I always seem to get sick during tech week (aka “hell week”) before a show. Last show I did the sound tech hooked me up with Emergen-C and it brought me back up to speed within 24 hours. So now I just take it during tech week as a precaution.
The manufacturer is Alacer Corp, you can visit the Alacer Corp. Website for more information on Emergen-C. Alacer Corp. was founded in 1972 by Jay Patrick
From their website: “Super Orange Emergen-C fizzes in water to furnish 1,000 mg of Vitamin C with 32 different mineral complexes plus B Vitamins. Sweetened with Fructose for Quick Energy with Staying Power.”
The sound tech told me Emergen-C is the best kept secret of the theatre world, so let’s not let it be a secret anymore.
ABOUT VITAMIN C
Since Vitamin C is an acid (ascorbic acid) which can irritate the kidneys, bladder and intestines, side effects associated with Vitamin C intake in large doses include heartburn, nausea, flatulence and diarrhea. Researchers have found that ascorbic acid was really just an intermediary form of the vitamin and that in the form of mineral ascorbates it could provide all of the health benefits with none of the side effects. Mineral ascorbates are produced naturally by most animals (but not humans), yet when consumed regularly by humans serve as excellent transporters of Vitamin C to the over 70 trillion cells in the body. Mineral ascorbates have additional benefits, including increased energy, improved vision and reduced susceptibility to the common cold.
As of this posting, Emergen-C is available at the following retail locations:
A & P
ALBERTSONS
ARIZONA HEALTH FOODS
BARTELL DRUGS
BASHAS’
BIG Y
CUB FOODS
CVS
DUANE READE
FRED MEYER
FRY’S
GIANT EAGLE
GNC
GREAT EARTH
HAPPY HARRY’S
H-E-B
HEINEN’S
HI-HEALTH
KINGS
KING SOOPERS
KINNEY DRUGS
KROGER
LONGS
MEIJER
NEW SEASONS MARKET
PATHMARK
PCC NATURAL MARKETS
PHARMACA
RALEY’S
RALPHS
SAFEWAY
SAVON
SHOPRITE
SMITH’S
SPORT CHALET
SPROUTS
STATER BROS.
STOP & SHOP
SUNFLOWER MARKET
SUPER SUPPLEMENTS
TARGET
TRADER JOE’S
VITAMIN COTTAGE
VITAMIN SHOPPE
VITAMIN WORLD
VONS
WALGREENS
WAL-MART
WEIS
WHOLE FOODS
WILD OATS
Here’s a list of sound effects I prepared for Seussical the Musical. Most are called for in the score. Some of them are timed with the music so I prefer to have myself or one of the musicians trigger audio fx for the show.
I use Kontakt by Native Instruments which is a virtual keyboard for computer. I load my sounds into a laptop and program my sound effects across the keyboard – usually layered in sequence for when they occur in the show. Preproduction of audio effects is done on ProTools, where I have full control of high end delays, reverbs and panning. I run sound effects stereo and make sure the sound team is processing my sounds in stereo. I think it’s important to clarify whether you have a stereo setup available at your performance, because it will change how you pre-process your show sounds and foley.
Subtle sound effects add another subliminal layer of depth for any show presentation, so I encourage you to take the time to create them to the best of your ability. Having the actors do the fx like is “ok”, but take the time to make it super-duper cool.
SOUND EFFECTS FOR SEUSSICAL THE MUSICAL
Slide Whistle (you’ll get better samples than performing this live)
YOPP! (Jojo’s yell in Act II – I process multi-tap delay with panning, so it “calls across the universe”)
Elephant Call
Egg Hatching
Explosion
Water Splash (For the Cat’s sneeze onto the Planet of Who, my own twisted addition)
ACT II Entracte – Overture clangs and bangs
Thunderstorm (To add to ACT II melodrama string music)
Bird Chirp
Animal Grunts (For intro of Monkey Around, listen to CD)
I really appreciate having found your website because of the wonderful inside look at Freddy Fender. I have been just short of obsessed with finding information about Freddy since his death.
I’m not sure why except for perhaps some sort of spiritual connection on all levels. I’ve always liked his music but hadn’t listened to it recently. I didn’t recall what brought me back to it until I read on your site that it was included on the soundtrack of “3 Burials …†which I saw and enjoyed immensely. Probably that was what got me started seeking out and downloading all of his stuff. Then I read a little about his being so ill and finally his sad death. Since that I have been combing the internet, buying DVD’s, haunting YouTube, wanting to know everything I can about him.
Perhaps the whole spiritual thing is wrapped up in his looking so much like my first love, (who I met around the same age he and Vangie met and fell in love). I didn’t spend my life with this man but did reconnect with him briefly in our late 50’s and he was very much like FF in appearance and personality at that age as well. He had also been through the whole prison, drugs, & drinking experience that Freddy had but also retained a great basic wisdom, self awareness and childish joy that I observe in Freddy. They both had that smile and sparkle that can only come from within. Also, in my lifetime I was a caregiver for many years to my husband who developed Alzheimer’s Disease, so I relate to what Vangie must have experienced in the many years of illness through which she cared for and supported Freddy.
And finally, I relate to you, being super Scandinavian in heritage and skin tone but I grew up in National City, California where I was the minority and all of my friends were Mexican. I adored their families and was often referred to by more than one dad or brother as “weda†or “blanca†and one particularly mean big brother as “gorditaâ€!
Even before I found your website, I saw the Laughlin casino DVD from 2003 where you are on keyboard and he calls you “blancoâ€, “blancito†and “Wedoâ€. I loved it and recalled many warm feelings with my Mexican friends. One funny note. In High School, my parents decided perhaps I should find friends who were not Mexican so they moved to another slightly more upscale area of San Diego in hopes I’d find more of “my own†type. I did. I found all 5 Mexican families in the area and hung out with them!
Anyway everything about Freddy Fender, his surroundings, his family, his music strikes a chord with me and I just wanted to mention that I found your information to be the most personal and enlightening and I’m very appreciative of it. You write so beautifully too. Why not write a book or a movie about his life? Please continue to share stories about him.
This song makes me happy when I listen to it. We were playing with Freddy for a week run at the Gold Coast casino in Las Vegas. I kept a very intense schedule at the time so I brough my recording gear with me so I could do tracking in the hotel room during the week. We would only play a couple hours a night, and I would always get ancy if I didn’t feel like I was getting more done.
I took a break from tracking and went down to the coffee shop for lunch and Freddy was there. He invited the guitar player and myself to have lunch with him. (Which always meant that he was buying, so Yeah!). After lunch I asked him if he would lay down a guitar solo and he said sure, let’s go.
Freddy met me ten minutes later down in the green room. We had a little “green room” to greet guests before shows and pig out on the backstage snacks, and I had brought my gear down there because tracking in the hotel room was a bit noisy.
Here’s the part that makes me happy. He listened to the track once, then we ran it and he played his solo. I normally get about five or six takes of solos and thought he could do a bit better, so I rolled it back for another take. I tell him we’re going to do another take and he says “Why? That’s what I played!”. He didn’t understand doing another take, because he had already played what he wanted to play. Of course I didn’t correct him, after all, he’s Freddy Fender.
The happy part: The solo isn’t perfect, but it’s Freddy – and I love that. I wouldn’t want it any other way. I have lots of training and I’ve read a lot of books – but Freddy just had a natural gift for music. He was an innocent in a profession that’s loaded with sharks.
So listen to the song and when Freddy’s guitar solo comes up, picture him in that little back room at the Gold Coast Casino in Las Vegas doing his one take. The perfect take. Freddy’s solo is the first half of the guitar solo.
Long live Freddy Fender’s music.
This is fun. Copy the code pasted below and paste it into your web browser address bar. You’ll see right away what it does. Very fun javascript – You can do it while visiting my site here, but may be a bit slow because I usually have a lot of graphics posted.
It’s not a virus, just fun stuff. Try it! Copy and paste this code into your browser address bar:
A person’s a person, no matter how small,” Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, would say. “Children want the same things we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted.”
Brilliant, playful, and always respectful of children, Dr. Seuss charmed his way into the consciousness of four generations of youngsters and parents. In the process, he helped millions of kids learn to read.
Dr. Seuss was born Theodor Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts, on March 2, 1904. After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1925, he went to Oxford University, intending to acquire a doctorate in literature. At Oxford, Geisel met Helen Palmer, whom he wed in 1927. Upon his return to America later that year, Geisel published cartoons and humorous articles for Judge, the leading humor magazine in America at the time. His cartoons also appeared in major magazines such as Life, Vanity Fair, and Liberty. Geisel gained national exposure when he won an advertising contract for an insecticide called Flit. He coined the phrase, “Quick, Henry, the Flit!” which became a popular expression.
Geisel developed the idea for his first children’s book in 1936 while on a vacation cruise. The rhythm of the ship’s engine drove the cadence to And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.
During World War II, Geisel joined the Army and was sent to Hollywood where he wrote documentaries for the military. During this time, he also created a cartoon called Gerald McBoing-Boing which won him an Oscar.
The Cat in the Hat is born
In May of 1954, Life published a report on illiteracy among schoolchildren, suggesting that children were having trouble reading because their books were boring. This problem inspired Geisel’s publisher, prompting him to send Geisel a list of 400 words he felt were important for children to learn. The publisher asked Geisel to cut the list to 250 words and use them to write an entertaining children’s book. Nine months later, Geisel, using 220 of the words given to him, published The Cat in the Hat, which brought instant success.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and three Academy Awards, Geisel authored and illustrated 44 children’s books. His enchanting stories are available as audiocassettes, animated television specials, and videos.
While Theodor Geisel died on September 24, 1991, Dr. Seuss lives on, inspiring generations of children of all ages to explore the joys of reading.
THE ADVERTISING ARTWORK OF DR. SEUSS
Before Theodore Seuss Geisel found fame as a children’s book author, the primary outlet for his creative efforts was magazines. His first steady job after he left Oxford was as a cartoonist for Judge, a New York City publication. In 1927 one of these cartoons opened the way to a more profitable career, as well as greater public exposure, as an advertising illustrator. This fortuitous cartoon depicts a medieval knight in his bed, facing a dragon who had invaded his room, and lamenting, “Darn it all, another dragon. And just after I’d sprayed the whole castle with Flit” (a well-known brand of bug spray).
According to an anecdote in Judith and Neil Morgan’s book Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel (Random House, 1995), the wife of the ad executive who handled the Standard Oil company’s account saw the cartoon. At her urging, her husband hired the artist, thereby inaugurating a 17-year campaign of ads whose recurring plea, “Quick, Henry, the Flit!,” became a common catchphrase. These ads, along with those for several other companies, supported the Geisels throughout the Great Depression and the nascent period of his writing career.
The Dr. Seuss Collection, housed at the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego, contains many examples of Dr. Seuss’s advertising artwork. The library has scanned a selection of these advertisements for greater access. Besides promoting the Standard Oil companies Flit and Esso, Dr. Seuss’s creations have hawked such diverse goods as ball bearings, radio promotional spots, beer, and sugar.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The, Feb 27, 2004 by MICHELLE MORGANTE
San Diego — Near the end of his life, Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel sat down with his wife, Audrey, to speak of the past and of things to come.
” ‘I’ve had a wonderful life,’ ” Audrey Stone Geisel recalls him saying. ” ‘I’ve done what I had to do. I lived where I wished to live. I had love. I had everything.’
” ‘But,’ he said, ‘now my work will be turned over to you. And you will have to deal with those consequences.’
“And oh-ho,” says the 82-year-old heiress of the Seuss world, “has that been true!”
Nearly 13 years after her husband’s death, Geisel leads the global enterprise that has sprouted from Seuss’ beloved books — watching over the Cat in the Hat, the Grinch and all the other critters and characters who live on in movies, toys, games and ventures that perhaps not even the imaginative doctor could have envisioned.
Ted Geisel came into the world on March 2, 1904, when children learned from dull primers. In 1937, Geisel had just suffered his 27th rejection for his first children’s book, “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” when he bumped into a friend who worked for Vanguard Press.
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“Ted told him that he’d been refused all of these times and he was going home to burn it,” Audrey Geisel says.
The encounter, of course, led to publication. The book created a stir among teachers and parents who feared it would encourage children to lie.
“It was so off the wall,” she says. “They even thought, ‘Oh, it might teach a child to fib,’ instead of imagine, you see?”
The book became a hit, and over the years, Dr. Seuss became one of the most popular children’s authors ever. He published 44 children’s books in more than 20 languages, and one non-children’s book, “The Seven Lady Godivas,” which was not a hit. More than 500 million Dr. Seuss books have been sold worldwide.
Death to Dick and Jane
Dr. Seuss has often been credited with killing off “Dick and Jane,” the sterile heroes of childhood readers of yore.
“With Dick and Jane, there was never much of a story there,” said Barbara Parker of the National Education Association, whose annual “Read Across America” event culminates on Tuesday, the 100th anniversary of Ted Geisel’s birth.
Dr. Seuss’ books, however, appealed to children — and adults — with their clever rhymes and plot twists.
“In ‘The Cat in the Hat,’ for example — kids really, really like that because they’re expecting the boy and the girl to get in trouble when the mother gets home, but suddenly it’s the cat to the rescue,” Parker said.
Philip Nel, a Kansas State English professor and author of the new book “Dr. Seuss: American Icon,” says Seuss’ heroes are rebels and underdogs.
“They go against the grain. They don’t do what they’re expected to do,” he said. As in “The Cat in the Hat,” Nel said, “Why not fly a kite in the house?”
Part of Seuss’ charm is his ability to make the ordinary into the extraordinary.
“Ham and eggs is just ordinary, but if you turn it around so that it’s eggs and ham, that’s interesting. And then if you make it green, there’s real genius,” Nel said.
One year celebration
Audrey Geisel is presiding over a year’s worth of ceremonies celebrating “Seussentennial: A Century of Imagination.”
The events include the debut of a Postal Service stamp; a tour of theatrical performances and children’s workshops across 40 cities; a series of Dr. Seuss celebrity book reviews; exhibits of items from the Dr. Seuss archives and of Ted Geisel’s art; the unveiling of a Dr. Seuss sculpture at the Geisel Library at the University of California at San Diego; and the presentation of a star honoring the author on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
As she gazes toward the Pacific from her hilltop home, Audrey Geisel says she understood the weight of the job immediately upon inheriting it, but was surprised by how it steadily grew heavier.
“And then suddenly, I had so much to do each day,” she says, describing business responsibilities as well as her philanthropic work as head of the Dr. Seuss Foundation. “But I’ve complicated my own life to a degree, and I don’t deserve much sympathy.”
Geisel is a disciplined and opinionated leader, whose mission is largely to protect the integrity of her husband’s creations.
Geisel, a former nurse, holds court early each morning at a nearby hotel restaurant, arriving in her faithful 1984 Cadillac with the personalized license plate: GRINCH.
“I come down the street and no one has seen anything like it,” she says with a laugh.
Guardian of integrity
As president and CEO of Dr. Seuss Enterprises, Geisel is tough on those encroaching on Seuss trademarks and copyrights. And when she wanted to have the local Old Globe Theater produce “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” years ago, she went to New York to free the miserly character from a production that later evolved into the musical “Seussical.”
Here are pictures from community theatre and professional productions of Seussical the Musical. You can use them as reference to get your creativity in flow for creating your own production. These are NOT photos of the show I am conducting for META Perfoming Arts. As of this posting we haven’t opened yet, I’ll have pictures of our production posted later. Of course, I consider our production to be the ULTIMATE STM presentation. 🙂
Visit my general Seussical the Musical category here on my blog for lots of notes on set design, orchestration and musicians, costumes, etc.
Also on this post are pictures of Seussical the Musical flyers, different costume approaches to the Cat in the Hat, Who costumes, JoJo outfits, Who’s hair and costume design, various scene set designs, Horton and Sour Kangaroo costumes and whole set photos.
See detailed Seussical Set Construction from the Spring High School Website
Samples of flyers for Seussical the Musical.
Different looks and costumes for the Cat In The Hat. Some people like using makeup, some don’t.
Various character and stage set photos of Seussical the Musical
