http://www.thewritehag.com/Description.en-usCopyright 2009. All Rights Reserved.SueSue20092009AnythingMyGenesis CMS WebProhttp://backend.userland.com/rss60 http://www.thewritehag.com/archive.php?guid=hzfg8id7Joffrey ‘Nutcracker’ a stunning opening.
A review by Sue Langenberg.

Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet opened “The Nutcracker” yesterday evening at the Auditorium Theatre to a nearly full house. The historic theatre sparkled, the orchestra tuned up and musical director Scott Speck raised his baton as the magic began.
The ballet company proudly dedicated the 2011-12 season to beloved Chicago First Lady Maggie Daley, a cultural inspiration to all the arts of Chicago.
Opening night for Joffrey is always very special with much anticipation to experience the best of the best. The production did not disappoint.
In her second season with Joffrey, Venezualian-born Yumelia Garcia has danced a meteor-like rise to star status, though the company has always considered itself not in the standard star system. Garcia, however, opened the ‘Nutcracker’ season as Sugar Plum Fairy with special status. With all the marvelous and accomplished dancers within the company, she exudes a unique stage presence before she even takes a step. When the steps begin, she is clearly about superior technique with balances in the Grand Pas de Duex that seem to get longer each year with easily executed pirouettes, petite allegro and presentation. About her exceptional epaulement (shouldering), and fluid port de bras (carriage of the arms) she credits a certain performance instinct as well as good training.
Nutcracker Prince Ogulcan Borova showcased Garcia with smooth partnering skills as well as himself in his clear double cabrioles and clean double tour finishes.
About epaulement and port de bras, the entire company shone as if to usher a new era in the dance world that lauds the artistry of performance, rather than a seemingly shallow emphasis on super technique, empty and ghostly like the past decades had experienced. These dancers are clearly about a stellar representation of where the ballet should be.
The Snow scene was exquisite in its ongoing celebration of Peter Tchaikovsky’s visionary composition of dancer flakes that sparkle at every entrance and exit. One only needs to dream of all that swirls and twirls in the air as if snow was made for the ballet. Snow King Dylan Gutierrez and Snow Queen Victoria Jaiani did stellar pas de deux work as well as left turner Snow Prince Derrick Agnoletti. A fit touch to the scene was the angelic Pro Musica Youth Chorus in the pit with orchestra. The Oak Park group also sang cheerful holiday selections in the lobby.
Second Act divertissments took the Kingdom of Sweets to an array of cultures that showcased special talents within the company. Chocolate of Spain Erica Lynette Edwards was saucy in her presentation, returning Jaiani with Dylan Gutierrez oozy and agile in Coffee from Arabia, Tea from China dancers Katherine Minor, Anastacia Holden and returning Agnoletti were bursting with bouncing ballon and Marzipan Shepherdesses Elizabeth Hansen, Caitlin Meighan and Jacqueline Moscicke were precise in their sweetness.
Waltz of the Flowers, familiar to all as a piece to linger in one’s memory, the dancers graced the stage, bloomed and performed with technical flair with special note to regal April Daly as Pansy and Cavaliers Graham Maverick, Michael Smith, Temur Suluashvili and Shane Urton – the ultimate luxury to cast such marvelous male dancers.
About Tchaikovsky’s Second Act score, Joffrey seems to have taken a slight detour that may or may not be appreciated by the 19th century composer. The transitions between divertissements borrowed some Dr. Drosselmeyer (Matthew Adamczyk) measures from the First Act as a segue. While it is understandable that the Second Act stop and start sections contrast the fluidity the Victorian First Act and Snow Scene, the spliced transitions seem out of context as the divertissements are starkly unrelated and even jolt one into seemingly a different musical key. Some things are better left alone, even when the classics provide flexibility.

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Sue Langenberg writes the “Hot Flashes” column, reviews the arts and is author of “Hot Flashes, 101 Reasons to Laugh at Life.”
writehagreviewshzfg8id7Sat, 10 Dec 2011 11:02:46 -06000 http://www.thewritehag.com/archive.php?guid=kcikdgzbDreadful door dilemmas.
A “Hot Flashes” column this week.

It is about entry doors that never seem to be right. They are either too new and expensive, or too old and expensive to replace. That doesn’t mean that the new and expensive ones are worth much. A friend upgraded hers recently and after few winters was agonizing about some warping in the frame.
So the old “Knock. Knock. Who’s there?” jokes might either result in a fateful collapse or a fateful checkbook. I experienced that recently while waiting for a friend to pick me up. I was ready, holding the knob and about to shut the door. The next thing was holding the knob in my hand while the rest of the mechanism went crashing to the floor in many pieces. My cat peaked through the gaping hole wondering what all the clatter was about. I had to run to the curb to announce that I wasn’t going anywhere. Meantime the greedy and expensive door lock guy was hovering in the area, licking his chops and sorting out his best brass for desperate hags.
But that was just the door knob part of the “Knock. Knock” joke. I got a yen for an entirely new door the other day. You know, like the ones in murder movies where people just sit around with a lot of money, perfectly clean houses with freshly arranged flowers and nothing to do but flaunt their front doors. And the doors where the murderer or detective knocks have charming floral patterns etched within a smart oval. And there might be an equally charming transom above and side things (whatever they’re called) with matching floral patterns.
A while back, I realized that my back kitchen door was Grover Cleveland vintage without the Victorian charm. It other words, it had deteriorated into a rattling piece of junk. When I ordered a new door, I so rebelled the idea of how expensive it was that I painted the steel thing shocking pink on the outside. While the paint can was open, I painted the mail box, also, thereby sealing a real estate deal that no male on the planet would ever buy my house. Especially after aspiring to a new floral front entry door.
The other back door, while solid in all respects, had been painted unpleasant colors with a healthy slab of white on top. White white, as in cadaver special. I got the idea a while back that I should strip the paint and flaunt the real wood. Half way through the project, I slipped and fell down the basement stairs. That was years ago and I have felt cursed about that project ever since. So from the outside, the door still looks like Dracula died and bled to death on it. It’s still solid, however.
Then there are garage doors. I was convinced that everyone in the world had one that actually worked. The track on mine had been jerry-rigged so many times that the door pitifully moaned and rested askew. I finally gave up and left it open all the time, leaving a perfect place above for various critters and birds to nest. The new garage door people showed up complete with motor and remotes so that I thought I had been reborn into royalty. Imagine! Driving up and hitting a button to usher me in. For a while, I even thought that I saw a butler ready to accompany me with umbrella into the house.
So my current goal is that when the detective or murderer shows up at the front door to say, “Knock. Knock,” I will answer, “I’ll be right there! I am arranging flowers right now and giving the butler instructions.”

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Happy shopping, all, and “Hot Flashes, 101 Reasons to Laugh at Life” book available at amazon.com and kindle (whatever that is)…
writehagcolumnskcikdgzbMon, 28 Nov 2011 05:40:59 -06000 http://www.thewritehag.com/archive.php?guid=7cmj0hwzA moving story.
A “Hot Flashes” column by Sue Langenberg

It is not about sniffing into a Kleenix during a chick flick, or crying at a wedding. Poetic musings can be emotionally musing, or a child’s wisdom about life. I have cried over a lot of things.
It is literally about moving, that is, moving one’s life belongings from one location to another. That is something to really cry about. I was moved to remember how agonizing and disruptive the process is. One friend announced to the world via social network that next time, he would hire the professionals, “they’re called morticians,” he wrote. Another was still emailing that he would be back in business soon after he gets settled from his move. That was months ago.
I haven’t moved in over two decades, and am still in recovery. It was a mere four blocks down the same street, but it could have been from one side of the nation to the other, which a friend of mine once braved when she moved from Maine to Arizona. If one looks at a map, it could be closer to get to the moon. And she did this with various cats, lifelong furniture treasures and other various and diverse objects that she couldn’t live without. Then, promptly sold, donated and/or gave away much of the stuff once moved. She suddenly decided that she could live without it.
It gets down to the stuff that we really need in life and wondering if it would be worth it to move it elsewhere again.
So when my last move was nearby, besides the regular furniture items, boxes of various things and somewhere a toothbrush, I also moved a piano. Not a spinet, not a lightweight keyboard and not even a grand. A real piano from early 20th century called an upright grand. It took four gorillas to move. That’s why it has had few addresses in all these decades; about four.
Thus, in anticipation of having the professionals, called “the morticians” move me next time, I thought that I would make my family’s life easier ahead of time. The piano needs work, about the same amount as my wrinkles. It has had a hay day of important plunkings and I’m done having it take up too much room.
Maybe I’m not a very good salesman about these things, but most people run away from me if I mention pianos. So far, some of my friends are glad that they never studied music. The garbage pickup people avoid my house in case I get it to the curb. Fat chance, because those gorillas don’t speak, either. My last resort is the number of a moving company. I dread making the call because then it will be yet another enemy on my list.
Then I looked around to see what else would have to be moved, besides me in a box. Well, my books have always been special to me, though I have donated steamy novels that I don’t get steamed up about anymore and various “How To’s” that I never learned how to do.
My furniture is not exactly valuable. In fact, it is rapidly turning into shredded wheat due to a couple of teenage cats that have not yet been declawed (I have to whisper that). There is a couch that is turning into the shape of my rear end and a bedroom set that must be held up by cinder blocks. There are dishes and kitchenware; I don’t actually cook, but they’re there in case I ever do.
Maybe I won’t need the morticians or the movers, after all. Just a handy bulldozer.

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“Hot Flashes” book available at amazon.com and on as an ebook, $5.99…
writehagcolumns7cmj0hwzMon, 21 Nov 2011 09:52:59 -06000 http://www.thewritehag.com/archive.php?guid=jpq809wrIt was a ‘Wonderful Life’ at Winneshiek.
Reviewed by Sue Langenberg

Winneshiek Playhouse of Freeport presented “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Thursday to kick off the holiday season in a wonderful way. Directed by Rich Burkinshaw, the show opened the 86th season of Winneshiek Playhouse that claims the oldest continuous community theatre in the nation.
Remarkable in its history, that is many openings, many shows, many volunteers and many applauses from an organization that relies heavily on community commitment. In the current and more permanent home on Clark Street and Walnut Avenue, that would be nearly 300 plays and over 1400 performances.
This production was not the classic film with James Stewart, Donna Reed, and Lionel Barrymore with a large cast by producer Frank Capra. Indeed the original concept morphed its way from an unsuccessful story, “The Greatest Gift” by Phillip Van Doren Stern, to a Christmas card and various other RKO Studios desks to Capra who realized the potential of this charming lesson in life. Sometimes great successes come by accident.
This show was instead a “Live from Winneshiek Radio” version of the story with the script adapted by theatre regular Matt Bruehler. While Bedford Falls, New York was yet embedded in the script along with the 1946 era, it was clearly a nostalgic setting at Studio A in Freeport, Illinois. In many respects, the Freeport connection of the story made it better, right down to mention of Donald Breed and Jeanette Lloyd as key local figures in the history of the community.
It can often be mused that classics in any genre can also hold up to changes and adaptations without compromising the original genius, as long as the inspiration remains intact. More than a century-old ballet “The Nutcracker,” for example, has been performed, re-performed, choreographed, re-choreographed and presented in thousands of different productions. It is still esteemed the same classic as it opened at the Maryinski Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1892.
Farther back in history, Shakespeare is very much alive today as we revisit his genius, though most of us could hardly understand Olde English, we still appreciate the stories, dynamics and timeless humor in many different ways.
So when it comes to this radio version of Winneshiek’s ‘Wonderful Life,’ the flexibility is endless. Any number can play. With the quick change of hats, cigars, and instant sound effects, the Winneshiek cast of nine took the microphones via the Golden Age of radio and the beloved magic and humor unfolded. So convincing about quick changes of character that it was almost confusing to keep track of everyone, yet the story moved seamlessly as one gets caught up in emotional observations. Moreover, the fast-forwarding and rewinding of a lifespan was as effective as ever.
Todd Barr held down several characters with a strong presence as did Shawn Killingbeck with hats and cigars switching at lightening speed. Jacqueline Lipford held “Applause” signs, created sound effects, changed hats, sang once or twice and kept it all together. Jennifer Hail did a marvelous romantic figure as did Jeffrey Manus with his door slamming and footsteps sounds, carefully and exactly on target as well as laughable commercials in between. Kathryn Cook was delightful as sometimes crabby, sometimes pursed lips and sometimes old, depending on the hat. Theatre regular Vicki Hooper was effective in every way, especially with most bawdy wedding sobs, yet wonderfully detached in the background as an authentic radio character might have been. Fred Wagner was hysterical while Randy Cook plunk-plunked the story along at the piano.
Two more shows to go. Next Winneshiek Players production “Blithe Spirit” will be February 4, 9, 10 and 11 at 7:30 p.m. in 2012. Ticket reservations are tickets@wplay.org or (815) 232-7023.

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writehagreviewsjpq809wrFri, 18 Nov 2011 14:01:52 -06000 http://www.thewritehag.com/archive.php?guid=e4lwf2jdThe tree that falls in the forest.
A “Hot Flashes” column by Sue Langenberg

It is the ultimate question in life. If no one heard it fall, then did it happen? I’ve often thought how arrogant of us humans to think that we are the Chief Executive Officers of trees that stand around in forests minding their own business day and night without our instructions. I have walked near and through many forests in my life and no tree to date was waiting for me to schedule leaves to fall, buds to bud or locations for birds to nest.
So the next question might be, “If a human trips over the laundry basket and falls down the stairs, does the tree in the forest cup a branch in that direction and snicker at how clumsy of this strange house dweller?”
The spin-off question has also been, “If a man says something and a woman and is not around to hear it, is he still wrong?” But I digress into a bad male-bashing habit.
Our vast environment has endless functions going on at any given time and because we don’t happen to hear it, they happen quite normally. If you do not notice, it’s no big deal. Unless, of course, you include the toddler finding trouble in another room to the sound of silence. That is invariably bad news that you must immediately hear and tend to.
About trees that fall if no one hears them, it can also be said the same thing about idle talent. There are a lot of potential geniuses dwelling on this earth, but if they head for the couch, then certainly no one hears them. Talent refers to output and production, rather than an idle thing that falls onto the couch.
Back to the forest, if I happened to be that tree before the fall, I would uproot myself and dance to the music of gentle breezes around the tree next door, especially if he were cute. I don’t know, do trees have he’s and she’s? If a cute male tree, I would flirt and tell him what muscular branches he sports and how tall, green and handsome. But the moment he dropped his smelly leaves all over the forest floor, I’d have to inform him that I am not his personal valet and move onto to a more properly raised gentleman tree who knows how to clean his mess.
While breezing myself around the forest, I would visit the gal trees and gossip about those no good treemanizers and how helpless they are about keeping their trunks clean. We girl trees would also compare notes about our latest designer blossoms and where there were the best orchards for salads and vineyards for wine. We would all agree about svelte trunks, fall colors and who was the fairest and most vibrant of all.
Then I would dance further to the edge of the forest and notice that those humans yonder were most inferior to us stately trees. They don’t even know how to shade themselves or last several centuries or more.
And so it seems that the falling trees have the same dilemma as we tripping-over-laundry-basket humans. They are innocently minding their own business as we are, and because no one hears either one of us, time moves on and no one seems to notice.
If I were about to fall from lightening in the forest, I would call for my last treat. Probably chocolate, expensive wine and the cute tall, green and handsome tree next door. I would gorge myself on all things that everyone else should hear, then it would be time to fall.

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writehagcolumnse4lwf2jdSun, 06 Nov 2011 14:19:44 -06000 http://www.thewritehag.com/archive.php?guid=qyl6i5wrGilbert, Sullivan and Farrell.
By Sue Langenberg

It was an evening with musician Scott Farrell at the First Presbyterian Church in Winnebago on Friday. The event was a recital of sorts featuring the director of Rockford Operetta Party as the area’s tried-and-true light opera figure.
The recital date was intended as a production event but after various set-backs, morphed into a solo featuring some 16 selections from Farrell’s repertoire in the last 13 years with humorous and handy comments before each piece.
Farrell seems to have fallen from the musical womb straight toward operetta, and seems to have hit the ground running since. From his earliest education, he dabbled with drama, choir and various parts in plays including “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” “The Fantasticks” and “The Pirates of Penzance” among some 18 characters that include lead parts as well as villagers. Along the way, he became enthralled with the English opera buffa style that features light humor and happy endings with much spicy satire in between. The Savoy Theatre in London featuring works of W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan is Farrell’s yearning and area of expertise. In the process of his musical development, Farrell’s own humor seems to parallel his extensive research since he makes no bones about failures along the way.
If Farrell seems to spend his passion within the light opera area, he also is determined to create that which is not there. That would include some eleven shows that he has written upon inspirations swirling around his voracious appetite for the genre, often in enthusiastic collaboration with John Spartan. His own shows include “The Vampyre’s Curse,” “The Sapphire Necklace” and “Popocateptyl” (with Spartan) with many suspicious and light-hearted, merry characters pitted against scorned lovers and other intrigues that beset the trappings of life and dreams. Moreover, in addition to expending the energy to write and produce a work, he often found himself as a main character. In his own “The Princess’ Lament,” he was the Prince, in “The Sapphire Necklace,” he was Falstaff as well as major parts in other shows including Thespis in “Thespis.”
“His compositions have reached beyond light opera with a Symphonic Poem, the second movement of which was included in the recital. He also included a contemporary piece, “So Far Away,” by Brian Haner, breaking his general rule of having a low opinion of modern music.
About creating that which is not there, he told the story that he couldn’t resist doing his own version of the Sergeant of Police in a production of “The Pirates of Penzance,” to questionable success because the director never commented, he noted.
But Farrell is undaunted in his determination to bring light opera works to light. He is unapologetic about resurrecting obscure and often failed English operas from the 19th century to “give it second chance,” he explains in his most formal and articulate manner. He notes that perhaps in another time, another century, some of these works will find their way in a new day. In the end, only the audience and a new set of critics will determine his hunches about dusty scores in libraries. Meantime, he enjoys much satisfaction in the research and development.
One such example, “Jane Annie” was misunderstood and only ran for 50 performances after the “critics ripped it to shreds,” in 1893, he said. Indeed, the work can hardly be found in ordinary and available information and barely exists. Farrell nevertheless resurrected the work by Ernest Ford and gave it a North American premier in 2007 to earn area recognition. Farrell, therefore, performed song, “The Time of Thistledown” Friday evening and plans to do a full length in the 2012 season in Rockford.
Farrell seeks a new venue and more permanent home for his operatic brainstorms and is ready and able to take on all that matters to become the area’s main keeper of an important era of opera buffa because passion and energy will see him through. Watch for Rockford Operetta Party in the future.

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writehagreviewsqyl6i5wrSat, 22 Oct 2011 15:22:57 -05000 http://www.thewritehag.com/archive.php?guid=9o7vnmoe(note: ‘Hot Flashes' back after a September break…)

My school essay; what I did this summer.
‘Hot Flashes’ column by Sue Langenberg.

I ran into an acquaintance the other day who asked me what I had been doing with myself this summer.
I would like to have said something about, “oh, finished a novel that I had been writing, painted the porch and became the oldest hag to have climbed Mount Everest just because it was there. Not to mention organized my entire house, cleaned and auto-detailed my car and knit three sweaters for the winter.
But I ‘fessed up and said, “nothing much.” Well, that’s not entirely true. For two months, it was too hot to think, so I didn’t. Somewhere in there I couldn’t have my coffee outside in the morning because of pesky bugs. I hoofed into the house a lot, mad. Then I became a feline birthing facility because there was a sign in front that said, “Give birth here, good benefits, lactating creature comforts.”
My first bat found a way in, but that’s another horror story. I’ll save that for Halloween.
“Well, then in September…” could read my next paragraph in the ‘What I did’ essay.
Oh, sure. The weather got better; I got worse. That’s about the time of the official “Garden Assault.” It began without fanfare in the spring when I put out my usual vegetables. Tomato and pepper babies, zukes and cukes are the usual fare. I should have known that when the seeds flew out of the ground in record time that I would be marked for assault in September.
The cukes burst onto the driveway shutting down one lane of traffic and climbed the fence to hang themselves. Gravity forced the hanging cukes to enlarge into oblivion while one still clogs the fence. I pickled, gave away and begged passersby to take home one or two. Every cucumber salad in print and online was the recipe of choice for some weeks in a row. Finally, it was time to take down the vines where I found another 25 or so hiding. The back porch now looks like a farmer’s market.
The zukes hid amongst the elephant-eared leaves until the size of your average ocean liner. Naturally, all my bread-baking friends were too far away and even admitted a car that couldn’t fit an ocean liner. An accidental yellow squash found a way to produce in a garden corner in much the same way that an accidental pregnancy reported to the feline facility.
So I stood around the kitchen for the entire month of September canning, steaming and slicing. That would be fine but the kitchen is not my favorite room in the house (sorry, Suzy Homemakers, not me). Added to that is the standing-in-one-place factor where knees swell to the size of Pennsylvania. Some people can stand for hours, some of us can’t without penalty.
I even had to purchase more Mason jars to accommodate all this stuff assaulting me. “What are you doing today?” from a friend would answer, “What else? Soak some cukes and can more sauce.”
This is all during the first time when the weather turns beautiful and proper exercisers should have been out and about basking in all things good.
The tomatoes, well they came in like gangbusters. Forty quarts of sauce later, and I gave up. I have over-BLTed myself into the next year.
Hey, this is all good news about an over-abundance of produce because there are many worse problems in life. But I still would rather have said that I finished a novel, painted the porch and climbed Mt. Everest just because it was there…

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Book “Hot Flashes, 101 Reasons to Laugh at Life,” at amazon.com and kindle for $5.99!
writehagcolumns9o7vnmoeMon, 26 Sep 2011 10:33:16 -05000 http://www.thewritehag.com/archive.php?guid=i55zocinMs. Grinnell’s life story; a piano history.

I ask everyone who walks into my house if they want my piano. They all take one look and race out the door without looking twice. They either have sudden back problems or have a rare allergy to not just one key, but eighty eight. I don’t even get a chance to explain my life history with this Grinnell Bros. (Detroit, Windsor, Canada, special grand) relic. I call her Ms. Grinnell.
Okay, so it takes four gorillas to move her. It is not the first thing that I mention. That’s not so bad, especially when you consider that what you’re getting is a wonderful instrument. Well, maybe she needs a teensy little work, like total overhaul, tuning and exorcising ghosts of the past that indicate many a child sat and poked scales through the innards until Bach, Beethoven and Shubert spun in their graves.
I was one of those children and sat before her learning my finger exercises and major and minor keys until the entire block begged me to stop. There is a photo of me looking innocent at some sheet music at six years old. There was no one in the background, but I’m sure that relatives and neighbors were cringing. Then later, I stopped because I was more interested in the cute boys than minor things like middle C.
Meanwhile, Ms. Grinnell sat in my grandmother’s dining room for the next round of cousins that filed in and out carrying sheet music. They discovered the cute boys, also, but not after we all giggled ourselves to death about our piano teachers who wore nerdy dresses, bifocals and emoted all over the keyboard at every note.
Then it had some lag time at grandma’s in those years after we all grew and got our cute guys in order; marriages and things. Then because I switched my musical training to the ballet, my then husband and I made a trip to move the thing to my dance studio near Chicago. I don’t remember four gorillas that day, but somehow we got Ms. Grinnell with eighty eight keys onto a truck.
Well, as sometimes schedules are tight, we didn’t have immediate time to move her into my studio, so she whizzed around Chicago to and from his workplace for a few days. Luckily, the weather report said “no rain on Ms. Grinnell upright pianos today.”
So then she moved into my ballet studio and accompanied many a class with most accomplished pianists. The studio was somewhat small, so on occasion a pianist was playing her oom pah pah waltz and suddenly screamed that a dancer flew too close overhead of her flying fingers. One Russian-born pianist complained that the “E” key got stuck once too often and called upon me to suddenly race over and reach in to free the thing. I guess Ms. Grinnell was just beginning to deteriorate by then.
She was revived, however, in her next life as she moved with me to another house (without the husband). I don’t recall the particular gorillas at the time, but you can bribe them with something. It was then that a musical talent acquaintance sort of drifted in and out of my house. He had an ear that most of us cannot fathom. There are still shoe marks to the right of the pedals that say a pure jazz guy was keeping the beat. He went on to compose and produce with Mariah Carey (honest ‘injun!).
She still sits there remembering her past and looking forward to a future of gorillas, tuners and master musicians. Oh. And she has real ivories to tickle, though we’ll keep that a secret from past elephants.

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“Hot Flashes, 101 Reasons to Laugh at Life” now at ebooks2go and amazon.com…$5.99!
writehagcolumnsi55zocinMon, 29 Aug 2011 10:13:03 -05000 http://www.thewritehag.com/archive.php?guid=pylst1zqYou don’t have to be Catholic…at Timber Lake Playhouse.
By Sue Langenberg

…but it helps. “Til’ Death Do us Part: Late Night Cat Catechism 3” opened Thursday at Timber Lake Playhouse featuring one-woman show actress Mary Zentmyer. She may make you sit up straight and not chew gum, but she also makes you laugh at life, love, death and all the other hilarious sacraments that go along with it.
Having finished a rousing season of six shows at the Northwestern Illinois summer professional company of talents, it could be a lonely time for TLP; the actors have left, the cabins are empty. Indeed it has been a somewhat drop off in the past when the energy reaches a frenzied summit of success, then sad goodbyes to actors moving on in their careers.
This time the show goes on! Thanks to Sister Mary in association with Entertainment Events, Inc. of New York City, the audience barely noticed an end-of-season juncture when it filed in opening night Thursday anxious to reconnect with this wildly popular series.
As a standup comedian Zentmyer has stamina and strength to capture an audience off-guard for two hours while she brings on genuine laughs every few seconds; few comedians can do that.
She comes by this ability quite naturally following her B.A. degree in Speech and Performing Arts at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.
But the beginning of her wildly popular performance as Sister Mary began long before that as she was raised Catholic by School Sisters of St. Francis in Chicago. The pun about habits is that she made it a habit of portraying nuns as Sister Berthe in “The Sound of Music” and Sister Catherine in “Do Black Paton Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?” while it was in the early Chicago stages.
The audience doesn’t realize this because about Catholicism, this Sister knows her stuff! In this interactive performance she instructs everyone to “pay attention and follow the rules with both feet on the floor.” She can call upon someone to recite the Seven Sacraments, then turn around and mock how the “Jewish invented guilt, but the Catholics perfected it.” She may call upon someone else, then suddenly realize that this particular audience gal has too much cleavage, then bring out a handy handkerchief for cover. She knows the scriptures, then makes fun of them with comments about the Pope having his own private astronomer followed by jokes about how aliens might act within the Catholic Church.
You don’t have to be Catholic to remember how it was when we stood stiffly and recited the “Pledge of Allegiance” or marched in line to the tune of order and respect. Then she turns around and mocks those very rules with her sometimes soft shoe back to the blackboard and a slight guffaw underneath. If someone chews gum, she invites him to the stage and sticks the wad on his forehead with demand that he report, “Sister, I am sorry that I have disrupted class.” (Yes, it happened on opening night.)
Second act loses no steam for this fun nun as she presents her own version of a dating game using live couples from the audience. She holds signs of “applause,” and has them reveal their real notions about compatibility, whether married 50 years or three.
This show is a summer bonus to regular season, but wait! It’s not over yet. Coming soon at TLP on Saturday, September 10 is an all day Arts & Music Festival. Stay tuned…
You don’t have to be Catholic to find hilarity with Sister Mary in “Late Nite Catechism 3, Til’ Death Do Us Part“ that runs 12 performances through Sunday matinee September 4. Tuesday through Saturday show times at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and two Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. and Sunday August 28 evening at 6:30 p.m. Timber Lake Playhouse of Mt. Carroll boonies is a hop, skip and a jump to 8215 Black Oak Road. Call the box office at (815) 244-2035 or boxoffice@timberlakeplayhouse.org for tickets, group rates and more information.

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writehagreviewspylst1zqFri, 26 Aug 2011 11:23:51 -05000 http://www.thewritehag.com/archive.php?guid=mnizddw0One step further down.
By Sue Langenberg

As the song goes, “…there’s always one step further down you can go…” (“Annie”) It is something we have to remember from time to time because otherwise we think that we are the only one in the world with problems.
I was convinced of that. It all began with a storm (pick a storm, any storm) that fried my computer and modem along with it. As a free lance writer, e-life is not about playing computer games, as I explained to various “service” people (the word “service” is to be taken with a grain of salt), it is about day to day thriving and all the e-trappings that go along with it.
But then Joplin, Missouri, had a bigger problem; they had nothing left to fry. No computer tower, no e-anything, just sticks that churned into the next county and some memories, lucky to be alive.
So after a full week of showing up at the library in my pajamas – well, almost – to check my email and attempt a different keyboard (one wrong move and everything evaporated), I was less than thrilled that the server guy dared be so long to get to me. Then I realized that an entire tower fried in the next county. He said, “…my tower is bigger than your tower.” I agreed that I wouldn’t kill the messenger.
The next storm (pick a storm, any storm) ushered more water in my basement than all of the 27 years dwelling in this house. I saw that an eave near the back porch was clogged and Niagara Falls had swiftly relocated itself to my address in the Midwest and poured directly into the foundation. Naturally, I swore, unclogged the mud beneath the deluge of rain and came back in. I didn’t melt and noted that my basement drain worked just fine. But in the process, saw another area of the basement where water was pouring in dangerously close to my shiny new furnace.
By this time, a bottle of wine was the only solution. I also remembered that there are people in this area who routinely lose appliances with every flooding event to be had. Other people also don’t melt but have to be rescued by boat from their neighborhoods. Okay. I’m still not “one step further down…” But I will likely have to arm myself with a push broom next time and show the excess water where that friendly drain is.
My next perceived trauma was that also for the first time in 27 years, a bat flipped through my first floor. For two nights I awoke screaming. The next three nights, I stayed at a friend’s. I know. What a lightweight, they accuse me. My daughter snickers, but forgets that she has a husband, or better known as a “bat getter.” And yes, I understand that bats are beneficial for our environment, but the whole point to living in houses, in my mind, is that you have peace of mind away from the outside elements.
By the time I paid for computer repair, bat getter assessment and handy-dandy man to tighten the attic and chimney, my checkbook was getting thin. But then, there are people worse off with a lot less. So I kept my mouth shut. The same handy-dandy man cleared my garage of various useless items so I could squeeze my small VW bug into a huge garage. I noticed that he was separating the metal stuff from other stuff. I asked where the metal would go and he said that a homeless man he knows would get $10 for it and be grateful for the day.
I guess there’s always one step further down you can go…

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writehagcolumnsmnizddw0Mon, 15 Aug 2011 11:14:11 -05000