IMMERSE by the Creative City Project.

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On November 21st, the downtown street of Orange Avenue was shut down from just north of Pine Street, down towards South Street.  IMMERSE is an invitation to unexpected creative encounters in the
heart of Downtown Orlando. You’ll find yourself truly immersed in art,
performance, and interactive installations.

With collaborators like Cirque du Soleil, Orlando Philharmonic,
Orlando Ballet, and the Central Florida Community Arts Orchestra, you
won’t want to miss this evening which is unlike any other.

In 2016, the Creative City Project brought nearly 1,000 performers to
the streets and public spaces of Downtown Orlando for more than 20,000
patrons. IMMERSE 2017 continued the tradition of growth and excitement
by bringing you more large scale WOW moments and unexpected, intimate creative encounters.

From Classical to Hip-Hop music, murals, dance, acrobatics,
interactive installations, artists from Orlando, around the country, and
the around the world converge on Downtown Orlando for one of the
largest showcases of innovation and creativity in the performing and
installation arts in the country.

I hosted one of the Orlando Urban Sketch Workshops during this incredible event.   With so much going on at the same time it was difficult to decide on a single subject to sketch.  I offered personalized instruction to each Urban Sketcher and then dashed off to do a quick sketch myself.  I decided to focus on performers waiting to get on the stage next.  This gave me some time to focus on them before heading off to see the twirling dancers on the stage. 

The Art of Medicine Gala at the Orlando Museum of Art.

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First Green Bank and The Art of Medicine Foundation invited health care professionals and brain injury survivors to submit artwork to be auctioned for charity. This event is educates and inspires awareness about the impact that brain injuries and other neurological disorders can have on those affected. Proceeds from the event benefited the University of Florida Trauma, Concussion, and Sports Neuromedicine Program.

The gala is in honor of Dr. Cindy LaRoe, who sustained a traumatic brain injury during a competitive biking accident. The injury paused LaRoe’s career in medicine, but also led her down a path of discovering her artistic talents. During her recovery, LaRoe found painting therapeutic, and now, six years after her injury, she continues to paint. She paints in vibrant bold colors. Cindy is standing in front of her painting of clown fish in my sketch. 

In a video presentation Cindy remembered the day of her accident at a bike race.  There were incentives with each lap which incited racers to sprint. She was in a group of racers heading up a hill.  Some of the girls started to sprint to pass and Cindy let them. They crossed the lines which is against the rules.  There was a big crash in front of Cindy.  She recalled a flash of bodies going down in front of her.  After the accident, she couldn’t see for a while, there was twitching in her right eye and blurred vision.   She couldn’t handle the over-stimulation of live music and crowds.  She always felt she was seeing movement to her right side.  Memories were gone.  She woke up and was a different person.  She doesn’t want anyone to ever have to experience that.  She likes to think that things happen for a reason.  Color was more intense and vibrant. Creating art gave her life a new meaning.  In some ways she feels she might be a better person that she was.   It doesn’t all suck.

Her recovery and her talent were the inspiration for she and her husband, Ken LaRoe, the founder of First Green Bank, to create the Art of Medicine Foundation. Ken took to the microphone.   He explained that after the accident, his wife developed a seizure disorder.  There were days where she had over 100 seizures.  She was put on a cocktail of pharmaceuticals but they had no effect.  One day one of Ken’s biggest clients said randomly that he smokes dope.  He smokes so that he can get to sleep at night and has done so since he was 15 years old.  He has a net worth of over 60 million, so clearly he isn’t just a stoner.  He invited Ken over to his Isleworth mansion to pick up a joint.   Ken reluctantly agreed and hid the joint in a baggie under his car seat.  A week later he told Cindy that she needed to try it.  She said, “No.”   He said, “Look, you are a doctor, this is a medical experiment.” He took a couple of tokes to cut the ice.  After she took her 4th toke off the joint, her seizures stopped.  They stopped all night and into the next day.  It worked day after day.  Her neurologist couldn’t explain it.  Over 6 months she got off the pharmaceuticals. In the interim, medical marijuana became legal.  Cindy finds a silver lining in every situation.  The gala is an example of that.  

Cutting the Turkey.

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Thanksgiving in Iowa was a crash course in Midwestern hospitality. The family farm occupies 16 acres but is land-locked on three sides by neighbors’ farms. The red house is at the top of a hill which allows epic views of sunsets and sunrises. It is the end of bow hunting season, but that didn’t stop a lone doe from standing at the edge of the woods about 100 yards away from the back sliding glass doors. Up in another clearing about a quarter mile away wild turkeys foraged at the edge of the field.

Ron Schwartz was responsible for carving the turkey and I couldn’t resist sketching the Norman Rockwell moment. First, all the stuffing was removed and then carving commenced. Ron is skilled with knives, so the carving went quickly. The kitchen behind him was alive with activity as the other Thanksgiving sides were prepared. Green beans had crunchies, potatoes had gravy and four different pies waited for desert. No one at a Schwartz dinner table leaves hungry.

Once the Turkey rib cage was cut free of all the white meat, Ron put the bird and platter on the back porch where four outdoor cats picked it clean. The cats must have even swallowed some of the bones. Later, after we ate and were playing board games, the black cat hauled a huge dead squirrel up on to the porch and dropped it down by the sliding glass doors like some sort of reciprocal peace offering. The cats had celebrated Thanksgiving in grand style, and even enjoyed a squirrel for dessert.

Board Games in Iowa.

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After the Thanksgiving Turkey Dinnr, the Schwartz family plays board games for the rest of the day into the night This game called “Quelf” was rather strange. The board has characters that move around a rainbow brick road using a die to set the number of moves. Different spots would have players pick up cards much like in a game of Monopoly. Some cards in the deck insist that a player perform an action throughout the length of the game, “Roolz Cards.” For instance, Pam Schwartz had to say “Wacka Wacka” any time another player laughed. Of course when she said “Wacka Wacka” we would all laugh again. Another card had Pam shout out commands like a drill Sargent, which she did with some gusto.

I pulled a card that said I must pinch the flesh around my belly button to manipulate it like a mouth to say something like, “Well this is awkward.” I thought long and hard before performing that task, but ended up doing so to avoid paying a penalty. Another card insisted that I must stand in slow motion and point at the player to my left and say, “You have sabotaged my plans for the last time, en guard!” The simple goal of the game was to get to the end of the rainbow paved rainbow first. I didn’t win.

Another board game called “Baker Street,” based on the Sherlock Holmes books, had four players trying to solve a murder on the streets of London. Once again, a die set the pace of game play. I thought I was being clever by bypassing many possible clues to get to the scene of the crime first. The clue at the scene was no better than any other spot on the board so I had to backtrack to learn what the other players already knew. I knew that the crime had to do with the value of a bible. So I had my suspicions about the murderer and his motive, but I wasn’t able to find the weapon used in time. Each player was on their own private quest and didn’t have any reason to interact. After the  boisterous insanity of Quelf, this seemed far too tame a prospect.

Weekend Top 6 Picks for December 9th and 10th.

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Saturday December 9, 2017

11 AM to 5 PM – Free.  Santa Con 2017! (Thornton Park District, 617 E Central Blvd, Orlando, Florida 32801).  Santa Con is celebrated all over the country and is simply a gathering of
people dressed as Santa that go as a group from restaurant and bars
celebrating the Holiday Season with some tasty adult libations!

This year they are again encouraging participants to bring musical
instruments, Example: Tambourines, Harmonicas, Guitars what ever you
have to bang, play on, and make some joyous noise!

5:30 PM to 7:30 PM – $10.  Orlando Cringe IX – The Holiday Show.  (SAK Comedy Lab, 29 S Orange, Orlando, FL 32801).  For their last show of 2017, they’re teaming up with SAK Comedy Lab for a
very special Cringemas Show! They’ll be bringing back a very special
reader from Cringe and SAK’s amazing team will be performing
improvised scenes completely based on their personal journals. They also have other surprises, so naughty or nice, it’s going to be a
great show!

7 PM to 9 PM – Free.  The 5th Annual “Violectric Holiday Show.”  (Walt Disney Amphitheatre at Lake Eola Park, 99 N Rosalind Avenue, Orlando, Florida 32801). Rock Into The Holiday Season with Violectric, Central Florida’s Top Strings Rock Group.   This is a fun and free LIVE concert featuring classic holiday tunes with a twist and more.

Bring a pet supply, donation and your furry friend to support Pet
Alliance of Greater Orlando.

Sunday December 10, 2017

11 AM to 5 PM – Free.  Day 2 of Santa Con. (Thornton Park District 617 E Central Blvd, Orlando, Florida 32801).   Santa Con is celebrated all over the country and is simply a gathering of
people dressed as Santa that go as a group from restaurant and bars
celebrating the holiday season with some tasty adult libations!  This year we are again encouraging participants to bring musical
instruments, Example: Tambourines, harmonicas, guitars what ever you
have to bang, play on, and make some joyous noise!

7:30 PM to 9:30 PM – $30.   An Evening with Anna Deavere Smith.  (Orlando Shakespeare Theater, 812 E Rollins St, Orlando, FL 32803).  Best known to television audiences as Nancy McNally on The West Wing and Gloria Akalitus on Nurse Jackie, Anna Deavere Smith’s theater work has become an inspirational source for civil discourse. Through a short performance and interview, audiences will hear about the process of combining a passion for social causes with documentary style theatre making.  Ms. Smith seeks to “discern the American character and to capture its politics.” The discussion will focus on how she finds the authentic voice of the people she interviews and then creates on stage.

7:30 PM to 9:30 PM – Free.  A Picture Perfect Christmas.  (Maitland Presbyterian Church, 341 N Orlando Ave, Maitland, FL 32751).  Performing Arts of Maitland sponsors the Maitland Symphony Orchestra’s
Holiday Concert: “A Picture Perfect Christmas”. Guest performer Joshua
Messick is a National Hammered Dulcimer Champion performing premier
selections with the MSO: “The First Snowfall” and “Blue Ridge Sunrise”.
MSO also performs “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers” by Jessel, “Maltese
Winter” by Hayen and more.

Playing Canasta.

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Playing cards and board games are a family tradition in the Schwartz household in Iowa. Grandma Schwartz, and Pam’s other grandparents, have been carrying the card game Canasta on as a family tradition for decades. I followed along trying to understand all the rules. Two team members sit diagonally across from each other, the cards are put down on the table in groups and the first team to get rid of their cards wins the round. Any cards remaining in players’ hands are then added up as negative points.

These card games can go on until three in the morning. I sat in on several games with Pam Schwartz offering advice over my shoulder. For the kids, we played Gubs, which is a card game in which you try and collect as many Gubs (bugs) as you can. The trick is that opponents can steal your Gubs, entrap them, or even kill them. I never did manage to hold on to all my Gubs.

Thanksgiving was a week long event in which family slowly arrives in a crescendo until Thanksgiving day when there were 24 people in the Iowa household. Then over the next several days people slowly disappear. When the house was full, everyone shouted out their story over each other. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but then I adjusted and just enjoyed the variety of exchanges. All the board games reminded me of Thorspecken family games that I have sketched in the past. My family however has scattered to the winds and no one household hosts large holiday parties.

It’s a Wonderful Life at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater.

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Frank Capra‘s iconic holiday film,”It’s a Wonderful Life” was adapted for the stage by Joe Landry.  The theater lobby was abuzz with activity when we arrived at the theater.  A newspaper boy was hawking his papers, then a man in uniform wandered through the crowd announcing that there was a telegraph for Al, then two girls in uniform offered popcorn.  The time and place were the sound stage at WOST radio in NYC in 1946.  The stars of the radio play were announced and screaming teens rushed them for autographs.

After George Bailey (Duke Lafoon) wishes he had never been born, an
angel (Brandon Roberts) is sent to earth to make George’s wish come true.
George starts to realize how many lives he has changed and impacted, and
how they would be different if he was never there. George dreamed big and wanted to escape from the small town of Bedford Falls.  On graduation night in 1928, George talks to Mary Hatch, (Sarah French) who has
had a crush on him from an early age. They are interrupted by news of
his father’s death. George postpones his travel plans in order to sort
out the family business, the Bailey Brothers’ Building and Loan.

Georges future looks bleak when his absent minded uncle looses $8000 which he was supposed to deposit at the bank.  Today that amount would be equal to $100,000.  When George contemplated suicide, he was saved by his guardian angel. Most actors play several parts in the radio play so in some ways it is better not to see the actors since it can get confusing as to which part they might be playing at any given time.  Since I was sketching, I experienced the play by listening as I sketched. I didn’t catch all the actors on stage, but focused on George and Mary as they fell in love. 

The story is a Christmas classic and it was very fun to step back in time to become part of a 1940s radio studio audience.  The applause sign triggered just the right amount of applause when needed.  I wish I had been closer to the sound technician who slammed doors and walked shoes in the sand to recreate the sound of walking in fresh snow.

If you need a heart warming classic to get you in the mood for the holidays, then “It’s a Wonderful Life” is your ticket.

“It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play”

By Joe Landry | Original Music and Musical Arrangements by Kevin Connors. 

Orlando Shakes – November 29 – December 30, 2017

For tickets and more information, visit http://ow.ly/73BW30fprCM  

The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told.

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The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told by Paul Rudnick and Directed by Tommy Wooten, is now playing at Footlight Theater at Parliament House (410 North Orange Blossom Trail Orlando FL.)  Tim Evanicki productions backed out of producing the play, so the cast and crew are now producing the show themselves.  This same show appeared on the Footlight Stage way back in 2001 and was the first published play to appear on the stage. 

A stage manager, (Beth Marshall), headset and prompt book at hand, brings the house lights to half, then dark, and cues the creation of the world. Throughout the play, she’s in control of everything. In other words, she’s either God, or she thinks she is. Beth brought just the right amount of arrogant and bored attitude to the part.  I was laughing out loud through most of the first act. 

Act One recounts the major episodes of the Old Testament, only with a twist: Instead of Adam and Eve, our lead characters are Adam (Brett McMahon) and Steve (Tripp Karrh), and Jane (Sara Jones) and Mabel (Camilla Camilo), a lesbian couple with whom they decide to start civilization (procreation proves to be a provocative challenge). My sketch might imply full frontal nudity, but Adam and Steve wore tight bathing suits with fig leaves and then puppet floppy bits. A hilarious scene involves Adam talking to a seated Jane and his bits are hardly hidden by a loin cloth inches from her face

Act One covers the Garden of Eden, an ark, a visit with a highly rambunctious Pharaoh and finally even the Nativity. Along the way, Mabel and Adam invent God, but Jane and Steve are skeptical. This brings about the Flood, during which Steve has a brief affair with a rhinoceros and invents infidelity. No longer blissful, Adam and Steve break up only to be reunited as two of the wise men at the Nativity.

Act Two jumps to modern day Manhattan. Adam and Steve are together again, and Steve is HIV positive. It’s Christmas Eve, and Jane is nine months pregnant even though she always thought of herself as the butch one. The two women want to marry and want Adam and Steve to join them in the ceremony. A wheelchair-bound, Jewish lesbian Rabbi from cable access TV arrives to officiate. The ceremony is interrupted as Jane gives birth, and Steve confides to Adam that his medication isn’t working and that he’ll probably not survive much longer. Bound by their long life together, and the miracle of birth they’ve just witnessed, the two men comfort each other even though they know their remaining time together will be short.

THE MOST FABULOUS STORY EVER TOLD

by Paul Rudnick

Directed by Tommy Wooten

At Parliament House Footlight Theatre, 410 N. Orange Blossom Trail, Orlando, FL 32805

Fridays and Saturdays, December 1 – 22

Special Industry Night Performance on Monday, December 11.

All performances 7:00PM.

Tickets: $20 at phouse.ticketleap.com or 888-202-1708

Installing a Winch

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Pam‘s dad, Ron Schwartz repairs large farm equipment in Iowa. So when he has time off for Thanksgiving, he can’t resist tinkering and repairing his own equipment. One of the first things we did when we got to the family farm was to go out to the work shed and help Ron install the winch. At first he worked solo, but eventually he relied on his daughter for assistance. As Pam says, he has huge bear paws for hands and the task involved getting some bolts lined up in a very tight space.

I started the sketch as Ron drilled holes in the winch support assembly he had custom built. Then he spent the rest of the time at the utility vehicle so I switched gears mid-sketch. The task of installing the winch was harder than expected, giving me plenty of time as father and daughter worked on the install together. In random spots around the work space, deer skulls could be found in buckets or mounted to light bulbs. Pam’s niece Destiny sat behind the steering wheel of the Rhino utility vehicle the entire time, as if she would drive off the second the install was complete.

After the install, Pam took me on a spin around the 16 acre property. There is a pond in the ravine and some steep hills that I felt might tip the vehicle over if approached at the wrong angle. The lake had a thin sheet of ice over its surface and the wind made the ice sing. There was what looked like a stabalized stick shift bar and grip on the roll bar that Ron referred to as “OH shit!” grips. I clutched those grips tight the whole time.

Ron needs the utility vehicle and winch to haul hunted deer back to the work space where they can be dressed and cut up as a winter supply of meat. The deer is field dressed where it is shot, leaving all the stink and weight of the innards of the animal behind. After being brought back the deer is skinned, hanged in a cooler for a few days before being processed. Each evening Ron would go out to shoot a deer but they eluded him all Thanksgiving. One faced him and was just six paces from being shot. That buck eluded the bullet by standing strategically behind a tree before bounding off just in time.

The Winter Wonderettes at TheaterWorks

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I went to a final dress rehearsal for “Winter Wonderettes,” written by Roger Bean and presented by TheatreWorks Florida at the the Davenport Community Campus  (8 W Palmetto St, Davenport, Florida 33837).
This is the second production in the inaugural season of Theatre Works Florida. Scott Cook founded this new production company and I am always excited to see a new cultural hub pop up like a mushroom in the woods of Florida.

The Wonderettes offered a scrumptious musical confection of holiday hits. This seasonal celebration finds the girls entertaining at the annual Harper’s Hardware Holiday Happening but when Santa turns up missing, the girls must use their talent and creative ingenuity to save the holiday party! Featuring great ’60s versions of holiday classics such as “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town,” “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Run, Rudolph, Run,” and “Winter Wonderland,” the result is, of course, fun and fabulous. This energetic and glittering holiday package is guaranteed to delight audiences of all ages.

I felt self conscious going in to the rehearsal since I seem to have an unending cough. I had to step out in the second act because I needed to get a drink of water to stop my hacking. A hitch in the rehearsal came when one of the Wonderettes had an intense migraine so she had to be driven home, but the rehearsal must go on. I decided to sketch one of the Wonderettes twice to account for the missing actress. The assistant director or stage hand read her lines to fill out the full run through of the show.

This was a high energy production with the actresses in constant motion, dancing and singing with endless 60s kitch. In an interactive bit with the audience they asked “Who is the most famous elf singer of them all?” Pam Schwartz guessed correctly, which I think they didn’t expect, but it could very well happen with a full audience. The actresses seemed relaxed in the roles which required tons of energy. With the right audience this could be a hilarious night. Bring the whole family.