Where we at

It’s no doubt that many followers of the MOXIE blog simply gave up hope.  Where did those MOXIEs go anyway?  We didn’t really go anywhere.  Well that’s not true we went a lot of places.  Here is a recap of what I know has been happening in the month of October at MOXIE. 
-We moved into our new space at the Rolando Theatre (check out our new signage above.  Soon it will have our logo and everything)
-We opened the second show in our fifth season to rave reviews. See more about that below…
-We held the first of our off-night series, MOXIE Blues night with the killer blues band Fat Man’s Misery.
-Jen Thorn flew to Miami Florida to remount the MOXIE award-winning staged reading event of How I Learned to Drive
-Delicia began rehearsals for The Seafarer at SD Rep
-MOXIE successfully rehearsed and put in three understudies (a MOXIE first) on two separate weekends while Jason Connors and Jo Anne Glover attended out-of-town events. Yeah Melissa Fernandes, Justin Lang and Max Macke who stepped into the roles of Jo-Jo, Dog and Coke in Dog Act
-MOXIE launched its $5 for Five campaign.  A fundraising effort for the new space which encourages people to make smaller contributions in the amount of $5 toward MOXIE’s Fifth Season and furnishing of their new space.  We’ve been pleased to discover that this smaller amount means an overall average of more donated dollars per day than ever before.
-MOXIE finished casting the third show in its Fifth Season Expecting Isabel.
-We have begun a “We’re Your New Neighbors” campaign in the Rolando area which is comprised of board efforts to introduce MOXIE to local businesses, an on-foot campaign delivering “welcome” package to surrounding neighborhood and an upcoming Cygnet Subscriber night at MOXIE where we host an audience of Cygnet Subscribers for a special performance so they can meet us.

We’ve been a little busy but we promise to get back to our roots soon and keep the blog afloat.  Now a little about Dog Act…
Re-mounting a show is scary.  It’s especially scary when the show was so well-received and develops a sort of mythical reputation.  What if it isn’t as good as it was the first time? Will we be able to do the script justice again?  All those fears occurred to us when we considered bringing Dog Act back…but with every new audience we are assured that this was the perfect way to move into our new home.  The show is bog with a vengeance.  The music is more developed, the “acts” are honed, the actors are sharp and the overall product is irresistable.  Don’t believe us?  Check out what the critics are saying and then come see for yourself.  I’ve developed a whole new love for the script and couldn’t be more proud of the work Delicia and this ensemble of actors and designers have done.

“You have got to see this show – even if you saw it before. It is so inventive, so distinctive, so whimsical, and so wonderfully well done, it’s absolutely irresistible – and unforgettable. You gotta love a play that describes the sea like this: “It smell like a come-on meeting a want-to, a knife-edge meeting a peach.” Let this play wash over you; you’ll be refreshed, replenished, re-convinced of the power of theater.“- Pat Launer, SDNN.com

“Instead of laboriously creating and recording a physical illusion of the chosen fantasy, this theatre taps directly into the imagination of each new audience, inspiring personal, hand-crafted reactions in every viewer.”-Welton Jones, SanDiego.com

“The plot of Dog Act is goofy, the characters outrageous, the costumes hilarious, the songs clever, the script loaded with references to everything from Peter Pan to old classic TV shows. The whole is a raucous, rollicking good time, and leaves you with this cheery thought: “However bad it be, it gonna keep gettin’ worse.” As Coke might say, “Do not thou f***ing miss it.”-Jean Lowerison, GLTNews.com

 

Hi everybody, I miss you.

Ladies, this blog is not updated. You are no longer a homeless theatre company. You’ve opened and closed Drink Me in residency at the La Jolla Playhouse, and you’re running Dog Act in the new space in Rolando. What a lot you all have going on! But I’m not informed well enough to do the update.

I happen to know, because I am still an author of this blog, that Amy has begun but not finished a post called “Farewell, Esther.” If she’s anything like me, she wanted to say something, maybe because I started this blog, and then I went and moved to New England, and it seemed like somebody ought to say something. But if she’s anything like me, she wasn’t quite sure what to say, because maybe there is so much to say, and getting past the post title sounds like an awful lot of work.

I’m in Boston now, or just outside of Boston. I can’t tell you a whole lot about the Boston theatre scene because I’m not in it. I’m at home with the kids. I’m learning to quilt, and still practicing my juggling. I do ceramics on Saturdays. The fall leaves are AMAZING.

I was waiting to post here again until I had something really relevant to MOXIE or to the issues we’ve talked about on this blog. I would discover a woman-and-child friendly theatre company in the Boston area, or would see a really challenging show, or meet a kick ass female playwright.  But none of that has happened yet, and it’s been a couple of months, so I decided not to wait anymore. I’m proud of all the developments in the MOXIE world, as I hear about them from a distance, and I’m very proud to be a MOXIE emeritus.

I’m doing a blog project for the month of November that I’d like to invite the MOXIE babes and friends to visit or participate in. I’ve decided to go ahead and give over to my hermit impulse — for a finite period of time — so I’m going off the internet for a year. And I’m doing a one-month blog marathon as a transition ritual, and also to explore some ways that I might be able to write about the experience.

Stop by sometime, okay? Anytime in November, I’ll be there. And debate with me, because I miss that.

Go MOXIE!!!

These are a few of our most needed things…

Not whiskers on kittens or soft woolen mittens…no we have some real concrete things on our wish list for our new home at the Rolando Theatre. If you can donate any of the following items let us know. Your donation is tax deductible for the amount your item is valued at. Give us a call at 858-598-7620 or email joanne@moxietheatre.com if you can help!

1. Chairs – office & dressing room – 12
2. Desks – 3
3. File Cabinets – 2,
4. Coffee maker
5. Coffee carafes-2
6. Bar/ tall table
7. Benches – 4
8. 8 ft. ladders-2
9. Folding tables – 6

Bye Bye, Butcher of Baraboo

Jo Anne and I went to the landfill today. Manual labor? Pretty satisfying.  Leaving the babies at home with Delicia (where they both slept, because it seems they always sleep when somebody else is watching them)?Equally satisfying. Saying goodbye to a set that I loved? Tragic.

The Butcher of Baraboo closed on Sunday.  I am coping by creating a new piece of art (the photo above) out of the death of an old piece of art.

The landfill staff wasn’t so impressed. I got chastised by a friendly fellow in an orange vest, who probably enjoyed the fact that I jumped guiltily and put my camera in the cab when he accused me of letting Jo Anne do all the work.

I did help, I swear.

Here’s Jo nursing a bloody thumb, as a pile of the wallpaper that I spent an entire day getting up without any bubbles approaches unity with a couch and some yard waste.

At least my thumb isn’t bleeding.

Happy closing, everybody! Thanks for your beautiful work on The Butcher of Baraboo!

Playing The Part: Part II

Tech beings tonight which means the final days of rehearsal when the play still belongs to the ensemble and not the audience. The process so far has been a challenge. Comedy is hard and this particular comedy happens to have its roots, as most good comedies do, in the most painful issues we deal with as humans. That means in some senses we are working on two different plays: A drama where all the characters are at HUGE turning points in their life where they are faced with their biggest demons, AND an all out physical and verbal comedy. Someones life is threatened in nearly every scene of the play and yet it’s silly and often lighthearted. How the hell did the playwright manage to strike both chords and did she have any idea what a roller coaster this thing would be to produce?

As I play the charachter Sevenly I explore what it means to be trapped in a belief system that you used to define yourself by but which no-longer works for the life you feel you must lead. As Sevenly struglles with a difficult decision, she finds that her faith in God is challenged and that her very definition of self must bend if she is to survive. I am struggling with the balance of playing her honestly without ignoring the fact that there is a lot of comedy to be found in how different she is from the other women on the stage. It’s tempting to see her as very different from myself but I discover more everyday that she isn’t. I can’t wait to get into costume for the first time tonight and truly find the last parts of who she is!

Playing the Part: Part I

 I’ve long been yearning to try and capture some of the magic that is the “process” of theatre, especially as it exists at MOXIE.  Today I begin documenting the creation of a character I’m playing in MOXIE’s next production The Butcher of Baraboo. 

The First Rehearsal -

A  few days before our first rehearsal I had a nightmare.  In my dream I was cast to play Sevenly (the character I am playing in MOXIE’s production of The Butcher of Baraboo) but at a different theatre.  This “other” theatre was going o be producing the play before MOXIE did.  I had to travel to wherever this theatre was and when I got there and started the first rehearsal we began working on some very modern and wordless  movement piece, which apparently was how the play began and I had overlooked it in the first few pages.  All the other actors seemed aware and prepared for this part of the play, except me.  They all knew how to move and had great ideas. I was unprepared but too ashamed to admit it and so I was making stuff up on the fly and the director wasn’t impressed. I think my nightmare was my way of processing those jitters an actor has before they have  taken that risk that you do at a first rehearsal, when you reveal you have already begun to make choices and you hope the director isn’t second guessing having cast you.

Here is Sevenly in the production at Second Stage in NYC. Ali Marsh. Yeah it’s that woman from that 70’s show playing Valerie the butcher… Debra Jo Rupp, and Michael Countryman.

Our first rehearsal was this past Saturday.  As usual I walked to the theatre and thought about the play on the way there.  I thought about the amazing cast (Linda Libby, Deanna Driscoll, Wendy Waddell and Don Evans) and was honest with myself that I felt a little intimidated I am to be playing with some of the women who are considered to be the funniest actresses on stage in San Diego.  I feel excited to be working with Chelsea Whitmore for the first time, and with Delicia Turner Sonnenberg again (they’re co-directing).  We started our first rehearsal by sharing a secret of our own since this play revolves around secrets.  I wish I could share some of those secrets with you..everyone had a juicy one…but I can’t tell.  Then we looked at a presentation of the set design which Amy Chini and Esther Emery are co-designing.  Jennifer Brawn Gittings spoke about costumes and our Technical Director Dustin Long assured us he would make sure we were all safe on the set…then we read and oh how we read. The play is funny. Sometimes we had to just stop and get the laughs out in order to continue.  We were half in character and half ourselves just enjoying the writing.  This is my favorite way to explore a new play!

My Character:  I play Sevenly a 30 year old Mormon woman from Provo, Utah who moves to Baraboo Wisconsin. Sevenly is the mother of 6 children. She is married to a man 20 years her senior, who she loves. Sevenly is very kind and likable.  She is a perfect party guest…well that depends on the party I guess. Sevenly has a secret that she fears may land her straight in hell.  In my research to learn more about my character I discovered the following about her hometown:

Population: 117,592
Third Largest City in Utah
The MOST conservative city in the United States with over 100,000 people!
88% Mormon
88% White
Home to the largest LDS Missionary Training Center
Home to Brigham Young University
Home to the entire Osmond Family

We finished off the day asking questions about things that we weren’t sure about in the story.  We made decisions about timelines and back story and then we called it a day. I stood outside afterward and picked the directors brains for a few more minutes which was productive.  I was assured that my character isn’t stupid and that through the course of the play we see her get stronger. We discussed how heavily her secret ways on her.  I walked home feeling electrified.

Name that MOXIE – Jo Anne and Amy

Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you… Jo Anne Glover, MOXIE Theatre Managing Director and one of the four founders of the company, who comments on this blog as kidglove and is the guest author of the very next post. 

And, Amy Chini, MOXIE resident scenic designer and wizard of props, who comments and posts on this blog as chinimachinee, although she has very recently been fully occupied wearing two hats for our upcoming The Butcher of Baraboo, handling the props AND scenery design.

The winner’s ribbon this time goes to Missy, who got it on the first round due to an expert assessment of the environment behind the photo subject. Don’t go into forensics, Missy.  We’d miss you.

Thanks for playing!

On finding my inner six-year-old

This post was written by Jo Anne.  Someone get that girl a password so she can keep writing blog posts like this one!

Yesterday, I had a great time at my godson Auggie’s baseball game.  It was so cool to be outside in the late afternoon.  Great people watching – all of the very serious 10-year-olds and their parents rooting for them. 

But, some of my favorite moments were hanging out with six-year-old Zoe, who I am just so inspired by right now.  I loved watching her entertain herself, investigating the underside of a table, skipping off to the playground.  At one point, she picked a little flower – one of those little plants made of little grains that fall apart when you rub them between your fingers.  She was telling me about how she and her best friend Piper will pretend that its wheat and play granary.  Really?  They play GRANARY?  And, I was just struck by the simplicity of being six.  The lovely openness and beauty with which she approaches the world.  I want to regain some of that loveliness.  As most of us do, I let it get chased out of me – but I want to rediscover my six-year-old.  I think she’s probably pretty cool.

I’m not a poet, but felt inspired by this baby goddess.

For my goddaughter, THE PRINCESS ZOE

Sweet Princess
You amaze me with your
Spirit
Laugh
Wonder 

FULL of WONDER
I love how you wonder at nature
At dogs
At sticks
At flowers
At people 

So much spirit
So much spunk
For someone so small
You INSPIRE me with
Your BIG heart and BIG self 

Your laugh will always make me smile
Just like your mama, my sister
It makes my heart bigger
And when you hug me
I know I would travel to the ends of the earth for you
I am so blessed to know someone as cool as you

Name those MOXIE’s: Round Two

Same two MOXIEs. Same order. How’s this for a spiritual resemblance?

Final answers! First name and location in the continental United States. If you’re really stumped, read the comments on the last post for clues.

Name These MOXIE’s – Two for One

Or name the photos. 

I call the pair of them “Small Women Plotting World Takeover”

In comments, list your caption, and/or your picks for who we’re looking at. They’re not the same person, although I think they kind of look like it. First names are okay. I have another round for when and where.

Have fun!