Eric's Eddyfications

Love Notes this Friday!

The Musical "Love Notes" opens this Friday at the Yellow Box in the ICON Theater. Here is the promo advert I made to plug the thing... Call today to reserve free tickets at 630-328-8970!

Auditions for "Love Notes"

Hey everybody - you may or may not know that CCC is staging a musical showcase in the spring! It's a collection of scenes and songs called "Love Notes", designed to coincide with our Ignite series entitled "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" - and it's going to be great!
This post is for those of you who have signed up for an audition time and are ready to download your materials. There are four tracks - two for the ladies and two for the guys - you can download them here! There is also sheet music to download (so you'll know the words to sing!). Be prepared, and have fun! See you there!

Download female01-funnyvalentine_1-2.mp3
Download female02-asheneedsme_1-2.mp3
Download male01-comedy2nite_1-2.mp3
Download male02-tiltherewasu_1-2.mp3

Download auditionsheetmusic.pdf

Our Town

Getting really excited about the IGNITE series this weekend, and also the EPIC THEATRE production of OUR TOWN. Steve Cochran is playing the stage manager and has been promoting the heck out of it on his radio show. I sure hope that translates to ticket sales! Feel free to join the in-crowd and buy your tickets ONLINE today!

I've talked to a lot of people about the show - and they all can tell me which night they plan on attending - and yet, when I ask if they've got tickets yet, they just kind of say "hmmmmm...."

I want to sell out every night without turning anyone away, but I'm afraid that all these peeps who are planning ON it without planning FOR it may be left out in the cold - that is, if they all decide to come on the same night...

So get your tickets NOW and beat the rush!

Hero Poetry Slam

Last week we kicked off our "Hero" series here at CCC. We wanted to use a bunch of cheesy songs that say "hero" in them, but weren't sure people would get that we were joking, so we set the songs in a beat poet club setting. Thanks to Forefront Church in Manhattan, one of our New Thing Network churches, for coming up with the idea, and thanks to the CCC Theatre team for pulling it off. Wanna audition to be in wacky videos like this one? Click here to get started!

Wicked - The Search for Backstory

Finally got to see Wicked yesterday... thanks for the birthday wishes everyone... Here are my thoughts...

It was a fantastic show, but duh. It's been running in Chicago alone for two years and counting. Yesterday's matinee performance showed no signs of letting up. I enjoyed it thoroughly, the music, by Stephen Schwartz, was excellent - he definitely hit his sweet spot, and the plot was thoroughly entertaining.

For those of you in a cave, Wicked starts before The Wizard of Oz, and provides a backstory for the relationship between Glinda the good witch and the Wicked Witch of the West. They went to school together, were roomates, and eventually, best friends. Cool idea huh?

Based on the novel, it answers a lot of "unanswered" questions, like how the Tin Man became Tin, how the Scarecrow became straw, and how the cowardly lion became cowardly. But it does so in a very subtle, interesting way.

And I think it's very compelling because we as a culture are fascinated with backstory. We want to hear the "real story" behind the scenes, behind the music, behind the whatever. Wicked provides that for a story that everyone knows and loves, and stays true to it while providing juicy new insights and ideas.

In a way, I think that's why we still hold onto the Old Testament, after the whole Jesus thing. It provides amazing backstory. Want to find out about what Jesus meant when he said to save yourself you have to lose yourself? Read about Joseph, his crazy coat, and his brothers. That's just one example. And unfortunately, both come with Broadway musicals of their own, should you care to delve deeper. But I wouldn't recommend it.

The Fall of Usher

It's fascinating to me how non-theatre types can get the front door open to Broadway if they get famous enough. The latest arrival: Usher, playing Billy Flynn in Chicago.

This article is interesting about his "work" on the show. My favorite quote:

"He's such a difficult character to hold on to, you basically want to get in and stick with it," Usher explained. "So on a day-to-day basis, I've changed the way I talk, I've changed the way I walk, I've changed the way I deal with things, using a little method [acting]. The hardest part for me is that I'm from the South, so a lot of the time, I may slur certain terms. Billy Flynn doesn't do that. So I have to take that on, and I take that seriously."

First, I'm sure he has no idea what "method" acting actually is... secondly, congratulations, he's making his character different than himself - what a novel idea! And the accent should change, huh? You don't think a lawyer from Chicago should sound like a singer from Georgia?

Oh well. Rave reviews I'm sure.

My Trip to Normal: Part One

Kristi and I took the journey to Bloomington-Normal Illinois, where the Illinois Shakespeare Festival resides. My mentor in all things directing for the theatre, Cal MacLean, was being honored that night with a surprise party. He is leaving his post as Artistic Director to take a job running the theatre program at the University of Tennessee. Which is cool. Katie Katie Cafe Lady was kind enough to babysit the kids and spend the night at the house, so we could stay overnight in Normal and, you know, party like we were in College!

So we surprised him by appearing - which was fun. The not so fun part? The surprise involved attending the production of Julius Caesar. Don't get me wrong - it was a good show. It's just been a long time since Kristi and I were rip-roaring ready to sit and watch a three hour production of a war drama in Iambic Pentameter. Kristi was wishing that she had read the cliff notes.

It's been a long time since I've really been inundated with the theatre people or the theatre scene, and attending the show was pretty trippy. Several friends and associates from theatre in Chicago, Normal, and even Arizona were there (it's a pretty small world in the theatre). It was opening night for the show, so everyone was giddy with excitement.

But since Cal didn't direct it, it wasn't like I was dying to see it. Debbi Alley did a good job with it, but in the end - it's Julius Caesar. And what that really meant for Kristi and I was that the party didn't really start until 11:30pm. Which is approximately 2 and half hours past our bedtimes.

More to come...

Comedy night!

Nothing to do on a Friday night? Live near Naperville, IL?

Go to the Comedy Calvalcade! Or if that doesn't work, come to the Ground Level Cafe at the Naperville Yellow Box tomorrow night (Friday night) at 7:30pm, for some fun comedy that will hopefully make you laugh...

The GLC is kicking off its five year birthday celebration with myself, and my brother, Elic, and the CCC theatre team. I'll start things off with a little stand up, and then Elic and I will make up a whole bunch of stuff with the rest of the CCC theatre team. Should be fun!

Everybody Needs a Hero

My wife is co-directing a production of "Cotton Patch Gospel" right now, with Freshmen students from Columbia College, where she teaches acting. For those of you not familiar with the show, it's a  bluegrass passion play/musical of sorts, very faithful to the spirit of the gospels, but with a "Jesus comes from modern day Atlanta" kind of feel, music from Harry Chapin. Now, there are two challenges with this production right from the start:

1. The freshman are from Chicago - and are all trying to put on southern accents to play the parts...

2. As far as we know, not a single one of them are Christ-followers in their own lives, so they are also "acting" like followers of Jesus.

Now, in acting we talk a lot about layers - the idea that at the core of a performance, there is truth, and what happens on the stage needs to be REAL - But in order to do that, we have to add artificial layers - the fact that your reciting a rehearsed script is FAKE. You're movements are planned, in some cases, choreographed - FAKE.  Sometimes you're breaking into song - FAKE. Add an accent - FAKE. Add a religious belief that you barely are familiar with much less believe - FAKE. All of that has to come together to make something that is REAL enough to capture the emotion of the audience, and create an engaging performance.

So how do you elicit the essence of Christ following in the deep south with pagans from the city? Here's what I recommended to Kristi as she made her stump speech to her cast:

Everybody has a hero - unfortunately, in our current culture, we don't actually know our heroes. These actors are being asked to believe in Jesus - make him their hero - but they have a hard time connecting with that - because they don't know Brad Pitt, Bono, Angelina Jolie, whoever. So in the script their interacting with their heroes they have no context to do it in, because they don't have a truth-touchstone in their own lives. When it comes to worship - we worship our rock stars and celebrities, and we don't really know them. So any attempt to emulate that onstage will read as fake.

Kristi and I have several friends from college who have made it on TV and film, and while none of them are household names (yet!) it is such a rush when we see them on TV. One time, I saw my good friend Rick Hoffmann on The Practice, and there he was, acting with Dylan McDermott and James Spader - for a two part episode - What a rush it was for me! Why? Because I know him!

Now I didn't worship him, or course - but yo usee where I'm going - if your only context for worship is celebrity, you have to break through that to connect with somebody that you know, if you want to show what real worship is on stage.

And as a Christ follower, it's comforting to know that our hero who deserves and demands our worship is ALSO someone that we can know. And if these freshman actors can put those pieces together, they might not only execute a faithful retelling of an old old story, they might even meet a real hero for the very first time.

Of course, that insight doesn't necessarily demand that the Christianese community write a musical of their own about it... But who can stop them, really...