Michael Maso on the Death of John Silber

We learned today that John Silber passed away early this morning. As transformative a figure as Dr. Silber was to Boston University, he was even more critical to the Huntington, which would not have come into being without his personal determination that the City of Boston have a world-class resident theatre. When asked why he would invest the University's resources in what might be perceived as a risky proposition, he said "If Boston University can support a football team, it can damn well support a theatre company!"

Thirty years later the Huntington is an independent organization, but our strategic partnership with and support from BU continues to this day. Over 3.5 million people have seen more than 180 productions since the Huntington's founding in 1982, and 450,000 young people have been served by our education and community programs. The Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, which the Huntington built and opened in 2004, would not exist if the Huntington had not been founded by BU 22 years earlier, and a proud John Silber was with us at its dedication.

I last saw John about a year ago when he attended our production of Candide, which he greatly admired. I look forward to finding a way to honor him and his role in the founding of the Huntington in the coming weeks, and I take great pleasure in knowing that the service to BU and to Greater Boston that he envisioned for us over 30 years ago continues stronger than ever. As you can see from his obituary on Boston.com, the founding of the Huntington is recognized as an important part of John Silber's legacy.

The Huntington family and I send my deepest sympathy and condolences to the entire Silber family.

-- Michael Maso, Managing Director

Project Ghostlight

This TV pilot was filmed here last year during the run of Third by a couple of recent BU grads. The history part is fun, and mostly accurate. In my experience our ghosts have never really been all that scary - in fact they seem quite benevolent. And not particularly inclined to appear on cue. It's really no surprise that the attempts at ghost hunting didn't pay off. Oops - was that a spoiler?

Singing Spring

It is getting mighty songful around these parts. We've presently got the cast and crew of Il Barbiere di Siviglia is here for first tech tonight. You can tell how much I've got to do during tech in my role of the buck stops here supervisor. Usually my staff can handle most of the stuff that comes at them during tech - leaving me to watch, take notes, and well - blog.


The photo above is of the lit set model by BU School of Theatre Designer Julia Noulin-Merat. Julia is a Master's candidate. If you click on the above picture you can see more of the model pictures and learn almost all there is to know about Julia. Check out her links page - some pretty cool browsing there...

Barber - as I like to call it 'cause I'ma nota so good with the Italiano - is our annual co-production with Boston University's College of Fine Arts. The School of Music (The Opera Institute) provides the direction and talent, The School of Theatre provides the designers, stage managers and some backstage crew, and the Huntington builds and installs the scenery, props, costumes, lights and sound. It is a great partnership where we really get to work with the students with whom we so intimately share our production and performance facilities. We all benefit. Click on some of the BU links here - the school has been updating their websites and it all looks pretty swell.

Oh yeah - tickets for the production which plays (next weekend only)
at the Boston University Theatre can be purchased at our BostonTheatreScene.com website.

"Your ticket to Boston's most exciting Theatre"! (exclamation point mine)

Neighbors

Part of our mission here at the Huntington is participating in the training of young theatre professionals. We are smack dab in the middle a working classroom (the BU Theatre, Studio 210, The Calderwood Pavilion, and our Huntington Ave. Production facilities) which makes interaction pleasantly unavoidable. In addition to the multitudes of CFA students we also have the pleasure of working with the faculty! BU Design Professors Jim Noone, Mariann Verheyen, Mark Stanley, Jon Savage, Ben Emerson; are all names that you've seen on the title pages of Huntington Productions. Sometimes the interactions are behind the scenes, too. Nancy Leary, too, who has an office just down the hall, is a very familiar face in our costume shop, having contributed to MANY of our productions in one way or another. Nancy was just profiled on BU Today. We thought you would like to meet her and get a behind the scenes peek into the world of costuming. Click here for the news article and slide show.

BU Today

BU Today is running a five part series called "Backstage at BU" starting off today with a feature on BU Alumni and Huntington Playwriting Fellow Ronan Noone and his play Brendan, which was performed as a workshop by the University last fall and we'll produce in October.

Click here for Part 1. (Brendan)
Click here for Part 2. (La Boheme)
Click here for Part 3. (The Cherry Orchard)
Click here for Part 4. (Tonight, Tonight)
Click here for Part 5. (Mauritius)

I'll quote a couple of paragraphs of the article:

"Boston University loves drama, from the moodiness of Anton Chekhov to the humor of George Bernard Shaw. The GRS Creative Writing Program’s elite playwriting program has produced some of today’s most successful young playwrights, such as Ronan Noone (GRS’01) and Melinda Lopez (GRS’00), and benefited from decades of partnership with BU’s Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, founded by Derek Walcott, Nobel Prize winning poet and a BU professor, and the Huntington Theatre Company, in residence at Boston University. The 25-year relationship between BU and the Huntington has given one of the country’s best professional companies a performance space and offered BU students an opportunity for hands-on experience.

This week BU Today looks at five shows produced at Boston University in 2006 and 2007, ranging from workshops at the College of Fine Arts to full-scale productions by the Huntington.

Present Laughter takes a break

A few weeks back I told you about our commencement changeover. Boston University's College of Fine Arts holds their graduation ceremonies on the stage of the Boston University Theatre. Scheduling is a little tricky this time of year, we need to get our production up and running before our subscribers go away on summer vacation, so it all happens during the first weekend of performances.

This year we were lucky enough to get some time lapse video of the entire process. Thanks to staffers Ken Porter who recorded the footage and Ben Emerson who edited it and added the sound track. You get to see the entire strike, graduation set up, graduation, and the Present Laughter restore.



This first video shows the first six hours (11pm - 5am) of the endeavor - following the performance on Saturday Evening May 19th. We move the scenery, lighting and props out of the way to make room for the chairs and risers for the onstage graduation party of over 200.




The second video is on Sunday, May 20th, and includes setting the lighting levels, checking sound, setting up all the diplomas and the ceremony itself. It covers an 8 hr period from 10am - 6pm.




The last video shows the "strike" of the graduation set up and the "restore" of Present Laughter. This video covers another 8 hrs on May 20th - from 6pm to 2am. Lighting, Sound, Props, and Paints all came in 6 hrs later at 8 AM on May 21st to restore the set mounted lighting, speakers, buzzers and phones, furniture and props, and touch up the few nicks and bruises caused by the move out and in.

A total of 38 hours elapsed from the curtain of Saturday's performance to the start of Monday's rehearsal, and we finished each step of the process a few hours early. Thanks to all of the Huntington staffers who planned and executed such an amazing turnaround.

Did I mention that the first time we put the show in it took 6 DAYS?

Toi Toi Toi

I've just got home from the final dress of La Boheme at the Boston University Theatre tonight. I haven't blogged about it before simply because there is so much else going on right now. We open tomorrow. That's right - and we opened Persephone just last week. Breaking Ground runs Thurs through Sunday. Rehearsals for Present Laughter start on Tuesday....

What's La Boheme got to do with the Huntington, you ask?

Lots.

It's all about our great professional relationship with Boston University; specifically with the College of Fine Arts. The School of Music, who has an amazing chamber orchestra, also has this great program called the Opera Institute. They get together twice a year with the School of Theatre to put up Opera on the BU Theatre Main stage. Every April the Huntington's production departments join the fun and provide the sets, costumes, props, crew and much more for the production.

Opportunities abound.

There's a professional director, usually Sharon Daniels, and the Scenery, Costumes and Lighting are designed by students in the Design program. We work with them to create their production just like we would for our own directors and designers; lots of design and production meetings, imposing the realities that working with a budget and professional shops involve, creative problem solving and theatrical ingenuity, tight schedules in the shops and theatre, along with our usual high standards of quality.

It's a unique interaction with the students that we see and work with every day, but in different and sometimes more meaningful ways. They're not working on our productions - we're working on theirs. There's a lot more to it than I can explain here, but hopefully you get the picture.

Good lessons for us all.

And good productions.

This post, in sum, is an invitation to you to come experience the result of our fine collaborations.

It is one of the great classic operas. It is designed by tomorrow's theatre professionals. It is played, sung, performed by talent that you're sure to be hearing from again. It is another example of the fine work of the Huntington's talented craftspersons and technicians.

And it is this weekend only.

Read more here, see and hear more here, and buy tickets here.

There will be free tickets at the door for the BU community (one per BU ID) but I'd advise you to order tickets in advance, it's only $15 or $20 bucks to guarantee yourself a seat, and they're going fast.

(The pix I took tonight didn't come out... someone send me a good one and I'll post it)

Miscellaneous News

The Huntington is having another $25 ticket sale for the preview performances of The Cherry Orchard. All tickets for the January 5-9, 2006 performances will be on sale for $25 each ONE DAY ONLY; Friday, Dec. 15^th. Click here for details on this special offer.

You can’t wait until January to see some non-holiday theatre fare, you say? Boston University School of Theatre Arts presents two productions, both opening tonight: Brendan by Ronan Noone, and Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco. Tickets and further information for these productions can be found at http://www.bostontheatrescene.com/. These are student designed and acted productions built right here at our Huntington Avenue shops where the Technical, Design and Production arm of the BU College of Fine Arts theatre program resides.

On stage now at the BU Theatre is well... not much.

We spent most of the week striking the Rabbit Hole set and are getting ready to bring in The Cherry Orchard starting next week.

The first rehearsal was on Tuesday, and here's a shot of actor Mark Blum (Gaev) and Artistic Director Nicholas Martin catching up on old times.



Speaking of catching up on old times: A little birdie told me that one of our blog's biggest fans is Huntington Alumna Miss Kellie B! So here's a shout out to the loudmouth from Texas. I miss you! Come visit!

Stumbling around

Here are a few things I've stumbled upon in the last several days. It's not necessarily about backstage at the Huntington, more about what catches my eye. If you want the backstage stuff you gotta ask...

For our Tom Stoppard fans, a neat article in the New York Times about the new Stoppard trilogy coming up at the Lincoln Center. It talks about the difficulties of getting such a large production together, and finding name actors, directors, and designers to commit for such a long period. Good luck to them. While I'd love to tackle a project with a $7m budget someday, I'm glad we don't do rep!

Also, via email, an invitation from Jim Petosa, Director of the School of Theatre: Jim says "I am writing to get word to you about an exciting performance opportunity coming up this weekend at the Boston University Theatre. The School of Theatre will be presenting Tom Stoppard and Andre Previn's collaborative piece for six actors and 47 piece orchestra, EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR. This a fine piece of theatre that is seldom seen because of its unique requirements. If you would like to attend please contact the box office at 617 933 8600." or visit www.bostontheatrescene.com

I enjoyed this article in the Globe by Catherine Foster about new play development in Boston (and well, yes, the Huntington).

Congrats to cast, crew, staff......... EVERYONE on a great opening night for Mauritius last night. A full house of family, friends, and press filled the Wimberly for an energetic and exciting performance, followed by a cast party in Deane Hall. We're keeping our fingers crossed for good reviews in the Friday papers. Mauritius Factoids: Did you know that one million in hundred dollar bills weighs 20lbs? The suitcase full of cash (theoretically) contains $3 million (yet since it's a prop only weighs 10-15lbs) and yes, we'll fix the latch.

In this morning's email:

"Hi - I want to express how nice everyone was working on the play.
What a good staff. I also liked the theater.
By very best to you all"
(Scenic Designer) Eugene Lee

Last but not least, some of my favs: my two favorite local Arts blogs are Joel Brown's HubArts.com and the Boston Globe's Exhibitionist ("Buzz Off, Huntington!" says Geoff Edgers). Playbill.com and TCG have the word on Theatre across the nation. And for local folks in the biz... StageSource.

(as for the photo... Well everyone was stumbling around, over, under and through the Radio Golf set on Monday as it sat in our Huntington Ave shops waiting to be loaded into three semi trucks bound for Chicago on Tuesday)