Monthly Archives: November 2008

Another openin’

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Another show. It seems like we just started rehearsals (around Labor Day was when it all began). To others, it probably seems like we’ve been going at it for a hundred years. It’s gone by fast for me.

Last week I researched some historical information on Annie Oakley to include in the program notes. What I found was quite interesting…

Her real name was Phoebe Ann Mosey. She was born in Darke County, Ohio, 13 August 1860. It is said that she changed her name to “Oakley” in honor of the Ohio town of the same name.

Frank Butler – the sharpshooter Annie would eventually marry and live happily ever after with – was only too glad to become Annie’s assistant and manager after she consistently outshot him in the Wild West Show performances. (The movie and Broadway versions depict Frank as more of an arrogant chauvinist.)

The Butlers were happily married all of their years together. (In fact, off stage, Annie always referred to herself as Mrs. Frank Butler.) They retired back to her hometown in Ohio after their careers in show business were over, even though, at age 62, Annie could still nail 100 clay targets in a row without missing.

Always together in life, it makes beautiful sense that they died together. Annie passed away on 3 November, 1926, and Frank died 3 weeks later, on the 21st — both of natural causes.

Great story, great show. Or at least I’m hoping it will be….

See you on the other side of it all.

Fink out.

Image and story credit: Buffalo Bill Historical Society; Lakewood Public Library

TBS Pipeline VI

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I remember having a crush on Timothy Hutton (pictured here being directed by Robert Redford) back in 1980 when I bawled through the movie Ordinary People. It’s a goody, you should rent it.

He was married to Debra Winger (of Urban Cowboy fame — I think I’m the only person on the planet who hated that movie) for awhile, too. He’s also a spitting image of his daddy, the late Jim Hutton, an actor my dad really liked. Anyway, he’s doing a new series for TNT entitled Leverage, premiering on 9 December. According to the press release:

Hutton plays former insurance investigator Nate Ford, a once-loyal corporate employee who recovered millions of dollars in stolen goods for his employer. After the employer denied his son’s insurance claims and allowed the boy to die, Ford realized he could no longer work for the company.

Out of work and unable to get past his grief, Ford is hired by an aeronautics executive to recover airplane designs the executive claims were stolen by a rival. He assembles four highly skilled team members: Parker (Beth Riesgraf), an expert thief; Alec Hardison (Aldis Hodge), a specialist in Internet and computer fraud; Eliot Spencer (Christian Kane), a high-octane “retrieval specialist” who can take out a gang of henchmen without breaking a sweat; and Sophie Devereaux (Gina Bellman), a grifter who could win awards for her acting skills during difficult scams.

Sounds pretty good, and Timothy still looks presentable, if not handsome for 49. Starting next month, Leverage is on Sundays at 10 p.m.

Photo credit: imdb.com

And away we go

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Production week has arrived, my fiends. For you thespian types, you know what that involves. For those of you who possess more stable minds and choose not to involve yourself in musical theater, this means:

  • I leave for school at 6:50 a.m., and drag back through the door at 10 p.m.
  • I think about many things:
    • Do I have everything set up for the orchestra?
    • Do all my stand lights work?
    • Are there enough batteries for the mics?
    • Where’s my friggin’ BATON!?!?
    • Do I have all the tempo changes marked in the overture?
    • When are the Chameleon headsets going to arrive?
    • Whose name did I leave out of the program?
    • DANGIT I forgot to give the payroll information to Shirley.
    • It’s 5:57 a.m. and I haven’t made lunch or dinner for tonight for me and #1 Son.
    • Why do I feel like I’m going to vomit?
    • There are three rehearsals left (which answers the previous question).
  • I think we have a fine show, with solid singing and talented young people who have learned volumes about acting.
  • I don’t know how I’m going to squeeze Jakey into my schedule this week, which makes me sad.
  • I have very little time for parent-teacher conferences this week (not altogether a bad thing, since very few people sign up to conference with the choir director — also not altogether a bad thing).

Yikes it’s 5:59 and I have to get going. Have a delightful Monday, and I’ll see a great many of you this night…

Fink out.

I’m old fashioned.

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I admit it. Just when I think I’m all progressive and 21st-century, I am reminded of things I miss.

Some might even call me a…you know…one of those things pictured at the left. It’s ok; I don’t mind.

On some things, I’m just old fashioned.

I don’t know why I’m feeling all nostalgic this morning (seeing as how my aching head and sore throat are not making me happy), but it may surprise you to learn how really stuck-in-the-olden-days I am. Time has indeed moved on without me in many ways.

Some Reasons I Might Be Called “Old Fashioned”

  1. I think men should still open doors for ladies, and offer to carry heavy things, and let them go first.
  2. I believe children should be respectful to adults, and that there are parental decisions which should not be open to debate.
  3. I’m totally comfortable with the word “gay” also meaning “happy and carefree.”
  4. I think girls should leave more of their physical attributes to the imagination, and less hanging out for all to see (I know, TRO would disagree).
  5. I watch White Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life every December, and although both movies contain no hot guys, no swear words, no sexual situations, no naked people, no violence and no CGI, I still love watching them, and I still bawl like an idiot in all the same places.

But I’m really a paradox; self-contradictory. I cling to certain notions and conventions of the past while maintaining an iron grip on modernity, to wit:

  1. I couldn’t see myself enjoying life as much without my computer and cell phone: two things I definitely did not have growing up, but without which I still had a perfectly happy childhood.
  2. My views on the modern “Christian” church and its many cruel incarnations might be considered radical by some, especially considering my old-fashioned views on other issues. [Although….hating Pharisees is likely a very old concept.]

But I guess that’s the beauty of the thing. We can choose what we ascribe to, feel, and hold dear. I’m just glad we have the freedom to do it. Not everyone does.

And now, to the sofa, after swallowing DayQuil, which, of course, makes the world go around (DayQuil, not the sofa).

Fink out.