Working on The Commedia Aladdin

Contributed by Michelle LeRoy, Director, The Commedia Aladdin by Lane Riosely

We had our first read through of the script. I can honestly say that I'm even more excited to get this process started. Not only were the auditions for this show the most fun I have ever had but the cast is great together. Casey is such a charmer. He's going to make you want Arlequin to win. David's Punchin playing the Momma cracks me up every time. Heidi is just so adorable, sorry Heidi but you are, and funny and Jillian's timing is brilliant. I can't wait to get to rehearsals. As I told my cast my mentor and inspiration for being in this business is Jim Henson. So for this show I cast each of the characters as both a Muppet show and Sesame Street character to use as a inspiration for me. I won't tell you who they are you'll just have to see if you can guess after watching the show.

Contributed by Emily Pierce, Stage Manager, The Commedia Aladdin by Lane Riosley

My name is Emily Pierce and I had the honor of stage managing for Water Works' 2010 production of Two Gentlemen of Verona & I will be stage managing the 2011 production of Commedia Aladdin. It is a wonderful organization to get involved with as the people involved are creative & passionate people who come from a variety of backgrounds. There is a lot to be learned from everyone involved and the group comes together much like a family. The audience is very loyal and many tend to brave the elements to see & support the productions.

Stagemanaging at Water Works is a unique experience. The rehearsals are fairly standard with taking blocking notes and making sure the production team knows about anything new that is needed or potential issues. The true challenge comes when the cast & crew move to the park. Anything can happen; from bad weather, random frisbees flying in, train going by, to critters and kids who try to investigate what is going on. Each night all props, microphones, costumes, sound & light boards need to be accounted for and locked away and the set tarped to protect them from the elements. It is a true test of time management, planning, & organization (occasionally being good at Tetris helps too). I love the excitement that comes with outdoor theatre and I think it is a great way to spend an afternoon/evening.

We both can't wait for you to experience our shows this season! See you soon!

Contributed by Jeff Thomakos, Artistic Director & Director of The Tempest



Well it is Mid-March and already things are well underway for Water Works this summer. In fact, we have been working and planning since late last year. The first thing to decide was what the Shakespeare show would be. Hamlet was tossed around. So was Cyrano de Bergerac (not written by Shakespeare, I know, but it would still be great to do, don't you think?). In the end, we decided to go with our most requested show, The Tempest.

I have big plans for this show. The seeds of which started two years ago when we decided to add a family Commedia show to our summer repertoire. Commedia requires masks and I was on the hunt for a local mask maker who would be up to the task. After weeks of fruitless searching, Ed mentioned that he had a mask sitting in his office from a really talented lady named Nina Barlow. (Nina, it turns out, donated some masks for our 2002 art auction fundraiser and Ed bought one). I gave her a call and she turned out to be inspiring. Do you remember the awesomely realistic and bloody severed head of Macbeth? Yeah, that was her.

Ever since then, I have been determined to do a show that would highlight her work and The Tempest seemed like a perfect fit.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, Prospero, the Duke of Milan, and his infant daughter are put out to sea in a small boat and left for dead by his usurping brother, Antonio. As luck would have it, however, they end up as castaways on an enchanted island inhabited by monsters and supernatural beings. Prospero, who also is a wizard of enormous power, ends up becoming ruler of the island. Many years later when a ship whose passengers include Prospero's evil brother and several of his fellow conspirators happens to pass by the island on the way home from a royal wedding, Prospero uses his magic to send a storm to sink the ship and bring the conspirators to the island where he can exact his revenge. Does he get his revenge? Is the boat really sunk? Does he get back home? Come see it and find out.

Monsters? Supernatural beings? Enchanted Island? Yes. Yes. AND YES! Ariel, Prospero's chief spirit, according to the script is a master of disguise. She (yes, she will be a "she" in our production) takes the form of a water nymph, a forest nymph, a harpy, and can turn invisible. There are also devils, mystical dogs, cannibalistic monsters, magical farmers (yep, magical farmers), and actual gods and demi-gods. In case you haven't figured it out yet, this is unlike any other play Shakespeare wrote. Even Midsummer Night's Dream doesn't contain this many magic spells and supernatural creatures.

Yes, masks seemed like the perfect way to bring all of this to life. Nina's work is spectacular and we've been giddily planning, prepping, and designing the wonderful faces you will see this summer. I have the show half cast at this point and have sent the actors that are already signed on to Nina's house to have their faces set in plaster so that their masks can be custom built.

The big question, though, is where do the masks fall in the scheme of things in our production? Are they costumes? Yes. Props? Yes. Some masks will require microphones, so that will put them under sound. Some masks will have LED lights built into them, so that is a lighting issue. Some masks may even be used to create sound. I have never worked a show in which collaboration and coordination was so vital to the production's success. But my team is, as usual, composed of an extraordinary list of great local talent which really helps me keep my hair from going white.

Of course, masks are just one part of the equation this summer. There's also the music, the set, some great new initiatives and programs, the awesome cast, the Daylight Family Show (which will be The Commedia Aladdin by Lane Riosley, in keeping with our magic theme this year), and, then there's what we're hoping to do in the trees…

Stay tuned and believe in magic.

Jeff

A Year Full of Passion, Talent and Enchanted Evenings

Contributed by Jeff Thomakos, Artistic Director of Water Works Theatre

Well, another Water Works season is drawing to a close and I can hardly believe it. I knew it was going to be an odd year, when I met Ed, our executive director for coffee last fall and broke the bad news. The Purple Rose made me an offer I couldn’t refuse and I wouldn’t be available this season to direct anything. Ed was amazingly understanding and off we went to prepare for the season.

First, there was our Winter Fundraiser. To celebrate our ten years as a company, we invited every single person who has ever been a part of our shows that we could get a hold of. We then did scenes from all ten of our shows with original cast members reprising their roles. It was wonderful, but…phew…it was a lot of work. I spent months tracking people down, leaving voicemails and emails, and convincing people to come perform for us for free in the middle of winter. The task was daunting, but somehow, it turned into an amazing, enchanting evening that everyone thoroughly enjoyed.

Meanwhile, I was also hiring our artistic team. Don Hunter, a key person for us for the last two years, was moving back to Indiana and I had to find a stage manager who could fill his rather imposing shoes. Fortunately for us, Emily Pierce came in for an interview and I was completely wowed. Add to that, the great Emily Bowyer as Stage Manager for Commedia King Arthur and a huge weight was lifted.

This year we were also lucky enough to bring in Barton Bund as a director. Our team knew that we wanted to do a comedy this year, but we weren’t really sure which one. We didn’t want to repeat ourselves and do something we had already done like Midsummer or Much Ado. Love’s Labours Lost and Merry Wives of Windsor were thrown around a lot, but nothing seemed quite right. Then in walks Bart who says he’s willing to direct anything we want, but was really passionate about Two Gentlemen of Verona and felt he had a winning concept for it. Since it is my feeling that it’s best when directors direct shows they are passionate about, the decision to do Two Gentlemen of Verona with Bart as director was a no-brainer for us. His passion for the material beams from the stage every night and as a result, everyone has caught a bit of it - the actors, the audience…even the dog.

Bart suggested we bring in the brilliant Monika Essen who last worked with Water Works in our critically-acclaimed co-production with Performance Network, Nine Parts of Desire. What’s more, he convinced us to bring her in not only as a set designer, but also as the costume designer as well. As a result, the artistic vision of the show was unified in an amazing way. Everything compliments each other, everything fits.

With Shannon Kennedy and Tom Niemkeiwicz as Production Manager and Master Carpenter respectively, our super, amazing production team was assembled. All that was left was the casting.

Those of you who have already seen the show know what a fantastic cast we have this year. It’s a great mix of familiar Water Works faces like Rusty Mewha and Sara Wolf Molnar and new faces like Tommy Simon and Kevin Young. Everyone in the cast is fantastic. I am quite jealous.

You have one more weekend to experience this unique event. One more weekend to sit under the stars and laugh, and hear poetry and watch talented people take interesting characters to amazing places. Please come, and then tell us about your experience. If you are like the 10,000 other people who have seen a Water Works show, then I think you will find it to be unforgettably wonderful.

Real Stars of Shakespeare in the Park in Royal Oak

Contributed by Ed Nahhat, Founder and Executive Director of Water Works Theatre

The 13 year-old boy selling popcorn in the park this year first learned stage sword fighting in KidsAct!; after which he was cast in our production of the “Scottish Play” in 2009, showing off his on-stage dying skills every night with professional actors. The girl who starred in Royal Oak High School’s musical last fall learned her first Shakespeare in the park with Water Works in 2004. The boys and girls who got cast in Gerard Butler’s upcoming movie Machine Gun Preacher are recent KidsAct! students, all of 10 and 12 years old, working with A-List talent on their first paid acting job.

For one local actress a small part with Water Works led to bigger roles and a highly sought place in a prestigious graduate theatre program. Another actress was so good in her first Water Works show that she won awards, catapulting her to roles in major films, including one with Robert DeNiro.

We know that Water Works doesn’t make people talented. But we work hard every year to offer talented people the opportunity to grow in their craft and career. We educate and empower artists (offstage and on) of any age. We also pay all of our artists, hiring local actors, designers, directors, graphic artists, and other vendors and suppliers. We offer the only outdoor professional Shakespeare event in Michigan. And we’re really proud that we run the only public event in Royal Oak that does not cost the local taxpayer a dime.

In fact, Water Works pays the city to use the park, and we pay for everything else that goes into a professional outdoor theatre event, from microphones to insurance to port-johns. Certainly we could not make it without our generous donors, neighborhood advertisers and ticket buyers. And we need more help in that department.

But the real stars of Shakespeare in the park in Royal Oak are:

our volunteers.

It’s not easy to explain why some people volunteer their time, or how one manages to recruit such wondrous people. But when it’s real, it’s just like finding gold in the ground. Water Works saves thousands of dollars in business expenses every year relying upon the generous and professional help of volunteers, from signage to bookkeeping, from house management to social networking, from manual labor to audio supplies, from legal advice to student interns. Personally, I think that even our “paid” people are so underpaid that they end up volunteering a lot of time too.

Everyone who donates their time, their talent, their insight and creative contribution to such an effort is a special kind of local hero to me. So this year, we decided to honor six of our Ten Year volunteers with Water Works’ “Best Friends Award” (custom made by local artists Edward Marsh and Nina Barlow). The honorees are: Tony and Jan Schmitt, Lisa and Duane Kimmel, Holly and Bryan Conroy and Sam and Mary Nahhat. But we have many other volunteers who are just as valuable to us, people who have given their time and talent in past years, or are stepping up today.

I can’t name them all here, but I know their names by heart. And if you come see our show, you’ll meet them, our real stars, one by one. And they’ll be smiling.

Come see us, and join in the fun.

In the photograph: A few of our "Best Friends" - Water Works 2010 honorees Lisa and Duane Kimmel with State Representative Marie Donigan and Water Works founder Ed Nahhat.

Sign Language Interpreting for the Theatre

Contributed by Jamie Fidler, TerpTheatre Team Member
Two Gentlemen of Verona Understudy/Theatre Liaison


Shakespeare. The open air. Groovy 60’s fun! This experience of collaborating with Water Works Theatre has been enjoyable for all of us at TerpTheatre. As the understudy for our performing interpreters (Dan McDougall & Shelly Tocco) I’ve been able to watch the entire production come to fruition - despite spotty rain, pesky bugs, and complex Shakespearean language. The cast and crew have been a real pleasure to work. Dan and Shelly have stretched their brains trying to be creative with the language and also with the actors. I look forward to the performances when the Deaf and hearing audiences alike will be able to finally see the actors and interpreters color a new world of Shakespeare that, I’m sure, will be a good time had by all!

The July 25th and August 6th performances of The Two Gentlemen of Verona will be interpreted by TerpTheatre. Visit waterworkstheatre.com to order tickets.

To learn more about what we do, visit terptheatre.com.

The Magic of Starr Jaycee Park

Contributed by Scott Myers, WWT Director of Public Relations

This weekend I sat in Starr Jaycee Park and watched something magical happen.

I've seen it nine times now and every time I am amazed at what happens when the cast of Water Works' annual Shakespeare In The Park in Royal Oak transitions from rehearsals off site to the first rehearsal on the stage in the park.

The truth is that it's always a bit of a mess. At the first park rehearsal no one knows exactly how they're going to get to and from the stage, what the sound is going to be like, where the lights are going to hit, where the audience will sit and if a frisbee will land on the stage from the park's disc golf course.

And yet it's at this moment that the magic of doing theatre outdoors under the stars begins to happen.

This weekend the woods started to come to life again. The bottoms of the leaves were illuminated by the stage lights, the sounds of footsteps began echoing through the branches and the laughter of the cast & crew filled the air. Sitting there in the park watching it take place, I couldn't help but envy the adventure of which this cast and crew were about to embark.

Over the next few days paths will begin to emerge from the grass around the theatre, the imprints of the cast making their way to and from the stage. They will find stories that aren't written, experiences the audience will watch before and after each character appears. A commaradarie will overcome the staff as together they bring a new shape, form, and energy to a work of art hundreds of years old, pulled into living color before our eyes, wrapping around the audience from the bleachers to the blankets down front.

The light will dance across the stage, the laughter, songs, and dancing will fill the air, the smells of popcorn and bug spray will waft through the park, and then three weeks later,only the paths will remain until the leaves begin to fall like Shakespeare's words falling back into place on his old pages.

History is made in Royal Oak, one Summer at a time.

It really is quite magical.

Enjoying the Rehearsals

Contributed by Sara Wolf, playing the role of Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona

I am loving the rehearsal process. It is equal parts creativity and mischief and I love that A LOT. I'm enjoying the scene work, the way we are playing with the script, and discovering Julia. I enjoy IMMENSELY the people I work with, and I like being a part of this team. Did I mention there is a dog? There is a dog which is a major bonus. I think this show is going to have a lot to offer everyone- I'm so looking forward to playing for them. Dancing, acting, playing, DOG; this is great!