BY MARIE JONES
DIRECTED BY MICHAEL WRIGHT
JUNE 12 – 30, 2024
Wednesday, June 12: Pay-What-You-Will Preview
Thursday, June 13: Final Preview
Friday, June 14: Opening Night
Wednesday – Saturday evenings at 7:30pm
Friday matinee June 21st at 2:00pm
Sunday matinees at 2:00pm
Rural Ireland goes Hollywood glam!
Charlie and Jake are a couple of resourceful Irish lads working as extras on a Hollywood flick being shot in their homeland. Directors, divas, local legends, and pub crawlers come and go at breakneck speed as Big-Time Pictures and small-town Ireland battle it out for top billing. Two intrepid actors portray fifteen characters in this hilarious and heartbreaking tale of Hollywood corruption, hometown mischief, and universal pathos.
Stones in His Pockets
Directed by Michael Wright, this comedic two hander play features the dynamic duo Neil Brookshire & Dan Klarer – two of the funniest fellows in Door County! They play a staggering 20 or so characters between the two of them over the course of two hours. It’s super impressive and a daring feat I could never brave doing!
Cast
Jake – Neil Brookshire
Charlie – Dan Klarer
Production
Director – Michael Wright
Choreographer – Andria Nikoupolis-Weliky
Scenic Designer – Steve Barns
Costume Designer – Kärin Kopischke
Lighting Designer – Colin Gawronski
Sound Designer & Score – Brian Grimm
Production Stage Manager – Kelsey Brennan York
Dialect Coach – Greg Pragel
Production Manager – Jenevieve Lee
Props Master – Jenevieve Lee
Production Assistant – Haley Cranstoun
Technical Director/Scenic Charge Artist – Alex Polzin
Production Photos – Cody LeSage of LeSage Media
Production
Featured Guest Musicians
Fearn – Irish music trio from Milwaukee, WI
Fearn is Asher Gray on flute, Erin Brooker-Miller on harp, Andy Miller on bodhrán drum
Brian Grimm on cello, 12 string guitar, orchestration
TAP Community Partner – Sunshine Resources of Door County
For every show, Third Avenue Playworks picks a different local Door County organization to be their community partner. The Wednesday night preview is always a pay-what-you-will performance fundraising for this show’s community partner, Sunshine Resources of Door County. Sunshine Resources helps folks with special needs and disabilities, here’s some info about the organization’s mission from their website:
Sunshine Resources of Door County (known as Sunshine House) is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. Sunshine House Inc. was started in Door County by a handful of parents in 1971. These parents wanted more for their children to experience and be a part of and with their determination Sunshine House Inc. evolved into the great organization it is today. We are still operating this non-for-profit organization 40 some years later with the same Mission – of achieving full participation in society of people with special needs.
Over the years, changes have been made to adjust to the growing needs of our clients. As we have grown in scope and size, many of our wonderful services have been masked behind what Sunshine House once was. And we are much more than what we were in 1971. In order to educate the community and provide the information needed to those that can benefit from opportunity through our services, we have decided to rebrand our company and will look forward to serving Door County into the future under the name Sunshine Resources of Door County. This speaks to who we are, a resource. We offer many opportunities for those with special needs in our community, and finding the right fit for the individual is important in their lives.
Our goal is to provide “Best in Class” day service programming, prevocational employment, community employment and educational opportunities to build confidence and foster independence. Families and clients are fully involved in the path chosen for success, ensuring our clients live their best life and reach their dreams and goals.
source: sunshineresources.org
Notes on the Irish Music, featuring Fearn!
The score for this show is a collaboration between myself and the Irish music trio from Milwaukee, FEARN. Fearn is Asher Gray on Irish wood flute, Erin Brooker-Miller on harp, and Andy Miller on bodhrán drum! In April, I traveled over to Milwaukee to record with Erin and Andy in the UW-Milwaukee dance studio. It was a transportive and delightful recording session. They played delightfully well and gave me a lot to work with, as a duo and soloists. Later on, I caught up with Asher virtually and we were able to layer flute parts over the tunes that the director Michael and I thought had the most potential for certain scenes. There was definitely a level of trust needed from Michael on a few cues where I thought, “this is the right fit”, but it didn’t have the full orchestration yet. It can be hard to pitch something as a big film cue sound when you just have the first two starting layers! Honestly it was such a huge reminder of how big a part Orchestration plays into music choices as a composer. For this first example above, it was in the right ballpark of exuberant energy with the drum and harp duo version, but it didn’t start to cook until the flute was layered on top. Holy cow! The flute in the mix just added and incredible amount of energy and brightness. Then the strings were able to fill things out and build a big backdrop for the trio to shine.
After those two sessions, we had a ton of material including solo instrument tunes, duo tunes, and trio performances. I then started recording my own string parts on cello, with a bit of 12 string guitar, and orchestrated layers of brass, winds, and the sounds of real Uilleann Irish bagpipes and a real gaelic women’s choir.
I had such a blast recording with Fearn, and then mixing & layering in orchestra parts with the music they performed. It’s just so beautiful, and I’ve been very excited to start sharing this music! In the video above, we hear the “Hollywood-ized” version of the traditional tune “George White’s Reel”. In this show, there is a dichotomy between the locals and the outsider film crew. We use the raw acoustic sound of Fearn’s trio for moments with the local Irish townsfolk and the beefed up, fully orchestrated score version of the tunes for the Hollywood film set moments.
This show has incredible set and lighting eye candy to check out as well! With lights by Colin Gawronski, set design by Steve Barnes, and build by Alex Polzin. With the lighting on the back painted landscape, it looks like its changing between different oil paintings right before your eyes! And the green and gold of the travel postcard infant of it is such a cool visual contrast, it really pops.
Though it’s a comedy, the play deals with some serious topics. It centers around the sorts of things we hide from others under facades. Only true friends can cut through those walls we erect to get at what’s underneath. The sorts of things we should talk more freely to others about. There is a great story of true friendship and helping others here. It’s a reminder that if you need help, please reach out to your friends and loved ones.
This is the 2nd “Hollywood” cue, the “Dispossessed” film cue. For this cue, I asked Erin to play some common minor progressions on harp, both as chords and arpeggios. Then Asher recorded some flute layers in a number of different styles. I also asked Andy to record some special effects on the bodhrán drum to sound like wind blowing over the surface of a lake, which turned out really cool! After that I recorded all the string parts and added in the sounds of a Gaelic women’s choir and created a distant Uilleann Irish bagpipe melody to tug on the heart strings. Of all the Hollywood cues in the show, I think it has the most unique mix of instruments between the bagpipes, choir, strings, fx drum, flute, and harp.
With the solemn and contemplative theme of the music, I’d like to highlight the show’s darker looks. The interplay of lighting and set design creates captivating effects throughout the show. When different colored lights illuminate the painted landscape backdrop, it transforms before your eyes, resembling a series of ever-changing oil paintings. The sky and cloud textures paired with travelling sunset effects were my favorite backdrop visuals.
I love Irish music and I love harp, so I was super excited to get to record with Erin on this project! Here is one of my favorite Harp features from the show, it’s the classic “meet cute” Hollywood film cue. The extras are watching as the stars of the Rom-com exchange glances for the first time… and some shenanigans ensue.
This lovely traditional tune is called “Inisheer”. First Erin laid down the tune on solo harp, then I filled out the string parts on cello, and lastly Asher doubled the melody on flute. I could listen to this one all day. I hope you enjoy it too ❤️
I’d like to highlight the beautiful friendship and collaboration of Neil Brookshire and Dan Klarer. I’ve had so so so much fun working with these two jokesters at TAP for the Christmas Radio play productions we’ve done together. They always keep me laughing on their quest for the next punchline. The genuine friendship these two have off stage translates and shines so well on stage too. I couldn’t imagine a better pairing for this comedy show. Much love to both of you Neil and Dan! 😊
Here’s to some wide shots, mid shots, and close ups!
This traditional harp tune “Loftus Jones” or “Planxty Loftus Jones” was written by blind Celtic harpist Turlough O’Carolan (1670 – 1738). You can really hear the Baroque flavor of this composition, and it fit perfectly for the Hollywood Wedding Marquee scene setting. This is the A-section of the piece, performed first by Erin, then layered on with flute and strings by Asher and myself. This composition has so many fun little sections to play with; it’s a jovial little tune & we hope you enjoy!
I’ll probably post one or two more videos and add them here. As you can imagine, there are more tunes that were recorded and used as top-of-show music, curtain call, and intermission music. Some fantastic pieces weren’t used at all in the show. I’d really love to release this as a collaborative album with Fearn, it’s something that still needs to be worked out. Hopefully this year, you’ll have an album version of this music available to stream and buy. More updates on that if it comes to fruition, but it’s lovely music and I’d really love to share more with y’all!
