Athens Food and Culture

Athens Food & Culture is a high-quality, free monthly publication concentrating on the diverse independent dining establishments in Athens and surrounding areas. The magazine includes all aspects of the dining scene, from grits to foie gras. While its main focus is on the food, we incorporate facets such as theatre, wine, cigars, fashion, etc. – basically, accompaniments to a night on the town or a day in the park. It also features CCA's own Will Leamon as a theatre columnist. Visit them online at www.athensfoodandculture.com

  Below you'll find all of Will's past columns.  

December 2009

Christmas Creed

This essay was first published in Athens Food and Culture December 2009 and is Copyright Will Leamon.

This is community theatre – it's not about Broadway or a future film deal. It is not a stepping stone to some great pie in the sky. It is valid in and of itself. It needs only itself and it wants nothing more than it's own community. It began before any of the others and will still be here when the entertainment-industrial complex finally fails.

Whether they say it out loud or not this is the unrefined creed of anyone truly committed to community theatre. I know, like most philosophy, it's a little hard to comprehend when boiled down to as few words as possible. Let me say this first before we begin – it is a beautiful thing and nothing expresses it better than the Christmas Show.

My first Christmas Show was 'The Night Before Christmas' presented by the Athens School of Ballet way back in 1990. This was a monumental Christmas for me in a lot of ways. First off under the steady hand of Marianne Hale I not only 'got' Ballet but learned to absolutely love it – an affection I still have almost twenty years later. That's an extremely rare opportunity for a young man born and raised in the south eastern United states. It's a Christmas present that out-shines just about anything else I've ever gotten for Christmas. I'm extremely grateful to Marianne for showing me the insight and sensitivity one needs to appreciate dance and especially Ballet.

I would work for the Ballet at Christmas for the next five years up until I went to college and was probably not safe to leave around the dancers. In those years I worked directly with our Stage Manager Max. You might know Max as the indomitable Maxine Easom - retired principal of both 4^th Street Elementary and later Clarke Central High School. But to me she was just Max – terrifying and edifying all at the same time. She made managing hundreds of dancers, a tech crew of worried Dads and kids and thousands of audience members look easy. Which after her experience running an entire public school on a day to day basis it probably was. Max taught me an invaluable lesson: It's OK to joke around and have a good time ONLY if the work is safe and cared for. Max led by example - she would brook no nonsense unless she felt the show was safe and ready to run but after that she really was one of the funniest people I have ever met. I had so much respect for Max that a harsh word would kill me and even the slightest approval would brighten my whole day. Now when I manage a show and a crisis presents itself I still ask “What would Max do?”.

If you're reading this then I have just closed my own first Christmas show. But right now I'm less than a week away from opening night. My thoughts drift back to those first Christmas shows and I realize again what community theatre is all about. It's about developing a love of the arts, bringing them forth into the world and hopefully instilling that love in other people. You see that's what Marianne and Max did for me. They loved the art and the craft so much that they showed it a respect and sympathy I never would have discovered without their example. Today I share that love and hope to contribute to that community spirit Athens has shared with her young and old alike for hundreds of years. I would consider it a proud achievement to provide some small part in continuing that tradition for a few more centuries.

Happy holidays and a very merry Christmas! Brian (my editor) and I are introducing some pretty cool changes to this column for 2010 and I can't wait to show them to you. Until then I would encourage you to attend as many of the awesome local Christmas shows and performances that are running all season. Eat, Drink and above all Sing!

 

November 2009

Food and Culture, Life and Death. 

This essay was first published in Athens Food and Culture November 2009 and is Copyright Will Leamon.

In the Spring of 1996 I was twenty-one and in trouble. Nothing life threatening, just that I had dropped out of college (for the first time) and felt something dying within me. Now for the longest time I thought it was 'the theatre' that had been my passion for almost 10 years that was at risk. But it was something far deeper than that and far more dangerous since I had no idea what on earth it was.

I explained this(in a fashion as I am not the most articulate man in the world now and this was almost 15 years ago) to my Uncle Antony, who was sitting on his couch 3500 miles away in south London. His answer? You better get on a plane my dear boy. Fortunately for me my parents agreed and a few weeks later the wheels touched-down at Heathrow and Uncle Anton stood by the baggage claim waiting to collect. For the next month I would crash at his apartment and roam the streets of London and while I had a lot of adventures the thing I remember most was Sunday Dinner.

Food in my family is something one shows respect. It has an acknowledged history and culture that is so definite it almost transcends we mere mortals who make and consume it and becomes an entity in an of itself. To sum up it is the family motto that food is someways divine. Uncle Antony hated his job but loved to cook. On those Sundays he would pull out all the stops serving meals that were literally fit for kings. Gorgeous wines, exotic appetizers, a main course that was essentially incomprehensible to a 21 year old but would strike at the very heart of your being and all followed by a dessert that would make the world feel as if it had slipped back into the garden of Eden. All of this was prepared for just two sometimes three people. The next morning Antony would wake up at the crack of dawn and take the tube to his office to resume his duties as an international business lawyer – and be miserable..

Whereas most people cook in order to impress their friends or essentially show off to the world, Antony took a different approach. For my Uncle literally gave himself over to cooking and he would let it define him instead of the other way around. I realized that food and cooking are mankind's first true art. It was at the dinner table that we discovered that one can surrender themselves to the needs and desires of others. That story-telling and the places where those stories are told are truly enlightening and help bring meaning to our otherwise pointless existences as hot-shot international business lawyers. This is the meaning and function of all art. It is something you surrender yourself to and wait hopefully for the results. Think about this the next time you settle down to watch your favorite movie or TV show.

Those dinners saved my life in a way. I realized through a haze of food and wine that my whole artistic life up till that moment had been a relationship of me trying to define art. Antony's Sunday dinners challenged that and made me realize that art (and theatre) are not mine to forge and mold into my own image. Instead art forges me and helps me discover who I am. I left London not only with my artistic-self still alive but reinvigorated and willing to accept a life long journey of discovery of others and myself.

Now as we mourn the loss of dear Uncle Antony and prepare to commit him to his final well deserved rest I am brought back to that Sunday dinner table and I am reinvigorated once again. I have met a lot of surprises in the last 15 years but one thing that I am not surprised by is the fact that I am still committed to theatre and that I write for a magazine called Athens Food and Culture. Everyday opens a new chapter in that saga of discovery and for that I will always praise and cherish my dear Uncle Antony. Rest in peace my friend.

 

October 2009

The Tour

This essay was first published in Athens Food and Culture October 2009 and is Copyright Will Leamon.

One of those intriguing and downright mystical parts of Theatre is the building itself. Ask anyone who has done a few shows and they will tell you tales of the packed green room, an empty house or walking the boards for the first time. A theatre is a purpose built building that can hold some of the most advanced technology in the world. On the other hand it is always old in that it was specifically built to continue a tradition that spans thousands of years. If you consider this confluence you can begin to understand how a mix of concrete, stone, metal and wire can provoke such passionate and heartfelt emotions in people of all walks of life. So now, dear reader, allow me to give you a tour of those places you can't see when seated in the house.

It may seem a little odd but the best place to begin is the stairs. While not all theatres have stairs most of them do and for some of us they are an absolute terror. I have many memories (and more to come) of hauling heavy, unruly and downright ungainly set pieces up and down stairs. It is a reminder that, at its heart, theatre is a very physical art. While much thought and reflection enhance a show there can be no theatre without action! You realize this in extreme clarity when you try to haul Mrs. Lovett's massive oven up four flights of stairs.

Let's shift over to a more pleasant location. That mythical place known as the Green Room. The Green Room is whatever part of the theatre where the cast and crew congregate before, during and after a show. During show week the green room becomes your second home. It buzzes and hums with the chatter of dozens excited individuals. A most pleasing laughter can erupt in the green room at any moment. It has a unique atmosphere that can only be achieved when people share a common goal with a rare dedication. It's also an electrifying place on the night of a show. The clock on the wall grows steadily larger as it clicks the seconds away before the lights come up and you enter one of the most terrifying and exhilarating experiences in your life.

Let's fly all the way over to the exact opposite end of the building to a place hardly anyone (in the show or not) ever gets to see – the booth! The booth is the nerve center of all the technology in a theater. It was the first place I honestly learned to love theater. That booth was at EB Mell Auditorium at good old Clarke Central High School. At the tender age of 14, I scrambled up the ladder into the booth and met what would become an old friend – the lighting board. Now any board with as many buttons and faders would have excited a nervously geeky kid such as myself but when Dave Bashim (my mentor that night) grabbed a fader and wiggled it I was shocked and amazed as some hidden light very far away winked on and off. It was then that I realized the sheer amount of wires, man-power and technology that is poured into a theater to make a show happen. All that effort to make people forget their troubles for a couple of hours instead of say warfare, politics or any of the world's other woes helped instill in me a faith in humanity I now wonder if many others share. These days when I make a rare visit to the booth to talk to Matt our lead engineer I am typically greeted with the “Bahs!” and gurgles of Matt's newborn son Eli. To see that adorable baby with his dad amidst all that wiring and technology strengthens that faith every time.

Finally there's the stage. Now many of you have seen it from the seats but it becomes a completely different place when you're standing up there. It's a cauldron of emotions both good and bad. For example, last summer I played Duke Vincentio in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. So it's opening night, Act I Scene I – The Duke enters and... freezes. I'm absolutely stock still with no idea what ANY of my lines are. Hundreds of eyes are on me and absolute silence reigns until someone... coughs. That snapped me back to life and we got through the scene somehow but let me tell you that was one of the most awful experiences in my life. It shook my performance for the whole show. But here's the sticky thing about the stage – the next night I came back and nailed Act I Scene 1! That's the most important thing the stage can teach you – no matter how awful your fears may be they are never as bad in reality. You learn a kind of confidence from those terrible experiences that you can take with you wherever life may lead.

I hope you've gathered from this tour that Theatre is an intense experience. In this modern world we seem to shrink from intensity as soon as it crops up and the result has led us to a kind of stagnation that is hard to describe but I think we all agree is there. If you find yourself wanting to actively reject that creeping malaise I would definitely suggest starting by entering a theater!

 

September 2009

The Thrill Of A Lifetime

This essay was first published in Athens Food and Culture December 2009 and is Copyright Will Leamon.

When the good people of Food and Culture offered me this column I had some reservations. I made it clear that I wanted to encourage people to not only come out to the theatre but to also come out and join us as we create one of the oldest forms of art in human history. Of course the people at Food and Culture are good people and they not only approved but encouraged the exercise. For that I am extremely grateful and hope to expose you the reader to the wonderful world of theatre both from the audience and from backstage.

So this is the part where I tell you about the thrill of the lights first coming up or the first note of the overture. These are powerful moments in a person's life and I feel that I am not the writer to adequately describe what the actual experience of live theatre is like. It also an intensely unique experience for everyone but it cannot be dismissed.

I think we lose something though when we focus entirely on the performance side of theatre. There is also a deeply moving and satisfying experience that goes on long before the curtain rises and well after the sets have been put away. It is the experience of meeting, knowing and depending on the widest group of people you'd ever imagined.

For instance, I am a man who is ambivalent to football. I was born in Athens and went to the UGA so I have a little bulldog in me but that's about it. Yet right now with fall coming on I find myself hoping and cheering on The Madison County Raiders to the heights of success because Rev. Richard Hoard is one of their coaches. Richard's also a fellow thespian and I had the joy of acting with him in William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure last July. Richard's simply an amazing guy and I'm honored to know him. Our scenes together were my favorite in the show because Richard and I just had this connection that made those scenes fly by. So I may not give a fig for football but I wish the Raiders all the luck in the world this coming season because I wish to encourage Richard in anything he sets his mind to.

I would also like to send out the warmest of congratulations and praise to my friends Dina and Neal Canup on the birth of their beautiful daughter Aurie. I had the honor and privilege of directing Dina and Aurie in our production of The Bourgeois Gentleman last April. Dina's a long time member of The Town and Gown players and is one of those special people who just has theatre in the blood. I can't tell you what pleasure it gives me to know that someday I will be able to embarrass dear Aurie with the story of directing her first show! This is a special and deep pleasure that I don't think one can find anywhere but in the theatre.

Theatre is a many-headed beast as well. It involves the summation of many different crafts into one explosive piece of art. I cannot understate the amount of joy and satisfaction one sees in the technical aspects of a show. Only in theatre can the woodworkers, electricians, computer geeks and seamstresses of the world come together for one common goal. This blend of perspectives and personalities has personally enriched me in ways I can't really comprehend but I am extremely grateful for them.

In the end that is the only reason to get involved with community theatre – the personal connection. Where does one begin though? Start by checking out some shows! Athens has a vibrant and active theatre community. Town and Gown pushes the envelope with their Second Stage Productions. Athens Creative Theatre gives a special opportunity for young adults and grown ups to work together. If history's your thing then maybe you should check the Classical Series of shows at Classic City Arts (which I produce). And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Rose of Athens and Athens Little Playhouse are always coming up with funky production schedules that feature a well seasoned blend of all the different types of shows humanity has come up with throughout the ages. If one of these groups strikes your fancy then by all means come out to an audition or let them know you're willing to help backstage. We will all be glad to have you and I think you'll learn a little something about life, the universe and perhaps most importantly yourself!