BoarsHead and Stormfield: Not or

Earlier this week, the founding artistic director of BoarsHead, John Peakes, sent a letter to the editor at the Lansing State Journal. It encouraged people to support the new theater that Kristine Thatcher is forming, Stormfield. It also encouraged people to pull their support away from BoarsHead.

The first part of that call is something I can completely get behind. I was thrilled to hear that Kristine would be staying in our community and continuing to bring in the works that made BoarsHead an exciting place to attend during her tenure. She will be filling a niche that true theater lovers can appreciate--producing those works that prove the art is still alive, evolving, and relevant. She'll be introducing us to works as a way of finding out whether they are worth loving.

The second part of John's advice is far more problematic. Yes, I understand the anger at how Kristine was treated. Yes, I understand that such a move reveals frightening things about the artistic direction of the oldest professional theater in the region. I also fear that they've chosen stagnation over necessary risk-taking. However, neither do I think it would be healthy for anyone in the arts if BoarsHead were to fail.

Forget about the personality conflicts for a few minutes. Let's look at things philosophically:

Theater as an eco-system

I've written about this idea so much in this blog that I'm sure my long time readers are sick of it. It bears repeating in reference to this issue. John's email assumes an either/or attitude--that we must choose one theater over the other to support. It's a model of competition. Yet, theaters are non-profit for a good reason and not just because they aren't financial cash cows. They exist to serve a purpose in the community. They enrich the community and the people who live in it, improving their quality of life.

Each theater company in the Greater Lansing area serves a purpose and an overlapping audience. While resources may be finite, live theater has not begun to reach the limits of those resources, particularly when it comes to audience members (and, if we are going to be cynical, the financial resources that accompany those audience members). I've had the good fortune to attend theater at all of the local theater companies. Yes, there is an overlapping audience, but each new group also brings new people to theater. As the years pass, you start to see those new audience members at other theater productions.

In other words, each group creates its own audience and brings more people to the wonder and miracle of live theater. Even with all of the productions that take place in the Lansing area, they are still a fraction of the number of movies that come out each year--yet you don't hear people making a call for fewer movies. There are few people who will ever try to see every movie that comes out and there are even fewer people who will see every live production that comes out. However, the play that one person has no interest in will appeal to someone else.

The more theater we have, the more people are able and willing to make theater a normal part of their lives. We have already reached the point in Lansing that you can see theater every single weekend. This is essential for a society that increasingly does things spontaneously--making decisions about their entertainment choices not a year in advance, but an hour in advance. Also, the more theater we have, the more passionate people become involved and passion is contagious.

If we want a healthy theater community, we can only benefit from trading the competition model for the ecosystem model. We can recognize that every theater has something to contribute and all of them support each other in a myriad of ways.

Both BoarsHead and Stormfield have committed themselves to different types of theater work. Those works will appeal to different people--albeit there will definitely be overlapping audiences. There is sufficient room in this community for both types of work. Indeed, having both types of work is going to make each of the other more successful because people will become increasingly aware of the diversity of theater offerings. Rarely will someone decide they don't like all movies because they don't like the horror genre. Yet, you will hear people write off all of live theater because they think the few shows that they've seen represent the entire spectrum.

BoarsHead as Employer

Aside from the artistic element of theater, there is another reason that the Lansing theater community would not benefit from the failure of BoarsHead. It remains the largest professional non-profit theater in the area, providing more artistic support and artistic jobs than other theaters in the area. Even with film incentives making it somewhat easier, it is still an extremely difficult path to make your living in the theater arts.

Yes, I understand John's anger at those who made the decision that they did about Kristine. But more people would suffer if BoarsHead went under than just those people. In fact, those people would probably suffer the least. There are people who rely on BoarsHead for their living. There are those who rely on BoarsHead as an important supplement to their income. It continues to offer an important educational service to the community.

No one will benefit from the failure of BoarsHead.

Let's not make our choice one of Stormfield OR BoarsHead. Let's make it a choice of Stormfield AND BoarsHead.

Theater, but not in Lansing

Last week, I took a trip with my mom, her two sisters and their daughters (my aunts and cousins). They had recently sold my grandfather's house and they decided to use the proceeds to take us all on a trip to Chicago to see "Jersey Boys."

I was excited about it because while I see a lot of theater, rarely do I see it with my relatives. Indeed, for my one aunt, this was her first time ever going to see live theater. She said it was on her list of things to do before she died.

So on Monday, five of us took the train into Chicago while my other cousin flew in from Arizona. We checked into the beautiful boutique property, Hotel Felix, and proceeded to go shopping at Water Tower Place.

On Tuesday evening, we headed to the Bank of America Theater to see Jersey Boys. We had a little trouble getting in as two of the six tickets had printed out in Japanese on my aunt's printer rather than English and we had to get that fixed at the box office. However, we all made it in in time for the first act. It was a pretty good show. I could tell it was a Tuesday night performance as the energy was low and some of the lead performers were struggling with mush mouth for the first half hour.

At intermission, everyone said what a good time they were having and we did the usual intermission things. After some time had passed, we realized that the intermission was lasting a really long time.

Then the ushers went to the front of the theater, and we watched as everyone in front stood up and started coming up the aisles. Sure enough, the ushers were evacuating the theater. They did so very calmly and efficiently. We all got outside and they moved us across the street. The Chicago police were there, as was the SWAT team.

Soon they evacuated the entire street and the hotel above the theater. Then people from the theater came out and told us all to leave, that our tickets would be refunded.

Later, we learned that two suspicious packages were found in the alleyway next to the theater. One of them had a note that read, "This is not a bomb." The other had a note that read, "This is not going to end good." (Obviously, they need to look for someone with an incomplete grasp on grammar.)

Eventually the bomb squad exploded the two boxes. There were not explosives inside and last I heard an investigation was going on to find who did it and hand them a bill for the city's response.

It was definitely a memorable night at the theater, even if we all left at intermission and can't tell you how it ended. Nor could the actors be blamed if the audience complained that the show bombed.

Fall Memories

Dear readers, will you indulge me for an entry that has nothing to do with theater?

I recently found something I wrote 8 years ago; something that I rather like and find it to be as true today as it was when I wrote it (except the years listed would have to add 8 to them). The event I was writing about was now 24 years ago, not 16 years ago and I've been married for nearly 17 years now, not nine. But the sentiments are surprisingly unchanged:

A Lunchtime Drive

Earlier today as I drove home for lunch I admired the vibrant strokes of color that had painted the trees and leaves. Squirrels bearing nuts bounded over golden carpets and trees wept red and brown tears against the overcast skies.

Autumn is one of my favorite seasons and it always makes me nostalgic. Today on the drive home it made me think of an autumn night 16 years ago. Two nervous teenagers were returning home from their senior homecoming dance and the young man stood on the young woman’s front porch preparing to bid her goodnight.

It wasn’t exactly their first date. They had spent an afternoon together after a forensics team trip to book stores in Ann Arbor. They’d shopped together at a mall and spent a few hours in a video arcade, shared a Toblerone bar, and gone out to eat at a Coney dog restaurant. When the teenage boy had taken the girl home that night, he’d pointed out that it wasn’t exactly a date, and so he wasn’t sure if he should ask for a good-night kiss. She, somewhat flustered, demurred and suggested she just give him a hug instead.

But the homecoming dance was definitely a date. She was decked out in a sequin-covered, 80s-style black dress and he looked especially sharp in a thin gray tie and matching suit coat and pants. The October evening was brisk, but not cold yet, much like today’s weather. He gave a smile that she would soon become addicted to, and said, “Now I know it’s appropriate this time to ask you for a kiss goodnight.” She blushed, agreed, and they exchanged what would now be considered a rather chaste kiss goodnight.

Later he would learn that he’d just given that 17-year-old girl her “first kiss” and their dating relationship would be rather tumultuous over the next couple years. After all, these two were yet children as much as they might have wanted to think otherwise. They had yet to learn that love is more than an emotion. They had yet to learn that passion is only one part of a successful relationship. It would be years before they would discover that love has only begun to grow once the initial excitement and ardor wears off. They would have relationships with other people before they would learn that a marriage is made of something stronger than a fluttering heart.

But my drive home for lunch today was rather short, giving me time to think just about this one enchanted fall evening so many years ago—not the painful lessons that those two would later learn from each other.

I walked into my house to be greeted enthusiastically by my blond imp of a son who quickly filled my ears with giggles. I then turned to his dad—my husband of nine years—and greeted him with a kiss. How sweet to discover that his kiss is as dear today as it was on that brisk October evening 16 years ago.

Round-up of Changes in Lansing Theater

I've been writing a lot lately, just not blogging very much. There is definitely a lot going on in our theater community, and not just because the new fall season has started. In the past several months, we've witnessed some pretty major changes:

(And I was about to use a bulleted list, but that screws with some people's readers, so I'll number the list and beg your pardon for the lack of pretty formatting.)

1. Kristine Thatcher's contract as Artistic Director was not renewed at BoarsHead.
2. Shakespeare on the Grand replaced Sunsets with Shakespeare as the summer outdoor Shakespeare company. Led by Lindsay Palinsky, Rita Deibler, and Tod Humphrey, they are associated with the Lansing Civic Players.
3. Len Kluge died.
4. Bob Gras died.
5. Lansing Civic Players announced that it was canceling its mainstage season and launching an Underground LCP Black Box season while they regroup and raise money.
6. The Renegade Festival in Old Town continued to grow by leaps and bounds and was an exciting event this summer.
7. Merrill Wyble died.
8. Paul Riopelle was hired as BoarsHead's interim artistic associate.
9. All-of-Us Express Children's Theater merged with the City of East Lansing and is moving into the Hannah Center.
10. John Neville-Andrews resigned as the Artistic Director of the Michigan Shakespeare Festival.
11. Kristine Thatcher announced the formation of a new professional theater company.

Things are changing fast around here. It's exciting times for the theater community.

I'm hoping in the next week or so to blog about a wonderful conversation I had with Jeffrey Sweet about theater and theater journalism. I also want to get a book he recommended and possibly share things from there.

In the mean time, if you're looking for theater this weekend, here are some of your options:

• An Evening with Mark Twain at the Ledges Playhouse, Capital TheaterWorks
• Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight, Creole Gallery, Peppermint Creek Theatre Company
• Beau Jest, BoarsHead
• Rocky Horror Picture Show, Pasant Theater, Michigan State University
• 70 Scenes from Halloween, 168 Black Box Theater, Gannon Building, Lansing Community College
• LCP Underground Grand Opening, LCP Firehouse (Reservations required--Saturday only)

I'll try to remember to come back tomorrow and stick in links for the Beau Jest review, the Rocky Horror picture show and 70 Scenes preview. Some of the other stories are no longer available online.

R.I.P. Merrill Wyble

Merrill's obit is in today's paper here. It had to be cut far more than Bob's did, so I'll put the whole thing here. Granted, with the shrinking news hole, I'm glad they were able to get as much as they were in the print version of the newspaper.

On Aug. 29, the Lansing theater community lost another of its long-time members, the third since the beginning of July.

Merrill Wyble, age 80, died Saturday evening of complications arising from a colon infection. While he’d been ill for several weeks, he was recuperating and had been expected to be released from the hospital when he had to have an emergency colonoscopy Aug. 28.

Wyble was preceded in death by Spotlight founder, director, and theater critic Len Kluge on July 1 and director, actor, and teacher Robert Gras on Aug. 20.

Wyble, who retired in 1991 from the law firm, Church, Wyble, Kritselis & Robinson, PC, where he was a senior partner, was an active volunteer for Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Community Theater Association of Michigan (CTAM), and local theaters. Wyble was a prolific actor who appeared on stages at Lansing Civic Players, Riverwalk, BoarsHead, and Peppermint Creek. His final performance was in Riverwalk’s “Born Yesterday,” in the fall of 2008.

Winifred Olds, who along with her husband Wes and Betty White breakfasted with Wyble every Saturday, said that Wyble had slowed down a little in the past couple years.

“He decided to do smaller parts and to stick close to local theater—Riverwalk and LCP,” said Olds, whose husband Wes had a room at the hospital next to Wyble during his final illness. “We always went to Starlight Dinner Theater together—Merrill, Wes, Betty, and I. We always sat at the same tables so we could talk about the plays.”

Starlight’s Artistic Director, Linda Granger, said that while Wyble was skeptical about the viability of a dinner theater, he came to support it with his active patronage.

“What to me is most memorable about Merrill is that he spoke his mind,” Granger said. “I admire that in people and he was also the first to admit if he was wrong. He told me that my dinner theater would never make it and sent me a nice email some time later saying more or less, ‘I was wrong.’ When Judy Such, his girlfriend, was alive, they attended every single play in the Lansing area. After Judy passed away, Merrill kept going to all the local theaters. He was a regular customer at Starlight and I would see him at LCP or taking tickets at Riverwalk.”

Wyble’s volunteer contributions were many. He served several years on the board of LCP, participated in the Worship Arts team at Good Shepherd, and served on the board and several committees for CTAM.

“He was a good lawyer,” Olds said. “There was a time when he served on the board of LCP that a letter on his letterhead sometimes moved mountains.”

With CTAM, Wyble and his partner of many years, Judy Such, helped to organize retreats at Boyne Mountain and traveled around the state as adjudicators to help develop other community theaters.

“Community theater was his great passion outside of his profession,” CTAM board member Joanne Berry said. “He had a wit and charm about him and a genuine concern for people that drew others to him. He tackled many jobs having to do with community theater with great gusto. You could always depend on him to get done whatever had to be done for the organization.”

Berry said she is certain that people will be remembering and toasting Wyble at their Cadillac conference in late September.

Pastor Roger Straub said Wyble had been attending Good Shepherd for the past 20 years.

“He was very active in a number of areas in our church,” said Straub. “One of the things he brought to us was his interest in theater. He was an active part in the Worship Arts Group, whose purpose was as a group to enhance worship in a number of creative ways.”

Wyble’s eldest son, Rick Wyble, spent much of the last several months with his father. He said his father caught a cold at one of the nursing homes where he volunteered and it attacked his colon.

“He got through the first bout, but when it came back, he was too weak to handle it and became resistant to the antibiotics they were giving him,” Rick Wyble said.

He said that during the past few months in the hospital, he got to hear stories from his father about when he served in the army in Germany and first passed the bar exam. Rick is the oldest of six children and three step-children. Merrill Wyble is also survived by 14 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

The memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Friday at Good Shepherd with visitation an hour before.

“He was very specific on how he wanted it done,” Rick Wyble said. “He left us a letter of what he expects and how it will be done. There was one line in there that, ‘There will be no wailing or gnashing of teeth. It should be a joyous occasion.’”

Rick Wyble expects there will be a large turnout at the service as his father had made friends in many different circles.

“That’s one of the things he enjoyed most after he retired,” Rick Wyble said. “He was able to do everything. It gave him time to social network. He was very active at church, at theater. He got involved in mall walking. He has a circle of friends there, a circle of friends at theater, a circle of friends form his office, another for his family, and another from church.”

As the news spread of Wyble’s death, members of the arts community began their mourning and sharing memories.

“He will be greatly missed,” said Granger. “It saddens me that in the past two months we have lost three men who have been so pivotal in building and sustaining community theaters in the Lansing area.”

R.I.P. Bob Gras

While writing obits were one of my first assignments in journalism back when I was still in junior high and high school, it isn't that common for an arts writer to have to write them. Nor was it common for me to know the people about whom I was writing.

In the past several weeks we've lost two giant in local theater: Bob Gras and Merrill Wyble. I knew, respected, had worked with, and liked both of them. Writing not a tribute, but a feature obituary for them was tougher than I thought it would be.

The obit on Bob Gras appeared last week here. Merrill's obit will appear later this week.

I'm going to once again take advantage of my blog to "publish" that which had to be cut because of space. The cuts are from various points in the story--not from all one place, so I'm just going to reprint the whole thing here.

On Aug. 19, the Lansing theater community lost one of its stalwart supporters and creative drivers.

Robert Gras, age 69, died from complications of acute leukemia after being on life support for more than a month. A retired Eaton Rapids Public Schools English and drama teacher, Gras is survived by wife Linda, children Robert Gras and Cassandra Gras, and two grandchildren.

Gras performed for community theaters throughout the Lansing area and led the drama program in Eaton Rapids schools. He was a driving force behind Riverwalk’s Black Box theater. In 2009, he performed in the final Black Box production at the Creole, “Substance of Fire,” for which he won a Best Lead Actor Thespie from the Lansing State Journal and a Best Lead Actor Pulsar from the City Pulse.

“Bob hadn’t been onstage all that much in the last few years because of his back condition,” said Bill Helder, the director of Substance of Fire. “Seeing what a good actor he is reminded people of some of the earlier things he had done. Bob really could do everything. Before he developed his back problems, he could design sets and build them. He was a super director and was wonderful to be on stage with.”

Former students Terry Jones and Wendy Fall both spoke highly of his teaching and how he inspired them.

Jones first met Gras 38 years ago in 7th grade when his teacher introduced them. Gras promptly cast him in a high school production.

“In the years after that, we formed quite a bond,” Jones said. “I was cast in every show that he did. I always got the lead if it was a non-musical. If it was a musical, I got the dominant non-singing role.”

Then during Jones’ senior year, Gras overruled the music teacher and cast Jones as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.” Jones lost contact with Gras until 1990, when he was cast as the title character in the first show that Gras directed at Riverwalk—Tartuffe.

“He went from teacher to mentor to friend,” Jones said. “He was a good guy. He knew his stuff.”

Fall said she still benefits from the motto Gras constantly repeated in his English classes: “Eschew obfuscation.”

“He wanted us to be precise,” Fall said, saying he was vigilant about removing all unnecessary words from their essays. She also said that he lit a passion for Shakespeare and great literature in his students. “He would get up and read it in his big booming voice with all his theatrical talent. It was incredible. When you’re a high school student, Shakespeare doesn’t make a lot of sense. But when he read it and brought the text to life for us, it was never the same. That was his particular talent.”

Playwright Eileen O’Leary described how Gras championed her new work, fighting to get its world premiere launched at Lansing Civic Players in 1999.
She had sent Gras a copy of her play “The Siege of Ennis.” He read it and wanted to direct it. At first, the LCP board resisted, saying that the financial risk of a new work by a new playwright was too great.

“Bob Gras told them that if they didn’t let him direct ‘The Siege of Ennis,’ he wasn’t going to direct any other play,” O’Leary said. “So they relented and put it on. I had never had anyone do anything like that for me before. He championed it and he put his neck out for it.”

O’Leary said that the production was gorgeous. She also said that she saw the financials after the show—and it made money.

“He was a real class act who would stand up for what he believed in. I thought he was fantastic,” O’Leary said. “He didn’t know me, but he liked the play and he didn’t want anyone to not allow him to put it on for a reason that was just financial. It was a wonderful thing to do for someone no one knew. Most people don’t stick up for others like that. He was amazing.”

Gras’ support continued to be inspirational to O’Leary. “I kept writing plays and I probably would have stopped writing because I was sort of at an impasse.”

Helder, who first met Gras during “The Crucible” in 1993 at Grand Ledge’s Spotlight, said Gras’ death is a real loss for Riverwalk.

“He really had taken the black box under his wing. He was the director of the first show in the black box at the Creole and starred in the last show. There is a certain symmetry there,” Helder said. “He was scheduled to open our first season in the new location with a Chekov piece.”

The Chekov piece has now been canceled.

“To the general public, (Gras will be) most remembered for the number of really solid shows that he directed,” said Helder. “He will be remembered as the kind of director that could direct everything: from a crazy farce like Noises Off to something like Hedda Gabler and on to something like Under Milkwood, which is really poetry on stage. He will be remembered for the variety of things that he could and all of them well.”

Renegade Festival

Last night's time at the Renegade Festival in Old Town was a reminder of why I love theater so much.

Live theater matters not just because of what occurs on the stage, but because of the community that it builds and the creativity and hope that it inspires. The population of Lansing may keep it from qualifying as a "small town," but anyone strolling through Old Town last night would have enjoyed the small-town feel of community with the cultural opportunities of the city.

On a personal level, after a summer that has been challenging (to say the least), it was uplifting and inspiring to be once again immersed in the life I love and surrounded by the amazing people that make Lansing an incredible place to live. You really don't have to look long or hard to find people who are creative, compassionate, intelligent, interesting, and caring.

Thinking about a new policy

I'm thinking about adopting a new policy. I may, in the future, refuse to agree to off-the-record conversations when the organizations refuse to keep their word about the release of information. I will act with integrity with information that I am given, but I do expect others to have that same degree of integrity.

Thankfully, most theater people and organizations in this community have a very high level of integrity and have shown sensitivity and honor. It's easy for me to expect people to keep their word because the vast majority of people in town do.

Chicago Thinks We're Crazy

The theater community in Chicago thinks we're crazy for letting Kristine Thatcher go.

While I work on composing the blog entry I'm working on about Gov. Sanford and "A Clean House," I'd encourage you to go read this blog here and the comments that were left.

Pondering Riverwalk’s the Dead and Lost Loves

Despite my plans, I did not, in fact, get to any shows this weekend. However, with my son still out of town, I did get some very high quality time in with Richard—the kind of time that every marriage should make room for once in a while.

On Sunday, I took a long walk, enjoying the beautiful day and found myself thinking back to Riverwalk’s production of James Joyce's The Dead. One of the beautiful things about great shows is how they stick with you and continue to give you things to think about long after they are done. The Dead had such beautiful imagery, language, music, and themes, that they’ve continued to resonate with me and to occasionally stroke my thoughts with new ways of looking at them.

The Dead is a memory play, but the memories central to the play are less those of the narrator and more those of the narrator’s wife. So why not have the wife be the narrator? That was the fascinating layer that my mind played with on Sunday. Joyce invites us to ask what we would do if faced with the narrator’s circumstances—what do you do when your love of a lifetime is flush with remembered love and filled with tears over the loss of a past lover, one who disappeared decades before?

This is where Doak Bloss’ choices and Mary Job’s direction was truly brilliant. For it was as much the facial expressions, the movements on stage, and the lighting as it was the words of the script that showed the husband’s choices. He was pained that the love he thought was exclusively his belonged in part to a memory. Yet, the love for his wife was so great that he did not berate her. He did not turn her pain into a betrayal of him or of their marriage. He didn’t try to exorcise the ghosts of the past, but rather, went and held his spouse so that they would not be alone during the haunting.

Would their marriage be the same afterward? Joyce doesn’t tell us, but if I were to believe the interpretation presented, I would say no. Neither person nor marriage would ever be the same afterward, but they would likely be better.