A Year with Frog and Toad

I’m really excited about the upcoming Mt. Vernon/Lisbon Community Theatre production of “A Year with Frog and Toad.”  The musical play is based on the wonderful “learn-to-read” books written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel and published in 1970 (which means that they have been around for at least two generations of eager learners).  Arnold and his wife Anita (also a writer and illustrator) had a daughter, Adrianne, who married an actor and adapted the books for the stage.  These books were favorites of my sons (now in their twenties) and they are checked out regularly at the Lisbon Library.   I am delighted to see our favorite stories on the stage:  Toad in his funny bathing suit, Frog and Toad on a cookie-eating binge, the snail who carries a letter from Frog to Toad.  

Going to a play can be such an important event in a child’s life.  There is nothing like the magic of live theatre, and making this available for children in our community has been a dream of our theatre group for years.  Don’t you remember the excitement of the lights going down and the curtain opening?  I sure do, and years later I still credit my mother, who drove many miles to take me to every children’s production in the tri-county area, for my lifetime interest in drama.   Plays are just another way to enjoy good stories, so reading books to children (using your best funny voices) is the key to creating future playgoers.  And everyone should be a playgoer, right? 

Give yourself a treat and take a child to a play.  Watch her face as she watches the actors on stage.  Come to “A Year with Frog and Toad” at the First Street Building,

221 1^st St. E.

in Mt. Vernon, on November 17 and 18 at 7 PM or on November 19 at 2 PM, if you live close enough.  Then come check out the book at my library! 

Aliens in the Ice Cream Parlor

Last month I participated in the All in a Day 24-Hour Play Festival at the new Coralville Performing Arts Center.  It was cosponsored by

City Circle

and Dreamwell Theatre companies and was the fourth time I’ve been involved.  Here’s how it worked:  seven writers, seven directors, and almost forty actors gathered on a Friday night at the Coralville Public Library (there were signups online ahead of time to determine who was doing what).  Seven teams were created by random drawings, each consisting of one writer, one director and an assortment of actors.  The writers drew a genre, a setting, and a “trope” (a specific line or a character type that needs to appear in the script), the teams chatted for a few minutes about ideas and casting possibilities, and then the writers went home and wrote a ten-minute script, which they emailed to the producer by 7 AM the next day.  The directors and actors met up at 8 AM to read the script and got busy blocking, rehearsing and memorizing.  At 8 PM, the seven plays were presented to an audience. 

The first year I did this, I signed up to be an actor and ended up playing a hardboiled crime photographer in a “noir” detective genre play written by my friend Joe.  It was set on the Empire State Building and someone had to say the line “Pretty is as pretty does.”   I’ve been a writer the last three times and find that job somewhat less stressful.   My first draw was a western set in a castle and last year I drew a “noir” drama set at a cast party with the trope, “wrong turn at Albequerque.”  Both of them were fun to write because I was comfortable with the genres.  But this time I drew my hated and dreaded genre:  science fiction. 

I love Star Wars and read Ray Bradbury as a kid, but I’m no hardcore sci fi fan.  I was intimidated, to say the least.   Our play had to be set in an ice cream parlor and had to have a “creepy child” character who creeps everyone out.  As it turned out, our team of actors included several sci fi fans and a guy who had managed the Great Midwestern Ice Cream Parlor for years.  The director had been trained in Las Vegas as a fight choreographer.  Another real plus was that a petite adult actress was willing to play the role of a creepy child.  (There were several very young actors involved in the plays, but none seemed sufficiently creepy.)   After I went home, I mulled over some ideas with my long-suffering husband and called my son in college (a real sci fi expert).   We all agreed that a plot involving aliens was the way to go.  I had an alien patronize the ice cream parlor in order to lower his body temperature.  He had been sent to investigate earth as a possible future site for his kind, but discovered that global warming had already compromised this planet.  Because he looked perfectly normal, no one believed him, except for the creepy child, who ended up leaving with him in the spaceship (offstage).  I decided not to write in any fight choreography, figuring the other constraints were challenging enough.

It was a great evening.  Our alien won the Best Actor award, and we watched some really funny plays—a western set on an elevator, a tragedy on a toboggan slope, and a fairy tale that had to include a fatal disease.  I no longer fear sci fi—in fact, I asked my son to recommend some books for me, and I would welcome more recommendations.    

Majestic Wedding

My husband and I got to attend a fun wedding in Madison, Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago.  It was especially fun because we have known this lovely young bride since she was a toddler and we were new parents ourselves.  Her parents, like us, were new to the community, so we became good friends.  Suddenly here we are twenty-five years later at the Majestic Theatre in downtown Madison, an old movie house that was beautifully renovated as a “venue” (a wonderful word with French and Latin roots that you hear a lot in wedding planning and theatrical circles and just means “place”), and we are all grown up and enjoying this festive occasion together.  The original seats had been removed during the renovation so that folding chairs and tables could be set up for the guests to sit for the wedding and then have dinner.  Later the floor was completely cleared of furniture for a dance.  We had a great time.   

A wedding is a theatre piece of sorts, and this seemed like the perfect place for these two young people who met while studying the dramatic arts in college.  Currently, he is going to graduate school for theatre, and she is getting her library science degree.  I think of her as my modern counterpart:  a young version of the librarian/actress who is passionate about serving the public and promoting literature by day and equally passionate about making theatre happen in her free time.  What an exciting time to be in library school!  It’s all about marketing and networking and using wonderful technological innovations to increase connectivity—not just about memorizing the Dewey Decimal system anymore. 

One of Laura’s projects for library school was to compile stories of artists who were connected to libraries in some way—inspired by them or working in them.  Libraries are not just for bookworms anymore and are giving the public a place to go to share or create art.  Because libraries are public and free and everyone feels welcome in them, they are the perfect place to inspire or showcase art projects.  We use Heritage Hall, our library’s second floor, for concerts and theatrical productions several times a month.   Local artists have created both permanent and transient pieces to enhance our library’s interior.  Libraries are always morphing and changing, even as theatres are morphing into “venues” for other sorts of events. 

Kindle Crush

I am not one of those librarians who has read every book in the library.  In fact, I am a pretty slow reader, and there have been periods in my life when I haven’t read at all.  But all that has changed—thanks to my Kindle.

Actually, it’s my husband’s Kindle.  He’s a Gadget Guy.  To his credit, he’s a really helpful Gadget Guy, so that when all of the copies of the book I’d ordered for our library discussion group had been snapped up and I needed to read it, he stepped in. 

“You can just download it onto my Kindle.  I don’t need it anymore now that I’ve got my IPad.” 

Here’s the deal:  my ears stop working when someone says “download.”  My comfort level with technology is in the same zone as clothespins and paperweights.  I have been called a hostile student by my husband, the most patient of teachers.  But I had a problem that could be solved through technology, so I allowed him to help me. 

The first book I read on the Kindle was “The Help” by Katherine Stockton, in November of last year.  Our library copy has been checked out for months, with multiple holds placed on it, and we had waited a long time for the discussion set to arrive from another library for our reading group.  It’s a popular book, and for good reason.  But it’s really long, and I don’t know about you , but when I’m faced with reading a really long book, I’m daunted. 

The Kindle only shows you one page at a time.  That way, you’re not constantly confronting all the pages you have yet to read.  My inner seventh grader balks at the idea of reading any book over two hundred pages long.  But if I can’t see ‘em, they don’t bother me.  At the bottom of the screen, the percentage of what you have read so far shows up.  Yay!  Twenty-two percent!  And the screen is little and cute—not like a computer screen.  Lightweight.  Fits in your pocketbook or messenger bag.   

I’ll show you mine if you come to the library.  There are lots of kinds of these electronic readers, and many of them are compatible with our electronic lending library online, which I can also show you.  You can download free books from our website.  I know—download.  We’d better get used to it.  If I can do it, so can you.