 I've been involved in community theatre as an actor, producer, prop maker and graphic artist for several years. And every time I'm invited to join the cast of a play, it's not just another chance to act and perform for audiences. It's also another opportunity to exercise my designer muscles and do something clever, creative, and crafty for my new castmates and crew for opening night. Sometimes, I fail. An idea that wows me just doesn't come to mind or what does can't be executed in time for opening night (I always blame those pesky rehearsals getting in the way). So sometimes, I come up with nothing to give the cast when we open a show. On those occasions, I hope that in the weeks while the show's up and running, I'll get an idea and use the time to have something clever and personalized done to hand out by closing night. I'm in a show now, The Curious Savage. We opened two weeks ago, and this time, I had something for the cast and crew on opening night. In the show, I play a doctor, Dr. Emmett. Brainstorming ideas for what gifts I could do, I came up with "medical bag"..."stethoscope"..."prescriptions". Prescriptions seemed like a no-brainer, a sheet of paper designed like a prescription slip that I could write a message on, like "Here's your prescription for a great show - Break a leg!" from the doctor. They'd be way easy to do too. Design it, print it, stuff it in an envelope - done! Then, I figured it was TOO easy and wondered if there was something else I could do to plus them out a little bit and make them more memorable. That's when medical file folders popped into my brain. Why not make each person's card their patient file folder? Duh. Next step? I visited my local JoAnn store (I like Michaels too, but it's farther away from my place, and like Michaels, I still used an online coupon to get a discount) and found a stationery set with cards that are the right color and texture as file folders. It'd be easy to trim them down to look like mini file folders. Add a label with the "patient's name" on each of them, tack the prescription on the inside, and we're done. Time to get started. Buying enough for the cast and crew, my first task was to create a trimming template of a file folder shape that I could lay over the cards and transfer lines onto them in order to cut them out perfectly and fairly consistently. Drawing the template in Adobe Illustrator was easy. Then, I made printouts and scribbled dark pencil lead across the backs of the printouts, only in the areas where the lines were that I needed for cutting. I then layed a sheet, pencil lead side down, on each card and then drew over the printed lines using a burnisher stylus to transfer the lead onto the cards. Old school trick, easy peasy!  Once I transferred the lines to the number of cards I needed, I trimmed them and they looked awesome! Next, I pulled out a pack of Avery file folder labels I already had, opened a template and typed out labels for every patient - I mean, cast and crew member - and printed them out to put onto the mini folders. The label size I had was twice as tall as I needed, so I had to do some additional trimming to each label to look proportionally correct on these 5" x 7" cards/file folders. For the prescription slips, I designed very simple stationery for my character Dr. Emmett, including the name of the facility he operates in the play - The Cloisters - at the top and a quote from Lord Byron he (I) recites in the show at the bottom. I did them four to a page. After printing them out, I cut them apart and then hand-wrote my "prescriptions," or personal messages, on them personalizing each one. So I had all my elements figured out. But then I thought only having one sheet of paper inside each file folder seemed chintzy and lame. There should be a few more sheets inside each patient's record, to add some life to this mini prop. What would be appropriate "medical records" of the cast and crew of a play? Script pages! I scanned several pages from my script and scaled them down and printed enough to include a couple more pages per folder. Having some spare sheets of colored paper, I printed script pages in different colors. As luck would have it, I have scenes with everyone in the cast. So I made sure I had at least one script page of a scene we had together in each actor's folder. That way their files would actually have information relevant to their character and of us working together on stage. My script is a working script, so my pages are filled with blocking and acting notes all over them written in during rehearsals. Rather than erase them, I left all those scribbles in.   Finally, I had to come up with a way to permanently attach the medical records into the folders. Rather than simply stapling them in, I reused the scrap pieces I'd trimmed from the cards, colored half of them black with a Sharpie, and turned them into an accent piece that would conceal the staples holding the papers together. Then, I glued the stapled assembly onto the folders. Design-wise and assembly-wise, I was pretty much done. But for one final touch, I decided to add a date to the cards, putting our opening night date to the bottom of the theatre's promotional art and printing them out onto label paper, trimming them apart, and sticking one onto the backs of each card.  Taking my time, it took a couple of days to get these all designed, printed, cut, stapled, glued and assembled. They're not as elaborate as ones I've done for past shows. But every show is different. And getting a distinct medical file from "your doctor" seems pretty on-the-mark. (Here is when Frank modestly pats himself on the back.) In the middle of making these, it also dawned on me that every patient should also get a lollipop! Duh again. Ironically, of all the things I had to do to get everything done, finding slim lollipops like you'd get at the doctor's office that could fit inside the folders before putting them into their envelopes took more time to complete than any other step of this project! I traveled all over town, hitting several stores I thought would have them, passing over piles and piles of bags of Charms Blow Pops and Tootsie Roll Pops before finally finding the lollipops I needed. I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out, and it was nice to see and hear the reactions from the cast as they opened their cards.  Now what the hell am I gonna do for closing night?!
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I play "Dr. Emmett" amongst the very talented cast in The Curious Savage now playing at Torrance Theatre Company. Back in January as I was reading the script before auditions, I immediately found the story charming and originally considered not auditioning. I wanted to see this as an audience member! I auditioned anyway, primarily for the chance to briefly exercise those acting and auditioning muscles. Then, I was invited to join the cast. Oh, well.  But I'm not complaining. Joining the cast of The Curious Savage was like reunion time, like lotta of these shows tend to be when you do more and more of them. One of the very great things about doing community theatre! Amanda Webb, Gary Kresca, Jennifer Lough Faneuff and I had recently performed together in TTC's season opener Run For Your Wife, and now we were back together again in The Curious Savage. I last worked with Daryl Hogue France on stage many years ago, and now we get to play in scenes opposite each other with her as in the title role of Mrs. Savage. I also have a scene with Diana Mann, another long-time friend in theatre and in Relay for Life fundraisers. She is also costume designer for many South Bay theatres, and for our show, we're lucky that she's wearing two hats instead of just one. And the show is directed by Mark Torreso. Mark cast me two years ago in the musical Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka, and I had a fun time in the role. With the more meaningful material present in this script, being directed by him this time was a lot like going to acting class again. I knew I'd enjoy working with him again; I never expected to learn so much about the craft as I did from him on this show.  There were, of course, new actors I got to work with too. I've seen Chris Mock in a number TTC shows and was always entertained by his work, while Frank McCay, Charlotte Williams, Justine DeAngelo, and Iyan Evans had never done a show at the theatre. But over the course of our six weeks of rehearsals together, the entire cast bonded so well together. Entering "hell week" (the final week of rehearsals leading into opening night), we realized Mark could not have cast a more perfect ensemble of actors so well-suited to each of our roles.
We opened Saturday evening March 14. Under Mark's direction, I've rarely ever felt as well-prepared for opening night as I - and I think the rest of the cast too - felt as we did that night. We sailed confidently through the show, with an audience that gave us all the laughs and the tears where the story asked for them. It was a great opening show. We had a reviewer in the audience, and she gave us a glowing review! We just started our second weekend of shows this weekend, with audience continuing to enjoy our work. We'll be performing for three more weekends, hopping over Easter weekend when we'll be dark, to close on Sunday April 19. I hope you can join us! Tickets are $25. Information to buy tickets are on TTC's website and TTC's Facebook page. Photo collages taken from my Instagram account using publicity shots from the photo gallery on TTC's The Curious Savage Facebook photo album. |
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A fan of Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Batman, comic books, Blu-rays, Disney, soundtracks, taking pictures, theatre and...Barry Manilow! Archives
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