Lauren Gunderson's Article on the State of Theatre

Thank you to Lauren Gunderson for the opening salvo of her new blog exploring why the ancient art of "live theatre" is still with us, even in our media-filled, technologically advanced age.

A lot of her statements sound like she was either a founding member of meat & potato, or a least had sat in on some of our production meetings. Marynell and I have been striving to create "tribal" events in which everyone one in the room (actors and audience alike) are experiencing an important story together--or as Ms. Gunderson puts it: Actor+Audience+story=Theatre. As we say throughout our website, "The true origins of theatre are when one member of the tribe sat on this side of the fire and told stories to the rest of the tribe sitting on that side of the fire."

And praises to Ms. Gunderson for mentioning that ever-important element so often missing in today's "modern" theatre: theatricality. When did theatre a) become a place where screen writers "test" their scripts before sending them off to a Hollywood producer, or b) become a place where characters talk us to death, analyzing an issue to the point of "good god, when's the intermission so I can get the hell out of here? If I wanted a sermon, I would have gone to church instead"?

(Picture is from "How the Robin Got Its Red Breast", Beginnings, meat & potato 2005)

Everyman Production Shots

Stills of the Meat & Potato production of EVERYMAN & JUDGMENT DAY are now on the company's website.

(Josh Thoemke as Death and Rebecca Marcotte as Everyman.)

Everyman Set

With some luck and great advice from a couple of friends, the Everyman centerpiece hangs 9 feet above the stage floor.



The original stained glass window was found with some luck in Paris. The plywood frame was suggested by George Maxwell at Pioneer Theatre and the food color stain (yes, Food Color!) was suggested by my old army buddy-cum-set designer Maylan Thomas.

Sam Mollner helped paint the frame. Marynell was patient and encouraged when needed.

EVERYMAN Approaches: Publicity Photos

Publicity shots taken in the basement of the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center and sent to various local news outlets.

Michael Gardner as the devil Tutivillus with Julia Goldman as Angel.


Josh Thoemke as Works and Rebecca Marcotte as Everyman.


Rebecca Marcotte as Everyman and Josh Thoemke as Death.

EVERYMAN in full swing

Props and costumes for EVERYMAN and JUDGMENT DAY are coming together. Since the two plays oppose one another thematically, so too must all of the "plastics". Where JUDGMENT DAY illustrates how to get into heaven by merely accepting Christ as your personal savior and filled with devils, angels with attitudes, dead souls, and the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse--EVERYMAN shows how a person's deeds in life will determine what happens after death, and is filled with energetic allegorical characters, hip hop beats, and a rousing musical number of "We Are Family."

The devils in JUDGMENT DAY start out as displaced workers: sort of THE OFFICE-meets-a-BDSM convention. In order to avoid being judged themselves, the devils decide to repackage themselves. They transform from "Average Joe's" dodgeball team to something out of a Terry Gilliam movie. Toby and Dorcas change their names to "Misery" and "Retribution", while Tutivillus mutates from used-car-salesman to demonic chieftain. Rachael Zimmerman is costuming the show and chose a mask for the transformed Tutivillus: an exaggerated Commedia dell'Arte mask, bright red.

A picture is the mask in the the process of being built.

Admiration for Pioneer's 42nd Street

We love spectacle on stage. For us, the battles in HENRY V will forever trump the seemingly endless yammering of WAITING FOR GODOT. So when Pioneer Theatre's recent production of 42nd Street started with 20 dancers slamming out the same tap step simultaneously, we were in heaven!

And although some of the students in the Playwrights' Laboratory complained at the sappy script, they were countered by others who pointed out that there has to be a reason this story has floated across the American stage for almost 80 years. The play lives on its spectacle.

Thanks to Charles Morey's direction, Kevin Alberts' costumes, George Maxwell's sets, and Patti D'Beck's choreography for the reminder that not every play has to enlighten or save the world--that the word "play" has more than one meaning.

Photo: Lea Kohl and Jeffrey Pew star in Pioneer Theatre Company's production of the Tony Award-winning "42nd Street." (Tom Smart, Deseret News)

EVERYMAN & JUDGMENT DAY set

During our wanderings through Paris's Monmartre district last September, Marynell wanted to wet her whistle on a Coca-Cola. She popped into a drug store and I wandered into a strange looking cathedral that stood nearby--the Eglise-Saint-Jean-de-Monmartre, to be exact.

The church was designed by architect Anatole de Baudot in an Art Nouveau style (built 1894 - 1904). And it was pure dumb luck to look up and discover this stained glass window:



The stained glass is "Le cheval blanc de l'Apocalyse" (The White Horse of the Apocalypse) designed by Pascal Blanchard and executed by Jac Galland.

Marynell and I loved the imagery, colors, and power so much that we decided to make it the center piece of our spring production, EVERYMAN & JUDGMENT DAY. Both plays emerged from liturgical drama (religious stained glass connection), they address the incredibly human concern of death (figure of death), and JUDGMENT DAY specifically deals with the apocalypse (Death as one of the Four Horsemen).

I'll be constructing a facsimile of this wonderful window and will hang it over center stage. It will be back lit, of course, to really get those colors to pop.