Anne of Green Gables: A Personal Tribute

Rosebud Theatre is a place where performers bring the pathos of everyday life to our stories on stage. Cassia Schramm plays the beloved Anne of Green Gables on our stage this summer. Her performance will be fuelled not only by her personal love of the story, but by an understanding of the significance of Anne in the life of a dear friend of the family. 

"I am thrilled to have the opportunity to play Anne Shirley this summer. It is a teenage dream-role! Who doesn’t want to relish words like “excruciatingly” or affectionately endow a tree with the name “Snow Queen”? Who doesn't long for kindred spirits like Diana, Matthew and Marilla? And, of course, who doesn’t want to crack a slate over Gilbert Blythe’s head?! I have always had a special place in my heart for Anne and the people in her story. This past year has given me yet another reason to fall in love with her.

A question in my mind, is how many times should we pay tribute to a lost loved one? Is it possible to spend too much time in grief and tribute that we forget to move on? Last summer a dear friend of my mother was killed in a motorcycle accident. Fern Corsiatto’s mantra was, “I will not live an unlived life!” Even her death seemed to exude this statement; she was riding through the mountains, clinging to the man she loved on the back of a motorcycle. Her death has left a huge hole in our family and community.  She did not live and unlived life, and we miss her immensely. She had a laugh that filled a room, and a presence that commanded it. She was a legendary karaoke performer of “Delta Dawn.” She wore pink. She was an artist and a teacher. She drove a Harley. She grew tomatoes. Her most prominent mark was her gigantic love! She loved her family, her children, her grandchildren, and fiercely loved her friends. She called her friends her “bosom friends” and greeted them with a kiss on the mouth. She liked to cause a stir, but more importantly she wanted people to know she loved them. The church was crammed full at her funeral, and every person there believed in their heart that she loved them the most.  She loved in a way that made you feel 

like you were the most important person in the world.

Fern loved Anne of Green Gables! I think in her heart she believed, like many Canadian girls, that she was Anne. A friend of hers told me the story of their trip to Prince Edward Island, which included a tour of Anne Shirley’s house. When Fern walked into the house she was overwhelmed and started crying. Her friend, in her delightful practicality said, “I don’t know why she was crying. Anne wasn’t even a real person!” Anne’s story was so precious to Fern that she became real. That’s the beauty of stories. 
They tell the truth, and sometimes they use facts.

How many tributes does a person get? Fern’s friends were songwriters, they wrote songs for her. The women of Fern’s family each wear a new fern tattoo. “Delta Dawn” will be forever devoted to her. Her friends now greet each other with a kiss on the mouth, so that she is always included. And as I stand on 
Rosebud Theatre's Opera House stage this summer, 
I will offer Anne as another tribute to her."

Cassia Schramm

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Rosebud Theatre company member, Jeany Van Meltebeke, who plays the hilarious and headstrong Esther in Rosebud's upcoming production, $38,000 For a Friendly Face, shares her thoughts about the show:

I have one of the best jobs in the world. Inside the theatre, I get to be in glowing light and participate in a story called $38,000 For a Friendly Face - a story about women doing their best on a difficult day for a lovable funeral director whoʼs struggling to manage a meaningful service for a woman nobody liked. At the end of rehearsal, I trudge through white snow to my home, about 200 steps away, where I get to share my meals with my husband, and then greet my kids when they get off the bus from school.

Acting is fun. Yes, itʼs just like playing pretend, but more than that--itʼs about stumbling onto truth in various ways. Itʼs about seeing someone opposite you in a new light, and itʼs about allowing yourself to truthfully respond with words that are prescribed. I know that part may sound unnatural to the non-actor, but think of it as learning to drive. After a bit of practice, you no longer think about the mechanics, but simply pay attention and respond instinctively.

One of my favorite moments is watching Kelsey Krogman lead a rebellion against cutting the crusts off sandwiches. Her character Marge has had enough of cutting the ugly out of truth and she is ready to fight for the right to have it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly! Sheʼs so fierce and committed, itʼs a pleasure to behold.

I also get to stand opposite my good friend Nathan Schmidt. Now Nathan often has a twinkle in his eye which can then lead to a smirk, which can then lead to a snigger, and then downright laughter! So early in rehearsal my natural responsive instinct was in conflict with the governor in my head to stay in character while this mirthful man was indulging his delight. I did not last. I too was overcome with an incredible urge to laugh and try as I could, through various tactics of avoidance, scolding, and tossing off the lines... it was hopeless and I experienced a kind of wonderful agony in trying to keep focused on the scene and stay present.

As I glance down at my hands, I see the pink glitter nail polish I have on for my character Esther. In the play Esther has done everything possible to look like spring. Her dress, makeup and nails are all pink, and her hair is carefully and abundantly curled. I smile because I would have never thought take time for this particular indulgence nor ever choose this particular color. But this small layer I take on to my own self helps me have a bit of sympathy for my character. In this way acting can be a very charitable endeavour as it allows me to expand my understanding of what it means to be human and hopefully helps me be more gracious to people unlike me. Even those who may not be so free...

Theatre thrives on conflict. Good stories do not dwell solely on the good, but they respect the beauty of it by earning it through trial, through messy circumstances and failure. And that, as Kelseyʼs character Marge would say, is the whole truth: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Sacred and profane, pink and black, sandwiches with their crusts left on and sandwiches with their crusts cut off - they all have a place because piece by piece, they help me put together a greater picture of life which is broadening the older I get. What more could I wish for?

Kristin Shepherd on $38,000 For A Friendly Face

I’ve been in conversations with Kristin Shepherd about her play, $38,000 For A Friendly Face. We’re starting rehearsals next week on this show that reveals the eccentricities of a host of characters gathering for one reason or another around what should be a "Celebration of Life" at a funeral home run by an awkward, middle-aged man who is absolutely new to running funeral homes. Funny as the story is, it is rooted in an unusual grace. The playwright says the following about why she wrote the play. I thought it was worth sharing. It resonates very much with why we produce the kinds of plays we do here in Rosebud.

“I'm interested in kindness in difficult situations and with difficult people. Someone says a friendly word at the drive-through at Tim Hortons and your life changes for a while. Someone makes sandwiches when your mother dies even if your mother was a difficult woman to like. A husband invites his wife out for coffee days after she leaves the marriage. Something about the simplicity of these acts of love and kindness knocks me over. I thought these things deserved to be on stage.”

Kristin Shepherd

The Little Town with a Website

Rosebud's got a new internet presence... information on all the "other" things going on in town, as well as info on our shows.

Check it out!

www.rosebud.ca

What if?

Monday night we partnered with Heritage Park in a Christmas celebration fundraiser called Christmas in Alberta through the generosity of Dick and Lois Haskayne. I've been encouraged to share what I shared that evening by way of story/conversation. The event took place in Gasoline Alley, a beautiful facility with a glorious collection of restored antique cars, trucks, gas pumps and signage.

Let me mention

one or two things about Christmas.

Of course you've all heard

that the animals talk

at midnight: a particular elk, for instance,

kneeling at night to drink, leaning tall to pull leaves

with his soft lips, says, alleluia.

That the soil and freshwater lakes

also rejoice,

as do products

such as sweaters

(nor are plastics excluded from grace),

is less well known.

Further: the reason for some silly looking fishes,

for the bizarre mating

of certain adult insects,

or the sprouting, say

in a snow tire

of a Rocky Mountain grass,

is that the universal

loves the particular,

that freedom loves to live

and live fleshed full,

intricate,

and in detail.

from Feast Days, by Annie Dillard

We’re standing in a building full of old wonders that have been restored to their new and shiny glory. Some of these old trucks and cars were just rusty heaps used to ferry crops, kids, husbands and wives through the day-to-day of their lives. There was probably a moment of wonder when Dad and Mom drove the new car or truck into the yard. Everyone went for a ride. And then gradually over the years, the extraordinary became ordinary, denting and scratching and wearing itself out in the everyday of a family’s life. There’s a row of tractors across the street from the Opera House in Rosebud. Every showtime intermission people gather round them, remembering hard times and good times - all contained in the machined and painted bodies of those old farm implements. It’s as if the past meets the present like presents from the past breaking through time, making them all young again. What if camels from 2000 years ago really did appear on the off-ramp to Chinook Mall? What if there really are angels on the hills surrounding Rosebud? What if all these restored cars and trucks that drove people to Christmas Eve church services and turkey dinners could speak the conversations that happened between people on those magical nights? What if there really was a child born of a Virgin? What if it could happen again? What if every child born is part of that same mystery, born to walk into some kind of wonderful divine destiny that nobody knows, except maybe the Creator of Life. What if every mother and father’s hopes and dreams are met in their children on the day of their birth, on Christmas day and all the other days that they wait at the bus stop for the return of their children from school, sitting at High School and College graduations, walking down the aisle on wedding days, picking up after brand new grandchildren, and more. What if it’s all some kind of mysterious life dance where the Creator of the Universe gives a cycle of days and nights, years and lives lived in houses and neighborhoods with pots and pans, cars and trucks, camels and mangers and shepherd staffs. What if all of it lives on in some kind of glorious aurora borealis of light that comes and goes at will - breathtaking reminders of mysteries we don’t understand, not even scientists who go home to their houses full of pots and pans and dishwashers full of after Christmas dinner celebration that work because someone figured out the magic of electricity and motors and those plastic arms that swish water around so that everything comes out clean. What if everything we see everyday is a miracle?

We Rosebud folk believe in such stuff. We’ve met people who have actually seen angels. We tell stories about people whose lives have been changed from the inside out. We make food in a kitchen filled with pots and pans and gadgets that hold mysterious combinations of spices and flavor that mingle with the bounty that comes from farmer’s fields where giant machines gobble up stalks of grain and spit out the seeds into big bins leaving the straw behind to rot into the food for next year’s crop. At night, in the fall, you can see mysterious slow moving lights all across the prairie. They move in concentric circles, two at a time, always in concert. And when you’re in the Rosebud valley looking up at the hills above, those lights move with purpose against a starlit sky. It makes it easy for a person to believe in Wise Men and camels and a heavenly light that moved over the earth - and maybe even angels appearing in the night sky, bearing the good news about a child who will change the world for the sake of love.

Annie Dillard’s Feast Days ends with ...

God empties himself

into the earth like a cloud.

God takes the substance, contours

of a man, and keeps them,

dying, rising, walking,

and still walking wherever there is motion.

Morris

Gifts and Glories and Remembrance

It’s been a week since The Gifts of the Magi opened on our stage. The word “glorious” comes to mind as I think of the company of performers and technicians and audience that have come together around this classic story by O. Henry. There’s a song that Jim sings in the show called “How Much To Buy My Dream”. It’s about living on the edge of it all, holding out for hope and love and life. In our staging, the song takes Jim home to Della - his wife and the love of his life. It’s the day before Christmas and to Jim, she’s the brightest light in the world right now. ... (You'll have to see the show to get the rest.)

Today is Remembrance Day, and something about that song, this day, and a John Steinbech quote all come together in the words “glory” and “glorious”. (And, just so we’re clear, when I read the word “man” in this explosion of thought from Steinbech’s East of Eden, I hear “person”, meaning women and men.)

“Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then - the glory - so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from all other men. ...

At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. ...

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. ... If the glory can be killed, we are lost.”

There was an article in the Edmonton Journal this morning about children laying poppies on each and every military gravestone in a cemetery in Edmonton. There was yet another story about a soldier and his newly minted bride, marrying while he was on leave in 1945. A statement in that article brought me full circle and back to The Gifts of the Magi and the marriage at the centre of the story.

“Love was then as it is now - an act of involuntary hope, a gesture from the heart that we promise to carry into the future.”

- Robert S. Jahrig -

There is something like an explosion of heart that happens when we wake up to the glory in each other. Marriages happen. Children happen. Families happen. Deep and lasting friendships happen.

Some 60 or so years ago, my wife Jo’s uncle died hours before troops landed on Normandy beach. He was a paratrooper and Mother’s son from Saskatchewan, the result of “an act of involuntary hope” between a working class husband and wife. His Dad was a traveling salesman, an ordinary Joe, not unlike Jim Dillingham in The Gifts of the Magi. Who knows what Morris Ellefson’s dream was, but he wrote to his Mother words about God keeping them all hours before he climbed aboard the fateful plane that took him to a much too early eternal glory. He and other ordinary Joe's like he and his Mom and Dad carry a shine that on this Remembrance Day seems particularly glorious.

Morris

Twirling and Gliding in Time - The Gifts of the Magi opens Friday!!!

The Gifts of the Magi is rehearsing on stage now, and we open in just a few days. This is juggling time. The addition of a set that twirls and glides as an extension of the story takes time. In our note session at the end of Saturday, Deanne Bertsch, our choreographer, flew me a paper airplane with requests for more time. Bill Hamm has musical nuances he needs to rehearse Monday. And I have a list of scenes, moments, transitions and more to work that can’t possibly fit into Monday. So, we’ll set out to do the impossible.

A show is a giant orchestration that involves so many details - all of which are important. And that’s what makes this time coming up to opening so exhilarating. Everything we do is exponential. It all adds up to more than the sum of the parts. The movement of a set piece becomes story - a physical manifestation of something going on in the heart of a character in the play. A staging problem must be solved, and it leads to a deeper understanding of the story. It’s like Michael Angelo’s sculpting of stone. He stated that the sculpture was inside, waiting to be released. Well, our stone consists of lights, sound, musical instruments, set pieces, and above all - emotional people in motion. And we’re in the process of pulling the story out of all of those elements.

In the end, it’s about the people who make the technical elements, the people who speak and sing the words, and the people who come to participate by receiving the story - the audience. The theatre is ultimately an orchestration where an audience interacts with performers who are staged in a living story-telling environment. Every audience becomes as much a part of the story as the performers themselves. It’s all wonderfully mystical and communal.

But we’ll have to wait for preview and opening to add them to our orchestration. Right now we have to alter the dance step that happens when the New York brownstone apartment scoots our street carolers up and around the stage during a traffic jam. Bill may have to rearrange the piano part that Sarah plays so that it times out for Soapy the beggar to arrive across the street, avoiding the cars that are whizzing by him, in time to catch the penny one of the carolers tosses him from the middle of the street where he is trapped with a woman he does not know, who has just slapped him after he saved her life from an oncoming cab. That moment could take a while. And we only have 34 hours of rehearsal time left before opening!