The Players Detroit

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THE PLAYER VOLUME CIV, NO. 2 DETROIT, MICHIGAN NOVEMBER 2014 A Variety of Playthings By Player Mark Habel About 5:00 p.m. in the Founder's Room, members of the Twenty-­‐Year Club, welcomed Player Fuzz Corey to their exclusive club, then immediately started drinking from their private stash of premium spirits, financed by dark money from the secretive "Daly-­‐Love" (or "Love-­‐Daly") Fund. Meanwhile, down the road at Sinbads restaurant, other Players and guests convened for the Under-­‐Twenty-­‐Year Club dinner. In the house, Player Earl Wolfe started playing the electric piano around 7:00 p.m., while behind the asbestos curtain the stage crew finished the sets. President John Burke delivered his inaugural curtain speech, announcing that this might be the last Frolic for our antiquated light board and many of our lighting instruments. The Board has authorized the purchase of a new board and LED lights that are programmed to change color, making gels obsolete, as well as new footlights and LED house lights. (Ed., see Let There Be Light, Page 7.) Player Henry Nelson led the singing of the Players Song. The first show, I Didn't Know You Could Cook, written in 1995 by Rich Orloff, is often presented on the same bill as his play Mars Needs Women, But Not As Much As Arnold Schecter. First-­‐time director Player Jeff McCarty presented this dramatic dialogue as a subtle story worthy of our attention. I agree. In the mid-­‐1980s, a paraplegic teacher reveals that he is gay to his older, richer, and admittedly shallower brother as they discuss their lives at the kitchen table of the teacher's bland beige apartment. Player Andy Rice is the wheel-­‐chair-­‐bound teacher, Jerome; Player Sean Fisher is the older brother, Mark. Both actors are very well cast. Andy has appeared three times on our stage in the last two seasons in increasingly demanding roles, and is to be admired for his clarity and focus. AIDS, discrimination, memory and regret add gravity to their conversation. Mark: One moment you think the universe is one way, the next moment, it's another way. Jerome: No, the universe is always the same. The only thing that changes is what we know about it. The set, the blocking and the dialogue are precise. Jerome likes to show his independence by having a trash can lid that opens by foot pedal. He operates it by lifting a paralyzed leg with his hands and dropping it on the pedal. October is often the place for such a careful, small-­‐cast show. Continued on Page 6. VOLUME CIV, NO. 2 DETROIT, MICHIGAN NOVEMBER 2014 Attire Reminder Support the Endowment Fund Don’t embarrass your guests by failing to inform them of our dress code. Black Tie, i.e., a tuxedo, is mandatory for Players. While dark business suits – not plaid sport coats or hospital scrubs -­‐ are acceptable for guests, tuxedos are preferred. If you’ve got it, wear it. Tuxedos can be surprisingly affordable. Your tax-­‐deductible gift to the Players Endowment Fund is a great way to ensure The Players will be here to celebrate its second century. Calling All New Members Gifts of appreciated securities may enable you to escape capital gains taxes while deducting the full value of the security. Your Frontier Accountant may be able to provide further information. We are looking for a few good Players, particularly those who have joined in the last Including The Players in your estate plan is a painless way to provide for the future of The three years. Players. There will be a general casting call during Traffic Hour on November 10, 2014 at If you have any questions, contact Bill about 6:30 p.m. Directors, members of the Robinson. Scripts and Casting Committee and other assorted miscreants will be there to Opening and Closing the Playhouse encourage, inveigle and otherwise convince you to participate in an upcoming Frolic. This The procedures for opening and closing the is your big chance to make your acting debut, Playhouse are posted in the ticket booth. learn the ropes as an assistant director or With a couple of exceptions, it is no longer unravel the mysteries of the technical booth necessary to touch any circuit breakers. while quaffing a Dragonmead beer. Instead, do what you would do in you own Among the shows looking for the next house: turn off lights using the wall or lamp Barrymore is He’s Dead All Right, a “zany switches. comedy/mystery,” to be directed by Steve You will turn off two labeled circuit breakers in the subpanel located in the ticket booth Flum for the February 2015 Frolic. that control the lobby and auditorium stair lights. Backstage, there are a series of new, labeled wall switches next to the breaker panel. Use them as directed on the labels. Do not touch the light packs or backstage circuit breakers! If you are the last to leave, take a walk through the Playhouse. Make sure lights are out. While flies and furry critters with long tails might appreciate your generosity, please make sure all trash, including food, is picked up and placed in the dumpster. Dishes and glassware should be washed or, at the very least, rinsed and placed in the kitchen sink. Finally, ensure that the doors are properly Steve will be on hand, looking to cast 3 males shut – the front door can be temperamental -­‐ and 1 female for this entertaining show. and activate the alarm system. Page 2 1
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VOLUME CIV, NO. 2 DETROIT, MICHIGAN Mark Your Calendar Be sure to mark your calendar for these important upcoming dates: Nov. 7, 8, 14, 15, 8:00 p.m. ... Fall Invitational Nov. 10, 5:30 p.m. ............................... Traffic Hour Nov. 21, 22 ...................... Fine Arts Performances Dec. 6, 5:30 p.m. ........................ Pre-­‐Frolic Dinner Dec. 6, 8:30 p.m. ................................................. Frolic Dec. 8, 5:30 p.m. ................................... Traffic Hour Dec. 20, 6:30 p.m. ..... Holiday Decorating Party Dec. 21, noon .......... Children’s Christmas Party January 24, 7:00 p.m. ........... Millionaire’s Party Fall Invitational Tickets are going fast for the Fall Invitational, so call the office today to make your reservations. The November 8 performance is already sold out and the second Saturday performance on November 15 is almost sold out. NOVEMBER 2014 preferred to cash. Prepayment may be required. If not prepaid, guest fees will appear on your next statement and are payable on receipt. Plan to escort your guest to the Founders Room during the first intermission to meet the Board of Governors. Dues are Due Remember, The Players cannot survive on your good looks alone. The first installment of dues was due on August 1. The second installment is due November 1. Don’t find yourself posted and unable to attend the Fall Invitational or other events. If you find yourself temporarily embarrassed, don’t be shy. Contact any member of the Board of Governors. Payment arrangements can be made – but only if you let the Board know you need them. Member to Member This year, the guest admission charge for the first Friday performance on November 7 is only $25.00, while other nights remain $30.00. Bring your spouse, adult children, friends and neighbors. Are you seeking a good home for that vintage auto or perhaps trying to rent the cottage up north? What could be better than to sell to a fellow Player? The Player will accept a limited number of Member-­‐to-­‐Member listings, 50 This promises to be a terrific show with a words or less, at no charge. (If your listing is first-­‐rate cast. You don’t want to miss it. successful, you might consider making a tax-­‐
Remember, our Invitational performances deductible contribution to The Players start at 8:00 p.m., not 8:30 p.m. Endowment Fund.) Send your listing request to [email protected] and include “Member to Member” in the subject line. Be Our Guest Please remember to let the office know that you would like to bring a guest as soon as possible. The office will request contact information for your guest. This will enable the Board of Governors to extend a formal invitation, alert the front door of your guest’s anticipated arrival, and allow us to recognize your guest with a suitable boutonnière. Board of Governors President ........................................ John C. Burke Vice-­‐President Administration ......... Steven Flum Vice-­‐President Production ............. Eric Christian Secretary ........................ William L. Robinson, Jr. Treasurer ........................ William J. Champion III Governor ...................................... Larry Channell The guest fee for Frolics is just $15.00. Governor .................................. Benedetto Galbo Remember, you – not your guest – are Governor ..................................... Stuart Johnson responsible for paying guest fees. We have no Governor ................................ Matthew Turnbull way to bill non-­‐members. Checks are Page 3 VOLUME CIV, NO. 2 DETROIT, MICHIGAN NOVEMBER 2014 2014 FALL INVITATIONAL George is a flight attendant for a Midwest airline and the father of five girls. As
he contemplates surgery, he also contemplates what it means to be a man.
The Players Present
The Vast Difference
By#Jeff#Daniels#
Produced$by$Allan$Dick$
Directed$by$J.$Robert$O’Leary$III$and$William$L.$Robinson,$Jr.$
Starring(
Greg$Thom$as$George$
Brian$Hurttienne$as$Rita$
John$Hatcher$as$Earl$
Ed$Priebe$as$Hala$
and(featuring:(
Matt$Ochab,$Jeff$Barry,$Andrew$Maltese,$Tom$Sloan,$John$O’Hara,$$
Tom$Diffendal,$Jon$Austin,$Steve$Flum,$Dave$Clark,$Sean$Fisher,$$
Jim$Turnbull,$and$Dennis$Leroy$in$a$multitude$of$roles$
Fall$Invitational$Performances$
November$7,$8,$14,$and$15$at$8:00$p.m.$
At$the$Historic$Players$Playhouse$
3321$East$Jefferson$Avenue$
Detroit,$Michigan$48207$
Call$313.259.3385$for$Reservations$
Page 4 VOLUME CIV, NO. 2 DETROIT, MICHIGAN You’ve Got to Have Art Are you eager to display your inner Michelangelo? Always thought you could be the next Monley? THE PLAYER is looking for a few good men who can draw a few good caricatures. This season, we plan to rotate the drawing duties among various artists. We’d love to see your work. Contact Larry Smith. Quote of the Month “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and
narrow-mindedness, and many of our
people need it sorely on these accounts.
Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men
and things cannot be acquired by vegetating
in one little corner of the earth all one's
lifetime.” The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It Mark Twain. NOVEMBER 2014 Ask THE PLAYER Dear Ask THE PLAYER: My daughter is planning to wed an upstanding young gentleman next spring. Is the Playhouse available to host such an event? Sincerely, Father of the Bride. Dear FOB: Yes. The Playhouse is the perfect location for weddings and appropriate social gatherings, whether your guests are upstanding or in the prone position. In fact, there are several ordained ministers among the Players who may be able to officiate at your daughter’s nuptials. (At least one Player actually attended divinity school. Others received their credentials by clicking on the “ordain me” button at web site of the Church of What’s Happening.) Contact the office to discuss the details, pecuniary and otherwise. For bachelor parties, you may want to consider a business with a similar name on 8 Mile Road. You Mother is Not a Player After a Frolic, sets need to be broken down and stored, props and stage dressings put away and dressing rooms left free of costumes, props, empty whiskey bottles and dirty glasses. Leave props in a container outside the prop room for our prop master. Acey and the cleaning crew do a great job, but it is not their responsibility to return those priceless fake pearls to the prop room or hang up the size 22 dress for you. We frequently have guests – prospective renters and prospective members – visiting the playhouse. It is important that we put on our best face. If you are unable to stay to help clean up after a Frolic, come to Traffic Hour and lend a hand. Pre-­‐Frolic Dinner THE PLAYER, VOLUME CIV, NO. 2, NOVEMBER 2014 THE PLAYER is published more or less monthly from September to April or May with an occasional summer issue. The views expressed herein are those of the respective authors and/or editor, whoever they may be in any given month, and not necessarily those of The Players. Comments may be made to, and back issues may be available from, the Office, (313) 259-­‐3385, or send an inquiry to [email protected]. THE PLAYER is available online at www.playersdetroit.org. Important Numbers OFFICE: There is no official Pre-­‐Frolic Dinner in FAX: November. The Pre-­‐Frolic Dinner will return EMAIL: in December at a location to be determined. BOARD EMAIL: Watch THE PLAYER for further details. 313.259.3385 313.259.0932 [email protected] [email protected] Page 5 2
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VOLUME CIV, NO. 2 DETROIT, MICHIGAN NOVEMBER 2014 Continued from Page 1. O'Hara – with a (surprise!) Irish accent assure Vivien that criminal charges are unlikely The second show was The Players Zone because the stripper "is too busy studying for Episode 1: Homer and the Talking Willy by the bar." auteur Player Will Dawson, with (questionable) "moral support and advice" by The Players Zone Episode 1 was a Trey Parker his frequent collaborator and trouper savant, take-­‐over of the Family Channel. Crude, Player Spencer Channel. Will returns to the slapdash and exhilarating, our stage is always writer/director role after last season's a place for this sort of thing, maybe for adaptation of scenes from the 1983 movie, Episode 2. (Ed., Right next to Bubble Money Trading Places. This time his vehicle is a short 14?) play based on a 1959 Twilight Zone television David Ives, perhaps The Players' most popular episode written by Jerry Sohl (not Rod contemporary playwright, wrote Sure Thing, Serling). Tom Ball stars as Homer Smith, a the third show, in 1988. We have performed reprobate, attempting straighten up. Director it twice before, including once in a May Dawson plays his wife, Vivien, the villain of Invitational. the piece only because she encourages her Bill, played by Player Gordon Price, sees Betty, husband to continue his twelve-­‐step program. played by Player Matt Ochab, reading at a We first see Homer in the family living room restaurant table, and attempts to pick her up. reading Men's Health magazine with a bottle If they got it right the first time, this would be of V8 and a box of Special K within arm's a sure thing in about two minutes, but in this reach. The set suggests a cartoon: red walls, short stunt of a play, the playwright blue and green furniture, the dullest paintings manipulates these two to say everything we could find in the basement, and a picture you're not supposed to say. It's a succession of Ike by the front door. Homer's son Neddie, of conversation-­‐killers. Each gaffe, signaled played by Player Mickey Champion, bursts in, by a simultaneous buzzer and blackout, is announcing that he has just acquired a followed by a re-­‐start. Examples: "Talking Willy," the latest doll/action figure Bill: So what if I admire Trotsky? that all the cool kids have. Talking Willy in (buzzer/blackout) public is a child's toy, but when Homer is Betty: I'll bet you're a Scorpio. alone we enter the Twilight/Players Zone. (buzzer/blackout) Talking Willy (when the family is The timing and the line readings were adroit. around): My name is Talking Willy It was good to see Gordon winning us over in and you are my best pal! a leading male role. It was remarkable that he Talking Willy (to Homer alone): Option pulled it off after being out of town during A, you kill her and bury her in the tech week. Matt's ad-­‐libs, both in and out of backyard. Option B, she takes your character, were a clever embellishment by manhood. one of our most versatile actors. Dawson, of course, wants us to sympathize Director Glenn Scoles, who stood in for with Homer. He plays Vivien – "that lesbian Gordon for technical and dress rehearsals, crank" according to Willy – as a throwback to understood every turn in the script. The the 50s and/or homage to the Grosse Pointes. numerous crucial light and sound cues were Player Stu Johnson provides Willy’s booming precisely done by Players Ben Galbo and Andy voice from an offstage microphone. Two cops who bring Homer home after a 72-­‐hour debauch, Players John Hatcher and John Continued on Page 7. Page 6 4
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VOLUME CIV, NO. 2 DETROIT, MICHIGAN NOVEMBER 2014 Continued from Page 6. William Colburn Standish, Jr. and his late wife Ann, who remembered The Players in their Ballantine, overcoming the usual unfortunate joint trusts. working conditions in the booth. (If you are contemplating a visit up there, take Visine, hand-­‐sanitizer and expensive alcohol.) The History of The Players set was the corner of an upscale café with our vintage urban skyline behind a Palladian During the 1944-­‐45 season, the board began actively soliciting contributions to the window. Overall, Sure Thing was well done mortgage fund to pay off The Players’ debt. and well received, a revival that joins several By 24 January 1945, $10,020 had been others in the informal 10-­‐year rotation of contributed toward the mortgage fund. In plays that always seem to suit us. (In a less than a year, The Players had raised previous performance that did not make May, almost $18,000 to pay off the mortgage. By Player Mark Habel, as Bill, dragged it down the following May, after the new board had with his usual peculiar vocalizations and been elected at the annual meeting, Player excessively mannered blocking.) Harvey Campbell climbed onstage with a rod, Dinner and Afterglow stuck the mortgage on it, and Player Dick Harfst (the man with the unhappy task of Player Matthew Turnbull and his much older soliciting the money for the mortgage) lit a brother, Player Andrew Turnbull, served up a match and burned it. The ashes now lie in the Frolic supper of coneys, cole slaw and stage right Winningham vase. packaged pastries. Player John Daly stood in for Player Chuck Steltenkamp to introduce From Detroit On Stage: The Players Club, non-­‐resident member Player Ed Price for the 1910-­‐ 2005, Marijean Levering, Wayne State evening’s Afterglow. Ed performed a virtuoso University Press (2007.) piano accompaniment to Man About Town, a 1923 silent short film starring hapless Stan Parking Laurel (4 years before teaming with Oliver Gentlemen, if you park in the Berke lot, please Hardy) trying to change streetcars and maybe make sure that security gates are closed after pick up a girl. Player Larry Smith adeptly ran you enter. If you do not know the correct the movie projector. security code to make that happen, please ask. Open gates defeat the purpose of the security Appreciations system and invite mischief. Player Tom Sloan produced the Frolic, Let There be Light frequently visiting rehearsals to offer his assistance, as well as helping backstage. Thanks to the generous contributions of Bob Players Mark Habel and Dave Clark stage-­‐ O’Leary, John Burke, Bill Champion, Bill managed and anchored the set-­‐building crew Robinson, Ben Galbo and others, the Board of and were ably assisted during the frolic by Governors has approved the purchase of a Players Mike Mongan and Glenn Scoles, new light board and the first phase of new, among others. energy-­‐efficient LED lighting for the theater. Thank You Additional contributions would be much appreciated. The Players Endowment Fund will be able to If the scheduling gods permit, the new light support further worthwhile projects thanks to board should be installed in time for the Fall the thoughtful contribution of the late Player Invitational. Watch for details on future training sessions on the new light board. Page 7 VOLUME CIV, NO. 2 DETROIT, MICHIGAN NOVEMBER 2014 Page 8