The blog of North Carolina Stage Company co-founder and Artistic Director, Charlie Flynn-McIver. There is no particular theme or subject matter to which this blog is devoted, save for the musings, observations and thoughts of me, Charlie Flynn-McIver... and some other NC Stage contributors
I hope everyone’s having a great Holiday, whatever way you celebrate.I also hope everyone’s had a great year.NC Stage has had a tremendous season so far with a production of Hedwig And The Angry Inch and both parts, count ‘em, BOTH parts of Angels In America, and then two companies of Live From WVL Radio Theatre: It’s A Wonderful Life and, of course, The 12 Dates Of Christmas.Dozens of actors, designers, technicians, volunteers and administrators have been making it all happen and more than 5,000 seats have been occupied during all this.All in all one of the biggest seasons we’ve ever done.
And we can’t thank you all enough.If you’ve bought a ticket for one of those seats, given a donation, told or brought a friend, hell, even if you’ve just “retweeted” one of our twitter posts, you’re a big part of the success of NC Stage. If you would still like to make a donation, you still can.And what a great time to get in that last minute tax deduction before the New Year!
But we’re not done for the season!We’re just getting started!Our New Year starts off when Neela Munoz (director, Boeing Boeing) and I team up again as she directs me and her husband Billy (actor, Fully Committed) in Love Child.These are two of the nicest, most talented and funniest people I know and I can’t wait to work with them again.
Immediate Theatre Project returns after their brilliant production of The Glass Menagerie last season with a great new play, Circle Mirror Transformation.And the season finishes up in May with one of the best new comedies of the past several years, In The Next Room Or The Vibrator Play.
We wish you a terrific New Year with lots of laughs and good times.And we hope that some of those good times happen at NC Stage!Be safe out there and watch out for others.
Okay.So it’s just you and me, right?Here’s the deal.I am NOT a procrastinator.Okay maybe I am a little bit but I’ll talk about that later.Truth is, December has snuck up on me as the Fall has been killer busy with over 90 performances at NC Stage and more than 5,600 tickets sold to those events, plus the education program and fundraising, (more on that in a later post).Anyway, I’m just peeking up and it’s December???The week of Christmas???How did THAT happen?
So I’m finishing up some work at the office and getting my Christmas shopping done.And I’m looking to you for last minute gift ideas.We’re offering $25 Anytime tickets for any of our mainstage productions the remainder of the season but Angie is already going to those.Heh, heh.There is also some great art out there and I’ve got my eye on a few things.In fact I was recently linterviewed about that in the Mountain Xpress.Check it out!
But I’m looking for something like that.Local, experiential, meaningful.Art or performances?Lessons?Memberships to cultural institutions?
So what’s the best thing you’ve either given or received that can be gotten last minute that you think that special someone I’m related to might really like?Please post a comment!I’m serious!
After a recent performance of Angels in America, a long time audience member of NC Stage stopped me in the lobby. She said,“I know that people in the theatre don’t make a lot of money and I know this show was hard work, but the experiences I have at this theatre like I did tonight make me realize, yet again, that theatre is important.It really is.Thank you for being here.”
I share this story with you because it’s not just the people on stage or behind the scenes she is thanking.It's all the folks like you who contribute to our Annual Fund that make our work possible.
Anyone who’s attended a free (For)Play reading, participated in a post-show discussion, enjoyed a Happy Hour and A Half reception, or been able to attend for as little as $6 on a Pay What You Can Night has benefitted from annual fund support.
Students in our community benefit from annual fund support as well.Thomas is a student in our “On the Fly” after school workshop for at-risk middle school students. Through On the Fly, Thomas learns self-esteem and creative problem solving while focusing youthful energy during those empty hours after school.
Contributions to our annual fund from members of the community make it possible for us to offer all these experiences and more.Ticket income covers only 63% of the costs of producing our season and providing educational programs in schools. Picture a favorite experience at NC Stage that captured your imagination, made you think or wonder, or simply made you laugh.Now picture only 63% of it!
Will you consider making a gift of $25, $100, $500 or more to help us enrich your life and the lives of young people like Thomas? You can even join the Green Room Society with a gift of $1,000 or more and participate in special conversations with us as we plan the future of NC Stage.
Partner with us to develop local actors, directors and designers, and ensure NC Stage’s position as one of the leading non-profit theatres in North Carolina.
This is a spoiler alert for anyone who has not seen Part 1: Millennium Approaches. Don't read! But we don't want you to leave this blog empty handed. So here's something I thought was funny.
Previously on Angels in America…
In the last moments of Part 1: Millennium Approaches, Prior Walter, a gay man who has been diagnosed with AIDS, was sleeping fitfully when an Angel crashed through the ceiling of his bedroom. The Angel greeted him as a prophet, announcing “The Great Work begins.”
It wasn’t the first strange thing that had happened to Prior since his diagnosis. Two of his ancestors had visited him in the middle of the night, claiming they were heralds. A flaming book appeared to him while he was at the AIDS clinic, and he heard his perfectly ordinary Italian-American nurse suddenly begin speaking a Hebrew prayer. His cat ran away, his lover left, and the only bright spot left in his life was his old friend Belize. Belize is a nurse, and visited Prior at St. Vincent’s Hospital, where he also works, promising that he will be there for Prior, no matter what.
When Prior’s health began to decline, his lover Louis couldn’t handle the pressure and left him, moving out of the apartment they had shared for four and a half years. Louis works in the Brooklyn Appellate Court as a word processor, where he met Joe Pitt, a law clerk. He and Joe have been having a low-key flirtation, and at the end of Millennium Approaches, Louis and Joe leave Central Park together, presumably to go to Louis’s apartment.
Joe Pitt is a conservative Mormon Republican lawyer who has wrestled with his sexuality for his whole life.He is dissatisfied with his job clerking for Justice Wilson, but feels compelled to stay in Brooklyn because of his mentally unstable wife, Harper. Joe admits to Harper that he has never had sexual feelings for her, and he comes out to his mother, Hannah, during a very difficult phone call to her home in Salt Lake City.
Joe’s mentor is the notoriously powerful Roy Cohn. Roy very much wants Joe to move to Washington D.C. to take a position in the Justice Department, where he can be Roy’s man on the inside, helping Roy combat a committee that wants to disbar him.
Roy is also fighting, more privately, an AIDS diagnosis. When we last see him, he and Joe have a fight that turns physical when Joe refuses to go to Washington, and Roy confesses that he engaged in unethical behavior to make sure convicted spy Ethel Rosenberg got the death penalty. After Joe leaves, Roy collapses in pain, and Ethel herself appears, telling him ”The shit’s about to hit the fan, Roy. Millennium approaches.” Ethel calls 911 for Roy, and an ambulance is dispatched to take him to St. Vincent’s Hospital.
Harper Pitt is married to Joe.She is agoraphobic and stays in their Brooklyn apartment all day, taking Valium and talking to imaginary people. One of these people is Mr. Lies, a travel agent who tempts her with a vacation to Antarctica. During one Valium-induced hallucination, she and Prior meet, bewilderingly. Harper intuits that Prior is very sick, and Prior has a similar intuition that her “husband’s a homo.” After Joe comes out to her, she calls to Mr. Lies in anguish, who offers to take her away. They vanish together.
Hannah Pitt is Joe’s mother. After Joe calls her, drunk, in the middle of the night and comes out to her, Hannah immediately sells her house and flies to New York.Joe fails to meet her at the airport, so she sets out on her own, accidentally ending up in the Bronx before getting directions from a homeless woman to the Mormon Visitors’ Center.
Millennium Approaches ends in turmoil, all of its characters on the brink of some cataclysmic change.The action of Angels in America: Perestroika picks up immediately after Angels in America: Millennium Approaches.
So you just saw Part 1 of Angels In America last week.We’re so glad you came!We’ve had some great responses to Angels In America Part 1 Millennium Approaches.People have been leaping to their feet and stopping us in the lobby and posting on Facebook with things like: “Angels in America at North Carolina Stage Company is one of the best productions I've ever seen...again! Every single performance is exquisite and it's amazing it can be so big in such a small space - BRAVO!!! If you live in Asheville, GO, and if you don't, consider driving up to see it!”
Perhaps you agree.Perhaps you don’t.Either way, we wanted to open up the blog for a discussion.One of the best parts of experiencing a play is sharing your thoughts about the acting, direction, the story, the themes.Whatever.So feel free to post away and join in the discussion with other folks who’ve seen this particular production.But be warned, those of you who haven’t seen it, spoiler alert! (But not to worry.There’s ample opportunity to see both parts in the coming weeks.)
And for everyone’s enjoyment, I looked up some trivia on the interweb about 1985, which is when Angels takes place.Check it out on the previous blogpost.What were YOU doing in 1985?
The rehearsals of Angels in America have been going on for three weeks already, but they've just moved into the theatre. Cast member Rebecca Morris (Harper) took these photos, and Willie Repoley (Prior) edited them and shared them with us. Enjoy the peek into Tony Kushner's masterpiece and our first play(s) of the Mainstage Season!
Andrew Hampton Livingston as Joe Pitt, Michael MacCauley as Roy Cohn
Willie Repoley, Michael MacCauley, and Angie Flynn-McIver (Director)
Callan White as Ethel Rosenberg, Michael MacCauley as Roy
Callan White as Henry, Roy's doctor; Nathan Crocker as Belize
Dusty McKeelan as Louis, Andrew Hampton Livingston as Joe
Dusty McKeelan as Louis, Michael MacCauley as Roy, Andrew Hampton Livingston as Joe, Willie Reploey as Prior Walter
Dusty McKeelan as Louis, Nathan Crocker as Belize, and Willie Repoley as Prior
Michael MacCauley as Roy
Rebecca Morris as Harper Pitt, Callan White as Hannah Pitt
Vivian Smith as the Angel, Willie Repoley as Prior
Willie Repoley as Prior, Dusty McKeelan as Louis
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches and Part Two: Perestroika run October 13 - November 13, in rotating repertory. Tickets can be purchased online, in person, or over the phone (828.239.0263). For more information on the play or the repertory schedule, check out our website: ncstage.org or call the box office (828.239.0263).
I can’t express my appreciation enough to those people who choose to help NC Stage achieve its mission of creating professional theatre and education programming that affects people. At NC Stage we believe, we know, that theatre can be life changing. Plays show us the unfamiliar and make it relevant, and they show us the familiar and make it new. Theatre can also help us grapple with the big questions—religion, politics, existence. We do not pretend to offer answers; instead, plays can be a catalyst to discussion and exploration. And when theatre is used as an educational tool, students are given access to a rich world of imagination, collaboration and creativity that serves them beyond school and helps them synthesize the raw facts and figures taught in core subjects.
Theatre is about telling a story and telling a story is what the world uses to understand the world. So we’re very thankful to have been a part of the creative landscape in Asheville over the past 10 years. When you buy a ticket or make a donation -- be it time or money -- to NC Stage, you become a part of this process of growth in our community and create value in the cultural, economic, social and educational life of Asheville and make the world just that much better.
We thank you for your continued support over the last 10 years and look forward to another 10, 20, 30 years with you!
Interview with Angie Flynn-McIver about Angels In America, Parts 1 and 2, and the challenges of directing such an epic play and what's it like to direct the same play for a second time.
The Bard-a-thon is quickly approaching (THIS WEEKEND!), so as the top individual fundraiser in the 2nd annual Bard-a-thon (2009), I have some tips for y’all…
Who to contact: friends and family (near and far), co-workers, teachers, mentors… really anyone you think might give money, even a couple bucks. The worst someone can tell you is no.We do recommend going to individuals rather than businesses.
Tell them (briefly) what the Bard-a-thon is and WHY YOU’RE PARTICIPATING: This is key.This makes it a personal appeal.Even if it’s simply, “I haven’t read aloud since I was 15 and it seems like a good time,” it gives it a nice touch.If you want to throw in something about how important theatre/reading/Shakespeare/NC Stage is to you, go for it.We are kicking off the Bard-a-thon on the eve of National Arts and Humanities Month, after all.
State your fundraising goal.If your goal is $200 and you’re sending your email appeal to 20 people, it makes it easy for them to see their place as a piece in the fundraising puzzle.(Then, when you get a response saying they’ll give, THANK THEM INDIVIDUALLY.They’ll be more likely to help you out again in the future.)
Mention which plays and parts you’ll be reading.Tell them what time the plays you’re in begin (all plays have a designated start time), and that they can watch in person at NC Stage or online - give them the link! - fo FREE.
If you’re in it for prizes, mention that… but perhaps less bluntly than “I’m in this to win prizes, so give me your money.”Friends like helping friends win things, ‘cause sometimes they share.(Or if they don’t share, they feel a need to reciprocate that assistance in some other capacity in the future.)
In my experience, it’s good to email early (now-ish) and then right before the Bard-a-thon kicks off (Friday afternoon), reminding them they can watch AND donate throughout the weekend.Oh yeah! Tell ‘em viewers can win prizes too!
