Laura: This is the ShowBizRadio.net podcast. Mike and I shadowed To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday. We are going to kind of do a wrap up and talk about our thoughts and impressions of the whole experience.

Mike: To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday was Port City Playhouse‘s Fall production and they graciously allowed us to shadow the process from the auditions all the way through closing night. We went to the auditions. We interviewed the cast as well and some of the crew. I learned a lot about the theatre and a lot about that show. It was really cool watching that whole thing evolve.

Laura: Mike and I attended the opening night performance. They did a good job. You could still see some hesitancy. They still had not quite meshed together yet. We then saw the closing night performance on Saturday evening. The growth of the actors and the rapport, it was so much fun. They were much more comfortable with each other. The jokes flowed and it was like a whole different performance.

Mike: What I kept saying on Saturday night after the show as I was talking to the different performers was that there were lots of subtleties that were not there on opening night. The audience laughed at totally different spots, including one spot where as they told us, no one had ever laughed before. That’s really kind of funny and I think they did a great job with the show. It was a lot of fun and I’m very thankful that they let us tag along and and be the fly on the wall while they were working on it.

Laura: Throughout this process we did interview all of the cast, the director and the stage manager. We also interviewed the president of Port City Playhouse, Ron Fields. This is Port City’s 30th anniversary and therefore this is kind of a special season for them.

Mike: He did tell us at the cast party on Saturday night after closing that their next show, Wonder of The World, is a hilarious show and we are looking forward to that. It will be opening sometime in 2008.

Laura: And now, on with the show.

Laura: This is the ShowBizRadio.net Playbill for Thursday, September the 6th, 2007.

Mike: After the great time we had shadowing the Springfield Community Theatre’s You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown last Spring, we decided we wanted to do a shadowing again.

Laura: So we looked at the shows for the Fall Season of the community theaters and there were a lot of them.

Mike: We looked at the ones relatively near our house. We will be doing a lot of traveling. So we approached the director of a show. She talked with the board of directors. They talked with us. So, it’s official. We are going to be shadowing….

Laura: The Port City Playhouse production of To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday.

Mike: This is a drama. It has seven people in it. We sat through the auditions and we’ve been to the read through. We’ve been to one rehearsal so far. It’s amazing how good these performers are. It’s going to be a very informative process to see how the show comes together.

Laura: Yes, I went to the second night of auditions. Between then and the casting and the first read through, it was really amazing to see how everybody has embraced their character and is reading like their character.

Mike: The show is a drama by Michael Brady. Two years after the death of his wife, Gillian, in a boating accident, grieving widower David discovers that his obsession with her has alienated his sensitive teenage daughter Rachel and caused him to lose touch with reality. When his late wife’s sister, Esther, and her husband, Paul, come to visit – and bring an unexpected guest – David must learn to relinquish the past or risk losing his daughter.

Laura: There are seven characters in this play, two men and five women. Some of the actors we’ve seen before; Katie Gentic and Carl Nubile we’ve seen in other productions. Everybody else we are looking forward to getting to know. We’ll be doing interviews. We will be attending one rehearsal a week. When it gets closer to opening maybe a few more.

Mike: We’ll also be doing some interviews with the different creative people behind the scenes. The director is Sara Joy Lebowitz whom we have interviewed a couple times before. We have also interviewed the costumer, Jamie Bartosavage-Erdman. We’ve met the producer, Joan Silver. We met the stage manager at the first rehearsal, Alexis (don’t know her last name). So we’re looking forward to getting to know all these people.

Laura: We are looking forward to learning about this character driven show and how the whole process works. How you get your motivation. How you learn your lines. How you listen to the director. Get your staging and blocking cues. This is going to be an interesting process.

Mike: I’m really looking forward to it. The show opens in November on the 2nd and closes on November 17th. We are looking forward to the next two months learning about To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday.

Laura: If you have any suggestions for things we should look for or questions we should ask, feel free to send us an email at contact at showbizradio.net

Mike: And now, on with the show.