To protect and preserve

Yolanda London, Eric Boudreau and Colin Ross in Childsplay's "Rock the Presidents"

With all the political bantering these days, I sometimes worry that the office of president isn’t getting the respect it deserves. So I was thrilled when Childsplay’s Sunday preview of “Rock the Presidents” at Tempe Center for the Arts opened with a rap number called “Hail to the Chiefs” — which recounts the name of each president while reinforcing our duty as Americans to protect and preserve the highest office in the land.

Think what you will of any given president, but know that the office is worthy of respect and dignity, and we do ourselves no favors by attempting to diminish it. “Rock the Presidents” is a perfectly non-partisan look at those who have served, which makes clear both their humanity and their dedication to the nation. It’s easy to sit back and criticize, and so little that’s worthy comes of it.

Better to teach our children to honor those who step up and lead, and to remind them that they too have the power to make a difference. Public service is a noble calling. And being an informed, engaged citizen is essential. These are the messages conveyed throughout “Rock the Presidents,” a musical salute to all 43 presidents featuring book and lyrics by Dwayne Hartford and music by Sarah Roberts.

Roberts plays guitar on the soundtrack, as does Jason Brown. Other musicians include Jonathan Ivie (piano and keyboard), Scott Miner (bass), Mark Stolper (drums), David Dickinson (Violin) and Scott Leader (ukelele and guitar). Jonathan Ivie is musical director for the work, which features everything from rock and rap to country and calypso. Think concert meets classroom.

The “Rock the Presidents” set, designed by Holly Windingstad, is a mix of stately and sparkly red, white and blue elements with a giant screen in the center onto which images of presidents and related fare from speeches to statues are projected throughout the show thanks to projection design by Limitrophe Films. It adds a fabulously nostalgic feel while upping the show’s educational value for children and teens.

Eric Boudreau, Yolanda London and Colin Ross rapping "Hail to the Chiefs"

Eric Bourdeau (Harry), Yolanda London (Amy) and Colin Ross (Ted) open “Rock the Presidents” donning black secret service gear by costume designer D. Daniel Hollingshead as they appear to sing into tiny spy mics hidden in the ends of their sleeves. They’re capable quick change artists who also rock general, cowboy, hippie and other vibes during the 90-minute gig that features choreography by Molly Lajoie. Think line dancing to shades of disco, all done in good taste.

Director Anthony Runfola strikes a perfect balance between rock concert and musical theater production. Lighting design by Tim Monson plays up the rock star vibe, as do cast member shenanigans with standing mics, high fives with children seated in the front row and shouts like “Thank you Tempe!” Their first crowd laughed and clapped with enthusiasm, rising to a standing ovation after the final number titled “Are You a President-to-be?”

The fact that every American president to date has been a man isn’t lost on Hartford, who included plenty of dialogue and lyrics hailing women who’ve made a difference while encouraging girls in the audience to aspire to the country’s highest office. But the favorite number by far, which closes the first act, was a little ditty on presidential pets from ordinary to odd called “They Got a Dog.”

The second act opens with “Not Made of Stone,” performed against the backdrop of an image of Mount Rushmore. It’s an ode to each president’s humanity which, when coupled with “I’m Not All Bad,” reminds folks that every president has both accomplishments and failures. Presidents, you see, are people too. In many ways, they’re like me and you.

Presidents we’ve lost are remembered in “What Could Have Been?,” while the contributions made by presidents after leaving office are celebrated in “I Am More Than Four Years.” Two rounds of “The Presi-tron” test audience member knowledge of presidential trivia, and “Who in the World is Millard Fillmore?” pays tribute to presidents too often forgotten.

Colin Ross in Rock the Presidents, being performed in Tempe through March 4

The song “John and Tom,” which praises the mutual civility demonstrated by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson despite conflicting ideas, feels most relevant for today’s society seeped in supercharged sniping. We don’t have to agree on everything to get along, or to get things done.

My own favorite song is “The Only Thing We Have to Fear,” inspired by FDR’s first inaugural address. Hartford says his greatest hope is that folks will be entertained by “Rock the Presidents.” That’s clearly the case. But I suspect something more will happen too, as those who “Rock the Presidents” with Childsplay reaffirm their responsibility to protect and preserve.

— Lynn

Note: The creative team for “Rock the Presidents” also includes Christopher Neumeyer (sound design). Samantha Monson serves as stage manager and Jenny Millinger serves as dramaturge. David Saar is Childsplay’s founder and artistic director, and Steve Martin serves as managing director.

Coming up: Let’s Play!

Photos: Heather Hill

I’m just a bill…

Arts advocates gathered at the Arizona Capitol yesterday for the 2012 Arts Congress.

First, a heartfelt thanks to all of you who made it to yesterday’s Arizona Arts Congress — and to the legislators who took time to meet with all the lovely folks who care about arts and culture, and the role it plays in our economy, community, schools and everyday lives.

Thankfully, those of us who couldn’t make it can still weigh in with our legislators about just how much we value arts and culture. Arizona Citizens/Action for the Arts has details about three issues noted on its website — and makes it easy for folks to send e-mails to the folks who vote on such things.

Arizona Representative Steve Farley meeting with arts advocates during the 2011 Arts Congress at the Arizona State Capitol

Seems there’s already a bit of good news on that front. Today the Arizona House of Representatives committee considering HB 2265 decided to move it forward for consideration by the larger legislative body. HB 2265 authorizes the continuation, for another ten years, of the Arizona Commission on the Arts.

This makes me a happy camper, because they’re an invaluable resource for artists, educators and citizens. If you’re not getting their newsletters, you’re missing the latest and greatest news about arts-related events, arts education, funding opportunities, calls for student artwork and much more.

Arizona Representative Ruben Gallego meeting with David Hemphill of the Black Theatre Troupe during the 2011 Arts Congress attended by more than 200 advocates

But HB 2265 is just one of three arts-related issues working its way through this legislative session. Another, SB 1348, would establish an Arizona poet laureate. We need a state poet; don’t I know it. Finally, there’s a section of the governor’s proposed budget that would further cut funding for arts — and advocates can still weigh in on that prospect.

Those of you who remember the musical “Schoolhouse Rock” can probably still sing David Frishberg’s lyrics for “I’m Just a Bill.” But nothing is ever “just a bill.” Every piece of legislation working its way through both the Arizona House of Representatives and the Arizona Senate has the potential to impact our daily lives. Click here to join fellow citizens championing the arts in Arizona.

— Lynn

Note: If you have photos from this year’s Arizona Arts Congress to share, I’d love to see them — and you may find them featured in a future post. Click here to learn more about this weekend’s “Arizona Best Fest” Phoenix taking place at, and around, the Arizona Capitol Mall (and watch for a future post highlighting monuments your family can explore during your visit).

Coming up: Reflections from Catherine “Rusty” Foley, executive director for Arizona Citizens/Action for the Arts

Photos: 2011 Arts Congress photos courtesy of Arizona Citizens/Action for the Arts

Art adventures: Arizona Capitol Museum

When the Arizona legislature is in session, hardly a day goes by without members of the local or national media reporting on controversial happenings at the Arizona State Capitol. But this is nothing new.

When my oldest daughter (now an ASU student interested in history and cultural anthroplogy) was in grade school, she spent a year home schooling. We spent lots of time at the Arizona State Capitol — exploring museum exhibits and sitting in on legislative hearings.

Back then, the hot button issue was cash rebates and tax credits for folks buying alternative fuel vehicles or converting vehicles for possible alternative fuel use. While the practice sounded good in theory, it became a wildly unwieldy enterprise as costs of the program soared past expectations and spiraled out of control.

I was inspired to revisit the Arizona Capitol Museum after seeing the cast of Greasepaint Youtheatre’s “Schoolhouse Rock” do a run-through of the show the night before opening their May 6-15 run in Scottsdale. It was a lot more fun than watching some of those House hearings back in the early ’90s.

The musical “Schoolhouse Rock” is based on an animated educational TV show that ran on ABC-TV during the ’70s and ’80s. Topics treated by “Schoolhouse Rock” included grammar, science and math — as well as history and civics.

Hence songs like “Just a Bill/The Preamble,” “Great American Melting Pot,” and “Sufferin’ Till Suffrage” — which you can enjoy all over again with your kids at Greasepaint Youtheater this weekend.

I took oodles of photo during my latest trip to the Arizona Capitol Museum just last week, when Christopher and I went to explore the exhibits and grab a bite in the Capitol Cafe, located in the basement of the executive tower.

Watch for a future post featuring photos of children’s artwork displayed along the corridor connecting the executive tower, where Governor Jan Brewer’s office is located on the 9th floor, and the Arizona Capitol Museum (with doors that open into a courtyard flanked by the Arizona Senate and Arizona House of Representatives buildings).

There’s plenty of material in this slide show for crafting your own version of an “I-Spy” museum adventure or scavenger hunt of sorts. There’s even a Press-A-Penny machine on the museum’s first floor where you can treat your children to one of three nifty designs if they’re successful with your homemade game (you can define success any way you like).

Of course, my children would have preferred viewing the slide show themselves, then coming up with a list of objects for me to identify or locate. And I’d never settle for a single pressed penny as my prize. I’d insist on all three.

— Lynn

Coming up: A trio of Shakespeare posts — featuring new seasons, teacher reflections and student reviews

Democracy day?

My favorite Schoolhouse Rock song features a bill longing to become a law

I often find that a single theme, like democracy (or chocolate), seems to tie together the events of my day…

When I hit the mailbox this afternoon, I found a lovely hand-written note from “Alaska’s fiddling poet,” Ken Waldman.

Waldman graciously thanked me for posting about his recent gigs at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, where he hopes to perform again one day.

He included a small goldenrod-colored card with a work he remembered I’m quite fond of, his “Suffering Democracy” poem that reads like this…

Instead of a gun, or a knife,
or pill, or drink. Or punching
a wall, the dog, screaming
at kids. Or holding
too many pains too deep–
brutal parents, cruel lovers,
bad bosses, debts, illnesses,
dying friends, extinct creatures,
absent God, near-ruined planet.

First. grip a pen, and write.
Then, pick a place, and plant.
Then, be patient, and let it grow.
Then, enter a small booth,
pull around the blue curtain,
kiss that ballot, and vote.

I was on my way out the door to see the movie “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” — which follows a filmmaker as he captures behind-the-scenes and in-your-face images from the world of product placement.

Early in the filmmaking process, he finds folks eager to analyze his identity — that thing that’s perfectly acceptable until it morphs into a brand. Then, according to moguls from the movie, it becomes “cheesy.”

Turns out filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is a rare mix of “mindful” and “playful.” So I suppose his film is best described as a meditation, and musing, on marketing. If someone sells it, Spurlock tells it.

And while Spurlock’s machinations don’t extend in this film to the overtly political realm, it left me wondering how his discoveries might apply to the branding of candidates making the news, as well as those who “report” it.

The film includes interviews with folks few of us have ever heard of. But also consumer advocate Ralph Nader and real estate/reality television tycoon Donald Trump (whose face has otherwise been blissfully absent from screens I’ve spent time with these past few days).

Some of my favorite scenes include Spurlock spending time with his son. In one they enjoy a bubble bath alongside a pony — both species apparently equally smitten with the product du jour: Main ‘n Tail shampoo (the one product featured in the film without paying for the privilege).

The movie closes with father and son seeking a place that’s free of advertising clutter — opting for a walk along a path that follows the arc of a nearby creek. It’s the great outdoors, he suggests, where marketing leaves its shoes outside the door. But there’s a caveat, which you’ll enjoy when you hit the film for yourself.

This evening I’m heading to Greasepaint Youtheatre in Scottsdale to watch their final rehearsal of “Schoolhouse Rock” — which opens Fri, May 6 and runs through May 15. Friday shows start at 7pm, and weekend shows start at 2pm.

“Schoolhouse Rock” was a popular television series during the 1970s, so many of today’s parents likely recall snappy “Schoolhouse Rock” tunes like “I’m Just a Bill” and “Conjunction Junction” that make subjects like government and grammar fun.

I often thought, during my brief stint as a lobbyist for an Arizona non-profit, that the “Schoolhouse Rock” soundtrack ought to find its way into more Arizona households.

Today, even as citizen activism appears to be on the rise, I’m not convinced that most folks understand or appreciate the complexity of the legislative process.

But we keep plugging away at it — or plugging it, in the case of Spurlock and his sponsors.

— Lynn

Coming up: Summer of dance, Schoolhouse meets stage

The many faces of Childsplay

I’ll be donning my party clothes Friday night to join the fine folks of Childsplay for their “Childsplay Celebrates Its Greatest Hits Gala,” which kicks off at 6pm at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort.

Memories of my last Childsplay shindig are still fresh. And fabulous. Think all the energy and fun of a Childsplay production for children translated into the realm of grown-ups — but with no less imagination and wonder.

Lillian Castillo (L) and D. Scott Withers in a Phoenix Theatre photo by Laura Durant

I’ve had Childsplay on the brain lately because it seems that everywhere I turn I discover another Childsplay artist lending his or her talents to additional creative enterprises — from television commercials to musical theater productions in other parts of the country.

D. Scott Withers, who performed the role of “Edna Turnblad” in this season’s Phoenix Theatre production of “Hairspray,” has been reprising the role with Arkansas Repertory Theatre (along with Lillian Castillo, who plays “Tracy Turnblad”) in a production that runs through May 8.

Jon Gentry (L) and D. Scott Withers perform in a Childsplay production of A Year With Frog and Toad (Photo: Heather Hill)

Allison Couture, whose husband recently left the touring production of “Billy Elliot The Musical” to accept a role in “Jersey Boys” on Broadway, worked for a time with the children in the “Billy Elliot” cast. Both are now NYC-bound.

Israel Jimenez, who teaches at Arizona School for the Arts, is known to many as “the face of SRP.” You’ll see his mug in commercials and on billboards throughout the Valley. Jimenez teaches ballroom dance at a local Fred Astaire Dance Studio (swoon) and is readying to direct “Frida” for Teatro Bravo.

Kim Manning is currently performing the role of “Liliane La Fleur” in the musical “Nine” at Phoenix Theatre, which you can enjoy through May 8.

Molly Lajoie Plutnicki teaches dance at Mesa Arts Academy and also keeps busy choreographing various theater productions. She’s both director and choreographer for Greasepaint Youtheatre’s “Schoolhouse Rock,” opening Fri, May 6 at Stagebrush Theatre in Scottsdale.

Yolanda London in a Black Theatre Troupe photo by Laura Durant

Yolanda London is rehearsing for “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,” a one-woman show about the life of singer Billie Holiday that Black Theatre Troupe of Phoenix opens May 13.

Todd Hulet recently staged a production of his original musical titled “The Wheels on the Bus” for Ovation! Musical Theatre Bainbridge in Washington.

Toby Yatso teaches at Arizona School for the Arts, and is nearly impossible to keep up with when it comes to acting, directing and other theater gigs throughout the Valley.

Yolanda London performs in the Childsplay production of Tomato Plant Girl (Photo: Heather Hill)

My soon to be 18-year-old daughter Lizabeth has trained with the talented artists of Childsplay for at least half her lifetime. She’s taken classes, attended summer camps, participated in the Childsplay conservatory program and more.

Childsplay has given her extraordinary opportunities to study with several of the Valley’s very finest theater talents — those noted above and many others. 

As we attend the “Childsplay Celebrates” gala Friday night, I’ll be celebrating not only the arts in education programs that’ll be funded with event proceeds, but the many gifts this theater company has bestowed on us.

— Lynn

Note: Click here  for “Childsplay Celebrates Its Greatest Hits Gala” event and ticketing information. The evening features cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, a silent auction, dinner and entertainment. (Bring your teacher, birthday and holiday gift lists to snag all sorts of fun finds at the auction.) Click here for a full roster of Childsplay company and staff (including associate artists, members of the acting company, teaching artists and others).

Coming: Valley museums celebrate “International Museum Day” with special events and discounts

Call for children’s artwork: I’m looking for photos, drawings, paintings and such with a garden theme for Friday’s post celebrating “National Public Gardens Day.” To submit your child’s work for possible use in the garden post, please send it to me at rakstagemom@gmail.com no later than 5pm Thurs, May 5 (include your child’s first name, age, city and your contact info too). Thanks!