunde. The piece features quite a tension filled family reunion gathering at a cemetery. That’s actually a mild description of this piece the takes some twists and turns with time along with a dip into the wild world of magical realism. I doubt you’ll ever look at a gravestone the same way again.
The staged reading is free, and The International Voices Project is an organization I’ve worked with for years and certainly one that deserves support for bringing voices from other countries to Chicago.
Come check us out.
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. Check out the categories for this blog to read more about my theatre work.
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Sunday Morning Reading
It’s a Sunday. I’ve been reading. As usual I’ll share some of that with you in today’s Sunday Morning Reading.
I started out the week thinking I’d try to avoid politics. That didn’t work. Sort of like getting a cancer diagnosis and not wanting to know anything about the disease taking over your body. So, apologies if there isn’t much “light” reading today.
I’ll start of with an anonymous piece published in The Guardian. We all knew misogyny was a feature of the incoming frat party that will be the new administration. I don’t think anyone thought it would filter down so quickly to high schools. The Boys In Our Liberal School Are Different Now That Trump Has Won, tells that story. Woe be onto us and our children.
David Todd McCarty is working out how to get through the day these days. Check out We’re All Just Killing Time.
Sherrilyn Ifill calls her piece The Truth. It is. And it’s hard.
Joan Westenberg says the way to destroy a generation is to make them think the word runs on feelings and then use those feelings against them. Check out How To Destroy a Generation.
David French thinks Donald Trump Is Already Starting to Fail. Great. Too bad he’s going to take the rest of us down with him.
Norman Solomon is optimistic about Hope In A Time of Fascism.
Margaret Sullivan tries to debunk some of the lies rolling around this history changing moment in As Trump Plans Become Clearer, Reject These Four Dangerous Lies.
Life may feel too short to worry about some things. But it’s all a matter of perspective. Check out Natasha MH in Life’s Too Short for Matching Socks.
And to close things out, BlueSky is the latest social network to experience a burst of new users. This time the the burst is due largely in reaction against Musk’s rape of Twitter/X, and dissatisfaction with Zuckerberg’s Threads, which had been the darling for awhile. Mike Issac takes a look in Bluesky Is Growing Up. Maybe Too Fast.
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, including Bluesky, under my own name.
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Politics and Theatre: Demonstrators Wave Nazi Flags Outside Performance of Diary of Anne Frank
Most of my theatre professors earned their bones in the 1960’s. So it’s no suprise that one of my favorites once told us that “you aren’t doing real theatre unless someone shows up with guns to stop people buying tickets at the box office.” I’m not sure this was what he had in mind.
A group of people showed up outside a community theatre performance of The Diary of Anne Frank in Livingston, Michigan waving Nazi flags. Obviously this upset the play goers and the play doers. Some were escorted to their cars following the performance. The demonstrators left the American Legion parking lot, where the play was being performed, after being told to by local police, but did exchange words with patrons across the street.
Here’s a quote from The Fowlerville Community Theatre via CNN:
The Fowlerville Community Theatre, which put on the production, said in a statement the play “centers on real people who lost their lives in the Holocaust” and added the cast and crew “endeavored to tell their story with as much realism as possible.”
“On Saturday evening, things became more real than we expected,” the group said. “The presence of protesters outside gave us a small glimpse of the fear and uncertainty felt by those in hiding.”
“As a theatre, we want to make people feel and think. We hope by presenting Anne’s story, we can help prevent the atrocities of the past from happening again.”
Something tells me theatres, and the arts in general, are in for more of this, and not just on topics that bring out anti-semitism, given how we’ve just turned this country upside down and inside out, revealing all the ugly that I think my professor genuinely thought that theatre and the arts should be protesting against and illuminating.
Of course the theatre and the artists have also shown throughout history that they can be important voices against ugliness and hatred as well even in times when they’ve been shut down and persecuted. Art and storytelling always finds a way.
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.
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Sunday Morning Reading
It’s Sunday. It’s the Sunday after the U.S. election that will change everything. In my opinion those changes will make life worse not better. The one thing that won’t change is my curiosity and sharing that in Sunday Morning Reading.
I cranked out a Thursday edition of Sunday Morning Reading this week to share some terrific writing in the aftermath of the election. I’m going to once again share a couple of those titles here, for the record, but also because they are worth re-reading now, and perhaps also later.
John Gruber’s thoughts post election are special, as is his piece How It Went.
Ken White of PopeHat fame’s piece And Yet It Moves is also worth re-reading and re-sharing. Excellent.
David Todd McCarty’s So, That Happened is also worth re-visiting.
Now on to some new stuff to share.
A series I had been sharing links to for awhile never really escaped my radar, but for some reason didn’t get mentioned as much here. Ellis Weiner and Steve Radlauer’s excellent serial The Split has come to an end. Conceived as a meditation “about what a country modeled entirely on red state ‘values’ would be like,” it has been a fantastic journey through 52 chapters. I’m sorry to see it come to an end. You can find the final chapter here and all of The Split here.
Over at Beardy Guy Musings, Denny Henke advises that we Remain Calm. But Prepare. Good advice.
Rachel Maddow reminds us that America has had its share of bad guys in the past in Dead Last.
Jeff Jarvis asks and answers Why Are Liberals So Infuriated with the Media?
Matteo Wong ponders The Death of Search in a world racing to embrace AI harder and harder.
Finally Frank Landymore tells us that a Physicist Says There’s Another Universe Hiding Behind the Big Bang. You can read the original essay Landymore refers to by Neil Turok here. Intriguingly not only does it exist in this theory but it is moving back in time. I’m sure not alone in wishing somehow we could do that either here or there.
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.
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America Had A Choice. America Chose Wrong
America had a choice on November 5, 2024. America chose wrong. Donald Trump, the decaying orange convicted felon/child rapist who stole state secrets and tried to overturn his 2020 election defeat was reelected to be President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States. We can’t say we weren’t warned.
From The Onion I’m still reeling a bit, alternating between shock, grief, and trying to find my way to process what I believe marks the end of America two years shy of its 250th birthday. Oh, sure it’ll still show up on a map, have a flag, and command a place in the world. But it will never be the same. No more defiantly claiming this is not who we are. In an act of national lunacy, this is who we’ve chosen to be. Sorry. That’s how I see it. You don’t invite a criminal into your home and stand in surprise when he steals the silver.
But back to the processing.
One of the things I do is read and share writing and subjects I think are worth your time. Typically that appears in my Sunday Morning Reading column here on the Wicked Stage. Today, I’m sharing some reading that has helped me through a couple of sleepless nights and very gray moods under very gray skies. Some seeks solace and understanding. Some might feel vindictive and angry. As I said, processing.
I hope you take the time to read this writing from some very thoughtful thinkers.
First up is Scattered Thoughts On The Worst of Days by Ian Dunt. Helpful words from overseas.
David Todd McCarty is trying to make sense of things in the aftermath of a catastrophe in So, That Happened.
Mark McKinnon pens An Open Letter to My Daughters. It’s meant as some words of solace. I’m not sure I’m there yet. One day, maybe. But I’m saving this for my granddaughter to read down the road.
Charles Pierce writes With The Election of Donald Trump, America is About to Get Exactly What It Wants.
James C. Nelson is a vet from a distinguished military family. He comes in hot with I Will Fly My Flag No Longer.
Finally, Ken White of PopeHat fame writes down some thoughts in And Yet It Moves. Damn good. Here’s a quote:
Are Americans inherently good, freedom-loving, devoted to free speech and free worship, committed to all people being created equal? That’s our founding myth, and isn’t it pretty to think so? But a glance at history shows it’s not true. Bodies in graves and jails across America disprove it. We’re freedom-loving when times are easy, devoted to speech and worship we like with lip service to the rest, and divided about our differences since our inception.
In some small way I’m selfishly hoping sharing this might help me as much as you. Good reading.
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.
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America Decides If It Still America Today
Election Day. Decision Day.
Finally.
America decides its future today. Fingers crossed we make the right choice.
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.
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Sunday Morning Reading
We’re on the road again, this time to celebrate my granddaughter’s first birthday. It was quite a fun day, but also one that brings everything that’s going on socially and politically into a different perspective. This week’s Sunday Morning Reading will be all politics if that gives you a clue. No apologies for that.
Above I said a different perspective. Different isn’t accurate. Intensified is probably more to the point, because if my grandchildren had never arrived I’d be feeling and vote the same way in this election. As I’ve said many times before I’m voting for her and my grandson’s futures. They will be voting age before anything in this dire moment will have a chance at being put right again.
Enough of the soapbox. Here’s this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.
McKay Coppins tells us that “Democraccy lives in the people” in This Is Not The End of America. Hopeful? Yes. IMHO missing the point given the real reasons we’re at this moment.
Proving my point, to a degree, is this piece from Nathan J. Robinson called It’s Going to Take A Constant Fight to Perserve the Historical Record, linking to a Wall Street Journal article by Andrew Restuccia and Rebecca Ballhaus telling us that America’s Top Archivist Puts A Rosy Spin on U.S. History-Pruning the Thorny Parts. If you can’t face the past, or the current moment, the future is always in doubt.
J. Michael Luttig pens an editorial in the NY Times saying My Fellow Republicans, It’s Time To Say ‘Enough’ With Trump. He’s correct.
Why Are LIberals Infuriated with the Media? Jeff Jarvis tells us what he thinks. I largely agree.
Natasha MH wonders if it is still possible for adults to break bread without breaking apart in Hanged, Drawn and Quartered for Dinner.
Anne Applebaum offers some closing thoughts On Vermin. Here’s a quote:
This campaign has had a purpose. It has prepared Americans – even serious, establishment historians, or members of the Wall Street Journal editorial board – to accept what comes next.
And finally this week, David Todd McCarty asks If Trump Wins, Is It Game Over? It won’t be game over. But the rules will be vastly different and too many won’t be allowed to play.
Time to play with my grandchildren.
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.
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Why I’m Voting for Kamala Harris
Short. Sweet. Simple.
This week I voted for Kamala Harris for President of the United States.
Tomorrow, my granddaughter celebrates her first birthday.
I voted for my granddaughter’s (and also my grandson’s) future.
That’s it. That’s the post.
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.
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Husbands, Wives, and Voting
My mother and father have both been gone so long that I’m glad they don’t have to live through the political mess we’re in currently. Politics and voting seemed much simpler then. Until my father died my mother always voted the way he told her too. There wasn’t any bullying involved. It was just the way of things. They’ve both been gone long enough that this current political squabble about wives not telling their husbands that they are going to vote for Kamala Harris would make no sense to either one of them.
As context, my first presidential election was 1972 and my dad and I argued over politics until he died in 1985. Needless to say we mostly didn’t see eye to eye. After Dad passed, Mom declared that going forward she would be voting with her children’s best interest in mind. She’d sound each of us out and make her own decisions. Sometimes we agreed. Sometimes we didn’t. She still leaned much more conservative than liberal, although in a few elections she surprised me. Had she lived long enough I’m convinced she would have voted for Hillary Clinton.
The intriguing thing, as I look back on it, was that Dad, and thus Mom, didn’t always vote one way or the other from a party perspective on a national or state level.
As I recall Dad was an Eisenhower Republican, but he voted for Kennedy and then again for Johnson. He voted for Nixon the second time around, but not his third. He voted for Mills Godwin when he ran as a Republican for governor the second time, but not when he ran as a Democrat the first time. Godwin won both times. So there was always a mix, and Mom always followed suit. Or at least that was the assumption.
Again, that was a different era in what seems like a different land.
From what I’m seeing these MAGAt dunces that are terrified of their wives voting secretly for Kamala Harris and lying to them about it probably need to worry about more than just how their household might split the vote. I’m guessing that’s one reason these Project 2025ers want to do away with no-fault divorce, along with everything else that provides women an equal footing.
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.
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Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3
Musings on life, the theatre, technology, culture and the occasional emu sighting
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 