June 8, 2012
           Reporter: Ron Brown      Editor: Ron Brown        Photographer: Spike Speicher                     President:  Alex Arnold, 2011 - 2012          

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

yeager 1-9
Chuck, in his usual pose

 

"Any person who selects a goal in life, which can be fully achieved, has already defined his limitations." By Cavett Robert, via "the unlimited" Carl F. (Chuck) Yeager.

 

VISITING ROTARIANS AND GUESTS

 

Rotarians: Anita King, Rossmoor

                   Bob Aguilar - Noon club

                   Alicia Cragholm - Noon and Sunrise  

 

Guests: The inimitable Agatha Sue, with best comeback of the day to above Thought maker

Just in time for Motorama Dennis!

               Dennis Kurimai, back in the fold from LOA but introduced as a guest anyway

 

SALMON FISHING ANYONE?

 

Bob Aguilar, pretending to be John Sherry, invited one and all in our club (actually limited to about eight or nine hardy souls) to join the Noon Club on their chartered, Rotary exclusive salmon fishing boat on Wednesday, June 27. The boat departs from Emeryville precisely at 6 am, and will return anytime between 2 pm and 5 pm depending on how successful the anglers really are. Only $100 per person, with another $20 thrown in for the gear. He promises you will get your limit! Please let Bob, or John, or Alicia, or Anna or whoever the regular noon club attendees are at our meetings, know of your intentions (with hard cash in hand) to get on board.

 

ARE THE BOSTON RED SOX ALL WET?

 

What's with this Thomas?

Maybe so? Thomas Raeth had a genuine, plastic, Red Sox rain poncho straight from Fenway Park to present to Krysten Laine this morning. Supposedly so that she will not get wet the next time she goes to one of their games, either there or here.

 

Not deterred, Krysten announced that MOTORAMA is proceeding nicely with about 75 cars signed up for display so far. Bank of the West is ready and willing to handle all cash receipts at the event and sponsor banners are in production for display all over the show area. The set-up crew will be meeting this Tuesday night. All members were encouraged to sign up for their various assignments once again, just to ensure complete

June 17, 2012

participation. If you have totally not been paying attention and are in need of a last gasp reminder, the event is on Father's Day, Sunday, June 17 at the Postino parking lot. Please plan to show up there...working or not!

 

CASTING OUT THE OLD AND INSTALLING THE NEW

 

Not that Alex is happy, or anything

This is your chance to witness a real, live Rotary Club changing of the guard. Out with Alex Arnold and his administration and in with the Mark Roberts gang, albeit with several of the same faces. This momentous event will occur on Tuesday, June 12, 7am at Caf� Europa, across the street from Peets Coffee, in Orinda. The meeting is expected to last until about 8:30 am. Everyone is invited to attend. However you must RSVP to Hays Englehart so he can plan for availability of enough food. If you show up unannounced, figure on patronizing Peets instead.

 

SIGN UPS FOR 3/4 CENTURY CLUB LUNCHEON and/or 4th of JULY PANCAKE RUN

Seems like John is always on the prowl

 

John Fazel is still soliciting member participation at the annual Orinda 3/4 Century Club event he will again be MC'ing on Wednesday, June 20. Workers are needed from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm. Prior member participants agree this is a very uplifting experience.

 

For the first time, our club has the opportunity to put on the Pancake Breakfast for the 4th of July Orinda Run. Beginning at 6:30 am and winding up about 10:30 am. Another worthy credit to be claimed by our club's ever expanding commitment to public service. Paul Harris would be proud!

 

PROGRAM

 

Michael really gets into it

Michael Butler is in his sixth season as Artistic Director of Center REP, the resident professional company of the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. His directing credits for Center Rep include award-winning productions of Around the World in 80 Days, Nixon's Nixon, The Marriage of Figaro, A Midsummer Night's Dream and To Kill A Mockingbird. Michael's directing work has also been seen in New York, Los Angeles, at major regional theatres around the country and at the Julliard School, of which he is a graduate. He is a published songwriter and the co-writer and composer of numerous music-theatre pieces, which he has directed and performed in NY, LA and at festivals in India and Morocco. In his career as a performer he worked on Broadway and off, in film and television, performed with the Eric Hawkins Dance Company, portrayed the villainous Pierre LeChance in the Guiding Light, was the radio voiceover for New York City Opera and played guitar and harmonica in many rock, blues and country western bands at most notable dives in NYC.

 

The objective of his presentation this morning was to help us understand what an Artistic Director does and why Michael thinks it is one of the 600 or so best jobs in the country. Over 1,000 performances occur every year at the Lesher Center, which is extraordinary. The city of Walnut Creek owns and operates the only year-round professional company among the aforementioned 600 other theatre operations. The company has a mission statement and core values, similar to those required to successfully run any business. In addition to entertaining and being financially viable, some of the core values are producing shows with an optimistic view of humanity, with a message, can be fun, light-hearted, even ridiculous, and sometimes project a "follow that dream" capability.

 

Financially viable means being able to break even each year (six times in a row for Michael), which is extraordinary in these tough times; gain sponsorships, donors and achieve significant earned income. A patron has to make the judgment as to whether going to live theater is worth it. The theater has to engage the audience, otherwise it doesn't work. 75% of the annual income for the Lesher operation comes from ticket sales, proving what Michael is producing does work.

 

The Artistic Director has complete control of the shows, including selecting the plays and the music, hiring the technical and musical directors and procuring the talent, whether with equity status or amateur performers. Michael produces eight Center REP plays a year. He seeks balance in his choices and always likes to open and close the season with a high entertainment bang. The challenge is to make play selections that meet all of his criteria, and which have not appeared recently elsewhere in the Bay Area. A key question in the selection decision making process is "can we do this?" Are actors available who can pull it off? Finally, uppermost in his selection process is that he, the director, has to like the selection and must be personally engaged. He reads the play "at least a hundred times" and loves to get creative in set design.

 

"Nixon's, Nixon" is one if Michael's favorite productions. The fictional story takes place in the totally "ugly" Lincoln Room at the White House, when Nixon supposedly met with Kissinger the night before he resigned the presidency. Most set designers have simply recreated the look of that room. Michael's creation was an all white room, resembling a padded cell visually depicting Nixon's paranoia, with a severely raked floor, depicting the unstable circumstance of his administration. Miss Saigon was another example of forgoing the dramatic use of an actual helicopter replica on stage. Instead he used three chairs and whirling lights, which actually created a more lasting image in the theatre goers mind.

 

Michael showed us the all white set design model for the current show "Xanadu." What follows that model in the process is a rendering which shows what the set will look like with color and lighting.  

And the final rendering

 

The selection criteria for the female star of the show was pretty demanding; accomplished actor, singer, dancer, comedienne and one other tiny thing...an accomplished roller skater.

 

In reply to a question as to the Director's ability to effect script alterations, Michael answered "there is none, can't change a paragraph, sentence, word, comma or period." This leads to some interesting patron letters of complaint, charging Directors with altering original scripts to include offensive profanity. Not true says Michael. You want the play...you get the language!

 

Michael had the audience enthralled from beginning to end. He closed it off with a flourish on the harmonica, which this reporter could find no way to emulate. Xanadu is scheduled to close on June 26, but attendance has been great and there is a possibility it will be extended to July 4. I, for one, am working on tickets right now. By the way, Michael had a starring role in Neal Simons "Rumors" earlier this year. This production was the equal of any Neal Simon productions, on Broadway or anywhere else.

 

CALENDAR

 

Tuesday 6/12, 7am - Board meeting

Friday 6/15, 7am - Motorama revealed

Sunday 6/17 9 am - Motorama, Postino Parking Lot

Wednesday 6/20 - Three Quarter Century Club luncheon

Friday 6/22, 7am - Gabriel Angelo - Magical musical story

                   5:30 pm - Demotion party, Waal home

Friday 6/29, 7am - Jim Margraff exposes himself

 

Wednesday, 7/4 - Pancake Run - Orinda

Friday 7/6, 7 am - Antje Jahnke - Procrastination Researcher

Tuesday 7/10, 7am - Board meeting

Friday 7/13, 7 am - Club Assembly

Friday 7/20, 7 am - John Yoo, Legal Counsel, George W. Bush

Friday 7/27 7am - Expose yourself, Claire Roberts

 

Friday 8/3, 7am - Saving lives, a woof and a meow

Friday 8/10, 7 am - Economist Tappan Monroe

Tuesday 8/14, 7am - Board meeting

Friday 8/17, 7am - Dan Borenstein & Pensions continued

Friday 8/24 7am - B'wana Carole Chaffey, Liberia

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