​LANSING, Mich. – Lansing Community College will premiere the virtual event – We Shall Overcome: Raising Our Voices Together.
The program will feature a variety of art forms including a new arrangement of the song "We Shall Overcome,” famous speeches of civil rights activists performed by LCC Theatre students, poems written around the theme through LCC’s Community-Generated Poetry Project, and perspectives from members of the LCC Community.
This is a multi-genre arts and humanities program exploring the themes of this classic protest song.
Who:    Lansing Community College
What:   Virtual Event – We Shall Overcome: Raising Our Voices Together 
When:  Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021 
7:00 p.m.
Where: View the event here: http://music.openlcc.net/we-shall-overcome/
About Lansing Community College
Lansing Community College is committed to providing equal employment opportunities and equal education for all persons regardless of race, color, sex, age, religion, national origin, creed, ancestry, height, weight, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, familial status, marital status, military status, veteran’s status, or other status as protected by law, or genetic information that is unrelated to the person’s ability to perform the duties of a particular job or position or that is unrelated to the person’s ability to participate in educational programs, courses, services or activities offered by the college.
 
The following individuals have been designated to handle inquiries regarding the nondiscrimination policies: Equal Opportunity Officer, Washington Court Place, 309 N. Washington Square Lansing, MI 48933, 517-483-1730; Employee Coordinator 504/ADA, Administration Building, 610 N. Capitol Ave. Lansing, MI 48933, 517-483-1875; Student Coordinator 504/ADA, Gannon Building, 411 N. Grand Ave. Lansing, MI 48933, 517-483-1885; Sarah Velez, Human Resource Manager/Title IX Coordinator, Administration Building, 610 N. Capitol Ave. Lansing, MI 48933, 517-483-1874; Christine Thompson, Student Title IX Coordinator, Gannon Building, 411 N. Grand Ave. Lansing, MI 48933, 517-483-1261.

​Ixion Presents a Reading of "Dreams" A Collection of Ten Minute Plays

Ixion Ensemble presents an online reading of short plays around the theme of "Dreams" on February 28 at 2PM EST via google meet, https://meet.google.com/tev-exsv-sji. The viewing is free and open to all, but limited to the first 100 visitors. For more information call 517.775.4246 or email [email protected].

"Dreams" is a collection of six plays selected from a pool of nearly 400 submissions from across the globe that answered Ixion's call for dream themed plays.Plays featured will be:

• Goodmare by Ron Burch
• Lifelines by Donna Hoke
• Christmastown by Kayla Hambek
• Scream by George Sapio
• Possibility of Lightning by Scott Mullen
• The Monster Inside by Adam Carlson

Performing the readings will be Sadonna Croff, Christine Fisk, Richard Piatt, Rebecca Williams and Lekeathon Wilson. Stage Directions will be read by Rico Bruce Wade.

"We can't wait to introduce these plays to Lansing area actors and audiences," says Ixion artistic director jeff croff. "This will be an opportunity for actors to learn about the plays before we hold auditions in March. Plus it gives audience members a chance to see the development process from script all the way to final performance in May."

Will YOU be a part of this? One more reader needed: "We're seeking a female actor in her twenties to participate in an online reading of the six plays selected for our “Dreams" next Sunday February 28 at 2pm. This will be a preview of the plays we will be auditioning for in March and performing in May. If interested, please contact Ixion artistic director, jeff croff  t mailto:[email protected] or phone, 517.775..4246.

​
A Dolls House is a HIT — (check out Doak Bloss’s unsolicited and enthusiastic Facebook review below.) Three more shows left: 8pm Fri/Sat and 2pm Sunday. 

Go to http://riverwalktheatre.com and click the “buy tickets” link to go to showtix4u with your credit card. Showtix will send an email with your link to watch at your specified time. 

NOTE: Riverwalk Manager Mike is able to help those of you with season coupons or promo tickets. Send him an email with your request mailto:[email protected] and he will make the reservation for you and email back a link/passcode for you to watch from your computer. Mike will monitor these emails even after office hours.

If you need help with the website and want to use your credit card, you must call Mike during office hours (10-2 Mon-Fri) do NOT email your credit card number. 
517-482-57-00

Mike is excited to be actively “making reservations” again!


Doak’s Review:

I entered the audience for Riverwalk’s production of “A Doll’s House” with unreasonably high expectations.  I blame the Channel 10 news report for this, because it did a great job of describing the technical and design innovations Brian Farnham had devised in order to overcome the many limitations of watching a play recorded on Zoom.  I was led to believe that this time we would get something more than forward-staring heads reciting lines in little boxes, popping in and out but clearly not relating to each other in any real way and certainly not connecting to an audience.  The WLNS story sounded too optimistic to be true; and I have become accustomed to being disappointed by any new approaches people have tried to outsmart the pandemic unless they had a huge budget to back it up.

Throughout my viewing of the matinee on Sunday, “A Doll’s House” filled me with awe, hope, and deep appreciation for what Brian and his collaborators have pulled off.  It was all there as I was told it would be. Actors genuinely related to each other as if they were in the same room even though they were in separate boxes.  Meticulous set design and camera placement allowed items in one box to cross into the other, and the passing of props across an unseen place just below where the two boxes come together.  The boxes often come together seamlessly, by the way.  Two squares looked like one big rectangle, especially when the Helmers’ unitive Christmas tree and its perfectly matched ornamental strands are in the frame(s).

All that is very good, and delightful to behold in and of itself, but such cleverness could hardly sustain a two-hour production viewed on a laptop.  For that you need some seriously good acting—actors who prepare and analyze and choose and commit, something that, let’s be honest, you don’t get all that often in community theatre.  You do, here.  Most importantly, you get Rachel Daugherty as the complicated Nora, struggling to keep her bearings and her standing in a ruthlessly disempowering social structure for women.  Ibsen’s battlegrounds are usually very genteel and proper on the surface, with the unspoken warfare raging in the minds of his protagonist and the characters whose own self-interests threaten to undo her.  Watching Daugherty’s seemingly placid face thrash about in search of an escape from her predicament is like admiring a beautiful pocket watch but sensing the tremble of delicate gears going terribly awry just beneath.  And as is so often the case—not to take anything away from the hard work of everyone else in the cast (and especially Joe Clark as Nora’s biggest threat)—when you have a gifted, disciplined actor in the center of a play like this, everyone steps up their game to rise to the occasion.

And what an occasion!  I’ve read and seen “A Doll’s House” before, but I often get its plot confused with Ibsen’s other seminal feminist work, “Hedda Gabler,” which is my only excuse for not being certain what Nora’s fate would be.  And I won’t spoil it here, except to say that it left me feeling very satisfied.  And happy.  And hopeful.  If not for Nora, then for my theatre community, which I think has turned a corner in its battle with the pandemic thanks to this production.

Brian Farnham’s notion of conceptually placing the audience in the center of the room in which the story unfolds (yes, cue that “Hamilton” number if your head if you must) is responsible for the production’s other breakthrough in keeping us engaged while watching a little computer screen instead of breathing and seeing the respiration and aspiration and desperation of the characters in the flesh.  Frankly, I’m so impressed by this idea that I don’t really know how to talk about it.  It makes such sense, but in the way that brilliant ideas always seem obvious once someone else has conceived them and demonstrated that they work.  We are in the room with Nora and her troublesome visitors.  It’s not like being in a theatre, but it is also not like watching a film of a play.  It’s like having a privileged view of intensely intimate transactions.  It’s something new, and you really must see it to appreciate it.

The work of the designers and technical wizards who helped pull this off also have to be mentioned.  I don’t usually think or care that much about costumes (my shortcoming), but in this case Amanda Macomber’s creations lend richness and authenticity to the 19th century Norwegian sitting room simply but effectively decked out (I assume) by the most resourceful and dedicated stage manager our community has to offer, the indispensable Michele Booher-Purosky.   

And--lest I forget--the man who managed to stitch all the little pieces of this production into the whole that we get to enjoy was of course Matt Ottinger.

So.  I think that’s all I have to say, and I regret that I took so many words to say it.  But I have a motivation here… I WANT YOU TO SEE THIS PRODUCTION.  It is available for viewing three more times this weekend, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm, and Sunday at 2:00.  I don’t think it can sell out, but buy your ticket now anyway just so that you’ve committed the $20 and will be fully motivated to park yourself in front of your phone or computer or Ipad at the appointed hour.  You don’t get to hang onto it and watch it whenever you want as you would any of those movies and TV shows on your watch list.  The sense of occasion is real:  you must sit down and watch it as you would a live performance, with unseen others across the community.  Revel in that:  the community you’re part of, partaking this nourishing meal together.  It is a community that has willed one of our greatest joys—well-done theatre—back into existence.  I’m confident that you, like I, will be left hungry for what may come next.


NOTE: Doak has recorded a new “House Left” dialogue with the cast and designers which he will put on Youtube later today. Except it’s called “Light’s Up” now.  You should probably watch it AFTER they see the play. Go to Youtube.com and search "Doak Bloss" for his lineup of his discussions and trivia games.

__________________________

It’s a busy theatre weekend - almost like the old days that gave GLUT the meaning in its acronym. Besides A DOLL’S HOUSE, we have:

All of us Express Children’s Theatre presents The Prince and the Pauper  https://www.facebook.com/events/713333536021944

Evolve Theatrics presents Standing on Ceremony, the Gay Marriage plays - Tickets are $15 each, with only a single ticket needed for households watching the performance on the same device.  visit http://www.evolvetheatrics.com, click on 20/21 Season and click on the ticket link. 

MSU Freshman Showcase: Pandemic’dwill premiere its first two episodes on Facebook with a free, live viewing party on Friday, February 12, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. To join the viewing party, visit https://www.facebook.com/MichiganStateTheatre. Following the premiere, episodes will be available for viewing on demand at http://www.theatre.msu.edu/pandemic. 

​MSU THEATRE FRESHMEN PREMIERE ORIGINAL WEB SERIES SATIRE ABOUT COLLEGE DURING COVID-19 
  
EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN – The freshman class of Michigan State University’s Department of Theatre have created a mockumentary-style web series satire about the experience of starting college during the COVID-19 pandemic. Freshman Showcase: Pandemic’d! will premiere its first two episodes with aFacebook Live Viewing Party on Friday, February 12, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. 
 
While this is the 14th year for the Freshman Showcase, it is the first time the performances will be delivered in a virtual setting. Director and Department of Theatre faculty member Sarah Hendrickson, who specializes in comedy and improvisational theatre, was up to the challenge of having to pivot this experience to an online format. Joining forces with co-director Ryan Welsh, Assistant Professor of Theatre and Media Acting, the students were given the opportunity to share their freshman experience through the lens of humor in the form of an episodic comedy. 
 
“This year we were especially conscious that freshman needed to find a way to bond and jump into our production season in a meaningful way,” says department chair Stephen DiBenedetto. “This innovative project has allowed our new students a pathway to pursue their theatre education, combined with the freedom to explore community and performance." 
 
In Pandemic’d!, members of the Department of Theatre freshman class are followed by a fictitious camera crew as they explore their first year of college. The actors delve into the uniqueness of existing in a university and society that have been impacted by a pandemic. The directors describe it as “Parks & Rec meets Glee meets Waiting for Guffman meets The Office.” 
 
Welsh says the lessons learned from shifting this production online will be tools the students can use for the rest of their careers. "The boundaries imposed by this time are real, but we discovered that the limitations of creativity are nonexistent. These artists dove into this bizarre, goofy little project with both feet, having no idea what the process would produce; I'm proud of the work they put into this and hope it inspires them to continue thinking outside the box." 
 
Hendrickson agrees, saying “One of the goals of producing Freshman Showcase is to help acclimate our freshmen to their new lives and the things that are expected of them as newly minted adults. This freshman class has been challenged like no other one before them. Though many of them are not here in East Lansing, they have spent their first semester as Spartans learning how to improvise, both ‘onstage’ and in real life. The ability to adapt is an invaluable skill and they have tackled their situation with aplomb. They are forging lasting, meaningful connections to a supportive network that encourages them to follow their dreams and stay creative during times of crisis.” 
 
What started out as a concept to deliver one short film soon ballooned into numerous episodes as the students embraced the challenge and the new skills they were learning. The team is still editing the content the students have submitted and will be releasing new episodes throughout the spring 2021 semester. 
 
Freshman Showcase: Pandemic’d will premiere its first two episodes on Facebook with a free, live viewing party on Friday, February 12, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. To join the viewing party, visit https://www.facebook.com/MichiganStateTheatre. Following the premiere, episodes will be available for viewing on demand at http://www.theatre.msu.edu/pandemic. 



And, while we’re thinking MSU, check out what ’06 alum, and well remembered star of some Lansing shows, Shariesse Hamilton is up to now in Australia! https://twitter.com/theatre_msu/status/1353728783237468161

Riverwalk Theatre’s A Doll’s Housewill be featuredtoday, Thursday, February 4 at 4pm on WILX channel 10’s Studio 10,a lifestyle show "on a mission to celebrate all that is good in Mid-Michigan!” https://www.facebook.com/wilxstudio10/
Director Brian Farnham is very excited about his show, which was filmed under “Covid conditions” but goes beyond the “talking head” format. Get a full report from the Channel 10 team, and order your tickets!

A Doll’s House opens tomorrow, Friday and will run about two hours and 30 minutes. Tickets are $20 per device (computer, phone, tablet, etc.) plus handling fees. 
To learn more and purchase tickets, visit, riverwalktheatre.com,and click the “buy tickets” button on the main page under the Doll’s Houseinfo — or call the box office at 517-482-5700.
There are six show dates and times: February 5-14 Fridays/Saturdays 8 pm, Sundays 2 pm. You will ONLY be able to watch the show on the day and time for the ticket you purchased.
Riverwalk is using ShowTix4You to host and sell tickets.Purchase your tickets there and you will get an email with instructions and the link to view the show. It will be, essentially: click the link, enter the code on your ticket, wait for the stream to start.) 
One ticket is good for a household, but the unique code WILL ONLY WORK ON ONE DEVICE AT A TIME. Ex: You could start watching on your phone, and switch to your laptop, but you will need to close the site on your phone before trying to enter the code on their laptop. 
https://www.showtix4u.com/event-details/45492