Funny Things From Theatre Camp 2018 Act 1

While nothing will ever be as funny as the 2016 NUTS escapades of Willy Wonka, here are a few postcards for you.

   This camp was Anything Goes for ages 8-16. I know. I'll wait.
   Yes, Anything Goes for ages 8-16. I asked the producers about the sexism, the word "sex", cursing, misogyny and racism. I was told they were only worried about the potential "racism" in the Chinese bits. I am compliant, so I changed Chinese to Russian and left the rest.  I am not kidding, I do as I am told. I'm new to directing with this group, and I was told this group of kids were used to cussing, so the hells and damns were fine. I questioned the word "sex" as well as the sexual references and the response was "they're used to it". OK. As I stated previously, "I am very compliant". Nobody ever believes me due to the mohawk and double middle fingers,but in theatre I am compliant. I follow a script, the author's vision, the needs of the show...the end. I struggle when you cannot tell me, as my "boss", what it is you want me to do. So. If you say the above, I abide by the above to the letter. I will know my actors and adjust to their comfort, but other than that I am not going to think for myself in these instances, that gets me into nothing but trouble.

   So I rewrote Cole Porter as Russians instead of Chinese. Cole Porter:
 
                        Moonface
                 I was a missionary out in China.
                        Bishop
                 I worked in China for many years. Were you in Indo China?
                        Moonface
                 Ya that's it,you were  in indoor China and I was in outdoor China.

    OK, I love that joke, I hated losing it. I did my best:

                        Moonface
                 I was a missionary out in Russia.
                        Bishop
                 Russia? I was a missionary in Russia for years.
                        Moonface
                 I was more eastern...
                        Bishop
                 Oh! Czechoslovakia? Eastern Block?
                        Moonface
                 Ya, you were in an Eastern Block and I was in a cell block.

       It killed.

       That was all I did plus I changed "strip poker" to "a different poker" because a 12 and 14 year old boy were in a scene with a 10 and 7 year old girl. NOPE, not saying strip my friends, I will think for myself on that one.

       "Let's Misbehave" was explained like this: It's like when you want to spend time with someone so much that you go to the ice cream shop and you eat ice cream with them even though you are lactose intolerant and you know it'll make you sick.

        The things that went wrong on these shows....I have an entire other blog about the way this company is run, the challenges of the space, my love for my team, but today is just FUNNY/ANGRY postcards from the show.

        Apparently the words "prop check" are optional. So Moonface did not choose to place his prop shoes for the bit when he goes into the hall and returns with an armload of shoes. There were four performances. Night one: No Shoes placed, "Bonnie" gave him one of her character shoes off of her foot and then could not make her entrance because she was missing a shoe. Night two: no shoes placed, so he grabbed the tap shoes that were back stage. The choreographer and I enjoyed the thought that all of those cruising on the SS American leave their tap shoes out to be shined nightly. Night three: No shoes placed. He just entered with nothing. Night four: prop shoes! Chimps learn faster than 13 year old boys.

     The Purser, whose age I estimate as 8 or 9, forgot to set the tray for his scene. The Tray in which the Entire Scene Is About. The SM told me the next night the poor boy was in a full panic attack before he entered, he couldn't remember the word for "tray", he just kept miming it at her saying "I don't have my_____, I don't have my______" She just shrugged at him and said "Did you do your prop check?" at which point most kids would have burst into tears, but no. No, our Purser, trained thoroughly by Yours Truly, made his entrance and mimed the tray. Which the overheated (No A/C in this space is in the other blog) parents loved , because laughing makes you breathe and move and forget it's 100 degrees in this cinder block.

   ANGRY INTERLUDE. This was a 3 week camp. It was openly stated daily that we had 2 life threatening peanut allergies on the show. Kids were not to bring any peanut products for lunch, and they did not. When you move from your rehearsal space to the performance space, however, that apparently means that the previous rules do not apply. And So: On Saturday night, after walking through after two shows, I found Ritz peanut butter sandwich crackers on the floor. Ground into the carpet. Let's just say I have high school students who have never seen me that angry and I'm shocked they got into costume and continued after I burned them down. Because, dude, really? REALLY.

  One of the Billys--the show was double cast---is 5'9" at twelve.While getting into makeup, he picked up 40 pack of scrunchies and said "I bought these for my sister, she's always losing them. I kept ten and told her if she could not lose the other 30 I'd buy her more."
               "You kept ten?" I ask.
                He nods, smiling broadly.
                "Because....?"
                "I gotta make unicorn horns!" He demonstrated, grabbing a fist full of his bangs.
             
   Reno's Angels were 8-11. Cute as bugs, tap choreo knocked me out. But still, they're supposed to be "sexy".  One little Angel was to say "I'm just cursed with sex appeal" and she was clearly uncomfortable. She was double cast, and her double thought it was funny 'cause she was older. I told this little bug she could say something different, because she was not OK with saying "sex appeal" at 9. So we changed it to "I'm just cursed with naturally silky, long hair." She said that line for four days before we moved into the theatre, and then at every dress rehearsal. Then on opening night, she stepped forward and said "I'm just cursed with sex appeal."

   Why do I bother?
 
   At the end of the show, the Deux Ex Machina is a telegram stating that Moonface Martin is completely harmless. Cue the Purser (yes, the same of "mime the tray" fame) to run on, waving the telegram to end the show. However,  he missed his entrance, and nobody had anything to say because everything revolves around the telegram and they're all 12, so they mumbled, and then he entered late. Closing night, my friends.
 
   It was double cast (company policy). So for one cast Sir Evelyn was a lovely but short boy who came to, about, Reno's boobs. (giggle: boobs). Lucky for us the ship had a set of stairs we could put him on whilst she was on the floor to alleviate some--but not all--of the awkward.

   When I was directing at LHS, we had a policy of putting your costumes in the  freezer if you did not hang them up as requested. There was no freezer at the space, so we just gave them to the SM. The result was terrifying, an Angel in full makeup and hair did not realize her costume was missing until 15 to curtain. A passenger couldn't find her costume and asked everyone where it was. We all said "Where did you leave it?" She said "I hung it up."
   She lies. She crumpled it in a ball, and myself, the choreographer and the SM  found it and decided to hide it.
   She started to cry, so the SM gave it up. When she got her costume, she threw it on the ground and ran out of the dressing room.
    Gosh I hope she returns to camp next year, she's gonna do great.


                CAMP!







                 
             

What the Letters F.H. mean to me. (Imma cuss, stop reading if that will upset you)

   When Jim and I moved to Texas, I had my first encounter with Fuck Heads--which is what I call "thieves". They are Fuck Heads. If you don't  like cussing, stop reading.
    We were moving from Colorado to Houston, and stopped in Arlington (between Dallas and Ft. Worth) for the night. We had everything we owned packed into a UHaul and my Honda Civic, which we were pulling behind the trailer. We took the cat and a gun and a change of clothes into the hotel with us. One day we were driving to Houston, full of hope and excitement, the next we were waiting for a cab in the hotel lobby to deliver us to the airport, because everything we owned had disappeared. Jim asked me in that moment "Do you want to just go back home?" He meant me, he had graduated from college and was moving to a job. I was just tagging along, hoping to transfer to UH and maybe a B. Dalton.
     Since I am writing this and we now have 2 children I clearly did not go home.
     The initial reaction of having something stolen is much like grief, I guess, but I was never in denial, I was very aware that it happened. I mean, I had no clothes. I had a cat, but nothing to wear on a  job search. We were moving  down with only my car since Jim was going to work at his cousin's car dealership and could drive demos. But now I did not have a car to go job searching. I had a cat, but I could not ride her into Houston.
     So there's a lot of that I don't want to explore right now, but I will say the cat lived with us the entire time we were in Houston, and for several years in Denver. Her name was Hobbes and she was a tortie and I loved her very much. The point is I had everything I owned in the world stolen when I was 21 years old. I believed the phrase "Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place". But it does.
     I had no issues with thieves whilst in Houston.  I had friends who were carjacked, or otherwise impacted, but I lived believing the Fuck Heads didn't see me, because I had already been struck. For God's Sake I lived at CSAW (The Commerce Street Artist's Warehouse), which is exactly as it sounds, in a pretty shady area without any issue other than the occasional gunshot outside.
     Then I came back home to Denver. Our teeny, tiny little house in Platt Park was brutally ravaged during the day. The house was on a corner lot, one block from Broadway, it was pretty brazen of the FH. They had to be watching to know I wasn't home, but also had to know we had a dog--a good sized, loud border collie. Here's what the Fuck Heads did at ten am on a weekday: They broke down my front door. Broke It Down. The hinges were ripped out of the frame. Kicked my dog. Stole our VCR, Jim's gun, my jewelry and generally ransacked our tiny 450 square foot home. Like we have treasure? It's a rental, and I'm an actor, what do you think we have?
    Not much before or after that (memory collapses) I had traded in my EXP ("Push, Pull or Drag", they said, and we did all three) on a convertible  Jeep Wrangler I named Pongo. I loved Pongo. We invested in some nice speakers to mount in the back since the music was faint with the top off.  I went to a rehearsal, and parked him right next to the theatre in the day light. There are businesses, a restaurant across the street, it's a busy area. NONETHELESS, when I left rehearsal I stumbled upon two guys with screwdrivers in the back of my Jeep. They were trying to steal the speakers. During the Day. With people looking right at them. I said "Hey, the hell, Fuck Head?" and one guy jumped toward me and said "We were trying to help." He ran past me and my fellow actor, both of us standing, stunned, in the bright sunlight. The second FH exited in  the opposite direction and disappeared. After that I refused to park at the theatre, and a fellow actor told me he had his car stolen from the parking lot on a Sunday afternoon during a matinee. Fuck Heads, like the Honey Badger, don't give a shit.
     I now live in a nice, suburban neighborhood.  Over the last few years we've had a few instances with kids walking up and down the street trying car doors, ringing doorbells. I am not sure if it's the fact that I'm on "Nextdoor",  that I'm old or that Fuck Heads are multiplying, but the car break ins up here have multiplied. Last night, Harper heard someone trying to get into the FJ in our driveway. It was 4.15 am. She is not sleeping well lately, so she went to the window and yelled "Can I help you?" and they ran off.
    It's one thing to try car doors as you are taking your loser constitutional down the street, it's another to walk up into someone's driveway.
    And so, Fuck Heads. I work very hard at more than one job to keep my family' s bills current. We are not rich, there is nothing that suggests we are. Might I suggest that you try getting a job, you loser piece of shit, instead of taking things that do not belong to you. My husband is from Texas, and Colorado has the Make My Day law. I promise we are not the only people in this neighborhood with those credentials. I have no interest in rehabilitating you, or excusing your behavior due to your home life or any other whiney ass psychobabble. You  Steal. You Know It's Wrong.You're A Fuck Head.

Summer Postcards 2018 -Camp Week Two

Why are we doing Anything Goes?
Anything Goes by Cole Porter is a terrible wonderful show.

It has been rewritten at least twice, not including revivals, which brings the Trashing Total to under 10 but more than 4. Songs not written for this show are in the show,removed from the show, put back in the show. Characters are love interests- originally Reno had a thing for Billy-then they aren't, then someone else is the love interest,then a plot line got dropped-Sir Evie was originally a cad manipulating Hope into marrying him by telling her that her company was failing, but marrying him would save it.  Because she's a woman and too stupid to read a financial report? Characters' names change---OK, that's just Bonnie/Irma/Bonnie--but why? Sexist, misogynist, racist, classist. The book is a hodge podge of half baked storylines, the music is from other shows and frequently a song is just placed Because. It does not forward the plot, it is never referred to again--I give you "Let's Step Out"and "Heaven Hop". Just Because. And after all of that, people still cram the theatres to see what they believe to be Cole Porter's Best Show.  Why? Hint: it's the tap line, not the plot.It's the tap that makes it a Great Cole Porter Show.

It is, I suppose, if : It is being performed by adults who understand the content and it is being viewed by adults who understand the time period. For the same reason we do not remove the N word from Huck Finn,we should not change the Chinese jokes, or the sexist content, in Anything Goes. He wrote it in 1934 because some rich guy avoiding paying his debtors was living on a boat and wanted a show. That's it. The End. The original book included the ocean liner wrecking, but while they were writing a real shipping disaster occurred, and the morally questionable debt evader decided that, morally, it was not in good taste to wreck the SS American in his play. Women were sexy or wives, men were gangsters or businessmen and everyone aboard was white, even the sailors. If you're an adult you accept all of this as part of the time period.

I am not directing adults. I am directing kids from 10-16. I am  used to teaching history in theatre, so that's not a big deal. But explaining why a Chinese joke is racist but making fun of Russians is not...you got me. I just looked at the kid and said "Because Russians are also white." The kids seem OK with everything they've had explained to them,  were briefly sad I won't let them wield fake cigarettes and martini glasses but ultimately fine with it; they are more worried that they may have to hold hands or--worse---kiss someone on stage. But their parents  are the ones the kids' theatre company are worried about, I guess, which brings me back to my first question: Why are we doing Anything Goes?

Reno is told by her friend Billy to take Mr. Whitney to the bar and "make sure he has a good time."
Virtue is is "the easy kind".
Chastity is "just cursed with sex appeal" and told by Reno "She's not confessing, she's advertising."
Reno has "hot pants" for Sir Evie.
Evie and Reno wish to "misbehave".

Here is how I , kryssi martin, adult human on planet earth, handled the issues that arose with these lines.

Billy wants you to get Whitney drunk so he can easily avoid him on the ship. Ding.
You're a flirt, easy for the boys to talk to. Ding.
I dunno...I'm avoiding that one, she seems to think it's funny and her giggle is too cute. She's 10.
When you like someone you get a warm feeling all over. Ding.
It's like when you want to spend time with someone but your mom says you can't, so you hover after school and walk them home knowing you'll get in trouble. Or you go get ice cream because they are there but you are lactose intolerant and it will make you sick but you eat it anyway. You leave the class saying you're going to the bathroom, but instead you meet up with him/her at the library. Ding.

We are having a special "intimacy choreography" session on Monday to handle the kissing, which I could care less about happening in the show. I've blocked fake kisses and I've blocked them out or around them before, at this age why are you  pushing it? Especially when everyone is still sharing popsicles at snack time. I mean, they have a snack time. Do they need to kiss on stage?

The other director who did Legally Blonde and is working as our producer, and is therefore around and sometimes gives opinions and context, kept the kissing in for this age, and spent time with just the actors and threw the rest of the cast out. Which I do, too, when working on intimacy, but is it really that important in this show? Sometimes yes, sometimes you don't have any intentions in the scene if it doesn't end in a kiss, or the end of a song. But sometimes...sometimes it's Cole Porter and the music swells and you can easily fake it or block around it or change it to a hug and it's fine because the book has been trashed so many times the plot scarcely matters. But the producer/director is  half my age, and I wonder if there is something in a younger director that really feels like they need to push the kissing thing. Like I don't care about honoring the true meaning of the text by suggesting I may not push the kissing.

For those of you paying attention, you read paragraph one. Which text  are you concerned about honoring?

I may have projected that onto her now that I've written and re read it. She's really sweet with patience like I have seen only one other time at my other summer gig. There is a type out there that should be doing this, but they are outnumbered, unfortunately, by egos and control freaks.  There is some sort of struggle for control happening in this company, which is rooted in Boulder. We, Denver, are a satellite and the young director/producer is running between the two and dealing with both sides. Since I'm new, I have only once inadvertently gotten involved. All I was doing was solving the microphone issue by borrowing mikes from my school. Wow, that was a wasp's nest. This poor producer/director had to suffer the wrath in both cities, and did it without every raising her voice. In fact, she genuinely sees both sides, likes all of those involved and wants what's best for the kids. That's why she should be doing this. If your first question is not "What is best for the kids" you need to reconsider why you are here.

I have convinced myself that a younger director would have included cigarettes and glasses, and I'm too practical for that. I can't get committed high school kids to not break a glass on stage or keep track of their own, personal fake cigarette. I sure as hell don't have the energy to fuss at 40 preteens and teenagers because they can't keep track of their shit. The entire play becomes about "who took my cigarette?" and people going down sick because they used the wrong glass and I have to put up this show in three weeks. It's fine, you're fine, learn your lines and lyrics and choreo.

Speaking of the choreographer, 23 years old and fresh out of college with her degree in stage management, but she wants to be a math teacher. So Cool. Her choreo is too cute for color TV and she may be the one who finally makes me accept that I am too old for this. She's well trained, excited, has all the energy and patience balanced by snark and lack of ability or interest in dealing with the cast's personal emotional issues. It's like she came out of a factory that builds choreographers.

The music director has ten years on me, is a retired teacher gigging as a musician at dinner theatres, private lessons and doing this in the summer. So Cool.  The kids worship her, her side company takes groups of teenagers to New York, she's sassy and has no patience for your bullshit. She may be the one to make me finally accept that I am not too old for this.

So that's fun.

Summer Camp postcards 2018- Week One

Nothing will surpass the Summer of 16 Willy Wonka Wall of Nut Jokes. 6-8 year olds, dressed as squirrels, clutching Styrofoam nuts backstage, which they could not handle. Thus prompting the costumer and I to say a few choice words:
                               " Hold your nut in both hands like a precious jewel."
                               " No, your nut does not have a chocolate center, who told you that? Don't eat it."
                               "Both hands, people, we can't have nuts just rolling around everywhere."
                               " Just because your nut is broken does not mean you get to switch it for one of
                                              the littler kids' intact nut."
                                "Bring your nut to Miss Tricia, she has the hot glue gun, she'll fix it.
                                 Miss Tricia "This it not in my contract."
                                And of course, #2 was the Artistic Director's son, who not only bit into his nut, but got a chunk caught in his teeth that his mom had to remove. How embarrassing.

     This year, with a different  company (I have shirts now that say STAFF from three different companies), the kids are older  for Anything Goes, and the politics are different. In this case, the Denver company is a satellite of the Boulder company, and is treated as the red headed step child. For example: the Denver show cannot have mikes because they're being used in Boulder. For Oliver.  The spaces are similar in size, but based on type of show,  anyone with a brain will tell you if you had to choose, Oliver is the show that could live without mikes. Anything Goes, belted and tapped by 16 year olds, cannot. The music director is a veteran of this company whilst myself and the choreographer are new this year. We are beginning to see why this company struggles to keep people. The choreographer and musical director are working on all the Denver shows this summer,  the SM and I are the only ones who signed on for just one show. I've done the back to back summer show game, and I don't need the money as much as I need a break. These gigs are rough in the first place, if you're a teacher the other 9 months of the year...OY. God Bless my friends who do this all summer and then return to their own classrooms in August.
    The summer show choices seem a little off,and I'm new to this company so I'm always unsure of the age groups. I assumed Mulan  was the smaller kids, and Oliver and Anything Goes  were the olders. I was half right, I guess Mulan is older, I probably would have directed that one if I had known. I wanted nothing to do with Oliver, I don't love that show. So we're talking about the summer, and the choreographer says "Why are they doing Oliver? Oliver is not a children's show. Oliver has children in it." Well put, prompting the music director to ask "Why Anything Goes?I usually do text analysis with my students, but I'm not with this show. I don't want to explain 'molest'."
    
     At the first production meeting, which was held in Boulder, don't get me started---OK, a director, choreographer, set designer and stage manager all have to drive from Denver to Boulder to meet with ONE PERSON IN BOULDER. The ONE PERSON couldn't come to us? ANYWAY. At this meeting, I asked about the content of the show. It's not a "junior" version, its the whole show. It says "young performers edition" on the posters, but the scripts are intact "hell", "damn", "sex", "molest" and Chinese jokes. This is a camp for 10-16 year olds, I'm new, what's the policy? No, don't it's fine, I'm told, they can cuss. Okay...but...umm...sex.? "They don't really get it", I was told. They will if a good director explains it to them. BUT OK. So. The Chinese bit. How wound up are we about the Chinese jokes? "Ya...we should change that ...."  Leave the sex and sexism and cussing, that's fine but change the Chinese joke.
      To...what? Whom can we joke about these days and not be accused of racism?
      The production manager pauses. Hmmm.
      "How about Russian?" I perk up. "Eastern block, something vaguely Russian. That way we can still do the bit with the costume hiding Reno 'cause it's a babushka."
        Sure, they'll run it past the boss.
         Who is not present, even though we four were called to BOULDER for this meeting, where the office resides. It's fine.
         And thus,  we now have Russians instead of Chinese.
         At rehearsals, we have a kid who won't let it go. "I don't get it, why was it racist?" He doesn't like my explanation, as I'm making it up, and then wants to know why it's not racist to make fun of the Russians.
         And all I can think to say is "They're white, too."
         Scene.

        Boulder and Denver company do the same shows, so my feeling is that the Boulder people don't really get Denver yet, and that's why they wanted the change. Because in Denver people get the show was written in 1930 banana and it was cultural, just like the "N" word in Huck Finn. But Boulder people---who are all white, by the way, there is not a Boulder Chinese Council who are going to be offended by a dated comic poke at their funny hats and missing "r's"----Boulder will get upset. So since our show comes first, they chose to catch it now and see how it goes before they do it there. I rewrote the jokes so they are Eastern block, and translated "no pants" into Russian. It'll be fun, and much easier to take played by two small Caucasian girls, one of which is practically an albino.
       Now, what I would enjoy is a Denver Russian Council who will demand we cease production for mocking their babushkas, potatoes, borscht and language.
      However, nobody wished to address my concerns about the  sexist, patriarchal stereotypes, as we're all willing to just shrug at those and go "Well, it's the time period. God Bless Cole Porter." That's all fine as long as you do not mock a person of Chinese descent for their  English language imperfections or hat wear.
      And, as far as I know, they're keeping the murder in Oliver.