Rock and Roll hits Chicago

We did the workshop of our Rock and Roll show this weekend – it was a blast, very inspiring, and a little bit of the old school.

One of the things I’ve been trying to figure out at ATL, is can that “small theater, bunch of people putting on a show theater brilliance vibe” live in a large regional institution. Can you create work in the room, full of risk, that’s about the people in the show? Can you really create collaborative work – or does collaboration in a regional theater sense mean the lighting designer and the sound designer share the space above the stage? With both this show and the anthology, I feel like we’re going the small theater route – putting together a great team, building excitement and making sure we write down our best ideas on bar napkins.

So, we did a reading of the show – with a band – the actors volunteered their time, came in and read it cold. The band practiced for 30 minutes and then was good to go. This was old old school. Brian Lilllienthal drove six hours, played in the band, drank at the Green Mill, slept on a floor and then drove back – allright, we’re actually so old school, we’re back in college.

But it was rather inspiring. Walking up the stairs at DePaul, I could see theater students – who were trying to work on breathing exercises – wondering why “London Calling” was playing above them. I wonder if it’s easier or harder to breather to the Clash?

I spent Sunday afternoon with my good friends Sean and Noelle – two of my favorite people - they have a young son Jack, who is 4 months old and having a tough time, after going thru several surgeries, still needs a major liver transplant. It’s almost impossible to spend time in a situation like that and not be amazingly clear about what’s actually important in the world. As I left them and went to our reading – I couldn’t help but be thankful for all these people that had made so many sacrifices to help us do our little skit. I even got a little teary at the end, as we told our sweeter stories and the band played Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” to bring the show home.

For today, the little theater vibe reigns supreme. Of course, as I finish typing this, I’m late for a meeting – so we’ll see how the rest of the day goes.

PS - on the way we stopped at the most amazing dinner shack in Indiana. 'Nuff said.