Claremont Dramatic Society Newsletter
Box 50, Eppindust, 7475
Tel: 021 671 2242 Cell: 082 821 4353 Fax: 021 528 2299
E-mail: andrethomas@vodamail.co.za
www.claremontdramatic.wordpress.com
December 2009 – Number 85
Greetings to all CDS-ers and our friends!
There is a saying in German that states, “Die Vorfreude ist die beste Freude”, which roughly translates to “anticipation is the greatest joy of all”. That certainly was the case with my recent holiday – I could hardly contain myself before I left for Djenne and Timbuktu (in Mali, West Africa). A dream that had been brewing for 8-and-something years. Well, I’m back, and it was so different to what I expected in so many ways. Not always an easy destination to travel in, but fantastic as far as being in a completely different world.
The main point though is that we should always give our very best towards fulfilling our dreams. I don’t mean just getting or doing things we’d like. But actually achieving a dream through hard work and preparation – that feeling of achieving a goal that has so much personal meaning – that is a truly wonderful feeling J
But back to matters of the stage:
Return from Oz
Return from Oz played at the Masque until last night, sadly to small houses, but I do hope all of you had a chance to see this delightful Christmas offering.
Yvonne, Roland and Barrie worked very hard to mould a young and inexperienced cast into entertainers and they deserve all the support we can give them. In spite of a somewhat negative review, we must bear in mind that Claremont is not in the business of constantly mounting sure fire winners; how else do we encourage fresh blood, offer opportunities to potential members and develop wider audiences? It takes pluck to write a piece like Return from Oz, guts to cast it according to developmental criteria and selflessness to let a talented artistic team make their mark. The two galas where very well attended and their patrons highly appreciative.
CDS Christmas Bash 2009 – a reminder!
Our Christmas party is going to be held at the Hok on Sunday, 6th December. It will be a bring & braai, not forgetting your party pieces. Brenda Gray also has a little surprise for the party…
Please plan to arrive between 17h00 and 17h30.
We have booked tickets for the matinee performance of Pinelands Players Production of A Christmas Carol at 14h30 that day – Pam may still have some seats available, so please let her know if you want to attend that with us.
So – A Christmas Carol at 14h30 and Bring & Braai at 17h00 / 17h30
Please RSVP Pam Burger, our Social Convenor by 30 November, at pamb@masterparts.com or on 082 488 0442 (cell) 021 657 5757(work) 021 696 5959 (after 6pm)
Inter-Society Quiz 2009
** NB: A pair of spectacles were left on the “podium-table” at the end of the quiz – if they are yours, please pick them up at the Masque Theatre.**
The 2009 Inter-Society Quiz was held last week, and the Claremont committee is very happy to have received such positive feedback – it seems that everyone who attended had a good time. We certainly enjoyed putting it together – we together worked as an excellent team. This “review” was on the Muizenberg website:
This year’s annual quiz involving most dramatic societies in the greater Cape Town area, was held on Sunday, 22 November, at the Masque Theatre. Claremont Dramatic Society organised a memorable event, and their quizmaster André Thomas did a perfect job: friendly, displaying a great sense of humour, very pleasant but pleasingly firm and with spot-on timing. Thank you, Claremont and all involved!
The four “Masque societies” were represented with six teams (in addition, there were the Gilbert & Sullivan Society, Pinelands Players and Milnerton Players as well as a team representing the
production Return from Oz, presently showing at the Masque). Somerset West, we missed you!
The results were on the whole quite close: “Oz” achieved 40 points, followed by Claremont 1 with 56 ½ pts, Pinelands 57 ½, MVDS B with 58 and the MVDS A team with 60 ½ points. Then came G & S with 63, Claremont 2 with 65 ½, Milnerton with 66 ½ and Constantiaberg Theatre Players with 67 ½ points. The winners were the Fish Hoek Dramatic Society who earned 70 ½ points and therefore “have to” organise next year’s annual quiz.
Congratulations! Well done to all the teams! And wasn’t it fun?
Can’t wait for the 2010 quiz …
We also look forward to being hosted by Fish Hoek next year, and trust they will the treat the Golden Duck with care and love J
Claremont AGM
Our Annual General Meeting is booked for Tuesday 09 February 2010 at Kelvin Grove in the Palmyra Room. Notice and details will follow closer the time.
Fish Hoek donation request
Angela from Fish Hoek Dramatic Society sent through this request:
We have been accepted as host parents and will be having a little boy with us for the holidays, he is 1 yrs old. We need a car chair and a pram for him and am asking everyone we know if they have one to donate to us. We dont’t mind the condition as Garth can fix anything and I can sew new covers etc. If you know of anyone who might have, please pass this onto them.
If YOU can help in any way, please contact her directly: angela@natraloesa.co.za
Can you help MVDS?
Mvds’ first production in February 2010 is Alan Ayckbourn’s Improbably Fiction (directed by Coleen van Staden, who is great fun to work with).
The production has quite a number of very QUICK costume changes, and we therefore need SIX dressers (one per actor). Every dresser will be dedicated to just ONE actor, and each actor has her/his own dressing station, i.e. everything will be pretty streamlined and as easy as possible for all concerned.
Also needed is a costume co-ordinator (overseeing the combined dressing stations and any additional costume requirements – no designing, sewing involved since the show has Robyn Wainwright as costume designer). Nevertheless, this person should have some experience.
These people are also needed during most rehearsals, since the fast costume changes have to be rehearsed very well.
You should be available from 09 to 16 December 2009 (since year-end break in rehearsal), and again from 04 January 2010.
The production runs 05 to 13 February 2010 at the Masque Theatre.
PLEASE contact the production secretary June Edwards as soon as possible (also if you need more information): 082 557 7873 or 021–762 9446 or sunshinedesing@intekom.co.za.
birga from MVDS says: It’s a great way to get involved in a production … costumes are usually fun, exciting and “easy” to memorise (easier than “lines” anyway). It’s also something for newcomers: You get to know the actors and backstage crew quite well, esp. when attending the rehearsals, the whole process of staging a show becomes much clearer to you AND (most importantly) you are involved in it. … and for those with an “Ego” (with capital “e”): Your name will be in the programme!
Get Thee to The Masque!
Laughing Room Only
A compilation of three hilarious comedies performed by the brilliant Deon Bisschoff and the Waterfront Theatre Company at the Masque Theatre from 02 to 19 December (Wed to Sat & Sun 13th).
Matinees at 15:00 R50 (Theatre Club members R40).
Evenings at 19:30 R60 (R50). Bookings on 021-7881898
08 to 10 January 2010 Bookings open 15.12.
Tribute to Mario Lanza
Fuad Sawyer is a Cape Town-born tenor who has graced the stage both locally and internationally. This operatically trained performer has sung with the Eoan Group as well as Capab/Artscape. The late and great Mario Lanza has always been a favourite of Fuad’s, and his popular and famous songs suit his voice perfectly. Join us in our beautiful foyer and be serenaded by Fuad with wonderful evergreens such as “Golden Days”, “The drinking Song”, “Be my Love” and much more.
Friday 08, Saturday 09 and Sunday 10 January 2010.
N.B. Both evenings 20h00, Sunday matinée 15h00
TICKETS: Matinée: R50 (R40 Theatre Club members),
all evenings: R60 (R50 Theatre Club members)
Get Thee to The Theatre in Milnerton
Milnerton Players presents” RODGERS & HART – ‘A Celebration’
A revue with music & lyrics by the renowned song writing team
Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
Concept Richard Lewine and John Fearnley
Direction: Sheila McCormick Musical direction: Keith Benjamin
A rousing pastiche of almost 60 songs by the prolific song-writing team of Rodgers & Hart.
The first act sets the stage for romance while the second act is comprised of their more satiric gems with a brief narration highlighting the Rodgers & Hart story.
Featuring such standards as ‘Manhattan’, ‘Blue Moon’, ‘The Lady is a Tramp’ and ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’, this fast paced revue is a guaranteed evening of enjoyable musical entertainment.
The cast of seven singers includes: Phoebe Snayer, Evan Witten, Nicole Nefdt, Carl de Lange, Lisa Stiliano, Simon Speck and Julie du Plessis.
Bookings: 021 557 3206 or 082 267 1061 E-mail: macdram@absamail.co.za
At the Milnerton Playhouse from 27 November to 12 December 2009
Ticket prices: R60 evenings and R50 Saturday matinees
Audition Notices
See an attached notice for Claremont’s production of Neil Simon’s “Rumours”.
So that leaves me to wish you all a splendid festive season – be it Christmas, Hanukkah or Eid. Enjoy the time with family and friends
Claremont Dramatic Society invites you to audition for
‘ Rumours’
By Neil Simon
Directed by Sue Bolton
Production dates: 23 April to 1 May 2010
Venue: ‘The Hok’ club house
Date: Sunday 24 January 2010
Time: 2.30 p.m.
This riotously funny farce centres around the efforts of 8 party guests to spare their unfortunate host and themselves, from scandal. It opens with Ken and Chris who have found their host, Charley, a prominent Government official, in his bedroom, too dazed to speak, with a bullet wound in his ear lobe! His wife, Vivian, and domestic help are nowhere to be seen. Len and Claire arrive, themselves injured in a car crash, and are soon joined by Ernest and Cookie, Glenn and Cassie, each with their own problems. Following a second, accidental, gun shot that leaves Ken temporarily deaf, the police arrive and Len, drawing the short straw, pretends he is Charley. He concocts a touching and fantastic explanation, that in the end proves more credible than anyone dared hope.
Cast Descriptions
Chris Bevans – mid 30’s to early 40’s.Attractive, elegant, nervous lady striving to be the ‘Perfect wife’ to a well placed husband.
Ken Bevans – her husband – 40 + Dominant man with a mission. He is excitable, bossy, and controlling. Has to be ‘deaf’ for a short section of the play.
Claire Cummings – 30 to 40 years old; Very chic socialite gossip. Tends to be superficial and is not the brightest pebble on the beach.
Leonard Cummings – 30 to 40; Tax consultant, and has known Charley, the host, since their school days. Demanding to the point of rudeness, competitive, upwardly mobile. He has the crowning monologue of the play. Married to Claire.
Cookie Cusack – late 40’s. She is a famous chef with her own T.V. Show. She is a self assured bohemian oddity, who is very reliant on her husband’s support. They adore each other.
Ernest Cusack – 50+ He is a popular psychiatrist to the rich and famous. He is sharp and observant, and is his wife’s biggest admirer.
Cassie Cooper – Very attractive, edgy, jealous young wife who is very unhappy and insecure and relies on the properties of her ‘crystal’ to give her strength.
Glenn Cooper 40+ Very ambitious politician, arrogant, self assured, a ladies man, and very conscious of his public image.
PC Conklin – appears in the last scene only – a lovely cameo role.
PC Casey – is a woman or can be a young man. Has very few words – is just Conklin’s junior back up.
Please direct all enquiries to Wendy Goddard at ph. 021—6712888 cell 0834147003 or e-mail wendygoddard@xsinet.co.za
Further to my message last week about the various roles in the theatre, I thought I’d get the ball rolling by sharing something with you that I wrote while I was stage manager for a show of Wendy’s last year.
If any of you have funny or serious, long or short descriptions of some of the various essential roles in the theatre – please send them along. It’s always nice to hopefully inspire more people to help out, and not everyone is made for acting!
How to smuggle matches onto the stage
So, there is Corrie, on stage in her ‘apartment’, 5 minutes away from having to light a fire.
I am standing backstage, behind the ‘front door’ wondering how to smuggle a small yellow box of matches onto the stage, that should have been there already…
The rest of the cast and crew are in the dressing room listening over the tanoy to what is happening on stage – how is she going to save the situation of needing to light a fire without matches?
The audience, oblivious, is laughing at all the right places
Corrie, her mind frantic with how to light the fire, and “why did I forget my handbag with the matches”?
And I am still trying to find a way to get the matches on stage. Can I quickly dress up as a delivery man and deliver matches to the apartment? Too contrived. Can I leave her to cope without them and improvise? No- I need to try and help her till the last possible moment. Will the audience notice if I drop them over the apartment wall into the kitchen? Yes! And will Corrie know it is even there then… what to do…
And that is just one of the things a stage manager needs to do during the course of an evening supporting the crew on stage.
A performance evening would start with my arrival about 90 minutes before curtain up, unlocking the theatre and dressing rooms, preferably before anyone is there yet. Gives me a few minutes of peace to settle myself and get the doors open. Then I climb the steep stairs to the mezzanine level to switch on the tanoy. This is the moment from which people need to beware that what is said on stage can be heard in the green- & dressing rooms…
Reverse back down the stairs (the only safe way) and begin to set the stage for act I.
in the current case, this involves manoeuvring a 4 metre long ladder from the green room into the wings and setting up without knocking any of the lights or curtains out of position… then ascend the 4 metres into the cavernous space above the stage with a jug of water in hand to fill the “tap-pipe” with about a litre of water. The cut-open plastic coke bottle is an ingenious idea to get real water onto the stage when the tap below is opened.
Then manoeuvre said ladder through the wings and the front door of the set onto the middle of the stage to set the snow-contraption. This involves climbing up, releasing a cloth contraption, thereby releasing dozens of snowflakes onto the stage. Obviously after refilling the snow-contraption with snowflakes, it is returned to its lofty perch ready for release at the right moment.
And while I manoeuvre the ladder back through a door, around a flap, under the wings and bars into the green room, the cast & crew are arriving and need to be let in at the stage door.
They need to be there by 60 minutes to curtain up, otherwise the “where-are-you” phone calls begin… in one instance where I couldn’t get hold of the one cast member I was busy learning his words when he arrived, seemingly oblivious to the consequences of his not informing us that he was on his way, but stuck in traffic.
Another time, the lead was called 45 minutes prior to the start to find out where he is. His casual “thanks for the SMS you sent last night” confirmed my worst fears, that he was nowhere near the theatre… upon asking where he is, and mentioning that curtain-up is in 45 minutes, he remarked that there isn’t a show today… but he made it with 15 minutes to spare!
In the period between this call and his arrival, I moved my car and blocked a bay so he had somewhere to park in front of the theatre without having to search; we sent someone into the wardrobe to find shirts for him in case he didn’t bring his; we endeavoured not to tell the director who was schmoozing in the foyer with the charity guests; we asked his co-lead to help calm him on his arrival and get him into character.
Oh, and during all of this the normal other activities took place – assisting the props team to get the goulash & alcoholic drinks ready for the stage, giving the cast and crew their 45 / 30 / 20 / 10 and 5 minute calls. Making sure that the sandbag is behind the bathroom door, so that it doesn’t open too far. Making sure that all personal props are in the personal possession of the cast.
Then in the last 15 minutes, I need to close the tabs (curtains) so that the audience can come in, make sure I have a walkie-talkie to be able to communicate with the lighting & sound team. They are situated closest to the foyer, so they are my link to front of house.
They let me know when the 5 minute call is played in the foyer to advise the audience to start moving in (or back in, if it is during interval).
They give me clearance when the last audience member has come in. I let them know when everyone is in place backstage so that they can start playing the intro music. All over a walkie-talkie.
By this time I’ve called “beginner’s on stage” and made sure the curtain-opener is in place to open the tabs at the correct cue in the music.
I’m sitting backstage and watching the action through a narrow gap in the back of a cupboard, through the beads hanging in the front of the cupboard, waiting for my cues to ring the doorbell when it is needed in the script. I also watch what is happening on stage to give other actors their “go-on-now!” or backstage “speak now!” cues (which can be as subtle as the opening of a fridge door, a nose-blowing or the bottom of a bottle of gin making contact with the coffee table. exciting stuff!
All the while, there you sit in the darkness of backstage, with a slight blue light to show the obstacles to avoid and only a shaft of light from the stage to read my script by. All the while only whispering if you need to talk to others, or tiptoeing if you need to walk to others.
And everytime the audience laughs, you give an involuntary smile.
Every time they don’t laugh when you expect them to you wonder what’s wrong with them.
You stop breathing every time someone forgets a line.
And you start breathing every time they save each other and continue – the audience non the wiser.
In the end I poked my hand through the back of the cupboard at a moment that Corrie looked my way. I showed her the matches and dropped them onto the floor of the cupboard.
Did she really notice?
She did – and changing her moves a little – doing a little sashay move across the stage to get the matches to light the fire. All in character. All good!
Close curtain. For interval. Of 20 minutes.
That means our work really begins – as we need to set the whole stage for the next act. from an ostensibly empty apartment to one that is fully furnished with net and normal curtains, pictures, mirrors, books and trinkets, carpets, bowls of fruit and cans for tea & coffee. No detail is spared in the quest for authenticity.
In one case I even needed to make small repairs to an in-stage wooden screen – to hammer a few nails into a narrow piece of wood. Once that was done, I spotted a piece of cladding that came off the front door, so quick actions to repair that:
Find double–sided tape
Try to separate double-sided tape from its backing
Find brown paint
Find knife to take off blotches of glue on the back
Cut myself
Hear “5 minute call” from lighting box
Reply with “we need 8 minutes”
Find plaster
Apply plaster (ever noticed how long that can take?)
Find screws
Go to stage and try to screw into place
Fetch hole-maker to aid screwing in
Hear audience’s chatter as they return to seats
Fasten second screw in place while assistant is already painting brown paint over the first
Quick check of stage that all is in place
Go backstage and advise cast of wet paint on front door
Call beginner’s to stage
Check personal props of beginners in place
Tell lighting we’re clear to go
Get a reply that we are all go
Check that colleague to open curtains is in place
Get message that we are waiting for 1 person
Have a quick wee (no flushing allowed)
Get the all-clear
Music begins
Sit down and wait for paint can to touch fireplace on stage so that I can ring doorbell
Wait backstage with feet up following the words, laughter and smiles.
Actors come off stage and go back on. One of them needs to take of her dress on stage, and remembers at the door that she has forgotten to put her petticoat on…
So I run backstage and brainstorm a way to get the nightie to her. My colleague has an idea that there is a moment when she thinks she change. So colleague goes and stands back stage in the “bathroom” of the apartment and waits for the change scene. Actress arrives, is super thankful, and does a lightning change behind the door instead of in front, and the audience is none the wiser. (have I said that before?)
Drinks are made backstage – voiceless hand requests are made in the shape of a T or a C. I choose a C – I need coffee.
The scene continues.
The scene nears its ending.
Make it snow.
Stop the snow.
Close the curtain.
Sweep up the snow.
Change the set.
Beginners on stage.
Curtain up.
All systems go.
Again.
Laughter.
Smiles.
Nearing the end now… all in place for curtain call!
You stand backstage and watch. And listen.
Bow of the cast
Bow of the leads
Bow of them all
Black out
Bow of them all
Is there enough applause to warrant another bow?
Close the curtain.
Applause dies. Chatter starts. Laughter continues.
Tell the actors how well they did (ego-stroking is an important part all the way through)
Clear the stage.
Let out the troops.
Lock the dressing rooms.
Climb the steep stairs to switch off the tanoy.
Switch off the lights.
Set the alarm.
Lock the theatre.
Go home.
Sleep.
Repeat after work tomorrow.
And the next day when people ask how it went, you will only remember how well the cast did. How happy the audience was, how much they enjoyed it. How well we overcame little obstacles.
It’s been compared to a child. At times frustrating as hell, but overwhelmingly lovable.
** of course, not all of these happened on one single evening. sometimes evenings run without any of the additional challenges that i also described above; but other nights we do have one or two of them to deal with**
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