From Bridget Dougherty, stage manager

Last night, we got to hang out in an alley and sand down furniture. Oh joy. The Old Style and show tunes made it worth it. A little. Mostly the Old Style helped. A lot.

So if you wanna see what the finished pieces look like, you better get to HEIST before it closes.

Here’s a sneak peek at the awesome bars that got delievered to us early this week by our set designer (and owner of a really pimp truck) Clay Barron.

Can you tell I like to read blogs with pictures? In normal life I quite prefer books with out them, but there is something pretty about seeing them on the computer screen in the middle of the blogs. When I was a kid, reading books of scary stories (specifically “Scaries Stories to tell in the Dark” by Alvin Schwartz) I would never place my finger in between pages that had freaky pictures on them because in my head the pictures might come alive and hurt/kill me.

How could this pic not scare you?!? It is intended for ages 9+. I was and still am a wimp. Stephen Gemmell’s illustrations are so freaky. The stories fail to scare me now (I’m not THAT much of a wimp still), but the images remain awful.

This is the story by Alvin Schwartz that goes along with it. No wonder I was a morbid child.

HAROLD by Alvin Schwartz

Thomas and Alfred were two best friends. Whenever it got hot, they would take their cows up to a cool, green pasture in the mountains. Usually they stayed there with the cows all summer. The work their in the mountains was easy, but really boring. All they did was tend their cows all day. They would return to their tiny hut and night. Every night they ate supper, worked in the garden, and went to sleep.

Then one day, Thomas said "Let's make a life-size doll. We can put it in the garden and use it as a scarecrow." There was a farmer they both hated named Harold, so they decided to name the doll Harold and make it look like him. They made it out of straw and gave it a pointy nose and tiny eyes, like Harold's. Day after day, they would tie Harold to a pole in the garden to scare away the birds. They brought it in the house every night. Sometimes, they would talk to it, saying things like "How's it going?" And the other would say in a weird voice "Not good." Of course, Harold wouldn't appreciate it. When they were in a bad mood, they would even curse at him or kick him.

A while later, when Thomas was taking out his anger on Harold, Alfred swore he heard the doll grunt. "Did you hear that? Harold grunted!" "Impossible, he's just a sack of straw," replied Thomas. Alfred dismissed it, but they both stopped talking to it, kicking it, or even touching it, they just left him neglected in the corner of the room.

After a while, they decided nothing was to be feared. Maybe a few bugs or rats were living in the straw. So they went back to their old routine. Every day, they would take it outside, and bring it back in at night. Then they even started treated him badly again.

One night, Alfred noticed something that scared him. "It looks like Harold is growing." "I was thinking the same," answered Thomas. "Maybe it's just our imagination. I think the elevation is getting to us." The next morning, they saw Harold stand up and walk outside, climb onto the roof, and he stayed there all night. In the morning, it came down and stood in the pasture. They got very scared and decided to flee. They took their cows and started heading back down for the valley. After going only a mile or so, they realized they had forgotten the milking stools. They knew they didn't have the money to replace them, so Alfred forced himself back to get them. "I'll catch up with you later. You just keep moving." After walking for a while, Thomas looked back at the hut and did not see Alfred. What he did see, however, horrified him. He saw Harold, on the roof of the hut, stretching out a bloody piece of flesh to dry in the sun.

A Room of Our Own

Submitted by Bridget Dougherty, stage manager

So at the risk of sounding like a space/control freak, and writing another blog on the same topic – wow it was nice to be in our own home for the last week of rehearsals. We moved in this evening, and while the space has not been taped out yet and we are without air conditioning, we are finally on our own. Actors no longer are sitting on top of each other in the space and can actually run lines in another room. We have room to spread out on stage and make all of the entrances and exits accurately and now have a bar and barstools!!

After recently reading “A Room of Ones Own” by Woolfe for the first time, this experience is really driving those ideas home. While I don’t agree with all her concepts, it is incredibly freeing to have a space that is your own, that you can change, that fees you from having to worry about where you belong – I totally get what she was going through.

And of course, some more fun pics from our first rehearsal in our new home for the rest of rehearsals.

The Oddities of Rehearsal Spaces

From stage manager Bridget Dougherty

What this city really needs is what everyone had in college – a big wipe board with a schedule of all the rehearsal rooms on it and you just get to sign up on the board for when you need rehearsal space. And it’s free. It’s cause you pay tuition, but still, essentially free.

We have been moving around a bit with this show. Next week we get to move into our first real “home” where we can actually tape out the floor (yea!). Of course, this move comes just before we move into the actual performance space to begin tech, but whoo hoo! It’s a real rehearsal space!

Not that we haven’t been treated well as squatters at our usual space…

Pictured in rehearsal for Heist Play are Melissa Pryor and David Hornreich.

Or that our weekend rehearsal home (really a company members apartment) hasn’t been a cozy place to work.

Pictured are Aaron Dean and Neal Starbird.

Heck, it has even been nice getting to rehearse and do warm-ups while enjoying the gorgeous sunset...

Pictured are Joshua Davis, Katie Canavan, Byron Melton, Melissa Pryor and Neal Starbird.

But geeze, it will be nice to be in a real rehearsal space that is all our own. We’ll let you know how it goes.

Barbara Stanwyck 101 from Bridget Dougherty, stage manager

So in this play, Barbara Stanwyck comes up a lot. Having only known her in comedies, it was an eye opener to see all of the other work she did and how long she acted. In the play she comes up as a drink (a lot) and the character Barbara “like Stanwyck” references her.

Here’s a little about her, borrowed liberally from IMDB:

Barbara Stanwyck
1907-1990

Birth Name
Ruby Catherine Stevens

Mini Biography
Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western "The Big Valley" (1965), wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama "The Colbys" (1985). But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the period from 1927 until 1964, after which she appeared on television until 1986. It was a career that lasted for 59 years. She was an extremely versatile actress who could adapt to any role. Barbara was equally at home in all genres, from melodramas, such as Forbidden (1932) and Stella Dallas (1937), to thrillers, such as Double Indemnity (1944), one of her best films, also starring Fred MacMurray (as you have never seen him before). She also excelled in comedies such as Remember the Night (1940) and The Lady Eve (1941). Another genre she excelled in was westerns, Union Pacific (1939) being one of her first and TV's "The Big Valley" (1965) (her most memorable role) being her last. In 1983, she played in the ABC hit mini-series "The Thorn Birds" (1983), which did much to keep her in the eye of the public.

Trivia
Her stage name was inspired by a theatrical poster that read "Jane Stanwyck in 'Barbara Frietchie.'".
In 1944, when she earned $400,000, the government listed her as the nation's highest-paid woman.
Often called "The Best Actress Who Never Won an Oscar."
Her mother died when she was accidentally knocked off a trolley by a drunk. Barbara was four at the time.
Was listed #11 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years of The Greatest Screen Legends."
Her stormy marriage to Frank Fay finally ended after a drunken brawl, during which he tossed their adopted son, Dion, into the swimming pool. Despite rumours of affairs with Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford, Stanwyck wed Robert Taylor, who had gay rumours of his own to dispel. Their marriage started off on a sour note when his possessive mother demanded he spend his wedding night with her rather than with Barbara.
She did not have a funeral and has no grave. Her ashes are scattered in Lone Pine, California.
Her performance as Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity (1944) is ranked #98 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time list (2006).
A Star Is Born (1937) starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March is said to be modeled after Stanwyck's rise to stardom and first husband Frank Fay's descent into obscurity.
More info can be found at IMDB.com