Dance of joy, Dance of joy...

Camcorder has been shipped!!!!

I repeat, THE CAMCORDER HAS BEEN SHIPPED!!!

I can smell the excitment!!! Either that or I need to shower.

The last wiffle ball game of the season was yesterday and I heard it was a heck of a turn out!! Can't wait till next year!!

...and did I mention... THE CAMCORDER HAS BEEN SHIPPED!!!

~Nero

Rehearsals and art work for Jack...

Hey everyone!

The poster art for Jack has been completed! Once again we had Ms. Kristen Boucher behind the pencil... or drawing tablet as the case may be. She is all digital and such, completely cool! Check it out!

Seriously, she does great work so if you think you might need a graphic artist let me know and I will give you her contact information. Like Mr. Rhodes says... It's all about connections.

I also took some pictures at rehearsal last week, so here is your first look at some of the cast of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Here we have Kenny Roraback who is playing Jack, and Julia Bingham who is playing Cordelia, Jack's love interest. You might recognize Julia from Sleeping Beauty!

Here is a good pic of 90% of the cast including Carolyn, Kristen (of poster fame), Stephen, Shaine; Bottom: Julia, kenny, Malia (call me Lia).

Here is Herr Director (Overby) with Mr. Vinnie going over the role of the Giant @ 29 Cedar. Most of the role will be done by voice over which fantastic sound guy Josh will be recording for us. How cool is that?! VERY!

I see that blogger can no upload video which I would be uber excited about except that... The camorder that Mr. Rhodes ordered is still on fricken back order. It's been over a month sice he ordered it... stupid Best Buy!!! But fear not fans... as soon as it arrives you will be seeing thiings in NeroVision. I know you all tingly with excitment!!

Wiffle ball next Sunday!!!

~Nero the Impatient

Meet the cast of Jack..

Ladies and Gentlemen it is my pleasure to announce the cast for our first production of the 07-08 season....

The cast of Jack and the Beanstalk:
Natalie Cabral / Jack's Mom
Julia Bingham / Cordellia
Kenny Roraback / Jack
Carolyne Gallo / Victoria
Malia Wright / Elizabeth
Shaine Carney / Thalia, Muse of Comedy
Kristen Boucher / Mel, Muse of Tragedy
Stephen Libby / Story Teller
Vinnie Morreale / Jack's Dad, Giant

Thanks too all of you who came out! Mr. Rhodes said there were many, MANY talented people. He was most impressed.

I will have some pictures soon! Happy Labor Day!

~Nero

Down time...

Hi All,

I wanted to remind you all that Jack auditions are next week and that if you are interested in auditioning please email Mr. Rhodes to schedule a time. All the information about the auditions is bellow.

Other than that there is not much new to report. We are still looking for different rehearsal spaces so if any of you makeshift fans out there have any ideas I would be super glad to hear them.

OH, OH, OH, I almost forgot! Mr. Rhodes ordered a video camera!!!!! Yes, I will be Nero, Video Blogger! I will even be able to give you guys clips of the shows! A picture is worth a thousand words so a video must be worth a bazillion words! Seriously can't wait!

~Nero, soon to be video blogging

Jack is off and running...

Hi all,

As you can see by the previous post we have officially begun work on or 07/08 season. WOOT!

Jack and the Beanstalk is our first production of the season. It's adapted by Noah Smith who is a friend of Mr. Rhodes and a playwright and teacher current living in Los Angeles.

We have posted the audition notices and have already receive responses. We have also begun work on the production side, which most people never see. Yesterday the production team (director, Lighting designer, sound designer, costume designer, production manager, and artistic director) met for the first time and laid out plans for the look of the show, the schedule, and budgets. I don't think most people know that work on these shows begins well before we even cast the actors. As of this date our production countdown has begun, we have 57 days before Jack and the Beanstalk opens.

Jonothan Overby is directing this time out. Here he is looking at costume ideas and sketches with the one and only Deb Shea, and production manager Emily Brown. We are excited to have some new people joining us this season on the tech side. We have Josh Staines, who ran sound for us on (abridged), will be designing sound and running the sound board for Jack. We also have Margaret Hodes joining us as lighting designer and board op, this will be Margaret's first time working with us here at Makeshift and we are pretty dern excited.

Which brings me to a sad sad bit of news. Makeshift's own Mollie McKenzie will not be back in the booth this season. Ms. Mollie has excepted an offer from the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Ma to tech and teach. Yea! for Mollie... boo! for us. We wish her the best of luck.

We miss you Ms. Mollie!!!!

~Nero

It's that time... AUDITIONS!

MAKESHIFT THEATRE CO.

Announces auditions for it's up coming production of..
Jack and the Beanstalk
adapted by Noah Smith.

Audition will be held at the Cambridge Family YMCA in Central Sq..
August 29 & 30
7:00PM-9:30PM

Please contact Artistic Director Andrew Rhodes to schedule a time.
andrew@makeshifttheatre.com

Rehearsals start September 5th and will be 3 nights a week through October 4th. Location TBA.
Performance dates are:
October 6, 13, 20, 27, 28

For more information about us and our company please visit
www.makeshifttheatre.com

We are looking for 3 men and 6 women for the following roles:

Storyteller: Male, Ageless, Loud, Energetic, character traits may vary, must be able to capture a crowd and play multiple “character” roles.

Victoria: Female/Male, Ageless, young, playing children, pigtails and the whole nine yards, partners in crime with Elizabeth, plays multiple characters comfortable with adlibs and audience participation.

Elizabeth: Female/Male, Ageless, young, playing children, pigtails and the whole nine yards, partners in crime with Victoria, plays multiple characters comfortable with adlibs and audience participation.

Thalia: Female, ageless, bright, cheery, clumsy and loud, likes to laugh, overeager to please, muse of comedy

Melpomene: Female, ageless, dour, gloomy, classic straight man, played down but not quiet, muse of tragedy

Jack: Male, early 20’s, sweet, slightly clueless but with an energy of excitement for exploration, yet still timid and unsure of himself,

Mother: Female; 40’s -, Jack’s mother, Fiery, Jewish/New York accent, larger than life, a spry old women with a bounce in her step a cackle in her throat and a look that could freeze a Nargel in its tracks

Giant/Father: Male, 40’s -, doubles as Jack’s father and the giant, wears a giant suit most of the show, tall or short, more submissive to his wife, wispy, slightly blank look permanently occupies his face,

Cordelia: Female, early 20’s, love interest, good natured, does the right thing despite personal sacrifice, comedic, likes to have fun

Scared Hit-less 12 Spider-Pigs 9

Hi friends!

It was wiffle ball weekend yet again! For those of you who missed here are the highlights. The Spider-Pigs lost to Scared Hit-less 12-9 in this high scoring struggle between to power hitting teams. There were 2 in the park home runs by John "plastic killer" Sanzi and Allan "The One handed wonder."

Team captains were John Sanzi and Emily Brown. Mr. Sanzi is Makeshifts consigliere and this was his wiffle ball debut, and what a debut it was! Emily brown was finally out of injured reserve, having been previously reduced to mere umpire-dom because of a bum ankle, but yesterday she was ready to play in spite of the blistering heat. Here she is at first base ready for action.

The Spider-Pigs came out strong in the first two innings in this 6 inning game. However, after a change in pitchers the tide quickly turned in favor of Scared Hit-Less. Victoria "The Vixen" Welch, the blond bomber from Vermont, made a strong showing in this game. Here she is coming down the third baseline headed for home in a 2 run dinger by Allan.

The MVP for the day has to go to Matt Arnold for the multiple times he sacrificed his body for the game. In this interns mind he earned the title for the play at second where he dove head first for the base and ended up in the outfield still clutching the base in his brave, but slightly sore hands. Mr. Arnold we salute you!!!We also set a record for people hit by pitches and number of balls thrown in a single game. Here Allan stares down the ball as it heads straight for his face. His new bride, our own Sleeping Beauty Julia Bingham, looks on in the back ground.Post game consisted of smoothies and watermelon. See you again in 2 weeks!

~Nero

melting, MELTING....

Too hot............... Can't blog............

All strength used up... updating... website.....

http://www.makeshifttheatre.com/

~Nero

Sweat and celebrating...

Yes, yes... two posts in one week. What am I thinking?!?!?!


It was a hot, hot day friends. It did rain late in the afternoon but the days festivities came off great. I personally want to give big kudos to Ms. MB, Mr. Paul Ezzy, Mr. Matt Arnold, and Ms. Laureen Evans for doing such a great job. We had people visit the promo table asking where they could get a copy of the script or how to contact the author. Most of these were teachers wanting to use it in their classrooms! Way to go Mr. Libby (who wrote the sketch)!

Speaking of the promo table Ms. Em did a great job of greeting and chatting up all the people who stopped in for information. Pictured here are Ms. MB who played Juliet, are own Mr. Overby who took time out of his busy schedule to come down help, and Ms. Em.

We also have some awesome new cards that have our logo on one side and a list of all our shows for the upcoming season on the other. Mr. Rhodes has been having back problems and was fighting a cold, but he made it through. I took this pic of him with Shakespeare, but I sooooo had to talk him into it. I had to promise him some of my mom's homemade cornbread. He survived the day because Dunken Doughnuts is now serving sweet tea. I believe he had two of them and he kept muttering God bless sweat tea. He is from the south so I sometimes do not understand him at all.

I would have taken more pictures but I had forgot to put extra batteries in the camera bag. I wanted to go and get some but I had to help set up the props and help the actors go through their lines before hand. I had just enough juice to snap these. : (

All in all it was a great day. We were hanging with some local theatrical big wigs and we held our own. Some people even asked if we would be back next year! WOOT!

~Nero

Shakespear on the common...

Hi all,

Just a quick reminder that we will be performing on Boston common this Saturday as part of Citi Bank's Celebrate Shakespeare Day!!!

Ms. Waldron has bee getting a lot of promo materials together, and Mr. Rhodes and the 5 person cast has been rehearsing the severely condensed version of Romeo & Juliet they will be performing. Good thing we had all those costumes from Abridged hanging around. Theatre people never throw any thing away! I will be on hand with my trust makeshift camera to take pic and will post next week!!

We will also be announcing auditions for Jack and the Bean Stalk, SO keep tuning in!!

~Nero

And scene...

So Yesterday was the last show of (abridgd), and it also marked the last performance of Makeshift's second season. WOOHOO!

No we go, what we in the theate biz call dark. When a theatre goes dark it means they are not producing anything at that time. Some theatres have summer season and are dark in the winter and some do the oppisite and produce shows in the winter and take the summers off. We do mostly winter shows since most of our shows are kids shows. So now most of us will be doing other shows with other companies or just taking some time off.

I will be helping Mr. Rhodes Get ready for season 3. We have all the shows picked out and are planning our schedules with the directors for each show. Ms. Waldron is planning a big marketing release with all the information, so I am unable to disclose any of it here at this time. One thin I can tell you that has become offical is that we will be performing during the Shakespeare-fest on the Boston Common on Saturday July 28th. We will be doing a short 7-10 min. sketch written by Mr. Stephen Libby who also designed our logo by the way. Yes, he is pretty talented. So swing by and say hi if you are down town. We go on at 12:40 and 1:40! I of course will be there taking pictures!!

But Now I am off to some World of Warcraft. I leave you with this final picture of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) We had 190 people see it this last weekend...

~NERO

Soooooooo much going on...

Hello out there!

Sorry I missed last week. We were very busy with Complete Works! Plus Mr. Rhodes gave me a bit of a vacation and I jumped at the chance to get in some serious gaming and see Transformers! Sooo cool!

We have been getting some great feed back from Complete Works! Our audience the night of the 30 was crazy. Just look at these people!

I will have put more Complete Works pics up on ye ole Myspace page. I will post some here soon!

We have just one more weekend of Complete Works and our third season is finished. Wow! Time is flying by. Mr. Rhodes and Ms. Waldron have already started marketing plans for next season.

We also got an invitation to perform on Boston Common for the opening day of Shakespeare On The Common. Mr. Rhodes is trying to make sure that happens. It would be a great event for us with so many other theatre companies around town being involved! Cross your fingers!

~Nero

Busy, busy, busy....

Sorry everyone. I am slow posting this week because we have been so wicked busy. Yes, I said wicked, that's how busy we have been.

last night we opened (abridged) to a great audience. This is where you should have been...

...This is the view from the stage at the Cambridge YMCA Theatre. That's our own Mollie MacKenzie working to finish programing the lights earlier this week.

We have 2 shows today! We have the last peformance of Sleeping Beauty today and another Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) tonight. This is going to be a crazy day, so I better get going. More next week!

~Nero

Sleeping Beauty REDUX...

If you missed it the first time Sleeping Beauty is now up and running at The Regent Theatre in Arlington!

It was a very early morning for us Makeshift folks. Half the cast spent the night at Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Overby's house since they live just 30 min from the theatre. It was a Makeshift sleepover!

We had to be at the theatre at 8AM for a 10:30 show. It is one of the many challenges of performing the same show at more than one theatre. We had to arrive early to make changes to the blocking and tech needs to fit the show into a new space. The Regent has a prime time show running at night and we have to use their lights and work around, or incorporate what ever they have on stage for that show. We have become very good at this over the years, and the Regent has been very accommodating with our early arrivals on opening days. Yes, that's right we do all of this the morning of our first performance in the new space, hence the early arrival time. For the rest of the run our call time will be 9AM just so we can recap the changes we have made.

Kudos and a big high-five to our own Mollie MacKenzie, our lighting designer and board op, for being so talented and flexible. She ran through the existing lights, and did a fantastic job of suiting them to our needs. Also, the fact that she is doing all this manually with sliders is just crazy. Ms. Mackenzie rules!

The Regent has a very different lay out for The Coolidge, where we first performed Sleeping Beauty. The biggest of these difference being the fact that The Regent has a backstage. The Coolidge has flats left and right to hide behind, but no cross behind or back stage to speak of. It makes the space very personal and intimate, but there is no way to get the actors off the stage unless they enter or exit through the audience. The Regent has a more classical layout. Each has it's benefits and challenges for a director and a theatre company.

That afternoon was June's Wiffle Ball Saturday! Every third Saturday of the month in the summer we gather old cast members and friends a play a madcap game of wiffle ball and have a BBQ after. May's game was rained out but this last one was a heck of a good time! I was going to take pictures, but I was so excited I left the camera at home. :( I will remember to take pics of the next game in July!

(Abridged) opens a week from Friday!!!!!! Speaking of I need to work on some prop stuff! I will have some pics form (abridged) tech next week and maybe some pics of the opening!

~Nero

Cops & Prostumes...

Now that I am being back to doing what I do best, I thought I would give you all a taste of some of what goes into making our shows happen. Since the up coming The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) is opening in about 2 weeks, and it is our biggest show thus far when it come to props and costumes, I thought I would give you a brief preview.

First meet The Shea. Deb Shea to be exact. The Shea came on board for our first production of Robin Hood 2 years ago, when we were still TRiBE for CHiLDREN, and has designed , built, and/or purchased all the costumes and props for all of our shows ever since. Yes she is that amazing. She is a wonder and a miracle worker with the kind of budget she is given to work with. Also in the back is her mom, Ms. The Shea, who we always thank because she helps out and has helped deliver the goods to the theatre more than once. Thank you Ms. The Shea.

Since makeshift does not have a permanent theatre to call home we use Mr. Rhodes's house for temporary and permanent storage. This Saturday we begin the second run of Sleeping Beauty. In this picture we see all the props and costumes for the show in the stage cubes where they have been waiting in between runs in Mr. Rhodes's living room. Needless to say he has very understanding roommates. If you look closely you will see some of the props for (abridged) also put aside in this impromptu staging area. Speaking of (abridged)...

For those of you who are not familiar with the show it consists of 3 men performing all 37 of Shakespeare's plays in just under 2 hours. As you can imagine there are many costume changes and prop peaces, as I said earlier this is the largest show we have ever done. Our stage manager, Emily Brown, has been assisting The Shea in acquiring all the necessary items for this show. Lets take a look at some of these...

Here are some of the items we had to purchase. Pictured here is an asp for Anthony and Cleopatra, a sword for general swordy-goodness, and a few items for when the guys turn all of Shakespeare's comedies into one play. These are only a hand full of all the props that are starting to come together for the show

Also we have the Converse Chuck Taylor's which are iconic to the show. They are such a part of the show that they are pictured in the poster. These were bought and I believe each cast member is purchasing them from the company as keepsakes from the production. The Shea is busy working on the costumes she is building for (abridged), Purchasing material and getting patterns. Some of the costume peaces that are just used for one scene are being purchased from locations such as the local Salvation Army, Boston Costume, and the Garment District. Some items are being borrowed and will be dry cleaned and returned to their generous owners, and proper thanks printed in the program.

Most small independent theatre companies barrow a lot of what they need for shows, or have the actors be responsible for all of their own costumes. Mr. Rhodes never liked this idea to much, mostly because he never has much to choose from in his own closet. From the start he put aside a portion of the budget for each show for props and costumes. The idea being that things will be used over, and over, and over again, and the budget will go down for each show. So far this theory is winning out.

One of the challenges with this is storage space. Since we do not have a theatre of our own at this time, here is a picture of what I like to call the "HOLD". It's Mr. Rhodes's cellar where we store all of our stuff. The place is pretty damn creepy at night and looks like the hold of an old pirate ship. The house is some 90 years old, and has wooden slats every where and the cobwebs give it that certain "ich" effect. For those of you familiar with our shows, if you enlarge the picture you can see the Misdirected Trunk, a bow from Robin Hood, and some pillows from Aladdin, among other things.

I hope this gives you a brief idea of what goes into creating the craziness you see on stage. Some of these thing are finished and used for the first time the day of the performance. believe it or not. So, when you see an actor on stage looking pretty sweet in the fancy duds, take a look in the program and see who made it possible for them to strut their stuff and give them some high fives if you see them at the show.

Next week I should have some pictures form the Regent opening of Sleeping Beauty! See you then!

~Nero

Street fair success...

We came, we saw, we got tan lines.

The Medford Street Fair in Arlington, MA was a rousing success! We had a great time. Mr. Rhodes even did some juggling out in public! Yikes! We met a whole bunch of new friends and saw some old ones. They even had a parade with minute men firing muskets. It doesn't get much better than that! To the left is Herr Direktor, Mr. Rhodes, doing some juggling next to our promotional poster. He tries to be cool some times.

Princess Briar Rose, our own Julia Bingham, was on hand taking "magic" Polaroid pictures with the kids! Boy did we feel old when half the kids had never see a Polaroid camera. We are positive her pretty face is adorning many a family fridge right at this very moment. She did have a bit of a run in with 2 of Arlington's finest as you can see. "When good princesses go bad." They let her off with a warning for being too cute!

We did a scene from Sleeping Beauty during which we had a surprise scene crasher jump on stage. As you can see Mr. Legget and Mr. Overby were not quite sure how to react. The impromptu assistant was from the dance school that had performed before us. Now, what bothered me more than her jumping into the scene was the fact that the dance school had performed a version of THRILLER, which crasher girl had been in, just moments before. During this performance Mr. Overby asked "What is that?." Mr. Rhodes replied with a "What are you talking about? It's THRILLER." I came to find out that neither Mr. Overby or Mr. Leggett had ever seen Michael Jackson's THRILLER. Looking at the picture now, maybe they thought she was a real zombie. Mr. Rhodes looked disgusted at both of them and walked away. We also did a scene from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) which wowed the crowds.

Also on hand for the day was our friend Jenny The Juggler, www.jennythejuggler.com, who showed up Mr. Rhodes's juggling skills in every possible way.

In the end many a picture was taken, many a flier was handed out, many a ball was juggled, and a good time was had by all. With no sun burns!

Good times. It's great to be home.

~Nero

Stop the presses...

Hi guys! It's the ever-lovein' Nero on the job again. I know you missed me!

The cast of MTC is featured today in the Globe NW!

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/05/31/
taking_to_the_street_for_arlingtons_birthday_bash/

They didn't get all the information right but that's definitely Mr. Overby, Mr. Leggett, and Mr. Rhodes in the picture! Rumor has it that the Sleeping Beauty poster is pictured in the print version! If anyone finds a copy of that let me know or send it along!

More picture from the street fair to come, come rain or shine!

~NERO

Busking for a living!!!

YOU!
Yes you...

Do you want a sneak peek at the great shows Makeshift Theatre has coming up this summer?
I knew you would.

Where:
We will be peddling our theatrical wears during the Medford Street Fair outside the Regent Theatre in Arlington.

When:
Saturday June 2 from 11-3

What:
We will be doing an excert form Sleeping Beauty in the morning and in the afternoon we will be giving away a sample of the up coming Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged).
Princess Briar Rose will be there, and awake, taking pictures with the kids. We will be handing out fliers and doing some juggling and other fun stunts for the crowd.

Come down and say hello!

Home and excited...

Friends and neighbors you will be happy to know that I am HOME!!! My mother was thrilled! she made me 2, count'em, 2 lemon merange pies!!! No more living on grass and gross exotic foods for this kid.

Once all the mush and stuff with my Mom was finished I proceeded to my room to hang my trip trophies on my wall. Once I had them all arraigned and in place I stood back and reflected on what a crazy, crazy winter it has been. I looked at my false travel papers, The magic spell I wrote down from the book, the newspaper clipping form the library break in, and a few other things. I have not heard form the Prof.. I hope he is well.

I did get here in time to get some pictures of Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Leggett, and Mr. Overby studying for the new show! Let me tell you these guys know what they are doing... Just look at their expressions. So, deep in thought.
I felt a little uncomfortable with the way Mr. Overby was looking at me, but Mr. Rhodes assured me that he was just teasing me because he missed me. after the photo Mr. Legget said something about the book making more sense in it's original Klingon. I didn't have the heart to tell them the book was upside down.

Ok, I have some catching up to do and my Mom won't let me out of the house for too long. Will post more pics of the show as it progresses. Word is that we will be doing a street fair in a week or so! I will bring my trusty world traveled camera.

~Nero

Almost home...

OK friends, BOSTON IN CALLING!

After a sea journey and spending most of the winter stuck in Germany with a psychotic dramaturge I am back on American soil. Now all I have to do is find my way back to Boston, The Red Sox and Makeshift Theatre's first full length production!!! I even called Mr. Rhodes and told him I would be back soon! At first he said "Nero who?" "Is that your first name, or last name?" I was able to jog his memory and he seemed happy that I would be home soon. Well, his exact words were "bring doughnuts when you get here." I am taking that as a full -Welcome back to the staff-

I am very excited about being back for our first non-children's show. In just a few weeks we will be presenting The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)! I am bursting at the seams for this!!

Ok guys I am off to find a ride north! See you all soon!

~Nero