Leakesville!

Opening night, November 27, a lovely family was in the audience from Leakesville, MS. Their town ended up being the suggestion that night. You can read a summary of the show here.

A few weeks later we received a care package from them! They sent us food, books, the local Coffee News, autographed photos of local beauty queens and a wonderful note:






So we made a little "Thank you" video for them:

Tara in Kellyville!

Back in 2004, the first year we did Let It Snow, our second show was set in Kellyville, OK. It featured what to this day is one of the catchiest opening choruses (if I do say so myself) in "Kellyville, so close to being famous. Kellyville, so close!" In the audience that night was Tim Bauer, who years later would perform with us in the Great Puppet Musical, and his wife who was with him gave us the suggestion Kellyville.

Flash forward to 2008 and Tara McDonough (who directed Let It Snow in 2004, 2005, and 2007) while driving across country goes right through Kellyville and snaps this photo!

From an Audience Member

We had our first performance of Let It Snow! last night. You can read all about it and the town we featured over on my improv blog. Here's what an audience member had to say about last night's show:

I had so much fun at the show last eve. I'd never seen anything like it and was completely enchanted and awed by life unleashed on the stage by the simple suggestion of an audience contribution. I could appreciate how you all worked together to create brilliant flow with moments poignant and schmaltzy. Too, with the awkward times, the teamwork was heartening and a beautiful reminder of the humanity that lives in all our lives, improvisational as they are.

May you have a successful run . . .
Looking forward to future performances and, perhaps, another Let It Snow this season . . .

Thanks for being part of making this kind of experience possible.

A Let-It-Snow Letter from the Past!

While creating the program for this year's Let It Snow!, previewing this Thursday and Friday and opening the day after Thanksgiving, FYI,I came across the first program for the first Let It Snow! back in 2004, and re-read Tara's original director's note. It's a great reminder of the show's original concept, direct from the show creator!

Susan and I are directing it this year, and since we're different people from Tara, the show will be different, even though Susan and I have both been in the show all three of its previous runs. Doing the show so many times means we get to kick it up a notch, so we've been focusing on more singing and dancing, and we have Kind Of A Set (step unit, door, and windows!) in the minimalist spirit of Our Town.

We like to shake things up and keep on growing -- BUT, we also want to stay true to the heart of the show, and Tara's original director's note encapsulates that really well.

We love you, Tara! Stay warm in Maine! Enjoy your letter from Tara From the Past!

A Musical for the Holidays

I grew up in Maine, one mile up on a dead-end road, with our nearest neighbors a quarter-mile away. My parents were two city-slickers from Boston (I refer to my dad as the “gentleman farmer,” which I think amuses him), and every Thanksgiving, carloads of city relatives would make the two-hour drive for a “real New England Holiday.” They delighted in collecting pine cones from the side of the road, taking walks in the crisp autumn air, and being made to wear bright orange outside—it was hunting season, after all! I don’t even think they minded the year an ice-coated hill necessitated an ad-hoc end-of the-road parking lot and a shuttle service from my dad’s aged Jeep
truck.

At the time, these country thrills were pretty much lost on me. As a teenager, I focused more on the fact that all my friends’ phone numbers were toll calls, a short trip to the mall could take all day, and safety orange was definitely not a flattering color. But now, I remember those Thanksgivings with a soft-focus warmth that tricks me into forgetting all the bad stuff. And isn’t that what holidays are all about?

That’s the sort of world we’re trying to create in Let It Snow! Living someplace where everybody knows you, where things are simple (at least they seem that way), where there’s a happy ending just around the corner. Sure, that world doesn’t exist, but it seems a little closer at this time of year.

And now, here’s the rub—we’re making this all up. Nothing that you’re about to see has ever been seen before. We’ll get some suggestions from you to start us off, and from there we’ll create a classic Broadway-style musical in front of your very eyes. We’ve been studying musicals, listening to soundtracks, even practicing a few dance moves. But we don’t know what’s going to happen any more than you do. So sit back, relax, and enjoy as we build a little snowflake of a musical for you. It fades away almost as soon as you can catch it, and every one is different.

Enjoy the show!

—Tara McDonough, director [from Let It Snow! 2004]

Let It Snow FAQ and East Bay Class

With the first previews of Let It Snow just two weeks away, we thought it was time to answer some of the questions we’ve been getting about the show.

1. Yes, this is the fourth year we’ve done Let It Snow, but we’ve never done the same show twice. We’ve never even featured the same town twice. It’s always new, every night.
2. No, the show is not about any specific holiday, but meant to capture the feeling of the season as a whole. Although, we did do a show once that featured a town’s annual Halloween cross-dressers ball.
3. No, I’m not kidding (Madrid, NM, performed 11/26/2005).
4. Yes, we also did a show once about the Indian holiday Diwali (Fairfield, IA, performed 11/24/2007). So yes, occasionally a specific holiday creeps in there.
5. No, you don’t have to wear parkas, scarves, or mittens to come to the show. Although you can if you want to.
6. Yes, the show is improvised. We don’t have any scripts, songbooks, or carefully rehearsed dance numbers. Every word of dialogue, every song, and every dance number is made up as we go.
7. Yes, we will have free popcorn before the show and $1 fresh baked cookies at intermission.
8. Yes, tickets for the two preview performances are just $15 general and $8 student/senior.
9. No, the SPECIAL 25%-off coupon code is no longer valid, but…
10. YES! We’ve activated our economic stimulus package coupon. Use the code STIMULUS to get 15%-off tickets purchased online through our website now until the end of the day November 18!

Let It Snow!
November 19 – December 19
Thursdays & Fridays at 8pm
Saturdays at 3pm & 8pm
(No shows 11/21 or 11/26)

SF Playhouse, Stage 2
533 Sutter, 2nd Floor
$20 general/$10 students & seniors
Previews 11/19-11/20: $15 general/$8 students & seniors
www.un-scripted.com

Every Day Improv
with Susan Snyder

Enjoy exploring the world of improvisation in a low pressure, playful environment.
Increase your confidence, improve your public speaking skills, and enjoy the experience along the way. This class is for adults wanting their first taste of improv, and those returning to deepen their range of improvisational expression. Shy people welcome.

Dates: Sundays, November 8th & 15th
Time: 3-6pm (new time!)
Location: La Pena Cultural Center, Berkeley, CA
(street parking, walking distance from Ashby BART)
Cost: $40 single class/ $60 for two

Contact Susan to register

Course Reader: Mandy's Thoughts on "The Music Man"

The OTHER required reading (or viewing rather) for the cast is The Music Man, the 1962 production starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones (and lots of FANtastic character actors: Hermione Gingold, Pert Kelton, Paul Ford, Buddy Hackett, Mary Wickes and all those other hilarious ladies in the pack -- and little Ron Howard!). THIS movie has all of the joy and spectacle that I want from Let It Snow!, with some handy ways to sophisticate up our singing and dancing. AND, it's about someone's town. Bonus!

I know this movie reeeeeally well, but watching it again with Let It Snow! in my mind was still inspiring. One thing I really enjoyed was the way the acting, singing, and dancing all blend together: the songs all begin out of speech and slide into full-fledged song. (Well, except for "Shipoopi.") And there's dance everywhere, with all the movement highly choreographed. Teenagers chasing each other make a little dance out of it, though a song is nowhere near and they're in the background! Marian and Charley do a little back-and-forth tango when she's trying to distract him. All of Robert Preston's movements look like he could be dancing at every second -- though he's not really a very trained dancer during actual numbers, his every movement is deliberate. And all the characters are so strong and identifiable, they feel very physically real and alive, whether it's just the workaday plainness of the boys' mothers, or the sharp birdlike movements of the Pickalittle Talkalittle ladies, or the ridiculously over-grand posturing of the mayor's wife.

It's also interesting to see how environmental the songs are: they don't take place in Fantasy Musical Land of clouds and shadows, they take place where the people ARE. They dance around the statue in the town square ("Trouble"), on the courthouse steps ("Iowa Stubborn"), in the barn ("Sadder but Wiser Girl"), outside the hotel ("Pickalittle Talkalittle"), in the gymnasium ("Seventy-six Trombones"), in the library ("Marian the Librarian"). The situation in that location just becomes too strong to talk about, so they slide into singing and dancing. They remain who they are, and they're having the same conversation -- it just morphs into song. When they're done, the conversation is over!

And because the songs evolve out of conversation, the songs are *like* conversations, like the characters decide to play with one another. There's some "teaching" of songs and dances, and some back-and-forthing to guide the song along as it's being "made up" by the characters. In "Trouble," Harold Hill *gives* the choreography to the crowd and indicates what they should do when, and in "Sadder but Wiser Girl," he and Marcellus (Hackett) trade off dance steps in a little flirty dance.





The other people onstage, meanwhile, are all sucked into the dance too. They're all participating, even if it's unknowingly. Those who are in on the song often "play along" with the singer's words, like Marcellus pretending to be a girl in "Sadder but Wiser," or the kids pretending to be a marching band in "Seventy-six Trombones." Sometimes they're part of the song without really knowing it: Mrs. Paroo rocks her rocking chair in tempo with "Sweet and Low," but she's not really singing or even paying attention to the song. Marian, in "Marian the Librarian," is dancing along with the song by refusing Harold's advances -- though soon she gets absorbed into the dance and is soon leading it -- before she comes to her senses, that is.

(This is my favorite scene! Well, one of them.)


Because the whole town is often sucked into a musical number, it creates a tangible sense of community in the film. The individually identifiable characters are strong and varied, and definitely memorable (like the girl who "plays" the player piano), and we get just enough quirk from them to know who they are without too much extra. When they come together as a group, either in subgroups or as a whole town, we see them as a whole family: no matter how much they may argue and bicker, in some ways they're united. The delightful contrast between the curmudgeonly nature of some of the characters, and the earnestness with which they band together for a cause, is a feeling I'd like to absorb into our show.



Individual vs. group; singing melting into acting and dancing; songs arising from the situation; family members who argue but band together; call and response songs and dances; counterpoint songs from different points of view (Lida Rose meets Sweet and Low) - I could go on about more specific details (delightful names of people and places, glimpses of town rituals, etc) but those are pretty good points to start with, eh musicals fans?

Course Reader: Mandy's Thoughts on "Our Town"

Since Thornton Wilder's Our Town is required reading for this year's cast of Let It Snow!, I thought I'd pre-pepper the discussion with my thoughts on why I chose to have people read it, and what I took away from it, reading it this time around.

There are things about the structure of the play that I *don't* want people to take away: the glimpse we get of the town doesn't delve all that deeply into any one person's experience; we get surface impressions, but the show is not from anyone's point of view, except maybe the narrator's (or the dead people).

But the fact that there *is* so much detail about the town and the surroundings is one of the reasons I thought of the play. Though the convention of the play is such that the stage is bare-bones (hey! just like OUR stage!), the language and actions of the characters fill up the world with color. They talk about landmarks such as the main street and the river, the hardware store and the doctor's house, schools and churches and the big butternut tree. The town has a newspaper and a police force. Off in the distance you can hear the train.

There are even characters in the play who are "audience members," asking questions about the town. (hey! just like we'll ask the audience member about the town!) Though Wilder may have meant them satirically, they ask pretty good questions for our purposes, about town activities and character: is there drinking? Do people care about social equality? What do they do for culture?

In thinking about a play that features a town as a main character, one of the temptations is for something to *threaten* the town, and for the town to be saved. But real towns don't quite work that way: in Our Town there are some minor changes afoot: they're building a new bank downtown and putting in a time capsule, horses are being replaced by "auto-mo-biles," some people leave and some people die -- but the town remains, in character, the same -- like a river it flows around obstacles and just absorbs them, until they become part of the town too.

But things *do* change on a SMALL scale -- small as compared to the town, but still large for those who are involved. George and Emily get married, which affects not only them, but their families. Big events happen, which may be the kinds which happen to everyone, but strike home for people nonetheless: the characters take time out to MUSE about events big and small: the full moon, marriage, youth, death, the weather. Everything that happens to you is important, if it's happening to YOU. It's important in the noticing. Emily says near the end, "We don't have time to look at one another" -- when we see characters *looking,* we see what's important to them in that moment, even if it's "just" the full moon or the coming rain.

Aside from all this big stuff about Life and Death, there's also useful practical character information to be gleaned. The characters live their everyday lives full of nuance: they gossip about people who live in town and who've left. They grouse at each other about hurrying up for breakfast. They chat while they're doing something useful like stringing the beans. They have pet hobbies and interests that are only mentioned in passing, but to them are whole lives: the chicken incubator, research about the Civil War and about Napoleon. Chatter, chatter, chatter. Gossip, gossip, gossip. It's the details that make stories specific instead of universal; aren't there endless stories about people growing up, getting married, and dying? It's all in the details.

And even more practical and technical than talking about details are the conventions of movement onstage. Thinking about how to make the stage seem bigger than it is. Characters bump into and talk to invisible townspeople extras. One young boy comes in from somewhere, throwing a ball up so high that sometimes he has to take six steps backwards to catch it. Theatrical convention is thrust to the forefront, with no scenery to speak of: climb a ladder and you're upstairs -- look over the top of the ladder and you're looking out the window. Lots of the action in the play is space-objects: stringing beans, washing dishes, even the doctor has a space-object bag. And the actors clean up their "props" before they leave the stage.

In short, I guess it's the abstract setting, but the total commitment to the characters' concrete reality that's a takeaway, plus the affection for the town, and the cataclysmic feelings that arise from the everyday. We're shooting for all of the nostalgia with none of the depressing. ;o) The real-town feel withOUT Wilder's abstraction FROM it (see Act 3).


Here's a clip from the drugstore scene between Emily and George -- from a Lincoln Center production starring Penelope Ann Miller as Emily, Spalding Grey as the narrator, and baby Eric Stoltz! as George:

Link to the Drugstore scene on YouTube -- no embedding for me!

And here's the part where George tries to go see Emily on their wedding day, and ends up stuck in the kitchen with her dad instead. (this is from some adorable college production, so the video is lo-fi -- BUT, you get the sense of the family being all irreverent with each other):

Cast Choreography

So each week, during dance warm-ups, an early 10 minutes is spent on learning choreography. It's not choreography we're going to use in the show, but each week, three members of the cast teach 16 to 32 counts of choreography to a small group, then we perform for the rest of the cast.

Tomorrow is my day to teach, so I've been spending tonight working on what I'm going to teach tomorrow night.

Now, it may be cheating a little, but I'm pulling a piece of choreography that I learned in highschool (*COUGH*twenty*COUGH*years*COUGH*ago*COUGH*). I seriously seriously doubt that the muscle memory still exists for this, but honestly, it seems much easier than when I learned it way back when.

Hopefully it'll be as easy to teach.

Mandy's Dance Warm Up

Not sure if Mandy intended this for general public consumption, but then she shouldn't have posted it on YouTube. Here's the dance warm up we do at the beginning of every rehearsal:


No, we're not doing Let It Snow: Mumbai. She's just using a Bollywood song for the warm up.

Let It Snow Required Viewing

Rehearsals have started for Let It Snow! Mandy's taking advantage of this crazy world of the interwebs and assigning required YouTube viewing to the cast. Here's what we were supposed to watch for last week:

From the Music Man:





I never realized "Shipoopi" was the Music Man's version of the dream ballet from Oklahoma!

Speaking of which, here it is with Hugh Jackman:


How about some actual ballet:


And now ladies and gentlemen, Bob Fosse:


Fosse was in to "sexy"




and was a good dancer himself:

Let It Snow Auditions

Improvisors Wanted!

The Un-Scripted Theater Company is holding auditions for its next show, Let It Snow!, an improvised musical for the holidays, filled with good old-fashioned Broadway singing and dancing. (Think The Music Man.) The show is set every night in the hometown of an audience member, and over the three seasons that we've performed the show, we've visited small towns from North Pole AK to Manunka Chunk NJ to Wailua HI, and lots of places in between. It's a really fun show to perform, and always an audience (and improvisor) favorite.

We're looking for improvisors who ideally have longform experience as well as an enthusiasm for singing/dance.

** Auditions will be in the evening, on Monday, Sept. 14th, and Tuesday, Sept. 15th.
Rehearsals will be on Tuesdays, starting Sept. 29th; the show runs
Nov. 19th - Dec. 19th.
All of the above in downtown SF near Union Square.

If you're interested in auditioning, email Susan (click here) for more information or to reserve yourself a slot -- make sure to mention which date you'd prefer. Our auditions are conducted more like a rehearsal or class, so be prepared to stay for at least an hour. If you're wondering whether you should audition, the answer is almost always yes! We pride ourselves on our fun, low-pressure auditions, and we always love meeting improvisors, so come on down and give it a shot!

www.un-scripted.com