Doll's House Gazette Review

Read the review here.








Photo: Julie Herber as Kristine Linde, Brian Irons as Torvald, Gené Fouché as Nora and Reiner Prochaska as Dr. Rank. © 2008 Joe Williams

A Doll's House Opening Night!

A Doll's House opened last weekend! We had great audiences on both Friday and Saturday night, and a lovely opening night party on Saturday.

Our beautiful set! ©2008 Joe Williams

In the dressing room before the show: Jim Page, Brian Irons, Reiner Prochaska and Gené Fouché. ©2008 Joe Williams

Gené does her hair and goes over lines with Brian. ©2008 Joe Williams

Michelle Simms and Julie Herber prepare to make entrances. ©2008 Joe Williams

Reiner waits for his cue line to enter. ©2008 Joe Williams

After the show we share dessert and champagne. Kate and Tom Majarov chat with former company member Trent. ©2008 Joe Williams

Director Tad Janes (standing) talks with translator Vibeke Havre and company members Ken Poisson, Sarah Shulman and Reiner. ©2008 Joe Williams

Gené talks with Reiner and Mark Barnhart. ©2008 Joe Williams

Fall for the MET 2008

Fall for the MET was last Saturday. For the first time, we held the event in the upstairs lobby, which was quite lovely:

We had a great silent auction! Ensemble member Lisa Burl was involved in several bidding wars. She lost the Joe Williams print, but won the night at Stone Manor.

Tad Janes talks with board members Katie Bowersox and Kara Norman

We had a little presentation honoring our outgoing board president, Shawn Pitts, who served as our president for 5 years. In appreciation we gave her (with help from event sponsor McGuire Fine Arts!) a beautiful sculpture

Then we had a little show - a preview of the rest of our 08/09 season.

Katye Williams, Sophie Arrick-Lewis and Gené Fouché show how an original MET play is put together.

Tad and Lisa read a scene from Almost, Maine

At the end of the evening, some unexpected entertainment arrived: Sophie's son, Ben (the banana) and friend.

It was a great evening - good food, good company, great entertainment, and we even made some money!

A Day in the Life: MET on a Wednesday

It's Wednesday at MET, and here's what we're up to:

It's 9:30am and Sarah Straw is at her desk! (I'd like to say my work area usually looks more organized, but when you're working on 5 million projects at a time, it's kinda hard to stay neat!)

It's 10am and Karen Paone, box office manager, is waiting for you to call!

Ensemble member and props mistress for A Doll's House Lorrie Tripp stops by later in the morning. Lorrie chats with me a bit about props for the show (I'm the stage manager) and then works on some items. I try to help with the ornery copier, but....

We end up breaking it! This piece just fell out as we were trying to fix a paper jam! Fortunately it snapped right back in and everything was fine.

At MET, we ensemble members share the responsibility for keeping our space clean. Everyone signs up for a month-long shift. Julie and I are the October cleaning crew. Above, Julie takes out the trash from the lobby.

In addition to teaching, performing, directing and doing MET's graphic design, Gené also does our accounting. Here she's getting ready to make a deposit.

A quick trip into the theatre finds A Doll's House lighting designer and Ensemble Member Karina Wright supervising her daughter, Diana. They spent most of the day hanging Karina's light plot.

Mark Barnhart was down in the scene shop, working on trim for the set. It was dusty.

After lunch, our friend and cast member from Company, Nick Mullinix stopped by!

MET intern and Ensemble School student Luke de Boinville sorts costume patterns.

Every Wednesday, from 2-6pm, Jenn Irons gives private voice lessons in MET's Greene Room. Here is Jenn, working with Lena Janes, daughter of Tad and Gené

The Ensemble School starts at 4:30 with Teen Improv, taught by Denny Grizzle, who you may remember as Bobby in Company and Joe in Killer Joe.

At 5:30 Julie teaches Teen Scene Study - we love our new classroom!

At 6pm we have a Doll's House production meeting. Tad, the director, sits down with all the designers, and the stage manager, and we talk over what is happening, what needs to happen and who is going to do it.

Milee was there during the production meeting, priming all the walls. Tad is going to pick out the paint on Thursday morning!

After the production meeting, sound designer Tom Majarov played several sambas for Tad to choose from. There was dancing. Costumer designer Sherry Shaner, and...

Tad!

At 7pm, after the production meeting we had a company meeting. MET ensemble members meet once a week, every week but during tech weeks, to talk about our company and get everyone on the same page. Tonight we talked about Fall for the MET - our annual fall event that is this Saturday, October 18th, and work call plans to get the Doll's House set finished.

Also at 7pm, Actors Anonymous was meeting, led by Comedy Pigs member James "Jiggy'McGarvey. AA is an opportunity for our Ensemble School students to use what they've learned in class in their own improv troupe. In the past, they're produced a couple of shows each season.

Normally the Comedy Pigs also rehearse on Wednesday nights, from 8-10pm. But tonight several Pigs were in tech for the Walkersville Dinner Mystery Train!

And at 7:30 it was time for A Doll's House rehearsal! During rehearsal, Sherry pulled actors into the costume shop for fittings.

Also during rehearsal, ensemble member Rona Mensah stopped by with some soap! And also some decorations for Fall for the MET.

And then finally, at 10:30pm, rehearsal is over and we're going home!

That's it, that's a day in the life of MET. If you come by on a Thursday, or a Saturday, it looks much the same - there's always a class, a rehearsal, a work call. There's always people stopping by to borrow things, return things or just say hi. There's always administrative work to do, ticket orders to fill and cleaning to be done. And sometimes we even have a show! : )

Doll's House Act I Work Thru

On Sunday night we had out first run thru of Act I. There was a lot of stopping and working specific moments - which is a really interesting part of rehearsal - trying to figure out why characters do or say certain things and discovering new things about the play. And of course the logistics of the show - the timing of entrances, when do I have this prop, when should I cross over to the fireplace, navigating the set that is being built around us, etc.

Before the run thru began, stage manager Sarah Straw (right) goes over props with Vibeke and Gené. © 2008 Joe Williams

A view from the back of the theatre. Stage managers on the left, director in the middle, translator to the right and actors on stage. © 2008 Joe Williams

Director Tad Janes gives a note. © 2008 Joe Williams

Stage manager Sarah Straw and assistant stage manager Sarah Shulman. We are the Sarah's Squared! We give line notes, track props and take notes for the designers. © 2008 Joe Williams

Julie Herber and Gené talk through a scene with Tad. © 2008 Joe Williams

This is a serious play, but there are moments of humor. Vibeke, Reiner, Jim, and Shulman react to a scene. © 2008 Joe Williams

Jim checks a line with translator Vibeke. Minor tweaks are still being made to the script. © 2008 Joe Williams

Doll's House Work Call

We had our first major work call for A Doll's House on Sunday, October 12th:
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Volunteer John Kearns consults with Mark Barnhart on set plans.

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Reiner Prochaska frames a wall flat.

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Props mistress Lorrie Tripp and Milee McDonald attempt to fix a broken bulb on this pre-lit Christmas tree. In the end, Lorrie had to get new lights.
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Sarah Straw sorts bolts, screws and other pieces of small metal. (this is for Ken, who says there are not enough pictures of me on the blog - so here I am!)
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Julie spent some quality time in the new costume shop, sorting and organizing. She wasn't ready for her close up : ) I know it looks chaotic, but amazing progress has been made and it's super exciting to actually be able to find things!
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Ken Poisson helps Julie in the costume shop, sorting skirts.

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Jon Paul Duvall and Ali Lepelletier work on cleaning up the windows Mark rented from the ReStore. This was a tough and time consuming job: first they had to scrape off foam insulation and paint, pull out nails....

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Then pop out the plastic window pane dividers and clean the whole unit with soap and water and then...
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Get tough with the windex. Ali and Jon Paul take no prisoners.
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Karen Paone, Mak Nichols and Pat McDonald took over hardware sorting duties. Every piece had to be organized by type and size. I didn't know there were so many screw sizes!

By the end of the day, both the costume shop and the scene shop were cleaner, and we had several walls framed out and ready for facing and installation. Mark will be working on the set during the day this week - volunteer opportunities abound! Give us a call if you would like to help.