Latest / CINEMACTIVIST / S03E15 - The Lever Update
Transcript
- John C. Lyons: Hi everyone and welcome back to Cinema Activist. I'm your host, John Lyons, and apologies right off the top for missing last week. It's been really crazy busy, very exciting, all things tethered at this point. Our new show, The Lever, has pretty much overtaken all of my extra time outside of the day job. And so that's my excuse. But I'm back this week and I'm starting to record banking some episodes ahead and having some guests schedule to be on the show. So hopefully we won't get another gap like we had last week. But thanks for listening, thanks for being here today. I thought I'd just give you a catch-up. Of what's been going on with Tethered. So we have officially announced the cast of the Lever, There's a lot of folks that I'm working with for the first time. There's a lot of folks that are doing immersive theater for the first time. And as it has been every year with Tethered, it's a learning experience for all of us. Tickets are on sale now for the show. Today I'm creating Facebook events for the show. We'll have the website tetheredimmersive.com updated very soon. And you'll see a lot of ads and shares and things like that on social media. And I hope that you will help us out and spread the word on the lever too. I think this show is, as I've said before in previous episodes, a very timely show. The themes are very timely. It's a show about corruption and complicity, and also giving our audiences an opportunity to have a voice in the world and to affect the outcome of the show. There are branched endings to this three-hour show. We're training our performers on you know which track they're in at which point in time. It's very complicated behind the scenes. but hopefully it will be unnoticeable to the audience as the audience gets involved, interacts, finds evidence of corruption, or decides not to find evidence of corruption, and who they decide to turn that evidence over to. will directly impact the ending of the show. So it's pretty exciting because we have eight different performances, Fridays and Saturdays, for the first four weeks of October. And the way that the show unfolds will definitely be different. Each night, which is super cool. So to the cast, you may recall we held open auditions, and this time we we actually had multiple audition dates, and we got some people from all over the place, which is really cool. We had people from downstate in Pennsylvania, from Pittsburgh. That are in the cast and in the crew. We had people from Ohio audition, and of course, all around the region of northwestern Pennsylvania that we call home here in Erie, Pennsylvania, along the lake. So yeah, it's it's an exciting cast. you've already met Dr. Paul Lukach, who was on a couple episodes ago. I interviewed him and Frederick Williams, who you've met as well. Paul Lukach is playing the executive director. Jack Holden, member of the board. Frederick Williams is playing Hank, the chief. He's a retired police chief that's running for mayor. He's also a member of the board. I'm really excited to be reunited as well with Benjamin Sheeler. Benjamin is from Pittsburgh. He's playing board president, who you can call coach. He was in our last feature film, Unearth, and had a small supporting role there. It's really been great working with him again. And he's definitely got a much larger role in this production. We have Liz Del Collado Monahan. Who is playing the board secretary, Carmen Mendoza. We've got Jessica Schultz from Herb & Honey Fame, who is returning to acting for this production, The Lever. She's playing board treasurer Blair Somerset. And she definitely finds herself in some trouble. It's really cool to bring people into this process that, you know, have been out of acting and performing for a while, and really diving in with a show like this, as you can imagine, with a three-hour show. It's a lot. It's an endurance test. You have to really be stellar and at the top of your skills to pull this off. And so really hats off and kudos to everybody in the cast, but especially people like Jessica, who are returning and really swinging big. It's really exciting. Also working again with Michael Meyer. Michael Meyer of our feature film from many moons ago, There Are No Goodbyes. He was in that film with Frederick Williams. Also in the cast. So it's really cool to reunite with Michael. He's playing the club manager, Matthew Rickter. He's also a board member. In our story, The Lever, mansion is called the Davenport Club, and it's owned and operated by the nonprofit organization, which is called Feed Our Neighbors. And so Michael Meyer is The manager of the club. I already talked about Frederick Williams. Awesome to be working with him. We have Dylan Boulder, who's also well known in the theater community scene. His first time working with Tethered, and really exciting to have him on board as well. He is playing member of our board too And his character name is Robert Jackson. Probably the less you know of him at this time, the better. I don't want to spoil anything here. So that's our board members on the capitalist side. And then on the labor side of the cast, we've got Jasmine Nicole Williams, who is playing our maitre D, Miss Mina Sinclair. We have Kerry Lee Hinkson, who has been a volunteer and a host on previous tethered productions. It's awesome to see her step up and fill our position for our host, Caroline Dupree. We have Audrey King, it's awesome to have Audrey on my radar too. She's an exceptional performer as well. She's playing another host, Constance Goodwin, on the cast. We've got three time champion. Our only performer, I believe, to be in all three years of Tethered as a performer. Taylor Lorraine, who is the bartender this year. The bartender's name is Taylor. So that'll be a tough lift for her. She's fantastic. Awesome to have her back. Also awesome to have back Karlee Mayfield, who was in last year's Tethered. And is this year playing our union organizer Monica Schultz. We've got newcomer Deep Kala, who is playing our host, Aastha Ray. Deep Kala came to an open screen event at the 1020 Collective not too long ago, a couple months back. and she showed some of her work that she made in Nepal, and it was awesome. And she's one of those people that said, you know, I want to network and connect with people and get involved in the community, and has actually followed through with it. she played a very small role in that film that she showed, and I kind of urged her to attend the auditions and it was a really nice surprise for her to attend and she's great. she's also going to be the protagonist in our audio drama that we're working on called Seized coming soon. More information on that soon. those are all of our performers. So we've been working for, I think since August on rehearsals, we started off having a couple rehearsals a week. We would alternate weeks between. the Schuster Gallery at Gannon University's campus. Big shout out to them and the team there. They're very helpful to us. And we would be alternating between the Schuster Theater and the venue itself at the mansion. rehearsals have been increasing each week. You know, we had three rehearsals a week. Now we're up to like four rehearsals a week, sometimes, you know, four or five days in a row, and we're entirely at the mansion venue right now. Brooke Echnat our co-director, is also here in person now. when we first started out the rehearsals when we were at the Schuster we would set up a big TV and people that, you know, were out of the region would be zooming in, but now everyone is coming in in person on the cast and crew. it's been it's been really exciting. something that Brooke kind of introduced us to was this ritual of boundaries and check-ins to start and it's really been nice it really sets the tone and has really created a a community family vibe between the cast and crew. Essentially we all circle, circle up and check in with each other. let everybody know how how our head, heart, and body are feeling that day. And then we give consent for for touch and interaction and and talk about, you know, our boundaries and and how we're feeling that day. because you know, some days you need a hug. and you wanna know if it's okay. So yeah, it's actually provides a nice framework and kind of grounds and connects us all. everyone on the cast and crew, of course, are working, you know, full-time day jobs, and there's a a bit of a transitional time when you come straight from work to the tethered space to rehearse together. So it really gives us that little buffer of time, you know, for 15, 20 minutes to go around and and check in with each other. And then work for, you know, the next three and a half or or four hours. So yeah, we've we've been essentially living in the mansion. Huge shout out to the women's club of Erie, who we're renting the mansion from. It's a beautiful venue. The show takes place on the first two floors of the venue. There are two entrances to the mansion. You can either enter through the gated entrance on 6th Street. that section of it is called Millionaire's Row. There's a lot of very beautiful homes in this region. It's the perfect setting for this show. So thank you to them for saying yes and allowing us to do this show. It asks a lot. of a venue. yeah, it's it's really important to have that cooperation. PACA was fantastic partners for our first year. The Erie Maennerchor Club were fantastic for our second year. And the women's club of as well have been very accommodating and available to us and really helpful in all things. There's something every night that we need and they always come through. So I can't recommend them enough to people listening to this, you know, thinking of having an event that a mansion would work well for. So, as I mentioned, tickets are on sale now. You can go to either tickets.eriereader.com or tethered immersive.com for more information about the show and the logistics and to purchase tickets. I would recommend that everyone, you know, read through the description of the show and kind of learn the the lay of the land and how things will work. We will start admitting people at 5 30 each night of the show. the performance officially starts at six o'clock and runs until nine PM. So yeah, it's a three hour show. But you will get lost in the show and get caught up in in the mansion and all of the dramas and the backroom deals and all the all the drama that's happening under that roof. And then if you purchase a VIP pass, you will get to stick around after the performance ends at nine o'clock for a Q & A with the cast and crew. You also get a free beverage from the bar. Taylor and Tonic are our bar partners, and she's fantastic. She's also the same Taylor that's in the show that's the bartender. We also have Lavery Brewing Company, that's our exclusive beer for the show. The Laverys are fantastic. They've been great supporters of all of my endeavors for the last decade or so. one of our board members is a brewer or is trying to be a brewer. So there's a connection there too, and some opportunities for them to to get their good beers in the show in in many ways. So yeah, what else can I talk about as far as logistics? Get tickets. It's eight nights that we're doing the show this year. So it's a really big swing for us. And yeah, everyone's working so hard. I really want as many people as possible to experience this show and see the performances and, recognize all the hard work that the writing team, the directing team and the cast have really put into this show. We've really been putting our hearts and souls into it. So check it out. One thing that I wanted to talk about too is we r tried something else new for the first time, which I can't believe we never have before, but we had a mock audience come in just this past weekend, which was nerve-wracking and also very thrilling. When I attended the Miami Immersive Intensive this summer, one of the things that I learned. was that you want to bring in a mock audience as soon as possible to, test the logistics of the show, to test your your cast for sure, and kind of get them familiar with, how those interactions will work with the audience. We brought the mock audience in. There was about let's see, a dozen or so people. Brave Souls. Appreciate them all very much. Huge shout out to each of them. we did just the first hour of the show with the mock audience. And then we sat down with them and gave them space for about 45 minutes to really hear their reactions, the things that were working for them, the things that were confusing for them, their suggestions all around. And it was really like extremely helpful. Brooke and I were taking notes like mad, and yeah, we're definitely in incorporating I would say, yeah, most, if not all, of the feedback that we got from these folks. If you're listening to this and you were one of those people that attended thank you, thank you very, very much. Greatly appreciated. As far as other updates, let's see. The in the new issue of the Erie Reader, which comes out here the first week of October, right before the show opens, you'll see a couple features in there. That I hope you get a chance to check out that are related to our show, Jessica Hunter, who, does a lot of work for the Erie reader. She also writes their Gem City style section of the newspaper. She's going to be sitting down with three members of the cast to photograph them and talk about the show, which is super exciting. Nick and Edwina. Who were part of our mock audience. I believe one or both of them are going to be writing about their experience in the reader, having Nick and Edwina there, meeting a lot of the cast in character, seeing the environment. going through that first hour of the show, which is really all preamble and setup for the drama that unfolds over the two hours that follow, will be invaluable as well. So I believe they will have something written up in the next issue as well. So as always, you should pick up the Erie reader or go to eriereader dot com. They are only independent news source here in northwestern Pennsylvania, but definitely for For this reason, check out their new issue as well. So that is the lever. That is all of your updates. What else can I update you on? Looking around my office here. I am going to start creating some new merch for the new show. this is if you're not watching the video of this, this is a cinema activist hat. I don't wear a lot of hats, but I do wear hats when I'm outside walking and such during the day, and it's a nice, comfortable hat. So if you want to also support Tethered and Cinema Activist and Lyons Den productions, watch for some updates to our store, sign up for our newsletter. subscribe to this podcast, all the things. When we come back next week, I will have some more guests on from Tethered, from both the cast and the crew side of things. And I'm going to start reaching out to some awesome people in the immersive universe out there and learning more about this fantastic art form that I've fallen in love with and am learning more and more about constantly. So That's it for this week. We'll be back soon. Have a great one. Cheers.