2009 Dance Tracks Dance Recital

The 2009 dance recital for Dance Tracks of Waukesha was held at the Hamilton Fine Arts Center last Friday and Saturday evenings. As always, the students and faculty put together an absolutely wonderful show. This is the seventh year that Erin has been dancing at Dance Tracks and every year I am impressed with the talent of the dancers and the time that goes in to putting on a show like this. The theme of the recital this year was On The Cover! and every dance was associated with a specific magazine for which it could have been the cover shot.

This is the first year that Erin took two dance classes and was in two separate numbers during the show. That required a fairly quick costume change as there were only 3 dances between them. For her Intermediate Jazz class, they danced to Do Your Thing which was supposed to be a representation of the cover of “Self Magazine.” The top picture is Erin in the costume for that piece. For her Jazz Funk class, they danced to Hero which represented the cover shot for “Marvel Adventures/Super Heroes.” This second picture is the costume for that number. On an interesting side note, her dance instructor for Jazz Funk made all of the costumes for her students. I think they look really good. Congratulations Erin, on another fabulous year of dance. We are so proud of your talent.

WCT 2009-2010 Season Preview

On Sunday, Waukesha Civic Theatre had the first of two season preview parties. The two hour long event was like being able to see the “movie trailers” for the upcoming theatre season. Except that the trailers were performed live and there was free food. In fact, the whole event was free. How cool is that? Area actors and directors volunteered to stage short scenes from each of next season’s Mainstage and Holiday shows as well as the Random Acts of Entertainment. There were eleven scenes in all. A.J. and I were lucky enough to perform in two of the scenes. It was a really fun time and everyone involved did a fantastic job. What I like about this event is that the patrons can get an idea of what to expect from the upcoming season and, if they like what they see, they can step out to the box office and order their tickets right away.

The second preview party is this Thursday, June 25th, at 6pm. So, if you are tired of worrying about what’s going to happen at the Skylight and want to see a free preview of some really great shows, call the WCT box office at (262) 547-0708 is reserve a spot as soon as possible. There is quality entertainment happening out in many of the suburban community theatres. You should check it out.

More On The Skylight Fiasco

Things at the Skylight Opera Theatre seem to be getting worse and worse. At least one board member has now officially resigned over the poor handling of staff reductions by the theatre’s Executive Committee. It will be a major miracle if they are able to pull off a successful 50th anniversary season next year much less make it to a 51st season. For all of the up-to-date information see Jonathan West’s Artsy Schmartsy blog. Jonathan has really been keeping on top of this volatile situation. One of the articles that he posted talked about an article at JSOnline by Tom Strini, the music and dance critic for the Journal Sentinel. Tom put together an incredibly insightful article about the huge public relations blunder that Skylight has created and what they NEED to do to fix it. Read the entire article here.

The current Managing Director, Eric Dillner, is in deep trouble because of this fiasco. Here is what Tom Strini says has to happen to fix that.

Does anyone think that Dillner will be able to raise a nickel in this town after this mess? Or retain a shred of credibility with the accomplished local performers who so enliven the Skylight stage? I regret the need to say this, but Dillner, whatever talent and skills he might possess, is damaged goods and has to go, and soon.

Shakeup at Skylight

There has been quite a bit of turmoil in the Milwaukee theatre community this week. The Skylight Opera Theatre eliminated several key positions in their organization. The positions that were eliminated were that of Artistic Director, Company Manager, Box Office Manager, Box Office Assistant, and Night Custodian. The theatre board and the Managing Director indicated that the reasons for this were because of the current economic climate and the poor financial situation of the theatre. This has raised quite a ruckus with some very vocal individuals in the theatre community. The main concern by many individuals revolves around the treatment of Bill Theisen, the Artistic Director whose position was eliminated. According to various sources, he has been with the company since he was a teen actor and been the Artistic Director for the last five years. It is extremely apparent that he is beloved in the artistic community. I don’t know him or his work but a lot of very talented people of whom I respect think very highly of him.

The viewpoints on whether or not this was the correct course of action for the theatre seem to be extremely polarized, very vocal, and (I would say) bordering on nasty. The Resident Music Director was so vocal about his outrage over the issue that he was apparently fired for insubordination later in the week. Personally, I don’t know whether this is the type of action that will keep the theatre from going under or not. I am, however, amazed by the number of that want the board to reverse its decision because of their love for this individual. Part of the turmoil centers on the belief by some that the current Managing Director (An outsider that hasn’t been here an entire year yet) wanted to have both managing and artistic control of the theatre and did this as a way to grab more power. I find it hard to believe that a theatre board consisting of 37 people dedicated to the success of this theatre would conspire to oust a beloved and successful member of company just to stroke the ego of their newly instated Managing Director. I do, however, believe that board completely mishandled how the news of this action was communicated and they completely misjudged the reaction of the local theatre community.

Theatre companies, like the Skylight Opera Theatre, that have been around for 50 years become institutions in the community. And, as such, many believe that everyone working there should be treated like family. Unfortunately, companies that grow to the size of the Skylight are big businesses and the people in charge need to make the best decisions they can to keep the business running during tough economic times. I personally don’t believe that the actions taken had a malicious intent. Protests, petitions, or pleading are not going to reverse these decisions as they were obviously not made in haste. The theatre has a $200,000 shortfall to deal with and they came up with what they thought was the best way to solve that. If you want to see these people get there jobs back, get 2,000 of your closest friend to each pitch in $100. Sadly, a massive amount of fundraising is the only way to solve this problem.

A Cube With A View

I know that the economy is pretty bad right now and many of my friends are currently unemployed or in jobs that they really don’t like. So that is why I’m so thankful that I have been blessed with a great job that I really like. I’m a Software Engineer (that’s spelled N-E-R-D) at a firm in downtown Milwaukee and I really enjoy what I do. There are times that I have to put in vast amounts of overtime and I’m on-call much of the time but those negatives are offset by the fact that I’m paid pretty well and we have great perks.

I’ve never been one of those people that has to have the best of everything at work and I’ve never yearned for the corner office. In fact, during my work career, I enjoyed the luxury of working in interior cubicles or desks with a lovely view of the company parking lot and it really hasn’t bothered me. To be honest, those locations offer much fewer distractions. This week, however, we reorganized our seating arrangement at work so individuals on the same team could be located together. For the first time in the 22 years of my work career, I got the desk with the killer view. I took this picture while sitting at my desk on Friday around noon.

I’m sure that the novelty will wear off in the next few work days but it is another cool perk of this job. The other picture is a Google Maps image with red lines indicating the field of view from my cubicle. I have a great view of the Milwaukee Art Museum and Veteran’s Memorial Park but the McKinley Marina is obstructed by the War Memorial. I was amazed that I can actually see the Old North Point Water Tower. I’ve been with this firm for four years and this is the fifth time that I have switched desks. So I am fully aware that I will likely move to another location in about a year and that doesn’t really upset me. I will, however, enjoy this perk while it lasts.

Go See Noises Off!

A.J. and I went to see Noises Off! at Sunset Playhouse last night. Oh My God, it was fantastic. It was probably the funniest show I’ve seen on stage in a couple of years. If you haven’t seen it yet, you have to go see it before it closes. There are three more performances this weekend and four more next weekend. The action of the show revolves around the rehearsing and performing of another show, Nothing On, as seen from onstage and backstage. As actors ourselves, A.J. and I found the subject matter incredibly funny. On top of that, the pratfalls and physical humor were hilarious.

The show was extremely well cast. From what I hear, that was almost certainly a very difficult task. Because this is such a popular show among actors, there was an incredible turn out for auditions. I’m told that more than a hundred individuals showed up. I can’t imagine trying to choose nine individuals so perfectly out of a hundred possibilities.

The entire cast was amazing. There wasn’t a weak performance in the bunch. Personally, I was partial to the performances of Jenny Kosek and Ruth Arnell. I have been in shows with both of them together and separately and they are so very good at what they do. Ruth always seems to get cast in the role of the ditzy blonde bombshell. She has mastered that role and performs it so well in this show. On a side note, Ruth has also done some shows where her character has a lot more depth and she plays those parts just as well. Jenny played the part of the harried stage manager and she was equally awesome. I have seen Jenny play so many different roles in the last couple of years and she always turns in a stellar performance. It was nice to see her cast in role of something other than a teenager.

The other two standout performances from my perspective were those of Matthew J. Patten and Randall T. Anderson. Matthew was perfectly suited for the role that he played. He seems to excel in the parts where physical comedy is a requirement. Randall did a great job as the half-witted actor. We had seen Randall a couple of years ago playing the Evil Sheriff at the Bristol Renaissance Faire and this part was so different from that one. He is an extremely versatile actor.

We have seen several shows at Sunset Playhouse in the last couple of seasons. They seem to run hot and cold. Some of them have been pretty awful while the others have been absolutely amazing. This one falls into the latter category. Go to their website and order your tickets right now. You do not want to miss this one.

NUMATS Award Ceremony

Last Saturday, Kristi and A.J. drove down to Evanston, IL to attend the NUMATS award ceremony at Northwestern University. As you may recall, A.J. received an award last month for being among the top 5% of all the Wisconsin 7th graders that took the ACT this year. The ceremony on Saturday was at the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University. It was to honor those that scored in the top 1% to 2% of test takers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin.

A.J. received another medal and certificate plus he was mentioned in the first sentence in an article in the Sussex Sun. That boy sure does have a bunch of “smarticles”. I wish some would rub off on me. We are really, really proud of you, A.J. Keep it up!

How Can I Keep From Singing!

I know I should have posted this sooner but better late than never. On Sunday, May 31st, the Milwaukee Children’s Choir celebrated their 15th anniversary with a fantastic concert, entitled How Can I Keep From Singing!, in Uihlein Hall at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. It was an amazing event. The music was absolutely wonderful. Mrs. Crocker and Mrs. Granatella are to be commended for putting together such a fabulous program 15 years ago. When they started they had 35 students in the choir. If I counted correctly, the 5 choirs on stage were comprised of about 350 talented, young singers.

This is Erin’s second year with the Milwaukee Children’s Choir. She is in the Concert Choir and they were the first group to take the stage. I had the privilege of taking Erin to choir practice a several times in the last couple of months and got to see how much effort is put into a performance like this. I have to say that the effort paid off because they sounded awesome.

MCC is in for a rough time this next year with Mrs. Crocker stepping down as Artistic Director and they will be losing two of the other choir directors as well. That being said, I am looking forward to going to more of Erin’s performances next year because I really enjoyed all of concerts that I went to this year and I can’t wait to hear more wonderful music.