Our Goal is to raise $75,000 for multiple projects: New carpet in the main auditorium (has gotten a bit seedy in 15 seasons), updated office equipment (some of our computers were over 7 years old, and we were starting to have difficulties operating efficiently). We have a new photocopy machine that allows us to scan, fax and email! We will also be getting a scissor lift to assist us in safely rigging or doing light work. One of my favorite projects is installing a light grid with dimmers and hard wired connectors for light instruments for our ‘Lab” theatre, which also serves as our rehearsal hall. This will make our lab much more versatile and safe as well!! Our Student Lab Production of Twelfth Night will be the first production to utilize the new system. Lastly, we have three scholarship funds that need building up. We are so proud of our Arts-in-education programming that effect hundreds of area students annually. Our goal is to flesh out these three funds so they can all disperse this year. It is a proven fact that students of theatre are so much better prepared to work in collaborative efforts, have an ability to express themselves effectively and have a better self-esteem. They are also 4 times more likely to be successful in school.

We will soon be sending out an ‘Ask” letter, and I hope that you are able to help us maintain the high standards that you have come to respect & expect!

After a frothy fun-filled opening musical of The Boy Friend, we at QCT are hard at work with our first straight play of the season, Enchanted April by Matthew Barber-based on the novel by Elizabeth Von Arnim. I really hope this play will draw an audience, because as we work on it, I fall more and more in love with it! I find these women heroic in their desire to find themselves and to go against convention in order to become the person they hope to be. We’ve completed the table work portion of rehearsals (that’s where we analyze and discuss the wants, desires and objectives of the play and characters) and are now hard at work on the Blocking (staging) portion. We open on April 26 and close on May 6th, and with all of the flowers already in full bloom, elongate that wonderful spring feeling by coming to see our production. The cast includes: Kylinn Flesner, Derek Hauk, Lorraine Morgan, Ann Pfaffe, Phil Quevillon, Jim Rupp, Julie Schuetz and Vonda St. Clair. I think it’s wonderful that there are veterans, newcomers and folks who have done just one or two productions all involved in this. I also have a new stage manager Katie Rodemich, who has been a non-stop ASM since Yes Virginia! Those of you that have seen both Tom Sawyer and The Boy Friend know that our new costumer, Anna Grywalsky is fabulous. As a matter of fact, why don’t you all come to our Membership Meeting on Monday, April 16 @ 6:30 PM so you can meet the cast and crew members, find out more about our production and season, as well as spend some time getting know some of the incredible people in our community that just happen to love being involved with us here at QCT. As a matter of fact, for a paltry $5 you can become a voting member and have an actual say in what goes on. Either way, we really hope to see you here either as a patron or a volunteer.

See you at the theatre!

The Season kicks off today!

It gives our members a chance to talk about their past as well as for our younger members to get some first-hand exposure to what it is like to be a working actor. I brought in Scott McGowan, who’s voice is warm and rich and his range is just right for the role. We also have a Fantastic cast of Patrick Regner as Matt, Libby Ruth as Luisa, Jim Rupp as Hucklebee, Kevin Jobe as Bellomy, Paul Denckla as Henry, Paul Wood as Mortimer and Sarah Anderson rounds off the cast as the mute. Catie Hellige serves as the stage manager.

In October 1980, the original production sold its millionth ticket becoming the longest running show in American history, and the longest running musical in the world. The Fantasticks eventually ran 17,162 performances at the tiny Sullivan Street Playhouse in NYC before closing in January 2002, after an almost forty-two year run (more than twice as long as Cats).

In the thirty-second year of its run, the show won a special Tony Award in 1992, and Schmidt and Jones won the prestigious Richard Rodgers Award in 1993. The Fantasticks is based on Edmond Rostand’s Les Romanticks, loosely using Romeo & Juliet as source material (Star-crossed lovers, Feuding Families) as well as other strong Classical influences. It was the beginning of the end of the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, and it paved the way for unconventional shows like Anyone Can Whistle, Cabaret, Company, Celebration, Promises, Promises, and others.

The Fantasticks utilizes the essence- the boiled down core of what makes musical theatre work. This was a musical born of one of the most fascinating periods in American history, the 1950s, when traditional domesticity was being challenged, when organized religion was being challenged, when the unquestioned authority of parents and other “experts” was being questioned, and when young Americans were becoming obsessed with individuality, with rebellion, with freedom, with art as a means to criticize social and political structures, and most disconcerting of all, with Modern Jazz. All this would find full bloom in the sixties, but the seeds were there in the 1950s with the Beat writers, when composer Harvey Schmidt and writer Tom Jones, two young New Yorkers were creating their masterpiece.

In order for The Fantasticks to succeed, it has to be real. It has to happen every night with nothing faked. The magic has to be real. It is cynical yet a clear-eyed view of Love and Marriage. Its simplicity allows us to connect with The Greater Truths. Its unconventionality allows us to let go of some of the the trappings of a big Broadway Musical and rejects conventions for convention’s sake such as the 4th wall and realistic sets…it is something very Pure, primal, truthful and in my opinion, beautiful.

Once again, I am so very pleased with the caliber of performances here at QCT and have had an enjoyable rehearsal process and hope you all have a chance to come support QCT and be entertained by one of the most enduring theatrical productions of all times! I hope you find the music, story and characters as charming and memorable as I do.

(Some of this BLOG was taken from an article by Scott Miller)

What more could a director ask for?

What I want to comment on is the professionalism of all involved. We are indeed a community theatre, where we depend on volunteers to help build the set, usher for performances, serve as running crew back stage and act upon our stage.

Yet, coming from the professional world, I can’t tell the difference. We have an incredibly talented pool to draw from, as is seen by not only the leads in this production, but in every role, including our talented “kid Chorus.”

One of the joys of working here is our staff. Everyone involved does such a great job, it makes me look good.

So to everyone, from the actors who rehearsed 20 hours a week for 6 weeks, to the production team that created such fantastic work to every audience member that helps to keep the arts alive in Quincy, I say thank you from the bottom of my heart!

I feel only a few years older than that guy, even though my elbow creaks, my neck gets tight and I need to sport reading classes in order to screw a flat together.

I was leaving that Mecca of culture for the last time as a resident of that vibrant art scene and moving to the calm, quaint community of Quincy, Illinois, where rush hour lasts from 5:05 PM to 5:10 PM. Where, like cheers “everyone knows your name”. ..where the artistic community consists of a much smaller pool of fish…where the tastes of the average patron is, perhaps, a bit less adventurous.

And yet, this town of 40-some thousand supports so much culture, takes pride in the athletic youth and works diligently to maintain the beautiful structures that proudly stand on dogwood lined streets that I once again have those butterflies in my belly-just as that brash youth did way back then!

How exciting to be able to direct full-scale musicals. To select a play that has more than 4 characters in it. You see, in the professional world where I came from, the economic reality to producing theatre was strangling artistic options. We needed to find ways to more with less. Now, I feel honored to work with such dedicated volunteers and have a staff that I can trust and depend on to fulfill the mission to engage our community through the exposure of the arts.

I can’t wait for my wife to join me so I can share with her all of the wonderful things I have discovered so far.
I can’t wait to finish casting my first production.
I can’t wait to stretch and expand my artistic muscles and the community’s sensibilities.
I hope you are all ready to take that journey with me. Hop on the QCT express and let’s have the ride of our lives!

But we didn’t care because my wife and I were off to Chicago on the train for the first time since moving to Quincy.
I was asked to serve on a grant review panel for the Illinois Arts Council, and being new to the area, jumped at the chance to get to know some of the players in the Chicago theatre scene. My wife on the other hand, was doomed to wander the streets during the day, forced to venture into museums, dine in a wide array of ethnic eateries and last but not least, be subjected to some of the finest theatre in the country (next to QCT of course!).

My days were spent gathered around a table with other key executives of theatres from around the state, reading and discussing the incredible programs that are offered at every level–from Tony-winning theatres to small rural barns sewing a couple of cows together to make a curtain. The one thing all of these groups have in common is a desire to put on the best darn show they can, with whatever resources they have on hand.
That is why I am so excited about being the MAD of QCT because we have such wonderful resources at our disposal: a beautiful facility, a caring board, a dedicated staff and talented members of our community and region to grace our stage, and last but not least, an incredible supportive business and patron base.

I had a blast in the windy city, experiencing all that fine city has to offer, but it’s good to be home, ready to return to rehearsals, decorating our historic home and planting roots in our new hometown.

It’s about a French Lothario, Bernard a successful Parisian architect juggling three-that’s right-THREE- fiances. All of them are “Air Hostesses” as they were called back then ( 1960). He tracks their timetables and with the assistance of his long suffering housekeeper Bertha, they change decor and menus.

An old school chum, Robert arrives, and Bernard proudly explains his system for romance. However, a faster jet arrives, throwing this timetable out of kilter, weather helps to complicate the plot and Bernard, Robert and Bertha have a hard time keeping everything straight. I won’t tell you how it ends, suffice to say it all works out in the end. You’ll just have to come see it.

I have to admit, I was a bit nervous, not knowing the caliber of performers the Quincy area produces. Having come from the professional world, where we get the full range from genius to awful, I was hoping we would Vere towards the former! The day before the auditions we only had one guy, so we had a phone campaign to recruit actors to audition. Fortunately, we had a great turnout, and it was sad to turn down so many wonderful actors. I’m looking forward to the first rehearsal next week.

Don’t forget about ordering your tickets for The Drowsy Chaperone. Tickets go on sale this coming Monday (March 7).

See you at the Theatre!

Lenny Bart
MAD