Theater Notes

Daniel’s voter registration card (and Daniel)

“I need your vote!” “I want to vote.” “Are you going to vote?” These phrases run, like a strong, connective thread, through Thalia’s Umbrella’s upcoming production of Richard Nelson’s smart, funny and very timely play Sorry, set on Election Day, 2012. But with this play, nothing—including voting—is ever just what it seems.

Are we doing ...

Making the Model Real

In our last post we showed you Roberta’s model of the set.  Today we start technical rehearsals on that set!  The trees are not yet tacked down, and the floor paint is not finished.  But it’s such an exciting space to act in, and to watch actors in!  This is a house very much connected to the ...

“This warm gem of a place…”

Director Daniel Wilson talks with SORRY’s lighting and scenery designer, Roberta Russell.

Before our most recent production meeting for Sorry, I sat down to talk with Roberta. She is the lighting design professor at Cornish College of the Arts, and has lit numerous shows I’ve directed. Any conversation with her is a delight. ...

We’ve just finished the first week of rehearsal, and already this family of ordinary, remarkable people is starting to resolve into sharp, funny, unforgettable individuals.

UNCLE BENJAMIN (played by the always charming William Hall, ...

Our esteemed director, Daniel, does deep, detailed textual analysis as he prepares to direct a play (or maybe he just has too much time on his hands).  Sometimes this takes strange forms, such as this recent email:

“The word ‘sorry’ is used 18 times in the play. 12 times as ‘I’m sorry’; 5 times just ‘Sorry’; and one time in the phrase ‘And are you sorry?’ ‘Sorrow’ is used twice, ...

It leapt off the shelf and hit him on the head. I swear! I saw it happen. We were strolling innocently through the stacks at the downtown Seattle Public Library discussing Kierkegaard (we’d completely given up on finding a play by then) when the collected Apple Family plays, by Richard Nelson, leapt off the shelf and dropped onto Daniel’s head.

An intervention by Thalia herself? Did she take pity on ...

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
—E.B. White

My Thalia’s Umbrella theater partner, Daniel Wilson, loves this quote. (Perhaps because it so aptly describes him—and his day.) Torn thus every day, it’s no wonder Daniel jumped at my first ...