FreeFall Stage

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

STAY TUNED FOR SOME BIG CHANGES--Summer 2015 and beyond!

We can't go into detail right now, but the next few months are going to bring some

BIG CHANGES to FreeFall Stage.

Sorry to be vague, but trust us, all will reveal itself in do time!

We are excited for what the near future holds!

STAY TUNED!

~Sincerely,

FreeFall Stage's Board of Directors

Dreams are the seeds of change. Nothing ever grows without a seed, and nothing ever changes without a dream. ~Debby Boone

Monday, March 24, 2014

Big Things on the Horizon for FreeFall Stage!

Hello Fans!

Happy New Year (cough, cough, three months late, cough)! We have had a BUSY few months!

We closed the 2013 season with our production of Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary and Charles Schulz's A Charlie Brown Christmas--both were great successes!
Since the start of the year, we produced our first musical ever (which was also an original adaptation by our own Deedee Eldridge, as well as original music and lyrics by the amazing Laura Wardrip) called The Emerald City of Oz! Oh, and we had two 1-Act romantic comedies in February which featured our 3rd Annual Valentine's Day Dessert Show (always a special, and packed, evening).

So what are we up to now?
Well, we are opening Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in less than two weeks (see our website above for tickets and details)--sure to be a great treat for the whole family!
We are also currently in contention for KCRA 3's 2014 A-List (we came in 3rd out of 57+ theatres in 2013) and hope to make it to #1 this year! Please take a moment to vote for us (button at the top right of the page)....
We are just finishing up our Winter/Spring Children's Theatre Class (students can be seen in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory")...
Oh, and one of the most exciting things coming up, we are producing She Has a Name (an intense drama about modern day human trafficking). We are the first Community Theatre to produce this play in the whole country! This is sure to be our most powerful production yet. We are committed to being a part of the fight against human slavery and it is our strong desire to use this production as a way in which to inspire others to get involved in the fight--knowledge is power!

We could go on and on, but we will save that for our next blog, coming in TWO weeks! You can expect blog posts every 2nd and 4th Friday of each month. We'll share with you some behind the scenes, photos, upcoming productions and classes, as well as some fun, interactive blogs!

We are ever so grateful to our fans! You are the reason we do what we do!

We shall see you at the theatre!

Sincerely,
FreeFall Stage

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

"Screwtape" Returns to Our Stage Once Again!

Many have asked Why produce this play again? A good question since those who know me (Deedee) know that I do not like to produce any play more than once, because there are so many I want to do and that we have not yet gotten to. Well, this is actually the 3rd time in our near 12-year history that we will have produced Screwtape.

Our first outing was with our high school theatre class in 2006, and again in 2010 with an all-adult cast.

"Screwtape" 2006 with our High-School Class

"Screwtape" 2010 with our Adult Cast

The main reason we are bringing it back is that it has been one of our top three most successful over the years and it appeals to a wider range of audience that most plays do. Screwtape deals with a serious subject in a comedic way, and tackles that subject in a way that people from all walks of life have an interest, or at least a fascination, with: the spirit world. Of course, it's greatest appeal, is that it was written by CS Lewis, whose many works have that same broad appeal.

His book, The Screwtape Letters, on which the play is adapted, has had great success for over 60 years, most likely due to its piercing insight into human nature and the lucid and humorous way Lewis makes his readers squirm in self recognition. When first published in 1942 it brought immediate fame to this little-known Oxford don, including the cover of Time Magazine.

Due to the subject matter, many parents may not want young children to see it, yet my son saw it for the first time at the age of 6, (and was at so many rehearsals he could quote most of the lines) and it has prompted many wonderful discussions about the spirit world, good/evil, etc, so please, do not hesitate to bring them -- and prepare to have brilliant dialogue with them after the performance!

Thursday, June 13, 2013

"Emotions are to Actors What Colors are to Painters"

The late Jeremy Whelan (whose method we employ in teaching our students) had a motto in Mosaic Acting: "Emotions are to Actors What Colors are to Painters". The most common mistake actors make is to fall on one side of the ditch or the other: to try to "dig up" an emotion by focusing on an experience in the past ("Ah, but what if you never had that experience before???) or to try to "show" the emotion on their face they think will "look right". Instead, how about actually feeling the emotion?

Humans have hundreds of emotions and varying degrees of each. The amateur actor often falls prey to thinking we are limited to only variations of "mad, sad, glad", thus, many actors performances, as well as productions, fall flat. There is no limit to the number of colors an artist can mix before painting each stroke of the brush on canvas, so why do we, as actors, limit ourselves in feeling, and then showing, our emotions on stage? Fear? Perhaps. But I believe it is lack of understanding and exploring what and how we feel, and allowing it to be seen from every cell in our body on stage.

Some of the hundreds of emotions humans experience

Emotions have been described as discrete and consistent responses to internal or external events which have a particular significance for each individual person. While generally many emotions look the same on the outside, they may not feel the same from one person to the next. So, just because the playwright says your character feels a certain emotion does not mean any two actors will feel that emotion the same way, nor show it the same way either. DO the homework. Don't understand a word, or simply want a deeper understanding? Use a thesaurus! Find out intrinsically what your character feels, and make that feeling your own. This is the only true way for an audience to believe as well as feel with you during a performance, and that makes the difference between watching an actor "act" and a watching real living, breathing person on that stage. This in turn, will always make for a more enjoyable experience for them as well.

An emotional moment in "The Beams Are Creaking"

Thursday, June 6, 2013

2013 Summer Youth Workshop

Want to know What the Summer Workshop is, What will be taught, and who it is for? Then this is the blog for you!

Our 2013 Summer Workshop starts on Monday, June 10th @ 12PM and is Monday through Thursday from 12PM to 3PM until Thursday, June 20th.

Cost is for the Workshop is $200 and students will get to take part in our first Musical ever, "The Emerald City of Oz", in January 2014.

For more information: http://www.freefallstage.com/classes/

What is the Summer Workshop and Who is it for?

Our Summer Workshop is a condensed form of our fall or winter/spring semester workshops. We design the workshop to be an intensive class for the new as well as growing thespian. This workshop is roughly for students age 8-14, but we don't hold strictly to that, as there are younger students who are mature enough to learn at an older level, and there are older students who are new enough to benefit from our classes.

Our Spring 2012 Semester Class performing in "The Boxcar Children"

Our Fall 2009 Semester Class Performing "Our Only May Amelia"

What will students learn/be taught during the workshop?

As a veteran actress, director, teacher and playwright with a degree in theatre and over 30 years professional experience, I strive to give my students a firm foundation on which to build in the craft of theatre. The summer workshop will cover stage terms, using the body as an instrument, learning to create a character, body language, and use and feel emotions believably, write a back story, and much more.

Our classes offer the the most comprehensive available outside upper level college classes, for actors of all ages and ability levels.

Instructor/Director Deedee Eldridge and 3 of her Elly Nominated,
(one of which is an Elly Award Winner), Students in 2010

4 of our Elly Nominated Students in 2009

Note: We have had 10 of our students nominated in the Elly Awards in the past 4 seasons, one of which is an Elly Award Winner. We have also had nominations for Set Design and Costumes.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Our First Musical--Coming in January 2014!!!

From the desk of Executive Director, Deedee Eldridge...

"While my theatre roots are in the Musical Theatre genre, it has been many years since I have directed one, and this is the first we will have produced at FreeFall Stage in our 11 year history. Why, you ask? First, because there are just so very many good scripts of other genres we have wanted to produce, and stories not yet told or put on stage, that we have been focusing on them."

Deedee's Musical Theatre days at the "Old Opera House Dinner Theare" at the Gold Rush Plaza in Auburn, circa 1970's

Why now?

"While we will always primarily focus on legitimate (an industry term meaning everything other than musicals) theatre, I felt it was time to honor my roots and produce a musical. Also, as a bonus incentive, so many actors we have worked with have requested we produce one!

**Why The Emerald City of Oz?**

We didn't want to do any of the old stand-byes. Not that there is anything wrong with them, we just wanted to do something fresh. Having played Dorothy Gale as a teen, and knowing the love of all things L. Frank Baum by my grandfather, (who named my mother Dorothy) I got one if his original copies of The Emerald City of Oz and decided to adapt it to the stage for the first time!
With the musical talents of Laura Wardrip composing all of our songs, and our former student, Ashleigh Wardell, choreographing, we will be bringing this 6th book of Baum series to the stage in musical form.

We hope you will follow our journey in the next 7 months, and join us at the premier in January, 2014!

~Deanne "Deedee" Farinha Eldridge

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Looking Back On | Telling Twain

Join us as we say goodbye and look back on our 3rd Production of 2013, "Telling Twain", based on Mark Twain's Sketches Old and New as adapted and compiled for the Stage by Deanne Farinha Eldridge with the stories being adapted for the stage by the Spring 2013 High-school Theatre Class...

These group of student actors acted out each of the short stories portrayed in "Telling Twain"

Deanne Farinha Eldridge filled in the spaces in between the stories with the interactions of Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens played by Stephen Watson) and his daughter Jean (played by Mia Comstock)