Berkeley Rep Blog
Names on the board!
posted by Megan Wygant on Tue, Dec 14, 2010
in At the theatre , Our shows
Remember when getting your name on the board used to mean something bad?
These days, in my world, it means something good.
This is the Theatre's travel board. It’s more than five feet tall, and serves as company management's primary tool for tracking and sharing information about travel for any artists who will be visiting the Theatre in the coming weeks.
In any given season, Berkeley Rep hosts about 75 artists-in-residence for a period ranging from two weeks (the designers, here for tech) to three months (the actors you see on stage, between first rehearsal and final performance). Their schedules are as varied as their jobs, and The Board is how we track them all. Basically, if their name isn’t on The Board, to company management, they don’t exist.
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Sock it to 'em
posted by Rachel Steinberg on Thu, Dec 9, 2010
in At the theatre , Events , Our shows , School of Theatre
“We should take a picture of this now,” someone said as we all admired our surroundings. We were in the Helen C. Barber upper lobby of the Roda Theatre, standing amidst an array of Tupperware containers filled with buttons and foam; brightly colored yarn, gingerly placed; scraps of fabric from the costume shop in neat piles; and bowls of vibrant pom-poms all carefully arranged atop five tables covered in crisp, white paper. It was Saturday, just before one o’clock, and we were about to launch Berkeley Rep’s first-ever Sock Puppet Palooza.
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Critics rave about Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead
posted by Karen McKevitt on Tue, Dec 7, 2010
in News , Our shows
We had a terrific opening night last Thursday for Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead and received some great reviews to boot. Check out reviews, then see the show for yourself!
“It's a movie. It's a vaudeville act. It's a concert. It's a puppet show. Actually, it's all of the above and something all its own. Lemony Snicket's The Composer Is Dead, a new work that opened Thursday at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, isn't quite a play but a curiously engaging concoction of theater, film and musical elements as a genially offbeat arts primer. As performed by master comic Geoff Hoyle and a magnificent ensemble of marionettes and all kinds of other puppets, it's a funny and often ingenious children's entertainment.” – San Francisco Chronicle
“Fun for whole family… A delightful piece of theater… An opportunity for all of us to laugh our clenched bottoms off as we excuse the hour-long show as a delightfully clever introduction to classical music… As wildly funny as it is perverse. Bay Area comic treasure Geoff Hoyle is the only human being on a stage populated by an assortment of strange puppets.” – Contra Costa Times / SJ Mercury News
“Run across the bridge, any bridge, to get to Berkeley Rep, which here means "a theater company willing to take risks certain to destroy the world as we know it," in order to catch the fantastic World Premiere of Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead. – SF-TheaterBlog.com
“I sat enraptured for the entire 85 minute exhibition. Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead is unlike anything I’ve seen before, and is an unusual and silly holiday treat.” – Stark Insider
“Part Monty Python's Flying Circus, part Cirque du Soleil, and part Tim Burton, The Composer Is Dead is a damn impressive amalgam of puppetry and theater, with a lovely symphonic soundtrack to boot… Anyone looking to spend a swell hour reliving a child's wonder by way of some extraordinarily life-like and expert puppetry, get your tickets now.” – SFist
“Hilarious characters, visual delights, stage magic and loads of laughs…. It's a perfect family show for the holidays. And I loved it.” – KGO 810AM
And we're glad they loved it too!
Photo of Geoff Hoyle and the conductor by kevinberne.com.
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American Idiot earns Grammy nom
posted by Karen McKevitt on Fri, Dec 3, 2010
in General theatre talk , News , Shows on tour
Congratulations to Billie Joe Armstrong and Green Day for their Grammy nomination for the Broadway score of American Idiot! The band scored two Grammys for their original album, so wouldn't this be a nice one to add to the collection?
This is the second time in two years that a Berkeley Rep show was nominated for a Grammy. Last year, Carrie Fisher was nominated for the audio book of Wishful Drinking.
In related American Idiot news, Billie's joining the Broadway cast on January 1 for another turn as St. Jimmy.
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Outlandish new trailer for Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead
posted by Karen McKevitt on Thu, Dec 2, 2010
in At the theatre , General theatre talk , Our shows
Our new trailer for Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead racked up more than 8,900 views on YouTube in less than a week! Check it out for yourself -- and share with your friends.
And yep, the show launches with what else but a movie! Says Tony Taccone, the show's director, "In order to introduce you to a live event — the magic of living, breathing theatre — we’re going to show you a movie. Right? It makes absolutely no sense, except it absolutely does makes sense in the world of Lemony Snicket, who is completely eccentric, wildly imaginative and clever and hysterically funny."
Read the entire interview with Tony on the making of the movie, The Magic of Living, Breathing Theater, here.
Hey, tonight's opening night! If we don't see you tonight, we hope to see you soon. Purchase your tickets now!
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Geeking out on the "Composer" set
posted by Karen McKevitt on Wed, Dec 1, 2010
in Our shows , Scene shop
Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead features any number of things for a crafter/DIYer to geek out on. In a previous blog post, I wrote a little bit about the marionette orchestra and Phantom Limb, who were also featured in an SFGate.com article. But when I found out about the set, which is based on Victorian toy theatres, my crafter geek-o-meter went to 11.
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Awwww...
posted by Cari Turley on Wed, Dec 1, 2010
in Our shows , Shows on tour
This morning, we received a piece of fan art from a young audience member at American Idiot, and I'm pretty sure my heart just grew three sizes. Check it out:
We loved it, too, Dakota. Thanks for sharing!
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Two free parties this week!
posted by Cari Turley on Tue, Nov 30, 2010
in At the theatre , Events
Want to see a play, have a few drinks, and dance with cute strangers? Of course you do! Which is why you should check out the parties we're throwing at Berkeley Rep this week:
- On Wednesday (December 1), there’s night/OUT, a free party for the LGBT community. Grab a ticket to Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead that night (psst: use the code NIGHT online to get 20% off, or 50% if you’re under 30), then stick around and enjoy the party! We’ll have beer from Triple Rock Brewery, wine from Raymond Vineyards, a pre-show tequila tasting with Tres Agaves, and plenty of sweet and savory snacks from our neighbor Amanda's -- and it’s all free! Berkeley Rep's own DJ Pauline will be spinning records (or, you know, queuing up MP3s), and you’re practically guaranteed a good time.
- On Friday (December 3), come back for 30-Below, a free party for the under-30 crowd sponsored by The San Francisco Bay Guardian. Get a ticket (use the code WEB30 and it’s half-price), see the show, and stick around for drinks, dancing, food, and more. We'll have more treats from Amanda's, pre-show margaritas with Tres Agaves, and beer from local favorite Ale Industries. DJ Ome will be playing the hottest music from nine to midnight, and you don't want to miss it!
If you happen to be under 30 and a member of the LGBT community, I am hereby challenging you to come to both events. If you're up for it, send me an email at [email protected] and I'll prepare some kind of prize for you. No, seriously. I will. See you there!
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Breaking news: The composer is dead!
posted by Karen McKevitt on Mon, Nov 29, 2010
in Backstage buzz , Costume shop , Our shows , Prop shop
Have you seen the two features about Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead that came out over the weekend? Robert Hurwitt at the San Francisco Chronicle interviewed Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko of Phantom Limb, who created the puppets, while Jackie Burrell at the Contra Costa Times conducted an irreverent interview with author Lemony Snicket’s stand-in, Daniel Handler.
I myself have been absolutely fascinated with the orchestra of marionettes in Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead, and during tech week, I managed to catch up with Erik as well as the costume shop staff to talk about how they designed and costumed these marionettes.
The show is based on the book by the celebrated author of A Series of Unfortunate Events. At the top of the story, a composer turns up dead, and everyone in the orchestra is a suspect. But, these aren’t your everyday everyones.
“The Inspector interrogates the instruments,” says Erik, “not the musicians.” In fact, the musicians and instruments are essentially one and the same.
Erik’s marionettes are elegant human/instrument hybrids. Put simply, they’re instruments with faces, arms and hands, but Erik was careful not to “Disneyfy” them. The violins, for example, have an austere bone structure that’s not at all cartoonish. Erik created the heads and hands using Celluclay. “No one over age 8 uses it,” Erik says, laughing. “But I don’t use synthetics in my work.” The Berkeley Rep props department cast all the instruments over the summer.
While the marionettes were being made, the costume shop started working on their elaborate wardrobe. The fabric that makes up the brass section’s pinstripe suits is printed with the actual score from the show. Three different dye vats were used to create the parchment-colored clothes for the oboes. The violins wear corsets that form their body, while the ruffled fronts are the strings. “They’re my favorite,” says Kitty Muntzel, a draper in our shop. “They’re very girly.”
I asked Kitty how costuming marionettes is different from costuming actors. “Well,” she says, “you can stitch the costumes directly to the puppets!” We laugh. Another plus is that there’s hardly any tailoring and no intricate facing like functioning pockets.
One of the costume shop’s biggest considerations was the marionettes’ range of motion and where the strings are located. They also had to consider that the marionette’s bodies are fabric as well, so the costumes don’t slide over them the same way clothes slide when an actor raises his arm. Erik noted that the resistance of fabric against fabric was actually helpful when the puppeteers started working with the marionettes.
Most of the marionettes were dressed in rehearsal – after they had already been strung. So almost every morning, the costume department would arrive early to costume a section of instruments. Each section had to be unstrung, and the costumers had to dress each marionette in the quarters of their orchestra pit.
One of the biggest challenges in rehearsal was getting groups of marionettes, like all the violins, to stand up and sit down as a group. Each marionette is individually strung, so it takes an elaborate network of pulleys and expert puppeteers to make them all move the same way simultaneously while still being able to move individually.
The result, judging from the dress rehearsal I saw last week, is visually stunning. And we’re all looking forward to sharing it with you, so purchase your seats now before it’s too late!
Photo of Geoff Hoyle by kevinberne.com.
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A curious dispatch from Lemony Snicket
posted by Pauline Luppert on Thu, Nov 18, 2010
in At the theatre , General theatre talk , Our shows
With the world premiere of Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead mere days away, Lemony Snicket himself has taken the time to send you a curious dispatch in which he shares with you why theatre is important – and how you may find a more or less everlasting joy and peace.
Is theatre important to you? Make a gift to Berkeley Rep today.
Click www.berkeleyrep.org/give