Sunday, Dec 11: Pay-What-You-Will Preview Wednesday, Dec 14: Final Preview (ticketed) Thursday, Dec 15: Opening Night
Wednesday – Saturday evenings at 7:30pm Sunday matinees at 2:00pm Special Friday matinee, Dec 23 at 2pm Special Tuesday performance, Dec 27 at 7:30pm No performance on Dec 24 or 25
A New Holiday Tradition for Door County!
You’ve never experienced Charles Dickens holiday classic quite like this. The five WFBR Radio Players bring to life scores of characters, live sound effects and musical underscore to create an authentic 1940’s radio experience all in front of a live studio audience. In A CHRISTMAS CAROL: THE LIVE RADIO PLAY hear and see how Scrooge learns the true meaning of Christmas in this charming, family friendly production.
Photos of the foley setup in the rehearsal room
CAST
ELYSE EDELMAN as Sally Applewhite CASSANDRA BISSELL as Lana Sherwood RAY JIVOFF as Freddie Filmore DAN KLARER as Harry Jazzbo NEIL BROOKSHIRE as Jake Laurents BRIAN GRIMM as “Chet” the Foley Artist & Musician
ARTIST TEAM
Director: Mikael Burke Production Stage Manager: Kelsey York* Set Design: Alex Polzin Costume Design: Kärin Kopischke** Lighting Design: Eric Watkins** Sound Design: Brian Grimm
Live Foley!
For this 1940’s radio play adaptation of the Charles Dickens holiday classic, I’ll be performing music underscore written by Kevin Connors as well as my own arrangements of traditional Christmas tunes on cello, tenor viola da gamba, glockenspiel, bell set and chime tree. One of the most exciting parts of this play for the audience is that the cast will assist me in performing live sound design aka “foley” on small doors, bells, pans, skeleton keys, chains, boots, books, coins, sheets, plates, silverware, a wind machine and more (see photos above)! The cast is super goofy – this is the most I’ve ever laughed during a rehearsal process! We’ve had such a blast putting this production together and can’t wait to share the fun with you!
Feed and Clothe My People, the Community Partner for this year’s A Christmas Carol
For every show of the season, Third Avenue PlayWorks collaborates with a Community Partner. I believe this is a wonderful practice and for A Christmas Carol, they couldn’t have found a better match. At the December 11th “pay-what-you-will” preview, all ticket proceeds went to an organization called Feed and Clothe My People:
Feed and Clothe My People (FMP) is a charitable organization formed in 1982 by Bev Hogan, Bev Knutson and Reverend Burke Johnson for the purpose of providing sustenance to local residents in need.
The program was initially designed to meet emergency needs only. As the number of residents in need of food and clothing increased, so had the scope of required services. As a result, it was decided that having a single location for the operation was necessary to coordinate activities between the various programs. In addition, the Board of Directors was expanded and the search for a new location commenced to increase operational efficiency and bring all facets of the program under one roof. After an exhaustive search, the Board purchased the old skating rink on 14th Avenue. With a few bequests and donations specifically designated for permanent relocation as down payment, the FMP organization was able to secure a mortgage and the new building opened for business in July of 2000. In summer of 2004, FMP of Door County joined Second Harvest, now known as Feeding America, which is a national food distribution center that sells food to pantries like ours at far below market prices. On August 31, 2004, due to a generous donation, the mortgage debt was officially retired. The building now belongs to Feed and Clothe My People.
Our mission is as strong as ever! A great share of our success depends on donations from those who can assist us financially, as well as through various food and clothing contributions. We wish to thank all those who have supported FMP in the past and we look forward to meeting and exceeding expectations and keep our founder’s dreams alive and well.
Here are some video teasers of music cues from the show! I’ll be updating this section each week, enjoy!
John and his daughter Caitlyn are birders. As they scan the skies over their backyard in a suburban Maryland looking for elusive birds, years go by. Relationships begin and end. Children grow up and parents age. The climate and the world change in small and vast ways. BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA takes a close look at the relationship of a father and daughter over the course of a decade as they struggle to understand the parts of one another that defy understanding.
Anna Ouyang Moench is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. Her plays have been produced at the Geffen Playhouse, the Playwrights Realm, East West Players, InterAct Theater, and many other theaters across the country and around the world. Anna is a 2020 Steinberg Award winner and the recipient of a Gerbode Special Award in the Arts commission for a new play that will be produced at Magic Theater in 2022. She has been commissioned by NAATCO for a new play premiering in 2021.
CAST John played by C. MICHAEL WRIGHT Caitlyn played by DEKYI RONGE
ARTISTIC TEAM Director: Jacob Janssen Assistant Director: Doug Clemmons Production Stage Manager: Kelsey Brennan York Set Design: Maddy Yee Costume Design: Kärin Kopischke Lighting Design: Colin Gawronski Sound Design: Brian Grimm
The Open Door Bird Sanctuary raises avian awareness and inspires coexistence with the rich natural world of Door County, of Wisconsin and wherever you call home. We are a private non-profit 501(c) 3 organization and the only facility of its kind in the area. With 34 acres of pristine land with hiking trails, wildlife viewing and our birds of prey, we offer a unique combination of environmental and wildlife education as well as being a destination for both Door County residents and tourists alike. Our visitors are all ages offering just as much awe and inspiration to adults as to children. Highlights are:
Feature live raptors for educational observation for Door County school groups, service clubs, senior groups all year round both on site and off.
Engaging environmental education through interactive, live behavioral demonstrations
Shelter to injured raptors (birds of prey)
In addition to having live birds in the lobby before our first preview performance (see video above!!!), Third Avenue PlayWorks also hosted an Environmental Roundtable in their theater space with local climate and environmental organizations. I think this was an incredibly smart and creative way for TAP to be involved with community building for positive change. This event highlighted the subject matter of the play, while using the Arts as an impetus for public discussion as well as nature preservation networking and education. I’m excited to see how TAP continues to engage with their local Door County and Sturgeon Bay residents! We need the Arts to be an active agent of social change, to be a space where the community can come to learn, reflect, empathize, reconsider, experience multiple viewpoints, and be inspired to get involved. Theatre has a unique power to spark important conversation around intense topics that are often avoided at family gatherings or among friends. I highly encourage you to donate to these environmental organizations in Door County to help make a positive change during a time of pivotal climate crisis. I believe in Arts Activism and have been lucky to be a part of many productions which raise awareness about important causes & lived experiences. It doesn’t get much bigger than the decisions we face and the actions we must take concerning global warming.
Donate to these local Environmental Organizations here >>
Soundtrack Notes I’ll preface everything by saying that I was deep in the throngs of my first Covid viral infection when I composed and recorded the entirety of this score. The day I recorded the initial cello transcriptions of bird calls (heard in the pre-show) was the first day I showed symptoms. The night I recorded the “magical leaf drop” cue on ‘hammered’ guzheng, I was in a completely delirious fever pitch, just hammering away! So it’s a minor miracle that any of this score was finished in time (recorded over a 10 day period) and that the recorded material even turned out to be usable!
In most productions I’ve been a part of, there has been a lot of underscore. This comes from the style of composer I am, the type of productions I’ve been asked to participate in, and what those directors wanted from me. For “Birds of North America”, there was a different type of underscore and a new type of challenge. The director Jacob Janssen really wanted to utilize music for transitions only, as we marked the passing of time in measurements of years between each scene. The focus within the scene however was just the two actors, their father-daughter relationship and the natural environment they were set in while birding.
There is a rich tradition around the world of creating music from birdsong and I was glad to join in the fun of that genre on this project! To start with, I collected recordings of the bird calls of each species mentioned in the play and then started transcribing those calls and songs onto cello. I slowed the tempo and pitched the calls way down in order to fit them into a listenable and recognizable song structure for our human ears. The initial round of these translations can be heard stretched out even further to glacial climbs in the meditative pre-show music (more on that below). Jacob felt that these initial transcriptions sounded too sad and slow when played on cello alone, that we needed more energy to be infused into each transition. The subject matter of Climate Crisis, Political Factioning, and Dysfunctional Relationship were already so heavy that any music seeming too slow or sombre would drag us down instead of lifting us up and into the next scene.
Jacob and the actors Dekyi Ronge & C. Michael Wright did such a fantastic job of finding humor and layered nuance in the production to balance out these weighty topics, that I needed to match and support that energy. It all created more enriching, complex storytelling. To achieve this energy I added in a plucked instrument, the 21 string guzheng 古筝 ancient Chinese zither. I partially chose this instrument because it has such a lively, powerfully bright tone that fills a room, but it also has the ability to bend pitch behind the bridge of each string. These pitch bending capabilities allowed for better birdsong emulation than most other plucked instruments. Between the bowed cello and the plucked guzheng zither, I felt that we had the energy balance we needed and two complementary instruments that could support the dynamic of the characters on stage.
Anna Ouyang Moench specifically advocates in her script for open casting of the daughter character Caitlyn as either white or multi-ethnic. In TAP’s production of Birds, Caitlyn was performed by the bright and engaging Dekyi Ronge, who’s heritage is Tibetan & German. Dekyi explains that, “[I]t’s a gift anytime a writer encourages casting that expands who we get to see on stage. It not only shows us that stories don’t have to look or feel one way, but it also offers employment to artists who may otherwise fall through the cracks of some of our more traditional casting practices.” Representation matters very much in culture and the arts. Though that discussion has become a recent focal point of casting, programming, and employment; I think we’re still in the opening phases of making those improvements and making them last. Through her casting notes on pg.1 of the script, Anna Ouyang Moench, who is multi-ethnic, opens a doorway to that discussion from the very beginning of the casting process for any production of this play. That being said; theaters, film companies, commercials, etc shouldn’t need such a prompt for that to be the standard practice in casting.
The pairing of the Western cello and the Eastern guzheng are in part a response to this multicultural casting call of the show, but in a subtle way. As the script isn’t constantly calling attention to race or hinging on it, the focus remains on the two characters’ relationship, politics and their connection to the global climate crisis. Because of this, I didn’t make the main focus of my composing about fusing the cultural traditions of each instrument with one another. They simply became musical tools focused on telling the story of this particular relationship via birdsongs.
The opening theme of the show is one place where I did specifically bring together east/west influences into a single piece on purpose. It has a folk /bluegrass/ mountain music style – harkening me back to my time spent at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado. It is purposefully meant to invoke the feeling of “Americana”. But the actual pitch/interval theme, playing techniques, and pitch/rhythm is derived from the energetic erhu 二胡 Chinese fiddle birdsong style. These are some of my favorite pieces that I’ve learned on the erhu (which I studied in Hong Kong); they are thrilling and so fun to play! I utilized this catalogue of erhu technique and style to translate the story’s birdsongs onto the cello.
There are other influences from my studies over the years that appeared in the music without me intentionally trying. I think it speaks more to the fact that after all the years of playing these instruments, listening, studying the music, the history and learning many styles, certain elements have naturally become part of my musical language & vocabulary. A few moments include the drone and slow cello melody of the pre-show emulating the sound of a Indian Classical Alap introduction to a Raga performance (there are a number of sarangi style moments with the glides, but slowed waaayyyy down). That wasn’t my original vision or aim for the pre-show sound, it just sort of turned out that way. More Indian Classical music influence is found in the closing theme “1,000 Birds” part 1 and part 2. In these pieces, which use my Sarangicello, I’m playing an interpretation of the Eastern Towhee bird call at a lively tempo. When I listened back to the recording, it started to remind me of a Jor (or Jod), an exciting rhythmic pulsing section at the end of an Alap (still unaccompanied by tabla), in something sounding like Raga Hamsadhwani. It isn’t a Jor, but it gives me a similar feeling and it’s technique has quite the same exciting effect, with the “guzheng wing flaps” even reminding me of an Indian Swarmandal accompaniment harp. These are techniques that I learned from my guruji, sitar master pandit Sugato Nag (Kolkata, India).
An influence from listening to and learning about Japanese and Korean court music styles can be heard on the alternate cue for Scene 7, the “apocalyptic mix” as Jacob called it! The ensemble textures with the flute on top really remind me of those styles when I listen back, especially with the sound of the percussive punctuation mark at the end. I really love how traditional Japanese and Korean music utilize space and highlight a singular moment with their percussion elements. So there you have it, some unintended, but nonetheless present influences that crept their way into this score!
Each musical element you hear is some translation of birdsong, from the melodies to the little rhythmic motifs. It all sources from those particular bird sounds heard throughout each scene of the play – and I’ve put the main bird calls in the track titles for each cue!
For the environment texture in the background of each scene (not heard on this album), I recorded hours of nature sounds at Owen Conservation Park near my house in Madison, WI. Owen Park has beautiful trails that stray between woods and natural Wisconsin prairie hills. The wooded trails connect into the neighborhood where I lived while recording this score, creating these wonderful fingers of forested pathways between backyards. There will be a 2nd release of this album coming out next year (2023) with the sound design elements and bird calls from each scene included. But to start with, I wanted to release only the original music as it’s own listening experience. I’ll give more specific notes on the arc of the internal sound design elements for these scenes with the release of that future “Sound Design Edition” of the album… stay tuned!
“When There Were Glaciers” Pre-Show music listening guide
Because all of these music cues are transition music, they are quite short! That was one of the biggest challenges of the show and a very very useful exercise for me, as I tend to stretch on when it comes to composing a piece, or improvising, or even teaching… or writing…long sentences! But one place I knew I could intentionally spread out and do something big was in the pre-show while people were taking their seats and settling in before the performance. From the moment I started working on this production, I knew I wanted to make a pre-show piece where you just sat with a wall of glacier. Before we moved into the times of man-made climate change in the play, we could start in the time of glaciers.
In this solid ambience, you hear glacial cello drones mixed with icey guzheng string noises that give off frozen mists as the glacier cracks, settles, and calves. The piece is chronological, a historical timeline. When there are big dramatic guzheng chord strikes, it signifies an important natural environmental event in history – a change in the course of our planet’s trajectory. We also get to hear all of the original cello transcriptions of birdsong (stretched out even sloowwweeeerrrrr) to guide us through each epoch. For each slowed down cello-bird song, I then doubled and tripled the melody, playing in real time with the slowest bows I could muster! Matching all of the slowed down glides and slides was a very fun challenge. When the birdsong-cellos first enter around 3 minutes in, it represents the origins of life, such as plant and animal species appearing on earth. Life goes on for a while, and then around 10:45 we hear the first build of plucked guzhengs which lasts for about 2 minutes, symbolizing evolution, the proliferation of different species and the beauty of Nature’s design. These plucked builds over the drone in combination with the cello melodies was something I had envisioned from the very beginning of the project, but I didn’t get to edit it all together until one afternoon before our first tech runthrough. It occured to me at some point (before I recorded it) that these textures would end up being very reminiscent of the harp and orchestra builds found in John Luther Adams’ monumental 2013 orchestral work “Become Ocean“. After this revelation, I chose not to run away from the idea, but instead to run faster towards it. How perfect was this similarity to a piece that is also about Climate Change! Now it could be my little homage to this great work and to what it represents.
Close to the 14 minute mark we have the entrance of Humankind, with a very questioning melody, in tension with the droning world around it. Our questions and self awareness stirring us in directions that would ultimately separate us out from the rest of the animal & plant kingdoms, though by our own fabrications. At 19 minutes we have another bubbling guzheng build, nature reminds us of it’s beauty and power in answer to our questions and teaches us. Shortly after (about 22:40) humankind rebuttals with the emergence of Industrialization, looking to its own intellect for answers instead. The ominous, dark horn and strings chord brings with it pollution and the start of our Climate Crisis. At 22:30 we hear our first electricity zings, further advancing our technological transformations. Our new melody that begins around 23 minutes is mechanical sounding, repeating the same note again and again like a factory line and ending in a rising siren sound. At 26:25 with the final siren rise, we have been warned, Modern war has arrived. After 27 minutes there is more agitation in the environment, we continue changing the earth for what we think we need, while ignoring what it needs. Take, take, take.
Around 28:30, the “mourning dove” melody appears. It’s beautiful and sad. We are seeing the wonderful benefits of modern medicine and technology in our societies, but we are starting to understand the cost of our developments, and what effect we are having on the earth. Some mourn, some ignore. 31:20 we are out of sync with the earth and what it needs, we are trying to sync up our priorities. Left vs Right vs Left vs Right vs Left vs Right. But eventually these sides come together to create a beautiful swell into a singular moment of understanding at 33:05, and finally we are working together.
With the entrance of the flutes at our moment of unity, we have a light shining hope on us. Maybe, just maybe we can use all of our technological advances to help solve the problem we have created. For the next few minutes there are two futures brewing, one of beautiful hope and one of ugly conflict.
It leads us into the beginning of the end of the piece. At 35 minutes we have once again the swelling chords of humankind in the strings and horns signifying our present time. They are not as ominous as the first industrial chords, there is more beauty and complexity here. Placed in a crucial moment, we must make the choice to finally act in reversing our damages and changing our ways to preserve our planet… or to send ourselves on a path to final extinction, taking everything else down with us. The final cadence at 37 minutes lingers on an unresolved note, what choice will we make?
At 38 minutes, the earth is left resonating, but the glaciers are gone.
John Luther Adams “Become Ocean” performed by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Album Credits
Brian Grimm – Violoncello, Sarangicello, Guzheng Greg Smith – Concert Flute, Alto Flute Composed, Performed, Recorded, Mixed, & Mastered by Brian Grimm 2022 (c) & (p) GrimmusiK Records
Brian used Jargar Superior GC and Superior Dolce AD strings on his cello for this album. Sarangicello was tuned cgad’ for these compositions, using gut strings.
Thanks to Adult Swim for having us, it was so special to improvise for 90 mins with DB Pedersen & Brennan Connors! [see original post] Here are a few clips of me warming up on my instruments and pedalboard before the show, enjoy 🙂
6:30pm on 2nd floor NOSFERATU (1922) 100th anniversary screening! with Live Score and Sound FX by DB Pedersen, Brennan Connors & BC Grimm
Monsters and robots and clowns, oh my! Adult Swim returns after three long years! Adult Swim at Madison Children’s Museum honors the public pool tradition of kicking the kids out so adults can have the space to themselves (without the water or need for a swimsuit). This 21-and-up event series offers adults the opportunity to play like a grown-up for the evening—crawling, sliding, crafting, and dancing their way through the museum. Don’t miss the Wonderground, our newest 10,000 square foot outdoor playground and exhibit space.
Join us to celebrate Halloween in style – wear your favorite costume or make costume accessories after you arrive. Additional activities:
Get sketchy or model your costume for a fast-draw competition
Compete in a horror film scavenger hunt
Experiment with dry ice bubbles
Make spooky or silly ghost print
Relive a childhood nightmare as you share your worst trick-or-treat “treat”
Enjoy a vintage horror flick with live sci fi accompaniment
Enter our costume fashion show and contest to win fabulous prizes
Please note, this event is not affiliated with ADULT SWIM, the television and entertainment network—also, we don’t have a swimming pool.
Behold the Monstrosity of DB Squidersen!!
I’m very excited to perform once again with DB Pedersen! He’s been one of the most frequent collaborators to pop up on the GrimmusiK website, and of course, one of my favorite human beings that I’ve met in Madison! It’s been a little while since we’ve performed together; partly due to DB having a few year stint as a chef out in Spring Green at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin and partly due to the obvious lack of performances during this Covid era… I can’t think of a better way to reconnect than scoring a spooky silent film during its centennial this Halloween! DB and I have performed a lot of free improvisation in Madison over the years, most notably in our trio with my brother AJ, called “Sister’s Three”. A big highlight was when Sisters Three composed & performed a live theater score for A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Bartell Theatre (Madison, WI) with Strollers Theatre Company. DB is well known for his throat singing expertise, impromptu theatrics and a knack for making any sound effect you could ever imagine with his mouth! If you haven’t seen him perform before, you are in for a major treat; it’s always unpredictable, surprising, funny, and even spiritual when DB gets on stage.
db pedersen in a Spring Green silo!Brennan Connors performing with Stray Passage @ Cafe CODA | (c) 2018 Paul S Howell Photography
Most of you will know Brennan Connors from our decade long collaboration in his jazz trio Brennan Connors & Stray Passage. Saxophonist and improvisor extraordinaire, Brennan has recently developed a new style which dips into the sonic territory of 20th century composition. Brennan has been working on heady, layered dissonances and new concepts to break him away from expected norms in today’s Jazz or even New Music scenes. It’s been a long time since I’ve improvised with Brennan in such a different mode, outside of the Jazz Trio idiom. I can’t wait to see what he brings to the table!
Not only have DB and I performed a lot of free-improv together, but Brennan and DB have also shared the stage countless times in their free-improv group Amoebageddon. With soundscapes built from flutes and implements through loop stations, saxophones, and electric cello accompanied by live visual art on a projector – this was one of my favorite Madison area acts to see in the free-improv and experimental scene! We’ll be drawing on years of various collaborative configurations in order to bring you a Live Improvised Score to the silent horror film classic Nosferatu!
“did somebody say my name…?”
Film Screening: starting at 6:30pm on the 2nd floor, we’ll be celebrating the 100th anniversary of Nosferatu (1922), an unauthorized film adaptation of the novel Dracula (1887) by Bram Stoker. As the fates would have it… this is actually the second time that I’ll be performing a live improvised score to this film, also at a museum! Back around 2008-2010 I was in a guerilla new music ensemble of graduate composers at Butler University called Ensemble 48. One of our most memorable performances was a live, outdoor, improvised score to Nosferatu, with the film MASSIVELY projected onto the entire side wall of a museum in Indianapolis! It was so much fun! Miss these goofballs >>
vintage Ensemble 48, in costume after our Nosferatu screening in 2008! pictured Left to Right (standing): Joshua Morris, Nick Liebman, Adam Cohen-Leadholm, Zane Merritt, Megan Pokorney, Brian Grimm; (kneeling) Scott Comanzo, Matt Smart.
