OnStage Receives 17 Perry Award Nominations in 2008

The votes are in and the nominees are.....

In what turned out to be a very laid back presentation the board of NJACT gathered at the Kelsey Theatre to announce the nominees for the 2008 Perry Awards. The afternoon began with a general meeting on whats happening at NJACT and It's plans for the future then after a short break for cake and sandwiches the announcements began in Earnest.

All told, MPOnStage received 17 nominations, 9 for Driving Miss Daisy and 8 for Singin' in the Rain.

Here are the highlights

Driving Miss Daisy

Eve Connolly
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play

Allwyn L. Baskin
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play

M. Kitty Getlik
Outstanding Lighting Design for a Play

Diana Gilman Maurer
Outstanding Costume Design for a Play

Alycia Bauch-Cantor
Outstanding Properties

John Maurer and Amy Foris
Outstanding Scenic Design for a Play

Dan Maurer
Outstanding Sound Design

Dan Maurer
Outstanding Direction of a Play

John, Diana and Dan Maurer
Outstanding Production of a Play

Singin' in the Rain

John M. Maurer
Outstanding Scenic Design/Musical

Jane Coult
Outstanding Choreography

Jim Petro
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Musical

Nicole Farina-Machin
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical

Vicky Czarnik
Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical

Ray Murphy
Outstanding Ensemble Actor in a Musical

John M. Maurer
Outstanding Direction of a Musical

John, Diana and Dan Maurer
Outstanding Production of a Musical

To see the Full list of Nominations Click Here.

Remember to mark your calendars - the 2008 Perry Awards Ceremony will be Sunday, September 21st.

Picking up the Baton...(or mouse)....

Hello everybody - John here. I am new to this blog, picking up the baton from my brother who has to spend time on his new job. Many things are happening with MPOnStage. We chose our 2008-2009 season, then had to make some adjustments. I expected to have some time to relax before Winnie-the-Pooh started up but then got involved with Little Red Hen and What the Butler Saw. Well, that is just the nature of Community Theatre!

First off, we completed auditions for A Winnie-the-Pooh Birthday Tail. The show is now cast and we already had the read through. I now have to make some adjustments to Eeyore and build a Tigger puppet.

My work on Little Red Hen is done. I have delivered all the set pieces as well as three little chick puppets. Building the chicks was a new experience for me. The beaks were to small to do them as traditional hand puppets so I pulled out my books on making ventriloquist figures and designed the puppets with rod and lever controls. They can open and close their beaks, blink their eyes and raise their eyebrows using a set of levers in the head. As for the set, I built a hen house puppet stage, a fireplace oven, a trough that makes wheat magically grow and 4 fence units. All of these fold up flat, a necessity with the Kelsey Theatre's lack of available storage.

I am also acting in the James Tolin Memorial Fund production of What the Butler Saw. The show is a British style farce and promises a lot of laughs. Check out http://www.jtmf.org/ for more info.

Till next time..

Coming Next Season to Kelsey Theatre

In case you haven't heard Maurer Productions OnStage (http://www.mponstage.com/) has settled on it's shows for next season. After staging another puppet-filled production in August called A Winnie the Pooh Birthday Tail (directed by Diana Maurer), we'll launch into next season. We'll be producing Brighton Beach Memoirs (directed by Alycia Cantor). This comedy drama written by Neil Simon is the first in his auto biographical series. Then we'll be mounting our production of the Broadway classic Man of La Mancha, directed by John Maurer.

Here now is the entire 2008-2009 Kelsey Season...

Through Our Eyes – Sept 12-14
Moon Over Buffalo – Sept. 19-21, 26-28
Brighton Beach Memoirs (MP OnStage) - Oct. 3-5, 10-12
Dames At Sea – Oct. 17-19, 24-26
Parade – Oct. 31-Nov. 2, Nov. 7-9
The King and I – Nov. 14-16, 21-23
Twas – Dec. 5-7
The Nutcracker – Dec. 13-15
Possible show TBA – Jan. 9-11, 16-18
Rumplestiltskin – Jan. 23-25
Princeton Montessori and Russian Am. Kids Circus – Jan. 28-31
Man of La Mancha (MP OnStage) Feb. 6-8, 13-15
Sunshine Boys Feb. 20-22, 27-29
The Wiz – Mar. 6-8, 13-15
Strike Up The Band – Mar. 21
Godspell – Mar. 27-29, Apr. 3-5
Peer Gynt – Apr. 17-19, 24-26
High School Musical – May 1-3, 8-10
Mercer Dance Ensemble May 16-17
Pierrot show – May 29-31, Jun. 5-7
Perf Arts High & C & E Jun. 11-13
James Tolin – Jun. 19-21

Daisy Journal: Post Your Reviews Here

Despite raves from audiences, it looks like Driving Miss Daisy will not be reviewed by the newspaper theater critics. But that doesn't mean there can't be any reviews. If you've seen the show please post your comments about the production -- good or bad. Let the cast and crew know exactly how you felt about the show, what you liked and didn't like.

CLICK HERE TO READ OR POST A REVIEW...

Daisy Journal: The Reviews Are In -- Not Really

"Brilliant!" "Wonderful!" "Amazing!" "Phenominal!"

These are just a few of the adjectives that theater-goers are using to describe our production of Driving Miss Daisy, which opened at the Kelsey Theatre this past weekend. Unfortunately, this is not what the critics had to say. In fact, it's looking more and more like the critics will have nothing to say at all -- good or bad. We're hearing word that the Trenton Times is no longer publishing reviews of local theatre productions. Long-time local reviewer, Anita Donovan, informed Kitty Getlik of the Kelsey Theatre that she won't be reviewing Driving Miss Daisy for that reason. (That's criminal on the part of the Times. She's a good reviewer, tough but fair.) Meanwhile, Stu Duncan reserved a ticket to the show, but no one saw him at any of the performances. We're hoping he just slipped in and out unnoticed and that a review is forthcoming, but we're not sure.

We've work on this show for months, 15-20 people spent hundreds of hours putting it all together, and many people have lost countless hours of sleep to bring an important Pulitzer Prize-winning story of love, friendship, prejudice and hope to the stage. And now the production team has to hold its collective breath while it waits to see if even one reviewer bothered to show up. Come on Stu, we need you to come through for us. We were the tree that fell in the forrest, please tell us you were there to hear something.

Daisy Journal: Opening Night

We made it. The set was finished in time for opening night -- but just barely. The call for cast and crew was 6pm. With help from Marc Flicker, I finished putting the final touches on the set at 6:30pm, the house opened at 7:30pm and the curtain went up at 8. Phew! That was close!

After washing up, I changed clothes and reviewed cues with Marci Logan, our Assistant Stage Manager who is calling the show from the booth. Then I ran through several matters with the actors and Diana, the stage manager, and then got out of their way.

Despite the usual opening night jitters and a few minor technical glitches, the opening turned out great. We heard lots of great feedback saying is was a wonderful show. And it wasn't the polite kind, it actually seemed pretty genuine. On the second night, the actors were more comfortable and the performances were spot on, and the tech cues were much tighter. The result was a dynamite show, the best run yet.

What can I say. We made it. Daisy is on her feet. A team of roughly 20 people came together to bring a very meaningful Pulitzer Prize-winning story to the stage, and they succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.

Daisy Journal: Lighting Design- Let There Be Light

"Let there be light"!

I think Kitty Getlik said that. Or maybe it was someone else. In the fog of exhaustion that surrounds you during Tech Week, it's hard to remember. In any case, whoever said it was only telling part of the story. When it comes to producing good theater, it's not just about having light, it's about the right light provided in the right way at the right time. As a Perry Award reviewer, I've seen too many community theatre productions around New Jersey whose idea of lighting design is to turn the lights on when the curtain goes up and wait for the bows to turn them off. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but you get my point.

Kitty, a three time Perry Award nominee for Lighting Design, is also the Artistic Director of the Kelsey Theatre. There's no one better to have designing the lighting for your show. And she's a dynamite person to boot. I'm am blessed to know her and very fortunate to be working with her.

When we started talking about lighting design for Driving Miss Daisy, we were in sync immediately. "I'm thinking very warm tones," she said. "Very nostalgic." That's exactly what I was looking for as well. In fact, in a previous meeting with other members of the design staff (set and set dressing) I said I was going for the feel of a Norman Rockwell painting. And I think in the end we achieve it pretty closely once all the pieces were in place.

The added advantage of working with Kitty is that she is also an excellent director, a Perry Award nominated actress and a fine educator. That means she can serve as an extra set of eyes when it comes to the directing and the acting and uses her experience in those areas to inform her lighting. And as an educator, she's very patient with new comers and first-timers and doesn't mind doing a lot of explaining. She also offers suggestions at times, but only when she knows the director is open to them. We have a very good working relationship, which I think is critical between a lighting designer and a director. She tries her best to understand what I'm looking for and give me what I want, but at the same time, she doesn't shy away from saying: "That's not going to work the way you think it will." (And then she'll do it to show me and she'll be proven right.)

Kitty has also been helpful in giving tips on directing and acting. Before tech week started, I told her I was open to any and all suggestions she had; that I wasn't going to offended as some people might be if she spoke up. I'm sure she's very conscious of not stepping on another director's toes, but in my conversation with her I wanted to make clear that I'd rather she step on one of my toes than I make an embarrassing blunder. She took that to heart, and while she hasn't made too many suggestions, the ones she's made have all been right on target and I made sure to pass them along to the cast and crew.

When it comes to the lighting design we, again, are mixing styles -- abstract and realism. Kitty told me up front that if I'm going to do that, I need to be consistent with where I use those styles and ensure that the lighting in those areas follow the realistic and abstract conventions. Here's a great example of keeping the style of the lighting aligned to the style of the different playing areas and at the same time applying subtle lighting effects to support a dramatic moment.

Each of the three characters has a moment in the play where he or she opens up to let the audience see what's in their hearts. These are little monologues or soliloquies. Daisy's is a story about remembering the first time she went to Mobile when she was 12. Hoke's is about recalling seeing his best friend's father's body after he was lynched by racists. And Boolie's is when he tells of his fears about how the business community will react if he goes to a dinner honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. During these scenes, I had wanted some special lighting that subtly highlighted the speaker. Something that the audience wouldn't notice, but which would make them "feel" drawn into the story that character was telling. At the same time, I was going to have the sound engineer slowly drop out the ambient background sounds, another technique for focusing the audience's attention.

Both Daisy's and Hoke's stories come in the car. Kitty came up with the idea of lighting the scene using the techno beam focused on the actor telling the story, but the beam's light color and intensity was set to blend into the lighting of the rest of the scene so you didn't know it was there. Then, as the scene reached the moment where the actor started telling his or her story, she brought down the surrounding lighting very slowly and subtley, leaving the techno beam at its original strength. The result is a slight and subtle dimming of everything except the person talking. This, combined with the slow subtle potting down of the ambient sound draws the audience into the moment.

This works wonderfully for Daisy and Hoke's story because it is a stylistic lighting technique employed in an abstract playing area. But Kitty was quick to point out that the same technique applied the exact same way for Boolie's story would be wrong, because Boolie tells his story while standing in Daisy's living room, which is a realistic setting. So to get the same impact and keep the lighting more realistic in style, Kitty took a different tact. She employed a gobo that threw the shadow of a window light onto the set. When Boolie reached that moment in the scene where he started telling his story, he simply stepped into that light. It made it appear as though he was looking out a window while telling the story, the lighting highlighted Boolie, while Daisy's lighting was much softer. The impact was exactly the same as Daisy's and Hoke's special moment's, but done in a style that allowed us to keep the lighting in the realistic playing areas consistent.

There are many examples in the show where Kitty uses her knowledge and techniques to strengthen the story telling. Most are not meant to be noticed, so much as felt. After you've seen the show once for the whole experience, I encourage you to go back a second time and pay closer attention to not just what you felt during a particluar scene, but how she made you feel it. It's really impressive work.