Neptune Theatre and Zuppa Theatre Co. join forces to present the world premiere of Poor Boy, a pop music fantasia about tragic love, on stage now until March 1st. 

Conceived and developed by the innovative Zuppa Theatre Co., Poor Boy is an adaptation of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The classic story gets an update through the injection of pop music and stunning visuals when pop sensation Sherman Oakes loses his rock diva lover and sets off on a pilgrimage to the hotel where she died.  Sherman’s uncompleted comeback album provides the original, haunting soundtrack of the show.

 Click on these links to read media coverage of Poor Boy:

Chronicle Herald            Metro Halifax     The Coast

Hello there everyone. I would first like to start off by saying you are officially reading my first blog entry ever; anywhere. Hard to believe, I know. And I figured it would be a great idea to write one after a nice pasta meal and a glass of red wine. So, here goes!

I guess a good start would be to say this is my first time in Nova Scotia, and I am truly enjoying it. People are so friendly here! I drove up from Toronto. I was able to get it done in two days, and don’t regret a moment of it. It has come in handy a few times so far…who am I kidding, basically everyday! I never seem to get out of bed in time, and without the car, would be in some serious trouble. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do? More coffee? Any help at this point would be greatly appreciated!

As far as the rehearsals, they have been really fun. First, it must be said that David Connolly, the director, has some of THE best stories. I sometimes wonder if you said random one-letter words to him, he would probably have a story for every one of those words. And the stories would get exponentially funnier. Any strange words out there, please, I’m trying to stump him…don’t be shy!

Another detail is this music is incredibly difficult to learn and sing! I come from a musical family and we’ve always sung in four part harmony…but nothing to this extent. I sure have my work cut out for me.

This is the first Christmas I will be spending away from my family in Cambridge, ON. I never thought this season was all that important. Never got what the big ‘to do’ was. Now that I’m not there, I’m suddenly realizing what the magic is all about. Funny how sometimes you have to not have something before you can truly appreciate it.

My family would always do midnight mass, and then come home and open our gifts that night until the wee hours of the morning. My mom always baked up a storm! The dining room table would be covered in all sorts of treats; cherry shortbread cookies, peanut butter cookies, truffles, cherry cake, Berliner Kransers (a German recipe…an amazing cookie. Recipe is attached below!), homemade doughnuts, strawberry and apple pies, a bunch of Christmas decorations and candles, etc. The freezer would be full and whenever one of the bowls would get empty, we would simply run down and fill it! The table would stay like this for at least two weeks. After dinner, we would all gather around the Christmas table and laugh and talk while eating our dessert. I think that is one of the things I will miss the most not being there this year, the dining room table. Did anyone else ever have this sort of tradition?

I am however, starting to build a new family here in Halifax, the Plaid family. Hopefully I’ll get to spend my Christmas with them. Not too sure about the baking, but the carols are sure to good! Hehe.

Well, as promised, the cookie recipe. Please let me know how it turns out!

Ingredients

¾ cup shortening, melted

¾ cup butter, melted

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

4 tsp orange peel, grated

3 ¾ cups flour

Directions

Cream shortening, butter and sugar together. Add eggs 1 at a time (very important!). Stir well after each addition. Add orange peel. Add flour a little at a time, mixing well.

Chill dough. Place on floured surface and roll out to ½ inch thickness. Cut out with Christmas cookie cutter shapes and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Brush tops with beaten egg using pastry brush and decorate.

Bake at 375°F for 8 minutes

NOTE: Do not double the recipe

Yield – approximately 4 dozen

Until next time, keep fit and have fun! (body break!)

Frankie.

A day in the life of a Plaid

 – or –

A Stupendous, Tremendous, Real Good, Very Plaid Day 

by Jeff Moulton, “Jinx”

7:30 – Wake up and immediately hit snooze
7:35 – repeat
7:40 - repeat
7:45 – repeat..
8:00 – Breakfast of Champions (fresh squeezed orange plaid, 3 egg plaidlette, shortstack of plaidcakes, 1 or 2 other breakfast puns depending on the day)
8:30 – Vocal warm-up – as the high-tenor Plaid I’ve got to be in good voice!
9:00 – Walk to theatre with extra time given for stop at Starbucks or Uncommon Grounds for one of their fantastic scones
9:15 – Silently try to fit the word Plaid into scone…
9:19 – Resign myself to ‘plone’
10:00 – Begin rehearsal with music – each harmony line played by itself and then we begin layering the others in over-top.  A slightly tedious process but you can’t argue with results!
11:30 – Short break where I ask the other Plaids if they want a bite of my ‘plone’
11:31 – Awkward moment
11:45 – Begin staging the musical numbers we just learned.  If we’re really ‘on our plaid’ we have familiarized ourselves with these scenes the night before.  Holding our scripts so we can write down the blocking and any prop notes, we talk through each scene and song making sure everyone is accounted for.  Once we’ve got everything down on paper, we attempt to run it all with music, props, and choreography…
It falls apart; too much to remember on the first go-around. 
Second attempt…
Absolutely flawless!…
 delivery of my first three lines… less than stellar after that.

1:30 – Break for lunch
1:40 – Receive my tall ‘1-pump mocha tazo chai’ at starbucks after several attempts to order a ‘tall 1-Plaid mocha tazo Plaid’
1:50 – Actual food from Pete’s Plaid-tique or Pita Plaid… or maybe a home-made Plaidwich
2:30 – Back to work – more staging.  Choreography increases in difficulty with addition of microphone chords. 
4:30 – Make it through all 4 songs we’ve learned that day with choreography and only loop myself around Adam’s mike chord once!
5:00 – Get a jump start on the music for tomorrow…
5:30 – Rehearse the ‘hand-bell section’ of act II…  The bells won’t arrive until next week so we practice the motions with empty, upside down coffee cups – we sound incredible.
6:00 – End of day at the theatre
6:30 – Dinner with the word Plaid in it somewhere…
7:00 – Review everything we did today and make sure it’s properly notated; this Plaid is also the dance-captain…
8:00 – Look over tomorrow’s material
8:30 – Write this blog!
9:00 – Add in the Extreme Plaid-splosion Contest!

Send in your favourite holiday meals with the word Plaid expertly inserted… 
The most creative entry will win a FREE Signed Poster for Plaid Tidings!

10:00 – silently pray for full houses and Plaid on Earth.
 

But being a student isn’t cheap – tuition, books and coffee all add up, leaving little left for an original, exciting night out. Which is why Neptune created the Student 4-Play package. For only $80, students can come to four unique plays – and get four entertaining nights out for the price of one. Who wants to sit at home watching reruns when there’s live theatre on your doorstep?

That’s the beauty of being a student in Halifax – great education, great entertainment. What other perks of being a student in Halifax do you look forward to, or that you have just discovered?

If you don’t know what the show is all about, let me give you a quick preview. Two New York City con-men (Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom) attempt to cheat theatre “angels” (investors) out of their investment money by deliberately producing a flop. They find the worst director, the worst actors, and after careful consideration, the worst possible Broadway show: Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden.

Think you can come up with a worse premise for a Broadway show? Prove it in Neptune Theatre’s I WANT TO BE A PRODUCER contest. We are challenging you to come up with the worst possible title for a play. The best of the worst will win two tickets to see The Producer’s: A New Mel Brooks Musical live on the Fountain Hall stage.

The contest will close on Friday, May 9 and the winner will be announced here on the Neptune blog on Wednesday, May 14.

Good-luck!

*Postings containing offensive language will be omitted from the contest.

This absurd storyline is the focus of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days; the next play to hit the stage at Neptune’s Studio Theatre. It sounds strange because it is.

Born on April 19, 1906, Samuel Beckett was an author, critic, playwright, and winner of the Noble Peace Prize for Literature in 1969. He wrote in both French and English and is considered one of the key writer’s in the “theatre of the absurd”.

But the absurdities of his plays are nothing compared to some of his real life experiences. Take the quiz below to see if you can separate the facts from the fiction in the absurd life of Samuel Beckett.

1. In his early years, Samuel Beckett became the only Nobel Laureate to be listed in the “bible” of which sport:
A) rugby
B) soccer
C) cricket

2. While studying in Paris, Beckett became close friends with prolific author James Joyce. In fact, Beckett even helped Joyce research his classic novel Finnegans Wake. However, their friendship eventually ended because Beckett:
A) Refused to sleep with Joyce’s daughter Lucia
B) Tried to steal the manuscript of Finnegan’s Wake and sell it as his own work
C) Slept with Joyce’s daughter Lucia

3. In 1938, Beckett had a frightening brush with death when:
A) He was hit by a street car
B) He was stabbed in the chest by a pimp
C) He was shot by police officers when leaving a bank

4. In 1969, Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Upon hearing the news, Beckett’s wife Suzanne called the announcement a:
A) Miracle
B) Catastrophe
C) Joke

5. Beckett used to drive which future celebrity to school every morning:
A) Hulk Hogan
B) Sylvester Stallone
C) Andre The Giant

ANSWERS: 1-C, 2- A, 3-B, 4-B, 5-C