La Jolla Playhouse Blog

Second in a 3-part series

By guest blogger Anne Marie Welsh
June 14, 2013

Distinguished arts writer Anne Marie Welsh will be sharing with us some of her memories and experiences over the course of decades as a real-life Girl Friday in the fast-paced newspaper business. Last week, we left off with Anne Marie having scored her first big interview with legendary running back for the Cleveland Browns, Jim Brown, and spending summers taking in the hum and groove of the Batavia Daily. Follow along as she continues her story…

Part II

Dateline: Washington, D.C., 1970s

In college, my budding journalism “career” gives way to a greater love for literature, and I earn a string of degrees through a Ph.D. in English lit, with an emphasis in theater. The writing I do is academic, and turns this teen sports reporter and Girl Friday into a thoughtful critic.

I live in Washington, D.C. and, while writing my dissertation, I teach writing, journalism and literature at a community college. Katie Couric is one of my students. In the summer of ‘74, I become obsessed with the Watergate hearings. I watch them live on TV and savor the hypocrisies again in the late-night replay.

I grow so fed up with the Orwellian testimony that I write a piece on obfuscation and the mutilation of the language and submit it to the Washington Star. “Watergate Language” runs as a Sunday op-ed with a well-drawn illustration. Two days later I’m being interviewed on NPR, and pretty soon I’m free-lancing for the paper.

Then, a week after I defend my dissertation and launch a job search for a university teaching position, Kismet happens. The features editor of the Star, Mary Anne Dolan, gives me a shot at writing about my first love, dance. Soon I’m sitting in the aisle seat just left of center in Row R of the Kennedy Center Opera House, again taking notes, this time on Rudolf Nureyev dancing with Marcia Mason in The Royal Ballet production of “Swan Lake.”

The Star likes my work, and I like them, and it’s back to journalism, this time as a critic of dance and, sometimes, theater.

Computers (which must be shared and often crash) have just come into the newsroom in 1974, so the sound of clacking typewriters is gone, along with the typesetters. But everybody still smokes, some scribes spike their coffee, and mice still scurry about the cluttered floor. The romance of newspapering remains, and so does the andrenaline-pumping pressure of late night deadlines: 12:30 a.m. for a next day review.

Before the Star folds in August, 1981, I see and review every major ballet, modern and world dance company that comes to town, interview Martha Graham, Erick Hawkins, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Agnes DeMille, Jerome Robbins, Alvin Ailey, George Balanchine, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Natalia Makarova, Judith Jamison, Bando Tomasaburo V—all the great dancers and choreographers of the mid-to-later 20^th Century.

I also write features and some reviews on the newly burgeoning theater scene in D.C., interviewing among many others, actors James Mason, Tammy Grimes and Penny Fuller, and Nobel winning playwright Wole Soyinka.

My colleagues at the Star include columnists Mary McGrory, Jack Germond and Jules Witcover, theater critic Dave Richards, and the fledgling Maureen Dowd. I am stretching my wings and my gratitude is boundless.

These are the years before portable computers with modems. So, like Hildy Johnson in “The Front Page” and “His Girl Friday,” I sometimes call in stories from phone booths, dictating from spots like Wolf Trap’s Filene Center for the Performing Arts in suburban Virginia to make that tight deadline.

Time, Inc., which had bought the Star three years before, does fold it in 1981. Arts criticism in newspapers is a rarefied specialty, so what’s next?

You can learn about Anne Marie Welsh’s new life as an author, writing coach and Yoga instructor at her website http://annemariewelsh.com, and you can follow her blog, The Inward Eye, at http://www.annemariewelsh/blog/.

An ad for Anne Marie as dance critic for The New Washington Star, 1980.

Want a chance at free tickets to His Girl Friday for this FRIDAY, JUNE 14? Did we mention that tickets to this Friday’s show also get you into Foodie Friday, where you can grub on gourmet foodtruck yumminess from Chop Soo-ey and Green Truck and enjoy complimentary microbrew tastings from Stone Beer?

It’s easy. Here’s all you have to do:

• Answer the three trivia questions below.
• Email them with your contact info to Grace Madamba at gmadamba@ljp.org.
• Be ready to attend Foodie Friday, beginning at 6pm, this Friday, June 14 , here at the Playhouse. After that, enjoy 2 seats to His Girl Friday at 8pm.

Submissions with all the correct answers will be entered to win. We’ll pick one winner in an opportunity drawing and notify him/her tomorrow evening, Thursday, June 13! Good luck!

Here are the questions:

1. Who is the scenic designer for the Playhouse’s production of His Girl Friday?

2. Cary Grant played the male lead, Walter Burns, in the film version of His Girl Friday. But “Cary Grant” was not his birth name. What was his actual name?

3. Our guest blogger, Anne Marie Welsh, mentions her first big interview in “On the Case with a former Girl Friday: My life in newspapers, from baseball to ballet.”  What was the name and job of her first star interview?

First Post in a 3-Part Series

By guest blogger Anne Marie Welsh
June 7, 2013

In the spirit of our season opening production, His Girl Friday and tenacious female journalists like Hildy Johnson everywhere, we’ve invited distinguished arts writer Anne Marie Welsh to share her experiences in the rapid-pace, ever-changing newspaper business over the course of a decades-long career.  Anne Marie was the San Diego Union and Union-Tribune’s dance critic and arts reporter for 15 years and the paper’s theater critic from 1997-2008. We’re honored to share her story here.

Part I
Dateline:  LeRoy, New York, Fall 1959

I’m a freshman at Notre Dame High School in Batavia, commuting 10 miles on a schoolbus from home. A devoted ballet student, I have energy to burn and hope to compete in sports, like my brothers do. But at our school, girls are considered pansies and can only play half-court basketball. So I try out for cheerleading, make the squad, but hate it and quit.

I keep score for my brothers’ Little League and Babe Ruth League teams each summer, so when the school’s athletic director asks if I’d like to do that for the boys’ high school teams, I jump at the chance.

Keeping score at that level turns me into a reporter. I am 13 years old. For the next four years, I keep the official books and call game statistics in to three newspapers, the Buffalo Evening News, the Buffalo Courier Express, and the Batavia Daily News.

My father is a physician whose office is attached to our house, so after the games, I strut into his secretary’s office, put my feet up on the desk, and dial the newspapers.  If I’d had a cigar, I would have chomped on it. “Sports,” some crusty guy answers, and I tick off the stats. Fast, accurate, on deadline, as they demand. I feel all grown up.

Pretty soon I have my first bylines in the Batavia paper. The prep sports editor in Buffalo, Dick Stedler, writes a column with my picture, titled “First Girl Stringer for High School Sports.” And then I hit the bigtime: Jim Brown, just beginning his legendary career as a running back for the Cleveland Browns, is going to speak at Notre Dame’s annual Sports Booster Club banquet, and I will get to interview him.

Notebook in hand, I jot down the high points of the speech: “Remember, academics are Number One,” he tells the big, mostly male crowd in the school cafeteria, “and athletics are Number Two.” Pretty soon I’m standing next to the NFL star asking questions about his college career in Syracuse.
Someone shoots a photo of the two of us, him in a three-piece suit, me in my plaid shirtwaist with the shiny black buttons, patent leather belt and matching flats. My story appears in the school paper, the photo lands in our yearbook Mater Dei, and I’m hooked on journalism.

Summers I work for the Batavia Daily, where generous, multitasking editors like Paul Bostwick and Jimmy Gerrity teach me the ropes. Typewriters clacking all around, I write stories on thefts, fires, animals at the county fair, visiting exchange students, and do plenty of scut work like getting coffee and putting headlines on little fillers that come in over the teletype wire.

Guys wearing sleeve garters and green eyeshades are editing stories with thick pencils; linotype operators above us are setting the pages line by line in hot type. The whoosh of vacuum tubes sending rolled copy counterpoints the action.

I’m meeting all kinds of people—and sources—and I’m getting paid for doing what I love, writing. It doesn’t matter that I’m a girl here. This is all so good.  But where will it lead?

You can learn about Anne Marie Welsh’s new life as an author, writing coach and Yoga instructor at her website http://annemariewelsh.com, and you can follow her blog, The Inward Eye, at http://www.annemariewelsh/blog/.

Guest blogger Anne Marie Welsh on Opening Night of HIS GIRL FRIDAY

• His Girl Friday, staged by the Playhouse’s Artistic Director Christopher Ashley, opened our 2013/2014 Season with performances that began on Tuesday, May 28. The show runs through June 30, and you can get your tickets here. Check out our handy Know Before You Go guide before you head over to the theatre!

• Ashley talked about His Girl Friday and the exciting line-up of shows at the Playhouse this year on the May 26^th edition of Jazz 88’s “Inside Art“ and on the May 30^th airing of KPBS’ “Midday Edition.”

• Says acclaimed actor Keith Carradine of “Used To Be,” the song that drew him to the role of JD Drew in the Playhouse-commissioned, Tony-nominated Hands on a Hardbody: “[It] so spoke to me when I heard it because it’s kind of my experience of America… We’re losing the individual feeling for places because of everything becoming the same, everywhere you go. And there’s that beautiful line: ‘If it looks the same everywhere you go, how do you know when you’ve gotten home?’ It’s a great song.” Listen to his interview with NPR’s “All Things Considered” in its entirety by clicking here.

• Music to our ears: the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Hands on a Hardbody is slated for a June 25 release! Click here to check out some preview clips from the album.

• And in more Hands on a Hardbody news, the show’s songwriter/lyricist Amanda Green discussed the joy of making musicals and her recent theatrical success in this interview with The Huffington Post.

• Mark your calendars for Friday, June 14, 6pm. It’s the first Foodie Friday of the 2013/2014 Season when we welcome the tasty Asian-inspired fare of Chop-Sooey and the organic and local cuisine of the eco-friendly Green Truck! If you’re not familiar with the event, Foodie Friday invites theatergoers with a love for beer and delicious eats to select Playhouse performances which include access to some of San Diego’s finest food trucks, plus a complimentary microbrew tasting from Stone Brewery. (Please note cost of food is not included in ticket price. Make sure to bring cash for food truck purchases.)

• The curtain will rise again for Little Miss Sunshine, the hit musical we launched in 2011 and which was based on the 2006 roadtrip-comedy flic of the same name. The production will make its way to New York City’s Second Stage Theatre with an October 15 debut!

• The inimitable, iconic director and actor, Clint Eastwood, has officially signed on to helm the film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning hit musical Jersey Boys. Before it landed on Broadway, Jersey Boys, which tells the story of Franki Valli and The Four Seasons, premiered at the Playhouse in 2004. Production on the movie is scheduled for later this summer in Los Angeles.

• Native Voices at the Autry is the nation’s premiere theatre company dedicated to developing and producing new works for the stage by Native American, Alaska Native, and First Nations writers. Every year, Native Voices presents new or in-progress plays by Native playwrights with staged readings at The Autry in Los Angeles and La Jolla Playhouse, where we are proud to welcome them back on June 1 & 2 for the 2013 Festival of New Plays! Learn more Native Voices in this Voice of San Diego article.

(L-R) Douglas Sills ("Walter Burns"), Jenn Lyon ("Hildy Johnson") and Donald Sage Mackay ("Bruce Baldwin") in our production of HIS GIRL FRIDAY.

 

 

 

 

 

• We shared some terrific news with the announcement of La Jolla Playhouse’s first Artist-in-Residence, Robert Brill. A UC San Diego alum, Sledgehammer Theatre co-founder and acclaimed set designer with over 13 Broadway shows and multiple awards to his name, Robert is a longtime collaborator who has set the stage (literally!) for over a dozen Playhouse productions, including Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. You can see his work this 2013/2014 season with the sets for the upcoming His Girl Friday  and Sideways.

• We couldn’t be more excited for the La Jolla Playhouse-born musicals Hands on a Hardbody and Chaplin: The Musical (at the Playhouse as Limelight). Between them, they share 31 nominations for the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Drama League Awards!

• Congratulations to Rob McClure and Keala Settle for their Theatre World Awards  for outstanding debut performances in the La Jolla Playhouse-launched Chaplin and Hands on a Hardbody!

• We had a great evening on Wednesday, May 15 at our Season Kick-off Event with Playhouse donors, supporters, friends and staff! Post-reception, Managing Director Michael Rosenberg and Artistic Director Christopher Ashley led a lively and enlightening discussion in the Mandell Weiss Theatre about the incredible productions that will be brought to life in 2013/2014.

• If you’re heading to the TCG National Conference in Dallas June 6-8, you won’t want to miss the June 7 talk between the 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar and La Jolla Playhouse’s Director for New Play Development Gabe Greene. Akhtar’s The Who & The What has its world premiere at the Playhouse this February, closing out the 2013/2014 season.

• Just announced: Neva, authored by award-winning Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón, is a Playhouse co-production with South Coast Repertory Theatre and the Center Theatre Group. It will run in a special engagement from June 26-30 in the Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre.

• Making a comeback: 700 Sundays, the Tony Award-winning, autobiographical play written and performed by stage and screen star Billy Crystal, was a La Jolla Playhouse-developed Page to Stage production before making it big on Broadway. It returns to the Great White Way for a limited nine-week run this fall with Playhouse Director Emeritus Des McAnuff at the helm.

• Maybe you’ve already seen the 1940 film (with the incomparable Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell), but we’re prepared to wow you with the Christopher Ashley-directed His Girl Friday, making its West Coast premiere at La Jolla Playhouse and opening our season with performances from May 28-June 30. Check out this UT San Diego article to learn more about the show.

On the set of the upcoming HIS GIRL FRIDAY, Managing Director Mike Rosenberg and Artistic Director Chris Ashley discuss a terrific line-up of shows slated for 2013/2014 at our season kickoff event!

You made it all the way here!  Impressive!  The first 5 correct responses to the mystery will get two free tickets to see ACCOMPLICE:SAN DIEGO in Little Italy this weekend.  Good work, detective.

• We closed the DNA New Work Series on Sunday with the final performance of Brahman/i: A One-Hijra Stand-Up Comedy Show. Special thanks to Playwright Aditi Brennan Kapil, Director Jeremy Cohen, Actors Sam Ghosh and Jesse Jensen and everyone who came out to support the show.

• Steppin’ Out with Ben Vereen starts in just a few weeks! Check out the photos we posted on our Facebook page.

• Our Annual Gala is SOLD OUT! We’d like to thank all of our donors/volunteers/supporters for making this happen. Stay tuned our Facebook page and Twitter account for live updates from the night.

• On Wednesday, the POP Tour celebrated one month of performances! We were honored to have La Jolla Patch join us for A Lonely Boy’s Guide to Survival (And Werewolves) at La Jolla Elementary School. Check out their photos.

• Want to win tickets to Steppin’ Out With Ben Vereen and dinner at Roppongi in La Jolla? Enter our sweepstakes online. Just make sure you like our Facebook page first!

• We are bringing Foodie Fridays back this season! Let us know what food trucks you’d like to see at La Jolla Playhouse in the comments below.

Ian Littleworth and Jason Frank in A Lonely Boy's Guide to Survival (And Werewolves). Photo by Michelle Mowad from La Jolla Patch

• The exciting  DNA New Work Series finishes up with BRAHAMAN/I A One-Hijra Stand-Up Comedy Show, which started performances last night. Check out UT San Diego‘s interview with the show’s playwright, Aditi Brennan Kapil.

• Tickets for ACCOMPLICE: SAN DIEGO are now on sale! Scour the streets of Little Italy to find clues March 26 – April 14. Tickets available here.

• Hands on a Hardbody begins previews on Broadway TOMORROW! Here’s a preview of the show (born right here at La Jolla Playhouse!) from The New York Times.

• Steam Powered Giraffe is coming to La Jolla Playhouse! See the band perform live on March 24. Check out this video of their song “Honeybee.”

• We’ve selected a winner for the Holland America Line 7-day cruise for 2. Congratulations to Aron T!

• Casting has been announced for the Off Broadway run of the Playhouse-developed Peter and the Starcatcher at New World Stages. Get the details from Playbill.

Sam Ghosh during rehearsal for BRAHMAN/I: A ONE-HIJRA STAND-UP COMEDY SHOW. Photo by Dana Holliday.

• Congratulations to An Iliad! Our co-production with Berkeley Repertory Theatre took home 5 Craig Noel Awards, including the top honor for “Outstanding Dramatic Production.” The San Diego Critics Circle Award also honored Blood and Gifts, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and The Car Plays: San Diego. See below for more info.

• This week we launched the 2013 Performance Outreach Program (POP) Tour production, A Lonely Boy’s Guide to Survival (And Werewolves). We asked cast member, Ian Littleworth, to tweet some behind-the-scenes photos from the road. View his tweets here or check out production photos of the show.

• We bid a fond farewell to The Tall Girls, as the cast took its final bow on Sunday evening. The DNA New Work Series continues this week with a series of 1-day readings.

• We welcomed the cast and crew of Brahman/i, A One-Hijra Stand-Up Comedy Show, also part of the DNA New Work Series, to La Jolla Playhouse this week. Check out photos on our Instagram account.

• What’s next for big musicals like Hands on a Hardbody or Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots? Find out from UT San Diego in this feature.

• La Jolla Playhouse’s very own Jersey Boys celebrated 3000 performances on Broadway. The current cast includes a few Playhouse favorites, including Matt Bogart (Zhivago), Jeremy Kushnier (Jesus Christ Superstar), plus Peter Gregus and Joe Payne from the original La Jolla production of Jersey Boys.

2013 Craig Noel Awards

 Outstanding Dramatic Production

“An Iliad,” La Jolla Playhouse

 Outstanding Sound Design

Mark Bennett, “An Iliad,” La Jolla Playhouse

Shahrokh Yadegari, “Blood and Gifts,” La Jolla Playhouse

 Outstanding Lighting Design

Scott Zielinski, “An Iliad,” La Jolla Playhouse

 Outstanding Solo Performance

Henry Woronicz, “An Iliad,” La Jolla Playhouse

Outstanding Featured Musical Performance in a Play

Brian Ellingsen, “An Iliad,” La Jolla Playhouse

 Outstanding Technical Achievement

“Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,” La Jolla Playhouse. Team: Robert Brill, scenic design; Basil Twist, puppetry; Paul Tazewell, costumes; Michael Walton, lighting; Steve Canyon Kennedy, sound design; Sean Nieuwenhuis, projections

Outstanding Special Event

“The Car Plays,” La Jolla Playhouse, Without Walls series

Congratulations to our former Resident Theatre Company, Moxie Theatre, for winning the Braunagel Award for outstanding contribution to the San Diego arts scene by a small-budget theatre, among other awards.

Click here for a full list of winners.

The Artist’s Journey provides an insider look at the creation of a production, through the eyes of one of the show’s key players.

Cris O’Bryon is a local actor/musician and plays “Song Writer/Manager” in the concert reading of Chasing the Song. We sat down with him to talk about his experience working on this new musical.

How long have you been performing in San Diego as a performer, musician and teacher?

Cris O'Bryon

For over 15 years in San Diego, and before for a number of years on the East Coast.

What has it been like working on Chasing the Song as a performer and as a professional music director?

It’s is always exciting to watch a new work take shape, to watch the daily rewrites that occur sometimes several times in a single hour, sometimes inspired by an ad lib from one of the people in the room, sometimes as a result of a happy accident in learning new material. It is also very interesting to see the confluence of diverse backgrounds and creative vocabulary unite to make new artistic work come alive.

What is different about working on a reading like this versus a full production?

Well, a full production often has 3-6 weeks of rehearsal, and 4-8 weeks of performance or more, depending on the project – this is only 3 weeks total for both rehearsals and previews. Also, there seem to be many more rewrites because there is more flexibility to see what works and what doesn’t, to develop characters differently, and to try new ideas within the songs, add new ones, reassign vocal parts, harmonies, etc.

How does it feel to be back at the Playhouse working with Christopher Ashley?

It is so much fun to watch him work on a new piece, adding his wonderful direction and concepts throughout each aspect of the show. He both knows what he wants and, at the same time, is unafraid to allow and encourage input from others to co-create these threads that make the fabric of the new play to come.