Tag: review

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. 

Charged Up Cubism: The Anker 3-in-1 Cube with Magsafe

Cubism is an art form popularized by Pablo Picasso, George Braque, Jen Metzinger and a bevy of other artists. Cubism can be fun and funky. It can also be confusing. Either way it can generate some highly charged opinions. The Anker 3-1-Cube with Magsafe is certainly not what I’d call a work of art, but it is a nifty piece of Magsafe charging tech packaged in a funky little cube.

I received an Anker 3-in-1 Magsafe charging cube as a Christmas gift and am using it on my current month-and-a-half long gig away from home to charge an iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods. Straight up I like the device quite a bit and am very grateful it was gifted to me.

Right out the box you get a small gray cube. It’s heavier than its roughly 2.5 inch footprint suggests, weighing in at 14.46 ounces. It deceptively makes you think the cube contains a battery, but it does not. It’s solidly built for the most part. Flip open the top and you can attach an iPhone via MagSafe for charging or to use in StandBy mode. You can also just plop your iPhone on top of the cube without flipping up the top. Press in on the small side shelf and out pops a small charging adapter for the Apple Watch. That watch charging shelf does feel a little finicky at times and I’m not sure if pressing it in and out constantly won’t eventually yield to failure. The lid angle is adjustable so using it for viewing something on your iPhone works well. With the lid flipped all the way to its maximum angle you can place your AirPods under that angled lid to charge them up.

Yes, you can charge all three devices at one time. With all three devices charging it takes Cubism into an sort of modern realm. The device comes with a 30-watt charging plug and a decently long cable (5 feet). No this isn’t a mobile charger, it’s meant to be used plugged in, which may mitigate the hefty weight. Anker’s cube supports 15-watt charging for compatible iPhone models and suppots fast charging for Apple Watches as far back as version 7.

The cube is a bit pricey currently running in the $150 range on Amazon, Apple and other outlets. I had looked at this when it first came out and ruled it out for my gadget collection due to the price compared with other options available. One of the things I like about it is the small compact size compared to many other charging stands and mobile charging options currently on the market that tend to look like jewelry stands. Given that some of my gigs require weeks long stays, I’m glad the Anker 3-in-1 Cube with MagSafe was gifted to me. I won’t mind its surprising weight when packing a suitcase, and I do indeed like this quirky, little, somewhat heavy cube quite a bit.

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

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.