TRAILER: The Trumpet of The Swan

Can a brass horn be the key to love? Louis, a trumpeter swan, is different from his sibling cygnets, for he was born without a voice. But with great diligence, patience, and resilience, Louis learns to play the trumpet and communicate his thoughts and feelings through the power of music. E. B. White’s award-winning story "The Trumpet of the Swan" is inspired by the natural world and our own very human need to connect and to communicate. This innovative, all-ages production features both spoken language and American Sign Language. It runs from October 23 - November 22, 2015 at Wheelock Family Theatre in Boston's Fenway neighborhood.

Wheelock Family Theatre is a professional theatre company that creates intergenerational and multicultural productions that provide a shared experience for the whole family.  Our productions celebrate the diverse range of families found in the world today and seek to unite them in the shared experience of live theatre. Learn more at wheelockfamilytheatre.org.

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Focusing on ABILITY within The Trumpet of the Swan

Ability

Director Shelley Bolman reminds us that “We’re all, when it comes down to it, on the spectrum of ability versus disability. I want to encourage everyone to see people for their abilities, for what they can do, not for their limitations… just as Cob eventually does for Louis.”

For example. When Louis goes to school, he learns to read and write. When he gets his trumpet, he teaches himself to play. It never occurs to him that he might not be able to do these things. Not being able to make sounds with his voice is a challenge for Louis, but it doesn’t slow him down. He just finds other ways to say what he wants or needs.

Theatre as a Rehearsal for Life!

Education Programs at Wheelock Family Theatre

Wheelock Family Theatre’s Education Programs are sustained by both a professional theatre staff and Wheelock College, whose mission is improving the quality of life for children and families. Child-development faculty from Wheelock College work with artist-educators from WFT to create a challenging and rigorous theater curriculum that is available throughout the year. The result is a dynamic and exciting education program for students between the ages of 5 and 18. A scope and sequence process can inspire at any age. Some young people might pursue a career in the arts, some may develop an appreciation for patronage, and others might take the practices of critical thinking and creative problem solving into business or science. WFT wants to develop healthy, caring, engaged citizens with the necessary tools and skill sets for life!

SHREK Theater Review by Anne Pieterse

“Your horny warts, your rosy wens,

Like slimy bogs and fusty fens,

Thrill me” –William Steig (from Shrek)

“Shrek” was the first, one of the many children’s picture books, artist William Steig wrote and illustrated. Then Shrek became a DreamWorks movie followed by a Broadway musical. And now tonight, “Shrek the Musical” is the final production of the Wheelock Family Theatre’s 34^th season. And what a brilliant opening night performance it was. Directed by Shelly Bolman, choreographed by Patricia Manalo Bochnak, musical direction by Matthew Stern, and costume designer Charles G. Baldwin worked together to create a production filled with dazzling entertainment. There were dance numbers to get you stomping your feet, comedy for all ages, solo singing, and vibrant choral numbers, songs mixed with dance numbers, all tucked together with simple movable sets. Whether in book, film, or theatrical presentations, the story of Shrek remains the same. It is an ugly duckling tale (with a twist), an ogre named Shrek wants to be a left alone in his swap. Farquaad (the current ruler, but not yet King) is a self- impressed bully, who orders Shrek to rescue the princess Fiona so he can marry her and the become King. Battles with fire breathing dragons and “Donkey’s” wisdom, give heart to this endearing and satisfying story. The tale promotes diversity and encourages more than superficial thought when we are asked to consider what makes a princess and what characteristics her suitor should have. The story encourages us to celebrate who we are and how we do it. To look beyond the assumptions we make when judging ourselves and others.

Experienced talented actors, Christopher Chew (Shrek), Shonna Cirone (Fiona), Maurice Emmanuel Parent (Donkey), Mark Linehan (Farquaad), set the tone by their strong performances. The smaller characters roles of Young Shrek, Young and Teenage Fiona, Thelonius, Bishop, Mama Ogre, Papa Ogre, King Harold, and the Knights did superior work as well, often playing more than one part.

Shrek the Ogre just wants to be left alone in his swamp and has no interest in having fairytale trash living next to him. The “Fairytale Trash” community of creatures are easily recognized as the characters from Grimm’s fairytales, old cartoons, and Disney movies: Pinocchio, Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Baby Bear, Fairy Godmother, Red Queen, Bluebird, Genie, Little Red Riding Hood, Chip, The Teacup from Beauty and the Beast, Ariel, The Three Blind Mice, The Three Little Pigs, Ugly Duckling, Queen Lillian, Wicked Witch, Captain Hook, Pied Piper, Big Bad Crossdressing Wolf, Ginny and Peter Pan. The costumes were made with bright dazzling colors that allowed the audience to easily recognize the familiar characters. And a variety of jokes are enhanced by the audiences past history and knowledge of fairytale creatures.

The live 8 man orchestra including keyboard, 2 reeds, trumpet, trombone, guitar, bass, and drums sat under the stage and was first-rate.

The use of puppets was captivating when eight puppet handlers maneuvered the dramatic giant Dragon that towered, twisted, and turned majestically over the stage. The handlers moved as one and actually danced with the flow of the Dragon’s swirling body from the fire coming out of her mouth to the tip of her long pointy tail. Hand puppets were used too. Funny scenes involving the torture of the Gingerbread Man were hilarious. The Gingerbread Man cookie puppet ends up shouting, “Eat me!” and the audience roared.

Young children in the audience seemed to be smitten and enthralled by the sparkles, glitter, and energy of the evening. Unobtrusive open captioned, by illuminated lighting on both sides of the stage, aided in the enjoyment for those hard of hearing and deaf. Each production offers final weekend performances that are interpreted in American Sign Language and audio-described for patrons who are blind, with Braille programs available upon request. All productions offer enhancements for patrons with cognitive disabilities or sensory sensitivities. Everyone should partake, and savor the fun in this delightful show.

Review by Jeremy Goodwin; Boston Globe: The Taste of Sunrise

An inclusive message from ‘The Taste of Sunrise’

Toward the very end of “The Taste of Sunrise,” there’s an emotionally eloquent argument between Amanda Collins’s Maizie, a teenage girl with a hard-luck life and Hollywood-inspired dreams, and Tuc, a deaf boy who has befriended her, played by Elbert Joseph, an actor who indeed happens to be deaf.

Maizie can hear just fine but was born to deaf parents, she explains, and she doesn’t want her children to be stuck between worlds like she was. With the aid of American Sign Language (ASL) and plenty of nonverbal communication, Tuc insists that she has a home in his hilltop shack.

Between these two actors and others onstage who unobtrusively interpret for them, the characters’ words are rendered in spoken English as well as ASL. In the swirl of emotion and the swift rat-a-tat-tat of their exchange, it’s almost hard to tell where one language ends and the other begins. They’re all just different voices, different parts of the same story.

It’s in moments like these that this production of Suzan Zeder’s play at Wheelock Family Theatre finds its energetic stride, depicting people in trying circumstances looking for some sort of connection in a world that seems bent on keeping them isolated. If parts of this earnest play, intended for young audiences as well as adults, feel a bit like a nutritious serving of theatrical vegetables rather than a compelling drama, it’s a modest price to pay.

Joseph didn’t start acting until he felt inspired, as a 12-year old, by a production of “Peter Pan” at the Wheelock. His performance as the centerpiece of “The Taste of Sunrise” is sandwiched between turns as the same character in “Mother Hicks” (at the Paramount last month) and “The Edge of Peace,” which opens at Central Square Theater on April 3.

Zeder’s trilogy deals with the evolving state of the deaf experience in America, as seen through the doings in and around Ware, Ill., before, during, and after the Great Depression. This trio of productions is billed as the first time the plays have been mounted in consecutive fashion in (more or less) the same city.

Joseph plays Tuc as a large-hearted simpleton prone to big emotions and forceful mood swings — here he’s terrified, there he’s bursting with anticipation. For all its lack of verbal speech, it’s a very loud performance, suggesting the sublimated frustration of a young man who is frequently silenced. Sure, I would have preferred more nuance, but the many children in the audience at a Saturday matinee seemed to follow everything just fine, and that seems closer to the point.

Co-directors Kristin Johnson and Wendy Lement weave some wonderful moments of understated poetry into a story that otherwise works in broad strokes. The depiction of children being struck by scarlet fever, and, later, of one character’s death, go far with simple props and graceful movement. When Tuc physically leans on the memory of a departed family member in the second act, the visual metaphor is easy for all to grasp, yet quietly pretty.

Costumed onstage interpreters perform much more than a purely functional purpose. They are parallel manifestations of each character’s inner life, and move within the action with grace and wit. (Line by line, the play’s text is also projected at the rear of the stage.) Long gone, Johnson and Lement seem to say, is the sole ASL interpreter relegated to a little oval in the corner of a television screen — or wearing street clothes, bathed in a footlight, at the front of the stage. (In a post-show audience talkback, Zeder said this is the most “inclusive” production of the play she has seen.)

Janie E. Howland’s set and Lisa Simpson’s costumes evoke the Depression, though there’s a notable shortage of the dirt and grime we might expect on a farm or among rural townsfolk who still mistake midwifery for witchcraft.

Though a group of young students from the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Allston prove a quite welcome addition to the ensemble, the play gathers momentum when it focuses on only a few characters’ stories in the second half. Brittany Rolfs brings a bemused swagger to Nell, the midwife whose fondness for singing to the gravely ill is mistaken as malevolent spell-casting; her efforts to lay aside her own grief do much to aid the show’s climax. As a very likable Maizie, Collins is both street-wise and naive. Cliff Odle projects warm-hearted gravitas as Tuc’s father. Ethan Hermanson is a steady anchor for the audience, as the narrating voice of Tuc.

The heavy-handed nature of this play is hinted at in its title. But with this production Wheelock offers a tasteful model for mixing together the deaf and the hearing — onstage, backstage, and in the audience — to create an entertainment that is coherent to each and panders to neither.

 

Review by Al Chase: The Taste of Sunrise

Some Things Are So Beautiful They Do Not Need Sound

photo by Craig Bailey/Perspective Photo

My heart is full and my head is spinning as I sit down to capture my thoughts and emotions after having attended the opening performance of "The Taste of Sunrise - Part Two of The Ware Trilogy" by Suzan Zeder.  This play serves as a prequel to "Mother Hicks," which was presented recently by Emerson Stage.  You may want to take a moment to read my review of that play using the link below.

In this play, the playwright fills in the back story of Tuc.  We learn how he became deaf after a bout with scarlet fever that almost took his life.  We learn of his struggles to communicate with his father, the mixed blessing of his years at the deaf school in Carbondale, and his return home to be with his dying father.  Wheelock Family Theatre is hosting the second segment of this World Premiere event - the first time that all three plays in the Ware Trilogy have been produced in the same city.  All three of the plays are performed bilingually in English and American Sign Language (ASL).

If this is Tuc's play, then it is also certainly Elbert Joseph's play.  He is the deaf actor who portrays Tuc. We see his words projected on the upstage wall, we hear his words being spoken by Ethan Hermanson and Cliff Odle, who also plays Tuc's father.  And Mr. Joseph conveys his words with ASL.  As effective as these triple means of communication may be, they are almost redundant.  For the actor's expressions and movement and stage presence are so compelling and so clear that there is never any doubt what thoughts and feelings and intentions he is radiating.  This is one of the finest performances by an actor I have seen on a Boston stage.

 Suzan Zeder has created something special in this trilogy.  At one level she is recounting the history of a particular community - Ware, Illinois.  At a more significant level, she is addressing the common human hunger for a sense of belonging to a community.  Tuc is the central figure desperately striving to connect and to fit in and to communicate, but there are many other characters in the trilogy whose longing is similar.  At another level, the plays recount the bumpy history of the efforts by the deaf community to define itself despite the well-meaning machinations of educators who "know what we are doing" who forbid the use of gestures or signs because they believed it would stand in the way of learning to read lips and express ideas orally.  At the end of the day, Tuc manages to create his own community - his own family, not bound by genetic ties or geographic propinquity, but forged by a mutual desire for meaningful connection and communication across formidable barriers.

At a crucial juncture near the end of the play, Tuc and Nell Hicks are thrown together and needing to depend upon one another.  But he is deaf and communicates in signs - what Nell calls "air pictures."  And Nell is hearing and does not understand Tuc's signs.  They reach out to one another and plead "Teach me - Teach me - Teach me!"  Nell screams the message in words; Tuc screams in gestures and signs.  And they begin to teach one another. As the level of their connection and communication deepens, Tuc asks Nell, "What does the sunrise sound like?"  Nell ruminates for a moment, and then responds with the answer: "Some things are so beautiful they do not need sound."

The same things must be said of Mr. Joseph's performance.  It was so beautiful that it did not need sound.

 In leaving my seat following the standing ovation and the deaf community's enthusiastic waving of hands to indicate applause, I found myself part of an instant community.  It was the community of those of us - dozens of men and women - who needed to pause, remove our glasses and wipe the tears from our eyes so that we could see to find our way out of the theater.

Go see this show and be moved as we were.

Review by Sheila Barth: The Taste of Sunrise

Emerson Stage, Central Square Theater and Wheelock Family Theatre have joined together to present author Suzan Zeder’s The Ware Trilogy. Although I missed Emerson Stage’s production of the first play, “Mother Hicks,” in February, I can’t imagine it could  surpass Wheelock’s sensitive, exquisite, poetic performance of “The Taste of Sunrise,” part II of Zeder’s dramatic triptych. The final play, “The Edge of Peace,” will be performed at Central Square Theater in April. They’re interconnected, but each play can stand on its own merit.

For the first time, Zeder’s trilogy is being produced sequentially in one area, enabling theatergoers to progress with the tale of Tuc, a deaf man, outcast Nell Hicks, and a foundling child, Girl.

Nell Hicks (Brittany Rolfs), a mysterious woman, cures with singing spells, herbs and potions. The Ware villagers think she’s a witch, because whomever she cures ends up afflicted or dead, they say.

In “The Taste of Sunrise,” directed by Wendy Lement and also Kristin Johnson, we progress with Tuc, from 1917 to 1928, from his infancy, becoming motherless, and being stricken deaf after a bout with scarlet fever, to his becoming an outcast; his experiences at a prestigious deaf school; loss of his father; and his return home.

Although you can’t tell, several ensemble actors, (along with a co-director, a co-assistant director, and the lighting designer) are Deaf. They blend beautifully with their hearing counterparts in this large cast, including popular Boston stars Cliff Odle, as Tuc’s loving father; Sirena Abalian, and Lewis D. Wheeler, portraying various roles and voices.

Amidst award-winning designer Janie E. Howland’s sun-drenched rustic background and set, the cast ensures every word is captured, with actor-narrators, sign interpreters, and the dialogue and stage direction beamed on the backdrop.

Roger J. Moore’s realistic sound effects and Annie Wiegand’s sensitive lighting capture changes in time, place and mood. Patricia Manalo Bocknak”s stunning choreography enhances dramatic scenes.

In the opening scene, we are engulfed in silence. Actors flutter their hands like birds, ripple them like running water, and wave like the wind. A lone narrator (Ethan Hermanson) speaks from the background, while upstage, Elbert Joseph, a superlative, deaf, Caribbean-American young actor, owns the spotlight, delivering a gut-wrenching, mesmerizing performance as the main character, “Tuc”.

Tuc’s frustration at people’s intolerance, misjudgment, and inability to understand him during his various stages, are disturbing, frightening, evoking our sympathy.

Dr. Alexis Graham, (Donna Sorbello), a well-intended teacher at the School for the Deaf, convinces Tuc’s loving father to let the boy leave his peaceful, verdant surroundings, where he communes with the wind, river, birds, bees, and all forms of nature, to attend the faraway residential school.

Watching Tuc’s fear, isolation and gloom dissipate when he meets Maizie, (Amanda Collins) a teen-age cleaning girl at the school, is heartwarming. Maizie can hear, but her parents are deaf, so she says she is, too, “inside”. She and her parents work menial jobs at the school, but starstruck Maizie loves movies, mentally mingling them with reality, and her hopes for the future.

Tuc’s joy reverberates while playacting with Maizie, fellow student Roscoe (superb Deaf actor Matthew J. Schwartz), and his Deaf classmates, until Superintendent Dr. Grindly Mann (Daniel Bolton) shatters their fun by admonishing then for using sign language instead of their words. He raps them on the hands with a ruler and imposes stricter discipline on a defiant Roscoe and the followers.

Nevertheless, Tuc flourishes at the school, learning to communicate with his peers. He eagerly returns home for the summer to demonstrate his new skills, but his enthusiasm dissipates- his father can’t understand him. Throughout Tuc and his father’s life changes, Cliff Odle as Jonas Tucker is deeply moving.

Tuc, Nell Hicks, Maizie, and Jonas Tucker’s disappointments and losses in their imperfect world are depressing, yet their journey promises hope, a touch- and taste- of sunrise at the end.

A new play at the Family Theatre. And a Dad's perspective!

 

The following exchange occurs near the beginning of the movie “Shakespeare in Love”:

Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.

Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?

Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

Hugh Fennyman: How?

Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.

 

It’s not really a mystery.  It’s more like a miracle. (And, of course, only a producer could get away with saying “we do nothing.”)  I was lucky enough to witness such a miracle over the last few weeks.

 

My twelve year-old daughter Anna, had been given the opportunity to help bring a new work to life for the first time in a professional setting. She had been invited to perform as part of the Youth Ensemble in "Alice" at Wheelock Family Theatre.  Our job as parents was to make our children available for rehearsals in an ever changing environment. None of us could fully anticipate what we were getting ourselves into.

 

We felt comfortable heading into the unknown because Anna had performed in Wheelock’s production of The Hobbit last fall.  We knew that the atmosphere at WFT was professional, but mindful of the limitations of young performers - they did their best to limit the long hours and to allow the kids to get home at a reasonable hour on school nights. We also knew that Alice had been written and was to be directed by Andrew Barbato. Andrew was Bilbo last year and we knew him to be a very talented artist with a unique vision.

 

From the first table read it was evident that there was real brilliance in what Andrew had written and real talent among the performers assembled. At times, though, it really did seem like the obstacles to bringing it to life were insurmountable and disaster was imminent. Schedules, scripts and blocking changed by the day and sometimes by the hour. There never seemed to be enough time to accomplish everything. But somehow by the final dress rehearsal the cast and crew were able to present something close to Andrew’s vision.  There was no mystery to how success was achieved. The miracle was brought about by the hard work and dedication of everyone involved. Andrew kept asking the cast to give more of themselves and they rose to the occasion every single time. It was amazing to watch it all happen.

 

The experience of being able to work with seasoned professionals to put together a new show is something Anna will be able to carry with her always. All of the adults in the cast, especially Maritza Bostic (Alice) and Aubin Wise (The White Queen), treated the ensemble like valuable members of the team.

 

There were some disappointments.  Anna’s role (and that of all of the Youth Ensemble) was diminished from the original script.  She didn’t get to sing at all - which is what she enjoys doing most. We told her, “That’s show biz.  You just have to go out and do the best you can with whatever they ask you to do.” She did that to the best of her ability and she can be proud of the outcome, as can everyone involved.

-Stephen Kraffmiller

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon in the Boston Globe

In ‘Mountain,’ a girl’s quest, and an author’s

By Joel Brown  Globe Correspondent   April 10, 2014

 

As a girl in upstate New York, Grace Lin rejected her Chinese heritage.

“There were no other Asian or minority families that lived in the area,” says Lin, whose parents emigrated from Taiwan. “I kind of decided early on that I was just going to pretend that I wasn’t Chinese. I was going to pretend that I was Caucasian, like everybody was in my class. I did such a good job of that that I really did forget most of the time that I was Chinese. I used to walk down the street and see my reflection in a store window and be like, ‘Oh, there’s a Chinese girl. Wait, that’s me.’ ”

Growing up in Cambridge years later, Caroline Workman embraced her own mother’s Chinese heritage. And one of her favorite books was “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon,” a novel for young readers based on Chinese folk tales, written and illustrated . . . by Grace Lin.

It all comes full circle beginning Friday, when Workman, 14, stars in a stage adaptation of “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon” at Wheelock Family Theatre, a New England premiere that runs through May 11.

“I loved the story, and I was so excited to see what it would look like onstage, whether I was in it or not,” says Workman.

Lin will spend much of this weekend at Wheelock, where she will receive the Wheel Award for commitment to children and families and changing lives through art. “It’s a really neat thing,” says Lin, who counts 15 books in print that she both wrote and illustrated, “because you spend so much time alone in your studio or your writing room, and you kind of put your work out into the universe and you don’t really know if it goes anywhere.

“And then to know there’s a whole production being made of something that came from nothing, that just came from your imagination, is a really cool feeling,” says Lin, who moved from Somerville to Northampton last year.

The book and play tell the story of a girl named Minli (played by Workman) who, inspired by her father’s folk tales, sets off on an adventure-filled quest to find the Old Man of the Moon and ask him how she can change her family’s fortunes.

“What she learns on the journey is: The good fortune we seek to begin with isn’t the good fortune we find, but we do find what really matters,” says director Jane Staab.

“I love that Minli is so kind and so smart,” says Workman. “She puts the puzzle pieces together, and she thinks of what to do to go over an obstacle. She’s so quick-witted.”

Lin says she used to get angry when her parents tried to teach her about Chinese culture “because I felt like all they were trying to do was remind me how different I was from my classmates.” But eventually she changed her mind, and “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon” in part resulted from one of her mother’s early efforts to connect her to her roots.

“One day she went out and got about six to 12 Chinese fairy tale books that had been translated to English, and she put them on the bookshelf in the living room and just left them there. She knew if she gave them to me I’d get mad.

“She was really smart. I did end up reading every single one of them,” Lin says. “But I remember feeling like these books weren’t that great. The translation was kind of rough, there wasn’t a lot of detail, everything was kind of flat, and the illustrations were really kind of crude. I think it kind of reinforced the idea that my Asian heritage was kind of inferior to these Western things, like ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Cinderella.’ ”

Many years later, she regretted not knowing more about her heritage and spent a lot of time trying to recapture what she had missed, including travels to China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. “All of a sudden those fairy tales came back to me. I’d see them in the landscape around me.”

She started making up her own stories about them, and “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon,” published in 2009, was the end result. Workman and her mother attended Lin book signings, and a print of Lin’s art hangs in Workman’s room.

“Where the Mountain Meets the Moon” will be Staab’s last show at Wheelock, at least for a while. After 33 years at the theater, as cofounder, casting director, business manager and artistic director, she is retiring in June. Going forward, the theater will be run by producer Wendy Lement and assistant producer Shelley Bolman, who have been in their jobs since Staab’s cofounder Susan Kosoff retired in 2012.

“There’s no particular reason, it’s just I turned 70, you know?” says Staab. “But I don’t believe I’m done with the creative side of my life. I sure hope not.”

Workman is a busy young actor and dancer whose resume includes a stint in “Billy Elliot” on Broadway. She says she’s excited to work once again with Staab, who also acted in or directed the other three shows she’s been in at Wheelock.

“Caroline is a special talent. We’ve seen her grow up in this theater,” Staab says. “I think we’ve brought her and her acting to a place she can be thrilled with.”

To this day, Lin says, she doesn’t speak Chinese well and cannot write it. Workman, though, is excited for next fall when she’ll be a freshman at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where one of her classes will be Mandarin Chinese.

Joel Brown can be reached at jbnbpt@gmail.com.