Harry Williams

There are certain moments in theatre that really give you the “that’s really cool” feeling. This usually occurs when I’m watching a production, but there are times when it will hit me in a production that I’m in. Last year in West Side Story when they had the rotating set for me to run through Doc’s shop in my angry “Chino, come get me!” moment, I got that feeling.

And I just got it again a couple of days ago when they made it rain in the tent for Singing in the Rain. When John (who plays Don Lockwood) ran that number and it started raining in the Corn Stock Theatre tent, it was just really cool. I’m sure the audience is going to feel the same way. I was able to snap a few pictures of that number. You can view the album by clicking on the Photos link at the top of the page or by clicking here.

Unfortunately for my picture taking, I’m either on stage or changing for the majority of the show, so this was really the only number where I was able to get a few pictures. I’ll try to take some more tonight and during the run of the show.

Oh yeah - we open tonight! Come on out and check out the show - I guarantee you’ll have a great time!

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We’ve been Singing in the Rain in the Corn Stock Theatre tent for about a week now, running the show every night.  There are so many different parts of the show to bring together between the orchestra, actors, dancing, lighting, sound, rain, and other technical aspects, and yet, it’s come together nicely.  It’s a grueling and tiring process, but well worth the effort.

The thing that is fun at this point in a production is that I’ve learned all of my lines, choreography, dance, etc., and really get to start digging deep into my character and have fun with him and his interactions with the other characters in this Singing in the Rain world.

At this point, I start to have fun with the exchanges with Don Lockwood, my childhood friend, and with the hate-hate relationship with Lina Lamont, the leading lady, whom I “cahn’t stand” (in the show, of course).  However, as I’ve become more comfortable with the role, I’ve realized that a role like Cosmo Brown is difficult to practice.  He’s the “funny” character in the show, the comic relief, the wide-eyed guy loving his job as a Hollywood musician in the 1920’s.  It’s a hard role to practice because he has so many one-liners in the show, and is so sarcastic most of the time that it’s hard to judge and play the role without an audience.

I’ve worked on a lot of live theatre productions as well as some film productions, both personally and in my multimedia work.  These productions are always a lot of fun, both on film and in live theatre because it’s all about telling a story, and bringing an audience into that story.  The beauty of live theatre is that it’s just that - Live.  No performance is exactly the same, and as a performer, you have a special communication with the audience.  You do something in the performance, and they react.  This in turn provides feedback for you, fueling your performance.

Last year, when I played “Tony” in West Side Story, this feedback wasn’t always as expected.  On opening night for West Side Story, I threw everything I had into the performance, and was running towards Maria at the end of the show when Chino shot me down.  I remember falling to my knees, and then hearing the audience first gasp and then…laugh!  Here I was, dying on stage, pretty convincingly, I had thought, and the audience was laughing?  What had gone wrong?  Not the kind of audience reaction or feedback I was expecting.

However, after a few seconds of nervous laughter, they became so still that you could hear a pin drop.  I later found out that the nervous laughter is a common reaction for that part of West Side Story because the gunshot is so unexpected.  I guess people are startled by the shot, and the shock and emotion of the scene come out as a nervous laugh.  Once I found that out, it made me feel good, first of all because I wasn’t doing anything wrong (as I had first thought), and secondly because the laughter meant that we were getting the emotion across to the audience.

So, as we go into opening night of Singing in the Rain, this time I AM going for the laughter reaction.  It’s a different type of role for me to play, but good, because it’s challenged me to grow into it.  So, tomorrow night, I’ll just go out there, and “Make em Laugh,” this time without dying on stage.

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The Journal Star wrote up a preview article for Singing in the Rain.  Check it out by clicking here.

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Boy, it’s been a whirlwind for the past couple of months! Teaching 3 classes at Bradley University has really kept me busy, and on top of that, I auditioned for Singing in the Rain at the end of March, and landed the role of “Cosmo.” In the 1952 movie, the role was originally played by Donald O’Connor, a master of dance and comedy. The lead role of Don Lockwood is played by John Huerta in our production, and was originally played by Gene Kelly in the movie. John and I joke about how hard it is to try and live up to Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor.

Nevertheless, we have some great help with Jenny Parkhurst, our talented director, and Erica Franken, our mad-tappin, brilliant choreographer. And, boy is this show going to rock! In case you’re not familiar with Singing in the Rain, it’s set back in the 1920’s, right when talking movie picture technology was just coming out. Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont are big name silent movie actors, coming out with a string of romantic movies, always accompanied on piano by Don’s childhood friend, Cosmo Brown.

It’s a good old story about love, romance, movie making, comedy, and of course, dancing. Almost everyone has heard the title song Singing in the Rain, as well as some of the other favorites: “Good Morning,” “Moses Supposes,” “Make Em Laugh,” etc.

The show will be playing at Corn Stock Theatre from May 30 - June 7, at 7:30PM each night. For those of you who haven’t been out to Corn Stock Theatre, it’s a pretty cool set up. The theatre is outdoors inside a large tent, and the audience wraps around 3/4 of the tent. So, the performance goes on up on the trim, which is the 4th side, and also in the middle of the tent, with the audience wrapping around them. So, it’s a closer, more personal feel than other theatres where everyone faces the front stage.

PLUS, it wouldn’t be Singing in the Rain without rain, would it? So, they’ve already rigged a system to make it rain in the tent! I haven’t seen it yet, but I hear it’s going to be really cool.

So, come on out during that week to see Singing in the Rain! Tickets go on sale May 19th. For box office information, or to see the rest of the cast list, go to:

http://www.cornstocktheatre.com/singinintherain.html

Hope to see you there for a fun night of “dancin, and singing in the rain.”

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Well, I was just lectured by my sisters this weekend about how long it has been since I updated my blog (the most recent of many lectures).  I decided that I should probably make some time to post some quick updates, since a lot of things have happened recently.  I don’t have time to write about them now, but I will be writing about some of the things soon.  A quick summary of life recently:

• I’m still working 3 jobs (teaching at Bradley University, working at The Iona Group, and working at my dad’s lawfirm).
• I just finished directing a movie!  For the past 4 months, I wrote and directed The Curse of the Singing Basket, working on it with some friends and a couple of Bradley University students.  We finally put the finishing touches on it a couple of weeks ago.  This has been the main reason I’ve been so busy for the past few months.
• I just auditioned for Singing in the Rain at Corn Stock Theatre, and was cast!  More info to come…
• There are also rumblings of an original cast revival of Forever Plaid at Peoria Players Theatre…

Wow, looks like I have a lot of catching up to do…more coming soon!

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Little Women opens tonight!

In celebration, I’ve uploaded around 80 rehearsal pictures. You can either go to the ‘Photos’ section (link at the top), or you can just click here to go straight to the album. Let me know what you think of the pictures by posting a comment to this article. Also, if you see the show, click the ‘Contact Me’ link at the top of this page, and let me know what you thought of it!

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Boy, life has been crazy these past few weeks, and I apologize for not updating this site.  I’ve been working on several projects, rehearsing every night for Little Women, and started teaching a little over a week ago.  I’m teaching 3 classes this semester:

• Intermediate Multimedia Authoring
• Introduction to Web Design
• Advanced Flash Development

So, I’ve been really busy gearing up for these classes, and now teaching them.  Plus, Little Women opens tomorrow night!  I promised pictures, so I’ll post those when I get a chance tomorrow.  And, hopefully, once things settle down a little, I’ll be able to post more frequently.

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Just a quick note that tickets for the Peoria Players Theatre production of Little Women are on sale now.

Show dates are February 1-3 & 6-10, 2008.

Go to http://www.peoriaplayers.org to purchase tickets online, or for the box office number where you can call and reserve tickets. Don’t miss this show - it’s going to be a great production! I’ll be posting some rehearsal pictures soon.

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Disney is continuing its tradition of porting it’s classics over to live theatre shows. Beauty and the Beast opened on Broadway in 1994, and ran over 5,000 performances between 1994 and 2007 and is now being performed all over the country. The Lion King has probably been their biggest hit, playing on Broadway for 10 years, performing for 45 million people in 63 different countries, and winning 10 awards. Aladdin has a 45 minute Broadway-caliber show at Disney’s Great Adventure in California. We can’t forget the High School Musical phenomenon that has taken over the country. Finally, Mary Poppins opened on Broadway last year, and we actually got to see it on our trip at the end of last year. It was amazing!

So, now Disney has announced that the Little Mermaid is coming to Broadway, set to open in January 10, 2008. In the article, Alan Menken (Little Mermaid Composer) states:

“Once we brought BEAUTY AND THE BEAST to Broadway there was an open question about what (show) might be next,” Menken explains. “THE LITTLE MERMAID always seemed like a natural except for under the sea. How in the world do you deal with that? Nobody could quite figure it out.” Once Director Francesca Zambello entered the scene, “She and George Tsypin (scenic designer) had a wonderful concept for how to do the under the sea aspect,” Menken says. He describes the underwater portion of the set as “very open, very translucent. It really deals well with under the sea and then shifting to above the sea. I won’t give away how any of those things are done and in fact, in some cases I barely understand how they’re done. But they are beautiful.”

This is a pretty cool opening, and they are trying something new. PlaybillRadio.com is hosting a “Virtual Opening Night” for the Little Mermaid. At 9PM EST, they will be broadcasting the opening of the Little Mermaid on their website, along with backstage interviews with some of the cast and with Alan Menken.

If you’re available at 9PM EST (8PM CST), this would probably be pretty cool to listen to (unless you’re extremely lucky and have tickets to the Little Mermaid’s Opening Night). If I didn’t have Little Women practice, I’d definitely be tuning in.

Check out the article about the Virtual Opening Night.

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About 2 years ago, I moved into a house near Bradley with 3 other guys. 2 of the guys were FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) missionaries at Bradley, and the other guy was a teacher at Peoria Notre Dame High School. We were a multi-ethnic group - a Lebanese, Egyptian, Indian & Polish. It only lasted for a little while because they all moved away the next year, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted! Sadly, the only picture I have of all 4 of us is a picture that I took with my cell phone a few days before the fellowship broke up. Click on the picture for a larger version.

I’m going down to Texas on Wednesday for the first national FOCUS conference. Since I was going to be traveling anyway, I decided to leave early and spend a few days in Colorado with Anand (my old roommate - the one standing on my right in the picture). Now, I love the Midwest - I’ve lived there my whole life. But, there’s something really cool about visiting the mountains. Anand probably thinks I’m weird because whenever we’re driving around, I’m like a rubberneck, always looking around in wonder at the different landscapes and sights.

I first saw Colorado almost 6 years ago on my first Bradley Chorale Choir tour. That was quite a trip, and was the first time I saw mountains. I’ll have to scan some pictures from that trip because I wasn’t shooting digital pictures at the time. Nothing could describe the awesome sight of seeing my first mountain after driving for days through flat plains.

It was kind of the same feeling this time. We’re driving to Anand’s house, and directly ahead, you see these mountains shooting up to the sky. It’s an awesome sight! I’ve created a new gallery for Colorado pictures, so click here to check it out. I’ll be adding to it over the next couple of days.

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