(bright music) (upbeat music) - [Lara] Go backstage at the Schenectady Light Opera Company.

Richard Lovrich wants you to have a very bad day.

And catch a performance from Brian Melick.

It's all ahead on this episode of "AHA!

A House for Arts."

- [Announcer] Funding for "AHA" has been provided by your contribution, and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi, the Alexander and Marjorie Hover Foundation, and The Robison Family Foundation.

- At M & T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M & T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts, and we invite you to do the same.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Lara Ayad, and this is "AHA!

A House for Arts," a place for all things creative.

Here's Matt Rogowicz with today's field segment.

(spooky music) - I'm here in Downtown Schenectady right off of Jay Street at the Schenectady Light Opera Company to get a look behind the scenes at their upcoming production of "The Glorious Ones."

Follow me.

(whimsical music) - What is Schenectady Light Opera Company?

It's a community theater.

We formed in 1926, and we've had various homes since then, some in Schenectady city schools, some on our old theater on State Street in Schenectady, and now we're here.

It was a church before this, and we purchased this, I believe, in 2015, and we renovated it into what we have now as our theater.

So it's not opera at all.

Normally, we do five... shows a season, and they're all musical theater shows.

(upbeat classical music) - We're rehearsing "The Glorious Ones."

They're opening in just a few weeks.

I'd call it a dramedy, not very often done.

I don't think it's been done locally.

It's a really unique story of the Italian Renaissance and individuals coming together to put on an improvisational group and sort of the struggles that they come across as they do that.

(company singing) James is a SLOC veteran.

He's been with us in multiple shows.

He's also directed a show with us.

He's also musically directed with us.

He's got a powerhouse voice and presence when he's on stage, he's dramatic actor, he's a comedic actor.

He just, he, he walks out and you don't have a choice, but to pay attention.

(bright Renaissance music) - Flaminio Scala was a playwright, more accurately a scenario writer, who more or less invented what we know as Commedia dell'Arte is essentially improv comedy.

It's used as inspiration for Shakespeare.

It's something that has influenced comedy and drama, and really written theater in general since then.

(dramatic music) This is a story about a bunch of very real people who lived a long time ago, who had lives, who've created these things that influenced the things that we watch now, but who also were people who had flaws and ideals and things that they wanted to put out in the world.

And more than being about acting or about theater, the show's about legacy.

It's about what we leave behind when we're gone.

It's something I think anyone can identify with.

It's so real,... and I think people will love it.

- Our main income is our tickets sales.

So for the past year and a half, almost two years, we haven't had any ticket sales.

So... we've definitely been struggling, but we're hopeful that this season will bring us back to where we need to be.

(bright music) - SLOC feels like a home away from home for me.

I've been doing shows here since 2014, and actually I was in the show "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", which is the show that closed, we actually didn't even open.

We were set to open right as things shut down.

And so that was, it kind of was like a sentence without a period at the end.

And it really felt as though things hadn't ended with that show.

So to be able to come back into such an incredible cast, this has been an extremely positive experience so far and SLOC has done, really they've gone above and beyond to make sure that people feel safe and ready to be back on stage.

- "Glorious Ones", goes up the 12th, through the 21st of November.

- We just cast our next show "Songs for a New World".

That'll be coming up in January with a new director to us, Rose Biggerstaff.

It's typically a song cycle where the cast of four, just sort of stand and sing, there's certainly blocking and there's lots of emotion, but she's adding a bit of a choreography twist to it.

She's got a slightly larger cast.

So we're excited to see what she'll bring with that.

Then we're moving to a classic "Merrily We Roll along".

That will be coming up in March.

And then we close out the season with "Violet" with an entirely new production team, and sort of a unique show that's not done very often in local community theater.

(upbeat classical music) - I love SLOC, and that's the reason why I'm volunteering in the positions that volunteering in.

I met my spouse here.

It just, it definitely has a special place in my heart.

- It feels like coming home.

This is really a second home for a lot of people, myself included.

So to be able to come here, to be able to see people really enjoying themselves, to see the process coming back to life.

I think a lot of people are happy to be back in the SLOC family again.

- Richard Lovrich is a familiar face to many creatives in the capital region, capturing candid shots of artists at work with his camera.

And he's recently written a book called "Have a Very Bad Day".

What drove Richard to write such wickedly funny short stories?

I sat down with him to find out.

Richard, welcome to "A House for Arts".

It's such a pleasure to have you.

- And a pleasure to be here, Lara.

- I hope you had a very bad day.

- Yes, very.

(both laugh) - Well, I know that many people in the region know you with your camera, right?

You're a familiar face in many different arts events, taking pictures of people, but I know that you also brandish the pen.

We'll get back to your photographs in just a minute, but tell us about your recently published book.

- Well, "Have a Very Bad Day", my recent book, started as an art project, really, where I penned a thousand short stories.

Why?

We don't have enough time for that, (Lara laughs) but it was, I really, I thought I'd be able to do it.

I did.

I posted a story every day on social media.

They weren't old great, but I kept it up.

And when it was done a short while later, I pulled them down to about 400 or so in four chapters.

And then honestly, I couldn't edit them anymore.

I was completely incapable.

- They've gone through all the processing that you could possibly put them through.

- At that time, and... - Yeah.

- So, recently I revisited them and I was delighted to find that I could bring a new set, a new perspective to them.

And of course they weren't even... some were better written.

Some were, I became a better writer throughout the process.

By the way, if you'd like to be a better writer, write a thousand short stories.

- Yeah....

It sounds like great practice.

- And I'm just wondering, Richard, - Yes.

- where do these stories come from?

Do they come from your imagination?

Are they based on real events?

- Nothing is straight.

Everything is a cocktail.

Straight doesn't work for me.

And when I find myself doing it, they're very disappointing stories for me.

And I don't think I've ever shared one that was completely straight.

So they're abstractions of actual faults, or maybe an over part of an overheard conversation.

There are types of people that are recurring types of characters in my stories.

I use the "Twilight Zone" kind of method.

That even in the amount of episodes of the original "Twilight Zone", they repeated a few themes.

- Right.

- So it gave me some comfort.

Think the same with the original "Star Trek", being a little thematic, not such a bad thing, as long as you break it up properly.

So.

- Right, right.

- Yeah, they come from life.

- Yeah.

- They come from observing people and caring about people.

May not seem like it 'cause there's an awful lot of murdery stuff going on, but... - Well, then I want to know, what are a couple of stories you have in there?

Do you have any favorites that you'd like to read for us today?

- I would love to share one with you.

- Wonderful!

- One or two.

Here's the book.

And we'll go to page two. "

Good shot.

Cousin Phil, one of a pair of identical twins, nonetheless recognized himself with unerring accuracy in the childhood photos his Aunt Erica unearthed after Christmas dinner.

His brother, Earl, was the one who was rarely photographed without an air gun.

While Phil, well, Phil was the kid with the patch where his left eye used to be.

(laughing) - That's fantastic.

That is so great.

I understand that some of these stories are roughly a paragraph long.

- Yes.

Some are even one or two lines long.

- Or some are insufferably long, a page.

- Insufferably long.

- (laughing) Insufferably.

- So I'm wondering, because I like to write to fiction writing and things like that, and I know as writers, we like to, we really observe the world, right.

And I know you said that you don't write anything straight, but there's certain things you overhear certain things you see, - Yes.

- and you like to kind of give a new frame on them, repackage them, and then give them back to the reader audience as a gift.

What kind of a gift are you giving to your readers with these soundbite stories?

- We... many of us... it's horror season.

We like horror films.

So there think of them as little horror stories, but instead of having to wait till "Have a very Bad Day Two", I've already let you in most of the time on the fault process and the backstory and a little bit of a way of the character.

So they're psychological peaks.

Even a murderer can feel a little down.

(laughing) - Even a murderer can feel a little down.

- Yes.

- I want to talk about the symbols and charms that you use this artwork for your book.

If you wouldn't mind holding up the book with that cover.

I mean, these symbols and charms are so fascinating.

I was really captivated, even when I just saw the website for the book.

Tell us a little bit about these symbols.

Where did you find these things?

And also too, I know you have a background in design and branding.

So do you think that that background in branding and design had an impact on the way you crafted the aesthetic of the book?

- Well last question first of course, right?

Of course.

And it was important for me to design my own book.

I wouldn't have felt comfortable.

I would have...

I'm a pretty good patient, but I would just be all over the designer and I would just be a terrible client.

So yes, to that part.

And then when I did the very first readings of my book, people would laugh quite a lot in small rooms and it was difficult for them to ascertain when another story was beginning 'cause they're of unfamiliar length, right?

So people are not used to it.

That's often the case when I do a reading, it takes a little time for a new audience to learn.

Like, "Am I allowed to laugh at a murder joke?"

(Lara laughing) - So people still feel a little bit reticent when they hear these kind of dark stories... - Without question.

- and yeah.

- And the people who know me, they just start laughing right away.

And you can tell that, if it's a larger audience and yeah, they worry about me and the people that are laughing, but they start laughing a little later.

But in any case, then the next time, it was really the second time that I was invited to, at a club to tell stories.

I had a projection and I wondered what I'd use as images.

So I put up a title for each story and I accompanied them with a little Cracker Jack toy or a lagniappe, wonderful little Cajun word, that's something that you get for free that you've already paid for.

- Yeah.

- So like a Cracker Jack toy.

- Lagniappe, that's the perfect word for that.

Yeah.

- In fact, when my original posters for some of the early shows were the regrettable lagniappe.

- Oh my gosh.

Where did you find these charms?

- Oh, I think the first one's probably at an estate sale and I became attracted...

I'm not a giant collector, but I traveled to eBay looking for certain themes.

It does wear out after a while...

It would be difficult in other words, for me to accompany all 300 stories with a specific, even a pairing, right.

You get a single image and that might be very good for one story pairings, complicate, and they allow me to use it for far more stories, but still in all, there are no televisions, there are little... there are things that are kind of missing from Cracker Jack world.

So, you just start to run out.

But as a general theme for the feeling of it, I still feel very comfortable that it was the right decision to make.

- Right.

Going on this theme of visuals and symbols and things like that, as a photographer, I know you tend to take a lot of portraits and photographing portraits, candid photos of people, artists in the middle of their craft, who do you photograph and why do these people matter to you?

- I have three families, right?

I have my family family, I have a rare genetic disorder so I have this worldwide family that I connect with, and also- - Is it Alpha one?

- Alpha one antitrypsin deficiency, a degenerative lung disease.

And my other family is the family of creatives.

And I find no matter where I've worked in the world, you can sit down and break through a little language and you're among again, you're among family.

So it's creatives that I decided that I liked to photograph.

And I was a professional photographer for many years before I considered taking a candid photograph.

It's really fairly recent.

- Why is that?

I mean, why did you hesitate for so long to take a candid photo?

- Sometimes I think it's...

I got started rather early in a professional environment, a professional fashion studio.

So to me, they were this class of people that you take pictures of.

- And it's all set up, there's a studio, there's a shoot, there's a model.

- That's right.

It's an intension.

- You know what's happening.

- And I'm also polite, and I felt like it was rude in many cases, and believe me, when I felt that my subjects felt that as well.

People would just immediately... they'd put up their hands.

And at a certain point, I decided that that was no longer acceptable, and I adore people and photographs of people in portraits.

I just... there's a great deal of vulnerability on my part, and I think maybe that's what people sense when I approach them with the camera.

I'm not bossing them around and I don't want them to model for me, certainly.

I really am spying on them a bit for a moment, but I like to think that they take their own portraits.

So I just put myself into- - Explain that for me.

- Well, I put myself into a relationship where there's...

I mean, it's not a complete surprise.

I never use a long lens of any kind.

So I'm in the environment with me.

- You have to be close up to the subject.

- Yeah, we make a usually wordless pact and then it happens.

So really am I taking that picture completely?

No, it's more of a... they become an accomplice in the picture and an editor and maybe a director in some cases as well.

Certainly with performers, right?

- Right.

That's kind of fascinating 'cause it shows a slightly different point of view on observing people than your book does.

'Cause with your book, you're kind of, you are holding yourself at a something of a distance from the subject or characters that you described a little.

- That's assuming that they're not autobiographical.

- Assuming they're not autobiographical.

I mean, I think with every writer's work, there's always a bit of autobiography in there, right?

- Don't ya think?

Yeah.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So what kinds of upcoming projects do you have?

- Well, I have begun writing my next book.

- And what is that?

It's a book about my childhood in the Bronx and attending Catholic school.

- Do you have a tentative title working for it?

- Yes, "Come Down Cool".

- "Come Down Cool".

So what is one little vignette or story from this whole long life that you have that you think is a really good highlight for the book?

- Well, there are a lot of... A lot of funny things happened to me as a kid, but "come down cool" part wasn't exactly funny, but very formative in that I was traipsing, kind of rolling down the steps at my house.

I lived five stories up in an apartment building.

And when I reached the bottom, there was a sort of neighbor from about a block away with a switchblade and he held it to my throat and he said- - And you were a child.

- I was a child.

Yeah.

And he said, "I want you to go all the way back upstairs and come down cool."

So, I swallowed, walked gently up five flights and did my best James Bond kind of cat-like (laughs) maneuver coming down.

And when I got to the bottom, he folded the knife and he said, "Cool."

- Incredible.

I mean, New York was a very different place too - Or the same.

- back in the 60s.

Or the same.

- It certainly was a place.

- Right.

It's really interesting Richard, 'cause when you describe things like this, I mean, that's probably kind of traumatizing or at least horrific, especially for a child to experience, but it sounds like what you also do as a writer and as a creative is to take these really hard, very difficult experiences and try to digest them and reflect on them in a way where you can help yourself and help other people laugh.

Because everybody knows what it's like to go through a difficult situation.

Maybe not exactly like that, but something with similar feelings or feeling tones to that, which I think is a really kind of remarkable gift to give to people.

- You're so smart.

(both laugh) I'd never connected the two, but I suppose that's true.

- Well, I think the beauty and the intelligence comes in the stories and I'm excited to read more of them.

Richard, thank you so much for being on "A House for Arts", it's such a pleasure to have you.

- Thank you, and thank you audience, - And have a very bad day.

- And you too.

Please welcome Brian Melick.

- This piece is going to feature a wonderful instrument that was actually not originally supposed to be an instrument.

This was a gift by the maker.

He was visiting here in the U S on tour.

And I happened to meet him in his path, which I'm very fortunate to have not only acquired a new instrument, but made a new friend.

His name is Felle Vega.

He's from the Dominican Republic and he's a brilliant composer and a sculptor artist, and he makes a lot of instruments out of found objects.

And what happened with this device was that it was originally created as a vessel so that sound could be transferred from the instrument that it was intended for into the body of the chamber, so therefore making the instrument louder.

And the instrument I'm talking about specifically is a thumb piano.

And there's a lot of variations around the world, but basically it's metal tongs and you hold it in your hand and you pluck the tongs.

And then depending on how long that tongue is, depends on the pitch.

So many times we can take instruments like that that are very small in stature and also in sound and bring it to a larger instrument, say a drum, and then transfer the vibration of instrument into the drum, and therefore it becomes a louder instrument.

Well in this case, like it is the case in a lot of parts of the world, they use vessels like clay bowls or gourds, half a gourd that's been cleaned out of the seeds, and they transfer the sound of that thumb piano into that vessel.

Well, in this case, Felle wanted to create a vessel that he could actually mount to his body using a strap.

And so you can see the contours very interesting.

This part right here lays up against the players chest.

And then therefore he has, or she has a vessel to bring the little instrument in, but he was very, very unhappy with the results.

And so he actually told me the story that it kind of sat in his studio for about 10 years and it sort of haunted him, but his perseverance, he started to think about it as a drum and he started importing different thin plywoods, known as luans, from all over the world.

And the combination of woods that he's using now for this instrument, the top is actually steam fitted and it's a Brazilian luan, very thin plywood, and then as I understand, the species of wood from the Dominican is similar to our North American maple, and that's what makes the framework.

So, this is affectionately called Boombakini, and the piece that I would like to perform is called "Little Rhythm".

(lively rhythmic music) (upbeat music) - Thanks for joining us.

For more arts visit wmht.org/aha, and be sure to connect with WMHT on social.

I'm Lara Ayad.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "AHA" has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi, the Alexander and Marjorie Hover Foundation and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M & T bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M & T bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts, and we invite you to do the same.