But married a couple years now, my wife's name is Ann, and we have a rule, we never go to bed angry, and I haven't slept in a week and a half.
We're going to modify that rule a little bit.
You know the thing is, I'm just not used to being wrong so often.
I guess it's like the tree falling in the forest thing, I was wrong when I was single, I just never heard about it.
We're not here about it.
We had a fight about a month ago, a pretty big fight and I got mad and I broke something.
And afterwards Ann suggested that I might want to take a course in anger management, which is reasonable.
I suggested that she might want to take a course in anger prevention.
It's a free seminar next Saturday, I'm teaching it.
She's being a pad in lots of paper.
And don't be late.
You know how that makes me mad.
We want to start dinner.
It's 707 at WRGN Radio.
I'm Don Rosen.
I want to thank you for joining us here on this Thursday morning.
This hour we're talking murder, cold, blooded, calculated, first degree murder.
We're talking dial-in for murder.
It's coming to the Racine Theatre Guild.
And we have my click there, the director of dial-in for murder with us.
And Mike, good morning.
Thanks for joining us.
I appreciate it.
Good morning, thanks for having me.
Murder.
Now everyone is, well, not everyone, but a lot of people have seen the Alfred Hitchcock classic dial-in for murder.
And some people like me have seen it in 3D because it was Alfred Hitchcock's 3D movie that he made.
Oh, wow.
I think the studio forced it upon him.
I don't think he wanted to make the 3D.
But at the time when he made it, 3D was the hot thing in movies.
And they forced him to shoot it in 3D and he did.
And I saw that years ago in 3D.
So, I mean, it looks just fine and regular than it does.
And it's not really one of these 3D movies where the knife comes, where the gun comes at you and shoots a bullet at it.
That's not one of those.
Anyway, so how close is dial-in?
First of all, when is it coming to the Racine Theatre Guild?
Let's do that.
Well, it actually opens very soon.
Next weekend is a matter of fact, not this coming week.
It's following weekend and it runs until the 28th of January.
So it's the 12th of January through to the 28th of January.
Now, is it based on the movie at all or how close is it?
Yeah, dial-in for murder was a stage play first.
And you can actually see it in the movie that it was a stage play.
I mean, it's shot almost like a stage play the way Hitchcock tried it.
So is it based on the movie, the stage play?
How's it based upon?
Well, yes, it is pretty much based on the movie.
It was a play written in 1952 by Frederick Knot,
who also people might be familiar with on Wait Until Dark,
which is another murder that's through which I directed a couple of years back.
But it's close.
It's close to the movie.
You know, the movie can show a little more intricacies and things than we can on stage
and they can quick-cut from one place to the other, which I can't do.
But it is actually a play written in three acts,
but we chopped it into two parts for the theater to go.
We don't like to do three acts play.
It's kind of a little tricky to do that with our audiences and stuff.
So we have it in two acts.
The first act is leads up to the murder and the murder actually happens.
And then the second act is figuring out what just happened.
What did we just see?
So it's pretty close to the movie, not exactly,
because in the movies you can show close-ups and show all kinds of things
that we can't do on stage, but we do our best.
You know, fun to think about the movie.
This is what I remember most about it.
I'm a big fan of spaghetti westerns, Italian westerns of the 1960s, early 70s.
And one of the guys who started a lot of Italian westerns, not a lot of American films,
but he's in this movie, Dial M for Murder, I will tell you which party played.
But he's in this movie.
And I said that same guy who's in all these Italian westerns.
And who know he's speaking?
I didn't know he spoke English.
These voices dubbed in all the westerns and everything.
Okay, so Dial M for Murder is coming up.
You have one tricky thing that other theaters don't have.
And there were some theaters like yours.
Yours is in a giant semi-circle almost in the round, pretty close to it,
where other theaters can close the curtains, open them up, and there's a whole new set.
You've got to do it right in front of everybody with a blackout.
And you can still see in the blackout that things are going on.
So that's even trickier because you can only do so much in a blackout
because you only have a few seconds to do it, right?
Well, we're actually, it's called Three Quarter Thrust, the stage at the theater guild.
It's patterned after the theater in Minneapolis.
But anyway, it's Three Quarter Thrust.
And we do a lot with lighting.
We actually, in our play, you will actually see on stage somebody get killed.
So, you know, we don't have to go to a blackout.
We have some pretty good actors and actresses in our play.
Actually, one actress, four men and one woman.
So, you know, they do a pretty good job of making it look pretty realistic.
It's pretty scary.
In fact, the woman who plays that Margot, I asked her, I said, do you have young children?
And she said, yes, she does.
I said, well, won't it scare them to see their mother get killed?
And she said, no, no, they'll be fine.
It's like, okay.
Okay.
Okay.
So, if you kill the actress in every performance, that means you got to have how many actresses?
Six or seven of them?
Eight of them?
Well, well, I would like to say that we've had six or seven actresses.
But we don't actually kill the actress.
Oh, I saw that.
Get killed.
Okay.
I know who gets killed, by the way.
Yeah.
We have season tickets of the receiving theater guilds.
We see all the shows there.
Rent was spectacular.
That kicked off the season.
Rent, the musical.
The cemetery club.
Perfect.
Seasonal allergies was great.
We saw the little mermaid once again.
I don't know where you find these actors, but they were great.
The island for murders coming up next then, now and then, star girl, and the big finish,
cabaret, the Tony award-winning, I can't be award-winning also, musical, because it won
the Oscar for Best Picture, and also won Tony Awards, plenty of them.
I went to interview Joel Gray, who was the master of ceremonies for that, and he's, I
think he's the only one they brought back from the original Broadway cast to do the same
exact role in the movie.
That's true.
That's exactly true.
Bob Fossy, who was the choreographer, wasn't a big fan of Joel Gray.
I was even less of a fan of Liza Menelli, but he used them both because the studio and
the producer said, oh no, you're going to use both these actors and you're going to like
it so we did.
And I saw the movie when I was young kid, in fact, it's a pretty good movie.
It's a great play.
You know, it has an amazing message, I think, and that cabaret is a good show.
People should definitely go see it.
And the music, every song is memorable.
You know, they always say, if you leave the theater humming a tune, you got your money's
worth.
With cabaret, you're going to hum about 20 tunes leaving the theater.
Well, I hope that people leave dial-in for murder, humming ways to, you know, not giving
people ideas.
I think Ray Meland and Grace Kelly started in the movie.
Indeed.
As you said, it was directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
It was Grace Kelly and everybody loves Grace Kelly and Ray Meland and Robert Cummings and
some other people at Robert Cummings.
Oh, and Bob Cummings, yeah.
Yeah.
And he was in it too.
He plays the one and only American in the play and, you know, so, and it was at it.
And later we would become out of character form because Bob Cummings started on a comedy
sitcom, the Bob Cummings show.
That's true.
And here's the guy who played various serious roles in the movies before the sitcom came along.
Now we had a take him as a comedy actor.
And it was very, the Bob Cummings show was very successful.
Yes, it was.
Okay.
So, um, let's talk about, I got a few minutes here for the break.
I want to talk about your career because you started 50 years ago.
Well, that, I've been doing theater for as long as I can remember.
It's been my profession.
Um, I actually started in college.
I wanted to be an archaeologist and a paleontologist and I was studying that.
Um, and then my friend Chris Hughes who was involved with the theater guild said, you know,
they're doing a play over here at High Street called Summer of the 17th doll.
You might want to check it out.
So, I did.
I went over there and I, and I got cast in the play.
And I just got, it's one of those things where if you get hooked by theater, you get hooked by theater.
And I was stuck.
And I, you know, I, I then went to school and I started studying anthropology and archaeology.
And I met a man whose day was Tom Reiner and he said, you know, you ought to come down and, and try and hang out with us at the theater.
So, I did that.
And then I got more and more involved with theater in college and I got involved with the theater at the theater guild.
I started as a maintenance man as I had mentioned earlier.
Um, I then became the technical director which meant I built all the senior and stuff for them.
And, um, Norma, please said to me, you know, this is a, this is something you're good at.
You should probably go to grad school.
And not only should you go to grad school, you should go to where I went to grad school.
And so he picked it.
He set it up so that I could go to Utah State University and Logan Utah.
And I got my master's in theater and I was supposed to come back to the scene theater guild and be the, the TD again.
But things had changed and gone over I and stuff.
So I actually had to get a job and I got a job at Edgewood College in Madison.
And I worked at the Madison Rap and I worked at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
I worked in Rockford and worked all over the place doing theater.
And this, excuse me.
And then I came back to the theater guild because I called the amp and said, you want to come back and be the TD.
We needed TD.
And I said, yeah, I'll come back and be the TD, which I did.
And then I got involved with the, the University of Wisconsin Parkside.
And I, I started building all the scenery for the fireside in Port Ackinson.
Um, we built that parkside, talked it out to the fireside.
And then I came back and I, I started working at Parkside where I worked at Parkside for 24 years building scenery for the fireside and for Parkside.
And I just, you know, I had known Doug Hinson as, um, I actually worked with his wife, Kim.
And he said, you know, would you be interested in directing any plays?
And I said, I'd love to direct some plays.
So, so as I mentioned, the first show I did was um, designed for a murder.
And I did that. I've since done, luckily I've done some comedies and things too.
So I'm not the only one at the theater guild who goes around killing everybody I see.
Now, now you mentioned the fireside theater. I've been there before too.
They've got something a really unique situation because they are totally in the round.
And they do big shows like laymirs and cabaret and those sort of shows in the round that they have a center stage which raises and lowers.
I know that that's, that's a real plus.
The center of the stage can go down.
It could bring the musicians up and down. It could bring the actors up and down.
And it brings the props up and down because you can't be schlepping props, you know, through the, uh, through the aisles.
Because that's the only way to get there unless you, because the actors do come through the aisles.
But they, I've seen many shows here and they pull off musicals plays.
They pull it all off very well at the, uh, the fireside theater.
And you guys do too. Hold on a second.
We're talking to my cookner who's the director of dial em for murder.
Opening up not this weekend, but the weekend after at the recene theater guild ticket still available.
Keep it right here.
This is home town radio refreshed WRG on a civic media station.
Looking for partly sunny weather today with a high near 33 right now.
It's cloudy and 30 degrees and we're seeing.
If not for you.
Baby, I couldn't even find the door.
I couldn't even see the floor.
I'll be setting me.
If not for you.
As a person, we lost recently the Libby and Newton John.
That's one of her first big hits.
I think I was her first hit if not for you.
My click there is our cast.
He's the director of the latest show coming to the recene theater guild.
Dial em for murder.
And Mike, thanks again for joining us here.
Where do you find the actors to perform in these shows?
Because they're all Broadway quality.
And I grew up going to Broadway shows guy lived in New York City.
I grew up going to Broadway shows all the time as a kid.
That's when ticket prices peak that $8 a seat to a Broadway show.
Now you have to spend over a hundred.
And the people at the recene theater guild are just as good.
If not better than what I saw on Broadway.
Where do you find these people?
Well, they're all volunteers.
They come from the community.
We always announce auditions.
And everybody is welcome to come on audition.
You know, there are certain criteria.
You need certain things.
Like if I needed 90 year old woman,
I'm not going to cast a four year old boy.
But, you know, I mean, we try to cast the type.
And we also, everybody is welcome.
And it is community volunteers.
And that's what's really important about the recene theater guild.
Is the majority of what you see happening on stage
is because of a fantastic core of volunteers.
From lights to sounds to sets to everything.
You know, Doug Instant is a professional managing artistic director.
And they have a Jocelyn Fish is a director of marketing and development.
And they have a professional TD.
Other than that, everything else is volunteer.
So, you know, they come from here and there and everywhere.
It's people who have always thought that they wanted to try and be in a play
or people who have been in plays and stopped for a while.
And they've come back.
We've had some people who have gone off and worked professionally
and retired from that and missed it.
And so they come back.
So they come from absolutely everywhere.
Now, this is what everybody wants to know.
What happens when something goes wrong?
Now, I know there's a music guy in the back.
He runs a console.
Not behind, not in the booth.
But sometimes there's a guy running music.
That's when we do musicals.
There's a man in the back who does that.
And he's not in the booth because he has to be able to hear exactly what the audience is hearing.
Right.
Because he's setting sound levels on things.
But yeah.
What if a song is coming up and something goes wrong with his console?
Well, absolutely nothing ever goes wrong at the same time.
I don't know what you're talking about.
But that is the beauty of live theater.
And that's part of the reason we like it is because you never know what's going to happen.
And you deal with it.
That's the answer is you have to deal with it.
If he queues up a wrong song or something, you'll have to fix it as soon as he possibly can.
If somebody on stage forgets a line or something, the other actors have to pick it up.
I directed a play called Sonia and Boni.
Sonia, Boni and Sasha and Spike.
And the very last performance, one of the actors got ill.
And he could not continue.
We could not go on.
So I had to get a script and read from the script and went on stage to cover him.
And we finished the play that night with me playing his part and everybody else doing theirs.
So you cover for it.
In movies, when you make a mistake, you say, cut and you do it all over again.
We don't have that luxury on stage.
And sometimes the audience will respond differently and you don't know what's going on with them.
When I was in years ago, I was in a Mice and Men.
And one of the guys on stage was giving me a hard time.
And some woman from the audience yelled out, don't you mess with that man.
He didn't do nothing to you.
And it's like, you know, it's kind of shocking as an actor.
But you go on and you pretend you don't hear that because we're living in a different world.
We don't realize there's an audience out there when we're acting.
Well, and that happened to show recently where one of the actors took ill.
I don't think it was seasonal allergies.
I think it might have been the one before it.
But he took ill and they brought somebody in and he held the script in his hand the whole time.
But you didn't notice it.
That was seasonal allergies.
That was also in my play.
That was Scott Kova check.
And he actually got up on this is something we're just learning how to deal with in theater these days.
He actually got COVID.
And as a matter of fact, I just recently got COVID.
So I had to have my stage manager and my production stage manager fill in forming for a couple of days.
We have a protocol up the theater guild to deal with COVID.
If you get it, you have to quarantine for five days by yourself.
And then you can come back after five days.
But you've got to wear a mask, which is the disease control.
That's what they say you have to do.
So that's what we do.
And we do have, we now cast understudies for our shows who don't have to sit and memorize the whole play.
But they do have to become very familiar with it.
And they take a script and they go on.
And the old thing that the show must go on.
And there were two shows.
One was the sunshine boys where one of the actors had to have the script in his hand.
He was a fill in at the last second.
But if they're good at it, you don't notice they're holding a script because they don't read off of it.
They look down, get the line and then put the script back along their side.
So you don't really see it.
And that's how well they pulled it off.
And you don't notice the script even if you notice it's a what?
It's not a big deal.
I mean, we're not trying cancer here.
We're putting on a show for entertainment.
And they, they pull it off so well.
How do you handle the audience?
Now, I know before every performance, they shut your phones off.
But there's always a couple of people that don't do it.
And right in the middle of the show, you'll hear the theme from the Godfather playing on somebody's phone.
Oh, you'll hear, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And it could be distracting for the actors to hear that.
Well, that's why we have a house manager.
And we have ushers who go down and politely ask them to, you know, turn their phone up.
And it happens.
I mean, you know, on Broadway, it happens.
And if some famous actor will just turn to the audience, remember, and say, turn it off.
I know.
I've seen that.
But you know, we don't do that here.
We treat our audiences with respect.
And you know, sometimes it's just people just, we've become so used to having these things in our hands that we never could have before.
You know, in fact, nowadays, I don't think you could do dial-in for murder with that cell phone because nobody really dials them anymore.
And I don't know if people understand the reason it's called dial-in for murder.
And it's not many people noticed.
It's because we used to have a prefix on our phone numbers.
When I was a kid, my prefix was Melrose 0976, which later we changed.
But in this play, because it's actually set in Midvale, England, which is a suburb of London, the first number you have to dial in order to get Midvale is M.
Oh, OK.
And so when it happens, I mean, there is, it is the murder happens because of a phone call.
So any time the phone is the audience, now I'll be wondering, is this it? Is the murder coming?
And my prefix was, mine was Lincoln 1.
And we also had Pyramid 8, Pyramid 8 or Pyramid 9. We had both of those.
Yeah, they used to have names before it.
People today don't seem to realize that, but that's the way France used to be.
I like when they give a kid a dial phone and say, here, I want you to call this number.
And they have no idea how to work in a rotary phone.
Right. They put their finger in it and slowly let it back, which won't work.
Right. It won't work. It won't work.
But you know, dial M was written in 1952 when everybody knew what a prefix to a number was.
And there are only five numbers after that.
You know, so it's actually there were six digit phone numbers that were seven.
Hey, Mike.
Yeah, but it, yeah.
Yeah.
As I say, hold on a second there.
We take quick break.
Mike click their director of dial M for murder.
It's coming to the Racine Theatre Guild January 12th through the 28th.
I've got Mike tickets.
We've got season tickets.
So I get tickets to everything.
But I love the Racine Theatre Guild show.
We'll talk more about the show and also what's coming to the Racine Theatre Guild in just a moment.
It's hometown radio refreshed as civic media station.
I'm Don Rose in 729 at WRJN.
The wind blows hard against this mountain side.
Across the sea into my soul.
It reaches into where I cannot hide.
I'm setting my feet upon the road.
My heart is on, it's almost my memories.
My body burns a gem like flame.
I'm somewhere between the soul and some machine.
I'm here, I find myself again.
Q&A, so down my golden star on.
Q&A, so good to drive me so good guys.
Good morning, I'm Don Rose in 735 at WRJN Radio, hometown radio refreshed.
And Mike clickner is here.
The director of the latest show coming to the Racine Theatre Guild January 12th through the 28th.
Dial M for murder.
You would tell me you have a lot of murder shows you direct.
You must be there.
They're killer director upon intended.
I am.
I am.
So you know, you don't want to mess with me at the theatre guild otherwise, you know, you might get killed.
Oh boy.
In the show.
Only in the show.
I'm not a murderer in any way, shape or form, so.
You have auditions coming up for future shows.
You always have to have a, you got to keep it going all the time because, you know,
it's like the TV show survivor.
Next season's already filmed when you're seeing this season because they got to keep it going and they can't.
That's correct.
So you have constant auditions going on.
What are you auditioning for now?
Well, next, Doug will be auditions will be auditioning now and then with your auditions.
Monday, January 8th and Tuesday, January 9th, 7pm.
There's roles for one man and one woman in their 20s to 30s and one man and one woman in their 40s to 70s.
It's quite a unique play.
It's a very touching tender little play.
I don't want to get into too much about what it's about because I mean, I think that it's best.
One of those plays you really kind of got to see it to get it.
And then after that, the production dates from that are February 23rd through March 10th.
And after that, and very soon we have auditions for Star Girl, which is Monday, January 15th and January 16th at 7pm.
And there's roles in that for three boys and two girls, age 13 to 18.
One man, 40s, that's why one of our outreach performances that we do for the younger audiences in our town.
And that opens April 12th and goes to the 23rd.
And then they have outreach performances April 16th and April 17th.
When you cast children, that must be tough because you're dating with children, not the only with adults.
And in memorizing, I don't know how you guys memorize lines.
I actually have to have the call letters sitting right in front of me so I don't forget what station I'm working at.
But I don't know how you work with children.
First of all, how do you deal with the school?
And how do they do their homework when they're on stage at night or they're rehearsing with you guys?
How do they get all the school work done?
Well, we tend to eat to cast kids who want to be theater type kids anyway and are really into it.
And they know, and their parents will let them know that in order to be in the job, in the play, I mean, they have to keep up with their schoolwork.
And they come to school and it's funny because they'll sit in the theater and they'll have like 57 tutors all helping them do their homework and everything.
You know, everybody down there wants to help them and keep them going.
So they do sometimes miss school, but their schools look at it as extra credit and they learn by doing sometimes.
And so, you know, it's quite a good thing for young people.
Theater isn't just about watching plays of things.
You know, it teaches you how to be a well-rounded person.
It teaches you to listen and to learn and to see what's going on in the world around you.
And experience other things that you might normally not experience.
And it's just like in the movies, when you see the old time, the actors now, they're adults.
But when they were kids back in the 40s and 50s, you'd see the trailer with the teacher in there.
And every time they had a break in filming, they'd learn another subject.
Then they're back on the set, then they're back and learn it.
I don't know how they do it.
I really don't know.
That's why some kids go nuts, I guess, eventually some child actors in the movies.
But I don't know how they, you know, I had trouble going to high school and, you know, getting out of there with my brain intact and I went full time.
But by the way, real quickly, because I forget if I don't say it, I was in the drama club in my high school.
I auditioned for a show I couldn't act.
I really couldn't even, it was bad.
I just don't know why.
I wasn't nervous because I don't get nervous in front of people.
But I just couldn't pull it off.
Maybe I could today, but, you know, I'm a lot older now.
But I couldn't pull it off.
So they put me in charge of a stage crew.
I was a stage manager.
Right.
And eventually I took over light.
It took over everything after a while.
And I did that.
And if you look in our yearbook, we did 12 angry men with both girls and boys.
I mean, we just, you know, you take what you're getting at.
And these were all excellent kids acting.
That happens quite a bit.
And then you, do you call it 12 angry people?
No, we didn't.
Right.
But that's what happened these days is called 12 angry people.
But we did, yeah.
And if you look closely in the yearbook, they took a picture of it.
And there's a set of Venetian blinds hanging up in the background.
That's from my bedroom.
We needed, when you're stage manager, and you know, we don't have a budget for this stuff.
Right.
I mean, you need something.
All right.
Who's got blinds?
And nobody had them.
So I unscrewed them from the window in my bedroom.
Right.
And my mother's going.
Right.
I said, we need him for the show.
They took.
Well, you know, I think you bring up an important point to that.
Not everybody in theater is an actor.
You know, we need people who can do makeup and who can build sets and who can do costumes
and who can help with props and things.
So there is a place for everybody in the theater.
I mean, you don't have to be an actor.
You don't have to be a director.
You don't have to be a singer to work on a musical.
You know, you can help move scenery.
You can do a little bit of everything.
It's not, you know, everybody assumes that everybody involved in theater is an actor.
Well, we're not all actors, you know.
And I told Doug Incidences many, many times.
I am just astounded by the people who do the art direction there in the set directors.
Right.
Because you have a very limited space to pull this off.
Right.
And whatever in the background, generally not all the time it's got to stay there for the whole show.
Right.
And not to bring things.
When you did the cemetery club, the house set stayed there.
But they brought the tombstones out in just in front of the audience.
So you felt like you were in a cemetery, even though the living room was right in the background.
But they worked it in such a way where you didn't see the living room after a while.
Right.
Even though it was lit up, you just saw the tombstones and the actors and you believed you were in a cemetery.
Right.
That's a great art direction.
Right.
Well, I'm fortunate with dial-in for murder.
I have a single set.
It's the an apartment that the, uh, the Wendell says, Mr. and Mrs. Wendell live in.
And it's a single set.
So I'm pretty fortunate that way.
But, you know, it is, it is challenging.
And we do, as you said, get some pretty talented scenic designers who come in there.
And, you know, it's a challenge for them.
And people in theater, you know, there are no problems.
There are challenges.
And we like a good challenge.
So.
Oh, I meant to ask, I never remember to ask Doug this when I spoke to him.
On your stage, do you rebuild that stage, the actual functioning stage there?
Because I noticed it now.
It always looks different.
It, we never rebuild the whole entire stage.
There is a, it's a thrust stage, which is always there that, that wedge-shaped thing.
Then there's what's called the gutter, which runs around.
And sometimes you'll see there's two or three steps up to the stage.
And then there's these, these long ramps that go off stage, which are the bombs.
But with some time, fill in the gutter, which they just did for a little mermaid to give it more space.
Right.
That's more room.
But they, no, no, no.
With that stage is always there.
Sometimes build it up, but.
Yeah.
Sometimes it just looks different at the front.
Sometimes it does.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, and that's just because they fill in the gutters.
Have you guys ever thought of doing what they do at the fireside using the center stage to go up and down?
It's impossible where we're at at this point.
There's just, you'd have to totally close down the theater, which the, the fireside did for several months.
And then you're great big pit underneath and a basement and then put all that lift.
Actually, the, the lift at the, at the fireside is actually an old carnival ride that raises the floors.
Not a lot of people know that.
I just outed their lifts.
So.
Yeah.
You broke their secret.
I did.
Now, also, you guys actually, I remember when this happened, CNN used the Racine Theater Guild to do there.
I don't know if it was when Clinton was running for office, President Clinton.
I don't know when it's right, but they actually used it for one of their town hall meetings.
And they, they had to add all this extra lighting to the theater I heard.
And when they stopped, they said, keep it.
Is that a true story?
That's true.
They did bring some in and bring it.
Yeah.
You know, as, as you may or may not know, and our viewers may not know, there is a whole lot of money in television.
And, and, you know, actually the lighting and things that most people see on stage actually gets his birth in a rock and roll music, believe it or not, because there is so much money in rock and roll.
And so much innovation and lighting and staging and stuff, but they get a lot.
But, yeah, CNN came and did their town meeting and it was, it was quite an interesting time.
It was very harsh and people, you know, had a secret service all over the place and everything, because we're talking about, you know, high level political figures.
So, yeah, it was, it was quite an interesting thing.
And it, it's fascinating.
And we, we found it, it was quite an honor for them to say, you know, we want to do it at the Racine Theater Guild.
This little hometown theater that's, you know, 80 plus years old now and, and they wanted to do it there.
So, we were quite, quite excited about it.
I remember watching it on TV. I think Jake Tapper was the host of it there that night.
But I love the fact they, they gave, they put the lights up.
Ah, keep them.
That was nice.
Yeah.
Well, it's, it's not worth their time sometimes to take all that stuff down, because you got to pay, you got to bring in union professionals to take everything down and all of that sort of stuff.
Sometimes it's just not worth it to them and just, eh, whatever.
They probably have, probably have warehouses full of lighting equipment, anyway.
On the other side of our break, I want to talk about the Children's Theater you have.
Before we get to that, when do you start our auditions for Cabaret?
That's got to be a big undertaking because there are a lot of roles in Cabaret and a lot of songs and people know what they're supposed to sound like.
So, how do you, when do the auditions start for that?
You know, I'm not actually sure when that is, but if you call the theater guilt and talk to them in the box office, they will know exactly when that is.
I say, just stay tuned to WJRJN and they'll let you know when it is.
Yes, you let us know and we'll, we'll spread the word.
There's nothing like a good Nazi musical, huh?
To get in the seats.
Yeah.
That's what it is, folks.
If you've never seen it, it's a Nazi musical.
And now, here's the thing I don't, are you guys going to do?
Are you going to make the actors wear swastikers on their uniforms?
I mean, that's, I know you don't know now, but that's what they did in the movie in the Broadway show.
I mean, they had a wear on them and that's kind of, people getting nervous when they see that.
Well, I think they might.
I don't know what the, what Doug has planned for that, but they might because, you know, it's a historical event that actually occurred.
And everybody knows that.
You know, it is a, it is a horrific symbol now, which is unfortunate because there is, there are Native American, ancient Native American symbols, which look like a swastika, which stood for peace and all of that.
But, you know, and it was, it was a, it was a very docile type symbol to begin with until, you know, Hitler and his crony said, hey, I got an idea.
Why don't we take this very common symbol and make it our symbol and then, you know, he ruined it for everybody forever.
Yeah, he also ruined the name eight off, too.
Not a lot of kids.
Yeah, well, I'm dead off these days.
And little, little, uh, toothbrush mustaches.
He ruined a lot of things.
Well, I can't wait to see a cabaret.
I never saw it on Broadway.
I've seen the movie, but I've never seen the, um, it's a little bit different.
It's a little bit different.
It's a little bit different.
I did it at Parkside years ago with them.
And it's, it's a little different.
And if you know the cabaret, the musical, you know cabaret.
You know, whether you see the movie, the play, whatever, it's all basically the same thing.
Yeah, so.
All right.
We're talking to my clickner, the director of a dial M for murder.
And just a moment, we'll talk about children's theater coming to the recene theater guild.
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749 at WRGN Radio, hometown radio, refreshed.
My clickner is here, director of dial M for murder at Thirteen Theater Guild.
You know, Huey Lois tried his hand at acting and a few times he wasn't bad.
Did you ever see him on screen acting?
I never did, actually.
He was in a movie,
but he was a bit more than a kid.
He was a little bit more than a kid.
And he was a little bit more than a kid.
He was a little bit more than a kid.
He was a little bit more than a kid.
He was a little bit more than a kid.
Did you ever see him on screen acting?
I never did, actually.
He was in a movie called Duets.
He had a major role.
He was one of the two main characters in Duets.
Or I think it was called Duets.
I'm trying remember what it was.
He also had a very minor role
in Back to the Future.
You've seen the movie?
Oh really?
Do you remember what I was seeing?
Back to the Future, I've seen.
I'm not sure what he was, but...
When Michael J. Foxx's band was auditioning at the High School,
he had the Bullhorn!
And he said,
Next.
Oh really?
Yes.
They gave him one word.
Next.
There you go.
So everybody is an actor.
They'll put everybody in the movies except me
because I couldn't act.
Now you've got the Children's Theatre at the Racine Theatre go.
This is really fun because these are young people
who want to test their abilities to become a thespian in the theatre.
And these are really good shows.
These are...
I won't call them Kitty Shows,
but they're shows that feature children
and they can have a lot of fun with.
And you guys have been doing this for a while now
because theatre for the young and the young at heart,
the Children's Theatre.
So let's talk about that a little bit.
Okay.
While we do, we teach classes in theatre for young people.
In fact, the first group,
it was for ages 6 through 9.
And it starts Monday, February 5th,
and runs through Monday, April 15th.
It's called Fairytales and Fables.
And they meet Monday through Friday.
Or whenever they meet on that chair, Monday, I guess.
At 4.30 to 6 p.m.
And then they work with their teacher, Tina Pockstellos,
and she will teach them how to read and perform
and put on basically ace-ups to tables and things like that.
So then they will then have a chance when they can all
from the class perform that live on stage.
And there's another group, which is for ages 8 through 12,
which is Broadway bound,
which starts Wednesday, February 7th,
and runs through Wednesday, April 17th.
And that's pretty much, you know,
what it sounds like.
It's songs and plays and things that are from Broadway,
you know, could be rent, could be cabaret,
could be shrek, it could be the little mermaid.
Who knows what it is?
And that's what we also have.
Chad, pardon?
No, go ahead, go ahead.
Then we have another class, the last class,
Dinolympics, dramalympics, I'm sorry, dramalympics,
which is for ages 10 to 14.
And then they learn to,
and that's Saturday, February 10th through Saturday, April 20th.
And they learn to write their own stories,
and their own plays,
and they to work as a team,
and they learn to listen and react to each other
and to create a little moment.
So that's what theater is,
it's a combination of little moments that make up a story,
and usually there's some sort of thread
that winds it all through.
And the kids love it,
and the teachers are great,
are other teachers, Peter Munoz,
and Tina Paxell,
it's a name both been doing theater for a long time.
In fact, Tina was the former student of mine
when I was teaching out at Parkside.
She's very talented actress.
People have seen her in theater,
and she goes plays in six pre-theater and all around town.
So, yeah, the children are important.
The children are our future.
It's really fun.
So, you know,
and we want them to become involved
and know that theater,
that I've always said that theater should be fun.
And if you're not having fun,
then you should stop doing it.
When it becomes too much of a chore or a job
or work, you don't want to do it anymore.
Because it should be fun.
It should be fun for you.
It should be fun for the people watching.
You know, even with a serious play like dial-m,
you know, it's a serious subject,
but I hope that people go away
at feeling that they've experienced something
or felt something or learned something.
And you know, you have to grow your next crop of actors.
That's right.
Because everyone's getting old
and everyone disappears after a while.
So, the next generation,
you're growing your own crop.
I see you have Alice in Wonderland,
February 2 through the 4th.
And you have James of the Giant Peach,
March 15 through the 17th,
if the Children's Theater at the Christine Theater Guild.
That's just wonderful.
I mean, this is a great way to grow your next crop of actors.
I really like that.
It is.
It is.
Okay, so done.
No, you go ahead.
Go ahead.
No, no, you go ahead.
No, I insist you go ahead.
I was going to say, you know,
and we do, some of those kids do go on and do theater
and they go on to other things
or they continue doing it.
It's not, if you want to get rich
and you want to have a profession,
then you don't want to go into theater
because you will never really get rich.
I mean, of all the people in the world
who consider themselves professional actors,
98% of them are out of work at any given time.
It's only that upper two percent
who are the Johnny Depp's
and those types who are way up there, you know?
And they're not always working.
So it is a tough profession to get into.
But you know, it's one of those things that if you love it
and your soul or your body drives you to do it,
then you have to do it.
And that's kind of sort of what happened to me,
is I couldn't think of anything else
I'd rather be doing.
So I did theater.
You know, it's in my blood.
My parents met and got married
through the Racine Theatre Guild.
My wife and I met and got married
through the Racine Theatre Guild.
Some of my lifelong best friends that I have in the world,
I met at the Racine Theatre Guild.
And my dad was a lawyer
and he said that any lawyer who is worth his salt
should take a lot of acting classes
and should learn to be a good actor
because he was a trial lawyer.
So, you know, that just makes sense.
You know, and if you want to prove what you just said
about most of, you know, only the top two percent
are the big stars and the big money makers.
When they had the SAG after a strike a few months ago,
they were talking to people who were actors
that just rarely worked.
They worked in the other jobs,
but they belonged to SAG after.
Just in case something came along for them.
But yeah, that's so true.
You get the top tier and everybody thinks it's so easy.
And it's not, you know,
and a lot of people can handle the failure of it.
That's the sad part of it.
You know, they might get one good big role
and then the roles dry up.
And they just can't handle it.
Right. Well, you know, you mentioned that
you were familiar with theater in New York and everything.
And one of my favorite T-shirts that I've seen when I've been
was in New York.
We used to take groups from school all the time
to New York to see plays.
One of my favorite T-shirts is
you're an actor in New York, really?
What restaurant?
That is so true.
It's sad, but it's true.
But, you know, it is true.
But, you know, I started off as a janitor in radio.
I cleaned toilet bowls at a radio station
until they put me on the air.
You also said you made this guy for a while.
Everybody's got to start somewhere.
Hey, right.
Mike Klickner, director of
Dial M for Murder, committing murder on the stage
of the Racine Theater Guild January 12th
and 28th every night of murder.
So get your tickets now.
Or if you like me, just get the season ticket things
you don't have to think about it.
Hey, Mike, thanks a lot.
I'll be seeing you at the Racine Theater Guild
and Dial M for Murder.
Thanks a lot for joining us.
Hold on the line.
Don't go anywhere.
Hold on.
It's 759 at WRG
and I'll catch you tomorrow morning 6 a.m.
right and early.
I'm Don Rose and at WRG
and hometown radio,
we're fresh to a civic media station.