So I've been involved with Community Theater in the Fairfield County area for about 6 and a half years now. It started with getting involved with The Darien Players in 2001 for The Unexpected Guest by Agatha Christie and its been a downhill ride ever since...sort of...
I apparently did well enough with that show, the Players not only asked me to direct again the following season (I picked Night Watch by Lucille Fletcher) they also added me to their Board of Directors. Didn't ask for it, but was honored at the time. If I knew then what I know now I would have run screaming into the night (well...not really as I did first meet my wife during the auditions for Night Watch).
My third season I wound up directing two shows for the Players. I stepped in on The Heiress after the director got sick and also did The Curious Savage (my choice of material). I had a co-director on both since the former was going into performances as the latter was auditioning and rehearsing. I was also acting in The Curious Savage.
The following season I finally figured how to make Noises Off work in a space that is really to small for such a large show. But we made it work really well in a scaled down/stripped down version. It was a lot of fun. (I also had a small role and ran lights for Ah, Wilderness earlier this season and stage managed Follies prior to that).
The 2004-2005 Season was The Darien Players 25th Anniversary and I helped with getting an Anniversary show off the ground. I wrote a rather funny Agatha Christie parody (since the Players seem to have done more of her shows than anyone else's...in a 10 year period they did of her plays...all but one directed by the same person...who wasn't me as I've only done The Unexpected Guest there). That season, my show was Lanford Wilson's Book of Days a show I'm very proud of. It got the Players "off the stage" and starting to rethink not only how to stage shows in a very flexible black box space, but also what type of shows to do. This was a good season for change as we got some new directing blood into the group.
The 2005-2006 Season I directed Sly Fox in addition to helping out in various ways on other shows. This was a tough show to direct as I had at least one cast member who didn't trust in my vision for the show and acted like a spoiled diva throughout rehearsals. By the time I finally stepped in and put my foot down, the damage had been done. It was not a bad show by any means, but it could have been better if I didn't have to deal with childish distractions from various camps. I decided I needed to take a year off from directing.
The 2006-2007 Season found me involved in co-producing every show across the season (except one...but I was still involved enough to be annoyed by the antics of a visionless and unorganized director who always casts his wife in his shows...which wouldn't be a problem if they didn't collectively suck the life from everything they touch). I did more work during this season than I did when I was only directing. The Darien Players had a good successful season (with the one exception being the afore mentioned show). We brought in more new directors to help re-energize the group and it all worked well. We finished the season with a wonderfully successful production of A Raisin in the Sun...in Darien...in 2007...and we still got some comments about why we did the show...amazing how close minded some can be.
Anyway...the 2007-2008 Season is just about to start and I'm making my directing debut at Curtain Call in Stamford. Its nice to only be driving 8 minutes to get home at night instead of the 20 or so to Darien. I'm directing Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap which will also mark my third Christie show (as I also directed Spider's Web in Westport back in 2004...so I guess any time I work at a theater for the first time, I'll be doing a Christie piece).
I love Dame Agatha's work. There's a lot of fun that can be had if one understands the material and knows how to work it properly. Not to blow my own horn, but I think I know how to handle her stuff very well. I've watched three of her pieces get butchered in Darien and two of them were not pretty sights (Witness for the Prosecution was mind numbing...some great acting, but that had nothing to do with the director...he just lucked out with a few of the actors...but for a courtroom drama whose pacing depends on the judge and the two attorneys to keep it moving you don't cast people who can't remember lines...even when the lines are written on their legal pads).
I've got a great cast for The Mousetrap. All except one of the eight actors is completely new to me. And I think its going to be a lot of fun. It runs from September 14 until September 30 on Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm. There is also a Thursday night performance on September 27 at 8pm. It is being performed in Curtain Call's Dressing Room Theater which is a black box theater where you can bring your own food for a cabaret style experience (yes...hearing that brings up visions of Kevin Kline in Soapdish, but its actually rather informal and not that bad...I've seen a few shows this way). The doors open at 7pm and you sit at your table and eat & drink & be merry until the show starts at 8pm.
We're performing this one "in the round" to give it a bit of a spin for anyone who's already seen the longest running show in theater history. It should be loads of fun. If you're in the area, please come see it. Check out Curtain Call's website for ticket info.
At the same time The Mousetrap opens, my wife is rehearsing a show at Norwalk's Carriage House Arts Center. Sordid Lives opens October 12. Its gonna be a funny show with a great cast under the direction of Frank Gaffney (who also cast our regular babysitter in the show, so we've had to work out a very specific schedule to keep everything on track). Check out the Carriage House website for more info.
While all of this is going on, The Darien Players will have started rehearsals for the first show of the season which is The Elephant Man. I'm co-producing this one. It opens November 2.
After that show closes, we're starting a new series (well...putting a new spin on an old series) called The Darien Players Unplugged. We're trying to get more consistent with our staged readings, so we're doing one on the Sunday after each show closes for a series of 5 across the season. We hope to have a nice mix of new short pieces and excerpts from longer works. I'm "directing" the first session that plays on November 18 (since The Elephant Man closes on November 17).
Lastly, I'm directing Julius Caesar for the Players in March 2008. Its going to be done modern dress and should be both fun and interesting...but I'll discuss that more as we get closer (in between Elephant Man and Caesar The Darien Players are doing Six Degress of Separation). And then I'm most likely going to take a real break from doing shows...a long break from doing shows...
Its been fun, but honestly being on the Players' Board and as their Vice President for the last 4 years has been taxing. There are one too many people on the Board who can't see the future beyond looking down their own arms and I've grown tired of dealing with them. They suck the fun and life out of the most simple tasks (we have a staged reading session going on tonight that has been a pain in the ass and I'm not even involved in it).
I've grown tired of dealing with people who are supposedly part of a larger group but only concern themselves with their working within the group (not for it). I've grown tired of dealing with people who do nothing but complain about how the others who do work very hard all season long. And I've grown tired of people who question how things are done when we've worked hard to put a machine in motion for every show that works very successfully.
Sure, I may change my mind between now and Caesar, but I've thrown the gauntlet down and told the Board (without pinning my frustrations on any one person) that unless things change before that show opens, I will be resigning. Its not an idol threat (as my wife has heard this statement so many times before). I'm tired and I'm done. When something stops being fun, it is time to move on.
Directing The Mousetrap has brought the fun back. Caesar will hopefully sustain it. But I can't continue in the capacity that I have been...that has not been fun.
Be seeing you.
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