Dead Letter Office: Post your review

Posted by DCA Theater on June 9, 2010 in January-June 2010 Season, Dead Letter Office

June 9 - July 18
Storefront Theater

In this world premiere thriller conceived by Ben Viccellio, written by Philip Dawkins, and directed by Dieterich Gray, each staff member at the postal service’s Dead Letter Office tries to communicate but always seems to miss.  In an examination of the changing nature of language in our digital culture, the play surveys the staff sorting the backlog of the postal system and searching for anything of value among the written letters.  But when a newcomer joins the group, she uncovers a secret – a secret buried deep within the walls of the post office and threatened to be lost with the buildings imminent destruction.

View photos by John W. Sisson, Jr.

What did you think about the show? Share your comments here.

Tech Weekend for Dead Letter Office

Posted by DCA Theater on June 7, 2010 in January-June 2010 Season, Dead Letter Office

by John Blick, Managing Director of Dog&Pony Theatre Co.

On Friday, the cast and the crew of Dead Letter Office came together officially.  The entire production company: stage managers, cast, understudies, carpenters, directors, designers, producers, and run crew is working all weekend.  The designers, carpenters and painters get the space back to themselves on Monday for some hard work time painting and rigging.

The designers and carpenters have been working all day on the deck, staircase, and rigging and stage management moves in to dress the set with furniture and props for the first cue-to-cue

Assistant stage manager Shelby Wilson preps the top of the new staircase landing for the cue-to-cue

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Load-in and build

Posted by DCA Theater on June 4, 2010 in January-June 2010 Season, Dead Letter Office

by John Blick, Managing Director of Dog&Pony Theatre Co. and Producer of Dead Letter Office

Load-in is the time in a production when the conceptual chatter from production meetings starts to become reality.  It is a time when the Tech Director (Paul Kastner, in our case) has the humble task of coordinating the design staff, carpenters, colleagues, friends, & roommates to get the lighting, sound, props, costumes, and set all in the same space in which the performances will be held (Thanks Nick Freed, Bill Paton, Dusty Wilson, and Jesse Ezra Bookman!).

Building the basement of a post office—building a dead letter office—is no small feat.  Between Tuesday June 2nd and Friday June 4th at 2:00am in the morning, there have been at least 400 man hours put in to get everything pulled together.  A labor of love—and it shows already!

How many platforms does it take to make a deck?  Ask scenic designer Bill Anderson (l) and technical director Paul Kastner (r)

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Given circumstances

Posted by DCA Theater on June 4, 2010 in January-June 2010 Season, Dead Letter Office

by John Blick, Managing Director of Dog&Pony Theatre Co.

The given circumstances are the set of facts by which the characters in a play are surrounded.  In these shots of rehearsal, you’re seeing a timeline of the action of the play.  In order for actors to develop their characters on an even plane, it is important to discuss their temporal relationships.  In this instance the company wrote down the action of the play in chronological order on the closest available chalkboard.


The action of the play from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  Man, can the holidays stress you out!



Assistant stage manager Shelby Wilson and actor Susan Price upstage the chalkboard.

Saturday stumble thru

Posted by DCA Theater on June 1, 2010 in January-June 2010 Season, Dead Letter Office

by John Blick, Managing Director of Dog&Pony Theatre Co.

A stumble thru is a part of the rehearsal process.  It happens at the point when all the blocking and stage positions have been set and the cast can move through the world of the play in the same way they would during production.  Actors don’t necessarily have to have their lines down pat, but they need to be familiar enough so that stage management can get a good timing estimate for the show’s run time.  These photos are from Saturday May 29th’s stumble thru in the rehearsal space at DePaul University.  We start load-in on Tuesday!  Stay tuned for shots of light hanging, set construction and more of the fun.

Rolo (Joshua Volkers) and Je T’aime (Kristen Magee)

Christian (John Fenner Mays) and Agatha (Susan Price)

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