Third Week

Good afternoon, almost eventide, my friends.

Mulch and I will be venturing forth towards StageLeft in less than an hour, but I wanted to take a few minutes to give a quick "How do" and let you know the skinny on The Scarlet Letter.

Our audiences haven't been good, point blank. We thought people would like the Scarlet Letter. There's quite a bit of resentment, to tell the truth, about the book before people even enter the theatre. About half of our audience has entered the lobby with the "I hated The Scarlet Letter in high school" sentiment. My my my. And, the thing about The Scarlet Letter is that old and young have been required to read it during their high school years. It's been considered a Great Book for years, y'see. I know you know.

I was required to read it the summer before my senior year in high school along with The Chosen and The Handmaid's Tale. It took me a couple of tries to get used to the language, truth be told, and I always fancied myself a decent reader, so I found it strange that I was having a hard time with the rhythm. It is flowery, yes. Once I got into it, though, it, obviously became one of my favorites. I've never denied that I'm a geek or a reader.

So, is this a reflection upon the students? A reflection upon the teachers? A reflection upon Nathanial Hawthorne? Hawthorne had a hard time getting his stories to great success. He was friends with several people that went on to become quite famous, but never was able to jump on that bandwagon, even though he wanted to. He was roommates with Martin VanBuren, a president of ours, but that still didn't help matters in his world.

Anyway . . . it all culminates, on the producing end, in the fact that you can't say for sure, before a show gose up, what's going to work with your potential audience. We thought we might have good audiences because there's not tons of theatre happening right now, not tons of major Chicago events happening right now, and it's the time between most other theatre company's seasons. But, alack, alay, we haven't had many people.

Yeah, you've seen those reviews, but we hope that our audiences will give a show a fair shake regardless of what a sole opinion has to say. We had a guy from France come last Saturday and say, "Did you see that you received a bad review in the Trib?" and I said, "Yes." He said, "My friends didn't want to come see the show because of that reason, but I always loved the story and wanted to come. I thought it was a very powerful show and I'm sorry you received that review." So, we invite you to come, form your own opinions, talk to us about it if you feel inspired to do so or enraged to do so, so we can learn from your experience. It's a new show, after all. A calculated risk. I'd like, personally, to hear what you have to say and see how that could potentially be incorporated into our process for next time. I'm talking about constructive criticism here, folks, not bathroom humor.

Regardless, as far as the next show goes, we're going to have to sit tight for a little while because of the sheer money factor. That doesn't mean we're not going to do this and that, but . . . we'll have to sit tight, as prudence is dictating. Mulch and I are the primary donors to the GreyZelda Theatre Group and our pockets are billowing out of our pants right now. We're not worried. We don't want you, Dear Readers, to feel worried. It'll all get back on track, but this notch on the GreyZelda belt definitely is making things tight.

So, come see our show soon, please. Our actors need you. The company needs you.

It's two hours. You'll be able to go elsewhere as soon as 10pm rolls around. Our Hester Prynne rocks. The rest of the ensemble does really cool things. Miranda Sex Garden rocks if you like that kind of thing. It's two for one on Thursdays. Pay what you can Industry nights on Sundays. And only $15.00 the other evenings. And, if you're saying to yourself, shit, I ain't payin' that much for The Scarlet Letter, well . . . give me a call and we'll talk about it. I'd rather have your presence in the theatre than out of it. It's not a bad show. It's a GreyZelda show. And GreyZelda's pretty neat. If you like our kind of stuff. I always do.

Cheers,
Rebecca