Cygnet Blog

Millennium babies introduced to a new kind of interactive media… LIVE THEATRE!!!

By Soroya Rowley. Posted on 10/29/09

Kids enjoying Storytelling on the Green

“Ladies and Gentleman! Boys and Girls! Children of all ages! Gather ’round the flag pole in the Old Town Park and enjoy a 15 Minute performance of Living Shakespeare!”

Last Tuesday morning I snuck away from my usual Box Office abode and skipped over to the green in the middle of Old Town Park to watch our education departments regular performance of a 15 Minute Shakespeare. Here I was treated to a two-man rendition of that lamentable comedy, Pyramus and Thisby, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Dressed in their authentic 1850’s garb, Actors Extraordinaire, Mr. Brian Mackey and Mr. Daren Scott gathered a group of touring 1^st graders for a performance. A great relief to their exhausted teachers aids. Throughout the piece Brian and Daren hand picked 3 children to play the rolls of Lion, Wall and Moonshine, to the delight of their classmates.

Since birth, the adorable children of Generation Z have been inundated with mediated performance through movies, television and the internet. The meaning of “live” performance has been reduced to a clip on YouTube, shot in one take. For these children, “actors” live on the other side of a plasma screen and remain inaccessible and impersonal. But not this time…

The children were fascinated, as if it were nothing they’d ever seen before. Their eyes remained fixed on Brian and Daren’s hilarious range of characters, voices and gestures, not to mention their giggling classmates that had been chosen by the actors to take the stage… or in this case grass.

These actors weren’t walled off by a pixelated screen. Instead of being separated from their entertainment the children were in the thick of it, interacting with the characters and becoming a part of the story as it unfolded before their young eyes. One little girl even captured the memory by recording the entire piece on her cell phone. Oh the irony!

“We are the Cygnet Players! We need an audience and we need a cast! Gather ’round one and all!”

Posted in Storytelling on the Green | No Comments »

MAN FROM NEBRASKA: Road trip to Lincoln

By Jack Missett. Posted on 07/24/09

Jack Missett in front of Nebraska cornfield

On the road at 5 a.m., headed west from the bottom left corner of Iowa across the Missouri River on highway 34, which runs through the heart of the “Prairie Capital City,” Lincoln, the setting for Tracy Letts’ play Man from Nebraska (Oct. 3- Nov. 1, The Old Town Theatre). When director Fran Gercke heard my wife and I would be visiting her Iowa relatives, he jumped at my offer to do a recon-and-report from Lincoln and blog about it. So, at 5:42 a.m., I cross the Mizzou at Plattsmouth, Nebraska, on a tiny 2-lane toll bridge ($1.25 each way) – the bridge used to be privately owned by a family who built the bridge and kept all the tolls, but now the city owns it and I believe the price has gone up since my last visit. A sign reads “NEBRASKA- THE GOOD LIFE.”

Lincoln isn’t just the state capital, it’s also the home to the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers football team – “Go Big Red!” Corn figures in this story because there’s no escaping it…15 million beautiful acres producing more than a billion bushels of corn (most of it feeder corn for livestock, not sweet corn for our plates). The gentle hills surrounding Lincoln are vast cornfields, “as high as an elephant’s eye.” This is America’s farmland – corn, soybeans, sorghum (aka milo) and winter wheat. The most important subject other than the football team is the weather.

Highway 34 turns into O Street as I enter Lincoln at 6:53, searching in vain for a Starbucks. It’s several blocks and several morning commuters honking their horns at me before I finally find one – Lincoln has lots of coffee shops, but not many Starbucks. Help me, Toto, we’re not in California anymore. But one thing Lincoln has plenty of is churches. The population is about 250,000, and there are 229 churches, or about one church for every 1,000 people. Man From Nebraska is the story of an ordinary guy who wakes up one morning and discovers he doesn’t believe in God anymore. And he goes from being a regular church-going, insurance salesman, Baptist family man to a lost soul experiencing a “crisis of faith” in Lincoln.

My friend Carol and I meet up about 8:30. She’s a U of N grad, lived all her adult life in Lincoln, and accepts my description of Lincolnites as “the plain people of the Plains” with bemusement. Carol gives me a tour of the sights: the towering State Capitol building, known to locals as the ‘Penis of the Prairie’ – hey, they said it, not me; the massive Memorial Stadium with it’s motto “Not the victory but the action, not the goal but the game, in the deed the glory” – pretty heady stuff for a football game; the beautiful Sunken Gardens and lovely neighborhoods filled with handsome homes. Most of the cars I see are American made, and one car dealer has a sign out front reading “Here to Stay!” All in all, Lincoln seems more of a college town than the seat of state government, perhaps due to the fact that Nebraska is the only state in the union to have a non-partisan, unicameral legislature (a single chamber representative body – why waste money taking two votes on everything).

More Corn

Nebraska is a long state. With a girlfriend in Iowa and a family in Wyoming, I know – I’ve driven it many times, even got thrown in jail once in Hershey for speeding, but that’s another story. The state is also divided into north and south Nebraska by the Platt River (remember the toll bridge at Plattsmouth) and Omaha used to be the capital, and Lincoln used to be a town called Lancaster. Back in Civil War days, people north of the Platt were rooting for the Yankees, and those south of the river – including Lancaster/Lincoln – were Confederate sympathizers…and except for the people in Omaha, everybody wanted to move the state capital out of Omaha to some place more in the middle of the state. So, in what was seen as a trick vote, the folks in Omaha said, “We’ll move the state capital to Lancaster, but we want to change the name of the town to honor our recently assassinated hero of the Union cause, President Lincoln,” figuring the vote would lose. But, nope, it passed, they changed the name and moved the capital. Which may or may not explain why Lincoln is even today a very Caucasian city – 89.3% white, 3.6% Latino, 3.1% Asian , 3% African-American and the rest Native American and Pacific Islander or “other.” However, in 2008, while the state of Nebraska went for McCain, Lancaster County and the City of Lincoln went for Obama.

A thunderstorm breaks at 9:45, and I say goodbye to Carol, buy a bunch of “Go Big Red” T-shirts for my fellow cast members and head back to Iowa, pausing only to photograph a barn with an American flag, and stopping in Plattsmouth for a raspberry turnover – they were all out of apple. Sadly, I didn’t make it to the Johnny Carson Theatre, the black box performance space at the University named for the Tonight show star who generously donated $11 million to his alma mater (BA in Radio/Speech, minor in physics). The University also renamed The Department of Theatre Arts the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film. Other famous people from Lincoln include Oscar winning actress Hilary Swank, Vice President Dick Cheney (who graduated from the same high school in Casper, Wyoming, as I did) and Charles Starkweather, mass murderer, who took along his 14 year-old girlfriend Carol Fugate as he killed 11 people, 3 of them in Lincoln. No one was injured during the research and writing of this blog. By lunchtime I’m back in Iowa, the sun comes out and we all go to the County Fair – parking and admission are free.

Posted in Man from Nebraska | 1 Comment »

Top 5 Old Town Parking Secrets

By Josh Rowland. Posted on 07/16/09

With another warm San Diego summer upon us, locals and foreigners alike flock to the Old Town Historic State Park to enjoy it’s many restaurants, shops and cultural attractions. Cygnet has been an integral part in bringing San Diegans back into the park but with all the extra people visiting, the parking situation can become a challenge. Avoid the circling and frustration by reading up on my top 5 Old Town Park Parking Secrets:

5) Hacienda Hotel. The Hacienda Hotel offers paid parking in their garage (just up Juan Street) for a minimal charge.

4) Theatre Parking Only. There is a small parking lot adjacent to the Old Town Theatre that is held for theatre patrons only starting two hours before the show. You can park there, but be aware that it does fill up fast.

3) Go To Dinner/Lunch Before The Show. If you arrive two hours before a show with dinner plans, feel free to use our small theatre lot; pick up your tickets, go to dinner and return for the show. This has proven successful for many patrons so far in my experience.

2) Trolley Station/Cal-Trans Lot. If the parking lot is full near the theatre, give up! Don’t keep circling and circling, you need to make alternative parking plans. There are two HUGE parking lots in the area which are each less than a 5 minute walk to the theatre. The Trolley Station lot is located at the north east corner of the park on Taylor Street and Pacific Coast Highway. Unless there is a baseball game downtown, there is usually plenty of space. This also offers a nice, short walk through the State Park to get to the theatre. The new Cal-Trans administration building is hiding an enormous 600 stall parking lot behind it. At the intersection of Juan Street and Taylor Street, this lot is available in the evenings and on weekends.

1) Why not skip the car all together? Public transportation is the best way to avoid the challenge of parking your car in Old Town. We have the advantage of having on of San Diego’s major Transit Center’s in our backyard! You can catch the Blue, Green and Orange Trolley lines from Old Town as well as the Coaster or the numerous bus-lines that stop there. Check www.sdcommute.com for more information about routes and schedules.

Posted in General | No Comments »

The Best Kind of Madness

By Albert Dayan. Posted on 07/08/09

Albert Dayan as Lloyd DallasPhoto by Daren Scott

Jason Heil drove up to my hometown of Los Angeles to see a play, not cast one. But there we were, sitting in the audience of a theatre in Glendale, when my friend of many years floated a completely insane idea.

“Hey, you interested in auditioning for a play that begins rehearsals in a week?”

“I doubt it. Wait. Where’s it going up?”

“At Cygnet. In San Diego.”

What’s so insane about that? Well, for one thing, I am the father of an 11-month-child. And by father, I don’t mean a “show-up-in-the-evenings-and-pat-him-on-the-head” dad. No, I’m talking about a “full-time, daddy-day-care, I’m-the-one-who-gets-him-to-take-his-nap” dad. Moving to San Diego in a week’s time would effectively turn my wife into a single mom for the month it would take her to join me with our son, and leaving would also mean shuttering my tutorial business smack dab in the middle of its most profitable time of year. Jason, as usual, was entirely out of his mind.

“Sounds great. I’ll check with Katharine,” I told him.

A week later, there I was in the rehearsal room at Cygnet’s office, getting ready for the first read-through of Noises Off. It had all happened so fast. Seated around the table was a spectacularly talented cast. As luck would have it, a few among them were students or former students of mine. I’ve long taught a weekly acting class in San Diego and now, to my great delight, I’d be performing opposite several of them. Also in the show were San Diego luminaries Jonathan McMurtry and Rosina Reynolds, who I knew by reputation to be dauntingly talented actors. My role? Director Lloyd Dallas, the one who bosses them around.

Rehearsals turned out to be a blast, albeit a mind-numbing, exhausting blast. Anyone who’s done Noises Off can confirm for you two key things: one, it’s a hell of a good time and two, performing it is like running a marathon… in a blender… with a blindfold on. It’s the kind of show that leaves you with war stories. Just ask Rosina about her daily battle with the phone cord, or Sandy Campbell how I spit all over her, or Craig Huisenga how hard it is to make your pants fall off on cue. Ask Sean Murray how he manages, day in, day out, to keep us from accidentally killing each other.

Heading into previews I’m excited as hell. From the beginning, this whole journey for me has been absolutely the best kind of madness. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. As my character Lloyd so aptly puts it in Act One, “That’s farce, that’s theatre, that’s life.”

Posted in Noises Off | 2 Comments »

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

By Rachael VanWormer and Brian Mackey. Posted on 06/24/09

Brian Mackey

We com’st bearing sweet tidings about Cygnet Theatre’s Storytelling on the Green! What is’t that which thou sayest? Hast not thou heard’st about Cygnet Theatre’s newest endeavor? Ye Gods!! Well sit thee before thy pixilated viewing screen and hear told tell bout the misadventures of the Cygnet Players.

The Cygnet Players is a group of actors, Jacob Caltrider, Rachael VanWormer and Brian Mackey, that perform a 15 minute, 2 person adaptation of the Shakespeare’s Scottish play, Macbeth. We were directed and nudged along by the multi talented Fran Gerke. We perform every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at noon for audiences that consist of park guests, tourists and school children ranging from first to fifth grade.

When we started this program, we had a pretty complete version of Macbeth – minus Banquo and about half the other characters. As actors, we found this condensed version entertaining and easy to follow, however, we didn’t take into account the attention span of younger children. Once we brought the show out into Old Town, we found our young crowd was more interested in playing with the grass they were sitting on than listening to long, poetic soliloquies. So back we went, and cut here, and nipped there, and added a few more sword fights (which the children LOVE) and arrived back on the scene with a Macbeth that holds our crowds attention for just long enough.

Jacob Caltrider performing for some children.

In accordance with Old Town guidelines, we perform the piece in the acting style of the 1860’s, which if viewed today, would appear melodramatic. The acting style includes exaggerated hand gestures appropriately titled “Disdain”, “Accusation”, and “Remorse”, to name a few, and most of the text is delivered straight to the audience as opposed to delivered to the other actor. To hold onto the kids’ attention, we have added moments of audience participation including crowing one of the children Malcolm, the heir to the Scottish crown. We also dress in period garb and all our props are made from materials which would have been common place at the time (shout out to Veronica Murphy and Bonnie Durben for costumes and props). We are still very much learning on our feet, and continue to discover new ways to engage our audience, while attempting to maintain some sense of the original story and text.

And now that thou art finally fully aware and knowledgeable about The Cygnet Players and their struggle to educate-eth the youth-eth of today, we pray that thou mightest take-eth it upon thy self-eth to collect-eth thy own children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews, young of heart and old of spirit, and join-eth us upon our blasted health to hear tell the terrible, tragic tale-eth, of the Scottish King, Macbeth-eth.

Posted in Storytelling on the Green | 2 Comments »

It’s Not an Age Thing…

By Jessica John. Posted on 06/11/09

Jessica John and her mom

The opening night of Hedwig and the Angry Inch left me with a quandary. Admittedly a “mama’s girl”, I take my mother to see everything. She’s an artist and an intellectual and some of my best conversations take place after accompanying her to a particularly fascinating foreign film or live performance. But this was Hedwig and the Angry Inch after all. And for everything broad-minded and cultured she is, my mother is as equally and as gracefully a 70-year old Catholic woman of the 1950’s. And again… Hedwig.

I’d never seen Hedwig. I’d heard great things. I’m a theatre person. Four of my closest friends are gay. I have spent good chunks of my life dedicated to furthering my belief in being nonjudgmental. Why hadn’t I seen the first production? Or the movie? I had heard the music was fantastic. I had heard segments of Hedwig songs sung at the Cygnet Gala. Beautiful, funny, moving vocals out of the mouths of Manny Fernandes and Tom Zohar. I looked up past reviews for a description to give my mother. I looked at the postcard. A large, wigged angry-looking woman in shredded tights and weeping blue eye shadow seemed to be screaming at me…screaming at my 70-year old mother.

I called my mom. She wasn’t home so I left a message that sounded something like this. “Hi Mom. I’ve been meaning to ask if you’d like to join me for the opening of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It’s tomorrow. Sorry I didn’t mention it sooner. Um… It’s a little racy… It’s about a transsexual whose surgery goes…uh awry, I think? But… It takes place in Berlin right before the wall comes down and I understand it’s really kind of symbolic for people who feel like outcasts and need to feel whole. It’s about love and finding your other half and finding yourself… I think… I won’t be offended if you don’t want to come… But I’d love for you to come. I wouldn’t ask Dad. But I thought you might want to see it with me? Call me back. I love you.”

Flash forward to opening night and I’m sitting in a sold-out theatre next to my 70-year old mother. The audience is buzzing and decidedly diverse. Women and men, straight and gay, reviewers and friends, theatre denizens and their unprepared dates. The band looks rough-and-tumble. The instruments they throttle threaten ear-splitting potential. Suddenly the double-doors swing open and in comes Hedwig in all her wigged glory. The show is off on its breath-less, silvery, hilarious and emotional journey. We were mesmerized.

I wouldn’t dare ruin the show by trying to retell it here. I will only describe the moment of the night that summed it all up for me. With Hedwig’s tale told and her final strains of music winding down, she asks the audience to put their hands in the air. Her song was one for anyone who had ever felt alone, had ever hoped for love, had ever sought completeness. Around me every single audience member put their hand in the air. I looked over at my mom; both of our hands were extended high and waving with the crowd of others.

Thank you, Hedwig.

Posted in Hedwig and the Angry Inch | No Comments »

I’ve been Advocated!

By Jason Heil. Posted on 06/08/09

Jason Heil When Sean Murray offered me a part in Noises Off, he didn’t have to go very far – he just strolled the ten feet from his office to the “Development Suite”, as we affectionately call the corner office that houses Development Director Veronica Murphy and myself. I casually accepted and continued working on my grant proposal, while internally turning cartwheels!

I’ve been a part of the Cygnet team for over a year and a half, but this will be my first time appearing on the Cygnet stage, and I’m honored to be joining such an amazing cast in a production helmed by Sean. As Veronica’s part-time right hand, my workload typically consists of assisting with processing donations, grant writing, donor appreciations, special events, and of course, making our morning coffee! For the past few years, when my Cygnet day has ended, I drove off to theatres in Coronado, San Diego, Solana Beach, and Vista to do my acting and directing work. Now my commute consists of walking to the rehearsal space in the back of our offices!

Several times a year, Cygnet sends out various mailings. When we do, we send out a call to volunteers, I make some extra coffee, and we have a great time folding letters, stuffing envelopes, and adding labels and stamps. (Quick plug, we will be doing a mailing this week and need volunteers on Wednesday, June 10 from 9:30am-1pm – contact me at jason@cygnettheatre.com if you want to join us!). It’s always a fun time chatting about theatre with board members, donors and other people who just want to help Cygnet out.

Recently, I came into work to find out that I had been Advocated! One of those volunteers (with whom I had debated the pros and cons of San Diego, New York and London theatre) had chosen to sponsor me through Cygnet’s Artist Advocate program. Thanks, Marilyn!

Jason Heil (right) with Judith Harris and Bill Schmidt

This program allows donors to direct their donations to an artist of their choice (actors, directors, designers and stage managers). All monies go directly toward the artist’s salary. Since its inception, Cygnet has made paying a competitive wage to artists a priority. This is made possible through the support of our donors!

As I write this, we are nearing the end of our second week of rehearsals. We’re at that bumpy stage where we’re still trying to remember all of the lines; where we’re juggling plates of sardines, slamming doors that aren’t there yet, pretending to run up and down stairs that are really taped squares on the floor, all the while trying to create real people who are experiencing real chaos. It’s maddening, frustrating, overwhelming. In other words, it’s theatre! And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world.

So, a big thank you to Arthur & Marilyn Neumann, who helped make it possible for me to be a part of this wonderful production. And thank you to ALL of the Advocates who are sponsoring artists, casts, and even productions. In the Development Suite, we are always looking for new and fresh ways to thank people. Sometimes, the simplest can be the best: We could not do this without your support. Thank you.

Posted in Noises Off | No Comments »

Hedwig past and present

By Bill Schmidt. Posted on 06/02/09

Mathew Tyler as Hedwig Wow does time fly. I can’t believe it is already June and Summer is almost here. What is even more amazing is that we are about to start our 7th Season. When Sean and I started Cygnet, I never realized that it would put my life on the fast track and the years would start to fly by. It’s been so much work and fun. Nevertheless, I don’t think I would change a thing that we did. The mistakes we made were as valuable as the great successes we had.

The first production we did was Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It seemed like the perfect first production for us, it was obnoxious and loud with great music and would make a statement but also, we hoped, attract the kind of cult audience that The Rocky Horror Show enjoyed. It seemed to work, we received a lot of attention and the production was very well received. We were on our way.

It seems like yesterday when we built the Rolando space and put on that first production. Now this Saturday we will be opening our last production at the Rolando space. The last production will once again be Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It seemed like the right choice for us. It’s really a fun show, a little twisted, and music is just wonderful.

I think Sean would agree that this a bittersweet time for us. We put so much of ourselves into the Rolando theatre and will definitely miss that great space but in life the time comes when you need to move on. Hedwig was a great start for us and I can’t think of a better swan song for the Rolando space.

Posted in Hedwig and the Angry Inch | No Comments »

Fabulous Event

By Veronica Murphy. Posted on 05/13/09

debsvergala If you missed Cygnet’s Sundown Safari this year you missed a great party. The zoo is such a beautiful place to spend a spring evening and our decorators (all volunteers headed by Doreen Black) did a terrific job of surrounding us with the colors and feel of a Saharan Sunset.

The event is a fundraiser so there were many terrific auction items, both silent and live, but the best part was the people. Sean and Bill had a chance to speak with almost everyone, I think. And other Cygnet Artists were there to sing and perform and engage with our guests. When I wasn’t running around like an ‘event coordinator’ I got to spend time speaking with our donors and patrons, both new and old. For me, that’s the best part. I met new people and had a chance to ‘catch up’ with long time friends of Cygnet.

We’ve had rave reviews about the food, the music, the entertainment, the animals, the dancing, the auction and what a great time the whole evening turned out to be. A very special thanks to our event chair, Tim Mulligan and the many volunteers who made the whole thing happen. Oh….did I say we raised over $50,000?

You won’t want to miss it next year!

We’ll announce the date as soon as it’s scheduled.

Posted in General | No Comments »

Bed and Sofa Background

By Sean Murray. Posted on 04/23/09

Bed and Sofa began its life as the wonderfully scandalous 1926 silent film directed by Abram Room and starring three of the Soviet Union’s most popular actors. For most of the twentieth century, Room’s film received ritual mention in Soviet and Western film histories, but mostly as a footnote in the development of the new art of film.

In the 1970’s the movie began to be taken up by a newer generation of film historians, such as Molly Haskell, who began to see it as “one of the most extraordinary feminist films of that [the 1920’s] or any other time.” The film began to make the rounds of various film festivals and began to be recognized for its frank depiction of ‘real life’ and its startling naturalistic acting style. Early American film actors had found their way into new medium of film via the Broadway stage and the circus. The acting style that we often associate with the silent era is one of broad gestures and quirky movement. This was to be expected as that was how actors worked on the stages of their era without the help of microphones, electric stage lighting, and computerized scenery. They needed to be larger and more declamatory to be heard and seen from the balconies. But, film pioneers like D. W. Griffith and Abram Room were busy creating such novel conventions as the ‘closeup’ and the ‘cut away shot,’ and thereby inventing the need for an entirely new style of acting for the film.

And Bed and Sofa was certainly that. It was an experiment in how to tell a simple story on film with only one set, three actors and a hand held camera around the busy streets of Moscow. Room’s team spun a complex and shifting tale of a love triangle in a cramped apartment during a severe housing shortage in modern Moscow. The film was an indictment of the wave of utopian ‘free love’ that came in with the revolution and was being actively stamped out by the Stalinist regime of the 1920s.

When Volodya excitedly comes to the big city to begin work as a printer he is met with the rude shock that due to government regulations, he must have a permanent address in order to hold a job of any kind. And, there is this housing shortage plaguing Moscow. It’s a “Catch Twenty-Two” that is only broken when he happens upon his old friend Kolya in the street who offers him his sofa. When Kolya, his wife, Ludmilla and Volodya set up house in the tiny apartment, a string of shifting alliances, lovers and situations are set into motion.

1920s1 Polly Pen and Laurence Klavan’s adaptation of movie is a mini-masterpiece. They obviously spent a great deal of love and devotion to making this story over for the stage. To begin with, the lyrics are adaptations of the title cards in the film. These phrases and musical motifs repeat over and over again. Each new time they are sung, they take on a new context as the story deepens. It’s simple and yet, it’s very complex and extremely specific. They have managed to create a faithful reproduction of the film that still holds its own as a piece of live theatre.

I’ve been a silent film fan for many years. When we produced this play in 2004, it was just our third production (of 37 now to date!). But it was so well received (by the few people who knew of our new company who actually saw it!), that it has remained one of the most often requested revivals we have. People who saw it ask to be able to see it again. Those who missed it have asked us for an opportunity to see what the fuss was about. We know this: It was due to Bed and Sofa that audiences began to discover what this new company was about and the kind of works we intended to create.

Revisiting it has been a great experience. Rather than a straight re-mount, this version of Bed and Sofa is entirely new. The new cast is different. The set is similar but different, and with the new capabilities of the Old Town Theatre, we are able to flesh this show out even further. It’s both bigger, and smaller. We’ve been enjoying this amazing opportunity to explore the silent film style of acting and story telling. We have been faithful to the original movie and watched it and studied it for inspiration. We admired the acting in the film and then took off and brought our own insights to the piece. We hope you enjoy the surprises in this highly unique mini-silent-movie-opera. It’s both big and small. Not another word.

Posted in Bed and Sofa | 2 Comments »