Blog

from Jason Silverman, Senior Camp Counselor

Northlight Theatre Academy Performing Arts Camp 2009 is off to a terrific start!  Campers have quickly developed new friendships with staff members and fellow campers in a way that is truly special.  I am amazed at the energy and excitement each camper has when they come out of the car in the morning.  They are ready to learn and to play as theatre artists.

In Senior Camp, the campers are taking initiative and responsibility like true adults, producing work that is inspiring and original. It’s incredible to think that in one day, they can adapt a page of  the play A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, learn how to breathe properly, practice some difficult choreography, and rehearse for a complicated show.

In Junior Camp, the campers are bursting with energy and enthusiasm that they have a place to play and act silly and not be made fun of.  These kids are taking risks and having fun while doing it.  Their show Esiotrot promises to be a heartwarming and silly tale for audiences of all ages.

By now, we have had two amazing field trips: one being a “stay-cation” with the Chicago Mime Company and the other going to see Topol in Broadway in Chicago’s Fiddler on the Roof.  Our campers’ artistic minds continue to expand as we expose them to many different theatrical forms and how those forms make them feel and inspire them to do the same.

We also have had two wonderful workshops with mime artist Sarah Rose Graber and Lookingglass member Andy White that taught our campers how to use their imaginations and their bodies in new and exciting ways.  Look out for their influence in our Session 1 Showcases!

This week has been HOT HOT HOT and what better way to end it than with our first trip to the pool!  After a rainy Friday that turned into an awesome bowling day for Junior Camp, everyone is excited for some fun and some swimming in the sun.

As we reach the end of Week 2 (halfway through Session 1), I would like to give some kudos to Camp Director Megan Shuchman, Leadership Director Jessica Lind, the Creative Team, and the Support Staff for truly making each day of camp an exciting and wonderful adventure. We are all so lucky to say we get to wake up in the morning and get the opportunity to do exactly what we want to do: teach theatre to young minds. Have a great weekend!

from Lynn Baber, Artistic Administrator

It has been a flurry of casting recently!

We cast The Marvelous Wonderettes as soon as we secured the rights to it back in April.  But in the past three weeks, I have scheduled ten or more auditions for the rest of Northlight’s upcoming season:

• Souvenir :  I’ve been looking for actors who play the piano really well while talking to the audience, and actresses (40+) who are brilliant comedians and can also sing opera, both beautifully and terribly.   I hope that doesn’t sound like either of those roles would be EASY to cast, because neither is.  Talk about daunting.

• Awake and Sing!:  For this one I need actors who are the right ages, ranging from 19 to 60, and have what BJ and I call “chops”.  Chops is what we call it when actors can really access deep emotional work, but make it look easy.  And make it look natural.  And make it believable.  And be able to do it eight times a week.   Most older actors have chops.  It is more difficult to find young people with chops.  Mike Nussbaum totally has chops.  Awake and Sing! director, Amy Morton, has chops ~ so she knows ‘em when she sees ‘em.  We saw about 40 people for the available roles and put another 15 on tape.  Well, actually, we didn’t use tape.   We have this little video camera that captures the audition, and then I plug THE CAMERA into my computer and it uploads the audition and emails it directly to Amy Morton, who is in New York finishing up the run of August: Osage County on Broadway.  Technology is amazing.

• For A Life, BJ and I have been in auditions all week.  One day we saw older actors, the next day we saw younger ones.  In this play, there are two couples who exist in the play sometimes when they are older and sometimes when they are younger.  So we’re going to cast the four older ones first, and then cast the younger ones to look like younger versions of the older actors we cast.  For instance, we can’t cast some kid who is 6′4″ as the younger version of John Mahoney because John is 5′10″!  I’ve been feeling badly for all the young actors who have come in and are really good, but just too tall.

• A few weeks ago I saw a few days’ worth of “general” auditions.  Any Equity actor who was interested could get an appointment to be seen for any of the shows in our season.  And we have called back many of them to read for specific plays!

• During the first week of June, I got together with Casting Directors from Next, Writers, and Piven, and together we held our annual Unified General auditions for non-Equity actors.  We saw 254 actors in 2 days.  We always look forward to this time where we get to talk about casting issues and see a huge pool of Chicago talent.

I gotta run now.  There are two readings (table readings is what BJ calls ‘em) to take another look at a couple of Interplay plays, and I have to cast ‘em!  And I have to call directors Amy Morton and Steve Scott and see how things are progressing for casting Awake and Sing! and Souvenir, respectively.  Actually, I’ll email ‘em.  I love email.  And I have to find a specific song in the key of F for an upcoming audition for Souvenir.  See you at the Theatre!

from BJ Jones, Artistic Director

The closing of The Lieutenant of Inishmore has left all of us here a little melancholy. It was a very gutsy choice for us to produce and of course we have heard a lot of feedback from many of you. Some felt it was not their favorite Northlight offering, though it was, however, others’ personal favorite and many wrote and called us to tell us to keep pushing the envelope. I would have to say personally that I received an equal number of pro and con responses to the show,  and that pleases me more than I can say. The real thrill for all of us though, is that so many of you felt compelled to connect with us and tell us how you felt.

Communicating with a theatre that you subscribe to bespeaks a kind of relationship that drills to the core of our mission. Whether you appreciated what we were doing with Lieutenant or not, you cared enough to get in touch, and that is profound.

To all those who got behind the choice we say thank you for your support and for enjoying the ride as much as we did. Our staff had more fun producing this than we can tell you, and believe me, 288 gallons of blood and over 200 loads of laundry later, that is saying something. The cast had so much fun and for those of you who joined in their joy, we say thanks!

To those who didn’t enjoy the ride, we are also grateful for your understanding that theatrical tastes are broad and diverse. Many told us they were mystified by the standing ovations or the laughs from others in the audience. “That’s what makes a horse race”, as they say.

To all of you, I say thank you for a great season. It was for me a particularly gratifying year and it provided me with two of my most cherished directing assignments, Grey Gardens and The Lieutenant of Inishmore - I cannot think of working on two more diverse works in one season.

Next year we celebrate 35 years. Not many theatres can claim that achievement. And we got here through your support, for which we are profoundly grateful.

In the years to come, you will all recall The Lieutenant of Inishmore, whether you enjoyed it or not, and that is what makes coming to Northlight a special experience. I feel fairly certain that none of you slept through it, and I know most of you have never seen anything like it before. We are proud of that. And we are proud of you for going the distance.

See you at The Marvelous Wonderettes.