On Sunday, July 10, the Missoula Colony gathering of theatre artists gets down to business with its first event, a day-long discussion and workshop covering the particular challenges of scriptwriting for television. It is a topic known well by workshop leader Ron Fitzgerald, a writer with long-time Missoula connections and a resume stacked with impressive projects, including the Showtime series “Weeds,” NBC’s “Friday Night Lights,” and the upcoming NBC series, “Prime Suspect.”
The day’s events culminate with an 8 p.m. staged reading of “Mississippi Queen,” a script for a television pilot by Missoula filmmaker Paige Williams. Based on her own life and autobiographical documentary of the same name, the script – Williams’ first – sets the stage for a fictionalized television series about a young lesbian woman growing up in a fundamentalist family in Mississippi.
As much as the day’s events aim to convey useful professional guidance to participants in this year’s Colony, they also speak directly to the underlying spirit of the annual gathering, now in its 16th year. [Read More...]
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I wrote a preview of UM’s upcoming production of “Crazy For You,” which you can read below; time’s a wastin’, though, because today only, you can get two tickets for the price of one through the Missoulian’s Deal of the Day. Here’s that link; and here’s that preview… [Read More...]
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I received a note when I arrived at the office today that actor and playwright James McLure passed away yesterday after a protracted illness. Though he didn’t live here fulltime, McLure was a giant in the local theatre scene, due largely through his sustained involvement in the Colony, the annual gathering of theatre-folk at the University of Montana.
Over the years, McLure was involved in several noteworthy productions in Missoula. I won’t ever forget his show-stealing turn in Ron Fitzgerald’s “Boomtown” last year — which ran at the Crystal Theatre in a two-week rotation with McLure’s own, brilliantly witty play, “Used Cars.” I only meet McLure once, while reporting a fun story about last summer’s river-float by participants in the Colony. I can still picture him standing waist-deep in the water, talking to me about this “magical place” he so loved.
Here’s a short ode to McLure, written by Greg Johnson, artistic director of Montana Rep. [Read More...]
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Few people outside theatrical circles today remember the name William Inge. Half a century ago, the Kansas-born playwright was considered one of America’s great living voices of the theatre, on equal stature with the likes of Tennessee Williams (who helped foster Inge’s career). His best-known plays – “Picnic,” “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs,” and most of all “Bus Stop” – were celebrated by critics and widely performed in their time.
Yet something happened on the road to legend: Where Williams’ reputation only grew, Inge faded even before his death, by suicide, in 1973.
Looking back through the lens of Montana Repertory Theatre’s new production of “Bus Stop,” which continues through next week at the Montana Theatre before embarking on a far-reaching national tour, it’s at once easy and confounding to comprehend the fate of Inge and his erstwhile Broadway hit. [Read More...]
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On Wednesday at one minute til 5 p.m., I received a press release about a one-night play production this weekend. Too late to get it into the Entertainer, which is too bad, since it sounds pretty interesting. Here’s the press release… [Read More...]
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Scene: The Blackfoot River. A bright summer day. A flotilla of rafts and inner tubes bobs by the bank, amid a crowd of three dozen people in bathing suits. Stacy Ohrt-Billingslea, a suntanned 30-something actress, cups her hands over her mouth.
Stacy: (her voice booming down the river) “OK, everyone, we don’t want any disasters, so be safe out here, watch out for rocks, and don’t spill your beer.”
***
Cut to scene: A thin, dark-haired woman in a bikini, Jess Adam by name, thrashing in the river atop an inner tube, bouncing between boulders in an underwhelming stretch of whitewater.
Jess: “Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod, grab me, grab me, I’m going to die!” [Read More...]
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Montana Rep’s production of “To Kill A Mockingbird” — which spent most of 2009 out on tour around the country — will return to the stage of the Montana Theatre in Missoula this coming week, for two nights only.
You can read my review of the production’s opening run, here — but of course, one presumes/hopes that much has been tidied up and refined since last January (and the opening wasn’t bad by any means).
Click through for a press release detailing the upcoming shows… [Read More...]
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