The Telephone Hour: Raising Money for MoonSchool

Wow, what a night!

This is the third night of our 2nd Annual Phone-a-thon.  Over the past three nights, cast members from all five shows, volunteers, Board Members, and staff have been calling our patrons to drum up support for MoonSchool, our new education program.

So far things are going pretty well, we've raised about $5,000 but we still have $10,000 to go.  If you'd like to make a donation to MoonSchool, click here or give us a call at (415) 255 - 8207.

Here's a little video message from Dyan McBride, our new Education Director.

Want to know a bit more about MoonSchool?  Here's the Mission Statement:

42nd Street Moon has a 17 year history of exclusively producing musical theatre for the entertainment of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, and preserving the distinctive American art form that has long added to the richness of our culture. 42nd Street Moon’s position is that training for musical theatre must be taught in an integrated way, with an emphasis on combining three disparate practices: acting, singing, and dance. This three-prong technique is highly specialized and unlike any other training program one might receive at other San Francisco institutions. MoonSchool will provide this high-level, professional musical theatre training for a diverse student body of all ages and levels in a safe and trusting environment. It will be taught by leading experts and educators in the field. MoonSchool will combine a curriculum of contemporary musical theatre, as well as classical musical theatre from early to mid-20th Century Broadway (a hallmark of 42nd Street Moon’s identity.)

Keep on eye on the Blog for more info about MoonSchool!

And Now a Word from Our Sponsor: 42nd Street Moon Goes to the Commercials?

Some of you get to the Eureka and you come out during intermission saying... "I know I've seen him before."  "She reminds me of someone, but I don't quite know why."  Well...

Hidden in your subconscious might be memories.  Memories of seeing some of these commercials...

Who's that Gal in the Diner with Paul Reiser...?

I think it's the same actress who's controlling this absurd air traffic....

Recognize her yet?  It's Queen Butch herself, Megan Cavanagh.  But do you think she's the ONLY Moonie to have a commercial? 

That client is very reminiscent of Prince Rudolph wouldn't you say?  Ben Pither you know how to sell a pen!

"What the.." is right.  This was one of Nintendo's most acclaimed commercials, and if you listen closely, you can here just a faint bit of Eva Standing in that cute cuddly little bear.  Dyan McBride provided the voice over for that spot.

Come  see Megan, Ben, and Dyan at the Eureka Theatre in 42nd Street Moon's Production of Cole Porter's Jubilee playing now through December 13.  For tickets click here or call (415) 255-8207

The Show Must Go On

Wow!  What excitement last night.  There is nothing like live theatre, you never know when something is going to happen.

And something certainly did happen!

A truck jack-kniffed on the Bay Bridge and trapped three of our actors on the other side!

What to do?  What to do?

Do we cancel the show?  Has Moon ever cancelled a show before?

Of course not!  Sure we might have started a *wee* bit late.  But we did go on!

For a few minutes there, it looked like 42nd Street Moon Board President J. Patterson McBaine was going to fill in for one of the actors. He even got on stage, but just to assure all the lovely Moonies in attendance that the show would go on!

Sarah Kathleen Farrell (pictured left) stepped into the role of Sebastian Sebastian and we were short one part of our trio for the opening number, and some of the lines were going to be divied up amongst some of the other actors.

But our fearless company started the show to a very appreciative crowd; a crowd that included our guest host from I Feel a Song Coming On, Tony-winner Cady Huffman (pictured below right).

Luckily, two of the actors were able to make it about 10 min after curtain and slipped seamlessly back into their roles. And by the second act, our cast was once again complete.

I can't tell you how proud I am of this cast.  They had no intention of letting the audience go home empty handed, and the standing ovation at the end proved that the audience had a ride they won't soon forget!

Kudos to all the cast and crew last night, and to Director Dyan McBride and Artistic Director Greg MacKellan for their leadership;  they took the reins and directed us into a harried, but successful evening.

Showbiz, there's nothin' like it.

Shoot the Moon

Ever wonder where all those amazing pictures from the brochures, postcards, and posters come from?

Well that would be resident Moon photographer David Allen.

David has been taking pictures since his days at Miramonte High School, in the East Bay. In fact, he started working as a photojournalist right out of High School.

Now he does mostly public relations photography for art groups. He has worked with EVERYONE—from Cal Shakes, to the now defunct American Musical Theatre of San Jose, and just about every art organization in between!

He’s been working with Moon for well over a decade, taking all of our publicity shots and most of our “action” shots (production shots and gala pictures).

He enjoys our new intimate productions. “It’s more theatrical. It makes it more visually appealing as well, and the players can move more freely. That makes for a better image.”

If you can imagine, he takes somewhere between 500 and 600 of those images, which then get whittled down to just a couple of dozen for our use.

Artistic Director Greg MacKellan is the one who helms all the photo shoots, figuring out the shots, and consulting with costumer Louise Jarmilowicz on the "look" each show will need for publicity purposes. Says MacKellan:

It's hard work - but fun work! - planning a photo shoot. It's a completely different animal from actually doing the show - in the case of the shoot, the number one priority is getting shots that will "sell" the show and also offer a bit of the flavor of what people will be seeing months later. We have to try to capture the spirit of the show in an hour or hour-and-a-half. In many cases, it's the first time the actors have actually gotten together as a group -- the first chance to see how the chemistry actually works. We were really lucky at the shoot for Jubilee and Destry, because there was an immediate working chemistry between actors in both.

For the actors, performing for a camera is also very different from stage performing. Sometimes we'll just set them up in a situation and ask them to improvise through it as David shoot continuously. That happens with a dance routine, too. Some of our best shots come out that way (as opposed to the "posed" shots, which are also effective).

(Dyan McBride, Andrew Willis-Woodard, and Alison Ewing in a candid moment,
one of the 500 pictures that won't make the cut onto a poster. Photo by David Allen)

So which shows has David enjoyed shooting the most?

”One Touch of Venus was a great show to shoot. Red, Hot and Blue was also nice, really animated and a lot of energy. Plus, Klea Blackhurst is a blast; I love working with her, lots of energy!”

But from a visually artistic stand point, it’s Coco that he fancied the most. He used low-key lighting, which is “visually more creative and dramatic. I prefer that, but it takes more time so it's a luxury. It reflects more of the mood and more of the dramatic, you're dealing with shadows and light.”

(Alison Ewing helping demonstrate 'low-key lighting. Photo by David Allen)

His last photo shot was for our upcoming production of Cole Porter's Jubilee. Megan Cavanagh, Dyan McBride, C. J. Blankenship and Peter Budinger took part in the shoot. According to Peter, the actors have a ball doing it; "It was quite funny, while they were taking pictures, [Dyan] was running around creating dialogue – in character. Her character in Jubilee name drops and talks quickly, so she was doing that while posing."

C. J. recalls the shoot with a laugh, "It was pretty funny we [C. J. and Peter] were supposed to be these athletic guys. So David says, 'You guys wanna do some push ups or something?' Our egos' slightly bruised, we did it anyway. And he started taking pushup shots."

(C. J. Blankenship, Megan Cavanagh, and Peter Budinger gettin' pumped.

Photo by David Allen.)

That dovetailed into a series of shots between C. J. and Peter that reminded Peter of the gym scene from the film version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. "We were staring at each other in these series of shots, on a lark, ignoring Megan completely."

(C. J. Blankenship, Megan Cavanagh, and Peter Budinger channeling Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Photo by David Allen.)

What of David’s work for Moon have you liked the best? Which posters or postcards still stick out in your mind? Tell us in our comments. Three of you that answer will be chosen for concession coupons and entered into our quarterly drawing.

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Last week’s trivia answer: The first recording of Leave It to Me was from a production in Stuttgart and was recorded in German.