The Hamilton High School Drama Dept. will be presenting Disney’s Beauty and The Beast February 9th to 12th, 2012. A.J. will be the narrator at the beginning of the show and then in the chorus for the remainder. Of all the musical we have seen in the past, being in the chorus of this show seems like it would be the most fun. You get to be a villager, a tavern patron, a wolf, a member of an angry mob, and possibly even a dancing fork or plate. How cool is that?

This is sure to be a fantastic show. There is something special about High School theatre productions. Come out and see it if you can. You can get tickets here.

The Kickstarter project that I mentioned on Thursday has become a labor of love for me. It needs to succeed because I am really looking forward to seeing this show that we are planning to produce in July. To understand what I am talking about, I need to take you back to the beginning. Sherman, set the wayback machine to last August.

You may recall that Erin and I were lucky enough to be cast together as Violet Beauregarde and her father in Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka at Waukesha Civic Theatre last summer. During the show, Erin developed a good friendship with two of the other actors also playing Wonka ticket winners, Laney and Jude Cramer. They are the daughter and son of the theatre’s Managing Artistic Director, John Cramer. They were all having such a good time and doing such a fantastic job that I started to imagine what it would be like to put on a show with the three of them and A.J., who has been acting since he was 10. I thought that putting the Cramer kids and the Magoon kids in a show together would be fun.

I briefly mentioned the idea to John and he said that if we could find the right show, we could use his theatre production company, Alleycat Enterprises, Inc., and rent the theatre during a down time in July. I began searching for a 4 person show that consisted of all children or with parts that could be believable played by 4 kids. I’m sure that there probably is the perfect show out there like that, but I couldn’t find it. And then I was talking backstage at one of the Wonka performances with the brilliant Randall T. Anderson and he suggested adding a couple more fantastic kids and doing You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. Thank you, Randall. You’re a genius.

When John and I discussed You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, we quickly knew which of the four kids were right for each of the roles in which they were cast. The four kids were immediately excited about the project and could think of nothing else for a while. That left us with having to find a Charlie Brown and a Snoopy. It only took a couple of minutes for us to come up with the two perfect young men for the parts, Ryan Albrechtson and Isaiah Reynolds. No other names came to mind and luckily both of them loved the idea as well.

Our story closes with the discussion of financing this wonderful idea. The royalties for a musical are really expensive and you risk losing a lot of money if you don’t have a big enough audience to cover your expenses. Now, I love my kids. Of that there is no doubt. But I am not about to go thousands of dollars in debt on the chance that we might get enough people to show up. I remembered that Jonathan West had produced The Santaland Diaries a while back and he raised the capital by pre-selling tickets on Kickstarter. Now I know that I don’t have the influential circle of friends that Jonathan does but the ones that I do have love the theatre as much as I do. I figure that if he could do it, so can I.

As Paul Harvey used to say, “Now you know the rest of the story.” Please take a look at our Kickstarter project. If you like what you see and think that you would enjoy seeing these terrific kids all together in one show, please pledge now.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the time has come… the time has come for action. The super-secret project that I alluded to yesterday has been announced. Alleycat Enterprises, Inc. is planning to produce You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown in July. A.J. and Erin have already been cast as Schroeder and Sally respectively. The entire cast is amazing. It is going to be a fantastic show.

Here is where we need your help. Producing a musical in very expensive and the financial risk is huge. Therefore, Alleycat Enterprises has created a Kickstarter project to raise the necessary finances for the show to at least break even. We want you to go to Kickstarter and agree to buy tickets to this show.

Kickstarter is really cool. It enables you to develop a project and the raise the money without the risk. Contributors agree to pay a certain amount for a reward if the project reaches its funding goal. When the goal is met, the contributor’s credit card is charged and the project is funded. If the goal isn’t met, no money changes hands and the project dies. Most of the rewards for this project are tickets to see this show. Although donations are appreciated, what we really want to do is sell tickets to this wonderful show.

This is going to be great. Thanks for your support. And go buy tickets now.

We have big news about an upcoming theatre production that A.J. and Erin will be in this summer. The announcement will be made in the next few days. Until then the project is still super secret. I’ll bet you’re wondering why I’m telling you this when I’m not really saying anything of value. Good Grief, I wish that I could tell you more. The deal is that in order for this amazing show to be produced, we will need to raise the money needed to cover the cost of putting it on. And we are going to do that by pre-selling tickets to the show. If enough people are interested in this fantastic opportunity and buy tickets, then the show will go on.

I know that I’m being a blockhead by not telling you anything important but hopefully you are now excited and will be willing to help us out when the time comes. Stay tuned, this is going to be great.

Oh… and speaking of the baritone, Erin’s school band had their winter concert last Thursday night. I have to say that it was a joy to listen to the sounds of the holidays coming from this band. They keep getting better and better every time we hear them.

Last night, A.J. and I went to Little Shop of Horrors at Marquette University. It was an amazing show. There are only two performances left (tonight at 7:30pm and tomorrow at 2:30pm). I know that I say this about many of the shows that I see but, if you have a chance, you should go see it. It is an extremely entertaining show.

As I look back at my previous posts about the live theatre shows that I’ve seen, I realize that I’ve engaged in quite a bit of hyperbole. I’m sure that is due to the fact that I enjoy live theatre better than any other form of entertainment. And if the show is good, I want to encourage others experience what I have enjoyed. You can always re-watch a movie or TV show, but live theatre has a limited shelf-life.

That being said, I want to say that the show last night was fantastic. I’ve seen Little Shop of Horrors on stage before and this was the best adaptation so far. The actors that played Seymour, Audrey, and Mr. Mushnik (Tim Braun, Alexandra Bonesho, and Lex Gernon) were delightful to watch. And the rest of the cast was excellent. There were times that I swore that Mr. Mushnik was being played by Vincent Gardenia (from the movie version). This production has an extremely campy, tongue-in-cheek, feel to it that makes the show very, very funny. Congratulations to the director, Ray Jivoff, for giving us such an enjoyable show.

One of the first applications that I loaded on my Philips Nino was an eBook reader from Peanut Press (which was later renamed eReader and then subsequently bought by Fictionwise). Many people asked how I could read a book on such a small screen but the convenience of always having one or more books with me to read was the important thing for me. Over the next 10 years, I purchased over 22 different books for the eReader application. I know that I could have picked those books up from the library for free but I was willing to pay to have them in electronic form.

About a year ago, my work laptop was replaced with an iPad. I downloaded the free Kindle app and switched over to reading my eBooks on the iPad. A few months ago, I upgraded my cellphone to an iPhone and now I can read my Kindle books on either device. I love the Kindle app and I love that can switch between the devices and pick up where I left off on either device. What I don’t love, however, is the cost of having to buy the books. When I first started reading eBooks the selection was limited but I could get many books for about $5 a piece. I realize that Kindle books are cheaper than their paper and ink counterparts but they are about double that.

Two new services have come into being recently that have solved my eBook buying problems. The first is OverDrive. OverDrive is a digital distribution platform for eBooks and audiobooks. The local public libraries (and school libraries) use OverDrive to allow you to borrow the Kindle version of book for up to two weeks. The only drawback to OverDrive is that the local libraries don’t have very many digital copies of popular books. You can put an eBook on hold via OverDrive and check it out when it becomes available but that can sometimes take weeks. I’ve found that if I keep several books in my on-hold queue at a time, one is usually coming available about the time I am finishing up the last book.

The other solution to the purchasing problem is that Amazon is now allowing you to loan your already purchased Kindle books to another Kindle user for a two week period. When I saw this, I thought that this was really cool but I don’t know many other Kindle users or what books they have. That’s where BookLending.com comes in. You can create a profile on that site and list the books that you have available to lend and the ones that you would like to borrow. The site matches you up with other Kindle users that have or need your books. Its only shortcoming is that there aren’t a lot of users yet so the selection of books to exchange is still quite limited.

All in all, both of these services are really helping to keep my eBook buying expenses down. I’m still going to purchase eBooks from time to time. But now I’m going to purchase the ones that I really want to keep.

Kristi and I went out on Friday night to see the opening night performance of Smoke On The Mountain at Waukesha Civic Theatre. It was fantastic*. Wait… before I go on… in the spirit of full disclosure, I must freely admit that I am the newly elected President of the Board of Directors for the Waukesha Civic Theatre**. Therefore, my opinions regarding the shows at said theatre might be slightly tilted on the positive side. That being said, I will also say that I am somewhat of a theatre snob*** and there have been WCT shows that I wasn’t completely fond of. So I am not a total shill for the theatre.

Okay… with all of that behind us, I would like to reiterate that the performance of Smoke On The Mountain at Waukesha Civic Theatre that we saw on Friday was outstanding. The show is set in North Carolina in 1938 at the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church. At the opening of the show, Pastor Oglethorpe is hoping to introduce the group that will be leading the first ever Saturday Night Sing, the Sanders family, but they haven’t arrived back from dinner. Soon the family arrives and the audience is treated to a wonderful evening of bluegrass gospel and with quite a bit a humor thrown in for good measure.

The entire cast did a magnificent job. What impressed me the most was how talented they all are. Community theatres can usually pull in quality actors and actresses that can also sing well but it can be difficult to find ones that are able to play a variety of musical instruments as well. It was amazing to see them each take turns on the piano, upright bass, violin, banjo, and guitar****. That alone would have been spectacular but they all added an amazing sense of comic timing that made the show even better. As I am friends with most of the cast and they all did such a great job, I’m not going to mention any one performance in particular as they were all equally wonderful*****. I would like to commend the director, Robb Smith, for putting together such a great show.

This is the first show of the 55th season for Waukesha Civic Theatre. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should call the box office at (262) 547-0708 or visit the website to purchase your tickets immediately******. You won’t be sorry.
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* Really… it was.
** Waukesha’s First Choice for Quality, Live Entertainment Since 1957!
*** Okay. I’m extreme theatre snob.
**** I believe there was also a mandolin, accordion, washboard, set of spoons, and a triangle if I’m not mistaken.
***** Why yes… I did just chicken out there, thanks for noticing.
****** Obligatory marketing message to entice you to see great theatre at an affordable price.

Recently, I have had the opportunity to perform on-stage with Erin in Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka at Waukesha Civic Theatre. Ever since the Dramagoons began this acting thing, I have been trying to land parent/child roles in a show with either A.J. or Erin. This summer, Erin and I were lucky enough to be cast as Violet Beauregarde and her father, Sam. This has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my time as a parent. For the last month or so, I have been able to hang out with my daughter while rehearsing and performing and we’ve had nice chats in the car on the way to and from the theatre. Plus, I’ve had the opportunity to appreciate what wonderful young lady she has become.

What is really neat about this is that all of our scenes are together. Playing father and daughter, we get to share a closeness on-stage that would be difficult to share with another actor that isn’t your own child. And I am really grateful that while Erin plays the bratty Violet extremely well, she doesn’t treat her real dad as awfully as her character does.

I know that I will remember this show and this experience for a long time to come. I can only hope that A.J. and I will also be able to have a similar experience some time soon.

Tickets are available by calling the theatre box office at (262) 547-0708 or going to the Wonka page on the theatre website to order your tickets online. All open seats to every performance are also available online.