Into The Woods: Sondheim at The Cloverdale Playhouse

WORDS Katie Vega   PHOTOS Jon Kohn

Cloverdale Playhouse director Randy Foster puts it perfectly—theatre happens in the space between the audience and the actors.  

There is something about theatre.  Maybe it’s the fact that you are watching a story happen right before your eyes, acted out by real, live people.  Or it may be the fact that you know you are experiencing something beautiful that you will never see again, except in your memories.  Whatever the reason, the art of theatre is something to be experienced and our city has many opportunities to live out this artistic fantasy—whether for viewer or actor.  I’ve recently found the perfect place to experience this connection.

Cloverdale Playhouse, housed in a 1930s church, is the location of something spectacular—something that has disappeared into the abyss.  The Playhouse serves as a gathering place for a community of locals, working (and playing) together to create something magical.  This big, happy family, disguised as teachers, shop owners, massage therapists, and restaurateurs, gathers with one goal in mind—to create a creative outlet for ordinary locals—just like themselves—to be something more.  It is the place at the forefront for the redevelopment of our creative community.

As I sat with the actors of Cloverdale Playhouse, they didn’t even need to talk for me to experience the passion that was dripping from their cells.  Whether they had been acting for 60 years or 6 months, the commonality shared by this group of people—who actually highly differ in age, profession, and every other regard—is something to be seen, and you’ll see this unspeakable bond in the magic that happens on stage.

The group of actors I had the pleasure of talking with—including Eleanor Davis, Jonathan Conner, Emily Lowder Wootten, and Sarah Thornton—were so passionate about expressing the importance of a community theater in Montgomery.  Our city is bursting with creative beings that have a burning desire to act without necessarily making a life out of it.  Cloverdale Playhouse gives these citizens the opportunity to act while still leading their already established lives.  And the Playhouse truly is a community effort, with every single person being a volunteer—from the sound guy to the set designers.  Everyone.  

The Playhouse believes in using the resources available to them.  They don’t go out searching the world for the perfect actor to play the part—they use people who have ties to Montgomery and a passion to do what they love.  This simple mantra forces them to stick to the basics, to the true meaning of theater—telling a story that is both satisfying to an audience and gratifying to the actors.  This also allows everyone involved to try new things without having the hierarchy usually seen in the theatre world lingering above their heads.

And don’t be disheartened that these actors aren’t “professionals” (by “professional” standards).  Their unveiling passion trumps over a silly, little title.  And not only do they have passion, but every single actor involved with the Playhouse is extremely talented (the proof is in their sold out shows).  All are surprised at the level of goodness the actors possess.  Hey, you know they’re talented when 13 people are playing 24 parts…

Jonathan Conner, who plays multiple parts in the upcoming production, Into the Woods, explained his reasons for getting into theatre—all of which are intangible.  He believes that testing his own boundaries constantly keeps him on the edge of his own seat and getting into character forces him to understand his fellow man.  Eleanor Davis, who has been acting for SIXTY YEARS, was thrown into the spotlight at an early age, as her parents made her perform at dinner parties held at their home.  She swears if her father didn’t pass at a young age that he would have pushed his blonde-haired baby all the way to Broadway. She has been at the forefront for community theatre in Montgomery for years.  

Emily Lowder Wootten, a UGA theater graduate and former actress on the Chicago theater circuit, quickly learned that she didn’t like being told no, and this outlet allows her to continue living her passion without encountering the harshness of the theater world.  Sarah Thornton, who is the assistant director for Into the Woods, has been surrounded by theatre her entire life.  She grew up in the hallways of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, where her father acted as artist director.  This forced her to fall in love with the beauty of a story.  Currently, Sarah lives in New York City where she is involved with Bama Theatre Company—a place where alumni from ASF perform entire plays out of a single trunk.

The Playhouse is currently in their third season and their upcoming production of Into the Woods begins February 13th and runs through the 23rd.  The musical, written by Stephen Sondheim, combines stories from the Brother Grimm into an epic fairy tale where worlds collide.  It is the story of what happens after happily ever after.  And although these fairy tales were written centuries ago, this particular musical merges them with real people and real problems, exposing daily issues we all face.  It makes the characters human, as they must make real choices about real things, things that have consequences.  The story is both hilarious and touching.  The actors of the Playhouse even admit to crying randomly during rehearsals because their hearts were touched by the story.

Everyone should jump at the opportunities available to become involved with Cloverdale Playhouse.  They are always looking for volunteers.  And don’t be scared—they didn’t make me recite every Tony award winner from the beginning of time or list every play written by Shakespeare.  The pretentiousness is left at the door, and these fine people will bring you into their family and make you feel right at home.  As Randy said, everyone has a sense of being, a sense of being a part of something larger than just a play.

So come hang out with us.  We’ll find something for you.  And whatever you’ll be doing, you will be helping to provide our community with the fostering of artistic opportunities.  And that, my friend, is something to be cherished.

For more information about classes, productions, and volunteer opportunities, visit
www.cloverdaleplayhouse.org and join the Cloverdale Playhouse group on Facebook.

McAlpine Tankersley Architecture: Analog In A Digital World

WORDS Brent Rosen 

Butcher shops, artisanal pickles, urban agriculture, craft beer, millinery -- at best people view these as charming anachronisms, at worst as the domain of the silly hipster.  But 50 or 60 years ago, meat came from the butcher shop (“I’m like Sam the butcher bringing Alice the meat”), all pickles were “artisanal,” agriculture did not mean factory farms, most beer remained regionally, if not locally produced, and hats were still made by hand and sold to stylish people of both sexes. It’s not just work, but our culture that has been outsourced to foreign lands or computerized to the point that no human element remains.

In our rush to maximize efficiency and computerize everything, we have certainly made progress. But progress is not always progressive, and some boons are sordid. The return of the butcher shop, urban agriculture, local beer and the like feels somewhat transgressive, as if it is taboo to buck the trend of the high-efficiency/low cost model. Some of the pleasure that comes from shopping at the farmer’s market -- beyond meeting the farmers and the sense of community you get when you know where you food comes from -- is that in truth you should not be there. It would be easier, cheaper, to just buy your tomatoes at the grocery store. You feel like you’ve broken the rules when your tomatoes come from a blue-haired old lady who lives outside Clanton.

In that same spirit of rule-breaking sits the architecture firm McApline Tankersley. For the past 30 years, the firm founded by Bobby McAlpine has refused to be pushed into the high-efficiency, low cost model.  The first thing I noticed after walking in the door of the McAlpine Tankersely offices was the absence of computers. Ok, that’s a lie. I knew a little about the architecture firm, had heard off-hand remarks about the firm’s use of hand drawings, heard that the cost of those drawings was quite high. Computer aided drafting is the norm in the architecture world. The computer helps you draw straight exact lines, assists in developing drawings with the proper proportions, allows for easy correction of mistakes and saves the architect countless hours crouching atop a drafting table. In truth, I looked for computers when I walked in the door, ready for rumors to be confirmed or dispelled. Anyway… there are almost no computers in McAlpine Tankersley’s Offices.

According to Chris Tippett, a McAlpine Tankersley architect, the firm’s choice to draw by hand is both “happenstance and purposeful.” It’s happenstance in the sense that the principals of the firm prefer to draw by hand, and therefore ask their employees to work in their preferred medium. But it’s also purposeful. John Sease, the other architect I spoke with for this story explained that “there is a tactile nature to the drawing part of it that makes it easier and more real than it would be just a line on a screen. It’s a romantic thing. Even a modern house has romance to it. That romance gets lost in a computer drawing.” While hand-drawing architectural plans results in a substantial increase in cost, McAlpine Tankersley believes the value of hand-drawing makes those costs worthwhile. Apparently, so do McAlpine Tankersley clients.

Now, clever reader, you may be wondering how an analog architecture firm can find suitable employees in a digital world. University architecture programs are fully computerized for the most part, with learning to draft by hand  akin to learning Latin: It’s fine as an exercise in the humanities, but has limited practical application. Tippett explained that even though hand drawing is becoming a lost art, students still learn to hand draw if they take advantage of study abroad programs. “Study abroad programs don’t use computers -- they have a sketch book and they are out drawing,” Tippet said, and it is during these abroad programs that students have a “first experience being able to look at something, to figure out the proportions on a piece of paper.” Tippett thinks that once you start drawing by hand, you are inspired to draw more. One need not be a great artist to draw by hand, but someone with an eye for drawing can put art into their drafting. Or, as Sease put it, “The technique, the quirks, each individual’s drawings are like each individuals handwriting.”

McAlpine Tankersley’s quest to find qualified young architects is aided by the firm’s relationship to Auburn. All but three of the firm’s architects in the Montgomery office attended Auburn, and many of them were actually taught by Bobby McAlpine himself. While McApline no longer teaches, Auburn’s study abroad program -- where students get their first taste of hand drawing -- is directed by Scott Finn, whose partner works for McApline Tankersley. This pipeline helps McApline Tankersley identify potential interns who can draw, who have a good work ethic, and who have promise. Often, those interns end up becoming full-time employees.

Bobby McAlpine has a favorite saying, something he impressed upon his students and stresses with his colleagues: “Why it is is what it is.” This simple aphorism drives the firm’s entire approach. During early interviews with clients, it is the architects job to figure out the “why.” A client says, “I want a large dining room so that I can regularly host dinner parties for at least 12 people.” The why -- entertaining -- leads to the what -- a dining room sufficient to graciously host parties. Start with the dining room table. If you want to seat 12 people, how large must the room be accommodate a table of that size? What size windows are proportionate? How high must the ceilings be to create the feeling of grandeur the client desires? Is the dining room sufficiently important to this client that it can serve as the heart of the house? Should the entire home revolve around this room, or would the client prefer a living room in that role? If the dining room’s dimensions are X, what dimensions will the remaining rooms need to be in order for the entire house to have the proper proportions? These are the “why” questions that make the house “what” it will be for the client.

One thing all McApline Tankersley projects share, regardless of individual clients’ desire, is a grounding in classical architecture. McApline Tankersley pulls from Europeans influences, whether English, French, or Mediterranean, but then puts a modern gloss on those classic forms. History creates a base and informs the finished product, no different than how a guitar player must learn the chords before its possible to jam. Using classic structures and forms as a base makes it easier for the firm’s architects to solve problems. There are dozens of books of classical architecture in the firm’s library and sprinkled throughout the office, and the architects can look back to the past to see how a current problem can be solved.

Sease explained that each unique project shares some common problems. “Every house must have a kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, and each house has its own heart and soul. That said, you still need to figure out where the sink will go, where the shower will go, and how all the rooms will interact.” Another frequent problem results when a client’s wish list includes “laundry rooms, mud rooms, dog rooms, home gyms, etc.” and “the tail begins to wag the dog” according to Tippett. Adding all of these rooms requires the proportions of classic architecture to be stretched, and then the architect must to figure out how those rooms will interact with the necessaries. Often, people will live in a home for a year and realize they use the home completely differently than they thought they would upon moving in. The architect’s job is to learn about the client, determine the client’s style of life, and then help the client edit their needs in order to avoid that sinking, one-year-in feeling.

In a similar fashion, architects can use design to determine how their projects will interact with the community at large. Tippett talked about a development in Atlanta where each house is built along a huge common green. Each house shares its “yard” with its neighbors, and this builds a sense of community impossible to create when fences and privacy are the primary concern. This sense of community inspired Tippet when served as lead architect on the A&P Loft project. Tippett designed the A&P to have a pedestrian environment with shopping, communal spaces, and numerous areas that everyone -- tenants, home-owners, random passersby -- can use. At the A&P there are balconies that look out onto a common courtyard so you see your neighbors. In the old days, before air conditioning, neighbors would sit on their porches and their stoops to avoid the heat trapped in their dwellings. Neighbors could visit, gossip, chat, laugh, and get to know one another. Tippett tries to design projects like the A&P to bring that community interaction back.

“We are still learning from things we knew a long time ago, but that we forgot,” Tippett said.  Winding streets that go nowhere, people isolated from each other on huge lots, communities where no one speaks to one another -- these are modern inventions. Before the suburb, before the highway system, back when the home was your castle, not a castle, you had interactive neighborhoods. While residential architecture can only do so much to encourage this interactivity, Sease told me that in meetings with clients they often ask their clients to think communally, and not to build residences that could double as fortresses.

After speaking with Tippett and Sease, I got the sense that the firm does things the old way if that method remains the best way. When cabinets are installed in the homes they design, the architects ask the carpenters to paint the cabinets on site. If the cabinetry is painted in a box in the carpenter’s shop, it looks like a car -- high gloss finish, totally fake. The carpenters will often argue, “’but if we hand paint the cabinets, they will not have a consistent finish,’ but that’s exactly what we want” Tippett explained. A rough, textured, uneven finish lets the homeowner know that the cabinets weren’t  simply machined along with thousands of other, identical, pieces of wood and metal.

And that goes back to the hand drawings. McAlpine Tankersley stands against the notion of, as Sease put it, “the machine does that… why are we worried about it?” Computers and industrial processes can make everything in life fast and easy, but at a certain point, it all becomes cut and paste. Computers and mass manufacturing make it easier to be lazy, to ignore differences in conditions and to apply the same solution to every problem. Hand drawing forces McAlpine Tankersley architects to view each project as unique, to solve each design problem based on the individual project’s unique conditions, to put sensitivity and soul into every set of plans.  Although it’s not the cheapest or easiest way to design houses, hand drawing performs a beautiful bit of alchemy: it takes engineering and turns it into art.

PHOTOS  Courtesy Mick Hales, Kris Kendrick, Tria Giovan, Jean Allsopp, Erica Dines, mcalpinetankersleyblog.com