Overture Center - Duck Soup Cinema Safety Last

Duck Soup Cinema featuring

Safety Last!

starring Harold Lloyd

WRITTEN BY

DIRECTED BY

Hal Roach, Sam Taylor & Tim Whelan

Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor CAST (1923)

Harold Lloyd Mildred Davis Bill Strother Noah Young Westcott Clarke

The Boy The Girl The Pal The Law The Floorwalker

GRAND BARTON ORGAN

HOSTED BY

Clark Wilson

Joe Thompson

VAUDEVILLE ACTS

Ace Willie and Doc the Rube in the lobby The New You Trio Truly Remarkable Loon Whitney Mann Trio SAT, NOV 12, 2011 | Capitol Theater Bottled water and beverages in Overture Refillable Theater Cups are allowed in the theater during select performances. Purchase a theater cup for $3 plus the cost of your drink at any of the concession locations in the lobby, and bring it back next time for a refill.

Sponsored by Additional funding provided by Madison Stagehands and Projectionists Union, I.A.T.S.E Local 251, Overture Center Foundation contributors and by members of the Duck Soup Club. Learn how you can support Duck Soup by becoming a member at overturecenter.com/contribute.

This program is part of Overture’s Community Ticket Program. Funding for the Community Ticket Program is provided by American Girl’s Fund for Children, a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts, and by Overture Center Foundation contributors. Learn how you can help make arts experiences real for hundreds of thousands of people in the greater Madison area at overturecenter.com/contribute.

Duck Soup Cinema | Overture Center 1

Responsibly Mined, Cut and Polished in CANADA

exclusively from

220 State, Madison, WI 53703 T.257-3644 www.goodmansjewelers.com 2 Overture Center | Duck Soup Cinema

PROGRAM Vaudeville Acts INTERMISSION Door Prizes Safety Last!

HAROLD LLOYD “The King of Daredevil Comedy,” Harold Lloyd is best remembered today as the young man dangling desperately from a clock tower in the 1923 classic Safety Last. At the height of his career, Lloyd was one of the most popular and highest-paid stars of his time. While his achievements have been overshadowed by the work of contemporaries Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, he made more films than the two of them combined. With hits like his 1922 film Grandma’s Boy, Lloyd became a strong force in bringing about the advent of the “featurelength” film.

Born in Nebraska in 1894, Lloyd’s stage career began at the age of 12.

Although he had none of Chaplin’s or Keaton’s childhood Vaudeville training, Lloyd had a natural talent that led him to make the most dangerous tumbles and falls seem effortless. In 1913 Lloyd moved with his father to Los Angeles, where the motion picture industry was still in its infancy. There he tried desperately to break into show business, taking any small part he could get. He soon made friends with another extra, Hal Roach, who was putting together his own production company. In a short while the company had taken off and was making movies featuring Lloyd as “Lonesome Luke,” a Chaplininspired bumbler. While “Lonesome Luke” was popular, Lloyd knew his mimicry of Chaplin was an inevitable dead end.

In 1917, Lloyd began work on a new character, one that was to remain a signature through out his career. With round glasses, a straw hat, and an unkempt suit, this new invention still had many of the qualities associated with Chaplin’s Little Tramp, but something was different. He seemed both the fool and the fox, able to outsmart the bad guy, but only by a hair. In 1919, at the height of his acclaim, a tragedy struck. While posing for a photograph he grabbed what he imagined to be a fake bomb and lit it with his cigarette. The bomb went off in his hand, costing him a thumb and a forefinger.

The story was front-page news and it seemed the end of this daredevil’s career. Never the quitter, Lloyd bounced back and made dozens of more films, among them his best and most highly acclaimed, including Safety Last (1923) and Speedy (1928). Even into the time of the talkies, Lloyd persisted while many other silent movie stars threw in the towel. In 1971, twenty-three years after his last feature film, he died in his Hollywood mansion.

From his early black-and-white shorts to his full-length talkies, Lloyd recognized that humor was nothing without a sense of play. Athletic and rigorous, he could fall from a window as well as he could scale a wall. It was said that Lloyd was not a natural comedian, rather, that he was a great actor playing comedic roles. His ability to create multi-dimensional characters, Duck Soup Cinema | Overture Center 3

DON’T STAY

SILENT

ABOUT YOUR

LOVE OF SILENT

FILMS

Are you a silent film aficionado? Does the sound of the Capitol Theater’s Barton Organ signal the beginning of a fabulous evening of Duck Soup Cinema for you?

Then join Overture’s Duck Soup Cinema Club, and help keep this community program healthy and affordable for all!

Learn about the benefits of membership and make your donation online at overturecenter.com/contribute. You’ll have even more fun with Duck Soup and take pride knowing that your generosity is part of how it all happens.

2011/12 Duck Soup Club Member List Current as of October 4, 2011

Cindy Ballard Daniel Becker William Braasch Edwin Burington Peter Byfield David Coe

Robert N. Doornek Terry Haller Reta Harring John & Nancy Hilliard Bill & Marcia Holman Larry Kneeland

Linn Kubler Mike & June McCowan Stanford & Bev Ninedorf Robert & Marsha Steffen Eileen Zeiger

overturecenter.com/contribute

HAROLD LLOYD

con’t

both funny and moving, has helped to shape our contemporary view of what a comic actor can be.

Lloyd also understood the role fear could play in heightening comedy.

One day while on his way to the studio, he watched a man scaling the side of a building. Crowds had gathered around and were completely consumed by the sight of the climber.

Lloyd knew that if he could keep an audience on the edge of their seats like this, he could make them laugh even harder. So, using the tricks of photographic perspective, he began to shoot scenes that looked as if they were happening on the sides of buildings, on scaffoldings, or hanging from clocks. These acrobatic hi-jinks seemed amazingly real in a time before special effects. More than simply renewing the audience’s interest in his

work, these progressive techniques earned him the respect of others in the film industry.

Looking at the other films of the time and at the progress of comic acting and cinematography since, it is clear that Lloyd’s inspired work was an essential part in the growth of the industry. In his brilliant 1923 epic Girl Shy, Lloyd employed many of the high-action comic bits that made him famous. In its climactic chase scene, we recognize the beginnings of the action film genre, and can see the influence on movies from Ben Hur to Speed. While Harold Lloyd’s name has all but been forgotten and great films like Girl Shy and Grandma’s Boy are no longer in the public eye, Lloyd’s spirit lives on in the movie industry he helped to create.

GRAND BARTON ORGAN Like all grand movie theaters built during the Silent Film Era, the Capitol Theater had a pipe organ that allowed a single musician to fill the theater with music while movies were being shown.

Overture Center’s organ is a Barton, manufactured by the Bartola Musical Instrument Company in Oshkosh. It is believed to be the oldest Barton in Wisconsin, and the only one in the state remaining in its original location and condition. The instrument is such a rare gem that in 1990 it was honored by the Organ Historical Society as “an instrument of exceptional merit,” the first time a theater organ had been so recognized by the society, which typically reserves such honors for the grand pipe organs found in churches.

Hollywood had premiered the first “talkie,” the year before the Capitol Theater opened, but it took a while for sound films to catch on, and the Barton got a lot of use in the early years of the Capitol Theater. As sound films

became popular, the organ was used for sing-alongs and pre-feature entertainment, but as film showings lost their pageantry, this role diminished.

The gold and red horseshoe-shaped console is the most visible part of the instrument, but the organ’s sound comes from 1,034 pipes hidden in chambers on either side of the stage.

The large illuminated console and its 141 stop keys and three manuals is usually located at house right. At one time, it was on its own elevator in the orchestra pit. It was moved to make space for the many large-scale productions staged in the theater. A seven and one half horsepower blower in the basement of the theater powers the organ and the massive electrical switching system is sealed in a special room high in the building. This electrical relay is so large that it was put in place before the theater was finished in 1928 and could only be removed with considerable demolition of the building.

Duck Soup Cinema | Overture Center 5

GRAND BARTON ORGAN con’t The smallest pipes, which produce the high notes, are the size of a soda straw, and the largest are 16 feet tall and 18 inches in diameter. The pipes that produce the deepest notes are eight feet high and about 24 inches square, made of thick, knotless pine slabs. Like any wind instrument, the sound comes from air passing through the pipes, but the wind is supplied by a seven-horsepower air pump, rather than a musician’s breath. The pipes

are divided into fourteen ranks, or sets, that mimic the instruments of an orchestra.

In addition, a “toy counter” offers special sounds like a chirping bird, auto horn, sleigh bells and percussive effects.

An important part of keeping the organ in top condition is regular use.

Overture Center continues to use the organ as part of the center’s Duck Soup Cinema series.

CLARK WILSON Clark Wilson is one of the most prominent and recognized scorers of silent photoplays in America today.

He works exclusively with the organ in developing accurate and historic musical accompaniments as they were performed in major picture palaces during the heyday of the silent film.

Clark was personally influenced by, and subsequently became close friends with Chicago organist John Muri, who was an original master of picture accompaniment and practiced his art well into the 1980s. His (and Wilson’s) historic style was that of utilizing fine music as a basis for developing a score of musical value.

If the original score is no longer extant, a new one is prepared from the organist’s library and is normally transferred to a cue sheet — somewhat of a “road map” of suggested themes and notated screen actions which keep the organist fully on course. The development of themes in serious pictures is obtained exclusively in this way, and it must be considered the truest way to properly underscore screen action. Nothing is left to chance and wholesale improvisation is not relied upon. Further, the musical style of the time remains intact; no attempt is made to distract from the picture by using themes or styles that entered the musical scene years later.

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Most important of all, the film remains the focus and star of the performance.

Wilson began his scoring career in 1980 and has successfully toured North America with hundreds of film presentations at schools and universities, performing arts centers, theatres, film festivals and conventions.

His work has led to performances for the Chautauqua Institution, Cinequest and San Francisco film festivals, the Los Angeles Conservancy, the Packard Foundation’s Stanford Theatre film series, the Atlanta premier of the restored “Metropolis”, and annual presentations for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Society at the Walt Disney Concert Hall organ. He is the organist of choice for many of the American Theatre Organ Society’s international convention silent film presentations, and he has scored pictures for Kino International for public DVD release.

His performances have received the highest marks from colleagues and professionals, one commenting that his was “the finest use of a theatre pipe organ that I have ever heard.”

Clark has been organ conservator and Resident Organist at the Ohio Theatre for the Columbus Associate for the Performing Arts since 1992 and is responsible for all music during the annual classic movie

Duck Soup Cinema

SAT, MAR 17, 2 & 7 pm*

$7 for adults, $3 for kids 12 and under * 7 pm performance sign language interpreted

The Kid Brother starring Harold Lloyd

There’s nothing quiet about this classic silent film series! Each movie features live music performed by a talented organist on the magnificent Grand Barton Organ.

Throw in a master of ceremonies, celebrity appearances and some serious door prizes, and it all adds up to one of the best deals in town for family-friendly entertainment.

OVERTURECENTER.COM

Duck Soup Cinema | Overture Center 7

CLARK WILSON con’t series, which also features one or more major silent films each season.

In addition, he has led courses in theatre organ styling and silent film accompaniment at the Indiana University School of Music, and he is heavily involved in the development of a similar degreed program at the University of Oklahoma, the first such program to exist since 1929.

Wilson has been named in

numerous Who’s Who and Men of Achievement editions and was presented with the ATOS Organist of the Year award in 1998.

An acclaimed organ technician and consultant, he has also been professionally involved with over 200 pipe organ installations to date and has earned the ATOS Technician of Merit award, the only person to receive both ATOS distinctions.

JOE THOMPSON Joe Thompson has appeared on Madison stages countless times (plus one if you count tonight). He made his theatrical debut at the age of 9 with the Racine Theater Guild and thanks his mom and dad for always remembering to take him home after rehearsal.

His current activities include oregoni (the art of folding paper into the shapes

resembling Oregon), making jello salads, and strenuous daily oral hygiene. He is a member of Madison’s sketch comedy troupe “The Prom Committee” and co-author of Fatherhood, The Musical with Phil Martin.

He is the proud father of two and the lucky husband of one.

Sound Track & MagicSpace Entertainment Presents

An SVA Music Celebrations Series Event

SUN, NOV 20, 4:30 pm Tickets Starting at $39 Overture Hall

Grammy Award winner Chip Davis has created a show with dazzling multimedia effects performed in an intimate setting. The spirit of the season comes alive with the signature sound of Mannheim Steamroller.

Don’t miss this ultimate holiday tradition!

Sponsored by

OVERTURECENTER.COM

8 Overture Center | Duck Soup Cinema

VAUDEVILLE Ace Willie, a.k.a., William Litzler has been performing in the Midwest for 40 years in venues ranging from Cub Scout banquets to corporate events.

Ace was bitten by the magic bug after attending a magic show sponsored

by The Houdini Club of Wisconsin in 1969. (He subsequently has shared the stage with every performer on that program.) In the 1980s, Ace Willie further developed his comedy style as a regular performer at The Comedy Cellar, Madison’s first comedy club.

Once, at the Comedy Cellar, Ace alerted management of an underage performer and had that teenager removed from the club. The teenager was Chris Farley! Ace Willie is also a dealer in rare and vintage magic. He as been a leading seller in eBay’s Magic Community since 1999. Currently Ace Willie and his wife Debbie are popular performers for family events sponsored by corporations, country clubs and area communities. Visit www.acewillie.com.

Ross Benbow studied in college, TNY3 aspires to honor the modern masters of popular song — The Beatles and The Beach Boys to Bob Marley and Paul Simon — by interpreting and performing their music with a casual, low-key approach.

In addition to Benbow, the group consists of Chad Bartell whose roots in Madison go back several generations and Casey Collins an Eau Claire native. None of the group’s members have quit their day job (wisely, some might say). Benbow is a Ph.D. candidate at the UW, Bartell is a business attorney and Collins is a commercial banking specialist and entrepreneur.

The Trio’s origins date back over 20 years to Van Hise Middle School in Madison, where Benbow and Bartell first began strumming out glam rock covers. Their paths have converged multiple times since, and have included various musical projects, including most recently an all-original pop/rock band with Collins named 8889, whose Jim “Doc the Rube” Carter has a composition “Dandelions” won the Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine and Best Pop Song in the 2007 Madison a PhD in Veterinary Pathology from the Area Music Awards.

Veterinary College at Kansas State University. He began clowning around Truly Remarkable Loon grew up with the Aldersgate Clowns in Olathe, in Madison, Wisconsin. His parents, Kansas in 1980. When he moved to immigrants from Eastern Europe, gave Wisconsin he started the Asbury Clowns him a name no English-speaking perat Asbury United Methodist Church. son could properly pronounce. Loon His secular clowning has involved used several different monikers (i.e. doing walk around entertainment Parsley) until 1974. That year, while and clown stage shows with his clown canoeing in the Boundary Waters, partners. He performed at the Clown he was given the name Loon by his Hall of Fame, the Kids Expo and in boating partner for his inattention the Great Circus Parade in Milwaukee to 13 consecutive days of rain. “Truly sponsored by the Circus World Remarkable” was added by another Museum. Doc has taught clown class- friend in 1975 for Loon’s blatant defies at several regional workshops and at ance for the laws of gravity. a national Clown Impact Conference.

A self-professed “class clown,” Loon attended Madison Memorial High The New You Trio (TNY3) is an School. He wishes to state once more acoustic cover-band inspired by small for the record that he did not put a acoustic ensembles common to pubs dead animal in the boys room, causing in Scotland where vocalist/guitarist the evacuation of the entire A wing at Duck Soup Cinema | Overture Center 9

VAUDEVILLE the school in 1974.

In 1976, Loon was inspired to learn how to juggle. After two years of intense, obsessive practice, Loon was able to juggle balls, clubs, machetes, tomatoes, fire torches and anything else that wasn’t tied down.

Now, Loon can be seen on stage at fairs and festivals across America, juggling giant bean bag chairs, spinning plates, tossing the dreaded implements of death and those ever-flaming torches. Purple is his favorite color and trademark, though attempts to copyright the color have been unsuccessful.

Whitney Mann is an old soul with a child’s glow. Her story is only beginning. It’s the story of a poetic farm girl from Michigan who grew up to open for Loretta Lynn. A young woman whose voice will break your heart but whose songs will bring you back for more. Her new package of country

Help us

ballads and barn tales is called The Western Sky. “Whitney Mann is the best kept secret in Wisconsin,” says Willie Nelson Production Manager John T. Selman, who watched 26-year-old Mann open for Nelson. “She’s raw, she’s real.

Whitney sings and writes from the heart. You can’t ask for more than that from a musician.” “Whitney has one of the most pure and emotionally charged voices I’ve ever heard,” says Don Kronberg, promoter for Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn and George Jones tours. He’s the guy who booked her to open different programs for all three country giants. “Her ability to immediately connect with audiences is a rare quality that will allow her to build a very large fan base...quickly.”

Mann headlines all around the Midwest and continues to open for some of the Midwest’s most treasured contemporary singer-songwriters.

open Doors

contribute to the Rae Atira-Soncea Accessibility Fund

Call 608.258.4142 or visit overturecenter.com/ contribute/annual-giving/direct-support.

overturecenter.com 10 Overture Center | Duck Soup Cinema

Overture Center for the Arts would like to recognize

our 2011/12 Community Partners and thank them for all they do to support Madison’s thriving arts community.

LegACy SPOnSOrS

PLAtinuM COMMunity PArtnerS American girl’s Fund for Children SiLver COMMunity PArtnerS American Family insurance Bell Laboratories Food Fight, inc.

Provideo SvA Supranet Communications tDS telecommunications tOMCAt Products BrOnze COMMunity PArtnerS State Bank of Cross Plains COMMunity PArtnerS the Bruce Company of Wisconsin CunA Mutual group goodman’s Jewelers Hovde Properties J.H. Findorff & Son inc.

Mge Foundation Mullins group Murphy Desmond S.C. Pepsi Cola of Madison Steve Brown Apartments Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek S.C. *List current as of August 5, 2011

PATRON SERVICES AND INFORMATION

Welcome to Overture Center for the Arts

Your enjoyment is important to us. Please contact an usher or the ticket office if you have any concerns about your experience here.

ORDERING & INFORMATION Order online! overturecenter.com Phone orders: Call 608.258.4141 Mail or fax: online order form at overturecenter.com or in our magazine.

Buy in person: Visit the ticket office located on the main floor just off the Rotunda Lobby.

Ticket office hours: Mon–Fri, 11 am–5:30 pm; Sat, 11 am–2 pm; open additional hours evenings and Sundays on days of ticketed performances.

Group orders: Groups of 15 or more receive a discount on most performances. Call 608.258.4159 to make reservations.

Visit overturecenter.com: For a calendar of events, links to artists’ websites, video, audio, directions, parking and much more.

PATRON SERVICES & POLICIES Accessibility: Request accommodations when ordering your tickets. Call 608.258.4144 for information, questions, or to request the following:

n n n n n

wheelchair-accessible seating house wheelchair for transport sign language interpretation Braille playbill other accommodations

Etiquette Please turn off all paging devices, cell phones and watch alarms.

Smoking is prohibited in Overture.

The use of cameras or tape recorders in the theaters is prohibited without written permission from Overture Center and the performing company’s management.

Food, large bags and other large items are not permitted in the theaters. Bottled water and beverages in Overture Refillable Souvenir Cups are allowed in the theaters at select shows.

In consideration of audience members with scent sensitivities and allergies, please use perfumes, aftershaves and other fragrances in moderation.

Event Staff Stagehand services in Overture are provided by members of Local 251 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

Volunteer usher and other services for Overture are provided by Overture Friends.

For information, visit overturecenter.com/ contribute/volunteer or call 608.258.4177.

RESIDENT ORGANIZATIONS Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society bachdancinganddynamite.org | 608.255.9866

Information is also available at overturecenter.com/tickets/accessibility

Children’s Theater of Madison ctmtheater.org | 608.255.2080

Children and lap seating: Every person, regardless of age, must have a ticket to enter the theaters for performances. Children under the age of 6 are not permitted at certain performances. See our season brochure, visit our website or call the Help Line at 608.258.4143 for information.

Li Chiao-Ping Dance lichiaopingdance.org | 608.835.6590

Kanopy Dance Company kanopydance.org | 608.255.2211

Madison Ballet madisonballet.org | 608.278.7990

Contacting a patron during a performance: Call 608.258.4179 with the performance the patron is attending and his/ her row and seat number.

Madison Opera madisonopera.org |608.238.8085

Lost and Found: Visit the information desk in the Rotunda Lobby or call 608.258.4973.

Wisconsin Academy’s James Watrous Gallery wisconsinacademy.org | 608.265.2500

Rentals: For information on renting spaces in Overture Center for weddings, performances, meetings or other events, call 608.258.4163 or email events@overturecenter.com.

Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra wcoconcerts.org | 608.257.0638

12 Overture Center | Duck Soup Cinema

Madison Symphony Orchestra madisonsymphony.org | 608.257.3734