The post is courtesy of Lauren Quinlan who is one of our High School Repertory students. Lauren is the dramaturg for our upcoming production of The Shakespeare Stealer.

One of the greatest woes of high school is inevitably reading a work of Shakespeare. Most people simply just suffer through a handful of pages of his craftsmanship and then pop in the DVD of the play to attempt to decipher its meaning.

So naturally when Shakespeare’s name is incorporated into a play, teens initially shy away. They think only of the agony of memorizing long sections of iambic pentameter and grappling allusions they don’t understand. One of the beauties of The Shakespeare Stealer, however, is how the message of the story transcends any sort of boundary of diction.

Audience members will see themselves in Widge’s (the main character’s) struggle between “what benefits you and what does you dare.” The minimal amount of Elizabethan words takes a backseat in the audience’s mind, letting the character work take center stage.

Dialects and Elizabethan times aren’t exactly common knowledge for the members of High School Rep: most of the Millennial Generation came to associate a British accent with what they saw in Harry Potter – not always accurate.) The actors in The Shakespeare Stealer had to act as chameleons to hone our skills for the specific piece at hand.

Fortunately, one of the things the Rep does best is adapting ourselves to fit the mold of every play we do, from a musical about a vampire bunny to a film noir set in a high school to The Shakespeare Stealer: a play not just about stealing Shakespeare’s work, but one that tugs on the feelings of everyone in attendance because they see themselves in the orphan boy with a leaning to the Yorkshire tongue trying to appease both the devil and angel on his shoulders.

The Shakespeare Stealer runs May 10-12. Tickets are available at 708-246-3380 or on our website at www.theatreofwesternsprings.com

This post is from longtime TWS Active, Mike Huth. Mike describes one of those moments that reminds us sometimes the real excitement in live theatre is actually behind the scenes.

Those who work backstage know the drill – the dim red lights, the need for silence and alternating periods of activity and waiting.  I was working props for The Laramie Project which, as all Cattell productions, used the shop as the backstage.  Early in the show we entered a lull period and I slumped into a folding chair set among the shop tools, my chair directly in front of the air compressor for our staple guns.  What no one knew was that it had been used just before the show went up, and while silent, was still plugged in.

Nothing is perfect, including seals on the hoses of that compressor, and eventually the pressure dropped, and just as I was entering a trace-like state, the damn thing roared to life.  Like an Apollo rocket, I lifted off that chair, and with some sort of instinct, reached back and found the switch in the dark and turned it off, all within a second.  Everyone was impressed.  I was in a massive adrenaline rush.  The rest of the show went as scripted, but I never could relax after that.

From TWS' production of "The Laramie Project."

The following post is from our Children’s Theatre Director, Leslie Price. Leslie directed our current production of Treasure Island which runs through March 11th.

Everyone who has ever been involved in any sort of production has heard the old adage, “There are no small parts, only small actors.” It’s a nice sentiment that reminds us every part in a play, regardless of the size of the role, is equally important to the story. This is certainly the way most theatre educators feel, and we remind our students of this concept on a regular basis.

While the notion is a good one, every actor that’s ever graced a stage anywhere knows that (no matter how happy you are just to be in a show) it’s pretty tough not to wish you had the main part when your character has just a few lines. I expected as much from the actors in Treasure Island. After all, they are students. As hard as it is not to be jealous of fellow actors when they have more stage time or get the role you really, really wanted, keeping the green-eyed monster at bay is even tougher when you’re a teenager.

As it turns out, the cast of Treasure Island not only understands the concept of “No small parts,” they embrace it. Every single student in the cast has taken their role–regardless of its size–and turned it into a performance they can be proud of. Whether they’re on stage for a small but pivotal acting moment or fighting in one of the countless combat sequences, the actors in Treasure Island are impressing audiences with their skill and talent. It’s been a pleasure to work with these young people, and I’m so happy that audiences are enjoying their work, too.

Tickets for Treasure Island may be purchased through our box office at 708-246-3380 or via our website at www.theatreofwesternsprings.com

We have a show opening tomorrow! Mauritius runs from February 9-12, and you can find out more about it on our website. 

Whenever we’re gearing up for a show, our volunteers start working overtime to make sure everything is just right: lights, sound, costumes, makeup, and of course…props!

One of our long-time volunteers, Pat Huth, wrote this post about working on props and the enjoyment she gets out of being backstage. We’re so grateful to Pat and all of the folks who strive so hard to make every show at TWS the best it can be.

I love the whole process of “working props” — finding just the right prop; making, from scratch if necessary, a prop that’s a bit unusual; mapping out the choreography of which person does what and when; even setting up backstage tables with taped-off sections for each specific prop.  I love the darkened backstage as the house opens and backstage red lights come on.  I love the excitement, energy, and yes, the electricity of the air backstage as the house lights dim, only to pop bright as Act I begins. I love being the thickness of a flat away from the action onstage. I love knowing the play so well that I can mouth the words with the actors. I love knowing that when I “do” props I will help actors do their job that much better. I love doing props.

Pat Huth

It’s hard to believe that our Holiday Show, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, is opening this Friday! Our season is flying by, but we don’t let the good times pass us by without keeping track of all the fun we have at TWS.

To get us in the spirit of the season, here are some photos of past holiday shows. We’re glad we’ve helped make so many happy memories and we look forward to making many more memories in years to come!

From The Christmas Promise in 1947, the year after our Children’s Theatre began.

From our 1972 production of A Christmas Carol.

From 1981′s Cricket on the Hearth.

2011 marks our fifth time spending Christmas with the Herdmans. This photo is from our 1991 production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

From our 2000 production of Merry Christmas Strega Nona.

There are so many ways to share the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. This shot is from our 2008 production of Scrooge, the Musical.

No matter how you choose to celebrate the holidays this season, we hope that you include the Theatre of Western Springs in your plans. We enjoy being part of our community’s traditions each year. Happy Holidays!

Our latest blog post is of courtesy of Tripp Burton who is directing our production of The Sparrow. Take it away, Tripp…

When I first read The Sparrow last year, it took me about halfway through the script to really get scared. That moment came in Scene 19. It is the end of Act I, so it is a climactic moment where we have to wrap up the first part of the story, move the characters into the next part of the story and keep the audience enthralled enough that they won’t get in their cars during intermission and take off. This is how the scene reads:

Emily retreats to the cornfields to be safe and alone with her happiness. She flies in elation.

That is it. No dialogue, no other characters, no obvious conflict, no real action. Just two simple sentences that do nothing except bring up a whole list of question, both logistic and creative:

Does she actually fly?

Can we put an actor up in the air on wire, like Peter Pan?

Is there actually a cornfield?

How does an actor convey feeling safe?

Wait, she flies?

How do I feel about trampolines?

What happened to the other actors in the play?

How do you build a cornfield on stage that doesn’t look like Oklahoma!?

Does she fly like a bird, or like Superman, or like a flying squirrel, or like an airplane?

Is this just symbolism, or is it real?

Is it too expensive to build a zip line through the Cattell Theatre?

How good is our insurance policy?

Why is she happy when she didn’t seem that way half a page ago?

How do you show “alone with her happiness” in a play?

Are teenagers strong enough to lift up Emily like Swan Lake?

Wait a minute, she has to fly?

What you have to do is throw out everything you know about putting on a play and build your own set of rules for the world of this play. You have to not think realistically about getting from A to B to C to D, but instead use every creative muscle in your body to find a new way to get there, but may involved skipping C altogether, or going from A to E and back to D. Then, once you have created this set of rules and laid out your new vocabulary for your play, you have to find a way to make in meaningful for an audience, and make sure they are seeing the same story you want to tell. None of this is easy, but our High School Repertory Company is always up for a grand challenge and they have stepped up to it this time in a big way. The Sparrow is a big play, emotionally, physically and intellectually. They have discovered that when you are given a scene like this, and a play that lets your recreate the boundaries of reality, you are given a great gift of a play to work on. The Sparrow is one of the most exciting pieces of theatre you will see, and if it takes a little extra work on the part of the audience to fill in the gaps from A to D, it is worth that effort.

As to how we managed to get scene 19 to work, it took a lot of experimenting and stretching to get it to the place it had to be…and you have to come see the show to find out what we did.  I promise you won’t want to sneak out to your car afterwards!

The Sparrow runs November 11-20, 2011 at The Theatre of Western Springs. For tickets or additional information, call our box office at 708-246-3380.

The Sparrow

Emily Book is no ordinary teenager. Her quiet, unassuming demeanor belies the secret she’s carried with her for most of her young life. Returning to her hometown for her final year of high school stirs up rumors of Emily’s mysterious past and her supernatural gift that is as thrilling as it is shocking.

Originally developed and produced at The House Theatre of Chicago, The Sparrow is a story that will stay with audiences long after they leave the theatre.

Recommended for ages 12 and up.

Buy Tickets or call our box office at 708-246-3380

This post is from Bonnie Hilton, Properties Designer for TWS’ upcoming production of Steve Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

So when do liquor bottles become the greatest challenge to a Props Designer for a show? When the show is set in 1904 Paris and all we have are 2011 bottles. As we prop designers know, all it takes is one audience member to register that something small in a show is not believable and poof!..that person’s attention drifts away from the show.

Having been in charge of props for several TWS shows in the past 20 years, I have discovered the shows with the simplest prop lists are often the most complicated, and several of my fellow prop chairs would agree. Picasso at the Lapin Agile is no exception. There are hardly any props used by the actors, but the set has to convey 1904. Bottle labels, pencils, paper: all of these have changed through the years.

Scouring the Internet, I found numerous early 1900s wine and rum labels, pasted them onto sterilized bottles, added the appropriate color liquid: water, tea, or cranberry-grape juice, and voilà, an illusion of reality! But it did not end there. I needed receipts to look real. (Luckily, I found an old copy of a 1900 receipt on the Internet), the pencils could not have erasers on top, and no plastic could be anywhere on that set. The checkers set and playing cards had to be old style and the writing on the blackboard had to be in the French style. So my “simple” list resulted in about 15 hours of research/work.

However, if you add the element of fun, this show is up there with the best of them. All of us have immensely enjoyed the talent and enthusiasm of our guest director, Timothy Gregory, Artistic Director of Provision Theatre inChicago. The show is funny and leaves you with some great thoughts to ponder.

Picasso at the Lapin Agile opens on Thursday, October 20th and runs through Sunday, October 30th. For tickets to this show or any of our other productions, phone 708-246-3380. 

Today’s blog post is from Ed Barrow, the Sound Designer for our upcoming production of Dead Man’s Cell Phone.

Forum 1, Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl, takes it’s heroine, Jean, to many odd and wonderful places. Heaven: a place where you find the people you loved the most. A pretty good deal unless those people didn’t love you the most. Gordon (who sells bodily organs for a living) says, “It’s complicated, don’t try to work it out.” In Ruhl’s version of Heaven, your soul might be cloned – several times. Your Mom always told you to wear clean underwear so you would be presentable to the coroner when you died. That isn’t the half of it. In Heaven, you wear what you wore when you died. Fair enough, except clothes get dirty in Heaven. Once a week you have to go to the laundromat. And you’re naked while you wash your underwear.

It’s been a busy week for our children’s theatre program!

We just finished up “Bring a Friend to Class Week,” and it was truly tons of fun. Students in some classes were encouraged to bring a friend or two with them so guests could see what takes place at the Children’s Theatre of Western Springs and join in the fun. The kids had a wonderful time enjoying each other’s company, and the teachers appreciated getting to know some new students.

This week also marked the second full week of children’s classes at TWS which meant…Color Wheel Day in our Intro to Technical Theatre Class! Why bother with learning the color wheel using boring old charts and graphs when you can learn about it using cookies and frosting?

Deanna Markos, the instructor of the Intro to Tech Class, devised this creative way of teaching color mixing. She brought in vanilla wafers, white frosting, and food coloring in primary colors. Students had to use the food coloring and frosting to create all of the colors in the color wheel. Then, they frosted the cookies with the colors and arranged them on the wheel. Naturally, there was a bit of healthy competition. Naturally, there were no cookies or frosting left at the end of the class. This was all in the name of education, of course.

While there is often a fair amount of silliness when it comes to kids and theatre (or adults and theatre, for that matter!), it seems like the best lessons are learned and the best friendships are made when students of all ages are enjoying themselves. Whether the fun is in rehearsals, during crew calls, or while eating the project you made in class, TWS is a great place to learn something new and do something fun.

Bring a friend week might officially be over for this year, but we love it when our students, families, and patrons share their love of live theatre with their friends and families. Next time you’re headed over to TWS to see a show, invite a friend to tag along. It’ll be that much more fun. And who knows…maybe we’ll have cookies and frosting for you!