Page 18 - the NOISE August 2013

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Dennis Hattem, playing Game Show host Troy Richards interviews audience members who have volunteered to be contestants for the evening.
of detailing.”
When I first saw the paintings, and closely
examined all the details, I had many ques- tions for Mr. Black. He answers my questions and reveals more light into the idea behind the piece. “One day in a local thrift shop, I came across a book on Michelangelo and it blew my mind,” Mr. Black continues. “My story on the painting hints at the underly- ing motivation and struggles it takes to be an artist in the postmodern age. I chose to use myself and Ms. Mchala Kravako as the subjects to better tell the story to myself. I surrounded us with not just some hungry tigers but famous Italian, Greek, and French masterful works of art as if to test me and my path, to see if I am worthy to someday inter- act with these very sculptures. It was a fun- ny moment when I suddenly realized I had painted myself dressed in a suit and armor with a sword long enough to slay a dragon! The plot is that She will be safely and acrobat- ically launched off the edge of the building with only her umbrella to host her journey to ground. She survives while my fate is not so clear at this point. I have a slightly worried look on my face due to the fact that there are five hungry tigers ready for dinner surround- ing me.”
“This is not the last time I will use famous statues and pieces of art in my paintings,” he tells me after I enquire about the appearance of Birth of Venus, and other significant works.
“In this piece, I wanted all of the statues to, in a way, interact with each other as if they were actors on a stage. It is obvious that the Me- dusa character completes the story with the statues. She is seen sitting in the window of the building celebrating her great sculptures of stone with a glass of wine and a slight smirk on her face. This was one of the final touches that added so much to the narrative of the piece. I still wonder if Medusa’s next
target will be me ... if the tigers don’t get to me first, that is.”
An opening night for the new installment of When the Curtains Fall took place on July 5, and the painting will remain at the Orpheum through October.
“This will not be the last show we will do at The Orpheum,” Mr. Black says. “Chris and other management are big supporters of the arts and would like to continue with more shows and possible mural installations too!” SkyBlackArt.com
game ShoW BRoadcaSting liVe in flagStaff
Walking into the Doris Harper-White Community Playhouse to take your seats for Theatrikos’ newest play will offer a very different experience than theater goers are used to. Even the seats the audience will be seated in are part of the scene as you walk onto the set of a live-broadcasted television Game Show, complete with live cameras re- cording and displaying the show in progress on working monitors.
Game Show is a fun, exciting comedy that the entire audience gets to participate in. Some lucky audience members will even get to take to the stage themselves and play as contestants, testing their skills at trivia.
I previewed Game Show during one of the last weeks of rehearsal. It also happened to be the same night members of the board of Theatrikos were viewing the play, and together we made up the evening’s contes- tants. When I wasn’t on stage laughing and being bamboozled by trivia questions, I had the pleasure of watching long-time local ac- tors Tony Sutera and Scott Ballou improv it up as contestants with the cast of game show.
Before the rehearsal began, I was able to sit and chat with director Nick Rabe, who grew up in Flagstaff, and as a small child re-
members coming to the Doris Harper-White Community Playhouse when it was the pub- lic library. “I loved coming to the library as a kid and as an adult, I come here for theater and still feel that same excitement. It’s a cre- ative place, it’s a safe place, and it’s a place I’m willing to spend hours in, doing something I really care about and really love doing.”
Mr. Rabe tells me about his experience with Theatrikos. “This is my second produc- tion with Theatrikos as a director,” he says. “I co-directed Sherlock’s Last Case, which I thought was a big success.”
Sherlock’s Last Case was another show that required a lot of different types of work to make the play come alive. “It was very tech- nical, very heavy duty, and we had a lot of things to work out,” Mr. Rabe recalls. “I guess these are the kinds of shows I’m drawn to. I like to figure stuff out. I like projects and I like shows that challenge me because I think it’s worth it to get something nobody’s ever seen before, something that is really memo- rable, that they’ll be talking about afterwards. So that’s what I’m going for.”
“This all lights up,” he says, pointing to the colorful letters that spell out Game Show across the top of the stage. “This is pretty much a functioning TV studio, rather than a playhouse. This all works; we have a three- camera system, we’re shooting, we have a TV switcher over there, and monitors people can watch.”
Until 2008, Mr. Rabe had the experience of working for Channel 2 News, where he learned the necessities to run a successful show. “For two and a half years I was the sports anchor on Channel 2. I did the pro- duction side for about a year and a half, then I got on the talent side for about two and a half years and really liked that too. When I saw this show I thought it was the perfect outlet to use what I know about how a TV
show works and what it needs to look legit. With my experience at Theatrikos I know the acting side and I know what it takes to put a play together too.”
“This couldn’t have been done without the community support,” Mr. Rabe says. Many lo- cal businesses have donated prizes to be giv- en away to contestants that volunteer to go up on stage and Northern Arizona University has supplied two of the cameras for the set.
Adrienne Bischoff plays the role of Ellen Ryan, the executive producer of Game Show. Throughout the play we see many sides of her character, the antics of which create a lot of twists and turns throughout the run of the show.
The last play I saw Ms. Bischoff in was a very moving, dramatic production of A Doll’s House. I ask her what it’s like to go from a serious, emotional role to a comedic one.
“Game Show is a 180-degree shift from A Doll’s House, and I’m surprised at how happy I am about that given how much I loved delving into Ibsen’s script. But doing comedy just feels like coming home: I studied improv at the Groundlings in Los Angeles, where I also did stand-up. I’m a huge sketch comedy fan and I don’t easily give up opportunities to make a fool of myself. An added benefit of a comedy is the instant camaraderie formed between cast members. Rehearsals have been a blast; everyone in this cast — and, of course, our director Nick Rabe and assistant director Stephen Root — has a great sense of humor, making this a terrific group to work with. Nothing beats a great drama or tragedy, but a comedy makes the discomforts of life so much more palatable. Probably the most important part of doing comedy is never, for one moment, letting your character in on the joke.”
Different audience members take to the stage each night, making large portions of
18 • AUGUST 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us