Last week, we took a journey through the last eleven years of photographing Idle Muse Theatre Company’s productions in honor of their twentieth anniversary. This week, we’ll continue the celebration with a glimpse at their twentieth anniversary party, What’s Past Is Prologue, which was held at the Lytle House in Edgewater. I’m reluctant to clutter this blog with scads of party pictures, so we’ll keep it to the greatest hits this week.
Some of the features of the party, included…
Prize Baskets
The company put together several baskets of premium prizes. Distant Era MVP Elizabeth spent the summer writing emails, making phone calls, and drumming up support for the party, asking for donations for the baskets. All of this was happening in the background throughout my summer, so I recognize the colossal amount of effort that went into this.
Interactive Characters
Another special feature of the gala was the presence of characters from Idle Muse’s plays. Throughout the evening, characters like Prospero and the Ariels from The Tempest flitted about the space, as did Trinculo, Stefano, and Caliban; The Blood Countess herself strode royally among the guests, as did Arthur Guenivere and Lancelot from The Last Queen of Camelot. At one point, The Three Musketeers made their appearance. So did Lady Candour and Lady Crabtree from The School for Scandal.
Leading up to the event, company manager Kati Lechner asked whether I’d be amenable to doing a workshop with the performers whose job it would be to play the parts of the characters interacting with guests.
For many years I worked as a street performer at the Ohio Renaissance Festival, where my job was exactly this. Plus a lifetime of work in improvisation and guest services of one kind or another. I used to do workshops like this for live action role-playing games, as well as improv workshops for high schoolers and convention-goers. So I dusted off my notes, condensed my workshop material to twenty-five minutes and, along with Jennifer Mohr, who has similar training and experience, we worked with the performers to disperse anxiety and interact easily with guests at the event. It was a good time returning to that work for a while.
The Tamale Spaceship
While I’m talking about ancient history and my time doing Renaissance festivals in the 1990s… When I moved to Chicago in 1997, I started work at Ed Debevic’s Real American Diner, where I waited tables and danced on counters with a wild crew of friends. One of those folks was Manny Hernandez, who later went on to create Chicago’s The Tamale Spaceship. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the Idle Muse event to find the Tamale Spaceship was catering the event, and sure enough, Manny was there. I hadn’t seen him in probably twenty-seven years. It was a joy to catch up with him. There we were, both working the same event again, this time each of us doing our own business.
I’m used to shooting events, and this year I’d made my event kit lighter and more portable so that I could travel anywhere and shoot just about anything. At the event, I roved around and tried to capture every guest (who wanted to be captured), as well as the speeches and highlights of the event. The celebration was a grand success and sold out.
Happy birthday to Idle Muse Theatre Company and thanks to all who came out for a good time.
