Tag Archives: Morning Star Methodist Church

Murderous Mental Meanderings.

Posted on April 24, 2018 by mohawkvalleygirl

I do not think it is any too early for this blog to become All Spring Into Murder All The Time. I have six days to get my act together! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! OK, got that out of my system. I have just time for a fast Monday Mental Meanderings post before rehearsal. And I just thought of my headline. I bet I’ve used it before. Well, these things happen. We must make the best of them.

I just walked to the library to print out a sort of a program for Saturday night’s performance. I say a sort of, because it only lists the character’s names with a short identifying phrase. No actors’ names, not even the title. After all, WE don’t know there is going to be a murder. It is always a little disconcerting when an audience member says, “So there’s going to be a murder tonight” or, worse yet, “We’ve never been to one of these before, what are we supposed to do?” I don’t want to break character (as we actors say), but I also don’t want to leave people in the dark and/or rudely not answer their questions. We find ways of dealing with these things. That is part of the fun of live, interactive theatre.

Yes, I am tired and definitely feeling Monday. Luckily, I am not driving to rehearsal but bumming a ride from my friend, Kim. She is very tired too, but I hope to keep her awake enough to drive with chitchat. I am rarely too tired to chat.

The murder mystery, once again, is Spring Into Murder, at Morning Star Methodist Church at 36 Second St., Ilion, NY, 5 p.m. Saturday, April 28. $20 includes a delicious roast pork dinner (I know this, because they feed the actors and this will be the third one we’ve done there). Advance tickets must be purchased by Thursday by calling 315-894-4093. You can go to the Facebook Event for more information.

Fast Post on a Sunday

Posted on April 23, 2018 by mohawkvalleygirl

Every Sunday it is the same thing. I start the day thinking I’ll get all sorts of stuff done. Sometimes I even do a thing or two. But at some point, I remember, because my body reminds me: there is no point in trying to get anything done on a Sunday. I had rehearsal for Spring Into Murder (MUST write an entire blog post about that!). Steven and I have a dinner date later. Having gotten a couple of things done but feeling inclined to accomplish nothing further, I thought, “I’ll do my blog post. Easy, fun, and useful.” Of course the usefulness can be debated, but you may discuss that among yourselves if you are so inclined.

To make a long story longer (I bet you thought I was going to say, “make a long story short,” and you were taking a breath to say, “Too late!” Gotcha!), I could not do a blog post earlier. I just sat there scrolling up and down Facebook and watching the clock till it was time to go to rehearsal.

Rehearsal went pretty good, by the way. We discussed costumes. I had brought what I intend to wear: loud purple pants and a louder jacket. Actually I had two colorful jackets to choose between, and one cast member insisted I must wear the louder one. I agreed. Kim had brought every glamorous black dress in her wardrobe for our inspection. Oh come on, like none of you has more than one glamorous black dress? I personally have none, but I’m weird. We all know that. I am unusual among women in that I do not long for the elusive little black dress. Be that as it may, Kim has some wonderful frocks, and we all enjoyed voicing our opinions.

More importantly, we ran the scripted part of the show a couple of times. I think it is coming together nicely. We discussed the black tulips, which are so important to the plot. We discussed the next rehearsal.

The murder mystery, Spring Into Murder, will be presented next Saturday, April 28, at Morning Star Methodist Church, 36 Second St., Ilion, NY, at 5 p.m. $20 tickets include a roast pork dinner and must be purchased in advance by calling the church at 315-864-4093.

Now I must get changed for our dinner date. Perhaps I will wear black, but not a little black dress.

More Murder and Mayhem!

Posted on March 23, 2018 by mohawkvalleygirl

I believe I have mentioned that I have another murder mystery to write. I may also have mentioned (once or twice) that I have been having trouble writing ANYTHING lately. Well, just now I surprised myself. I wrote a brief overview of said mystery, to send to the venue for publicity purposes. The venue is Morning Star Methodist Church in Ilion, NY, and the performance date is Saturday, April 28, 2018. They are serving a roast pork dinner, which was quite delicious when we performed there last year and the year before.

So I have been writing this mystery in bits and pieces, and second guessing myself about everything. I tried writing the overview twice on breaks at work today, to no avail. Finally I sat down at my laptop and said, “Well, I’ve got to do this now.” And here is what I wrote:

Spring into Murder takes place at the kick-off dinner for the Tulip Festival sponsored by Two Lips Cosmetics. The founder and CEO of the company loves everything to do with The Netherlands, so much so that she changed her first name to Holland and hired a bodyguard named Dutch. On the agenda for tonight is the unveiling of the spring line of lipstick colors, to be modeled by Holland’s spokesmodel and partner, the beautiful Ariel Angelica. Holland is accompanied by her new husband, Rod. Also on hand are Holland’s nephew Benedict and recently adopted daughter Windy, as well as the designer of this year’s colors, the brilliant if eccentric Giselle Ellison.

Unfortunately, all is not beauty and harmony at Two Lips Cosmetics. Rumor has it that Holland did not want to take on Ariel as a partner, that Benedict wanted Windy to be the spokesmodel, that Giselle feels badly paid for her work, and nobody knows quite what to think of Dutch. Additionally, we don’t know who sent Ariel a bouquet of BLACK tulips!
There may be murder before the night is out! Who will solve the crime?

I was rather pleased with it myself. The new husband got his name as I wrote it, and Giselle Ellison (my part) changed from a dedicated secretary to a lipstick designer. I think diva is much more fun than downtrodden.

Having written that much, I feel fired up to get the whole thing done. I’ll share more information about the performance — times and prices — when I know more.

Never Give Up! Never Surrender!

Posted on March 24, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

Earlier this evening, I wrote the following two paragraphs:

Is this Writer’s Block or a panic attack?

OK, I just wrote that, so it isn’t Writer’s Block, although maybe you could call it Write Anything Good Block. I have to leave soon for rehearsal for He Laughed Himself to Death, the murder mystery to be presented at Morning Star Methodist Church April 1, and I’m afraid I am letting myself become overwhelmed with what-all I have to do. How self-dramatizing of me. Then again, with all the theatre I’m involved in, how can you blame me for being dramatic? I know, I know, a time and a place.

Then I went to rehearsal, after deciding to get a grip on myself. In my defense, it has been rather a dreadful week, and it seems to be taking forever. However, I have plenty of blessing to count, and I must not discount them. I have a daunting amount of things to get done, but I feel certain that if I can make the right plan, I can get most or all of them done.

As you see, I am in a better mood now.

Rehearsal went very well. I think He Laughed Himself to Death is going to be a great success. As we left rehearsal, Charity, the actress playing my daughter, called her father, Jerry, for a ride. Jerry has agreed to be in Who Shot JS?, the murder mystery benefit for Herkimer County Historical Society April 22. Charity asked me to wait till her father got there, because he had to ask me something. I thought it must be about rehearsals or rides or something. When Jerry arrived, he got out of the car carrying a beautiful bouquet. He thought I could use a little pick me up.

Do I have the sweetest friends or what?

So here is my reminder to myself to not surrender to these little panic attacks. Just take a deep breath and go to rehearsal. You just never know when a wonderful friend is going to give you a lovely surprise. Thank you, Jerry. And happy Thursday, readers.

I put them in water right away.

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Posted in humor, Non Sequitur Thursday, personal and tagged blessings, blog post, bouquet, friends, He Laughed Himself to Death, Herkimer County Historical Socety, Morning Star Methodist Church, murder mysteries, panic attack, pick me up, Who Shot JS?, Writers Block, writing. Bookmark the permalink.

Theatre Memories on Tired Tuesday

Posted on February 22, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I interrupt my reading of other people’s blogs to make my Tired Tuesday post. I’d like to do the picture thing, but I think I’ve used all the good ones in our Downloads, and I haven’t downloaded any new ones lately. I wonder if Steven has.

Photo by Mark Hanna, who is also a pretty good actor.

This is the cast of the murder mystery I wrote last year for Morning Star Methodist Church in Ilion, NY, Engaged to be Murdered. I’m writing a new one for that church, to be presented April 1. This one is titled He Laughed Himself to Death. I intend to incorporate the April Fool’s Day holiday in the plot. I shall write more blog posts about that, rest assured.

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They were all leading ladies to me!

To continue the theme of theatre memories, here is the cast and crew of Leading Ladies, which I was blessed to direct with one of the finest groups ever associated with the Ilion Little Theatre stage. Perhaps you read one of my blog posts about it.

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Full disclosure: a selfie stick was used in the taking of this picture.

Is it silly of me to post two pictures of the same cast and crew? No matter; it is what is in my downloads, I will post it. We took a selfie of the whole group a few times before performances. It was one of those casts that really bonded. I’m hoping we take a few backstage selfies of Steel Magnolias. I’ll be sure to share them here if we do.

For now, I must scurry off to rehearsal, which is a little earlier tonight. Happy Tuesday, everyone.

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Posted in humor, personal, Tired Tuesday, Uncategorized and tagged blog post, cast and crew, Engaged to be Murdered, Ilion Little Theatre, Leading Ladies, memories, Morning Star Methodist Church, murder mystery, pictures, selfie stick, theatre. Bookmark the permalink.

One Dead Body, at a Church

Posted on April 5, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

I feel I can get away with one more post about my murder mystery, because some readers may be wondering how it went. Well, it was splendid.

The church, Morning Star Methodist in Ilion, NY, sold more tickets than they were hoping to. In fact, serving dinners was delayed at one point when they ran out of potatoes and had to cook more. I told them if they ran short of meat, I could go hungry, but luckily that was not necessary.

I stood by the table of the lady taking tickets and welcomed people. I warned them they would meet some unusual people but should not be worried about talking to them. I’m not sure my warnings were needed, but people were very nice about it. More importantly, I had to be the liaison between the actors and the dinner-servers. I gave the actors the high-sign to start the performance part. I told the audience when to fill out their guesses and collected the papers after they had guessed.

As I attended to these duties, I realized my folly in undertaking such a role. I wanted to be acting! There are few things more fun for me than to dress up in a costume and pretend to be somebody else. I love it on a stage with lines, and I love it at a murder mystery when mingling with the audience.

The lucky ones who did get to act enjoyed it quite a bit, and they did a marvelous job. A few lines were dropped, but I believe only the author noticed (um, you remember that was me, right?). The audience was full of praise, except for one gentleman with a hearing aid who hadn’t heard a word. I felt quite terrible about that. At least he got a good dinner out of it. Roast pork. Yum!

I hope Ilion Little Theatre will be asked to present more murder mysteries in the future. I’m ready to write them and I am more than ready to act again!

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Posted in Community Events, humor, personal, theater and tagged Engaged to be Murdered, Ilion Little Theatre, Ilion NY, Morning Star Methodist Church, murder mystery, writing. Bookmark the permalink.

About that Murder Mystery

Posted on March 15, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

Murder is on the menu when the Morning Star Methodist Church in conjunction with Ilion Little Theatre presents “Engaged to be Murdered,” an interactive dinner theatre, on Saturday, April 2 at 5 p.m. at the church located at 36 Second St., Ilion. Tickets are $20 and include the performance and dinner. Reservations are required by March 31 by calling the church office at 315-894-4093.

“Engaged to be Murdered” takes place at the party celebrating the upcoming nuptials of society girl Genevieve Raglan to handsome up-and-comer Luke Donovan. Representing Genevieve’s family are her elegant parents, Eliot and Marseille (it’s pronounced mar-SAY) Raglan, her glamorous Aunt Theodora, and family matriarch Grandma Nell. Luke is accompanied by his father, cattle rancher Harry Donovan. Also present, although nobody is sure who invited her, is ne’er-do-well Cousin Randy Raglan. All of these people have secrets to hide, and the audience will have a chance to ferret out the clues and try to solve the mystery.

That is from the press release I wrote for the murder mystery Ilion Little Theatre is putting together for the church’s fundraiser. I had meant to copy the whole thing for today’s blog post, but, well, my desk top would not cooperate. I managed to copy the first paragraph and half of the first sentence of the second paragraph. Now I am on my new laptop, trying to remember the rest of it.

I think I have included all the relevant information. My press release went on to toot my own horn as the writer. I figured the papers, if they used the release at all, would cut that part out. Therefore, I shall feel free to cut it out now. Local readers may like to come see the performance. I understand the dinner is roast pork. Yum!

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Posted in humor, personal, theater and tagged blog post, dinner theatre, Engaged to be Murdered, Ilion Little Theatre, Ilion NY, Morning Star Methodist Church, murder mystery, press release. Bookmark the permalink.

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