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Thank You for Your Support – Faerie Tales, 2013

IMG_9942

Dear friends, thank you for your support in both attending our recent production of “Faerie Tales,” and also donating to our Indiegogo fundraising campaign. With your help we were able to raise most of the funds necessary to cover the costs of this production. However, we did not make our fundraising goal, and therefore we may have to conduct another campaign in order to close that gap and cover the rest of our costs.

In the meantime, we are preparing our next events – we can’t formally announce them yet, as there is still some paperwork to be done, but as soon as we can, this website will be updated with the latest news.

In addition, you may have noticed that our website has an entirely new appearance. We have upgraded our site in order to more easily bring you the latest news in a timely fashion. So whether you follow us here, on Facebook, on Twitter, or with our email newsletter (which, admittedly, we have been a bit lax in sending out – our apologies), we thank you for your attention.

Watch our trailer to learn about “FAERIE TALES” produced earlier this year — May 23-26, 2013 at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, Watertown, MA

Faerie Tales logo

“FAERIE TALES” is a new creation – a pair of one-act musicals set in the “land of faerie,” the fictional setting of all traditional fairy tales from days of yore.

Act 1 is “Goblin Market” – by Polly Pen and Peggy Harmon, music by Polly Pen, based on the original Victorian-era poem by Christina Rossetti

Act 2 is the World Premiere of “The Rag Doll” – written as a companion piece to “Goblin Market,” and loosely based on the Grimm’s Fairy Tale “The Goose Girl at the Spring.” Book by Silvia Graziano, music and lyrics by David Reiffel

“Faerie Tales” featured Teresa Winner Blume and Abigail Clarke (pictured above)

Directed by Jesse Strachman   Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez   Choreography by Kira Cowan

Performed at the Arsenal Center for the Arts Black Box, 321 Arsenal Street, Watertown, MA 02472



Blue Spruce Theatre was created in September, 2006 to bring high-quality, intimate musical theatre to audiences beyond Boston. The mission is to produce works that connect us to each other as people and provide us with a better understanding of who we are, where we came from, and where we are headed.

The Creative Process

Logo from Portraits: The Last Leaf / Still Life

The logo for “Portraits” (2008). Young photographer “Honey” (from Still Life) looks wistfully on at a painting of herself as “Johnsy” (from The Last Leaf). Rachel Baum posed in costume for both images, which were then post-processed in Photoshop to create the final product.

It’s been a while since my last entry, and I wanted to talk a little bit about our upcoming production, titled Faerie Tales. There’s probably a bit of mystery to it, as there was around 2008’s Portraits: The Last Leaf / Still Life. “Portraits” was a pair of previously separate one-act musicals that were tied together with several basic themes (art, sacrifice, the power of love to inspire). We managed to rig it so both pieces were set in the same apartment in Greenwich Village, 100 years apart, and maintained the same cast between both acts in order to enhance that feeling of connection. This was a very effective device, and while we don’t want to copy that, what we’re doing with Faerie Tales is more or less the same thing, with a twist.

Original Cover Art for Goblin Market

Original cover art for Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market and Other Poems” (linked via Wikipedia)

Act 1 of Faerie Tales will be Polly Penn and Peggy Harmon’s musical adaptation of Christina Rossetti’s classic poem “Goblin Market.” It runs around 70 minutes, and features an eclectic musical score, and a cast of two women who play all the parts and act as storytellers to the audience. This “morality tale” is today also viewed as an essential piece of Victorian-era erotica, due to its evocative imagery and sensual undertones. (Read about Goblin Market at Wikipedia.)

The musical Goblin Market runs about 70 minutes, by itself, and many theater companies would simply produce it as a stand-alone piece despite its brevity. However, for the past two years, Blue Spruce has been working with Silvia Graziano and David Reiffel, developing new, short musical works, and we saw this as a perfect opportunity to create some sort of companion piece. This is where the mystery comes in.

At this time, we don’t know what the companion piece is going to be about. We do know that it will be “Faerie Tale”-themed, as in “taking place in the land of Faerie.” Naturally this leaves us a bright, shiny new canvas to paint on, as the world of fairy tales is infinitely diverse (despite being exhaustively classified by the Aarne-Thompson system). The subject matter will depend heavily on the result of our creative process.

FRINGE WARS logoThe previous year’s output (2011) was driven by entering pieces into competition – specifically Company One’s FRINGE WARS – and we won each of the rounds in which we entered. Naturally this was an exciting opportunity for us, but more importantly, it allowed us to craft a way of coming up with ideas for plays. For the first round, we were required to create a 15-minute Dark Comedy, and were given a few requirements – a prop, a character name, a line. We then spent almost two weeks doing nothing but playing improv games with our actors, and discussing the basic elements – such as, what makes something a Dark Comedy? – until our writers found an idea they could latch on to, and then they crafted the music and book around the actors we had. This resulted in the surprisingly devastating little piece, titled The Royal Institute for the Support and Healing of the Arts.

After winning that round, we were eligible to compete in the finals, and for that we were told to create a 25-minute Mystery. This time, our process was a little bit different. We started out as before with a full discussion with the entire team (cast and crew) about all the different types of mysteries: murder mysteries (whodunit?), thrillers, ghost stories, and crossovers with various genres such as horror, comedy, etc. We were lucky enough to have on board the incredibly talented Erica Spyres as an actress, and we wanted to somehow feature her virtuosity on the fiddle (she’s been playing since she was little). This summoned images of the American South and the Midwest for us, and therefore we took some time to examine how mysteries might be set in those areas. Part of the creative team (Silvia, myself, and my wife and co-conspirator PJ Strachman) took a couple of weekends to watch some mysteries (most notably “Dead & Buried” and “The Gift”) to give us some ideas, and then our book-writer Silvia came up with a shortlist of ideas she wanted to use.

Kansas Historical Marker - Bloody Benders history

A historical marker remains at the infamous Leatherock Hotel, operated by the allegedly murderous Benders from 1871-1873.

Silvia and myself then met with our songwriter David Reiffel at the Life Alive in Central Square, Cambridge, to go through the list. Silvia presented us with a couple of real-life mystery/horror stories she had been reading about, and the one with the most seeming potential for a musical was the so-called “Bloody Benders” – a family of mass-murderers who owned an inn in Kansas from 1871 to 1873. From there, we came up with the idea that perhaps the Bender family was somehow still alive and well today, and still in the trade, as it were. The rest was relatively straightforward; we came up with plausible ways the Inn could operate, and stole the name of the Inn from the name of the town in “Dead & Buried” – Potter’s Bluff – which we rendered as “Potter’s Field” (a potter’s field is an anonymous grave site). Add in a curious wandering stranger to solve the mystery, and voila! Potter’s Field Bed and Breakfast was born.

Combining elements from ghost stories, murder mysteries, and dark comedy, Potter’s Field was a winner at FRINGE WARS for the final round, and helped solidify what appeared to be a winning creative process for development of short musicals. So, naturally, the next question was, what do we do next?

Goblin Market had been on my radar since immediately following our 2007 inaugural production of The Last 5 Years, thanks to a recommendation that I look into it by Kenneth Westhassel (who was kind enough to usher for us). Coming off of our recent hiatus (see our previous few blog entries for information about that), we were looking at very small shows to produce, so Goblin Market bubbled to the top of the list, as it requires minimal set and only two actresses. It turned out that both David Reiffel, and our regular Music Director Dan Rodriguez, were already very familiar with the piece. And so, it seemed logical that the next steps would be to come up with something to go with it.

Image still from "The Grandmother"

Image from “The Grandmother” (linked from sensesofcinema.com). This short film by David Lynch tells the story of a boy who grows a loving grandmother from some seeds and dirt.

So far, the creative team has held an initial kickoff meeting (over crepes in Davis Square), and a weekend day-long movie-viewing (similar to what we did for Potter’s Field). Movies viewed for inspiration varied drastically – from an early David Lynch short film (The Grandmother), to Jim Henson’s Fairy Tales, and we even watched an episode of the new Doctor Who series. We took notes as we went, about fairy tales in general, and stopped and discussed items of interest several times along the way. Now, the next steps involve the generation of a shortlist of ideas. We’ll probably hold off on final decisions until we see who we cast in a few weeks at auditions, and then integrate them into the creative process. But one thing I’m confident in – whatever happens, I’m pretty sure we’ll come up with another winner.

Auditions for “FAERIE TALES” – November 5 and 6, 2012

Blue Spruce Theatre Announces Auditions for:

“Faerie Tales”

Including Polly Pen and Peggy Harmon’s “Goblin Market”
and a New Work Yet to Be Written by Silvia Graziano and David Reiffel

Auditions November 5-6 7pm-10pm
by appointment
Callbacks evening of November 7

Auditions will be held at:
First Parish of Watertown Church
35 Church Street
Watertown, MA 02472

Directed by Jesse Strachman
Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez
Choreography by Kira Cowan

AUDITION DETAILS

About the audition process:

General auditions will be held by appointment in 5-minute increments. To request an appointment time, please email info@bluesprucetheatre.org , or call 978-667-0512. All audition appointments will be confirmed. Walk-ins will be accommodated as possible. Please bring a headshot and resume if available.

Singers should prepare two contrasting 16-bar selections that best show off your singing abilities. A song from outside of the musical theatre repertoire is acceptable if it best suits your voice. You may sing a selection from the show if you choose, but please bring your sheet music with you as we will NOT have a copy of the score on hand. An accompanist will be provided. Actors may be asked to read a short side at the audition.

Callbacks may consist of prepared song and scene selections from the musical, and all actors will be asked to perform some sort of movement combination at callbacks.

Actors of all ethnicities are encouraged to audition.

Please direct questions to us via our email address:  info@bluesprucetheatre.org or call us at 978-667-0512.

Roles in FAIRIE TALES:

GOBLIN MARKET (which will be performed as Act 1 of FAIRIE TALES):

THE STORY: Based on the poem by Christina Rossetti. Two proper Victorian sisters (LAURA and LIZZIE), both now grown women and mothers, return to their childhood nursery to relive the haunting memories of their youth. Magically, they are transported back to their girlhood, as their nursery becomes a woodland glen peopled by bizarre goblins who entice them with luscious fruits and promises of unimagined ecstasies. One of the sisters, Laura, partakes of the forbidden offerings, while her sibling, Lizzie, bargains desperately with the fey creatures to save Laura from inexorably falling under their spell. Blending music, poetry and entrancing imagery, the play is a dazzling journey through the psyches of the two sisters as they explore the fervent, erotic yearnings of their adolescence in contrast with the matter-of-fact world that they now inhabit.

LAURA and LIZZIE (for Goblin Market):

Age range: roughly 20ish to 40ish, with some flexibility. Both are more or less mezzo-sopranos, with some low and high notes that may be required at times. Some audio samples from the show are available here:
http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=1892

A NEW WORK AS YET TO BE WRITTEN (which will be performed as Act 2 of FAIRIE TALES):

Both actors from GOBLIN MARKET will be used in additional roles in a new work to be used as the second act of FAERIE TALES and will get to collaborate with the production team in developing this work.

REHEARSAL INFORMATION

Rehearsals will begin in mid-April, and will run several weeknights each week, and at least one weekend afternoon/evening per week. The final rehearsal schedule is TBD. Please be sure to list all conflicts on audition forms so that we can schedule appropriately.

All roles come with a stipend/honorarium.

Rehearsals will be held at
First Parish of Watertown Church
35 Church Street
Watertown, MA 02472

Check your bus listings if you are traveling by public transportation. The First Parish Church is walking distance from Watertown Center (approximately 15-minute walk).

PERFORMANCE DATES

Performances will be May of 2013 at the Arsenal Center for the Arts Black Box in Watertown.


Blue Spruce Theatre was created in September, 2006 to bring high-quality, intimate musical theatre to audiences beyond Boston. The mission is to produce works that connect us to each other as people and provide us with a better understanding of who we are, where we came from, and where we are headed.

Save the Date! August 19, Reflections on Life

We’re at it again! We’ll be holding a fun, casual evening of entertainment at The Burren in Somerville on Sunday, August 19, starting around 5:30pm and going until they kick us out (around 7:30pm). We’ll start things out with a fun concert (showtunes!), and segue into an open mic where YOU are the show!

Don’t forget to bring your sheet music and strut your stuff. The theme of the evening is “Reflections on Life” this time – feel free to keep that in mind when you make your selections to sing. Mark your calendars and save the date! This will be a lot of fun and we have great performances lined up. If you’re thinking of singing for the open mic portion, please feel free to sign up here and tell us what you’re singing! (This will help us prevent duplicates so everyone will get to sing what they want!)

Reflections on Life

Hope you all enjoy the show and have a great time! Note that the performance is FREE – we will be asking people for a voluntary small donation at the door ($5 would be nice) that will go to Blue Spruce Theatre (and helps us come back from our hiatus!). Thanks for your support!

The Burren
247 Elm Street, Davis Square
Somerville MA 02144

The Burren, a great rocky expanse in Ireland’s County Clare, is one of the world’s truly unique places. Its ancient, awe inspiring stone structures hold secrets from the past that may never be unraveled. Closer to home, The Burren, Irish Pub and Restaurant in Somerville’s Davis Square, is now one of Boston’s truly unique places. It captures the mythical nature of its namesake with a rich old world feel that takes hold and slowly pulls you toward another time.

Blue Spruce Theatre is a proud member company of the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston.

The Anatomy of a Comeback

Whenever I am out and about, the first thing people ask me about is, “How is Blue Spruce doing?” and I always have to give them the same answer: “We’re still on hiatus.” What exactly does that mean?

Essentially it means that we’re not in a position where we feel comfortable producing a full-scale musical. We set aside a certain amount of debt that we want to pay off before we being producing again. The good news is that we’ve already paid off more than half. When we do finish paying it off, we have to make sure that we have a way to ensure that we don’t end up with that same mountain of debt we were left with before. So, how do we do that? We’re open to suggestions, but two ways immediately come to mind:

One: Fundraising.

This is one of two things that most small theater companies are worst at, the other being marketing. We cannot continue to produce the top-quality shows that you’ve come to expect without somehow paying the bills. Unfortunately, ticket revenue has historically only paid for between 1/6 and 1/3 of the total cost of producing a show. (I do think we can do better than that – attendance has been historically low to most of our shows, despite relatively low ticket prices and all the awards and outstanding reviews. However, we should assume that attendance will continue to be what it has been, as most small theater companies have comparable attendance to ours, and we only seat 90 at most anyway.) So, we’ll need to find some ways of raising revenue that don’t just involve getting so-called “butts in seats,” whether it’s a series of fundraising concerts, or finally going 501(c)3 and applying for grants. (The latter is a complex, expensive, and lengthy process with no guarantees of success, and therefore we’re reluctant to commit to that fully until we’re sure we have our house in order.)

Two: Cutting costs.

This is the thing that hurts. We already operate on a shoestring, for the most part, although we do pay our personnel (actors, musicians, designers). We don’t want to change that, and honestly, that’s not the biggest problem; the rights to shows and rental of performance and rehearsal spaces tend to be most of the cost. However, that’s unlikely to change much. So, there are a couple things we can do:

Shorter runs

This is a bit problematic, since one of the complaints we got when we produced The Last 5 Years was “if you only have a two-week run of a show, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to make it; if only you had done a third weekend!” Attendance was low, and we had fewer opportunities to make up for the first weekend’s poor attendance; by the time the reviews came out and word of mouth spread, we were about to close. So, we expanded to three weekends and added extra shows for our second show, Portraits: The Last Leaf / Still Life. This added cost and also added many more opportunities for people to see the show, but, as it turns out, it didn’t really increase overall attendance (and we ended up having to cancel several shows). So, one way we can cut costs is to cut our runs back to one or two weekends. This is disappointing, because we would like to give people more opportunities to perform after they spend so long rehearsing a show. However, I expect that our next show is going to run for only two weekends, and we may cut Thursdays and Saturday matinees – which is when the press typically comes, but few others.

Less expensive shows

With each successive show, our budgets – and our ambitions – have expanded. Each show saw additional technical challenges: our first show (The Last 5 Years) saw sophisticated lighting effects (water effects, spinning clocks); Portraits had the “leaf wall” (which simulated the falling of leaves in Johnsy’s bedroom) and featured new orchestrations including a harpist; Hedwig and the Angry Inch had projections and video and complex sound requirements; and 2010’s Once on This Island (our most ambitious and critically acclaimed project to date) had the largest cast, and the most complex costumes, choreography and set we’ve ever had to work with in The Black Box at the Arsenal Center. But all of that comes at a cost. We don’t want to start charging $70 a ticket, as no one would show up, so we have to somehow find simpler, more effective ways of telling a story without adding cost. Minimal set, minimal costumes, minimal lights and orchestra, without losing quality. That is probably our central challenge as we contemplate our comeback.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, first, people seem to be really curious about what goes on within a theater company, as that’s what most of the questions I get are about. But second, we want you all to know that we really are still alive, and trying to come back as soon as we can. Naturally, the shows we’re looking at are still ambitious, and we hope you will be pleasantly surprised at what we come up with when we do finally return to producing so-called “mainstage” productions. Meantime, we’re going to continue putting on small, intimate concerts, and maybe participate in festivals here and there where we can, so we can stay active. Please stay tuned – we’re not done yet, and we hope you join us when we do return, full tilt, with yet another ambitious and crowd-pleasing project.

Very best,
Jesse Strachman

Save the Date! April 15 – Reflections on Love: a dressed-up cabaret and open mic

Let’s play dress-up! We’ll be holding an exciting evening of entertainment at The Burren in Somerville on Sunday, April 15 (tax day!) starting around 5pm and going until they kick us out (around 8pm). We’ll start things out with a fun concert (showtunes!), and segue into an open mic where YOU are the show!

David Carney, Kira Cowan, Kaedon Gray, Lenni Kmiec, Joelle Kross, David Lucey, Dan Rodriguez, Heather Hannon Rufo, Erica Spyres, Jesse Strachman, open mic, Blue Spruce Theatre, The Burren, Somerville

Dress in your favorite formal and/or wacky gear, and bring your sheet music and strut your stuff. The theme of the evening is “Reflections on Love” – feel free to keep that in mind when you make your selections to sing. Mark your calendars and save the date! This will be a lot of fun and we have a ton of great performers lined up. If you’re thinking of singing for the open mic portion, please feel free to sign up here and tell us what you’re singing! (This will help us prevent duplicates so everyone will get to sing what they want!)

Hope you all enjoy the show and have a great time! Note that the performance is FREE – we will be asking people for a voluntary small donation at the door ($5 would be nice) that will go to Blue Spruce Theatre (and helps us come back from our hiatus!). Thanks for your support!

The Burren
247 Elm Street, Davis Square
Somerville MA 02144

The Burren, a great rocky expanse in Ireland’s County Clare, is one of the world’s truly unique places. Its ancient, awe inspiring stone structures hold secrets from the past that may never be unraveled. Closer to home, The Burren, Irish Pub and Restaurant in Somerville’s Davis Square, is now one of Boston’s truly unique places. It captures the mythical nature of its namesake with a rich old world feel that takes hold and slowly pulls you toward another time.

Blue Spruce Theatre is a proud member company of the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston.

We pulled it off!

Blue Spruce Theatre won the second round in Company One’s FRINGE WARS, and will be competing in the final round on July 26!

FRINGE WARS


Fringe Wars is a competition between Fringe Theater companies to see who can come up with the best 10-15 minute play. There are three competition dates, and the winners of each round go on to the championship event on July 26, 2011.

Blue Spruce Theatre competed in the second round and WON with their hilarious entry titled:

 

“The Royal Institute for the Support and Healing of the Arts”

Book by Silvia Graziano
Music and Lyrics by David Reiffel
Directed by Jesse Strachman
Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez

Choreography by Kira Cowan

Featuring (in alphabetical order):

Paul Giragos, Eric Hamel, Joelle Kross, and Erica Spyres

Who knows what to expect for the next round of this exciting event? Theater companies are given one month to come up with a new, 10-15 minute piece with a specific theme, character, prop and line that must be included. The next round is winner-take-all! Can we pull it off again against two other FRINGE WARS champions? Come down to the BCA Plaza Theatre on July 26 to find out!

For more information and to get tickets to the next event, click here to go to Company One’s website!

Up next: FRINGE WARS – Final Round!

Blue Spruce Theatre won the second round in Company One’s FRINGE WARS, and will be competing in the final round on July 26!

FRINGE WARSCome see Blue Spruce Theatre’s exciting new musical entry in

Company One’s
FRINGE WARS!
July 26, 7:30 pm at the BCA Plaza Theatre, 539 Tremont St., Boston, MA
[click here for tickets]

Title of the play TBD

Book by Silvia Graziano
Music and Lyrics by David Reiffel
Directed by Jesse Strachman
Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez

Featuring (in alphabetical order):
Ian Flynn, Kaedon Gray, Joelle Kross, Kara Manson, and Erica Spyres

Who knows what to expect for the next round of this exciting event? Theater companies are given one month to come up with a new, 10-15 minute piece with a specific theme, character, prop and line that must be included. The next round is winner-take-all! Can we pull it off again against two other FRINGE WARS champions? Come down to the BCA Plaza Theatre on July 26 to find out!

For more information and to get tickets to the next event, click here to go to Company One’s website!

About FRINGE WARS

Fringe Wars is a competition between Fringe Theater companies to see who can come up with the best short production. There were three competition dates, and the winners of each round go on to the championship event on July 26, 2011.

Blue Spruce Theatre competed in the second round and WON with their hilarious entry titled:

“The Royal Institute for the Support and Healing of the Arts”

Book by Silvia Graziano
Music and Lyrics by David Reiffel
Directed by Jesse Strachman
Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez
Choreography by Kira Cowan

Featuring (in alphabetical order):

Paul Giragos, Eric Hamel, Joelle Kross, and Erica Spyres

Once on This Island winners of 2 IRNE Awards

Latest news:

Once on This Island – winner! Best Director, Best Music Director
Nominated for 7 IRNE (Independent Reviewers of New England) Awards

Our 2010 production of Ahrens and Flaherty’s Once on This Island was nominated for awards in the following categories:

  • Best Costumes (Lindsay Hurley)
  • Best Choreography (Jennifer Condon)
  • Best Supporting Actress in a Musical (Kendra Alati – Asaka)
  • Best Music Director (Dan Rodriguez) – winner
  • Best Director of a Musical (Jennifer Condon / Jesse Strachman) – winner
  • Best Musical
  • Young Performer Award (Alexa Niziak – Young Ti Moune)

Many thanks to the IRNE committee for recognizing us with these honors. We’re thankful and humbled to be recognized in so many categories this year, especially since we’re undergoing so many changes. Thanks to everyone who made this show such a special experience.

ONCE ON THIS ISLAND

Book and Lyrics By LYNN AHRENS
Music By STEPHEN FLAHERTY

Directed by Jennifer Condon
and Jesse Strachman
Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez
Choreography by Jennifer Condon

October 7-24, 2010 at the
Arsenal Center for the Arts
, Watertown, MA
Once on This Island Cast

Shown left to right, above:
Kendra Alati as Asaka, Kira Cowan as Ti Moune, Steven Martin as Agwe, Ian Flynn as Tonton Julian, Alexa Niziak as Little Ti Moune (front), Jackie Theoharis as Andrea, David Carney as Daniel, Abby Cordell as Mama Euralie, Kaedon Gray as Armand, Alaina Fragoso as Erzulie, David Lucey as Papa Ge

Once on This Island wins 4 BroadwayWorld.com awards!

Once on This Island winners of four BroadwayWorld.com awards, including Best Musical!

Click here to see the article! 

ONCE ON THIS ISLAND

Book and Lyrics By LYNN AHRENS
Music By STEPHEN FLAHERTY

Directed by Jennifer Condon and Jesse Strachman
Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez
Choreography by Jennifer Condon

October 7-24, 2010 at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, Watertown, MA
 
Once on This  Island Cast

Shown left to right, above:
Kendra Alati as Asaka, Kira Cowan as Ti Moune, Steven Martin as Agwe, Ian Flynn as Tonton Julian, Alexa Niziak as Little Ti Moune (front), Jackie Theoharis as Andrea, David Carney as Daniel, Abby Cordell as Mama Euralie, Kaedon Gray as Armand, Alaina Fragoso as Erzulie, David Lucey as Papa Ge