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September 07, 2005
Comments from our alums
Dear 75:20 bloggers,
The following entries to the blog are previously submitted comments from alumni of the Department. Please read away and enjoy. Feel free to comment on any of the postings by clicking "comment" at the bottom of each entry. Or, you may e-mail your Rarig Memories to justin@umn.edu for posting.
Cheers,
Justin Christy
Posted by utheatre at 10:30 PM
Comments from Peter Thoemke
I’ve started this letter several times and it’s turned into an I-me personal history, who cares? The east bank theatre experience is spotty for me because while I was involved, I was a Poli-Sci, Philosophy and History major before I finally declared fro theatre the end of my sophomore year right before the move to Rarig.
My years at the U were marked by many incredibly caring people, one is lucky to have a mentor, I had three. Doc Whiting, Robert Moulton and Charles Nolte, all welcomed me into their lives and their generousity influences my actions today and every day. I’ve been truly blessed. In addition, David Thompson, Lee Adey, Kenneth Graham, Virginia Fredericks, Jeanne Gongdon, Lance Brockman, Gino Montgomery, Wes Balk, Elizabeth Nash, Wendal Josal, Dale Huffington, Vern Sutton… all went out of their way, took time, invested their enthusiasm and love in this local boy. I am forever grateful.
I am a storyteller not a writer but here are some topics that might elicit some response from alums.
Arthur Ballet’s 101 in Scott Auditorium
Air Condition free acting and movement
Classes Spring Quarters in Westbrook Hall
Fencing with Tezla
Lee Adey’s directing classes in the Annex on University Ave.
Wes Balk’s “Shakespeare Games” vs. Augsburg College in Shevlin Arena
The loan play library
My first ever acting class was conducted by Bush-McKnight fellow by the name of Peter Michael Goetz
Doc Whiting’s unforgettable production of the Steven Foster Story on the Showboat and his Peter Quince in a very forgettable Midsummer Night’s Dream that same summer.
Acting for the camera with Warren Frost (Warren called me into his office, told me he thought I was a nice guy and I should get out of the business before I got hurt. Subsequently, he cast me as Renfield in his hit production of Dracula at Chimera Theatre and then played by daddy, H. C. Curry in the Gurthrie’s 1986, The Rainmaker.)
Bob Moulton’s movement classes
“Errol Flynn’s Revenge,” Fencing and Staged Combat Recitals Spring Quarters ’76 and ’77.
Peter Thoemke
Posted by utheatre at 10:26 PM | Comments (2)
Comments from Tom Hegg
My favorite Rarig memories are associated with the annual “No-Talent Follies.” It was an opportunity to carry on shamelessly with no fear of snarky criticism in The Strib, The Pioneer Press or The Daily. I remember singing like a hinge in ballands well beyond my meager powers, and tap-dancing with all the grace of Ernest Borgnine falling down a flight of stairs. Great fun!
Tom Hegg
Posted by utheatre at 10:25 PM
Comments from Courtney Peterson
One of my favorite memories of my time at the University of Minnesota Theater Department was performing on the Showboat. We did the Agatha Christie murder mystery “The Mousetrap” in 1992 directed by Charles Nolte. It turned out to be the last show performed on the old Showboat, and I am proud to be a part of that Minnesota tradition. Even with the family of spitfire raccoons, the flooding, and swarms of mosquitoes, it was a delight to perform with that great group of actors and keep the audience guessing until the very end.
Courtney Peterson
Posted by utheatre at 10:24 PM
Comments from Todd Hensley
Recollections:
– Sunrise reflecting of the IDS Building on those below-zero mornings.
– Trying to learn watercolor from Lance B!
– The Experimental Theatre – cold steel and stack chairs
– “Lamp warm-up!”
– Focussing sessions with lights at 30%
– Five-scene preset board in Proscenium
– Gino in charge: esp. on the Prosc. counterweight winch
– Two bats in the Prosc. flyloft – they came down during Act I Finale of The Mikado and did lovely figure-eights behind the scrim.
– “The Pit” – and making the real art down there with friends, between rehearsals.
Todd Hensley
Posted by utheatre at 10:23 PM | Comments (1)
Comments from Guthrie Hebenstreit
When I think of Rarig, I think of the costume shop. As a shop work-study my freshman through senior year, I spent the majority of my time there and definitely learned more there than anywhere else. Whether it was endlessly sewing line after line in cotton knit to clothe Oedipus and his cringing chorus or the the fantastic brocades and velvets that clothed the court in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, every show had a spirit of its own. The talent that designed them was matched by the skill that built them making each unique and memorable.
But more importantly, it is the costume shop family that lives in my memory. Kegan, Joanne, Joe, Tony, Barbara, Sara, Estelle, Brenda and everyone else who called the shop their home from home… not to mention the array of students struggling through their sewing samples and mandatory shop hours… these are the people who offered daily support, humor and insight. These are the people who created the golden hue that colors my time at Rarig. Living on jet-fuel strength coffee and theme-based potluck snack parties, we spent our work shifts, our class breaks and time when we should have been in other classes creating stunning costumes and amazing friendships. Even though I haven’t seen these people in years, I miss them and think of our time together often.
Guthrie Hebenstreit (U of M 1990-1994)
Posted by utheatre at 10:22 PM
Comments from Pat L. Wontorski
I was president of the thespian club at Robert Service High School in Anchorage, Alaska. My drama teacher and sponsor of the thespian club, was from a small town in Minnesota. She had gone to college in Morehead and had always longed to attend the University of Minnesota. Never having left the state of Alaska, Minnesota sounded great to me. I applied to the University of Minnesota and soon was on a plane to Minneapolis. My drama teacher’s brother met me at the airport and helped me settle into Comstock Hall.
I couldn’t wait to set foot in Rarig Center and to be surrounded by the world of theatre. I was duly impressed; never had I been in a building that housed 4 theatres and sported a photo of Loni Anderson on the wall! I have many fond memories of my time there. I was enthralled by Arthur Ballet’s lectures in the Intro. to the Theatre class. I was proud to master the table saw and the band saw down in the prop shop. I enjoyed every night of running costumes for “Jacques Brel.” When I look back, it’s hard to believe that I was so naïve and easily impressed in 1975. However, the theatre, the university and Rarig Center were impressive to me and I remember them with a smile.
Pat L. Wontorski
Posted by utheatre at 10:21 PM
Comments from Claudia Hankin
U of M Theater Department musings – Claudia Hankin
I played Mina in Dracula on the Showboat in 1991 – and this was the old Showboat – the old listing, cramped, stiflingly hot, creaky-scary-wonderful Showboat. We each got a different cleaning job every day, and the worst was cleaning spiders off the decks. You’d sweep them away one day and they’d come back in full force the next, only bigger and more tenacious. Since they’d roost in the rafters (and I say “roost,” as each was approximately the size and heft of a small pigeon) you would have to brush them with a broom, but kind of lean forward and jab at them so they wouldn’t fall on your head. I remember trying to convince our Captain, Greg Smucker, that since we were performing Dracula, the spiders were entirely appropriate and should be left where they were for atmosphere! (He wasn’t fooled.)
It was a very hot summer, most of us were costumed in wool, and only half the air conditioners worked at any given time. By the end of the show our makeup would have melted, and our clothes would be sopping wet. (It was difficult to maintain the illusion we were in chilly autumnal Europe.) Creighton Larson, who was playing Dr. Van Helsing, would actually swim in the Mississippi between Sunday shows, even though we warned him he might sprout another eye or something as a result.
Once during the show I was standing on a riverside deck and saw a rubber ducky floating down the Mississippi.
When I first started at Rarig, in 1988, the “pit” was filled with those hideous red, yellow and orange cushion chairs that looked like giant Starburst fruit chews. Hideous to look at, yes – ripped and tacky as hell, but great for taking naps between classes or before a rehearsal. Plus smoking was still allowed, so when you’d descend the staircase you’d look down on this hazy tableau of students sprawled all over the naugahyde furniture—sleeping, rehearsing, smoking, flirting, relaxing, stressing…
Smoking was banned in the building before I was a Senior, and the ill-favored couches were eventually removed – one could argue that both were victories on the side of good taste, but now it seems kind of sterile: a place for a theater patron to spend intermission, not a place for a student to live and lounge.
Posted by utheatre at 10:20 PM
Comments from Aaron Milgrom
A memory of the move from Scott Hall to Rarig
My freshman year at the U of MN was the last year the theater department used Scott Hall. A strong memory from those days is from the next year, when we were inaugurating Rarig but still had offices on the East Bank. Although I was interested in the acting courses, technical theater was a prerequisite to any classes beyond beginning acting. I was ‘serving’ my 40 hours of tech theater at the field house – where sets were built and then, previously, hauled over to Scott Hall. This was to be the last set built there and was going to be hauled over to Rarig for a show in the proscenium.
I was definitely NOT handy in the set shop – a talent I’ve maintained all these years. I couldn’t nail a board straight if my life depended on it. The head techie carefully drew me up a diagram of a mail box for me to build. He encouraged me to use all my creativity and seek as little help from him as possible. While I struggled, using a good 8 hours to build this simple box, I wondered where in the play it would be used. When I finally sanded and painted this primitive thing I brought it over to my mentor who looked it over and then instructed me to go over to Nicholson Hall and nail it up outside his office. (It turned out to be the perfect entre to what I would be doing the following summer – be an intern at the Stagecoach where I would primarily clean paintbrushes and wash out buckets.)
Toward the end of my career as a sophomore actor/techie we spent our time loading all the things at the dusty field house on to trucks, vans and everyone’s cars and hauling them over to Rarig, the new state of the art theater building.
Aaron Milgrom
B.A. in Theater Arts
1972-1976
Posted by utheatre at 10:19 PM
Comments from Kathy Kohl
I was at Rarig during those heady Three-Prong Designer years, when design students were required to fulfill competency requirements in set, costume and lighting design. My memories of that time tend to be filled in tiny vignettes because we were constantly sprinting to keep up with assignments and productions. I know we all felt that, after Rarig, the real design world would be much, much easier. I believe we were correct!
I suspect I won the prize for the lighting department’s example of “what not to do when lighting a show.” For my MFA senior project (JB Priestley’s TIME AND THE CONWAYS), I was given a show with detailed sets and costumes and a notoriously simple lighting plot (the faculty had spotted my weakness as soon as I walked through the doors) performed in the Areana, my favorite theater at Rarig. Thinking I was utilizing materials and instruments very efficiently, I emptied the barrels and used every single cable available for the Arena. The lighting students wouldn’t speak to me for several weeks afterwards without making cracks about “spaghetti in the sky….”
We had drawing class at a humorless 8 am twice a week with Lance Brockman. It was actually a wonderful, relaxing class and we could come out of it totally in our right brains (remember that?) and very foggy. One assignment was to find a detail of architecture to sketch within Rarig. After a few months in that building, we were all so tired of concrete that this was an extremely trying assignment. I did finally find one intriguingly angled and braced corner of the upstairs ceiling that spoke to me, serving to remind me of the passion behind this architecture of the brutal. I added grey to my basic 80’s black wardrobe the very next day.
My tenure at Rarig also included serving as rehearsal accompanist for the department. We were holding auditions in the proscenium for “Working” by Studs Terkel on particularly star-crossed evening, and had had a spateful of creaky auditionees. Our final act, the one who totally shut us down, was a man who had himself grandly introduced by his “manager,” handed me his music (“The Candyman”) and proceeded to deliver this inane piece, complete with props. I slowed to a finish after the proscribed eight bars, but he slipped the clutch and drove the whole seven verses. The student director closed the doors immediately after he left, there was a brief silence, then we laughed until we cried.
Other quickie memories:
--Dave Doersch (our resident stage combat freak) (sorry, Dave) jumping from the second balcony down to the Pit cushions (a lovely orange naugahyde in those days);
--my son, Aaron, one of the resident Child Actors for the department during this time, supplementing his meager allowance with change he collected by crawling under the vending machines (yuch);
--my older son Bryan enraged that he had to attend school sporting a ‘20s-style wedge haircut for his “Six Characters in Search of an Author” role; the next year, a year too late in his books, the style was the trend;
--taking advantage of a low Mississippi River in 1988 that caused the Showboat stage to list several degrees to one side, and playing the accompaniment faster when the singers had to climb up the rake in the oleos, heh, heh.
— Kathy Kohl’s memories of Rarig, 1984-1987
Posted by utheatre at 10:18 PM
Comments from Nan Zabriskie
Ahhhh, Rarig Center
What I remember about Rarig all revolves around memories of coming in from the nose-hair freezing walk to school. Rushing in the big doors to be greeted by the well and the pit at the bottom….who is in the pit…check it out, then on to the shops. I remember tucking in to the scene shop to do some painting, mixing those wonderful powder colors with the great gloopy hide glue. Lance was always around to drop pearls of wisdom or give me some healthy grief. On to the costume shop via Gino’s office; she pretended not to know you were there. She couldn’t let on that she was glad to see you; she just assumed that “I’m too busy! Get back to your own shop” attitude. She never fooled me. The costume shop meant Tessie and her latest drawing of beautiful people and her wonderful belly laugh and throat laugh. She and I had a ball in the costume shop creating weird, impossible costumes for our fellow students, learning new techniques and generally exploring the many facets of theatre.
What do I remember most of Rarig aside from the great varied theatre spaces and the impersonal block walls? I remember the people of Rarig, the camaraderie and the quest for yet a better way to tell a story. I’m still on that quest, twenty-five years later.
— Nan Zabriskie, MFA 1979
Posted by utheatre at 10:17 PM
Comments from Sally Wingert
I remember entering Rarig and always running to the stairwell to lean over and see who was in the pit. That space became our coffee shop, home room, map zone, information station and pretty much the place that allowed me to feel at home will attending the sometimes overwhelming University of Minnesota. I also remember Beth Gilliland and I doing breath by breath recreation of Thura Nyro’s Gonna Take a Miracle album just outside the Stoll Thrust. That whole lobby core in Rarig had a huge echo chamber effect. We thought it sounded great.
— Sally Wingert
Posted by utheatre at 10:16 PM | Comments (1)
Comments from Michael Koerner
Here are a few words about my time at dear old Rarig High:
One of my fondest memories harkens back to the days on the old showboat. I was playing in a production of Pinero’s “Dandy Dick” with, among others, Beth Gilleland and Billy Blieseth. Our director was Charles Nolte.
Billy loved to go fishing off the back of the boat, and one day he caught a particularly ugly carp. Later that night at the performance the carp made and unexpected appearance onstage in a bucket that was supposed to be full of oats to feed the title character (a horse!). Needless to say with Beth’s notorious inability to keep a straight face in such situations, we all had a hard time keeping any sort of plot going!
Also:
One of my favorite dance partners in a Robert Moulton musical was the former artistic director of “Eye of the Storm” theater, Casey Stangl. We were paired in a production of Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me Kate,” with, among others, Lee Walker, Sally Bublitz and Ken Risch. It is a little known fact that Ms. Stangl was quite a hoofer early in her career!
And again:
My favorite performance experience at Rarig was a production in the Nolte Theatre of “Marat/Sade” directed by the late Stephen Hults with Sally Wingert as Charlotte Corday, Casey Stangl (again!) with me in the vocal quartet and musical director Dawn Baker. A wild show!
— Michael Koerner
Posted by utheatre at 10:15 PM
Comments from Miriam Monasch
Rarig Memories
I have to admit, Rarig has seen some of my fondest and (arguably) finest theatrical moments. Not to say that I’m not equally proud of some of my other work in the community, academic and semi-pro theatre, but Rarig’s 4 theaters were the primary venues for my acting, directing and playwriting for a good chunk of the 1990’s.
To name a few memories that might evoke some of your own:
In the Thrust:
Charles Nolte directed me as a birdlike Tiresias in Oedipus with phenomenal set and costume designs by Desmond Heeley.
Under Steven Kanee’s direction I tackled Madame Ranevsky in The Cherry Orchard, with my own miniature dachsund, Higgins (17 years old now and still going strong) as “the dog.” People told me he stole the opening scene, staring into the audience. And he charmed everyone in the dressing room.
In the Experimental (Black Box):
As a director, I agonized over the ramifications of stripping John Bentley to his skivvies in The Dreams of Clytemnestra. Not to mention casting Raga with her Icelandic accent as the heroine of an Italian update of a Greek tragedy. A lot of people told me they didn’t have a clue what the show was about, but some said they “loved” how daring it was stylistically. I had a blast with it!
In the Arena: (Hands down, best memories for me.)
Working with Julia Fischer and a handful of super MFAs to create (write) Beauty and the Beast. Seeing that script produced elsewhere after that made it clear what an amazing cooperative artistic project it was!
And, of course, some juicy cameos and plum roles in Le Belle Soeur, Restoration and Ghosts.
In Whiting:
My Rarig debut was as Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music. The music was glorious and turned me into a Sondheim fan.
TA for Intro to Theatre 101… I never want to hear (or give) another lecture on Euripedes or Neo-Classicism or Slice of Life, etc. But I did get a lot of knitting done in the back. In fact, I took second prize at the state fair in ’93 for a sweater knit almost entirely in Rarig!
There were so many great productions, so much “DRAMA” in the “pit,” and so much talent coming and going. Whenever one of those faces shows up on the big or small screen these days, I can say, “I was in a show with him/her back in…”
Thanks for the memories.
Miriam Monasch
Posted by utheatre at 10:13 PM
Comments from Beth Gilleland
When we did the Caucasian Chalk Circle, Martin Esslin was concurrently teaching a class at the “U” on Pinter. He was also an authority on Brecht. He came to see the show, then offered some commentary afterwards.
For Grusha’s flight through the mountains, six males lifted a platform a bridge up to an impressive height of about nine feet and I, as Grusha, had to step onto this floating bridge, and was ushered across the stage to an equally high precipice on the other side — singing, and holding a baby.
“Deep is the abyss son, I feel the weak bridge sway…” I felt the bridge sway, believe you me.
As an illuminating example of Brecht’s theory of alienation, Esslin told us that in Brecht’s production, the effect of real danger was absent. The bridge was a short plank, two feet off the ground.
— Beth Gilleland (1980 grad)
Posted by utheatre at 10:10 PM
Reed Sigmund writes...
A few months before I graduation from the U of M with my B.A. in Theatre Arts, one of my acting professors, Kent Stephens, requested that I meet him in his office for a private discussion. I happily granted his request and followed him to his workplace. Immediately after sitting down, he looked me in the eye and told me I was his biggest disappointment of the semester. He complimented by abilities, but quickly followed the praise with his observation that I would never get a single acting job if I didn’t take the craft seriously and develop a genuine work ethic. After rubbing Ben-Gay on my bruised and damaged soul for the next three days, I decided me might know what he was talking about, so I followed his advice. I developed a new approach to the craft. I stopped treating it like any other hobby and began to truly study. The techniques we had been learning in class were finally being applied and there were positive results. Kent rewarded my hard work by setting up auditions for me. Thanks to him and several other professors, I have been a full-time, working actor for the past five years. I’ll never forget the theatre department faculty’s consistently wise and honest support.
— Reed Sigmund
Posted by utheatre at 10:08 PM
Memories from Barbara Reid
Remember the old Rarig with those beat up multi-colored vinyl cubes? They really made the pit a pit! And the matching red, yellow and blue block lettering outside the theaters? One o’clock classes in the blue arena – so soothing you had to fight to keep people from napping after lunch. I never knew Scott Hall, so took Rarig for granted. We always used the fact that we had four great spaces as recruiting information for prospective students. They were and are impressive. In spring it always felt so good to get classes out of the greyness of the building and outdoors whenever we could. Remember Bob Moulton’s May Days? Faculty offices across the street in Middlebrook – those 5th floor spaces now occupied by faculty and T.A.s were off limits for the department for a long time. Gino has done her best to protect our Rarig, with her annual “care and feeding” speech, and her countless e-mails if we got too careless. Lance warmed the building up a lot when he started hanging banners to give a new sense of liveliness to the space, put down carpet, and took away the vinyl sleeping pods. Ah, Rarig, forever ugly, forever imposing, much grey concrete, much life inside that concrete, many memories.
— Barbara Reid
Posted by utheatre at 10:06 PM