Shows – Page 48 – Conrad Askland

December 15, 2006April 13, 2016

HSM Cast List to be posted Sunday 12-17-06

The cast list for High School Musical will be posted Sunday 12/17/06 at the Theater Arts Guild website.

Amazing talent in this crew, we had 7 callbacks just for the role of Gabriella. That gives you an idea of the difficult job the Director has for casting. We’ve got a great band lined up for the show. I look forward to meeting all of you at rehearsals in January.

A reminder to those that aren’t cast or didn’t get a role: Especially with this show, it is not necessarily an issue of talent. The chemistry between characters is important, and that dictates some of the casting. Competition was fierce in this production because of the large turnout at auditions. We work hard at keeping casting open and encourage all to audition for future shows.

The Skagit Valley is exploding with opportunities for theater and music, so keep a level head, your eye on the prize and keep ploughing on.

And remember: It’s a crowd favorite, everyone loves a good jazz square.

🙂

December 13, 2006

HSM – Tick Tock Tick Tock

We’ve finished callbacks for Disney’s High School Musical and are awaiting the director’s decisions. I’ll do a post coming up about the audition and callback process.

So until we hear the director’s decisions….tick – tock – tick – tock……..

December 7, 2006December 7, 2006

Royal Court Theater and Censorship

The Royal Court Theater has been taking votes for the #1 favorite production from their venue. The winner was Rocky Horror Show. RHS was possible in 1973 following a change in laws that lifted the oppression of censorship.

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Excerpt: “Censorship is implicitly to blame for the fact that the whole panorama of British theatre contains only a handful of plays dealing at all controversially with sex, politics, the law, the Church, the Armed Forces and the Crown.”

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Visit the Royal Court Theater and Rocky Horror Show vote results

THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE

Earlier this year the Royal Court asked the public to vote for their favourite Royal Court plays, and the votes have come in thick and fast for the last three months. The plays that are the people’s choice can now be revealed. In third place is DEATH AND THE MAIDEN by Ariel Dorfman, which received its UK premiere at the Royal Court in 1991 (in association with LIFT and the National Theatre Studio), directed by Lindsay Posner. In second is LOOK BACK IN ANGER by John Osborne, the first production of which opened on 8 May 1956, directed by Tony Richardson. In first place is THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW by Richard O’Brien, which opened in the Theatre Upstairs in 1973, directed by Jim Sharman. The three winners of our People’s Choice vote will be commemorated by special events during our 50th celebrations.

CENSORSHIP

Between 1824 and 1968 British theatre was controlled by censorship. As Kenneth Tynan described it, “Censorship is implicitly to blame for the fact that the whole panorama of British theatre contains only a handful of plays dealing at all controversially with sex, politics, the law, the Church, the Armed Forces and the Crown”. When the English Stage Company was founded in 1956 with a programme of staging the very best contemporary drama, it was bound to come into conflict with the Office of the Lord Chamberlain.

The key productions of the English Stage Company’s first twelve years all involved at the least skirmishes (LOOK BACK IN ANGER) or full-blown battles with the Censor. Plays like John Osborne’s A PATRIOT FOR ME and Edward Bond’s SAVED were refused licence to be performed at all. The fact that they were seen at all involved the theatre transforming itself into a private members’ club. Even so the production of SAVED brought criminal proceedings against it.

But as the 1960s really began to swing the writing was on the wall for the whole idea of censorship. By the time Edward Bond’s next play EARLY MORNING was performed in April 1968, despite the fact that it contravened almost every taboo that censorship sought to preclude, no prosecution was brought and on September 26, 1968 a new Theatres Act became law, effectively abolishing the power of the Lord Chamberlain Office over the theatre.

We will be looking back over the detail of this turbulent era with the help of critic and author Nicholas de Jongh and featuring performed extracts from some of the key moments both before and after censorship. We will bring the debate on censorship up-to-date with a panel of distinguished guests.

December 6, 2006December 18, 2006

High School Musical Auditions Extended To Saturday 12-9-06

Because of overwhelming response to auditions for High School Musical, we are extending auditions to Saturday (ahem…..unofficially). So if you’re reading this and for some reason didn’t get signed up to audition but want to please email me to set that up. You can email through Friday 12-08-06. Please leave Saturday open for your assigned time.
My email address is:

Most of the roles are for high school age or high school age “looking” cast, there are some adult roles. There is no declaration in the script for ethnicity or gender of many roles. It’s “open” to all. If you’re ultra hip and cool, there’s a part for you. If you’re mousy and nerdy, there’s a part for you too. And yes, anything in between.

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In case you don’t know – the cast features a basketball team, brainiac club, thespians and lots of hip hop music. So we also need those gifted with a basketball, which as far as I know is unique to musical theater.

Theater Arts Guild of Skagit Valley, the organization producing the show, is one of the first groups licensed to perform this show. We will set the bar high for others that follow. 🙂

See you at auditions!

December 4, 2006February 16, 2007

QA Email – Seussical Sound Effects

UPDATE: Now you can Download Free Seussical Sound Effects.

E-mail received:

Hello,

I happened to come across your website this evening while I was doing some “net surfing” for Seussical the Musical.

I am the music director for our high school’s musical theater productions, and the Orchestra Conductor and myself are trying to work out all the instrumentation and sound effects issues.

What caught my attention was the way you ran the sound effects on you laptop through a kepyboard. COULD YOU BE SO KIND AS TO ELABORATE!! Information on the program you used and how to create the sound bank….even how to connect the keyboard would be AWESOME! We can handle all the instruments, but the sound effects have us a little freaked out!

Thanks so much for ANY help!

Eric
Director of Choral Activities
Waynesboro Area Senior High School

Music Education Advocacy Committee Chair
Pennsylvania Music Educators Association District VII

Choral Director — Gold Tour
American Music Abroad

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Hi Eric,

Here is a link to my sound effects used in Seussical the Musical.

I didn’t think Seussical was very sound effects intensive. I identified 10 sound effects needed for our production. In comparison, I just finished a run of the non-musical version of Peter Pan and was running sixty-four sound effects for that show.

Here is the list of sound effects I used for our Seussical production:

SOUND EFFECTS FOR SEUSSICAL THE MUSICAL

Slide Whistle (youâ€™ll get better samples than performing this live)

YOPP! (Jojoâ€™s yell in Act II – I process multi-tap delay with panning, so it â€œcalls across the universeâ€)

Elephant Call

Egg Hatching

Explosion

Water Splash (For the Catâ€™s sneeze onto the Planet of Who, my own twisted addition)

ACT II Entracte – Overture clangs and bangs

Thunderstorm (To add to ACT II melodrama string music)

Bird Chirp

Animal Grunts (For intro of Monkey Around, listen to CD)

Dog Bark â€œwoofâ€

All of these sound effects can be done well from a CD player. To trigger sound effects I use Kontakt by Native Instruments which is a virtual sample keyboard. I load in my sound effects and map them onto a virtual keyboard. Then trigger these sounds from a laptop via a MIDI keyboard. To do this you’ll need a laptop, Kontakt software, a MIDI keyboard and a USB midi device. Total cost starting around $2000 for all if you shop around.

I prefer running sound effects this way so I have control over the final product. I also played the keyboard one parts, so it was very natural for meto reach over and trigger a sound effect at my keyboard rig. I only played piano in the parts that needed it, otherwise I conducted and let the orchestra do it’s thing. We had a twenty piece orchestra so it was a pretty full sound. You’ll probably find that the Reed One, Two and Three parts will have to be split among multiple players. Check my “Seussical” section here on my blog for details about instrumentation.

Hope that helps. If you’re a control freak player/conductor/audio engineer like me you’ll have fun mapping a custom sample bank. Otherwise leave the sound effects to your sound crew and you’ll be fun. The challenge to me for Seussical is the almost non-stop music; and keeping the orchestra tight on the wide variety of grooves.

December 4, 2006December 6, 2006

Rocky Horror Picture Show Added to National Film Registry

January 2006

http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0601/nfr.html

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington announced his annual selection of 25 motion pictures to be added to the National Film Registry in December 2005. This group of titles brings the total number of films placed on the registry since its creation by Congress in 1988 to 425.

Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, each year the Librarian of Congress names 25 “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant motion pictures to the registry. The list is designed to reflect the full breadth and diversity of America’s film heritage, thus increasing public awareness of the richness of American cinema and the need for its preservation. In making the announcement, the Librarian said, “By preserving American films, we safeguard a significant element of American creativity and our cultural history for the enjoyment and education of future generations.”

“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975)
The ultimate “midnight movie,” “Rocky Horror” revolutionized prevailing notions of audience participation during film screenings. Words to remember: “It’s astounding, time is fleeting, madness takes its toll.”

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Mr. Askland would like to point out that the US Supreme Court has defined legal censorship for material that is “Obscene” – In order to qualify legally as obscene the material must be devoid of any artistic, aesthetic or scientific value. Since the RHPS has now been added to the National Film Registry, it would not appear to meet the legal definition of obscene.

November 28, 2006November 28, 2006

Disney High School Musical Auditions

I would like to clarify that the auditions on Dec. 6 and 7, 2006 for Disney’s High School Musical is for a local community theater production of the show in Mount Vernon, WA – it is not produced by Disney. The original audition information is located here: Disney High School Musical Audition Information.

November 23, 2006April 13, 2016

Peter Pan Audio FX Sound Design Effects

Here are sound effects I created for Peter Pan for use in live stage productions. These were layered live to the stage action using a laptop computer with a virtual synthesizer triggered from a midi keyboard. Some of the effects, like the overture, are left sparse in sections to allow layers of other sounds over the top.

Most of the sounds layer well together even if tracks are in different keys. For instance, the Peter Pan flute theme can play over the top of most samples, as well as the bell melodies.

Peter Pan Fairy BKG Chimes MP3
Background shimmering chimes with lullabye music box. Segues and backdrop for happy flying sequences to layer with other sounds. Also a good “safety” that will fit any scene.

War – Indian Drums MP3

will finish post later

November 20, 2006November 22, 2006

Ideas from an Apple Tree

This is an apple tree in my backyard. The apples have fallen from it over the Summer and now in the Fall only a few apples remain. I get in trouble because I don’t pick the apples up and throw them away. I just can’t make myself do it. The apples on the ground are beautiful and I love to look at them. Even with a couple worm holes the color is still beautiful.