Rich Wasowski, director of Miracle on 34th St., prompts the youngest, potential cast members with enthusiasm as they begin the process of auditioning for play parts while supportive family and friends form their audience. Costume designer Jenna Gribben (small photo lower right) begins the cast dressing process with measurements of Caleb Tate who will be playing Harper's Grandchild.

THE
MANSFIELD
PLAYHOUSE
PRESENTS...........

The old 1st Alliance Church on E. Third St. has been aglow with secular creativity since 1967 when The Mansfield Playhouse, the second oldest community theater in Ohio, did Brigadoon, its first production there.

The playhouse and its predecessors have been producing local plays since 1929 and, a stunning amount of behind the scenes activity precedes every play’s ultimately polished appearance on stage.

Longtime theater manager Susie Schaus explains the normal velocity of activity at the playhouse, “During our season which runs from September to June there is almost always a play in rehearsal while auditions are being held for the next following production; all this before the current production ends.”

The set for the next production, The Miracle on 34th St., was under construction before the stage was cleared after the previous show. When opening night arrives December 5th more than 50 volunteers will be involved in support of the actual cast and crew.

It costs about $6,000 to put on a show.

Auditions, the first formal activity of a new play, began October 20th when 76 local folks tried out for parts. By the 27th the 33 cast members were in rehearsals which will continue almost daily until opening night.

By the 28th they were being measured for costumes.

On November 10th the stage was cleared of the set for the previous production—which closed on the 9th—and the Miracle’s cast moved upstairs for their first rehearsal on the main stage.

The play has 34 different scenes that director Rich Wasowski and team need to polish into opening night perfection.

By opening night nearly 100 hours of rehearsal alone will have been completed. It is nearly impossible to calculate the total hours devoted to getting a play to opening night when one considers such additional jobs as costuming, set production, and technical engineering among a zillion other tasks.

Miracle on 34th St., is a Christmas classic. Kris Kringle is the personification of good will and holiday spirit. As Macy’s holiday Santa, he enchants children and shoppers so completely he is deemed dangerous by fellow employees who plot to ruin him. A small girl’s belief in Santa and the magic of the holiday is at stake in a climactic courtroom decision.

Click here for more information.

Do yourself a favor; the tickets are modestly priced and the productions are easily near-Broadway quality right here on E. Third St., in our hometown, USA.

Break a leg, cast and crew!

Director Wasowski (above) coaxes perfection from Carmone Macfarlane playing Dr. Pierce as she tells Santa Kris (played by Gordi Wendling, a Mansfield policeman) he might have to go to a sanatorium while Don Lincicome as Mr. Shellhamer awaits his cue.

Next lower; Wasowski, Macfarlane and set designer Anna Plank begin the early stages of set construction. In the bottom photo, Jim Heydinger, lighting and sound technician, fine-tunes the positioning of stage lighting.

THE CAST’S EYE VIEW--

The main auditorium of the Mansfield Playhouse soon will be the scene of a holiday production, The Miracle on 34th St. Fogeyisms has followed this production starting with auditions in October. Saturday, we will share with you the nearly countless hours of work that leads to the show’s six performance dates beginning with opening night, Friday, December 5th.

Please stop by, then better yet, buy some tickets and go enjoy the show!

LAKE-EFFECT SNOW—

The lake-effect snow machine runs on warm lake water. Surface water temperatures in the Great Lakes can be relatively warm compared to cold air flowing over them this time of year.

When the difference in temperature between the surface and the air aloft reaches a threshold value, typically between 18 and 23 degrees, lake effect snow becomes possible.

As cold air flows over the warm water, the lake warms and moistens the air. Since warm, moist air is less dense than cold air, the heated air rises. Rising air cools and water vapor condenses into cloud droplets.

Water vapor can turn to snow when it rises above the freezing level.

These clouds can produce snow over the lake, but the efficiency of snow production increases when the wind pushes the clouds over land. Friction with the ground causes air to pile up. This creates lift and enhances snowfall.

The lifting produced when these clouds run into the inland hills further enhances the snow production. That’s exactly what happens in the higher terrain east of Cleveland.

Winds accompanying these cold air masses in this area generally blow from a west or northwest direction causing lake effect snow to fall on the east or southeast sides of the lakes.

In order to have heavy lake-effect snow, cold air must travel over at least 60 miles of relatively warmer open water.

Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes and, because of that, it is the warmest which means it can generate impressive snows early in the winter. However, it cools rapidly during the winter and is the only lake prone to freezing over.

When that happens lake-effect snows are effectively turned off.

The most notorious area for prodigious amounts of lake-effect snow around here is Buffalo, NY. This is because a west wind has some 250 miles of open water over which to gain moisture before it collides with the rising terrain at Buffalo’s east end of the lake.

They like to claim the title of the World’s Record City for Snowfall based on their 5 day record for continuous snow at 82.3 inches which fell in December 2001. (1)

Cleveland, by comparison, has a seasonal snowfall average of but 52 inches. (2)

The photo was taken recently from the computer screen of an image produced by the radar of Intellicast.com. Lake effect snows are clearly visible flowing from Lake Superior across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and along the entire eastern shoreline of Lake Michigan. Note also the band of lake effect snow flowing south from Lake Huron across Lake Erie where it intensifies and grows into a huge area of snow in northeastern Ohio and covering much of western Pennsylvania. Winds throughout the area were from the north-northwestNotes:

(1) Click! The Buffalonian

(2) Click! City-data

Otherwise compiled from USATODAY.com and www.Weather.com/encyclopedia/winter/lake.html.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING--

We rounded a curve on Bromfield Rd., that morning and were rewarded with the sight of a large, buck Whitetail Deer leisurely crossing just ahead of us; soft morning sunlight glowing on his generous rack of antlers.

Friend Jenny Lezak and I were headed to Malabar Farm for a day’s event called Hearthside Cooking—a hand’s-on, annual peek at the colonial style of preparing a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner.

We were greeted by friendly staff folks attired in period costumes and supported by nearly a dozen volunteers with cooking fires already ablaze in two large fireplaces and several outdoor primitive cook sites at the Pugh Cabin high on a forested hill near the sugar shack.

About 30 student cooks promptly assembled themselves in groups and began peeling, chopping, dicing, mixing and blending a commissary-full of ingredients that soon would turn into our lunch of sausage potato soup and cornbread with homemade butter; the soup slowly concocted then simmered to perfection in a large, cast-iron kettle over an open campfire.

“We prepare fresh all natural turkeys and hams raised here at Malabar Farm,” park naturalist Lisa Durham told the student cooks. “Many of the vegetables including our own fresh pumpkin, herbs and sweet potatoes also come from our gardens.”

Meanwhile, other ingredients under a carefully choreographed schedule would find their way to a host of Dutch-ovens, stacked sometimes in pairs and surrounded by glowing coals from the blazing wood fires.

Still others would wind-up in frying pans over open fires, simmering their way to a host of treats including such recipes as Cranberry Medley, Maple Baked Carrots, Corn Pudding and Irish Soda Bread.

This in addition to the turkey; some cooking in a reflecting oven at a near walk-in sized fireplace, others in cast iron pots simmering for hours over campfires—all scheduled for completion at an afternoon feast.

As a tired and hungry group of modern-day pioneers sat down to enjoy the results of their day-long labor, we were inspired by “A Thanksgiving Prayer” by Louis Bromfield which said, in part:

“...I thank you Lord for the gift of loving and being loved, for the friendliness and understanding and beauty of the animals on the farm and in the forest and marshes, for the green of the trees, the sound of a waterfall, the darting beauty of the trout in the brook...”

Thank you Mr. Louis Bromfield for making possible this rich heritage of your Malabar Farm.

In the photos from the top: Dutch Ovens are carefully tended near a huge fireplace in the Pugh Cabin. Ole flying friend and cooking student Dan Gregory mixes a bowl of yummy German Apple Cake. Potato Soup simmers in the large pot next below.

Nearing day’s end, naturalist Durham and Malabar Park Manager Louis Andres help in the feast’s layout and, bottom, an amply supplied plate heads toward a participant's dinner table.

WACKOS IN CORPORATE BOARDROOMS--

National news sources revealed Thursday the CEOs of the Big Three automakers flew private, luxury jets to Washington to plead for a $25 billion taxpayer bailout to save their debt-ridden industry.

Fox News reported, “Recipients of eight-figure bonuses in 2007, the corporate cowboys used their executive perks—which for GM’s Rick Wagoner include the run of a $36 million Gulfstream IV jet—to arrive in style as they went begging before congress.”

Wagoner’s flight reportedly cost $20,000 round trip—about 70 times more than a commercial airline ticket.

This on the heals of news about the pompous leadership in previously bailed-out money institutions attending lavish entertainment venues after securing their industry hand-outs from the public trough.

With leadership like that demonstrated by these lackeys of the corporate boardrooms, and their pompous cronies in Congress, it is no wonder our economy is in a shambles.

Saturday, Fogeyisms returns to Malabar Farm for their annual Hearthside Cooking program. Naturalist Lisa Durham in the above photo describes the day’s events to the participants. The utensils pictured right were constantly used, washed and reused during the day’s flurry of cooking activity.

A Dutch Oven (bottom) is loaded with red-hot coals in the second fireplace used during the day’s event. Please stop by and enjoy both this popular, annual program and our celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday.

BOOK REPORTS—

Overload by Arthur Hailey

This oldie from 1979 is another in a long string of good reads by Hailey which included Airport, Hotel, Wheels, The Moneychangers, etc., all of which I enjoyed many years ago. Overload is a chilling look at where we could easily be if we do not escape our dependence on OPEC’s control of the oil supply. Hailey died in 2004 at the age of 84. He published 11 books in 40 countries and sold more than 170 million copies. I’ll be checking to be sure I haven’t missed reading any of them.


High Wire by Peter Gosselin

Subtitled “The precarious financial lives of American families” this book examines the disappearing safety nets that once protected US citizens from financial calamities. The vignettes of real people and their financial horrors were poignant but the bulk of the book was done in textbook-style which requires a strong scholarly instinct to make this either an informative or enjoyable read.


The Eleventh Man by Ivan Doig

This novel chronicles the heroics of a Montana college’s football team’s 11 varsity starters who go off to their death in World War II. The main character of the book is Ben Reinking, the son of the town’s newspaper editor who goes to war with his teammates but suffers the burden of surviving while he writes their individual stories. There is a “breath of actuality” to the book’s premise as 11 starting players from a Bozeman, MT college did perish in the war; thus blurring the line between truth and fiction.


The Flat Earth by Christine Garwood

Aristotle had it figured out before Christ was born, “Observation of the stars...shows not only that the earth is spherical but that it is of no great size....” Then, along comes PhD Garwood’s current tome in 436 pages of academic scribbling; seeking to evaluate all sides of the debate on the Earth’s shape. Never mind her book. Aristotle’s opinion is good enough for me.