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Blogs -> Isaiah's Blog -> A Look at The Thalia Follies
Hello
again, friends. My COSSBA (Council of
Symphony Space Blog Advisors) has suggested to me that many of you might like a
backstage look at just how The Thalia Follies is created. So, here goes:
As many of
you may know, Symphony Space's political cabaret, The Thalia Follies, is
beginning its fourth year of comedy, songs, poetry, shtick, and uncategorizable
somethings-or-other. The Follies takes
place on six Monday evenings in the 175-seat Leonard Nimoy Thalia, with drinks
available in the theatre from our unWined Cafe, at the 6:30 and 8:30 shows.
Each of the
monthly Follies has a designated subject.
Later in the season it will be The Food Follies, The God Follies, The
Digital Follies, etcetera, but the season kickoff on October 22 is devoted to
comedy about the seemingly endless-already-it's-been-going-on-for-what-seems-like-ten-years
Presidential Election of 2008, with a couple of related glances on some global
issues like, say, that war over there that seems equally endless.
A Monday
evening Follies begins its extremely short and intensive seven-day rehearsal
period on the previous Monday and we catch what rehearsal hours we can, given
the busy lives of our regular cadre of revuers, and the availability of a room
with a piano in the always-busy spaces of Symphony Space. On that Monday we look over what material we
have assembled and assign songs and monologues and the rest to the performers
available this month. Musical Director
Lanny Meyers starts teaching everyone the songs, finding the right keys,
creating back-up harmonies, and all the rest.
By Thursday or Friday we have a number of items shaping up. Over
the weekend it all comes together, a running order is determined, and on Monday
afternoon, lights, costume, choreography, props, sound checks, and final
topical bits are all shaken up in the Mixmaster and by 6:30 it's showtime!
So, if we
are to begin rehearsing on October 15th for the October 22 Follies,
we get cracking two weeks before that (this past Monday, October 1) with a
meeting at the Key West Diner across the street from Symphony Space, to which
the show's two main creators, yours truly and Producer and veteran comedy
writer Martin Sage, bring lists of possible topics that we should cover, the
germs of ideas we might have been thinking up, random news items clipped from
publications and the internet, plus lists of what some of the
singer-songwriters in our regular cast like Nora York, or David Buskin, or Jay
Leonhart, or The Chalks might be coming up with.
While it's
still very early in this month's comedy gestation, we can safely predict that
the October 22 Follies will include Hillary singing "Just My Bill," as well as
a ballad about the exciting (ho-hum) Fred Thompson candidacy, a tap-dance
number about that Minneapolis Airport men's room, a song about Mrs. Giuliani as
well as one about President Sarkozy of France, a sketch about scheduling the
Delaware Presidential Primary, a Shakespearean soliloquy for Obamo, The Moor of
Chicago, and an instructional guide on how to tell the second-tier Republican
hopefuls apart.
There's
still time to submit your own sketch, monologue, or song lyric. Join the fun!
Permanent link: http://www.symphonyspace.org/blogs/isaiah/18
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