To friends of American Machine

WELCOME!

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

OPENING NIGHT BENEFIT
Burlington Schools Food Project

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WELCOME!

This is the first of our every-once-in-a-while newsletters to keep you abreast of all the happenings with ‘American Machine.’ From the day-to-day challenges of producing an independent play, to our opening night benefit for ‘The Burlington Schools Food Project,’ we’ll do our best to keep you updated on our play.

What’s our play about? … Part parable on the American dream, part cautionary tale taken from the headlines, ‘American Machine’ tells the story of a great factory that once made parts for classic American cars. As a makeshift family of six friends come together each night to work, they’re soon faced with rumors that their employer will be downsizing - or even closing altogether. As they begin working on a new order‹making buckets and mops for Wal-Mart‹the prospect of being split up looms before them, and their dedication to the once-proud factory is put to the test.

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WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Cast … After months of auditions that have taken us from the far reaches of Vermont to Ellenville, New York (where the TV antennae was invented!) we’re proud to announce our all-Vermont cast. We’re glad to welcome back
actors Dennis McSorley, Colin Cramer who were part of ‘The Bus,’ and three very talented actresses - Bridget Butler, Teresa Lorenco and Chris Caswell. Seth Jarvis, who directed ‘The Bus,’ is also a talented actor and has joined
the cast, too. Over the next two months, we’ll introduce you to these talented Vermont theatre artists.

Sets … We’ve started building our sets which includes part of a working injection molding machine. We plugged it in last night - and it works! Normally an injection molding machine is about the size of a Winnebego and weighs tons, but between a set animator at the Shakespeare Theatre in DC (thank you, St. Mike’s grad Mark Prey), a plastics factory in Virginia
(thank you Valley Industrial Plastics) and a talented student from Cooper Union (thank you Sam Rudy), our machine will be less imposing as we place it behind an open stage door to fit nicely onstage at FlynnSpace.

Rehearsals … It’s hard to believe it’s only 8 weeks to the opening of our play so rehearsing has already become part of our weekly ritual. We’ve moved to our permanent rehearsal home at The Soda Plant (thank you Steve Conant!).

Fundraising … By far the toughest part of putting on a play is raising our budget. We’re lucky to live in a community where the arts are so generously supported (for instance, I can’t imagine producing ‘The Bus’ in, say, Lubbock, Texas.) … As an independent production we’re not funded by any theatre or organization, so our budget comes completely from corporate and individual sponsorships. So far we’ve raised about half of our budget, but we’ve still got a long ways to go. If you’d like to become a sponsor ‘American Machine,’ shoot us an e-mail and we’ll show you how!

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OPENING NIGHT BENEFIT
Burlington Schools Food Project

See a play and support a great cause! … On Tuesday evening, September 25th, the opening night performance of ‘American Machine’ will benefit The Burlington Schools Food Project. 100% of all proceeds from this show will go to the project to support healthy fruits and vegetables for students at Burlington schools and to support CSA farm shares for food service employees at Burlington school cafeterias.

Want to know more about the Burlington Schools Food Project?
www.bsdvt.org/Schools/EdmundsEl/goodfood.htm

Tickets for the benefit are $15 and may be purchased at City Market in Burlington after September 1st.

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Well, that’s all for now. E-back if you have any questions. As always thank you for your support - hope to see you at the show!

Jim Lantz
Writer/Director, ‘American Machine’
Sept 25 - Oct 7, FlynnSpace, Burlington, VT

www.AmericanMachineThePlay.com

Saw this headline this morning: “Leahy subpoenas Rove, Dems allege perjury on part of Gonzales”

Sometimes not so sure about being a citizen of the new American Empire, I am sure proud to be a citizen of Vermont. I feel represented here, with two Senators who get apoplectic over the very things I do.

Coverage from Barre Montpilier Times Argus here. Go Leahy!

I have been getting a lot of comments, questions about my bicycle. Yes, that is an extention on the back. No, I didn’t build it myself.

It is a kit put together by the folks at Extracycle. They call it a Sport Utility Bicycle, but in my mind, it is more like a station wagon.

Back before mini-vans, there were those old nine-seater wagons. My folks had one. Summers it would fill with tents and sleeping bags as they took three boys car camping our way across the US. During the school year, we would drive to the A&P and I would look back in the tailgate over what seemed like acres of brown paper grocery bags. Bench front seat, a lucky one could sit between Mom and Dad. Or read as we drove, hidden away in the ‘way back.’

I started cycling when I moved back to town a couple of years ago. Living right on the bikepath, a mile or two from town, I figured I could make it to work and back, or to the store. But, I would always be needing to carry something - the briefcase for work, have to stop at the store for supper, swim suits for the beach … And so I would grab the car keys instead. I needed that old nine-seater, or at least something along the lines of the modern granola-head Vermont equivalent, my Subary Legacy wagon.

I tried trikes, I tried trailers. Then, down at the Old Spokes Home, I tried one of these. Hardly noticed it was there. Plenty of room. No hitches to deal with. So I had them put one on.

It is great. Now I can treat my bike my car, throw my junk in the back. Stopping at the store, the beach, whatever, no problem. I can toss it back there and haul it. And it can hold quite a bit. Like, for example; a week’s worth of groceries, buckets of carrots in from the farm field, watermelons to the beach picnic, the daughter home from school (although she did ask that I meet her round the corner) and a cinematographer from Toronto, filming our local run of the world naked bike ride. here this summer.

Now, I ride. The thing hauls. And, finally, I have a place on my bike for bumper stickers.

Happy Riding!

I can’t recall a president that seemed so oblivious to not only public sentiment, but the whole notion of governance. Who is willing to push his agenda in general, and this travesty of a war against rational thinking, considered disagreement, and the will of those he is supposed to be serving.

Of course, I was just a kid when LBJ was president, eight years old when Johnson hung it up in ‘68, leaving Nixon to trounce Huphrey.

So the man isn’t listening. Was in DC Monday and saw these posters.

Stop the War March, September 15, site is here This might be a chance to shout a bit louder, get the message across.

For you local folks, here is another protest that promises to be good fun and a bit closer to home. August 24, at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport. The Peace and Justice Center is running buses.

Well, we have all heard a lot of talk about web 2.0 being the “social web”. And blogs are so web 2.0. Well, I don’t know about that, and I am certainly the most social being that has ever walked the planet in human form. But I figure one thing about blogs is that they can be used to knit up a community. And, well, even if I don’t feel it, I suppose I am part of a community.

If my experience in long-term sobriety teaches me anything (over and over again), there is not much I can accomplish alone. In fact, alone, mostly I am a complete mess.

Why am I going on about this?

This blog has broken new ground. In recogniti0n of - no, in celebration of - my status as a social being, I have started putting links up on this site. Well, OK, you can consider my del.icio.us cloud tag links of a sort, but …

And, the set of categories came out of an ephinany of sorts. You see, I have been thinking about links for a while. And, there is a lot to link to, a lot to show off, a lot that deserves to be seen. And, how to sort it all out, and keep it succinct?

The other day at work, slogging through another day of data slice and dice on auto pilot, wondering how much longer I could survive this job with the “i don’t give a shit” mantra going loud and strong, I got a little desperate. You see, I really can’t afford, at this exact moment, to just get up, go out for lunch, and never come back.

What is it, I thought, that I could do with a pasion? Where does the compass point that will show me a way out of this rut. For I am hungry for work that satisifies, work that simply needs to be done.

I picked up a pen and four words penned themselves with bold strokes. A simple calender, two lines of rough financial scaffolding. I have a plan.

And the headings for the links list you see in the far sidebar was born.

Happy Surfing.

At the Warren 4th of July parade, the 59th, which is, as we all know, is the bellwether of Vermont politics, I picked up a pamphlet from the Second Vermont Republic. The notion of succession has made more and more sense to me, as the US government becomes more and more imperialistic, drifts farther and farther from notions of radical democracy that undergird the declaration of independence and the constitution.

And, living where I do, about as close to the ghost of Ethan Allen as you can get, having the Republic of Vermont end it’s two hundred some odd year experimental alliance with the United States does not seem that far-fetched a notion, nor entirely improbable. After all, when Ethan was looking for some protective alliances for the fledgling Republic, a small chip of independence surrounded by hostile big boys, Washington (the person, not the town) was giving him the cold shoulder, he did think that perhaps the British might take us in. Washington acted first.

Yet, haven’t we all been in similar situations, perhaps with our eye on more than one fine lady, and lo, it is the one that acts soonest that becomes the wife? And, tell me this - do you really believe that each and every one of these matches made with perhaps more than a whiff of expediency lasts for the eternity pledged during the vows? But I digress …

Despite how normal the idea of a Second Vermont Republic seems to me, I have learned that what seems reasonable to me is often at odds with the majority view, and can be seen as radical - loony even - when viewed through the lens of Standard American Mainstream. So it was with interest that I looked over the Principals of the Second Vermont Republic. I expected to see things that would terrorize your average american - or at least cause a taciturn Vermonter to Hrumph a bit. After all we are talking about revolution here, folks. Succession. Last time it was over a hotly contested issue - slavery.

But instead I found a set of principals that are actually being circulated in some fairly mainstream circles today.

Sustainability, for example. That one is so common that it is starting to loose it’s meaning, much like “all natural” (yes, I am old enough to recall when “all natural” meant you were a free-love radical).

Human Scale - this is something we have been talking about in state for years. This is the fuss about the big box stores, the concern about sprawl, the McMansions.

Economic Solidarity - The labor movement is nothing new.

Neither is the principal of Equal Opportunity, something written into the constitution of both the Republic of Vermont and the United States several hundred years ago.

This gives me great hope. Because, this means that we can enlist those that might not be able to go all the way to seeing dissolution of our union with the other states as politically feasible, or even desirable, in our cause. While they might not be able to drink that last gulp of cool-aid, there are plenty of people in this state who are willing to work for things like Equal Opportunity, Sustainability, and Economic Stability. Given the current views on the war, working for Tension Reduction is something a lot of folks seem willing to get behind.

Let’s be sure, then, that we not let the Separatist portion of our rhetoric alienate us from these folks. Maybe even dispense with it altogether in certain venues, certain discussions. We do not want to loose common bonds with those that are working on the very things that our cause supports, just because they do not want to do it under the flag of the Green Mountain Boys.

Oh, and the float. A car with a banner. Kind of Lame. I know SVR might be a low budget affair, and I know that despite the heroic write up Ethan and his boys were not exactly high tone, but … we really ought to be able to do better than that. Perhaps, next year, the SVR might want to see if the statue of Ethan Allen over at the Museum can get the fourth off to attend a parade.