#shademurray

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80 Detective Story by Sidney Kingsley dir by Shade Murray for Strawdog Theatre at Theater On the Lake. We got invited back! And it was for Detective Story! An insanely large play with a cast of thirty people! And we said yes! So a bunch of us were overlapping True Ballad and Detective Story. My friend Doug came in from NY to see closing weekend of True Ballad, we closed on Saturday, Sunday morning before strike, Doug and I and Kyle and Shannon, all went to the Supercuts on Berwyn and Broadway to get post show haircuts, because 1800s hair was a little lengthy. It was also over 100 degrees that day, the hottest of the year. Plus I needed a flattop for Detective Story anyway, right? So the stylist goes “Do you want me to just use the clippers?” Sure, that’s fine. “What number?” Pardon? “What number clipper do you want me to use? 3? 4? 5?” This is the point where you should say, I don’t know what any of that means. Instead I said - 1? And they took the clippers, started at the front of my scalp line, in the middle and went straight back. And I was like, oh. That’s a 1. So I had a few weeks where I looked like Uncle Fester. I was also, unbeknownst to me, about to go through another personal upheaval. So August has taken on mythic proportions in my mind. It’s a gauntlet that I have to get through. Anyway, Detective Story at Theatre on the Lake was fun, even if, once again, it was KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS. You may not know this about me, but I CANNOT sing, and I really don’t like to be around spiders. One night, going from act 2 to act 3, which at the Lake was a blackout and reposition rather than an intermission like back at Strawdog, lights go out, we get into place, lights come back up, Sean Sinitski is sitting in a chair next to me, while I’m standing with a clipboard, talking to some people, and I see a spider descending from the rafters and about to land on Sean’s head. So I reached out, grabbed the spiders line, snapped it, it starts climbing back up, so I gently set it on the floor. And just screamed inside. I would go on screaming inside for a few more months. Show photo by Chris May. #retrospective #2005 #detectivestory #sidneykingsley #shademurray #strawdog (at Theater On The Lake) https://www.instagram.com/p/B68RN0SpzjP/?igshid=1v3eq8cu2ykun

[hainsworthy]

75 Detective Story by Sidney Kingsley dir Shade Murray for Strawdog Theatre. This was a show with the largest cast I’d been a part of since leaving college, 29 people in the old 3829 space. I played Detective Dakis and I wasn’t supposed to eat sandwiches. And I also got tricked into being “producer.” 29 people and a stage full of vintage props. The audience actually had to pass through the “precinct” to get to their seats, and you would think that “no touching” would just be understood, but you would be wrong. Detective Story tells the story of a police precinct in NYC over the course of an afternoon into the evening, and if you have an inflexible moral code, you will eventually be shot to death by Rich Cotovsky. Shade Murray did a brilliant job of taking a pretty straightforward script of a bunch of small scenes and merging them into an overlapping cacophony of life in the precinct. An immersive set by Ray Vlcek, the most elegant lighting design I have ever seen by Sean Mallary (one continual cue of a sun setting and the lights slowly coming on), the aforementioned vintage props by Michelle Caplan, and a shit ton of costumes of period costumes by Aly Amidei, (the sound was great too, but I’m not social media friends with the designer). And a cast that was up for anything. There were people who were around for hours to come in for thirty seconds at the end. Or five minutes at the beginning and then done. I got a flattop, the second most unflattering haircut I’ve had for a show. Shade had Rob Scrocki and Jamie Vann switch parts after the first reading. Ably overseen by Evin Eubanks, our stage manager, the fact that this show worked at all, was a miracle. The fact that it was both a joy and a success makes it even more special. #retrospective #2003 #detectivestory #sidneykingsley #shademurray #strawdogtheatre #dakis #sandwiches #teenyfeeny (at Chicago, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6vl4mTp89L/?igshid=1csd2ng3xjhj6

[hainsworthy]

66 Our Country’s Good, by Timberlake Wertenbaker dir Shade Murray for Strawdog Theatre. The first show I ever performed as an ensemble member with Strawdog was one that I had done previously. And I was cast in the same parts, Ketch Freeman and Maj. Ross. And nine years later, I actually remembered most of my lines, that’s the impact that show and those roles made on me. Although I got to see a lot more of the show this time because we were either background characters or holding up tents. I bonded with the company during this show, mainly because there were only 12 of us doing everything. Also, we did the Stanford Prison Experiment as an exercise on this show and you either grow close or murder everybody. We were all young-ish and just there all the time. Either drunkenly building a new stage management booth from scraps and nary a tape measure (the old booth used to be between the bathrooms at 3829, right behind the pole) or just hanging out making up songs (I Like Words, Ferrick Wants to go Home). So many bits. “It’s fine. I hate it. It’s fine. Let’s move on.” #retrospective #2001 #ourcountrysgood #TimberlakeWertenbaker #shademurray #strawdogtheatre #ketch #majross #ilikewords (at Chicago-n Broadway) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6Ymlpupfa2/?igshid=6rywyuc2dhah