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KC Star Preview of Bucket of Blood

Horror will stalk KC stages

Two upcoming productions take their inspirations from campy filmmaker Roger Corman.

BY ROBERT TRUSSELL

The Kansas City Star

The spirit of legendary B-movie director Roger Corman will hover over the Kansas City theater scene this spring.

In March, the Living Room will present “A Bucket of Blood,” a new stage version of a comic horror film set against the backdrop of 1950s beatnik culture that Corman shot for $50,000 in a lumberyard. The film, written by Charles B. Griffith, is a satire on visual art as a young artist finds fame by creating “sculptures” that are actually people encased in plaster.

The version at the Living Room was adapted by screenwriter/playwright Mitch Brian and will be directed by Cody Wyoming. The enormous cast includes actors and artists who are part of the Living Room creative family: Matt Weiss, Forrest Attaway, Damian Blake, Kelly Main, Coleman Crenshaw, Meredith Wolfe, Kimberley Queen (who is also designing the show), Matt Anderson, Brian Stubler, Bryan Moses and Emma Taylor. The production will also feature live music created by Johnny Hamil, Jeff Freling, Kent Burnham, Christian Hankel, Katie Gilchrist and Wyoming.

The show runs March 19-April 1. You can find more information at thelivingroomkc .com. The downtown theater is at 1818 McGee St.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/15/3429613/horror-will-stalk-kc-stages.html

Preview Excerpts for The Seagull

‘The Seagull’: The art of unrequited love

MET seeks the humor and entertainment in Chekhov’s ‘The Seagull.’

BY ROBERT TRUSSELL

The Kansas City Star

Director Karen Paisley summarizes Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull” this way: sex, death, love and marvelous clothes.

This week the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre opens the first local professional production of a play by the Russian dramatist in 11 years.

Yes, the denizens of Chekhov’s plays are miserable. But they can also be funny. Chekhov, who died in 1904 at the age of 44, considered “The Seagull” a comedy, and the translation Paisley chose — by British playwright Tom Stoppard — certainly reads funny on the printed page.

“One of the things we always talk about is, you gotta find the funny,” Paisley said. “Nobody’s interested in coming to the theater for two hours of wrist-slitting. … These great plays are like that. You can approach them as if they are sacred text. But I don’t think the playwrights ever intended for them to be that.”

[…]

Paisley has put together an impressive creative team for this show. Scenic designer Jason Coale, who has built sets for the Unicorn and the New Theatre, among other companies, has designed his first scenery for the MET since creating a visually striking set for the company’s production of “Copenhagen” in 2008. Newcomer Shannon Smith designed the “marvelous clothes.”

And the cast would be considered exceptional by any theater company in town.

Cheryl Weaver, last seen delivering a powerhouse performance in KC Rep’s “August: Osage County,” plays Irina Arkadina, the fading actress. Forrest Attaway, who has chalked up a series of fine performances at the MET and the Living Room, plays Trigorin, the novelist. Robert Gibby Brand, whose performances at the MET have been exceptional across the board, plays Dorn, a doctor. The excellent Richard Alan Nichols appears as Sorin, Irina’s brother and owner of the estate.

The big cast also includes MET veterans Alan Tilson and Nancy Marcy as the estate manager and his wife, and a group of younger actors who demand our attention: Coleman Crenshaw, Ashlee LaPine, Chris Roady and Jessica Franz.

Read more of Robert Trussell’s preview at The KC Star

The Seagull opens Friday, Jan 13th at 7:30pm at The Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre and runs until Jan 29th.  Catch a preview performance Thursday (Jan 12) at 7:30!

Auditions for Two Rooms (OCTA) next week

Two Rooms

by Lee Blessing

directed by Coleman Crenshaw

at The Olathe Community Theatre Association
500 E Loula Street
Olathe, KS 66061-5402

 

Audition Dates and Times
Tuesday December 6 2011 07:00 PM to 10:00 PM

 

EXPECTATION and PREPARATION:   Bring a headshot/resume & conflicts between Jan 8th and Feb 17th.

Auditions will consist of short dramatic monologue (memorized if possible) of less than 2 minutes and cold readings from the script.

Rehearsals will begin Jan 8th,  Sun – Wed evenings mostly until Februar

CALLBACKS: Invited Callbacks will be held on Monday, December 12th  at 6pm if necessary.

PRODUCTION DATES:
February 17, 18, 19*, 24, 25, 26*, Mar 2, 3, 4*

Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm
*Sundays at 2:00pm

SYNOPSIS:

The two rooms of the title are a windowless cubicle in Beirut where an American hostage is being held by terrorists and a room in his home in the United States, which his wife has stripped of furniture so that, at least symbolically, she can share his ordeal.  In fact the same room serves for both and is also the locale for imaginary conversations between the hostage and his wife, plus the setting for the real talks she has with an ambitious reporter and a determined State Department official.

Lee Blessing’s taut psychodrama focuses on an intensely personal story of love, separation, and hope.  Yet Blessing carries the audience through the three perspectives of the individual, the public, and the government and their struggles to respond to the new world of global terrorism.

In the end, there are no winners, only losers, and the sense of futility and despair that comes when people of goodwill realize that logic, compassion and fairness have become meaningless when dealing with those who would commit such barbarous acts so willingly.

ROLES AVAILABLE:

Michael Wells — educator

Lainie Wells — educator, married to Michael

Walker Harris — reporter

Ellen Van Oss — representative of the State Department

More Info at:

http://www.olathetheatre.org/Audition.aspx?EventID=58