Dramagoons Brass Ensemble

Erin is now taking band lessons in school. And like her brother, the trumpet player, she has decided to play a brass instrument as well. Erin is now the one and only baritone player in her grade school band. I have to give her a lot of credit for deciding to play an instrument that is half as big as she is. Luckily, Kristi has agreed to drive her to school on band days. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to wrestle her instrument case on and off the bus.

She has only been practicing a week and she is doing a great job already. We are extremely proud of her. We have quite a musically talented family. Kristi and I may have to start learning to play the trombone and French horn so we can start a family brass quartet. We could be called the “Brass Knuckles”… or maybe the “Brass Monkeys”!

Seussical – The Musical

We all went to see Seussical yesterday at Waukesha Civic Theatre for their final performance. It was a great show. I had never seen this show before and I laughed so hard throughout the entire show. I especially liked it when one of the Wickersham Brothers plopped in my lap during the chase scene near the end of Act 1. Everyone in the show did a fantastic job. Awesome performances were turned in by Paul Burkard as The Cat in the Hat, Corey Richards as Horton, and Samatha Burkard as Gertrude McFuzz. Congratulations to Jacob Sudbrink for directing an incredible show. Nice work by Sallie Burkard and Anthony Mackie on the tremendous costumes and wigs. It felt like I was watching several Dr. Seuss books come to life.

Cotton Patch Gospel

This post is long overdue but very important. Last Friday night, we saw Cotton Patch Gospel at Waukesha Civic Theatre and it was absolutely extraordinary. The show has since completed its run on Sunday. But if it hadn’t, I would be encouraging you all to go see it. The musical is a retelling of the Gospel of Matthew set in Georgia and played is the style of an old southern tent revival. Most of the show is performed by one individual playing multiple characters with four musicians assisting with the singing and some of the dialogue.

John Cramer was outstanding in the lead role and his four musicians (banjo/guitar, fiddle/mandolin, guitar, and bass) were perfect. What a captivating way to tell the story of Jesus. Kudos to everyone involved for a superb job. There was a mention in the program that bringing all or part of the show to your church would be a perfect way to spice up your service. I couldn’t agree more. As I don’t want to put the contact email address in this post, contact me if you are interested and I will forward the address on to you.

First Stage Theater Academy

Last Friday, A.J. finished up a four week class at the First Stage Theater Academy. I am very impressed by their program and I am glad that we have such an amazing opportunity for our kids here in the Milwaukee area. A.J. took their two week course last summer and had such a great time that he asked if he could take the four week course this year. The course runs all day and is broken into four parts each day: Acting Theory, Musical Theatre, Improvisation, and Shakespeare. I’m sure that I don’t have those names exactly correct but they describe the subject matter in each class. On the last day of the program, they put on a presentation to demonstrate all of the things that they have learned. It is so cool to see all of these kids get up in front of an audience to sing, dance, and act. Most kids their age would be scared to put themselves out there like that.

The director of the Academy, John Maclay, indicated that this program is one of the largest professional theatre training programs in the country. Its instructors consist of professional theatre actors and directors that aren’t working on any shows during the summer. It is interesting that their true purpose is not to train a bunch of budding actors. Their real goal is to help the students to become better people. Their motto is teaching “life skills through stage skills.” Because of the structure of the program, there are no cliques and there is no teasing or bullying. That message is reinforced at the beginning and end of each day by the director of the Academy as well as by all of the instructors in the classrooms. How cool is that!

One of the other classes that the First Stage Theater Academy puts on during the summer is called the Company Class. In this class, the students spend four weeks (all day) rehearsing a play that they present two performances of during the final weekend. This weekend, we saw one of the Company Classes put on The Foreigner. Our whole family really enjoyed the show. It was wonderful to see what they accomplished in four weeks. In the last year, we have attended both a play and a musical put on by our local high school drama department and I was amazed at how much better the kids of the Company Class production were. Even though they were the same age as the high school students, the training and direction that they received from the class really showed when they were on stage.

Congratulations to John Maclay and the entire First Stage Theater Academy staff for putting together a terrific program and sticking to their principles.

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.

WCT Gala

Friday night was the annual fundraising gala for Waukesha Civic Theatre at Weissgerber’s Golden Mast Inn in Okauchee. As I can’t afford to attend the dinner as guest, I offered my services as a volunteer instead. I ended up being the event photographer for the evening. I got to walk around and take pictures of everyone having a good time. And I have to admit that I had fairly good time too.

WCT has a pretty loyal group of donors and patrons. Even though we are currently going through some tough economic times, the generosity that was displayed was overwhelming. There was a silent auction prior to dinner and live auction after dinner. Both of which seemed to raise quite a bit of money for the theatre. That was followed by some amazing singing and dancing by several WCT entertainers. The hit number of the evening was Mark Neufang performing “Mack the Knife.” Some of the ladies in the audience put up some fairly decent wolf whistles during his performance. Corey Richards and Patty Neuhoff also performed a number from next month’s upcoming musical, 42nd Street, which was very impressive. Personally, I was amazed at the wonderful singing voice of Julie McHale, the theatre reviewer from the Waukesha Freeman. The evening was concluded with music and dancing to the tunes of the Brew City Big Band.

The Economy and The Arts

I’ve seen several articles, blog posts, and web pages recently that talk about the government support of the arts during these lean economic times. Just this week, there was a controversial vote in downtown Milwaukee on whether or not to proceed with a public art project that had been previously approved and funded. Luckily, the public support was overwhelming and the Janet Zweig project was approved by Public Works Committee of the Milwaukee Common Council by a vote of 12 to 2. While reading about that debate and others, I’ve seen many comments from people indicating that the government should worry about ensuring that people have jobs and not put any money toward the arts. I have also heard about school boards around the country discontinuing their music and drama programs because of budgetary issues as well.

I believe it would be a fantastic world if all artistic endeavors could sustain themselves without generous donors and government assistance but I know it would be simply tragic if they didn’t exist at all. Yes, I agree that times are tough. But now, more than ever, is the time that we need to have access to those things that help us to escape the pressures of everyday life. The arts are an important part of our culture. Our kids need to have the opportunities to learn about artistic skills as well as math, science, and reading. Too many galleries have closed and too many theatre groups have gone under recently. I don’t the have answers as to what we need to do to solve this issue. I just know that awareness is the first step.

Bubblegum Pop

I have always loved the song Sugar, Sugar by The Archies. Maybe because I remember watching it being “performed” on Saturday morning cartoons as a kid or maybe because I used to listen to the 45 rpm version we cut off the back of cereal box growing up. I was aware that it and several of my favorite songs from when I was a kid belong to the Bubblegum Pop music genre. Last night, while browsing for music on iTunes, I came across an awesome collection of Bubblegum Pop. It contained three separate playlists of 25 songs each. Because I can’t afford to purchase $75 worth music, I browsed through the lists and hand-picked fifteen of my favorites.

I started out with Yummy Yummy Yummy by The Ohio Express. I continued to pick out songs from The Monkees, The Partridge Family, The Cuff Links, The Archies, The Lemon Pipers, The Brady Bunch Kids, The Jackson Five, The Osmonds, and several others. I picked songs like Dizzy, ABC, Saturday Night, Build Me Up Buttercup, and, of course, Sugar, Sugar. I loaded the songs to my MP3 player and this morning, while driving into work, I was able to briefly transport myself back to the early 1970s.

Roots and Wings

Last Saturday, during the day, Erin attended the Milwaukee Children’s Choir Roots & Wings Festival. The event took place at Milwaukee Lutheran High School. The MCC Prelude and Concert Choirs came together with several area school choirs and performed the songs from River Child by Rollo Dilworth. It was an all day event. The kids rehearsed throughout the day and took some time out to create patches for a couple of river-themed quilts.

At 4pm, they performed the concert. The kids all sounded so wonderful. It is amazing that they had only practiced together as a complete group just that one day. The MCC is a fantastic music training program. Erin sure has learned a lot and is really enjoying herself.

MCC Sing-a-thon Schedule

In my previous post, I promised to provide an update with the schedule to for the MCC Sing-a-thon when I received it. To keep at least one of my impatient relatives (You know who you are) from hounding me incessantly, I am providing the schedule below. This is for Saturday, February 7, 2009 at Bayshore Mall. Erin is in the Concert Choir but I am providing the entire schedule for those who may also want to see some of the other choirs sing.

Performances begin at 9:30AM and continue until 3:30PM. Specific choir performance times (all times approximated):

10:00AM – Prelude Choir

11:00AM – Youth Chorale

12:00 Noon – Cantorei

1:00PM – Concert Choir

2:00PM – Chamber Cantorei

To get more information about this event, please visit the Milwaukee Children’s Choir website.