Category: music/theatre
username: FAUST
Harvard local offers “Faust” as disabled woman:
Working with Denver’s handicapped theater company PHAMALy changed Charlie Miller’s life from the day he first volunteered in 2003. Assisting special-needs actor Aaron Rendoff backstage. Helping blind thesp Don Mauck apply his makeup.
Now Miller, 22, wants to use those PHAMALy-informed experiences to change the American theater.
Miller, a 2004 Colorado [...]
Boettcher Hall renovation to be accessible
Looks like the Boettcher is planning to avoid the mistakes made in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House renovation:
The city will hire a special consultant to make sure Boettcher is fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Ellie was promptly condemned by many disability groups, and a lawsuit against the city is pending.
Caulkins Opera [...]
Mommy moment
My clever and talented daughter’s singing group will be opening for Dar Williams!
It’s not about Josh Blue
Last night, I went to see Josh Blue at the Boulder Theater. It was a benefit to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Center for People With Disabilities in Boulder. My company is a sponsor of the CPWD, so that’s why I got to had to go.
Remembering my previous experience with the Boulder Theater, and [...]
Buell Response
I’ve gotten a very thoughtful response to my letter about the Buell Theater from the City & County of Denver Theatres and Arenas division. It was not merely a form letter; the writer investigated my concerns and spoke to the ushers involved. She reported that the Buell will be adding 5 more wheelchair accessible [...]
Audience Development Opportunity
Wheelchair Dancer gave me this link in response to the entry about accessibility at Buell Theater below. Here’s what hit me right between the eyes:
Increasing your accessibility is an audience development opportunity — not a costly, facility retro-fitting, capital project. The gains far outweigh the costs. One in five persons have a disability - that’s [...]
Evening out at the Buell Theater
For my daughter, since she expects me to write about this:
To the House Manager, Buell Theater:
I attended Wicked at the Buell on Wednesday, May 23rd. I am a wheelchair user. I want to express my disappointment with my experience, beginning with purchasing the tickets.
An examination of your seating chart shows that very few orchestra seats [...]
A Place in the Choir
David blogs about being a [wheelchair using] singer in the choir. He dissects his director’s evolving view of him eloquently.
We’re about to sing in a non-accessible church again; I’m looking forward to the concert immensely despite this. We’re doing Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra. It’s an opportunity to work under a new director, [...]
Our next concert
The Cantabile Singers present ‘Twas the Season, featuring Conrad Susa’s Carols and Lullabies: Christmas in the Southwest for chorus, marimba, guitar and harp.
The concert will be Friday, December 1st, at the Broomfield Auditorium (a really beautiful acoustic space), and Saturday, December 2nd, at Mountain View Methodist Church in Boulder. It would be wonderful to see [...]
You’re too young to burn
We’ve had season tickets to the Takacs Quartet for a number of years. These sold-out concerts are in a 500 seat theatre at CU, and somebody pretty much has to die in order for someone else to get tickets.
Every year I call the box office and beg for seats on the aisle; this year we [...]
Spring Concert
The Cantabile Singers are presenting our spring concert, I Know Those Words, this Sunday, April 30th, at 7:00 pm at the Broomfield Auditorium, 3 Community Park Road, Broomfield.
I think it’s going to be a very nice concert. Our pianist, Stella Pradeau, will be playing two lovely Rachmaninov pieces. Yours truly is providing some narrative commentary [...]
Men’s choirs
Gotta love guys who sing.
I went to hear Cantus Saturday night at Macky. Nine guys, 5 tenors, 2 baritones, 2 basses. They have a beautiful blend, create an easy-going rapport with the audience, and perform an incredibly diverse range of music in many, many languages and genres.
Upcoming Concert
On Saturday, December 17, at 7:30 p.m. The Cantabile Singers, under the direction of Robert F. Farr, will present Cantabile: A Holiday Tradition. The program will include music by Philips, Handl, Bruckner and Part as well as arrangements of favorite carols and John Rutter’s “Dancing Day” for women’s voices with harpist Lynn Abbey Lee. The [...]
Upcoming Concerts
Sunday, November 6, 2005, 2:00 pm, Cantabile will be singing at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park: Our Favorite Place. Some interesting music, including a Zulu/English piece called “A Hope for Reconciliation”, and the extremely fun settings of three Lewis Carroll poems: “The Lobster Quadrille”, “You are old, Father William”, and “Speak Harshly to your [...]
Serenity
Saw Serenity with the kids. Happy now. Will there be another one?
Contributing
This is cryptic to protect the guilty (not that the guilty in question would ever read this).
Sometimes you try to contribute to an organization, and it’s like nobody even notices. I told my daughter I felt like I was standing at the door knocking, and the people on the other side don’t hear it.
She said, [...]
Concert Report
I went to work in the morning. I got home about 2 pm and took a nap. Unfortunately we’re having a sudden hot snap - two weeks ago it was snowing, yesterday it was 95 degF, and nobody’s ready for it. My bedroom is the hottest room in the house, and when I woke up [...]
Bluegrass jam
Every Tuesday, 11:30 - 1:00. Better than exercise.
Wanted: Pianist
Santiago Episcopal Church in Lafayette, Colorado, is looking for pianist. They would be looking for an organist, but Santiago is a mission church currently meeting in a school, so no organ. They already have a choir director. They seem like very nice people.
Theater/Disability Resources
Easy Production Pointers for Providing Access: common sense pointers for facility management
Everything Production Needs to Know When Working With People With Disabilities
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION: The State of the Art
The Guardian: Screen test failures
Enabled Online
Anachronism
Very non-19th century, in my prairie dress and high tech titanium wheelchair.
Quilters Report
Well, that was amazing!
We did two shows, Friday and Saturday. Both nights were sold out. The first night in front of an audience was incredible - they laughed, they cried, they clapped. All of the actors adjusted beautifully to the new timing, slowing down to let the audience react. The amazing lighting really helped make [...]
Better Today
No, I’m probably not a better actor, but I feel better. Wednesday I worked a full day, then went to rehearsal till eleven. Yesterday I left work at noon and took a 4 hour nap before rehearsal. Big difference!
Big article on the production in the Broomfield paper (registration required, or go to bugmenot for a [...]
Bleah
Ok, I officially suck at acting. Come to the play, but avert your eyes when I’m on stage.
Also, I’ve got a migraine, and vertigo, and I can’t seem to move without hurting myself in some assinine fashion. My daughter, whose run of South Pacific is entering its second week, is in a similar psychological state. [...]
Quilters
Very busy this week with Quilters. I’m emotionally up and down - from “What am I doing on this stage with people who actually know how to act and dance and can move normally?” to “Dang, I’m good!” Probably actually somewhere in the middle. It’s fun playing dress-up, but not so fun getting in and [...]
Dress or Eat?
I’ve got an all day dress rehearsal tomorrow. We’re breaking for lunch at 12:30 and have been informed that we must change out of costume to eat - “no exceptions!” I’m not sure I can cope with two full clothing changes in a ladies’ room, so maybe I won’t eat. Another stupid idea. Maybe [...]
The Darfsteller
Dorothea is looking for the novella The Darfsteller by Walter M. Miller Jr., probably best known for Canticle for Leibowitz.
“Darfsteller” appears to be a play on the German word Darsteller (actor).
(Sorry about the double ping; I can never seem to do that right.)
Anachronism
When I learned that my choir would be doing a play, I commenced to worrying about the wheelchair, and how the director was going to want handle it - hide it? Try to do something period-appropriate? Ignore it? I learned at the run-through Saturday that she has decided to allow the anachronism of a modern [...]
Better than expected
Yesterday was our first run through of Quilters. We have not rehearsed together since June (early July?), but a few hardy souls (myself included) had impromptu rehearsals in the interim.
I’ve been pretty worried about this production, but was pleasantly surprised yesterday - people were on the ball. Some of the principals were already off-book, [...]
Disabled theater
I went to my first PHAMALy production Friday night.
PHAMALy is a Denver theater company in which all the actors are disabled. I had been vaguely aware of it for some years, but this spring I was actually invited to audition for their production of Guys and Dolls, and I seriously considered doing it for about [...]
Eclectic Harmony
What do you get when one musician marries another? A lot of really good music at the wedding. Performing were the bride’s choir, Aster Chamber Choir (the bride did not sing), the groom’s a cappella quintet, Treble in Paradise (the groom did sing), and for dance music after the ceremony, Shungu from the Kutandara Center [...]
Women’s Choral Groups
Women’s Choral Groups Raise Their Voices
[W]omen’s choral groups are burgeoning across the United States and “reinvigorating an age-old tradition where people from all walks of life come together to sing and to explore something they love.”
St. Martin’s Chamber Choir
Attended a St. Martin’s Chamber Choir performance at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Denver last night.
The programming was wonderful - settings of the Magnificat and other Marian hymns from Gregorian chant to the present day. Director Tim Krueger is an Anglican choirmaster, and he placed the pieces in the context of the Office, particularly Vespers [...]
History of Heaven
From the new choir (and I had nothing to do with the wheelchair access bit at the end):
A HISTORY OF HEAVEN - A Journey to Paradise with the Angelic Voices of ASTER Women’s Chamber Choir, March 19th & 20th, 2004
For the final concert of its fourth season, ASTER Women’s Chamber Choir explores the journey to [...]
Moravian Music
NPR had a story on Moravian music this morning. I was so lucky to learn about this beautiful music from Dr. James Christian Pfohl, one of my first choir directors.
Singing
This weekend was my choir’s Spring Concert. Things went real well, wheelchair-wise. The first venue was great in terms of gettig on stage - this church’s chancel was ramped when their choir director needed to use a wheelchair. The green room was upstairs with no access. We’re unlikely to sing in Church No. 1 again, [...]
Whee!
I got the solo. So even though Carousel has got to be one of the weirdest musicals ever, complete with child abuse, misogyny and domestic violence, and You’ll Never Walk Alone has got be one of the treacliest inspirational songs ever, I’m really happy.
Settling for Shirley Jones
I don’t get to be Julie Andrews, but I might get to be Shirley Jones and sing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” to a slow gospel beat.
O brave new world,
That has such music in’t!
Last night I went to a concert given by Andrew Manze and the Academy of Ancient Music. I barely know how to begin describing how beautiful it was.
There were sixteen musicians, five first violins, four second violins, two violas, two cellos, bass, harpsichord and theorbo. The upper strings all stood to [...]
Being Julie Andrews
or, trying to be normal.
Tuesday I had choir rehearsal at 6:30, so I just went straight from work.
My leg was so spastic it was getting painful to sit up, so I laid down on one of the benches that are scattered around the room, held my music in the air over my head, and tried [...]
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