UKIAH, Calif. – The Mendocino College Theatre Arts Department and Ukiah Civic Light Opera will hold auditions on Saturday, Dec. 8, for their upcoming co-production of the classic American musical “The Music Man,” Meredith Willson’s affectionate paean to Smalltown, USA of a bygone era.

The beloved show features some of the greatest songs in American musical theater history, including “76 Trombones,” “Goodnight my Someone” and “The Wells Fargo Wagon.”

The production’s directors are looking for a large cast of 40-50 singers, dancers and actors of all ages.

The plot follows fast-talking traveling salesman Harold Hill as he cons the people of River City, Iowa into buying instruments and uniforms for a boy’s band he vows to organize – this despite the fact he doesn’t know a trombone from a treble clef.

His plans to skip town with the cash are foiled when he falls for Marian the librarian, who transforms him into a respectable citizen by curtain’s fall.

Theatre professor Reid Edelman will be directing the production with the help of choreographer Maria A. Monti, vocal director Marilyn Simpson and music director Les Pfutzenreuter. The show will run April 12-21 in the Mendocino College Center Theatre.

According to Edelman, “Producing a major musical, such as ‘The Music Man,’ is always exciting. It is a joyful opportunity to collaborate with our wonderful dance and music faculty and to involve a large cast of enthusiastic performers. This is one of the greatest musicals ever written, one that celebrates life, love and the transformative power of music.”

The cast of the play includes many roles for adults and children. Edelman encourages anybody with an interest in being a part of this delightful show to come to the auditions on Dec. 8.

All roles will be cast through open auditions; no roles have been precast. Interested performers should arrive at the Mendocino College Center Theatre at 10 a.m. and plan on staying until 3 p.m. if needed. Scripts are on reserve at the Mendocino College Library for those wishing to read the play in advance.

At the audition, performers will be asked to sing a song and to learn a short dance routine. Ideally, the song should be from a Broadway musical and should be 1 minute or shorter. An accompanist will be provided, so performers should bring sheet music for their song if possible.

Singers who do not have a prepared song will be taught one of the songs from the show at the audition. The song will also serve as the initial acting audition, so Edelman recommends choosing “a character driven song with some dramatic interest.”

For the dance audition, performers should wear comfortable movement clothes. Some performers may be invited to attend additional call-back auditions on Sunday, Dec. 9.

Available male roles include:

• Professor Harold Hill: 30-40 years old, a fast-talking con man who is redeemed by play’s end through his love for Marian the librarian.
• Charlie Cowell: 30-45 years old, a traveling anvil salesman intent on exposing Hill as a fraud.
• Mayor George Shinn: The skeptical mayor of River City.
• Marcellus Washburn: Hill’s old friend and fellow con man.
• Winthrop Paroo: age 10, younger brother of Marian, speaks with a lisp and painfully shy and withdrawn since the death of his father. Professor Hill and his new boy’s band bring Winthrop back to life.
• Tommy Djilas: 17 years old, a town trouble maker who is transformed by Professor Hill and by his love for the Mayor’s eldest daughter Zaneeta.
• The school board quartet: four members of the River City school board (Jacey Squires, Ewart Dunlap, Olin Britt and Oliver Hix) can’t stand each other, but became inseparable when Hill joins them into a barbershop quartet!
• Plus all the boys in Professor Hills band (ages 7-12), a variety of teen agers, at least 5 salesmen (ages 20-60) and other members of the chorus.

Available female roles include:

• Marian Paroo: 26 years old. An “old maid.” She is a music teacher and town librarian. She longs for true love, but rejects Hill as a faker, but sees him differently when she witnesses his effect upon her young brother Winthrop.
• Amaryllis: age 8, “in love” with Winthrop. She is terrified of becoming an “old maid” like Marian.
• Mrs. Paroo: age 45-50, Marian’s mother. An Irish matriarch who would really like to see Marian lighten up and get married.
• Zaneeta Shinn: 17 years old. The mayor’s eldest daughter. In love with Tommy Djilas.
• Pick a little talk a little ladies: counterpart to the school board quartet, a singing gaggle of gossipy women who become inspired when Hill convinces them they can dance!
• Plus a group of teen-age girls in River City’s Fourth of July pageant, possibly some female members (ages 7-12) of Professor Hills “boy’s” band, and other members of the chorus.

Rehearsals will begin Jan. 8, 2013, and continue until the show opens on April 12. Performances will run through April 21, and will include a special student matinee on Tuesday, April 16, at 10:30 a.m.

Several college courses are associated with the production, and all performers will receive college credit. In addition to the performance opportunities, numerous backstage production positions are available. Crews are needed to build scenery, props and costumes, as well as to work as stage managers, light and sound operators and run-crew.

For those with an interest in learning to build costumes, there will be a costume construction course taught by Kathy Dingman Katz. This class will meet Tuesday evenings from 5:30 p.m. to 9:20 p.m.

Alternate audition times can also be arranged, so actors who cannot attend the scheduled auditions on Dec. 8 should contact Reid Edelman ASAP.

For additional information about auditions, or to join the backstage production team, call 707-468-3172 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Our sense of smell is the one sense most likely to transport us through time. A sniff of fried fish on a breeze and I can wind up in my grandmother’s kitchen 60 years ago, getting ready to eat bluegills.

Michael Walsh, a Minnesotan, builds this fine poem about his parents around the odor of cattle that they carry with them, even into this moment.

Barn Clothes

Same size, my parents stained and tore
alike in the barn, their brown hair

ripe as cow after twelve hours of gutters.
At supper they spoke in jokey moos.

Sure, showers could dampen that reek
down to a whiff under fingernails, behind ears,

but no wash could wring the animal from their clothes:
one pair, two pair, husband, wife, reversible.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 University of Arkansas Press, from The Dirt Riddles by Michael Walsh, University of Arkansas Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of Michael Walsh and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

        
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Third Friday Live at the Soper-Reese Community Theatre will feature father-son duo Twice as Good.

The performance takes place on Friday, Nov. 16, at the theater, located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport.

Doors open at 6 p.m., with the music getting started at 7 p.m.

Paul and Rich Steward make up Twice As Good.

The ultimate blues duo performs high energy blues, soul, and rock and roll with screaming guitar and soulful vocals.

The Soper-Reese Community Theatre is a restored performing arts venue that can seat up to 300 patrons and is operated by an all-volunteer management team under the auspices of the Lake County Arts Council.

Tickets are available at The Travel Center in the Shoreline Shopping Center, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; at the theater box office on Fridays from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; and two hours before show time on the day of an event.

Tickets also can be purchased online at www.soperreesetheatre.com .

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – In June, Poets and Writers, a national organization that supports working writers, renewed their grant to the Lake County Arts Council and Mary McMillan.  

This grant supports the free public writing workshop offered monthly in Lakeport, where writers meet at the Main Street Art Gallery, 325 N. Main St., at 6:30 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month.  

The Lake County Arts Council sponsors the workshop, and former Lake County Poet Laureate Mary McMillan facilitates it.

Residents from all over Lake County come to the Writers Circle to share memoirs, fiction, essays or poems they have written – or just to listen and get inspired.  

More seasoned writers and writers just beginning join together to offer feedback, build their skills and find new ideas.  

Aged 19 to 90, some people come only one or two times, and others show up every month.

Poets and Writers provides this grant through a grant it has received from the James Irvine Foundation.

For more information contact Mary McMillan at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

LINCOLN (Rated PG-13)

Steven Spielberg delivers a brilliant masterpiece on American history with “Lincoln,” from a screenplay based in part on the book “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Lincoln” by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Fear not, history is far from a ponderous, tedious exercise with this lively exploration of the full measure of this great president, a man whose passion and humanity is on full display.

The rich human drama that played out near the end of the Civil War is all the more impressive because Daniel Day-Lewis skillfully makes Abraham Lincoln the tall, elegant and imposing figure of authority that history informs us was the case.

To its everlasting credit, “Lincoln” dwells on the final four months of the 16th president’s life and presidency, when a shattered nation teeters on the very real possibility of the Union forever dissolved.

History, but not the movie, enlightens us on Lincoln’s use of draconian emergency powers during the Civil War, such as the suspension of habeas corpus and outright media censorship.
 
There’s very little battlefield action here, and what there is merely sets the tone for certain political necessities that follow from ending the war so that the United States is once again whole.

“Lincoln” the movie focuses on the extraordinary steps that the president took in doubling down on the war effort, not merely to end the Civil War but to push for the enactment of the 13th Amendment that would permanently abolish slavery.

Most of the action takes place during the month of January 1865, when the reelected Lincoln makes an all-out effort to secure passage of the amendment in the ill-tempered House of Representatives.

The president relies on the help of Republican Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), powerful chairman of the House Way and Means Committee and a fiery and often irascible advocate of the abolitionist movement.

Lincoln’s secretary of state William H. Seward (David Strathairn), a former political adversary during the 1860 election, was an indispensable ally in the fight to save the Union, and as such, he helped, albeit reluctantly, organize a lobbying effort to spread patronage in an ingenious vote-buying scheme.

Some comic relief comes from a trio of lobbyists (John Hawkes, James Spader and Tim Blake Nelson) who run around Capitol Hill offering lucrative government jobs to the very Democratic congressmen who were not otherwise inclined to abolish slavery by any measure.

Meanwhile, plenty of fireworks take place not just in the halls of Congress but inside the White House as well. Sally Field fully realizes the complicated role of Mary Todd Lincoln, alternately supportive of her husband or so emotionally overwrought as to be a thorn in his side.

We often catch the Great Emancipator in a pensive mood as he wanders late at night through the White House tormented by the pressing burdens of his office. On top of that, he’s a vulnerable husband and father who must cope, respectively, with his demanding wife and the ongoing grief of son Willie’s death.

More family drama intrudes with Mrs. Lincoln’s insistence that oldest son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) not join the war effort. Even against the president’s wishes, Robert wanted to join the Union Army, not seeking any favor because of his station in life.

Without the knowledge of Secretary Seward, Lincoln sends a delegation to Richmond in an attempt to negotiate the surrender of the Confederacy. Meanwhile, he has to stall this peace effort just long enough to pass the 13th Amendment.

The political intrigue in the nation’s capitol is fascinating. Lincoln realizes that unless the abolition of slavery is enshrined in the Constitution, the reconstituted Union is unlikely to pass the amendment when Democratic representatives from the South join the Congress.

Politics in its rawest form is fully on display in the contentious debate over the abolition of slavery. The sharp-tongued Thaddeus Stevens is a wonder to behold as he skewers the hypocrisy of his Democratic adversaries.

The most theatrical aspects of “Lincoln” occur as the result of debates in Congress about the 13th Amendment. One great showdown involves Congressman Stevens’ heated and acerbic tongue-lashing of pro-slavery Democrat Fernando Wood (Lee Pace).

The portrait of Abraham Lincoln that emerges is a man of raw paradoxes, one who is funny and solemn, as well as shrewd and vulnerable. The president dotes on his youngest son and is a playful storyteller, but he’s also a fierce power broker and astute commander.

Thrust into the high stakes battle to save the American Union, Lincoln comes into view as a master strategist brokering deals with members of the opposition as well as recalcitrant members of his own party.

It’s never a good idea to come away from a movie with the notion that the historical figures have been depicted with accuracy and fairness. “Lincoln,” though, seems like an honest attempt to capture the essence of one of the most compelling figures in the history of mankind.

Spielberg’s “Lincoln” is ambitious filmmaking at its best. This brilliant film shows that the president was not just a multifaceted statesman and military leader, but also a dedicated and introspective family man coping with an enormous number of challenges.

Daniel Day-Lewis is simply superb as Abraham Lincoln. If he’s not nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actor, I would question the judgment of the voters.

TELEVISION BOOK UPDATE

A period drama of the early 20th Century, “Downton Abbey” is a smash hit on PBS’ “Masterpiece Classic,” soon to return in January for its third season.

Meanwhile, to satisfy the legions of fans, St. Martin’s Press has released the beautifully illustrated “The Chronicles of Downton Abbey,” highlighting the history of the popular show.

When Season 3 of the award-winning TV series opens, it is 1920 and the occupants of the Great House are waking up to a world forever changed by World War I.

New challenges to the established order and new guests abound, with more intrigue, rivalry and romance than ever. In this new era, different family members arrive, include Shirley MacLaine.

“The Chronicles of Downton Abbey” ties in nicely with the upcoming third season. The book is lavishly designed and gloriously illustrated and full of intimate detail.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – Spirited and attractive Elena Casanova, who has won widespread admiration in previous Lake County appearances, will perform as featured soloist at the Sunday, Nov. 18, concert of the Lake County Symphony.

Casanova will play Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major on CLPA’s Yamaha grand piano. It will take place at Lakeport’s Soper-Reese Community Theatre at 3 p.m.

Cuban-born Casanova studied at Havana’s Alejandro Garcia Culturia, as well as California’s Pacific Union College and the San Francisco Conservatory. She earned her bachelor of arts in music at the University of Redlands, and since moving to Mendocino County has played in many concerts and recitals, including at least two in Lake County.

Symphony conductor John Parkinson has assembled an all-Mozart program for the Fall concert, entitled “Mozart Masterpieces” and Casanova’s selection fits into this theme. The Piano Concerto she chose is often called “The Coronation Concerto” because the composer wrote it to commemorate the coronation of Leopold II as Holy Roman Emperor.

For Mozart-lovers – and there are many in Lake County – the concert will be a jewel, with Parkinson also leading the orchestra in one of Mozart’s most beloved and endearing works “The Haffner” which was dedicated to one of the composer’s sponsors. Its official title is the Symphony No. 35 in D Major. Also on the program is the Overture to one of Mozart’s most popular operas “The Marriage of Figaro” which resulted from the first collaboration between the Austrian composer and Italian librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its instant popularity led to two more – Don Giovanni” and Cosi fan Tutte.”

Over his 30-plus years of leading the Symphony Parkinson has presented a panoply of classical and popular music, but returns often to Mozart because of the the elegance and emotion of his music. Lake County audiences evidently agree, since past “Mostly Mozart” concerts have often been sellouts.

The CLPA Youth Orchestra, under the direction of Susan Condit, will adhere to the Mozart theme with two numbers from the prolific composer. They are from one of only two symphonies Mozart ever wrote in the minor key. Called the Great G Minor Symphony, it has been described as one of his most “intensely emotional” works. The second is the Rondo Alla Turko, from the Piano Sonata No. 11, especially scored for an orchestra the size of the Youth group.

There is just one departure from the Mozart program, and that is a solo rendition of Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto Op 3, No. 6 by 9 year old Rafael Contreras who blew the audience away when he performed the same piece at the CLPA annual meeting in September. Contreras is a fourth grader at Lower Lake Elementary School and has won recognition for his skillful and emotional playing.

Member admission to the fall concert will be $20. With general admission $25 and tickets may be ordered in advance at 263-0577 or online at www.soperreesetheatre.com . Season tickets also are available.

Both Casanova and the Symphony and Youth Orchestras will perform a full rehearsal at 11 a.m., to which youths under 18 will be admitted free. Adult admission will be $5.