Wormhole
To give you an idea of how New York time is different from Michigan time...
SLAB is currently being shown at the Flint Community Theatre and it just sort of snuck up me. My how time flies in New York. Had I been in Flint, it probably would have seemed like forever until gametime. But I'm here, four years removed, and things are moving steadily along back home.
My friends are getting MARRIED and having CHILDREN! I think Jason Hurley's little girl had her first driving lesson earlier this year.
Thanks to Nathan, Dan, and the rest of FCT for getting me another show at home. Here is a Flint Journal write-up on it. Yes, oddly enough, Flint has a theatre critic.
THE FLINT JOURNAL
Saturday, December 03, 2005
By Kathleen Kirby
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
OK, "Slab" doesn't have a holiday theme, but that might be refreshing this month with most of the available live entertainment consisting of Yuletide stories and songs.
Actually, this comedy, which has opened at Good Beans Cafe under the auspices of Flint City Theatre, is just about as far from holiday fare as it can get.
Written by University of Michigan-Flint theater graduate Sean Michael Welch, the show opens with producer Louden Gray (Dan Gerics) addressing the audience. His message reveals his concern that the audience has abandoned live theater in favor of film and television. He thinks he has a surefire way to bring patrons back - he'll kill someone onstage!
Welch's script is clearly a spoof on a couple of fronts. It reacts to the current addiction of the viewing public to reality shows, and it comments comically on the nearly surreal seriousness of some small theater groups.
Gray's assistant, the compassionate and nurturing Seela Murr (Sara Robinson), comes up with a script by a local college student that seems to fill the bill. So they schedule auditions.
The trick is to find an actor willing to die onstage. That's no small feat, but oddly enough one such person surfaces when Tony Slab (Dan Visser) actually seems eager to play the role.
He sees it as a chance at immortality when Gray promises him enduring notoriety for years to come. Besides, he was thinking of suicide anyway.
Things continue to fall into place when an actor willing to do the killing steps forward. Rale Kilbourne (Cedric L. Hayes) seems unconcerned with the aftermath of carrying out the demands of the role since he's feeling lonely for the prison from which he was recently released and would actually like to go back.
Gray and Murr next need to find a financial backer so their grand plan to lure playgoers back will reach a sizable enough audience to have the desired effect. They find one in Mr. Caesar (Jesse Glenn), a Howard Hughes-type weirdo with a lot of money and even more childlike quirks. Mr. Caesar never speaks, but his "mouthpiece," Effrin (Jordan Climie), seems to read his thoughts and express his wishes.
When Gray is unhappy with the 750-seat theater Effrin first offers, Caesar manages to secure national television as the venue for Gray's play. With that irony in place, things start to unravel a bit.
Director Nathan Pease set his stage on a platform shrouded in black and broken up by working TV screens. If that's not symbolic enough, the script itself is loaded with wacky metaphors.
We've come to expect unusual and interesting things from FCT, and "Slab" certainly fits that mold. It's comical, quirky, and only a bit disturbing.
"Slab" continues at 8 p.m. today and Thursday through Dec. 10.
Details: (810) 341-6912, (810) 237-4663. www.flintcitytheatre.com.
SLAB is currently being shown at the Flint Community Theatre and it just sort of snuck up me. My how time flies in New York. Had I been in Flint, it probably would have seemed like forever until gametime. But I'm here, four years removed, and things are moving steadily along back home.
My friends are getting MARRIED and having CHILDREN! I think Jason Hurley's little girl had her first driving lesson earlier this year.
Thanks to Nathan, Dan, and the rest of FCT for getting me another show at home. Here is a Flint Journal write-up on it. Yes, oddly enough, Flint has a theatre critic.
THE FLINT JOURNAL
Saturday, December 03, 2005
By Kathleen Kirby
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
OK, "Slab" doesn't have a holiday theme, but that might be refreshing this month with most of the available live entertainment consisting of Yuletide stories and songs.
Actually, this comedy, which has opened at Good Beans Cafe under the auspices of Flint City Theatre, is just about as far from holiday fare as it can get.
Written by University of Michigan-Flint theater graduate Sean Michael Welch, the show opens with producer Louden Gray (Dan Gerics) addressing the audience. His message reveals his concern that the audience has abandoned live theater in favor of film and television. He thinks he has a surefire way to bring patrons back - he'll kill someone onstage!
Welch's script is clearly a spoof on a couple of fronts. It reacts to the current addiction of the viewing public to reality shows, and it comments comically on the nearly surreal seriousness of some small theater groups.
Gray's assistant, the compassionate and nurturing Seela Murr (Sara Robinson), comes up with a script by a local college student that seems to fill the bill. So they schedule auditions.
The trick is to find an actor willing to die onstage. That's no small feat, but oddly enough one such person surfaces when Tony Slab (Dan Visser) actually seems eager to play the role.
He sees it as a chance at immortality when Gray promises him enduring notoriety for years to come. Besides, he was thinking of suicide anyway.
Things continue to fall into place when an actor willing to do the killing steps forward. Rale Kilbourne (Cedric L. Hayes) seems unconcerned with the aftermath of carrying out the demands of the role since he's feeling lonely for the prison from which he was recently released and would actually like to go back.
Gray and Murr next need to find a financial backer so their grand plan to lure playgoers back will reach a sizable enough audience to have the desired effect. They find one in Mr. Caesar (Jesse Glenn), a Howard Hughes-type weirdo with a lot of money and even more childlike quirks. Mr. Caesar never speaks, but his "mouthpiece," Effrin (Jordan Climie), seems to read his thoughts and express his wishes.
When Gray is unhappy with the 750-seat theater Effrin first offers, Caesar manages to secure national television as the venue for Gray's play. With that irony in place, things start to unravel a bit.
Director Nathan Pease set his stage on a platform shrouded in black and broken up by working TV screens. If that's not symbolic enough, the script itself is loaded with wacky metaphors.
We've come to expect unusual and interesting things from FCT, and "Slab" certainly fits that mold. It's comical, quirky, and only a bit disturbing.
"Slab" continues at 8 p.m. today and Thursday through Dec. 10.
Details: (810) 341-6912, (810) 237-4663. www.flintcitytheatre.com.
