All My Sons: A Retrospective

I really can't believe it's over--after three weeks of intensive rehearsals and work, it all boiled down to three days of performance and suddenly, we're on to Earnest. I think that as a director, I focused so much on fitting as much rehearsal time into a few weeks that the actual performance dates sort of snuck up on me. But, sure enough, thursday, friday and saturday found me seated in the back row, right next to my skilled co-director, Arika, watching as our talented cast and crew made magic on stage.

Or at least, that's what we did half the time. A little secret about directors that I've found is that when we watch our own productions, we aren't always watching the show--rather, we do the best we can to keep our eyes on the stage while focusing our attention on the audience and how they're reacting. And so, night after night, we watched as people laughed, cringed, and cried along with the performances. Afterwards, friends and acquaintences congratulated cast, directors and crew alike for creating such a wonderful show.

But the most touching response came from people who almost none of us even know--the majority of our audience, senior citizens from the town of Northfield. Arika and I watched in disbelief as night after night, we saw older members of our audience in tears by the end of the show. Now, normally, I would feel bad about making old people cry, but this seemed a bit different. After the show, one man explained that he remembers his many friends who were veterans and was touched by how accurately Jared Evans had portrayed the same conflicts he remembered onstage. The more people who talked to us, the more we were made aware of how we had touched people. Making such an impression on an audience with so much more experience with the period the play took place in and the issues it deals with, an audience so much different than what we are all used to in UNCO, is something that we're all proud of.

-Ben

Opening Night!!

All My Sons opens tonight, and boy are we excited!

Or at least Jared Evans is, as indicated by the photo at right.

After a few harried weeks of rehearsal and set building and light hanging, it's finally time for our inaugural show of the return of UNCO. We've been lucky enough to have gotten some press coverage recently. There was a great article in the Northfield News last week, and we made the front of the Carleton website.

Now for a few photographs:



The stalwart directors of All My Sons, Ben Egerman and Arika Garg, contemplate their next move during rehearsal in the Green Room.






The finished stage floor.











The "lawn" was painted with feather dusters on a stick.










Rachel and Karen sponged the path. As you can see, it made them very happy.










And here's the cast on the finished set! From left to right: Hal Edmonson as Joe Keller, Rachel Teagle as Ann Deever, Jared Evans as Chris Keller, Jenny Gibbins as Kate Keller, and Max Herzl-Betz as Jim Bayliss.









We also took a few pictures of the hail storm a few days ago. Several of our company members had never seen one before.








Especially not one with golf-ball sized hail.

But, inclement weather aside, we're ready to put on a fantastic show this weekend. House opens at 7:30, show starts at 8.
Hope to see you there.

Building the Keller House

Huge set building day today! We've got a house and a roof and a porch! And pictures!

To see captions, click the white box in the corner.



And here's a link to the album itself. More to come!

Set Building

One week down!

Well, tomorrow at noon we'll have completed our first full week of UNCO. Without a full company yet (Jared arrives tomorrow to complete our band), we've spent our evenings working away in Arena, removing the dance floor, painting the stage, hanging curtains and scrims, and starting to do some design for All My Sons. Between this and most people coping with their first full week of working full time on campus, I don't think there'd be much disagreement if I said this week has been a bit exhausting. What's more, just doing the manual labor side of theater doesn't always inspire the adrenaline rush of rehearsing and performing--let alone doing so in only three weeks--so next week will, I think, give everyone a spark to start the season off.

That said, it's been nice to have a week to just settle into the pace of summer life here--even though there seems to be one clerical snafu after another. On move-in day, we had to go through a mad scramble to find our keys, after the Residential Life Office turned out not to have them. After tracking down the proper administrator, we discovered that for very complicated reasons, facilities was not aware that these houses were occupied, and had changed the locks for the summer. On Monday morning, those living in the Faculty Club Annex were awakened by facilities knocking on our door at 7 a.m., and were informed that our house was closed, and that security had been called to remove us. We managed to ward them off by dangling our keys and official-looking, but our patience began to wear thin when, on Wednesday, the Reunion crew showed up to tell us that alums were going to be housed in our rooms. Suffice it to say, we'll be only mildly surprised if next week we arrive home from work to find that our houses have been demolished in order to build a new dorm.

It's been a busy weekend, what with Reunion going on. The campus has been overrun with alums being veritably submerged in college-purchased booze in hopes of securing more donations. On the plus side, this means plenty of events for us to crash, and fantastic food to mooch. Last night, for instance, there was a dance party in the Goodhue Superlounge that featured no less than seven (yes, that's right, seven) full kegs, as well as a rather impressive fireworks display from Mai Fete. And there is talk of alumni putting together a reunion CHELSEA 11:17 performance, which we will all be attending, of course.

We'll be updating you all soon on how our first week of rehearsals is going, and we hope to see you all in Arena on July 5th! But in the meantime, enjoy some snapshots of this week.

-Hal

Max cooking up this delicious chicken recipe.


One big happy, chicken-eating family.

Arena, once we were done with it.

Arena from the stage.

Karen is very passionate about her lighting plot.
Reunion decided to open the tunnels (!!!). What's a Carleton student to do but bust out some sharpies and add their mark to the sea of graffiti.

All My Sons

All My Sons

by Arthur Miller

Show Dates: July 5, 6, 7

The year is 1947 and Chris Keller is anticipating his marriage to Ann Deever, the former fiancée of his brother, Larry, who went missing in action during the war. His mother, however, is not willing to concede that her son is dead, and the allegations of war profiteering for which his father was acquitted still loom. Past, present and future intersect and violently clash with one another in this gripping tragedy of a thoroughly American family.

Directed by Ben Egerman and Arika Garg

Cast:

Joe Keller	Hal Edmonson
Kate Keller	Jenny Gibbins
Chris Keller	Jared Evans
Ann Deever	Rachel Teagle
George Deever	Russell O'Connell
Jim Bayliss	Max Herzl-Betz
Sue Bayliss	Emily Ruff
Frank Lubey	Alex Fisher
Lydia Lubey	Karen Borchert
Bert	Noah Schomburg