Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Tuesday, July 23rd, 2024.
Have your host James J. Mailoff here.
In part two, we're going to talk to our good friend, Amy Shide, from the Wisconsin Rapids
Family Center, looking forward to that conversation, looking forward to this one.
We have in studio with us Wisconsin Rapids Community Theatre's Hopo production of It's a
Mad House.
We are going to be talking with Director Steffony Horth.
Horth?
Horth?
Got it on the second try stuff.
Got it on the second.
Director Steffony is with us.
And we have some of the cast members with us as well.
We have Malachi graph with us Malachi.
Thanks for being here.
Thank you.
You can get closer to the mic on those if you don't mind.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Close talker guys.
You're right up to that mic.
And we have Sarah Pattinson with us.
Panzer with us.
Hey Sarah.
Hi.
Thanks for being here.
Appreciate the time you guys.
Thanks so much for being here.
Steffony, I was just rambling with Steffony that I would love to dive into Hopo Productions.
And another time we're going to do that for sure.
But I do want to say how much I appreciate the work that you put into this every year.
It's an investment.
Yeah.
It really is.
You and I are huge lovers and promoters of a community theater.
And big part because not only that we love theater, not only that we love acting and all of these things,
but what it does for these kids, you know this better than I do.
The confidence that it can build in them.
For sure.
The public speaking skills that are much better than mine, apparently, that you can learn from these things.
While not every actor and every kid may go on to be an actor or a thespian.
Right.
Every one of them are going to go on to do things that they can use confidence in that they can use better public speaking in.
Absolutely.
With the teaching I've done over the years, every time I've had a student or a kid who wants to get to SNL, that's great.
But I've had attorneys and doctors on with us that just want to be better at talking with people in general.
Theater is that avenue and gives that to kids.
Even in job interviews, I use theaters.
I have customer service experience, but also improv.
Someone tells something you can have something to say right back to them.
And it makes you comfortable.
I've worked with five year olds.
I've worked with 85 year olds.
So I mean, just that range of personality and stuff.
It helps with job interviews and jobs in general.
So yeah, definitely.
It's so much deeper and goes so much farther than I think we can really put in the words sometimes.
And you've got a fun one coming up here.
We're going to talk about the cast in a little bit.
But if you don't mind, I'd like to start off with the plot and just a little bit of a synopsis of what is it's a manhouse.
Yeah, so it starts with there is a very famous rich author, mystery author, who just passed away.
And it is the reading of his will at the very start of the show.
He's got four children, two boys, two girls.
These are Sarah and Milachai are two of them.
And they are getting to find out what they're getting from their rich father and come to find out.
He doesn't think too highly of them because they aren't the greatest people.
And so he basically tells them in the will that he has liquidated all of his money.
And it is in one object worth 84 million dollars.
It is hidden somewhere in the home, whoever finds it, family, friend or foe basically gets it.
And so they all are like whatever we're not looking for it.
And then they kind of decide to.
But in meanwhile, there is a storm brewing and there's flooding happening.
This mansion that they're in is on top of a hill.
All of these random combinations of people start coming up to this home to get out of the flooding.
And they catch wind of this hidden object that literally anyone can find and it could be anything.
So it is literally a madhouse of combinations of anyone and everyone looking for something.
Oh, so that's wonderful.
My only catch of this is that I wasn't able to audition.
Correct.
Oh, that sounds like so much fun.
You guys, it sounds like a great script.
I'd like to hear about your characters a little bit and dive into that.
But before we do, I'd like to ask both of you, put you on the spot.
I mean, ask you, just real quickly, what made you want to do this?
What made you want to get on stage?
What made you want to be a part of this production?
And to act in general, Malachi, I'll start with you.
Originally, I started theater because I needed a way to keep my grades up.
And it was just a way to force you to keep above F's.
Because if I had more than two F's, I wasn't allowed to participate.
And it was just an easy way for me to keep my grades up.
So I started acting.
That's good enough reason.
Now that you're doing it, have you been enjoying it?
Have you been having fun with the process?
Yeah, I meet tons of new people and everyone's different.
So it's just fun to work with new people.
The things that Steph and I were talking about before about feeling more confident,
feeling better with your public speaking skills, some of those things.
Have you noticed some of that?
Have you picked up a little of that?
Oh, yeah, 100%.
I did theater throughout high school.
And my public speaking has definitely changed throughout then,
because I've done monologues and stuff on stage in front of hundreds of people before it.
So it's almost too good.
I need this job, man.
Don't go take a minute.
I don't be eyeing this microphone.
I need this job.
No, actually, it's really good.
That sounds so great.
Sarah, how about for you?
I've been a part of Stephanie's show since I was eight,
so for 10 years.
I know.
And I started because I needed something to do in the summers.
I forced you and your sister to do it.
Yeah.
And it really developed into something that I looked forward to every year.
And I've made, like, last lifelong, lasting friendships through it.
And I wanted to do it for my last year.
That's really cool.
And so the contract is up after this year then.
Your contract was Stephanie.
Yeah.
Oh, it's awful.
They're always welcome to come back and work for me backstage.
Sarah, what doing this as long as you have?
Have you noticed building some confidence from stage?
Is some confidence in your public speaking?
Of course.
I was a really shy kid, so doing this sort of thing really helped me to come out of my shell
and to make friendships and all that stuff.
Yeah.
I moved around a ton growing up, and it was very difficult for me to make friends.
It was really bad at it.
As bad as you could think of making friends, I was bad at it.
I think with sports, it helped a little bit, but really it was theater
that really helped me make friends feel more confident in my own skin
and reach out to people that even weren't in theater and try to be friends
in some of that.
It's great to hear you, too.
That's fantastic.
Let's talk a little bit about your characters.
Can you tell us the name of your character and a little bit about them?
Malachi, again, I'll start with you.
My character's name is Russell.
He's kind of just like this lazy cocky attitude guy where he thinks...
He's the youngest of the family, so he thinks that he can just get whatever he wants
by doing nothing.
Jeff Fun?
Yeah.
I have a lot of fun.
Yeah.
Sometimes it's fun to play those kind of characters.
There's something just exciting about it at times.
Sarah, how about for you?
I play Pansy, which is kind of funny because my last name's Pansy.
Yeah, that is a lot.
A lot of the notes.
Yeah.
She's the third youngest, and she's kind of like this flighty, socialite, kind of really
self-centered character, but there is kind of more to her, but you kind of learn that
throughout the show.
Nice.
Oh, well done.
Good tease.
Nicely done.
You've got good ones here, Stephanie.
You've got good ones here.
When it comes to the time commitment that these can be, how often were you guys rehearsing?
So last night was our first rehearsal.
And we perform next weekend.
We have eight total rehearsals.
Normally, we have seven.
So it's a little slightly different this year.
But yeah, we had auditions last Monday.
They found out what characters they were last Tuesday.
Or rehearsals are last night tonight and Thursday, and then next week is our full rehearsal
week.
And then we have performances next weekend.
So eight rehearsals.
I was trying to count this out the other day, and I lost track when I got to like 40.
But between the two of us, we've done about 40 or more than that productions over at WRCT,
over the years.
This is not the normal schedule for a main stage show.
This is a quick turnaround.
Yes.
So typically, we have, in the past, prior to COVID, we had always two kids shows.
We had the typical six week long rehearsal.
And in the summer, I mean, that can be hard any time a year, you know, for summer vacations,
and camps and all that.
So when we, when Gretchen and I started Hope Bowl back in 2010, it was kind of a quick,
almost camp like, you know, it's 10 to 3, you're there all day.
And, you know, so it just kind of helped as a still opportunity to do a show, but less of a time
commitment.
Yeah.
That's a good way to put it the camp ways.
I think that's a really good way to put it.
And also, for one, it speaks to, you know, not if you are looking to get your kids involved
in this or anything, it is not a huge time commitment.
There is that avenue of it that I think is important.
But it's also a chance for us to give credit to you and this kids and this staff, your team
over there to be able to flip this around like that.
It's impressive.
I know when I've been doing Hope Bowl for, you know, 10, 13, 14, whatever years, I don't
know.
And when I directed a couple of shows in between that were not that short time commitment,
I was like, I don't know what to do with all my rehearsal time.
Like, how do I, how do I stretch this out?
And I'm so used to two blocking rehearsals, two review rehearsals, run through the show,
and then we're good, you know?
And so I was, I obviously did it because there are longer shows.
These shows are a little bit shorter, but these still are, you know,
hour and a half shows with their full productions and everything.
But yeah, it was, it was definitely an interesting, oh wait, I have more time.
And yeah, and with this show, especially like, we have our set basically built already.
We have to paint it and all that.
We have to find props and all that.
But for the most part, I mean, that's one of the things that I have to do as the director for Hope Bowl.
I have to have everything ready to go, you know?
Like, and I'm terrible at pre-blocking.
I have a little bit of ideas, but I'm a visual person.
I have to like move the pieces and see, especially if there's, you know, 40 kids on stage.
I can visualize two that are talking, but what about the rest of them who are just staying hanging out?
So I got to move people.
And so yeah, so it's definitely been, I mean, every year I learn something different.
I try something new and what works works and what doesn't.
We figure it out.
So yeah.
And these are always amazing productions.
You guys pull it off every year.
It's also noteworthy, I think, when it comes to the rehearsal process of not just the time commitment,
but what you're saying there about having it almost pre-boxed and ready to go.
You know, theater just out the box, ready to go.
One size fits all kind of thing.
I'm curious how you've directed other shows and with on the main stage and some of that,
how the difference between the two?
Is it a lot of the setup, a pre-set up?
To some extent, yes.
Also, it's finding the right script.
I mean, for Hopo, I have to think of it as, first of all, I have to find a script that has enough people.
You know, we always, I mean, I have 50 something, I don't know how big our cast is,
but I have to look for something that's large enough or it has potential to add.
Also, just breaking up with schedule, you know, I have to be able to make sense to be able to do it in a week's time.
And I used to be, Gretchen and I, we first started, we actually used to act in the show with it,
along with directing.
That got to be way too much.
So, I didn't have to worry about that anymore because I used to find a character that would make sense for me to play.
And then, yeah, it, yeah.
So then having to find like, because normally we have, this is a one sets show, which we'd never had before for Hopo.
It's typically 14 scene changes.
Here's a forest, here's a house, here's this, here's that.
So, this is actually weirdly, it's nice, it's act one, that too.
There's no, there's no scene changes.
And I'm kind of, it's weird, but that's okay.
You don't know how to feel about it, dude.
I'm also known for my scene change music and I don't have that with the show.
So afterwards, and I, Akasha is my assistant and we were, I'm like, wait, what did I do?
Why did I pick the show?
But I have something else planned with that, with music.
So, it would be, yeah.
So, every little grouping that comes in will have something to announce them.
That's nice.
Oh, that's exciting.
I'm so excited about that.
You want to get your tickets for this show, www.wrctheater.org.
We'll give you more information on that before we wrap up.
We're, we're, again, speaking with Stephanie.
And we have Mayona Kai and Sarah with us from the Hopo production of It's a Mad House.
And Stephanie, you had a great idea in our pre-game here about,
you wanted to make sure that we mentioned and gave a shout out to all the actors and the crew and everything.
We'll let you guys do that for a second.
Perfect.
So, the actors in the Pembroke family are Brandon Winters, is Gerald.
Emmy McNibbet, as Judith.
Sarah Panzer, is pansy. Malachai Graf, which is me, is Russell.
Abrietta Harches, as Abigail.
And Natalie Klickler, as grandma.
And then we have our Pembroke's estate staff, which is Lorraine the lawyer, and that's played by Dana Tritz.
And Hobson, the butler, is Ethan Myrongo.
And then we have our super fans, Harriet, played by Don Freeberg and George by Matthew Breyer.
And we have the Ghost Hunters played by Catherine Doer, who is Nora, and Corbin Candler,
which is Ian Olivia Allworld, which is Myrtle.
And then we have the burglars, Think Home Alone.
Burglers are Snake, which is Cohen Swanson, and Joey Charlie Shaw.
And then we have the TV news team, and we have Carly Swan playing Katie, Phoebe Lager playing Drew,
and Elena Cleaver playing Alex.
And then we have the Thespians.
We have Wesley, which is played by Austin and France, Devon, which is played by Adelina Harches.
Caitlin, which is played by Eden Hahn.
Trent is played by Weston Swanson.
Florence is played by Cleo Malport.
Chloe.
Chloe, you've got a board.
And then we have our family, which is a 1950s-esque family.
Billy is Harry Roosh, dad, Everett Swanson, mom, Elena Sparks.
And we have our tourists, Ivy, played by Rose Paul, Barbara, played by Cadence Felt,
Vicki, played by Trinity Peckham, Una, played by Freya Wazalik, Wanda, and Wanda, played by Kayla Peckham.
And there's extra tourists, Julia Dober, Reiner, Jackson Jensen, Audrey Diggles, and Elijah Narang.
And then we have the cheerleaders, which is Galanda, played by Sully Schultz, Erin, played by Mia Sievers, Quinn, played by Quinn Goodness.
Charlene, played by Imgine Schultz, Crystal, played by Abri Michaels.
And the extra cheerleaders we have are Margot Roosh, Willow Mann, Haley Diggles, and Chloe Correll.
And then we have our police officers, officer Morales, played by Peter Swanson, and officer Kowalski, played by Ellery Shaw.
And then we have our guests, Zorina, played by Kari LeCore, and our mystery guest is played by Jason Devonair.
Perfect. Excellent. Excellent. I appreciate you guys doing that.
Thank you so much for getting that in there and shouting out all those great individuals.
Congratulations to everyone of them.
I also want to shout out Kasia Landowski as my assistant and stage manager.
And then Ella Panter is going to be assistant stage manager and she's going to be a designer decorator.
And then Jeff Friday has put our set together.
And I believe that's it.
And then costumes and hair and makeup and all that will be cast and crew.
And then Gunner Ringer is our lighting designer and light technician.
And I most likely will be writing sound like I usually do.
Thank you. Susie Linden, I was like, yes, there's another Gunner.
We can't forget Gunner. He was already there last night hanging lights and strapping things down and doing great.
Yeah, we all good guys, all good people.
We appreciate this, not only mentioning those names, but I think it also gives the audience, especially people who aren't theater people necessarily, an idea.
Whoa, all the people that it takes to make something like this happen.
And keep in mind, every person that's doing this is doing it out of passion, doing it out of love for their community, love of the arts.
And it is a great all we have all you got to do to support that.
Just get a ticket. Just get a ticket, take it a show.
And you are supporting the arts, you are supporting local theater.
I apologize you guys, but any chance I have, I'm going to get on my soapbox about this.
Wisconsin finish lats in the union when it comes to funding the arts.
It is on us as citizens to support the arts and keep them around by local support local that includes the arts.
You can find out more at wrctheater.org.
And we of course always could use volunteers when it comes to these shows.
There's always a place for you at WRCT if you're looking and interested in that and get encouraged to reach out to the team over there.
Stephanie, before you let go, is there anything else you wanted to mention about it's a madhouse?
So every year for Hope Boy, I try to find something that may be a little different than we've done.
We've never done a show like this before.
We've done a lot of fractured fairy tales, a lot of, you know, we've done comic books stuff.
So every year people always are saying, this is the best show we've done so far.
How are you going to top it? So, you know, no pressure.
So my, my result is trying to find something that we've never done.
Again, we've never done anything like this.
It's murder and mystery-esque. It's very funny.
It's just a combination of all kinds of people's personality types.
It's, it's a lot of fun. It's been a lot of fun so far.
We've literally had one rehearsal, but I've already, I think it's going really well.
It's interesting how it's got such a relatability to it too with so much of the show.
Well, the concepts, the plots, you know, they're a little out there.
There's so much relatability in the script.
And I did want to, I mentioned the writer of the script as well.
We appreciate them also for the work.
Yeah, Todd Wallinger is the author of this.
I know in the past I've done quite a few shows by Brian Detailer.
I think he became like my go-to author.
But I don't think we've ever done with this author before, but yeah.
So it's a, it's a well written script.
It's pretty realistic.
Yeah.
And with all the chaos going on, it's still realistic enough.
But yeah, I think it's a good show.
Yeah.
We also, real quick, before I let you go, we'll talk more about this as we get closer to it.
But I did want to shout out Stephanie and the winter production of Arsenic and Old Lace.
You'll be doing double duty this year with a main stage production and everything.
Are you excited about that?
I'm getting through this show as my first priority.
That'll, that'll worry about that one.
Yeah, yeah.
But we encourage people to get their tickets.
Absolutely.
And it is our 50th anniversary next season for WRCT.
So we've been talking about that a lot on a warning show.
We're very excited about it.
And we're looking forward to a banger of a 50th season.
And you've got a great lineup for it.
So whether it is the main stage, it is the, the, the hope of production, silver foxes, anything.
There is a place for everybody in this community at WRCT.
We encourage you to be a family member.
Come on down.
I will warn you.
If you come down for a show, you will probably stay.
You will probably never leave.
I did back in 97, 96, and I haven't left since.
And you guys know what I'm talking about.
You two know exactly what I'm talking about.
And Stephanie, you were born there.
And we appreciate the time from all of you again.
And Stephanie, we want to encourage people to get not only get tickets,
but if you are interested in volunteering, maybe being a ticket distributor or anything like that,
we are always looking for extra hands.
Get your tickets.
Find out more at wrctheater.org.
Or wrctheater.org.
And be sure to follow the Wisconsin Robots Community Theatre on social media.
It's not just a great way to keep the data and everything they're doing over there.
But maybe you share something on your page and somebody sees it.
The wooden of otherwise and comes to a show and takes it in.
And again, becomes a new family member over at wrct.
Break a leg.
Have a great run.
You guys enjoy yourselves.
Have fun out there.
Okay.
And thank you so much for joining us today.
Thank you.
Appreciate the time.
Again, wrctheater.org is the website.
Be sure to bookmark that and check it out.
We'll come back and we'll have more midday magazine for you right here at 97-5 FM 13-20 AM.
WFHR.
We are locally grown radio.
