Then is Now: Daisy @ ACT

Quarter-Inch Scale Model of the Set Design of Daisy
designed by Shawn Ketchum Johnson

Show: Daisy; by Sean Devine

Theatre: ACT; Seattle, WA

Tickets: ACT Pass

Date & Time: Friday, July 29, 2016 @ 8pm

I went into this show 100% skeptical that I'd enjoy myself. A play about the advertising campaign to elect Lyndon B Johnson in 1964? Didn't we JUST do this at The Seattle Rep and Oregon Shakespeare Festival with All the Way and The Great Society? Why are playwrights so obsessed with this time in American politics? As a 32-year-old, the pitch of the parallels of the political climate of LBJ's terms with today feels more like a half-ass attempt to make a story that appeals to the majority of the aging theatre audiences appeal to my demographic and younger.

Which means that I was pleasantly surprised by this evening of theatre.

It started by attending the ACTPass Member Party on the roof of ACT. As a former audience services employee, I was totally down to be on the receiving end of the carefully constructed social event to entice members/subscribers to feel invested in the theatre beyond the usual ticket purchase. That is why I was able to snap a picture of the set model above. Peppered around the room that the gathering was held in were costume plates, scenic drawings, and models for Daisy and the shows that had come before (Stupid Fucking Bird and The Mystery of Love and Sex). As a designer, this kind of insight is super cool to me and I always nerd out over seeing the art that will be full-scale, 3-D that evening. I was not the only person inspecting these artifacts, so I know it's not just my specific brand of nerdiness that this appeals to.

Once we sat down to see the show, I was immediately impressed with the scale of the wall of TVs that was created for the show. An innovative way to both incorporate the media that the story of the play centers around, but also allow for projections that indicate place, time, and other story elements that advance the story. Interestingly, my date for the evening, a friend from high school, and I compared notes about the first TVs we remembered being like one of the TVs in the back wall. Despite our generational distance from 1964, we still felt a connection to it. This got me to thinking about the kind of nostalgia that I worried that this and plays like All the Way and The Great Society produce in the average theatre patron of the large theatre houses. Looking around the audience last night, I can attest that we were two of the youngest people sitting in the theatre. Even during the usual last-minute rush-ticket seating, the average age of the audience pushed well north of 50.

And that's unfortunate.

Unlike Robert Schenkkan's plays, which really operate as historical dramas of the LBJ presidency, Daisy, while based on true events, analyzes the human component of people grappling with the changing political landscape of the 1960s, specifically the terror that gripped the country on the verge of a war with Vietnam. The play centers around the ethics of a ground-breaking commercial that aimed to paint Barry Goldwater as a nuclear-trigger-happy candidate for president while not outright saying that. The advertising team struggles with the manipulation of praying on America's worst fears in such a blatant way. See the ad below:

As the dramaturgical material in the program and throughout the lobby, it is eerie how many people of America viewed Barry Goldwater as a crazy, off-kilter candidate who could not, should not be the Republican nominee, let alone the next president of the United States. This ad, nick-named "Daisy" by the team, was a calculated move to incite fear at the alternative to voting for LBJ. The team went on to receive harsh rebuke by the public and other politicians, but also to receive praise for the change in advertising tactics that the spot marked.

This glimpse into history is enough to make this play worth a viewing.

But this world-premiere at ACT of a play that they helped develop in the Icicle Creek New Play Festival, is one of the most deft productions I've seen at ACT. From the set design (see more work by Shawn Ketchum Johnson) to the staging, this piece gives me hope that theatre in Seattle is not just stagnating.

That said, I still took issue with some things. In order to diversify the cast, the one non-white actor was a composite character made up of newspaper journalists and civil right's leaders. The female character in the piece existed because the playwright up and changed one of the real-life ad-men into a woman. I appreciate the effort, but let's be honest with ourselves about how the choice to program a play about this time period means that the diversity of gender and race on stage is going to be lacking. To completely change historical characters so that the diversity numbers check some boxes is as much a pandering to the audience as it is a disservice to the people that the story is about.

Also, why isn't this play being peddled in such a way to attract a diverse audience base? As it stands, if this play only primarily reaches the typical ACT audience base, it is a piece of nostalgia (per my anecdotal experience of listening to the audience sitting around us). Without a wider audience base that is younger and more racially diverse, then the lessons to be learned about how we are doomed to repeat our mistakes through inaction at the polls this fall are only things written about in the program and The Seattle Times. And yes, I believe the marketing efforts and ticket prices are as much a point to review as the production itself.

The show runs for another week. I recommend heading out to see it if you can. There are a ton of ways to get discounted tickets at ACT that you may not know about. Including Pay What You Can on Sundays, $20 on Tuesdays, and $15 tickets to students/Under 25! You will not be disappointed to spend your money to see this production. AND you'll likely be more terrified of what we are facing in 2016.

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And now, some stats:

# of Actors: 6
# of Female Characters: 1
# of Non-white Characters: 1

# of Artistic Team Members Listed on Title Page of Program: 12
# of Female Artistic Team Members: 3
(including: Costume Designer, Assistant Costume Designer, and Dramaturg)

Light and Frothy: Singin' In The Rain @ Leavenworth Summer Theatre

Show: Singin' In the Rain; book by Betty Comden & Adolph Green, lyrics by Arthur Freed, music by Nacio Herb Brown

Theatre: Leavenworth Summer Theatre; Leavenworth, WA

Tickets: Comp

Date & Time: Thursday, July 21, 2016 @ 8pm

First, let me lay out the why of seeing this show. I headed to the little Bavarian town east of Seattle to support my friend, Phil Lacey, in the lead roll of Don Lockwood. As he put it, I was being given the opportunity to see a rare treat as he has more recently transitioned to working primarily as a director.

Now that you know why I drove three hours to see a show, it's also fair to admit that I went into the evening with low expectations. In part because the last time I saw a production of Singing' in the Rain was at a community theatre in Rockwall, TX, starring a bunch of teenagers. But also because Leavenworth Summer Theatre is true summer stock theatre. With a cult-like following among the returning artists, the three shows produced every summer are rehearsed and performed in grueling repertory in three different locations that LST has the fortune of renting from the Parks Department. As you may be able to tell from my photo above, Singin' in the Rain is performed on a covered stage at the Leavenworth Fish Hatchery run by US Fish and Wildlife. The audience sits on folding chairs that are arranged on a gentle slope. Other than the folding chair part, the opportunity to sit outside, surrounded by the beautiful backdrop of hills and evergreen trees as the sun goes down in midsummer is pretty special. Which I'm sure contributes to why the house was packed. For instance, the two families that were sitting beside me were taking a break from their camping vacation. The family to my right had been coming to LST for many, many years and were convincing another neighbor to be sure to catch The Sound of Music as it was "the best year yet." As a newbie to the LST experience, the utter lack of cynicism that you often catch snippets of sitting in the Seattle theatres was refreshing and downright infectious.

Low expectations aside, the show was really quite enjoyable. The stage version was adapted from the 1952 movie staring Gene Kelley, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds. Without a big budget and technically advanced theatre space, creating the scenic world of Singin' in the Rain is a difficult task.The show jumps between interior and exterior locations ranging from "outside Graumann's Chinese Theatre" to "An Empty Soundstage" to "Hollywood Boulevard." The stage version feels shoe-horned into the musical conceit of in-one scenes to allow for scene shifts to happen upstage of a curtain or scrim. This particular production relied on wagons that were changed out upstage of a red curtain. And, most importantly, they had the requisite rain during the titular song that closes Act 1. (The show I saw in Rockwall, TX relied on a mylar rain curtain.) I also have to mention that I was downright floored by some of the costumes that walked on stage. On that stage was proof that there are some really well-maintained stocks that can give the big rental houses a run for their money for one of the hardest parts of costuming a musical: matching chorus costumes.

If we take Singin' in the Rain for what it is--frothy entertainment--and put it in communities like Leavenworth built around charming the pants off tourists with the faux-Bavarian facades, then my evening was a success. I got to see my friend tap dance "in the rain" and to congratulate another talented actor, Morgan Bader, who I worked with on South Pacific on yet another hilarious turn on the stage. And, as I overheard one woman in the audience, it's refreshing to just enjoy affordable theatre rather than feeling fleeced by the ticket prices in Seattle for shows that leave you feeling meh. Next time I hope I'll have more time to enjoy Leavenworth and take in LST's crown jewel: Sound of Music set atop the ski hill.

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And now, some stats:

# of Actors: 24 (approx)
# of Female Characters: 5 named (+ 8 ensemble)
# of Non-white Characters/Performers: 0

# of Artistic Team Members Listed on Title Page of Program: 15
# of Female Artistic Team Members: 9
(including: Director, Assistant to the Director, Choreographer, Assistant to the Costumer, Scenic Artist, Sound Board Operator, Light Board Operator, Props Master, and Costume Mistress)