What perfect, happy storm!
Everything is coming together so beautifully for a wonderful production
of MOMologues opening this Friday at the theatre. This production is a benefit for LAMB Arts
LTD to assist in all the programming that goes on at LAMB Arts Regional
Theatre….and there is a lot going on over here! (But more on that later…I want
to talk about this show and this cast)
We were so delighted that Siouxland
Women’s Health Care Center became the exclusive sponsor of this
benefit. It is a perfect tie
in. Their slogan is “For every stage of
a woman’s life” . Well, ON the LAMB
stage, the stages of early motherhood will be played out with humor and
poignancy. THANK YOU Siouxland Women’s
Health Center! You have been a great
friend to LAMB Arts Regional Theatre.
Last season, SWHC donated the comfortable chairs that MOMologues
audiences will be enjoying !
(THE MOMologues is performed in THE BOX Theatre at LAMB. This very intimate theatre seats 50)
As director for this production, I am thrilled to be working
with four extremely talented and dedicated ladies. Three are able to rely on their personal
experiences with motherhood, while poor little Geana is playing catch up (quite
admirably, I might add) in the experience category. This show has opened up a plethora of
birthing/mothering stories and discussions; something that I am sure is going
to happen after our audiences leave the theatre. It has
been so great for all of us to realize that what we thought were unique
feelings are really quite universal among mothers…..of all ages.
How surreal it is for me to once again direct Lacey Friis. WAY back when she was “Lacey Graves”, I had
the privilege of directing and acting with this talented young lady in many,
many LAMB children’s shows and LAMB Mainstage shows. What an honor to see young Mary Lennox from
The SECRET GARDEN as a young mother –and still possessing that natural
acting charisma we all loved. Combined with her real life experiences with
her own three young children, Lacey is absolutely charming to watch during
rehearsals and our audiences will adore her.
Angela Iversen has
also been a long time friend. I have
known Angela since her days at Briar Cliff.
She later became the children’s choral director at Augustana Luttheran
Church where I am the choral director.
Her marriage to the wonderful Pete Iversen and their subsequent
sweetheart, Eliana, have been so much fun to observe. Angela has been involved in LAMB productions
for several years and she has always been delightful to see onstage (Remember
her in URINETOWN?…so funny!) and she is an absolute dream to work with. Her quick and quirky wit is beautifully
utilized in MOMologues.-another actress the audiences will love.
Geana Schneider is our non-mom. I don’t THINK we have scared her away from
motherhood. Geana is like a sponge and
has absorbed the stories and quips from her fellow mother-actors and has
created a very convincing mom persona.
When we were rehearsing yesterday I was thinking how lucky her children
are going to be---also, I was wondering HOW she gets her face to be so
wonderfully expressive. Her face has its
own spectacular dialogue! Geana has been
seen in many recent shows at LAMB including YANKEE TAVERN and 39 STEPS. You will LOVE her in The MOMologues.
Trudy Rants is
going to be new to our LAMB audiences…as an actress. Trudy has been a long time season member,
LAMB School parent and a former LAMB Arts board member. What most people don’t know is that Trudy
was a theatre major at Morningside College a “couple of years back”. How exciting for me that Trudy agreed to dust
off her acting skills for this show.
Trudy is perfect as the ‘older mom’ and has surprised me with her
fierceness toward her character. She is
going to be so much fun for our audiences.
I am hoping that as much as we hope we haven’t scared Geana from
motherhood, that we haven’t scared Trudy from future acting. She is a real charmer.
What is so great is that there are four very different
actresses, voices and energies onstage.
I am very proud of what these ladies have accomplished in a very short
time and deeply appreciate their efforts toward creating an outstanding
production. We hope to see some fun
loving crowds at the theatre for this LAMB Arts LTD benefit. As we have noted everywhere, this is a perfect ladies night out feature attraction! However, men who have known mothers of any kind....and I think that speaks to all men....should have a very entertaining time her as well. (Please note that there is some “language”
in this show. Not excessive… but this
is a disclaimer in case this would be a concern for you. Also…this material is probably not
appropriate for all audiences. I would
suggest late high school through adult---we are talking about birthin' babies here....)
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So….what else has been going on at LAMB Theatre? Someone asked me if I had trouble thinking
of things to write in this blog and I said, “No. Just the opposite. I have the biggest trouble trying to decide
how to CHOOSE what to write about!” (I also wish
that someone would pass a bill to change the day from 24 hours to 30 hours…at
least!)
The following deserve a blog on
their own, but I will list some of the many things going on at LAMB. (Now you will see why we need why benefits such as The MOMologues are so important.)
Last Sunday we closed FLAT STANLEY, the second production in
THE Young People’s Theatre at LAMB season.
The show did extremely well and was so well received. We had a school performance with 5th
graders from Irving Elementary (Thank you, Karen Bourne) and 3rd
graders from Clark School (Thank you, Clark PTO) I am always pleased to see the progress and
growth of our student-actors, but this show was especially ‘growthful’…(what a
word) So many kids really had the
opportunity to shine…and we have a lot of dedicated and professional
students. What a treat. As a part of a grant, I was able to go to Irving School for some theatre workshops. The students were so receptive and I recognized several from CAMP IMAGINATION, a program that LAMB collaborates with Mary Treglia House in the summers.
Another great aspect of FLAT STANLEY was that we were able to
offer ASL signing for the Hearing Impaired during a Saturday matinee of this
musical. Thanks to the QUOTA Club of
Sioux City, we had two signers who interpreted the musical for a special
audience. What a thrill to watch the
show signed. How proud I was of the
student-actors for their attention to doing their job onstage and not watching
the signing. How heartwarming to see
the faces of those who were now able to fully experience a stage
production. I was excited to
discover how LAMB could play an important role in the arts life of a whole
different segment of our community.
Continuing this type of service has become a new mission for us. Thank you, QUOTA Club for this
opportunity…and for opening our eyes to other ways we can serve our community.
Last week I was a guest of the Iowa School for the Deaf in
Council Bluffs in my capacity of Iowa Arts Teaching Artist. It was serendipitous that the Saturday
before FLAT STANLEY had been signed and that I had had the opportunity to talk
with the QUOTA signers at length. At the
School for the Deaf (which, by the way, is an actual University style campus….gorgeous!!)
I was asked to present a theatre workshop to juniors and senior drama students
at the high school. What fun! Those young people are so very expressive
and so open to trying just about anything.
While there we discussed other collaborative opportunities between our
LAMB students and theirs. It was a
great day.
We are continuing our collaboration with Jackson Recovery’s
Women’s and Children’s Unit in a Kindermusik program for the moms and their
young children. We have been there for
fourteen weeks and it has been amazing to see the continuous growth and
participation among all the participants.
We have gotten so large that we now hold two classes each week to
accommodate everyone.
CABARET, the next mainstage production at the Theatre, has
been cast and is in the midst of rehearsal.
This production opens March 9 and the beautiful sounds and the very
active dancing upstairs in the rehearsal room (THE BOX Theatre where MOMologues
is rehearsing is below the Rehearsal Room) indicates that this production is
going to be energy driven! I can’t wait.
The LAMB School of Theatre and Music is beginning a great
second semester with an increase in our enrollment. Russ Wooley’s ATA class (advanced high
school acting) is planning a showcase for later this spring that all the
students are very excited about. More
on that as their plans progress.
West Lake Entertainment from Los Angeles has booked the LAMB Caravan for a four city tour this May. This will be the 5th Caravan Tour for us. We will be performing BLUE HORSES.
Great news on the End of the Year Plea….Our goal of $30,000
was superceded by $136!!! Also, our
Younkers Coupon Book campaign(our first year…I had no idea how easy this
campaign is…so I made $1000 our goal.) met the goal number set!!!! We are doing so much better financially than
a year ago. We will be conducting our
annual campaign April 1 – June 30 and if that goes well, we should be on a much
stronger, fiscally sound footing. THANK
YOU!!!!
We hope to see you this week or next for MOMologues. You will have a ball.
Diana Guhin Wooley
CEO
LAMB Arts Ltd
417 Market Street
Sioux City, IA 51103
712-293-0930
Keep current with LAMB--:
www.lambtheatre.com
To say that I am excited about opening night of Anne Frank and Me tomorrow night would be an understatement. I am thrilled. One of our biggest challenges every season is locating scripts that will challenge and excite our students and this one certainly fits the bill. I am always amazed...and actually saddened when I hear students complaining about having to study history at school as they find it so boring. I love history. I think it is one of the reasons that a lot of us at LAMB love acting as it gives us that chance to live lives that are so unlike our own. So it is gratifying to see these young people embracing the events surrounding our play. That is what is so great about either acting or viewing live theatre......the wonderful opportunity to share with each other dramatic or comic events in the lives of interesting people and times. This particular show will be an excellent production for discussion among a student's family and friends of different generations. I would love to see grandparents taking their grandchildren to this show. As the young actors in this production said early on, "Looking at history this way is so different from reading about it in a book. I feel for what these people went through." Yup.....theatre is a great teacher. I hope that we will have many, many people decide to "use" theatre for what it can do.....excite a young person to want to learn more about a time in history, to help a young person to develop empathy and understanding of others in difficult challenges and to perhaps think at length about how they themselves would respond in such a situation. 
