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Transcript

WRCT’s “A Candle in the Window”

Rapids Report · Fri Dec 1, 2023

Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this December 1st, 2023.

Have your host, James, with you.

And I am joined right now by some of my favorite people.

We're talking theater.

We're talking Wisconsin Revit's Community Theater.

We are talking local.

We are going to be getting into the holiday show

from Wisconsin Revit's Community Theater, a candle in the window.

We've got a preview of it.

We've got some of the cast here with us.

I'll run through your guys' names.

Go ahead and say hi to the audience so they can recognize

your voice.

Of course, an voice you will recognize right away,

Mr. Phil Hartley from Quality Plus Printing.

Good morning, James.

I told you you'd recognize that voice.

See, it sounds exactly like Phil.

Yeah, I'm here for you.

It's a little different when he's in studio.

Yeah, I know.

It sounds a little different in studio.

Not like you pictured, though.

Phil joins us every Wednesday with our wicked awesome word

of Wednesday.

Looking forward to a new one from you on Wednesday, Phil.

Thanks for being here.

No, I'm glad to be here, but especially with this crow, so.

Yeah.

Good to have you here.

Also, of course, our friend, Chris Williams.

Chris, good to see you.

Good morning.

That's always good to see you, sir.

Thanks for being here.

We also want to say hi to Jim Rinker.

Is that all right, Jim?

Yeah, that's all right.

Jim, you got a great first name.

I got that right.

You got to write this time.

Good to have you here.

Thank you for so much for being here and, and, and blood

shows with us as well.

Good to see you again, Anne.

Good morning.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here, you guys.

Where I thought would be a good place to start.

Of course, with a holiday show, you've got usually a classic, and, you know, especially

around here at WRCT.

We do hits.

We do great ones with a show like this.

I don't know if it's, is commonly known as others.

It's a classic.

It's a traditional.

But some of those ones have kind of like gotten lost, not being, you know, used for many

years and everything.

So, does anybody want to give a synopsis of the show, just a cliff notes version of

the show?

Chris, you want to take that?

Sure.

It takes the show takes place.

It's in an old railroad station in a small town.

And there's a group of travelers that get stranded because of a blizzard.

And so, the story mainly takes place.

The first half is the travelers interacting with each other.

But in the second half, then we have a group of kids that come in.

And they were secretly trying to, are putting together a nativity play for their church.

And so, the second act then takes place, the interaction between the children and the

adult travelers.

And yeah, I'm trying that to...

Don't give it away.

Chris, don't give it away.

I'm doing a great job.

I think you did a really good job.

He's starting through.

I think that's a pretty good...

He's doing good.

Yeah.

That's a pretty good preview right there.

That's nicely done.

And it's not just your, you know, it's not like Marical on 34th Street or it's not your

happy, go-lucky kiddie play.

This place got some heaviness to it.

Yeah, yeah.

And some...

And it's got some...

It's uplifting in the end and you understand it all, but these characters are going through

some troubles in their lives and have to work through them and kind of doing about an hour

and a half.

Yeah, here.

The typical theater fashion.

Yes.

I kind of...

And I mentioned this to Gretchen, you know, the play selecting committee, actually, to

all of them.

I admire this choice.

I think that it's a great choice, a very strong choice, too.

Yeah.

I just wanted to say I'm on the play selection committee and I kind of am the one that

pushed this.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's just like, yeah, try something different and something people haven't heard of and

everyone seemed to like the synopsis of the show and that's why I were going with it.

So...

We've got a great core audience in this area that is supported WRCT for decades.

And many of them have shows that they love and like to see, but I've talked to these

people.

I've performed for these people many, many times and I hear from them all the time.

Hey, I love Oklahoma, but I'd like to see something new.

It's nothing against the classics.

They're classics.

Their legacy is set, but people want to...

How are we going to get new people to theaters?

How are we going to get people to see these shows?

How are we going to keep the community theater alive?

This is how you do it.

You give people something different.

You don't just give them Miracle on 34th Street every year, which is nothing against Miracle

on 34th Street.

I'd love to act in that show.

But it's one of these things where you kind of have to leave, you know, block that balance

of these things.

And I think you and the play selection committee did a really good job with that.

And I have no doubt with Gretchen at the helm that it's going to continue that way.

I'm looking forward to that, actually.

I'm actually going to go talk to her next week.

We're going to talk about stuff.

And it's not just because I want to get around that stage and I am just so desperate to

be around that stage.

It's not that at all.

When you're coming back to any second now, any second, almost done.

I did before the break.

I want to get into your roles real quick before I do, though, something unique about

this show as well that I thought was kind of interesting is the casting that you have

two groups of cast with this one.

You have an adult group, a group one and a group two.

How has that worked rehearsal wise for you guys?

How was that gone for you guys as actors?

Phil, I'll start with you.

I'm going to keep start with you, brother, because it's going to go down the line.

So you write this as a core group of the adults and it's eight of us or so, roughly.

And we're there, I mean, I had a course, but they divided the children up.

They had so many children try out and then they wanted to try to keep all of them involved.

And so we have six shows told, right, 23, 4, 5, 6, and so half of them are doing three

of the shows and the other half are doing the other three.

So it's been different.

I mean, the kids all have different skills and different talents and different ways

to portray in the roles.

So we as adults have to learn to deal with that too.

Yeah.

I wanted to give you guys a real shout for that because it's not easy to, it's not always

easy working with kids in general.

And I love, love, love working with kids.

I don't, I don't mean anything against that.

It's just, I did a play to Killamaki Bird and we had three young actors in that.

And we had this young lady who was scout and she was amazing.

She was so good, but she had this problem where she'd be talking to you.

And then when she'd deliver a line, she'd face the audience.

And then she'd come back and then she'd face the audience.

And we couldn't break her from it.

This poor kid, I love, I loved working with her, but it was little things like that

that you run into with kids.

Then you have extra sets of kids.

So you're kind of adapting to each one of them.

Some have their, their line down, some don't maybe.

But that's gone pretty smoothly.

A lot of energy.

Yes.

Yes, a lot of energy.

It's not like that.

But we always had it set of challenges.

It's doing good.

The director of Dabb is very even killed, and as you know.

And so she's smooth.

And Gretchen's been there a lot too, the help of the children who she knows so well

because of children's theater, right?

And all the experience that she's having with them, that's been a great help too.

And I'll say this, as a supposed adult, some of those kids are way more professional

than me, both on the stage and off stage.

And so there's a little bit of different levels, and they'll show them their phenomenal.

I am.

And some of them have the best, some of the best lines in the play.

So you want to calm them down and keep the energy down a little bit so they get out their

lines.

So you get some really funny guys think.

They put the adults in their place, you know, several times in the play.

I am.

So it's fun.

I love this.

For many reasons.

One, I am a big believer and everybody gets a chance to play.

You know, everybody on the basketball team gets a chance to play, you know, no matter

what or anything like that.

But more so is somebody who is insane about the love of acting in theater.

This is creating future theater goers.

This is creating future actors.

This is only empowering that.

Why, why limit yourself in that?

If you have a director and a cast that's okay with it, you can double cast something

like this and you're getting more kids in there, more kids getting a chance to be behind

the scenes and see what it's like to be a part of theater, you know, as much as I love

theater.

And every kid is going to go on to act.

But they will go on with these experiences and the confidence they get from that.

And I don't believe there's any downside to making our children more confident.

So this is a win, win, win all across the board.

And I think so.

And it limits their time to change.

I mean, they're busy.

They get schoolwork and going on.

I mean, I know it's a delts week or two, but they're focused on schoolwork first.

So to give them some time, where they don't have to be there and they take turns, that's

a good idea.

Yeah.

To be fair, at 46, my mother still wants me to do theater just to keep me out of trouble.

It's not just the kids.

Let's go down the run here and go through your roles and tell us a little bit about

these parts.

Phil, tell us, start with you.

So when I showed up, I think I told you this on the air.

So I get up on stage and they said, Neil, and I did, and I get the part.

I didn't read for any other parts.

That was just it.

To be fair, nobody kneels like Phil.

Yeah, that's it.

I see somebody.

I kneel.

It's a good dealer.

Good dealer.

So here we go.

It's a stretch on my part, right?

So it's supposed to be, if you look in the script, it's like college age student, college

university art student.

So definitely an acting job on my part, right?

Yeah, I'm big before.

Yeah.

So we had to rewrite to script a little bit.

It's just a little bit.

The fit of an old man college student.

So we did that.

And so that's where it goes.

So I'm a gentleman who's at school taking art classes, but trying to get home because

my dad's, you know, Neil, you're playing.

Neil.

He's a director.

Very cool.

It's good.

It does reflect motion in me.

It's very cool.

I look forward to seeing out there.

Oh, thanks.

It's a good part.

It's been a little wet.

Were you in the last show?

I do Christmas shows.

Yeah.

It seems to be my niche.

It is.

So I'm hanging with it.

It's in one time a year where I can get out and I have the time in between things.

Very cool.

But it's fine.

And it's always a big cast and, you know, I'm trying to enjoy it.

So I want to get into more of that a little bit later, actually, with you guys.

Jim, can you tell us about your role?

Okay.

My role is interesting because I don't come on until the very, very end of the show.

But I'm the closer.

Yeah.

And it's unique for me because this is the first play that I've ever, I've ever done.

So this is a stretch for me.

I have a son of comfort son.

But I play a station master in the train depot.

And I also play the grandson of Charlie over here, which is played by Chris.

And like Phil said, we had to rewrite it a little bit because I was supposed to be his age also.

Yeah.

And of course, I don't look like I'm no twenty-year-old.

So, you know, we had to adapt to that.

Jim, tell him it's first time you're acting, but you've obviously been to the theatre many times doing what?

Okay.

This is the sixth production in a row.

I've done, I've helped with stage building for the six shows.

And I've also been stage manager for four of the six.

And originally, I was going to take just take the show off.

And I made the mistake of showing up for the audition.

And Gretchen's like, hey, would you mind?

And I think I know I got the part.

So, yeah, it's the same thing.

It's the same thing.

Jim is a great example of when we encourage people to be a part of community theatre that you don't necessarily have to be on stage.

There's so much to do behind the scenes and we could always use more hands and great-hearted people behind the scenes.

Jim, I told you this before and I'd like to be able to say it to your face.

You've made some of the greatest sets I've seen, man.

Oh, thank you.

You really have.

I mean, I'm insane about acting in the way the bar that I have for these things.

And I tell you, you hit it and made a new standard.

You've made a new standard around here for the way we build our sets.

That is going to help us go back to our other conversation about bringing people into the theatre and new people and all that.

That adds to that.

That helps.

This is as much as any of us on stage.

So, incredibly appreciate the work that you and your team are doing with that.

Well, thank you.

We do have a very, very good team.

Pete, who's, who does the set design, the set that we did for Bly spirit was fun.

We annihilated the set at the end of the show.

And then we had to put it back together for the next show.

And that, yeah, that was fun.

Yeah.

That was awesome.

That was fun.

And can you tell us a little bit about your character?

Hi, James.

I'm Violet.

Violet does some in like the flower.

I've been enjoying it playing Violet.

It's a really fun part.

And I wasn't sure if this was the part that I would take.

It looked like a lot of lines.

But really, like I said before, it seems actually the lines are pretty well equalized.

I would say throughout.

I just have a lot in the first part.

Yeah.

But it's a fun character.

It's really great.

It is.

Awesome job.

That character.

Anne's character carries the front end of the play.

She makes everybody talk to each other and mix.

And it does it so well.

It is a crazy character to say the least.

And it's a fun, one of the funnest roles by far in the play.

And she does it really well.

Well, thank you.

Very cool.

Violet is a crazy lady, spunky senior citizen.

Well, apparently that's not much of a stretch for me.

But you carry it on.

Now you nicely get method out of that.

Chris, can you tell us a little bit about your role?

Sure.

I played Charlie.

And Charlie is the station master.

And kind of brings in the guest and tries to let him know what's going on.

Take care of things, this type of thing.

So my character is kind of a more gentlemanly character.

And a little bit easy.

And so as you can tell, I'm trying not to give out to Mike.

Right.

I think you've done a nice job.

Nicely done.

We're going to run it.

We're going to cut you Mike right now.

So we don't give anything to him.

Yeah, I know.

But yeah.

So I'm in through different scenes here.

Yeah.

And we're looking forward to seeing you out there.

And I appreciate that.

What is something that pulled you to this role,

or that you love about playing this role so far, Phil?

Well, this role is more of the interaction,

because I can't go too deep either, I suppose.

But the interaction with Anne and Heather Sayer's characters

that I have to have.

And then the interaction with the kids.

So it's been fun.

That's good.

That's great to hear.

We'll get to you in a just a second.

And Jim, as we're going through and asking everybody

what they like about the role and what they're enjoying

about playing this character, I'm curious about for you, Jim.

What is it that you're enjoying about playing this role?

I'm not going to lie to you.

This is a stretch for me because I kind of feel myself more suited to comedy.

And this is definitely, although the beginning of the show

is very comedic, if that's a word.

It works.

There's a lot of light moments.

But there's a lot of light moments.

But mine is, it's a tear-jerker thing.

And I'm the one that brings the tears.

And so that's a total and complete stretch for me

to literally step out of my comfort zone as a person

who thinks they're funny, to get into a serious role

to people who want to break down and cry.

But it's a lot of fun.

I mean, not a lot of fun.

But I think that those of us have played characters

like that get what he needs.

It's odd to say, but it can be a release.

It can be kind of fun to play somebody very different than yourself

or somebody different than you're used to play.

Yeah.

And every role in this play, all the adults have their sad moments.

Every one of them.

Everyone.

Yeah.

I'm the one that brings all the sides.

Well, he's the rally fingers.

He's the close.

Yeah.

I like to put it.

It's a thought-provoking play.

Mm-hmm.

And yeah.

Yeah.

This time of year, it's thought-provoking.

This time of year creates memories and thoughts.

It's not thought-provoking at all.

And let's use it out there.

Let's do it in a great way.

Let's take that segue and go right to Ant.

And what are you enjoying about playing the character?

Like I said, it's a fun role.

I've got some really fun lines.

And I get to be really goofy, which I like to make people laugh.

So I'm sorry.

I took them away from your gym.

Yeah.

But I also, I've read the play before auditioning

because I had not heard of it.

And it is a wonderful story.

It's a sweet story.

It's got fun.

It's got memories.

It's got real life stuff happening.

And the last production I was in was Streetcar.

And which is pretty much dark throughout it.

Yeah.

And I really, I love doing the Christmas shows.

Ironically, I really love them because we're working with kids.

Yeah.

And that's an experience.

This is not just an Elton Johnson.

That's good.

It's a pleasure.

I'm leaving the film.

Yeah.

Chris, I don't want to go to you

because I don't want to chance you spoil anything.

I promise.

Tell us a little bit about your role.

What you're enjoying about the role I should say.

Yeah.

Director Deb, she's told me.

She said, I kind of had you pegged for this role.

And I appreciate that.

And like I said, he's more of a grandfather type.

And you know, he is.

And so I really enjoy taking the character

and putting some a lot of empathy into the character.

You know, he feels for everyone and what they're going through

that type of thing.

So that's what I really do enjoy about it.

Very cool.

Appreciate that.

So, gang, one of the things that I wanted to get to with all of you

before we wrap up.

And again, we are talking about the WRCD holiday production

of a candle in the wind.

It premieres December 8th and 9th and 14th and 15th and 16th.

Seven o'clock shows.

December 16th has a two o'clock matinee.