Grinder's Grumblings

It's been almost a month since we brought the curtain down on our summer season at the Ennotville Library, and I'm only now just getting a chance to write about it (and even this one is going to have to be a quickie). After a whirlwind year of playing catch-up in my non-Grinder life I'm now, finally, no longer playing catch-up, but actually doing some badly-needed catching up.  On the whole I'm very pleased with how things went this summer. Did they go according to plan? Of course not! But they did go, and we put on two weeks of shows, including a week of all-female works. We also raised some money for the Library's new HVAC system, which I'm pleased to report has now been installed and is doing what it was intended to do. Those are two really big boxes checked for me.  But of course, as Stanislavsky purportedly said "contentment is the enemy of the artist," and for all the success we had this past season I want to build on that success, and do even be...

It seems like only yesterday that I was putting up a post about getting ready for rehearsals, and now here we are, just days away from opening. My plan had been to put out a post a week while we were in rehearsals, but things have been such a whirlwind of activity over the past few weeks that I've been racing just to keep up. Here, finally, I have a somewhat quiet evening, and a few moments to collect my thoughts on this production so far.  First off, I'm pleased to report that the show is coming along quite well. Lines are being learnt, blocking is being retained, characters are emerging. The funny parts are looking like they're actually going to be funny - that's not always a given with any play, let alone a collection of plays that are all well over 100 years old.  Second, we're also selling tickets! Plenty of people have bought tickets to the show already, and more sales are coming in all the time. With only 80 seats available in total I'm now at the point w...

And here we are! Final preparations are almost complete for our two Ennotville productions this year. On the week 1 front, “It’s Too Hot in Here” is, well, heating up. The set this year is looking a little different than the past couple of years, but I still haven't managed to "think outside the box" as much as I'd hoped to. Still, this is taking things in a new direction, and doing stuff that I've never done before. Of course, there’s much work still to do - costumes are going to be a big part of this play, and we can’t really start on that until we have that other main element in place - the actors!  Luckily, we’re almost fully cast, and I'll be showcasing all of them in some upcoming posts. I'm looking forward to working with what is turning out to be a great mix of old friends and new. And we even have something we don't normally have for one of my Ennotville shows - tickets. Since this is a fundraiser we are selling tickets to this show only, and ...

Today I started working in earnest on my summer shows. Not because I hit some magic milestone in my production calendar (I'm way behind, as usual), nor because I was hit with some great burst of inspiration, but simply because things in my life had rolled around to the point where working on the shows in earnest was now possible. I knew this day would come, but I've been anxious waiting for it to arrive. I need to learn that I can't rush these things - they will get here when they get here. But now here we are. I'm actively casting for both shows, so if you are interested in getting invovled, onstage or off, please let me know. I have a wide range of needs (remember my "25 people" post from a few months back?) both onstage and off, and this year, especially, I want to spend more time and energy getting people for the off.  So no big news this month - watch for pictures of the set going up and related preparations in future posts. The only thing I have really t...

The Beef Eater Well here it is - another month, another missed deadline for a mid-month post. I suppose I should just move the goalposts back a bit, and aim for one post per month, any day of the month, during the off-season. It's been a very, very busy March.   But I don't want to talk about how busy I am - everyone does that, as if it's some sort of contest to see who has the most pitiful, over-stretched life in the rat race. Many of us play up on our exhaustion as a matter of routine, and we can't help ourselves, much of the time, but when we can avoid talking about how busy we are, I think we should (and if we are empirically too busy, then instead of talking about it we should be actually doing something to actively address whatever it is that's too much to handle).  Instead, I want to talk about the great art in my life, that I'm finding time for despite the hustle, that in fact is a huge part of what I need as an antidote to the hustle, a balm on the sore...

Do I have time to tap the maple trees this year? And we’re off! Rehearsals for The Dark Lady of the Sonnets are now underway, and what an experience it has been so far. Yes, I love being in rehearsal, but it’s been a long time since I worked on a play like this. Shaw’s scripts demand that both actors and directors bring their brains with them to rehearsals, and that’s exactly what this ensemble is doing. We’re talking about meaning, character, even philosophy, on a level that I haven’t done in quite a while. That’s the downside of doing my own plays, I suppose - I’m no George Bernard Shaw, and I tend to hit the audience over the head with my syntax, rather than carefully crafting subtle messages in metaphors and mythology. There’s just not all that much to discuss in my plays (and anyone who tries usually misses the point), but this play, on the other hand, has more layers of meaning than one could get to in a lifetime of rehearsing.  I think that shows like this are good for the ...

Don't cry, Beulah Belle! We’re in a much better place than we were a year ago. That’s cold comfort on this January night, but it is comforting nonetheless. We are not in a lockdown, we are not under a bevy of public health restrictions, we are not in the same miserable place that we were a year ago.  That’s not to say everything is rosier now than it was 365 days ago - remember that little war that’s going on and on and on? Last year at this time it hadn’t even started yet. And I know full well that the pandemic nightmare still rages in a lot of places, mostly where, to quote Thorton Wilder “they don’t speak English, and don’t even want to.” I know all that, and more. I know about all the bad that exists in the world, all the sadness, all the hate, all the bitterness and division that has engulfed humanity in the past few years. Don’t you ever just wish you could go back in time and change things so that none of it ever happened? It was in such a spirit of despair that I first penn...

Happy New Year! It is with great pleasure that I announce today the threee projects that will make up the Grinder Productions season this year. Each project is outlined below, along with how it makes use of "my 25" - the name I've given to the group of people who will make up the Grinder ensemble in 2023.  Project #1: The Dark Lady of the Sonnets Okay, so this one isn't  technically  a Grinder show, but I'm including it here anyways, since it's going to take up a large chunk of my time, and I'll be bringing in company members to work on this project with me. The play, written by George Bernard Shaw, is an imagined conversation between William Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth, one night in 1599, about the pressing need to establish a National Theatre in England. We will be presenting it at the Fergus Grand on Monday, March 27th, as part of a larger event to mark World Theatre Day.   This project will require the first 9 of "my 25," four actors and ...