Let there be blood. Not blood represented in scarlet scarves pulled from a jugular like a macabre magic trick, but thick and tacky liquid lifeforce spilled across the stage splattering the audience with its faint metallic scent. Bat Boy: The Musical can be the production to do it. Perhaps it even should be that production. […]
Michael Fields
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Love’s the Best Doctor on the Mend at Dell’Arte
If Dell’Arte’s newest offering feels dated, it’s because it is. Love’s the Best Doctor is adapted from French playwright Moliere’s l’Amour Medicin from the 1600s. Michael Fields’ rework adds an onslaught of tech and social media observations, cute musical numbers and unapologetic explication of our healthcare system in the brash ruckus and masked chaos that Dell’Arte excels […]
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Patrons in the Arts
As Leo Tolstoy once said, “All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Every member of the MacTwatt Clan’s 10-year family reunion reveals unique unhappiness as they meet again after years apart in the Logger Legends, Liars and Lookers, the third in the Logger Bar-located series of plays written and directed […]
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The Riches of The Poor of New York
Our lives through these past pandemic years have been a little melodramatic — as well as lonely and heart-wrenching at times. It’s also been a disappointing five years since the last Dell’Arte International summer show within the now renamed Baduwa’t Festival in Blue Lake. Performed in a welcome return to vintage DAI comedic style, this […]
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St. Patrick’s Day Celebration at the Logger Bar
There are numerous St. Patrick’s Day celebrations happening across the county (check this week’s calendar and Setlist), but we’re highlighting this one because it’s full-kilt Irish fun! Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day at the Logger Bar on Friday, March 17 from 5 p.m. to close (free) — and wish Michael Fields congrats on the one-year anniversary […]
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Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and the Logger Bar’s New Ownership
What? Somebody bought The Logger Bar? It better not be some out-of-town, big-money developer who’s gonna — what’s that you say, it’s Michael Fields (formerly) of Dell’Arte? Well, OK then! As Fields takes the helm from long-time owner Kate Martin, the beloved watering hole is throwing an Irish Ceilidh (Gaelic for “party”) this St. Patrick’s […]
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Longshadr Emerges from the Shadows
Michael Fields is at pains to point out that Longshadr, his newly unveiled theatrical venture, is not a production company. Rather, it is project-based, existing solely for the purpose of putting on theater. The intention is not to compete with existing theatrical ventures but to expand the universe — a version of Blue Ocean Strategy […]
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The Show Must Go Online: Dell’Arte’s Virtual Season
Despite the Mad River Festival being pushed back to September and a handful of scheduled performances canceled due to shelter-in-place orders, Dell’Arte International is not sitting idle. In a press release, Artistic Director Michael Fields says, “Uncharted times call for innovative creativity and collaboration.” Sounds like a job for Dell’Arte. The theater folk in Blue […]
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Photos: Dell’Arte’s ‘Return to Oz’
The 39th annual Dell’Arte 2019 Holiday Show: Return to Oz is now at one of the many traveling and free venues coming up before its return to Blue Lake in two weeks. The storyline of Dorothy as an angst-ridden, friendless, guitar-playing teenager (you likely know one or used to be one) begins with her unhappiness […]
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Brave Girls
Return to Oz After battling high winds on State Route 299, I was braced for Dell’Arte’s 2019 holiday show, Return to Oz, and the on-stage hurricane that carries Dorothy away from the world where Auntie Em, Uncle Henry, and everyone at school think she’s a little crazy and back to a version of L. Frank […]
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Honoring Humboldt’s Knight of Musicality
This year’s Mad River Festival kicked off on a rather different note than previous years. Instead of the usual biting satirical drama, Dell’Arte is celebrating someone who’s been a key part of more than 50 Dell’Arte productions in Blue Lake and around the world. Indeed, if you’ve listened to any music created, recorded or performed […]
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Photos from Dell’Arte’s Tim Gray Tribute
“Turning Gray Skies Blue: The Music of Timmy Gray” is a moving tribute to the talented man who composed music and wrote lyrics for 20-plus years of Dell’Arte Company performances in Blue Lake and around the world. See the slideshow below for highlights of the rehearsal and performance. The cast of 12 past and current […]