Page 20 - the NOISE February 2013

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CW FROM TOP LEFT: Coffee Pot by Barry Carpenter at West of the Moon; XOXO by Sarah Harms at AZ Handmade; a landscape from Nancy Robertson at the ACF Gallery; a scene from Spitfire at Theatrikos; Winter Roundup by James Schroeder at West of the Moon.
Currently teaching Painting, Drawing, and Art Appreciation at CCC, Ms. Jensen also of- fers private workshops and lessons.
“I’m showing two pieces,” Barry Carpenter tells me about his involvement in the show. “One is a covered jar made out of stoneware
clay. It’s made with a combination of thrown and hand-built parts. The second piece is a coffee pot with a removable Melitta filter. I like to make them because I’m more of a cof- fee drinker than tea drinker so it allows me to have the ritual of boiling the water and pour- ing it over the coffee grounds as opposed to an automatic coffee maker.
“I like to make forms that are fluid with in- ner volume. I pinch and push them to alter the form, mostly when the piece is on the wheel and the clay is still very soft. While the marks I make are intentional, the action of making them often creates lines and shapes that are more serendipitous. I use glazes that help to better articulate and enhance the more subtle aspects of the piece.”
The CCC Faculty show at West of the Moon, 14 N. San Francisco, opens during the February First Friday ArtWalk.
WestoftheMoonGallery.com
SPitFiRE
January 25 through February 10, The Spit- fire Grill Musical will be performed by The- atrikos. The director, musical director, and cast took some time to answer my questions about the show and their characters, and even gave me a sneak peek of the musical.
“I could not imagine a better group of ac- tors for this play. They each assumed their characters’ roles with little effort,” director Dennis Hattem tells me. “It really is a ‘feel good’ kind of play,” he continues. “There are some tragic revelations, but the story is really
about relationships; relationships with other people as well our relationship with where we are in life now, what we’ve experienced in the past, and our hopes for the future.”
Barb Brydenthal plays the role of Effy Krayneck, postmistress and busybody. “As Spitfire has a smaller cast, you have no re- course but to become close to the cast mem- bers on and off the set,” Ms. Brydenthal says.
“I think also because of this you have a bet- ter chance to fully develop your character as you relate to other people.”
Matthew Olson, who plays the visitor says, “For my theater background, I am both happy and a bit remorseful to say that this is my first experience working in theater. Though acting and theater have always been secret passions of mine, I have never had the opportunity to be in a play until now.”
Mr. Olson continues, “I read the script and instantly loved how it was just this very re- warding story of regrets, redemption, and looking forward to the brighter future. The characters are great, and each one very hu- man to the point where you can almost imagine having them as neighbors.
“The score is so much fun. Even though my character has no singing parts, I have taken part in the vocal warm-ups with the rest of the cast and taped songs they have done. It has a very strong sense of classic musical theater meets country western that I hope will appeal to the Flagstaff audience.”
“I play Sheriff Joe Sutter,” Robert Michael Lovett tells me. “The character I play has lived his whole life in this sleepy little town of Gilead, and has seen it go from a bustling coal town to a mostly deserted shadow of its former self. He wants to get out as soon as he can, and sell his family land as soon as it’s willed to him.
“But he loves the people he lives with and has a secret affection for the town, even though he wants to leave. The most sur- prising thing about this show has to be the difficulty of the score. It’s got a country/folk sound, but uses a lot of musicality to achieve the mercurial feel of folk music. Learning the score has been much more difficult than I an- ticipated, but I love a challenge.”
“This show is interesting to me because so much of my character’s – Caleb Thorpe’s
– story happens before and after the show,” says Richard Gaughan. “The seeds of his dissatisfaction were planted many years before the action, and within the course of the play those seeds sprout, leaving him destroyed – with no illusions and no founda- tion left. There’s only the slightest hint that he may recover from his destruction and re- build his life.
“Some hope is provided in the simultane- ous stories of the rest of the characters, who learn that the life they took for granted holds far more hope and promise than they ever believed. We can hope that Caleb learns from their example.”
“Percy has been through a lot and has had quite the rough life so far,” Amber Stone- braker says of her character. “She’s still very young, but has had to grow up very quickly due to an unstable and unsafe childhood. She has problems accepting who she is be- cause of her past, and she’s just trying to find where she belongs. I really like her transfor- mation throughout the show.
“I like how sassy and somewhat disobedi- ent she is at the beginning. I also like how she slowly warms up and finds friendships in this new town. By the end of the show it’s apparent that she has not only come to love the town and the people in it, but most im-
portantly, she finally learns to love herself.” Susy Hopkins plays Hannah Ferguson. “This character intrigued me so much that I
auditioned knowing little about the show,” she says. “No cardboard oldster, Hannah’s a force of nature who, not surprisingly, goes around with her own force field. Cantanker- ous and tragic by turns, she’s got a secret eating away at her that she hints at in the haunting solo Forgotten Lullaby, but she can still carouse with newfound gal pals and pass the cider jug around.”
“My character, Shelby Thorpe, is described as a plain, soft-faced creature, with an almost ethereal manner,” Kathleen Sutphen says. “I love Shelby’s kindness and heart. Although painfully shy, she has a great empathy for others. She has inner strength that her new- found friend, Percy, helps her discover.”
“The Spitfire Grill is truly an endearing mu- sical,” says musical director Bailey Cunning- ham. “It is a show about trust, and about community; it really touches your heart. Gil- ead may not be a real place, but the people there are people that you know, people that you can relate to. Your heart really goes out to Percy Talbott, as well as the other charac- ters. They all have a story. They all have such big hearts.”
The Spitfire Grill will be showing Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30PM and Sundays at 2PM at the Doris Harper-White Commu- nity Playhouse. Theatrikos.com
| Clair Anna Rose’s obsession confession of the week is building half scale dollhouse furniture. arts@thenoise.us
20 • FEBRUARY 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us