Meat Cake

Today is the day on which we celebrate The Birth of the Jayce.  It is also the last day of our season.  So when we gathered last night for our cast party, we made sure that the gathering also served another purpose.  Now, of course, we have a tendency to use food as an aid in our celebrations.  Cakes, cookies, cupcakes… you name it!  So I wanted to take you through a brief history of Distracted Globe confections before unveiling the wonder that was last night’s offering.  

First, we have the delightful cupcake sculpture that commemorated the end of last summer’s season (courtesy of Erika and Leslie!):

 

And of course, there’s the cake that marked the opening night of A Tale of Two Cities this summer:

 

But last night… well… I think Anne may have made the cake to end all cakes.  In honor of the birth of her husband, Anne created something never before imagined: A Meat Cake.  Yes!  As an expression of her love for that darling spouse of hers, Anne stacked layers of meatloaf with ketchup and mashed potatoes in between and finally frosted the whole creation with those same fluffy mashed potatoes!

 

We even managed to do a little gravy on the fly!  So there ya go!  We are super glad that Jayce was born… and we’re willing to prove it with meat!

Improv Lessons

This weekend we had two raucous nights of Distracted Family Values Late Night Improv.  Here are some of the most important lessons we took home from these two shows.  Feel free to share any that we’ve missed!

Right and left and right and left and rightleftrightleftrightleftrightleft panicpanicpanic and I’m in a box! 

If you’re ever swallowed by a hippo, you definitely want Heidi and Traysie with you

Our audiences are completely preoccupied with the Apocalypse (Yes, Fox News, it seems to be working)

The most effective way to teach English to kittens involves a combination of Rosetta Stone and Broadway musicals

Games are sometimes less effective when we forget which game we’re playing

Jen, Traysie and Anne don’t really know anything about the Battle of the Bulge

The way to create an army of marble drones: play a combination of Fox News and Ah-ha’s Greatest Hits

If you’re going to murder someone, probably don’t ask anyone in The Distracted Globe to help dispose of the body

Jen speaks fluent Cajun

Pirates are not welcome in the Bayou

You probably shouldn’t give Jared electrical appliances

Traysie is happy to supply her brown social medicine

Michele has an astounding knowledge of Kim Kardashian’s product lines

It turns out that Norse Epic is actually a pretty good genre suggestion.  Teletubbies, on the other hand…

If given a chance, Jen and Jared will yell at each other in sexy Spanish and then make out on a sofa.

Gravedigging is not rocket science

It’s intimidating having a member of the GSO in the audience

I don’t think any of us doubted this, but Michele will face the Zombie Apocalypse with a fabulous recipe!

When it comes to guessing games, Jen probably shouldn’t be allowed to give the clues if we have any hope of finishing the show this week

Kitten bouncing, Marble killing, French toast crucifying, and Nose hair elongating

Rhyming turns out to be one of Jen’s favorite limitations

In the final moments of Pompeii, the greatest concern seems to have been the price of fruit and a good BM

Jared and Joel can’t even pretend that they support Michelle Bachman for the duration of one scene

Murder She Wrote is the ultimate babysitter

Jen doesn’t know how to light a cigarette, but she can carry on half an alphabetical conversation all by herself

Jewish Gymnastics are an important part of being Inclusiastic!

Yup.  It was a good time!  We hope to see you for our final weekend of Steel Magnolias and A Tale of Two Cities… and then we’ll be back with some improv once The Warehouse Theatre starts up their fantabulistic 38th season!

Tale of Two Cities Review


Review: Distracted Globe’s Tale of Two Cities gives audience best of times


Paul Hyde – The Greenville News – July 16, 2011

Everett Quinton’s wacky “Tale of Two Cities” offers Greenville audiences a chance to see one of our community’s finest and most familiar actors at the top of his game.  Comic dynamo Ryan Bradburn embraces the formidable challenge of playing 20 strikingly diverse characters in this one-man show at the Warehouse Theatre and aces the test with rainbow flags a-flying.

Quinton’s 1989 off-Broadway farce, here produced by Greenville’s Distracted Globe Theatre Company, centers on Jerry (Bradburn), an aspiring drag queen who one day finds a crying baby on his doorstep.  In order to calm the sobbing infant, Jerry tries to tell the baby a story. Nothing works until Jerry wanders into: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Jerry then proceeds to narrate all of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities for the next two hours or so (with intermission), portraying a variety of characters of various genders, nationalities and ages in his frenetic quest to entertain the baby.  At breakneck speed, Jerry toggles back and forth between a wilting English ingĂ©nue and a fiery French revolutionary, between a haughty French aristocrat and a smarmy peasant, and so on.  While entertaining the baby, Jerry is getting ready for his own drag-show performance that evening. 

Quinton’s adaptation of Dickens is broadly comic and cheerfully bawdy.  If “Masterpiece Theater” and “La Cage Aux Folles” had a secret love child, it would be Quinton’s “A Tale of Two Cities.”

It’s Dickens meets RuPaul.

Director Anne Kelly Tromsness’ staging of the play is wildly inventive, making use of everything at hand in Jerry’s apartment.

Luckily, a drag queen doesn’t lack much in the way of wigs and costumes.

It’s hard to know where Tromsness’ inspiration ends and Bradburn’s creativity begins. Suffice it to say that the two have created a flamboyant and breathlessly paced comic tour de force for Bradburn.

Bradburn gives a scenery chewing performance in the best sense. Don’t be surprised to find him atop the stove or refrigerator at times.  Among my favorite characters is Madame Defarge, the French revolutionary who, as portrayed by Bradburn, seems to be a cross between Norma Desmond and John Cleese’s taunting Frenchman from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

On opening night Friday, I also heard William Shatner and Droopy Dog in two of Bradburn’s characterizations.

Jared Johnson is the deft and clever baby puppeteer.

It’s all great, naughty, over-the-top summer fun.

With its strong language, “A Tale of Two Cities” is for mature audiences only.

Remaining performances of “A Tale of Two Cities” are today at 3 p.m., and on July 21, 23, 28 and 30 at 8 p.m. Each show is preceded by the reading of a 10-minute play by a local author 30 minutes before the performance.

For tickets, call 864-235-6948 or visit The Warehouse Theatre’s website.

Steel Magnolias Review


Review: Distracted Globe’s Steel Magnolias a warm, refreshing production

Paul Hyde – The Greenville News – July 15, 2011

When done well, Robert Harling’s 1987 Steel Magnolias still has the power to gently evoke “laughter through tears,” as one of the play’s characters describes her favorite emotion.

Rebecca Sink Evatt’s zesty and poignant staging of this Southern-fried comedy at the Warehouse Theatre accomplishes that goal, inspiring abundant chuckles and more than a few misty eyes in the audience.

Produced by Greenville’s Distracted Globe Theatre Company, this “Steel Magnolias” is a light summer diversion, delightfully corny and sentimental and aspiring to a three-hankie ending.

Set in a small town in Louisiana, the entire play takes place in a salon belonging to Truvy Jones, whose motto is “There’s no such thing as natural beauty.” Six women of various ages regularly inhabit the salon, gabbing and gossiping about hair, nails, shoes, recipes, dresses and the generally slothful men in their lives. The big news concerns the young Shelby’s upcoming wedding and, later, her decision to have a child despite possible medical complications.

The play is a sweet meditation on the special bond between women friends and the saving grace of humor. The title refers to the women in the salon and perhaps more broadly to all Southern women — delicate as magnolias and tough as steel.  Evatt keeps the proceedings brisk and breezy but gives the play appropriate emotional breathing room in Act II.

Opening night jitters caused the cast to flub a few lines in Act I on Thursday night.  Subsequent performances should sharpen the dialogue and add greater point to the play’s snarky one-liners.

The production benefits from a strong cast. Erika Whatley is endearing and ebullient as the bright-eyed bride Shelby.

Shay Brown, as Shelby’s mother M’Lynn, delivers the play’s big monologue in Act II and does so wonderfully, with heartrending passion.

Heidi Fortune makes a particularly appealing and vividly rendered Annelle, the nervous Nellie who later becomes a well-meaning Bible-thumper.

Beth Munson nicely captures the vinegary, wise-cracking Clairee, the small town’s former first lady.

Michele Labar does a fine turn as the salon owner Truvy.

Jennifer Goff, who stepped into the play with only six days’ notice, is young for the role of the curmudgeonly Ouiser but does an excellent job anyway.

The Distracted Globe’s “Steel Magnolias” is as refreshing as iced tea and as warmhearted as a pleasant palaver with close friends on a sultry summer evening.

Remaining performances are July 22, 24, 27 and 29. For tickets, call 864-235-6948 or visit The Warehouse Theatre’s website.

Steel Magnolias Tech Rehearsal Live Blog

So, the summer season is finally upon us, and we’re smack-dab in the middle of tech rehearsal for the first of our two summer comedies — Steel Magnolias. (which opens this Thursday — Everett Quinton’s one-man adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities opens on Friday.) 

And, just as sure as Ryan Bradburn will be doing the Dickens out of the pantyhose dance on opening night, tech is a little tedious (sometimes a little tense), and inevitably a lot funny….Running two shows in rep makes us a little punchy as we get close to opening, and we can’t always be relied upon to maintain verbal decorum as the day goes on.

Here are some highlights:  

 3:50 pm — okay there has been nothing funny up til now — besides Jayce and Rick arguing like a married couple, and a general ban being placed on any anecdotes that begin with "well, at my school…" 

 3:55 pm: "i got stuff comin’ down." — We hope Shay was talking about her curlers bein’ loose, but, it’s hard to tell at this point…

4:00: Rick tries to sneak “The Pina Colada Song” into the pre-show music lineup.

 4:06 — "ah, the joys of inbreeding." 

4:09 - "come on Jen, be funny." 

4:13 - "I have a gnome between my boobs." (Jen steps up)

4:14 - "Mr. Claus is twixt her titties." 

6:51 – “Muppet Dance!”

6:52: Anne: “OK, Rick, I don’t mind you and Jayce sounding like a married couple, you just can’t sound more like a married couple than he and I do.”

          Rick: “I have less sex with him than you do.”

          Anne: “I don’t know…”

          Jayce: “What’s sex?”

7:09: “Why is it only Christmas on the left side of the stage?”

          “Christmas on the left, business on the right. It’s like a scenic mullet.”

7:10 – “Isn’t it supposed to be Easter?”

7:19 – Rick tries to sneak “Devil Went Down to Georgia” into the intermission music lineup.

7:27 – ironic book sighting

7:42: think “Ramones” greatest hits….

8:12: “Yeah, that looks really hot with the flippers.”

8:15: “Oh, crap. My ringer has been on all day. It’s a good thing I’m not popular.”

10:33- somehow a little Diana Ross has made its way into Act II. Rick!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Pride Means to Me

Below is why I (Jared Johnson) will be marching in Pride and why I want you there by my side:

 

First of all, let me say I am already thrilled by the number of people who will be joining The Distracted Globe on June 4th for our first ever group march at Upstate Pride.  While it has our name on it, I hope anyone from any theater or any fan or friend of theater will join us in our “Global Pride” section of the march.

I have been to Pride in NYC and in Atlanta and it will be my first time at Upstate Pride and the feeling surrounding it is so different, it is so much more important.  My first Pride was in NYC, over one million people came out to see the THREE hour long parade.  The Grand Marshall of the parade back in 2005 was Hillary Clinton, she was followed by other congressional leaders, Mayor Rudy Juliani, state and local officials, heads of police and fire departments all showing that the city and state of New York was behind it’s LGBT citizens.  Then the real party began, it was float after float of scantily clad porn stars and go-go boys, drag queens so impeccably costumed it would make Lady Gaga jealous, and clubs and bars all promoting themselves with displays of rolling debauchery.  The parade sobered up as it moved along going into civic organizations who supported either at risk teens, people with HIV/AIDS, and a very clear out reach to people addicted to Meth.  Churches (including the first gay Episcopalian Bishop), and parent and family groups came after that.  I specifically remember tearing up as PFLAG came through with parents wearing shirts saying “I love my gay son” and moms going through the crowd giving out hugs.  The parade ended with a dance party in Central Park featuring Fantasia from American Idol and Mariah Carey.  In short, while it was an emotional ride it was one big party.

Heading into our own Pride, I hope we have that same spirit, but we are in such a different place.  There will be no Hillary Clinton, even though we all know he should be there… no Lindsey Graham, and pretty sure our friend Jeff Horton who won’t even allow county council to talk about LGBT day will NOT be making an appearance.  The difference between NYC and Upstate pride are that we are not here to party (although I know we will have fun); we are here to stand up and fight.  South Carolina is still a place where gay bashing gets you less than a two year sentence, as we saw just a few years ago in Greenville, it’s a place where job discrimination still occurs, it’s a place that would rather allow mothers who leave their baby in the toilet of the Bi-Lo center to be parents then two loving dads who would give anything in the world to raise a child together.  I don’t want to think twice about “am I sitting to close to my boyfriend in this bar”, or worry about which restaurant I make Valentine’s Day dinner reservations for, or if having a sticker on my car is going to make me a target for a hate crime.  We have to stand up together in big numbers whether you are LGBT or Straight or somewhere in the middle.  It’s time to stop allowing a “moral majority” to keep us from being equals. 

If we can just make one young teen realize they are not alone here in the Upstate, or maybe have one protester realize that we are people not some idea their pastor brainwashed them into believing about how we are out to get their children and ruin their marriage, or if we can just make a few people turn their heads and realize we are just like them and we are here about love, justice, equality, and making a better Upstate for everyone, then we will have been successful. 

 

It’s Okay to be Takei

As you may have heard, The Distracted Globe is gathering a group of our pals to march in the Upstate Pride parade June 4th.  Make sure to check out our facebook event for more information on marching with Global Pride.  And in the meanwhile, here’s some serious inspiration courtesy of George Takei.

 

Go right on over to itsokaytobetakei.com, and then get ready to show some Global Pride with us June 4th!

Pride is Right!

We are SOOOOO proud of the Globe’s own Jim Davis (whose birthday is today, by the way!) for his latest endeavor!  This Saturday marks the premiere performance of the new Pride of Greenville men’s chorus, of which Jim is the Artistic Director!  You can’t read the full Greenville News article online, so I’m just going to re-post it here.  This is super cool, and we hope you’ll all come out and support this fantastic new group!

 

Men’s chorus makes its debut

The Pride of Greenville performs Saturday at the Warehouse Theatre

BY PAUL HYDE • ARTS WRITER • PUBLISHED: MAY 08. 2011 2:00AM

Jim Davis believes Greenville not only will accept a gay men’s chorus but embrace it wholeheartedly.

“I think Greenville is definitely ready for us,” says Davis. “I’ve had a lot of support from the community in general. So many people have said, ‘It’s about time.’”

Davis is the artistic director of The Pride of Greenville Men’s Chorus, which he believes is South Carolina’s only gay men’s chorus, founded earlier this year.

The 20-voice Pride of Greenville makes it debut this Saturday at the Warehouse Theatre.

The program includes Americana standards such as “Shenandoah” as well as some patriotic music and spirituals, followed by some solos and a variety show.

The $25 ticket includes admission to AID Upstate’s RED Party at Zen later Saturday night. Proceeds benefit AID Upstate and the chorus.

The Pride of Greenville aims to make beautiful music even as it helps to influence public opinion through song – by promoting tolerance, awareness and positive images, says Davis.

The group also serves as a community of acceptance for its singers.

“A lot of guys who are in our chorus are involved in other musical endeavors but they feel they have to compartmentalize their lives,” says Davis, a former music minister. “In this ensemble, they feel they can really be themselves.”

Gay and lesbian choruses are not a new addition to arts communities nationwide. The first ensembles were organized almost 40 years ago, according to GALA, an international association of gay and lesbian choruses.

In the United States, there currently are more than 150 gay and lesbian choruses.

Davis says he found tremendous support for creating a gay men’s chorus here.

“I was encouraged to start a chorus so I put a message on Facebook and within a day I had 70 responses,” says Davis, an accountant at a local heating and air conditioning company. “A vital reason that many choruses have appeared on the scene is that it’s time for people to know who we are.”

He says the ensemble is open to both gay and straight men.

Davis and the group’s other founders are committed to establishing the ensemble as a permanent fixture on the local arts scene. In addition to Saturday’s concert, the group will appear at the June 4 Upstate Pride march and festival in Spartanburg.

The ensemble will perform its first full concert at Center Stage on July 8-9.

“It’ll be a wide mix of music,” says Davis. “We begin with Baroque selections and then offer some classic choral literature, add some show tunes and we’re working on some Lady Gaga.”

In addition, the group is planning Christmas and spring concerts.

Davis says the experience of gay and lesbian choruses nationwide is that communities generally welcome the ensembles with open arms.

“It’s almost like coming out,” says Davis. “There’s so much fear surrounding it. But once you come out, you’re constantly amazed at the love that’s shone back. It’s the same with the chorus.”

See you Saturday!

 

Another night of lessons

During our second night of improv, we learned even more important lessons.  And if you weren’t lucky enough to be there to learn them with us, here are a few gems (as interpreted via Jen’s garbled internet connection):

1)  Jen’s skype connection is not terribly reliable

2)  I think Traysie makes a bitchin’ pirate

3) Jen’s Helpful Kitty does not appreciate being on camera 

4) Andy’s Charlie Sheen is building himself some sort of crazy harem

5) Anne and Jared stepped up the chair choreography tonight

6) Rick demands that the audience dance… and they DANCE! 

7) Every time we hear the word "budget" we get all warm and fuzzy.  The audience doesn’t get it, but it makes us smile.  We <heart> Bryan Robinson!

8) I’m reasonably certain that typewriters and yet another cat fell victim to our political angst this evening.

9) Judging by their respective reactions to "No Laughs," tonight’s audience is less macabre than last night’s.  Judging on both nights’ focus on cruelty to cats… they’re all sociopaths.

10) If you engage in too much slow motion competition, you run the risk of being fused together with your nemesis.

And with that… my voyeuristic account of our improv weekend is through.  The DG players bustle around the theatre, chasing out enthusiastic audience members so that they can go home and get some damn sleep!  Justin turns off the webcam nestled unobtrusively in the corner of the theatre, but anticipating his next opportunity to project my gargantuan noggin for your viewing pleasure.   And we will all drift off into a deep sleep, with visions of you fantastic folks dancing through our heads.  Or possible something about being chased by a giant pancake.  I don’t know what we’ll dream about.  But I do know that we can’t wait to see you again next month for more fun!

What we learned tonight

Improv isn’t just about entertainment, you know.  It’s about education.  So here are some of the things that I learned from watching DG improv this evening: 

1) Technology is cool

2) Skype is on a delay

3) Elmo is a racist

4) Jared doesn’t know anything about professional wrestling

5) Joel is Charlie Sheen’s accountant

6) Andy is all about WINNING

7) Traysie is most comfortable expressing her radical liberalism as a cat

8) Anne promises she’ll wash your bikini after she borrows it

9) Caught at a rave without a glowstick?  Just ask Michele!

10) The best thing about Obi-Wan Kenobe: "He uses the force to do my buns" 

And there’s one more night - Saturday the 19th - left to learn more valuable lessons!  See you there!