Cowan Palace: Our Big, Fat, San Francisco Theatrical Wedding

This week Ashley Cowan (Leschber!) thanks eight special people who helped make a San Francisco wedding even more theatrical.

 

I’m sure you’re feeling a little tired of all this “Ashley and Will’s Wedding” content floating around the internet. But forgive us. We promise in two weeks we’ll be on to other topics. Most likely.

As I’m still floating on Cloud Nine’s layer of exhaustion, I was tempted to make this blog a collection of my favorite pet pictures. Instead, I decided to perhaps make better use of it by offering a thank you to some of our theater friends who deserve a bit of recognition. Besides, there’s still plenty of time to post an all pet related post!

As Marissa mentioned in her blog, putting on a production can be a lot of like planning a wedding. And for Will and me, the reverse proved to be true. As you can imagine, planning a wedding in San Francisco comes with its fair share of challenges. When the going got tough, we decided to think outside the wedding box and look to a group we knew we could count on: the theater community. And we were overjoyed with the individuals who helped make this event even more meaningful.

In honor of the eight months we had to plan it, here are eight theater makers who helped make our day:

Chris Quintos Cathcart: Will and I thought long and hard about who may be a good match to officially help us tie the knot. We knew we wanted our officiant to be a San Franciscan who knew us both, who had a way with words, and who could comfortably speak before a group. We brainstormed a few options but nothing seemed quite right. We kept coming back to Chris: the person who Will and I had both separately opened up to during Twelfth Night rehearsals, the woman who offered us fantastic love advice and young adult fiction suggestions over various pieces of cake, and the friend who made us laugh during times of insecurity. Throughout the entire planning process, Chris listened and collaborated with us. Most of the time she magically incorporated the thoughts we tried poorly to articulate with unbelievable ease. After working together on theatrical projects of the past, Chris proved once again to be a master of the stage and we can’t thank her enough for lending her talent to this new union.

Stuart Bousel: As he mentioned in his reading, Stuart is the reason I’m here writing this blog. Along with letting us write for Theater Pub, he’s also played the leading role in our meet cute story. Aside from using his magical theater ways to inspire a romance, Stuart was also the one person we knew we wanted to perform a reading. After surviving an already crazy year of rehearsals and multiple shows, we asked Stuart if he would write something for our ceremony. We were not very helpful with the specifics of what we wanted (sorry, Stuart). But we had faith in his words considering they had, in fact, brought us all together in the first place. Once again, he blew us away with a beautiful, humorous and thoughtful retelling of our story together. My friends and family outside of our theater circle haven’t stopped raving about it and we’re left thanking Stuart for his treasured part in our relationship.

Tonya Narvaez: Will and I have the pleasure of living with Tonya and that poor lady has probably seen more wedding induced sweat and tears than anyone else. She calmed our nerves by suggesting we take a moment to focus on the emotional journey of Felicity instead of our own stress. She made us laugh by creating unique talkative voices for each of the pets. But most of all, she was a friend to us when we simply needed a calm voice telling us that everything was going to be okay. Tonya also saved the day by writing all the text on our various chalkboards (and my goodness, we had a lot of them), helped us to arrange our centerpieces, and incorporated her creative ideas into our overall design. Tonya proved to be so many things to us during this process and we’ll never stop singing her praises. (Literally. We sing A LOT on Treasure Island.)

James Grady and Christi Chew: I got to know James and Christi through Theater Pub’s glimpse into Rent. Not only are they incredibly good looking but they’re also super talented. So when my job at the time needed performers for a summer concert series, they were at the top of my list. And wowza, they hit it out of the park. Will and I crossed our fingers they would be willing to play at our ceremony and cocktail hour. When they said yes, we probably high fived each other at least a thousand times. They were willing to quickly learn the song we envisioned as our “walk down the aisle jam” (Gold from Once, for anyone curious) and they performed it with skill and passion. Once the reception started, James and Christi continued to encourage the party atmosphere we had hoped for by impressing guests of all ages with their dance moves. Fun fact: several of my friends asked me to introduce them to Christi because they believed she was the “inventor of dance”. James and Christi, we love you and thank you for your music.

Ellery Schaar: I was introduced to Ellery thanks to Chris after she heard me moaning about not being able to find a headpiece to wear with my wedding dress. I have a decent sized head and everything I tried on looked just ridiculous. As soon as I met Ellery, I knew I was in good hands. She greeted me with such a positive and creative force that I knew my hopeful vision of a birdcage veil could be brought to life with care and dedication. She somehow managed to match my love of vintage books with a beautifully detailed piece to wear. The veil included a quote from Twelfth Night, the light peach color from the bridesmaids’ dresses, and the bling that every bride can appreciate. Honestly, I anticipate several future evenings of me alone in my room putting the veil on and remembering the wedding day. Ellery is truly a gifted artist and I’m very grateful I had the chance to be a canvas.

Ashley Ramos: Not only does Ashley have a great name but she can do all the artistic things I wish I could do. Earlier this year, I was super impressed with her draft for the Olympians Festival surrounding Allison’s take on Cerberus but she really delighted Will and me by creating our very own large book where guests could take a picture inside it and literally become a part of the story. She crafted this giant beautiful piece and managed to draw a gorgeous image of The Golden Gate Bridge on the book page. Ashley took a crazy idea and helped bring it to life. She was so sweet to work with and we were truly blown away by her design. So much so, that we plan to hang the creation on the wall. Ashley, you’re wonderful and we can’t wait to see your next creation!

Wes Crain: I first met Wes over beers and margaritas (which Tonya and I had combined… obviously) at a “cleavage and mustaches” birthday party for Chris. After I purchased my dress from Glamour Closet, I needed to find someone to slightly alter the straps before it was ready to wear. I investigated a few options and quickly found the price of altering a wedding dress was almost as much as promising your first born child. Yikes! One place said that if I simply wanted to ask an alterations question, I would have to pay them $35. Regardless if I chose them to fix the dress or if they knew the answer. Barf. So when Tonya suggested I ask Wes to take a look at the dress and see if perhaps he could fix it, I was both anxious and hopeful. Not only did he fix my dress within an hour of first seeing it but he also went on to help my bridesmaid, fellow blogger-Allison Page, with altering her dress as well. I’ve since been bragging that the talent behind the San Francisco Ballet accepted my freelance job but in all seriousness, Wes was fantastic. He made me feel comfortable in a situation that would have otherwise made me feel vulnerable and insecure. He did a perfect job with the alterations and I will continue to suggest him to anyone in need of a seasoned costume master!

As you can see, our wedding was made special by the many talents of the San Francisco Theater Community. We’ve found a family here in this city. Will and I are so thankful to know you all and we’re so happy that our big day was a celebration made better by the immense theatrical talent you all possess. Thank you for supporting us and believing that where there’s a Will (and an Ashley), there’s a way.

Working Title: Can You Handle This Bromance?!

This week Will takes a look at the forging bond that theatre has on male friendship and 22 Jump Street, of course.

We theatre folk are a motley lot. It takes a certain kind to fall into the pseudo social catch-all that is the performing arts. Sure “theatre people” have some common characteristics: loud, expressive, emotive, prone to drama…or so they say. That being said, over the years I’ve worked with a vast eclectic crowd who have enormous varying interests. People from divergent clicks, social standing, races, gender and backgrounds. I’ve played the stage with short order cooks, cheerleaders, software engineers, jocks, military, loners, drama queens, beauty queens, prom queens, class clowns, teachers and day labor field technicians. I’m constantly surprised by the day jobs of actors and theatre creators. From outside observations, I don’t always guess that “he does Shakespeare” or “she performs poetry” or “they are a theatre people”. Yes, yes certain types are more likely to be involved with theatre (upper middle class white men) but first of all this is evolving and second of all that’s beside the point I’m working towards. I’m working toward a description of the uncommon thread that pulls on theatre people and connects through seemingly disparate space. Regardless of the box that we often get put in (or put ourselves in) by our jobs or social labels, the arts allow us to poke a hole in the cardboard, run a string across social spaces and hear one another without limitation. These thoughts strung across my mind for two reasons: First, during my recent wedding (4-days-ago-recent!), I took a look at my groomsmen alongside other close male friends and was struck at how strong the bonds of friendship were with these old companions. We are all very different people but our mutual participation in the grand social art of theatre bridged the gap somewhere along the way. The second thing to tug my mind along the lines of male friendship was, none other than, 22 Jump Street. It’s a bromance! Need I say more?

I’ll keep this brief for if you know the perils of wedding planning, you’ll know that even after the big day there is still much to do. SO…As for the film, 22 Jump Street, starts Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill (as if you didn’t know) and it excels where many sequels fail. It takes itself seriously as a comedy sequel. Meaning, it seriously takes the piss out of itself. Half of the running joke is that they spent more money for no reason to do the exact same thing as the first movie. This smartly elevates the comedy. And if you laughed at the first, you’ll laugh here too. More importantly, (and getting back to the point) Jump Street takes the time to again investigates the central male friendship. These two unlikely brothers enhance each other (dare I say, complete each other) even though they are very different people. Regardless of the differences within the central friends the bond is the same. Whether are bros, or theatre geeks, or techies, or cops, or “fill in the diversity here” the bond is the same. I first learned this in high school theatre warm-ups somehow it applies now. “Whether the weather be cold / whether the weather be hot / We’ll be together / Whatever the weather / Whether we like it or not.” Warm-up for theatre, Warm-up for life. Yes, this film buddy trope can be cliché but when done right, it reminds me of the very best of my friends.

Speaking of which… I wanted to take the time to say a few things of the groomsmen. The first two, I’ve known since grade school, Brinton Gaines & Chris Fjell. I discovered high school theatre alongside Chris. We danced the shit out of Guys and Dolls in ’97. Another, Spencer Dooley, I met in said high school theatre. He might have been a year behind me but that didn’t stop him from getting all the bigger parts I wanted. That douche. (love/hate relationships are often intrinsic to bromances…duh) I tried to hold this against him but his hair is just too pretty to stay mad at. It’s like trying to be mad at Derek Zoolander! You just can’t. I fell in with Steve Cruz at Northern Arizona University and without his help I never would have memorized the abundant lines of Prospero for The Tempest or had fresh homemade tacos to eat at 3 in the morning. 😉 Sorry Stevie. They were delicious. Kevin Cowan is my wonderful bride’s brother. I met her through a production helmed by Stuart Bousel, the lone speaker within my wedding ceremony. All this personal rambling is leading to the fact that throwing myself into theatre has forged connections that are the most importantly in my life. And never would I ever give that up.

Sources:

Wilson, Glen. Still of Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill in 22 Jump Street (2014). 2014. Photograph. http://www.imdb.com, Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. Web. 24 Jun 2014.