Berkeley Rep Blog
Category archive: Backstage buzz
Congratulations to Green Day on MTV VMA win!
posted by Chad Jones on Mon, Sep 14, 2009
in Backstage buzz
At Sunday nights MTV Video Music Awards, Green Day walked away with the Best Rock Video award for "21 Guns" from the album 21st Century Breakdown.
The song also happens to be featured in American Idiot, the Green Day musical opening this week in the Roda Theatre.
Here's the award-winning video, directed by Marc Webb.
Here's Green Day accepting the award:Comments: 1 | Read comments
Green Day's international reach
posted by Chad Jones on Mon, Aug 31, 2009
in Backstage buzz
Rick Hoskins, a former member of the Berkeley Rep's board of trustees, is spending time in Germany with his family and saw this poster in a Berlin subway station.
Here's Rick's message:
"Green Day appears to be pretty popular over here in Germany.
The kids that are my son's age all seem to know them (and I didn't!).
I saw the poster as I was coming out of the subway station at Grunewald,
the mansion district of Berlin (did you see the movie Valkyrie?)
and the home to many extravagant embassies."
Sounds like the perfect place for a Green Day poster.
Now if we could only get an American Idiot poster up there as well...
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Climate control!
posted by Bert Reptile on Fri, Aug 21, 2009
in Backstage buzz
From Christopher Dawe, Berkeley Rep’s facilities manager:
The air conditioning and heating system in the Thrust Stage hasn’t been updated since it was built in 1980. We were running out of chewing gum and baling wire to solve our somewhat recurring problems. Audience members may remember occasionally experiencing heat waves and cold drafts in the Thrust – sometimes in the same act. HVAC (Heating, Venting & Air Conditioning) has come a long way since 1980, and it was time to replace our old system with something modern and more efficient. We are always aiming to make our theatre as comfortable as possible for our patrons and staff.
After working with our HVAC technician, who dreamed up an idea to use our very efficient chiller and boiler system as a central plant to cool and heat both the Thrust and the Roda, sometimes simultaneously, we came up with a game plan. We worked with our mechanical engineers to make sure we were building it correctly and that our new system would perform as expected.
Finally, we are getting to the point of fruition, and a few weeks ago we removed our old system from the roof of the Thrust (seen in photo above). The new system is being built in the old unit’s place, and all is looking good. Some changes have already occurred, like the new directional louvers we installed in the house of the Thrust late last season. This eliminated the cold down drafts that our patrons sometimes felt. With all these changes, we are expecting a decrease in energy usage of around 40% for the Thrust!
On schedule and on budget, we are aiming to have the new HVAC up and running well before Tiny Kushner gets to the Thrust in mid-October.
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Backstage peek at American Idiot
posted by Bert Reptile on Wed, Aug 19, 2009
in Backstage buzz
The American Idiot set is taking shape on the stage of the Roda Theatre, and it's pretty extraordinary. We can't show you the top-secret details just yet, but we can take you into the Roda and show you...
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Green Day -- live at last
posted by Bert Reptile on Mon, Aug 17, 2009
in Backstage buzz
With rehearsals for Green Day's American Idiot in full swing, we here at Berkeley Rep are happily immersed in the living, breathing world of Green Day on a day-to-day basis.
And almost as if on cue, here come the living, breathing members of Green Day themselves! Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool arrive in San Jose at the HP Pavilion Tuesday, Aug. 18 as part of the North American leg of their tour promoting the new record, 21st Century Breakdown.
Reviews for the concerts have been extraordinary -- you can read a selection of them on the Green Day website.
After San Jose -- the closest the band members get to their East Bay homes -- there are still a few dates left on the tour: San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Sacramento, and Los Angeles. Between the end of this tour and the beginning of the international tour (launching Sep 29 in Lisbon), we expect to spot the band members attending rehearsals for American Idiot, which begins previews Sep 4 in the Roda Theatre and runs through Oct 11.
The above photo (taken by Carole Litwin) documents the last time Tré, Billie Joe, and Mike (seen with director/co-book writer Michael Mayer and arranger, orchestrator, and music supervisor Tom Kitt) dropped in on the American Idiot creative process. We imagine they'll be doing the same thing after they catch their collective breath following the final concert on Aug 25, weighing in on the incredible work Michael, the creative team, and the cast have been doing in rehearsal.
It's not every day, after all, that a classic rock album becomes a highly anticipated world-premiere piece of rock theatre. You definitely want a front-row seat for that magnitude of creative endeavor.
Tickets for American Idiot are selling fast. Visit our online box office or call 510 647-2949 today.
Photo by Carole Litwin
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Peter and Wendy flies to Scotland
posted by Bert Reptile on Thu, Aug 13, 2009
in Backstage buzz
Just about anybody who saw Mabou Mines' Peter and Wendy at Berkeley Rep in February of 1999 remembers it fondly.
Featuring a storyteller (played by Karen Kandel), a team of seven white-clad puppeteers, and six musicians, the show brought J.M. Barrie's classic novel to vivid, imaginative life in ways no other adaptation of the Peter Pan story had managed.
Adapted and produced by Liza Lorwin and directed by Lee Breuer (with music by Johnny Cunningham and designs by Julie Archer), Peter and Wendy was truly enchanting.
We were thrilled to hear that Peter and Wendy -- a decade after delighting Berkeley Rep audiences -- is still going strong. The show will be part of the Edinburgh International Festival Sep 2-5 at the Royal Lyceum Theatre.
Recalling the show brings such pleasure, but if you weren't lucky enough to see the show, here's a short taste of its artistry.
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Berkeley Rep in the news: kudos and casting
posted by Bert Reptile on Mon, Jul 27, 2009
in Backstage buzz
We are delighted to report that in the East Bay Express Best of 2009, Berkeley Rep scored Best Theatrical Production for The Lieutenant of Inishmore.
Director Les Waters and his cast, designers and crew were lauded for doing an "amazing job with the hefty challenges of tech, timing, and tone that the play presents: thick Irish dialect, more than thirty gallons of blood flowing in each performance, incredibly realistic gunshots and blood spatters, an actor performing an entire scene while hanging from his feet, the grisly sight and sound of sawing body parts, and, most of all, making the whole thing funny."
Bloody good. Read the entire citation here.
Speaking of Les Waters, last season he also directed the world premiere of Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play), which will be re-mounted on Broadway in October. A recent New York Times story revealed the cast of this Lincoln Center Theater production.
Maria Dizzia, who played the doctor's chief patient in the Berkeley Rep production, will reprise that role. The doctor will be played by Michael Cerveris (Sweeney Todd, The Who's Tommy) and his wife will be played by Tony-winner Laura Benanti (Gypsy).The cast will also include Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Wendy Rich Stetson, Chandler Williams, and Thomas Jay Ryan, who appeared at Berkeley Rep in Will Eno's TRAGEDY: a tragedy.
Read the entire story here.
Pictured above: Maria Dizzia (left)
and Hannah Cabell in In the Next Room.
photo courtesy of kevinberne.com
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Carrie Fisher remembers Michael Jackson
posted by Bert Reptile on Tue, Jul 7, 2009
in Backstage buzz
Ever since Carrie Fisher brought her solo show Wishful Drinking to Berkeley Rep, we've been following her fabulous blog.
Before heading back to Berkeley for one last prior to opening her show on Broadway, Carrie took the time to write about her interaction with Michael Jackson.
Here's Carrie writing about Michael as a parent:
"I saw Michael multiple times with his children and thought that
he was a very good father. Not only based on seeing him with his children, but also based on his children themselves. They are very well behaved, respectful children, who seemed content in Michael’s company.
I mean, I doubt if Michael cooked for them or parented them in ways that might be considered conventional, but you could see how much he loved them and how much they loved him."
It's interesting to note that when one celebrity writes about another in this digital age, bloggers, Tweeters, and Facebookers all post like made. Just after posting her entry, Carrie found her recollections all over PerezHilton.com.
To experience Carrie in three dimensions or for more information about her show, click here.
Photo courtesy of www.carriefisher.com.
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Finding Nero's six degrees of separation
posted by Sarah Moser on Mon, Jul 6, 2009
in Backstage buzz
Connections, connections, connections. I loved hearing about who in the cast and crew of You, Nero had worked together before. There's something kind of magical about how closely linked everyone seems to be.
Danny Scheie (Nero) taught Susannah Schulman (Poppaea) how to act when she was studying at U.C. Santa Cruz. He cast her and directed her in plays like Hedda Gabler and Phaedre, because he knew she was really, really good. They have since performed together many times over at Cal Shakes and other theatres in the bay area.
Susannah Schulman, Mike McShane (Batheticus/Beppo/Burrus), and Richard Doyle (Zippo/Seneca/Patheticus) were all in a production of Cyrano at South Coast Repertory a few years ago. Susannah played Roxanne, Mike played Ragueneau, and Richard played Lingniere/Carbon de Castel-Jaloux. Susannah and Richard Doyle have performed together at that very theater many times, including various productions of A Christmas Carol.
Julie Haber, stage manager extraordinaire, has worked on a "million" shows with Richard Doyle, who has been an actor at South Coast Rep for nearly 40 years now. She stage managed a production of Six Degrees of Separation, which featured Susannah Schulman She worked with Kasey Mahaffy (Fabiolo) on Taking Steps at South Coast Rep and with Jeff McCarthy (Scribonius) on The Front Page at the Long Wharf Theatre. Lori Larson (Agrippina) was in a production ofBlithe Spirit at A.C.T. that Julie stage managed, and the two also worked together on Time of Your Life in Seattle.
Julie has also worked with Sharon Ott (director) several times, at Berkeley Rep and at Seattle Rep. Julie worked with Sound Designer Steve LeGrand (Sharon Ott's husband) a lot as well. She and Lighting Designer Peter Maradudin have done dozens of shows together, taking two to Singapore with South Coast Rep.
Maggie Mason (Ensemble) and I (Ensemble) played Rosalind and Celia together in As You Like It at Stanford, and Donnie Hill (Ensemble) and I were both in production of Restoration Comedy that our playwright, Amy Freed, directed for the Stanford Summer Theater. I took my first acting class from Amy Freed.
On the last Thursday of our run, there was a nice reunion when my aunt came to see the show.She and Jeff McCarthy trained and acted at A.C.T. together in numerous productions way back in the day, including a production of Buried Child. She and Lori Larson also had worked together in Seattle.
So many connections! And I know I'm missing a ton. Now that You, Nero has closed and everyone has scattered to the four corners, it's nice to know paths might cross again.
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Throwing limbs is not easy: I don't have good aim
posted by Sarah Moser on Thu, Jun 25, 2009
in Backstage buzz
You may recall a moment during You, Nero in which newly severed bloody limbs come tumbling out of the sky, falling at the feet of the stunned Scribonius and Batheticus. I hate to kill any theater magic, but these limbs aren't real. They look eerily like severed limbs and are made out of super-cool, Nerf-like material. They even have a steel rod or some other kind of skeletal substance inside to make them feel like real limbs. It’s pretty rad. These limbs get chucked from the back of the theater onto the stage by yours truly (and by the great Maggie Mason and Donnie Hill). A seemingly benign task, we flitted through rehearsals without a care in the world, happily throwing our limbs onto the rehearsal room floor, hitting our target every time.
But then we moved into the theater, and things changed. We realized that not only do the limbs have to make a much longer journey to their target, but also there was the added obstacle of AUDIENCE MEMBERS’ HEADS to consider. Sweaty palms yet? Soon, we were each imagining situations in which limbs were ricocheting off of audience members, causing us to be banned from Berkeley Rep forevermore, never again able to work. But our stage manager, the great Julie Haber, reassured us that we were up for the task. Were we?
Well, in the last week of the run, it seems like we’ve done fairly well – only a few missteps along the way. I have very bad aim. When my P.E. teacher forced me to play kickball in elementary school, I nearly had a panic attack. Inevitably, I would either miss the ball entirely (no matter how hard I kicked), or I would take out a kindergartener. You can imagine that all of my fourth-grade anxiety came tumbling back when I realized that my aim and athleticism were once again important.
I developed several ways to combat this anxiety:
Practice throws. This is essential. Warm up your arm, remind yourself what it feels like to throw a severed limb. Calisthenics. Works every time. Knee-high body twists remind my body that we’re about to do something athletic. Gets the heart pumping. Take off the gold bangles, momentarily. Rid yourself of any heavy jewelry that might get in the way of the perfect shot. Aim for Jeff McCarthy (Scribonius). It’s like magic. When I try to hit him, I always do. He and Mike McShane (Batheticus) are really good at deflecting limbs. I bet they were good at dodgeball way back when. Listen to Susannah Schulman (Poppaea). She mentors us to get into a Zen frame of mind. If you don’t think about hitting an audience member, you definitely won’t.
And that’s that. Of course, Donnie Hill was on the varsity track team in college, so he throws the severed head (the coup d’etat, if you will) with incredible skill and artistry every night. And Maggie’s all over that wee little severed hand that has a tendency to bounce.
Overall, a little anxiety goes a long way. Or at least we hope it does, and not into your lap.
Photo by Kevin Berne
Mike McShane (left) as Batheticus
and Jeff McCarthy as Scribonius recoil
from the throwing of severed limbs in You, Nero.