And now for the reeeeeeally scary ghost! The ghost of Theatre Future!
Well, not really. The future looks good doesn’t it? At NC Stage we’re looking forward to beginning rehearsals for Boeing-Boeing in the immediate future. Scott Treadway and I have done three shows together over the past year and I directed him in one. But with all that time spent with Treadway over the last year, I’m still looking forward to spending even MORE time with him on Boeing-Boeing.
Later this spring, One Flea Spare will be directed by Angie and I know she’s been looking forward to that one for a while. What an amazing play! And then our Immediate Theatre Project friends, (the ITPeeps) will round out the year with what I’m sure will be an amazing production of the American classic, The Glass Menagerie.
As we wrap up this season, we’re also thinking ahead to future seasons. Next season will mark our 10th season of producing professional theatre in Asheville. It’s almost unbelievable to me that we’ve been doing this for 10 years.
So, what do we do to mark the occasion? Every one around the office is just itching to do part 2 of Angels In America, maybe along with part one performed in repertory… There are other plays on our short list for next season for next season that are pretty exciting to us, but we’re always interested to hear suggestions (feel free to post something in the comments if you have ideas).
As for the long-term future, there are a couple of big projects that Angie and I have been day-dreaming about, which we hope will turn into a reality, just as our daydream of a professional theatre in Asheville has become a reality. One of those daydreams involves another local arts organization, with whom we’ve recently worked, and a possible co-production of a profoundly amazing play. Another involves a collaboration with a funk band on a Shakespeare play. And yet another involves an adaptation of a novel that has a lot of meaning for Angie and me (we were both reading it when we started dating) and a lot of meaning for Western North Carolina. And it would involve music too. How can anything about Western North Carolina NOT involve music?
But of course, all these things are only possible with the support of our community. I hope you’ll take an opportunity before the tax year ends to support NC Stage’s work THIS year.
You can make an instand donation to NC Stage via the JustGive link, and help us make great theatre for Asheville and Western North Carolina for the next year and for years to come.
And don’t be a stranger. Share your hopes for the future on the blog. Visit the Facebook page and become a fan. Follow us on Twitter. But most of all, come see a play in 2011.
Happy New Year everyone! Be safe and keep telling your story!
Charlie
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
So thankful. A visit from the ghost of theatre present.
I hope your holiday weekend was pleasant and stress free and that you were able to celebrate and commemorate the story that means the most to you. Asheville had a white Christmas, which was actually really pleasant and relaxing, considering the busy fall we’ve had at NC Stage!
How busy, you ask?
We started out with the news that we had been voted readers favorite theatre company in the Mountain Xpress readers poll right before we dove into the Bard-a-thon back in September and about 200 participants read 12 Shakespeare plays over a 48 hour period. And yes, it was fun! But it also raised around $9,000 toward our programming and it was a great kick off to an exciting season.
Immediately after that wound down, and I mean immediately, we started rehearsals for Angels in America. Angie directed that so I was hanging with our kids while she tackled that behemoth of a play. Nearly 2,000 people attended Angels. It’s a play we’ve wanted to produce for quite awhile and we feel very fortunate that we got to do it and that we received such a positive response from the audience.
Then, while that was going on, we started rehearsals for three, count ‘em, THREE productions of Live From WVL Radio Theatre: It’s A Wonderful Life. This adaptation of the movie is something we’ve been doing with our partners Immediate Theatre Project (or the ITPeeps as we like to call them) since 2006.
Production #1 was a partnership with Flat Rock Playhouse, with performances at the Historic Henderson County Courthouse. On December 4th that cast moved to Charlotte where we partnered with the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center for a 2 week run in the Booth Theatre, while a replacement cast rehearsed and opened at the Courthouse in Hendersonville (Production #2) . I directed those productions so I had 2 trips to Charlotte in as many days! Meanwhile, our tour version – Production #3, produced by Immediate Theatre Project, was rehearsing and then went out on a multi-state tour that wound up on December 23rd in Newton-Conover, NC after visiting Maryland, Ohio, Illinois, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. All told, more than 5,000 people attended these three productions and experienced the message that “one person’s life touches so many others”.
Then MEANWHILE, Angie was directing scenes from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Asheville Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer at the Thomas Wolf Auditorium in mid November. It was a fantastic blending of actors, instruments, and voices.
We’re pooped. But it’s a good kind of pooped, and we are really enjoying the quiet of the snow before the storm of the second half of our season. More on that in the third email you will be visited by soon.
So as I reflect on the first part of the season with its great partnerships and collaborations and think to the next part, I’m reminded of something I read earlier today. (ok, I was perusing Twitter and came across this tweet); “Do NOT use this week to plan for 2011. Devote this week to thanking folks for support in the past year.”
If I don’t say it enough, let me say it now. Thank you. To all of the people who value theatre and NC Stage, to the hard working professionals that it’s my privilege to work with every day, to the board of directors, to everyone of you who’ve attended a play or convinced one of your friends to come see a play, and to every one of you who’ve contributed time, resources and money to NC Stage. Your support counts more than we can ever express and we are indeed lucky to be in such a beautiful, supportive place with people like you.
JustGive.org
How busy, you ask?
We started out with the news that we had been voted readers favorite theatre company in the Mountain Xpress readers poll right before we dove into the Bard-a-thon back in September and about 200 participants read 12 Shakespeare plays over a 48 hour period. And yes, it was fun! But it also raised around $9,000 toward our programming and it was a great kick off to an exciting season.
Immediately after that wound down, and I mean immediately, we started rehearsals for Angels in America. Angie directed that so I was hanging with our kids while she tackled that behemoth of a play. Nearly 2,000 people attended Angels. It’s a play we’ve wanted to produce for quite awhile and we feel very fortunate that we got to do it and that we received such a positive response from the audience.
Then, while that was going on, we started rehearsals for three, count ‘em, THREE productions of Live From WVL Radio Theatre: It’s A Wonderful Life. This adaptation of the movie is something we’ve been doing with our partners Immediate Theatre Project (or the ITPeeps as we like to call them) since 2006.
Production #1 was a partnership with Flat Rock Playhouse, with performances at the Historic Henderson County Courthouse. On December 4th that cast moved to Charlotte where we partnered with the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center for a 2 week run in the Booth Theatre, while a replacement cast rehearsed and opened at the Courthouse in Hendersonville (Production #2) . I directed those productions so I had 2 trips to Charlotte in as many days! Meanwhile, our tour version – Production #3, produced by Immediate Theatre Project, was rehearsing and then went out on a multi-state tour that wound up on December 23rd in Newton-Conover, NC after visiting Maryland, Ohio, Illinois, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. All told, more than 5,000 people attended these three productions and experienced the message that “one person’s life touches so many others”.
Then MEANWHILE, Angie was directing scenes from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Asheville Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer at the Thomas Wolf Auditorium in mid November. It was a fantastic blending of actors, instruments, and voices.
We’re pooped. But it’s a good kind of pooped, and we are really enjoying the quiet of the snow before the storm of the second half of our season. More on that in the third email you will be visited by soon.
So as I reflect on the first part of the season with its great partnerships and collaborations and think to the next part, I’m reminded of something I read earlier today. (ok, I was perusing Twitter and came across this tweet); “Do NOT use this week to plan for 2011. Devote this week to thanking folks for support in the past year.”
If I don’t say it enough, let me say it now. Thank you. To all of the people who value theatre and NC Stage, to the hard working professionals that it’s my privilege to work with every day, to the board of directors, to everyone of you who’ve attended a play or convinced one of your friends to come see a play, and to every one of you who’ve contributed time, resources and money to NC Stage. Your support counts more than we can ever express and we are indeed lucky to be in such a beautiful, supportive place with people like you.
JustGive.org
Monday, December 20, 2010
A visit from the ghost of Theatre Past
Woooooo.....You will be visited by three blog posts this holiday season, expressing the joys of theatre past, present and future. Read these messages from Artistic Director Charlie Flynn-McIver, and if you feel so moved, support NC Stage with a contribution before 2010 is gone. Remember what the ghost of Jacob Marley said to Scrooge..."BUSINESS? Mankind was my business! Their common welfare was my business!"
Warmest of holiday greetings to you!
Recently I've been thinking about an aspect of the holiday season that is often overlooked. Whatever you celebrate during this time of year, it’s all predicated on a story. And not just any story, but a compelling story about triumph over adversity, about compassion from strangers, about hope for a future of peace and kindness.
The existence of NC Stage is also predicated on the notion of telling stories. We seek out plays that capture the imagination and speak to some universal truth about the human experience. A playwright's job is to take these universal, abstract stories and make them concrete for us - to connect them to the here and now. And our job as theatre professionals is to create a conduit between the audience and the playwright’s story. Whether it’s a Shakespeare tragedy or an American classic or a contemporary drama or farce, the plays we produce help us understand the unfamiliar and experience the familiar in a new and profound way.
We hope that you value this as a vital part of your life and as a necessary part of your community. We certainly couldn’t do it without your help and financial support, but more importantly, we couldn't do it without your participation in the performance. Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists to be seen and evaluated from the unique experience you bring to the theatre.
So as we all wind down this year and begin a new one, I'd like to take a moment to tell each other our stories. Think of the stories that have been an important part of who you are and where you’ve been. Please post a comment and tell us what plays you have found to be irresistibly compelling stories, and what you felt like after seeing them. And if you value the stories that NC Stage tells, I hope you'll also consider making a donation online before the end of the year.
Thanks!
Charlie Flynn-McIver
P.S. Charlie starts off the comments section with a story about the founding of NC Stage and a play about an East German transsexual that changed his life.
Warmest of holiday greetings to you!
Recently I've been thinking about an aspect of the holiday season that is often overlooked. Whatever you celebrate during this time of year, it’s all predicated on a story. And not just any story, but a compelling story about triumph over adversity, about compassion from strangers, about hope for a future of peace and kindness.
The existence of NC Stage is also predicated on the notion of telling stories. We seek out plays that capture the imagination and speak to some universal truth about the human experience. A playwright's job is to take these universal, abstract stories and make them concrete for us - to connect them to the here and now. And our job as theatre professionals is to create a conduit between the audience and the playwright’s story. Whether it’s a Shakespeare tragedy or an American classic or a contemporary drama or farce, the plays we produce help us understand the unfamiliar and experience the familiar in a new and profound way.
We hope that you value this as a vital part of your life and as a necessary part of your community. We certainly couldn’t do it without your help and financial support, but more importantly, we couldn't do it without your participation in the performance. Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists to be seen and evaluated from the unique experience you bring to the theatre.
So as we all wind down this year and begin a new one, I'd like to take a moment to tell each other our stories. Think of the stories that have been an important part of who you are and where you’ve been. Please post a comment and tell us what plays you have found to be irresistibly compelling stories, and what you felt like after seeing them. And if you value the stories that NC Stage tells, I hope you'll also consider making a donation online before the end of the year.
Thanks!
Charlie Flynn-McIver
P.S. Charlie starts off the comments section with a story about the founding of NC Stage and a play about an East German transsexual that changed his life.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Boeing-Boeing tickets on sale NOW!
 |
| 9:59:57...58...59... 10 AM! Finally! I'm calling NC Stage right now. |
The time has come...
to get your Boeing-Boeing tickets!
If you're thinking "Gee, it seems early..." then you're right. It's a bit earlier than when we usually put tickets on sale for our shows, but we know seats are going to fly faster than a Concorde. Also, it's a great gift for a theatre-/farce-/fun-loving loved one, so if you're looking for a last-minute Christmas gift, or a really early Valentine's Day present, this is a good one. Plus, it's got the duo of all duos in it: Charlie Flynn-McIver and Scott Treadway, so why wait? Call our box office now (or go online) and you can get your top-choice seats! We look forward to hearing from you - 828.239.0263.
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