Grease Paint Online; October, 2003

Annie, ACT I's recent Main Stage musical, has proved to be our most sucessful production ever in terms of total box office numbers, breaking previous records set by past productions of The Sound of Music, Oliver!, and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, our previous top box office shows. The Sound of Music, which ran at the Old Creamery Theatre in late 1995, is our previous record holder, with slightly more than 1300 in total attendance. Oliver! (1997, at Tilford Middle School) and Best Christmas Pageant (1994 at the Old Creamery) each came in at just over 1200. Our other most attended shows include Charlotte's Web, My Fair Lady, and The Secret Garden, which were all viewed by over 1000 patrons.

The show played to eight enthusiastic audiences, most of which approached or surpassed the sellout number for the Palace Theatre of 210 seats. Overflow seats were used regularly on weekend nights.

Annie featured Felicia Hertle in the title role, David Canaday as Oliver Warbucks, Annette Williams as Grace Farrell, Shelly Haisman as Miss Hannigan, Alex Martinez-Vasquez as Rooster, Joan Cooling as Lily St. Regis, Eric Upmeyer as Drake, and Alan Nebola as President Roosevelt. The was staged and choreographed by Joan Cooling, with set by Ed Cardwell and lighting design by Kevin Bookmeier.

ACT I's production of Annie was sponsored by Farmer's Savings Bank and Trust.

For a complete listing of the cast and crew, go to the Annie page of our website at act1.org/annie.htm..

ACT I's Events Series for Season 2003 - 2004: Better Red than Dead opens with two performances of the play The Book of Murder, to be performed November 22 and 23 at the Ray House. More information about the production, including a full cast list, will be available soon on the Book of Murder page of this website at act1.org/book.htm, and the production will be featured in next month's issue of Grease Paint.

The ACT I Ticket information line and Palace Theatre Box Office number is 472-9957. Call soon for reservations for The Book of Murder!

The ACT I board holds a membership meeting on Sunday, October 19 at 7:00 PM at the ACT I Studio. Among the items to be discussed will be the plans for next season, which will be our 25th Anniversary Season. The board has set the theme for next year as "ACT I, Take II." Plans are for the season to be made of of repeat performances of shows from past seasons.

If you have not yet sent in your membership for this season, please take care of that now! For your convenience, you can download the membership form here, print it off, fill it in with your check payable to ACT I of Benton County, and send to ACT I Palace Gems, c/o Marcy Horst, 1307 C Ave., Vinton, 52349.

Tryouts for Noises Off by Michael Frayn will be held on Monday and Tuesday, November 17 and 18 at Wesley United Methodist Church (516 2nd Avenue, Vinton) from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. Parts are available for four women and five men, as well as a huge supporting tech crew. Production dates are February 27, 28, 29, and March 5, 6, & 7. The show is directed by Ray Bookmeier and Sue Freet.

Noises Off is a hilarious British farce. This play within a play follows the on and off stage antics of a third-rate touring company as they stagger from dress rehearsal through to their disastrous final night when anything - and everything - goes wrong. The same play is shown in all three Acts - but never in exactly the same manner, including seeing the show from backstage in Act II.

The Cast

Dotty, the sardine-loving, scatterbrained actress playing the sardine-loving, scatterbrained housekeeper
Brooke Ashton, the dizzy blonde, with the blank looks and overemphasized body language.
Frederick Fellowes, a nervous walking disaster waiting to happen
Lloyd Dallas - the play’s self-important director and philanderer
Selsdon Mowbray - the aging inebriate thespian
Garry Lejeune - real estate agent and lothario
Tim - (a smaller role) - the stage manager
Poppy - (also a smaller role) - the assistant stage manager
Belinda - the ever-game trouper who tries to smooth over all the cracks

The Plot

In British theater terminology, “noises off” simply means “quiet on the set.” However, that's far from the case when the performance of a traveling theater group is all but ruined when cheating, jealousy and confusion collide simultaneously behind the scenes of a second-rate British bedroom farce. The stage manager has his hands full working with a vengeful diva, a jealous leading man, an astigmatic ingenue, a besotted bit-player, a knocked-up assistant and a philandering director. ” Noises Off and “Nothing On” (the play within the play) intertwine as the actors are physically pushed to the limit, precisely timing their exits off of one stage onto another in this three-act play.

The production crew has the responsibility of rotating the set twice during each performance. Workers are also welcome to help build the set, which essentially involves the framing of a house onstage that can be rotated. No easy task! Contact Kevin Bookmeier for set construction times.

Fifteen years ago this month our production of the comic melodrama Klondike Kalamity took place at the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School in Vinton. The play was by Gary Peterson and David Byrne. (Gary Peterson also authored Stone Soup, presented by ACT I in July, 2001.) Klondike Kalamity was directed by Nancy Beckman in her directing debut for us and the cast featured the talents of Jillian Lockard (now Bopp), Richard Paulus, Tom Noonan, Dorothy Albert, Steve Koch, David Nolte, Jill Mahurian, Grant Jensen, and Bob LaGrange. Also featured in the production were a variety of performers who presented musical numbers and comedy sketches performed by Jillian Lockard, Grant Jensen, Jason Miller, Nancy Carson and Anthony Bopp. Mistress of Ceremonies for the production was Brenda Witt (now Hackbarth) and the organist for the production was Peggy Rinderknecht.

Tony Bopp's comedy routine is abruptly interrupted as he is dragged off the stage with a cane by
Mistress of Ceremonies Brenda Witt (Hackbarth) during the opening segment of ACT I's
October, 1988 production of Klondike Kalamity

Jillian Lockard (Bopp) as Nell Oudt is torn between the affections of
Fangduster T. Barrelbottom VIII (Steve Koch) and Roger B. Upright (Tom Noonan)

Only twice has ACT I stage a production from the melodrama genre, which was popular in the 19th and early 20th century. Klondike Kalamity ran October 20, 21, 22, and 23 in the auditorium of the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School. Assistant Director was Jim Hilliard. Dean Beckman was Stage Manager.

For a closer look at ACT I's production of Klondike Kalamity, visit its show page on our website at act1.org/klondike.htm!

For a look at a loot at all ACT I's past productions, go to the Scrapbook section of our website at act1.org/scrapbook.htm.

Ed Cardwell is one of our very quiet volunteers. Now in his second season with ACT I, he has proven to be a very valuable addition to our group. He is very knowlegable in his ability to carry out those specialized technical tasks that a majority of us lack the expertise to accomplish. As Ed has built the sets for our last two Main Stage productions, (Annie and Lost in Yonkers) we felt that it was time to formally introduce him to our members as our Member of the Month for October, 2003.

Ed retired from Monsanto, where he had been an Electrical and Instrumentation Specialist. Not being one to enjoy boredom, Ed and his wife Nancy moved to Newhall to be closer to their grandchildren and Ed was hired as a Facilities Mechanic III at the Iowa Braille School .

A good example of Ed's ingenuity was to be seen in our recent production of Annie. Making a major
musical fit on the stage of the Palace Theatre can be a trick, since backstage storage space for moavable
set pieces is limited. Ed cleverly made the beds from the orphanage scene do double duty. Upended,
they became the structure for the Hooverville scene, as shown below.

For ten of their years while living in Wapello, Ed and Nancy owned “CC’s Place” which started as a teen center. As his children grew up, CC’s Place was converted to a restaurant. Ed and Nancy were owners/operators. Soon, their restaurant began doing dinner theaters, highlighting local community talent. Nancy would cook the meals and Ed would do everything from sets to sound to lights to shift to seating arrangements. Many of the shows done by this community theater were musicals written by a local writer. Each spring would feature two short comedies. Some of the more popular shows done by the group were Scrooge, HMS Pinafore and Greater Tuna. Ed also enjoyed an Irish cabaret performed there.

Although Ed says he'll never to appear on stage, in our production of Kiss Me, Kate he served
as Property Master -- and for that show the crew was occasionally sucked on stage due to the
"in rehearsal" nature of the play. You can catch Ed in the picture above, moving between the
band and the actors as he organizes props for the bumbling actors in the show.

Ed’s ACT I experience includes building the sets for Annie and Lost in Yonkers; set/shift crew and Stage Manager for Lost in Younkers; and Property Master, set and shift crew for Kiss Me Kate, which Ed notes was also his onstage debut.

Ed Cardwell created the set for our May production of Lost in Yonkers, a deceptively
simple arrangement of five working freestanding doors and a working freestanding
window, to portray the Kurnitz family's apartment.

Ed has been assisted in his ACT I projects by his son Eddie and his wife Nancy. We thank the Cardwells for their contributions to us thus far and hope they will be available to assist us for some time to come!

View the past articles in our Member of the Month series! All previous Member of the Month features (beginning with September, 1998) have been archived and can be accessed in one convenient place. Older articles have been updated to make the members' accomplishments current! To visit the Member of the Month Archives, go to www.act1.org/mom.htm..

It's time for our annual "Name that Tune" quiz -- for how many of these song titles can you identify the show in which it was performed?

1. One of the title characters in this show was an eight year old orphan who was also the King of England. The Prince and the Pauper

2. A ten year old girl is orphaned by a cholera epidemic in the opening scene of this show. The Secret Garden

3. In this show, a young orphan inherits a cat from his late father, who proves far more useful to him than he first realized. The Truly Remarkable Puss-in-Boots

4. A mysterious locket holds the key to the identity of the orphaned title character of this show. Oliver!

5. An orphan girl is forced by an evil spell to dance and never stop. The Red Shoes

6. This show features a young teacher tormented by flashbacks of the death of her little brother many years earlier when the two of them were destitute orphans in an institution. The Miracle Worker

The next meetings of the Board of ACT I of Benton County will be the Membership Meeting held on Sunday, October 19 at 7:00 PM, and then on November 16.

Members and visitors are always welcome at board meetings!

Minutes of meetings of the ACT I board from July, 2000 on can be accessed from a link on the "Everything You Need to Know About ACT I" page, or on the "Minutes" page of our website, www.act1.org/minutes.htm.

I love plays that are based on history, and our recent production of Annie was steeped with historical detail. Start with the fact that the play is based on one of the oldest and most important comic strips in the history of that industry. The comic strip itself actually predates the story presented in the show by nearly ten years. Add to that the portrayal of the Great Depression, with its Hoovervilles, apple sellers and millions of jobless workers. Then add to the mix a whole group of actual historical figures who are introduced into the play as characters, namely President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his cabinet. After one of the performances, I was chatting with Alan Nebola (Roosevelt) and Rhonda Westergard (Frances Perkins) about the portrayal of the cabinet, lamenting that Iowan Henry Wallace, who served as Secretary of Agriculture during the first eight years of the Roosevelt presidency, was not used in the script. We continued talking about Rhonda's character, and I decided it was time for me to find out more about Frances Perkins.

Rhonda Westergard as Frances Perkins (third from right, in black)
in the Roosevelt cabinet scene of Annie.

Frances Perkins served as Secretary of Labor for twelve years, the longest tenure ever for that office. In 1911, she was an eyewitness to the horrific Triangle Fire in New York City, and ever after was a staunch crusader for worker safety. She was later appointed to a position in the New York State department of Labor by Governor Al Smith. In 1929, then Governor Franklin Roosevelt of New York appointed Perkins his chief labor officer. After Roosevelt was elected to the Presidency in 1932, he named Frances Perkins as his Secretary of Labor, becoming the first woman ever appointed to a cabinet level position in the U.S. government. Without question, her biggest legacy is the fact that she was the principal architect of the Social Security System. Ms. Perkins was very protective of her privacy and kept her husband and daughter out of the public eye. Ms. Perkins' husband was hospitalized for many years as a mental patient. In one of the most poignant incidents which I found about her life, on the day President Roosevelt was to sign the Social Security ACT into law, Ms. Perkins received word from her husband's hospital that he had disappeared. Immediately after the signing ceremony at the White House, she rushed to New York by train, searching the streets of the city herself until her husband was found and returned safely to the hospital.

I'll close by giving a huge thanks to Joan and to the rest of the cast and crew for all their efforts in bringing our recent production of Annie to life. To all of you, the show was wonderfully done and a delight to watch from beginning to end. It was great to see so many people attending the show, and enjoying it so much, and a pleasure to see so many new faces in the cast. Thank you all for a great theatrical experience!

Answers to Last Month’s Quiz