David M. Fehr

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1/20/10

There is a lot going on in the next couple of weeks for me. As always, if you click on the calendar to your left and then click the event, you can get the details, ticket information, and location.

First up is Society of Adventurous Women by Chuck Palia. This is a new joint project between Polarity Ensemble Theatre (www.petheatre.com) and the Josephinum Academy. I have had the privilege to direct these high school girls in their first main-stage play. The girls and Mr. Cervantes ( a teacher who is acting in the project) are doing impressive work, given that most of them have never taken an acting class before three months ago!

S.O.A.W. plays Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights this week.

Next, What of The Night opens as part of Halcyon Theater's Alcyone Fest (www.halcyontheatre.org). This year the Festival is dedicated to Marie Irene Fornes and Halcyon is presenting 5 of her plays in rotating rep. through the month of February. What of The Night was directed by Prologue theatre's Margo Grey, and it is a very exciting, fun show to be a part of. Performances begin this Saturday afternoon Jan 23rd and continue through February 26th.

Lastly, Swan Song, by Anton Chekhov, will be opening at ST. Sebastian Players (www.saintsebastianplayers.org) on February 19th. More on this soon!

Best,

David

11/15/09

Welcome back! It has been a very busy summer and fall. I have been working hard and traveling in and out of Chicago often. Now that things have settled down and I am back into a routine, I have a chance to post some updates.

First, I will be directing Anton Chekhov's Swan Song for St. Sebastian Players (www.saintsebastianplayers.org) as part of their Chekhov one act festival in February. The play is about two men, one a veteran actor and the other a prompter, who are locked in a theater after a cast party. For this play I will need to find two male actors that are 50+. If you, or anyone you know would like to audition, please e mail me your headshot and resume at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with "Swan Song Audition" in the subject line. The show will run Febuary 19, 2010 through March 15, 2010.

Second, I have been working on a number of residences for Chicago area schools this fall. For Metropolis Performing Arts Centre (www.metropolisarts.com), I finished an arts intigration program at the Paddock School in Palintine, Il. The subject was "Weather". Thank you to all of the 2nd grade teachers and students at Paddock that helped to make that program sucuessful. Currently, also with MPAC, I am working on a Mask and Puppetry residency for the Prairie school, in south Chicago.

Polarity Ensemble Theatre (www.petheatre.com) has asked me to work as part of their outreach program at the Josephinum Academy. This is an exciting new program to bring theater study to middle and highschool girls. We will be working on a brand new play that will be preformed in January.

Lastly, I will be posting some pictures from my trip to Istanbul, Turkey.

As always, feel free to e mail me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or to find me on Facebook or Linkedin.

4/3/09

Finally!

Well, after an absence of too long, I finally re-taught myself how to do this front page. A ton has happened since I last blogged in early November.

First, I moved. I'm no longer in Kansas City, but rather, in Chicago. I found a great place in Andersonville that's close to the train and close to some amazing restaurants.

Second, Thanks to the good people at Metropolis Performing Arts Centre (www.metropolisarts.com), I have been hired as an artist in residence in the Hawthorn North Elementary School, in Vernon Hills, for the entire month of April. We have a great project in place called Write To The Spotlight. I had a meeting with my team yesterday and I'm rather excited to get to work. This should be a lot of fun. More on this as the project develops.

Third, I was cast in a production of The Rivals with Chicago's own Polarity Ensemble Theatre (www.petheatre.com). It's my first play in Chicago, and I'm very excited to be a part of it. Laura Sturm (The director), has assembled a top rate cast and crew, and has ably guided us through the farce . I do believe that we are ready for Tech to begin tomorrow. I will post more on this later this week (I swear!), however, if you want the information now, you can check the calender to your left of the screen. Click on one of the highlighted dates, and then click "The Rivals". Abracadabra, there is the ticket information!

I've done much more than this in the past couple of months, but these seemed like the important ones to get up on the blog now. As always, feel free to e mail me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or to find me on Facebook.

Sincerely,

David

11/2/08

Good news! I was cast in a film, Slobodsky by Tao22 films (tao22films.com). I will be playing Brayton Janikowski, the main character's younger brother. Filming is set to begin in December.

Also, I have added s number of pictures from this weekend's trip to Powell Gardens, just out side of Kansas City. There was an exhibit there for a group of stone sculpture artists from Zimbabwe called Chapungu. Chapungu is the mythical bird god of that area of Africa and many of the sculpture had to do with African mythology. There is also a really cool looking chapel there, with stunning architecture. You can find the photos under the media menu, then Travel photos, then Powell Gardens.

Lastly, I would still like to get more entries about what I should call my character with the Sai. Those phots can be found under media menu, then Travel photos, then Kansas City/ UMKC.

Best,

David

10/24/08

What? I know you're thinking -- "Two updates in a week? I must be hallucinating!" Don't worry, your not. Not yet anyway. But I have decided to run my first contest. I have posted a number of pictures from a photo shoot I did (with my MFA class ) back in May. After finally getting around to posting them, I have decided that this guy needs a name. You mission, should you choose to accept it, is to name the character.

You can find the photos under the media menu, then Travel photos, then Kansas City/ UMKC. (as soon as I figure out how to post a link or one of the photos on the front page I will).

Remember he is supposed to be from a 70's cop show or film.

The winner will be picked for it's awesomeness and will receive the adoration of millions and something special that I haven't decided on yet.

Send all ideas to my E-mail here This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or to my Facebook page where I'll start a thread.

Have fun!

DMF

10/20/08

The world must be ending, because I joined Facebook the other day. Yes, the event that everyone has been waiting for has finally happened. I guess the only thing left is to wait for is Elijah. Expect him to grab a seat at your table sometime in April. Apparently, people have been waiting for me to join for so long that I was a bit overwhelmed. Ah, it's Big Brothers world, I just live in it.

DMF

10/2/08

Today I posted three or four pictures from my trip to San Antonio. They are listed under the travel photos section in Media.

Enjoy!

DMF

Reviews

Review: Committed, quirky performances in 'Parade'

By ROBERT TRUSSELL

The Kansas City Star

A low-budget independent production of John Murrell's "Waiting for the Parade" provides an engaging evening of theater enlivened by committed, sometimes quirky performances.

Murrell's two-act dramatic comedy focuses on the intersecting lives of five civilian women in Calgary while the men in their lives are either overseas fighting Hitler or — in the case of a German Canadian — confined to an internment camp for allegedly subversive activities.

Director David M Fehr, working with a minimal budget in tiny Studio 116 at the UMKC Performing Arts Center, captures clearly delineated performances from his talented cast. The episodic script cuts back and forth between locales like a screenplay and at times viewers might not be sure just when and where certain scenes are taking place. But for the most part Fehr frames the story with admirable clarity.

The five women constitute an amusing, always interesting collection of odd ducks.

Catherine (Lauren Lubo, one of the show's producers) is a passionate young woman working at a defense plant who feels guilty about her attraction to other men when the man she loves is away fighting. Janet (Kira Mayo) is a taskmaster who runs USO rehearsals and emergency drills like a martinet.

Margaret (Anna Brungardt) seems older than her years thanks to her prudish, disapproving ways. Eve (Rachel Nelson) is so obsessed with film star Leslie Howard that she goes into mourning when Howard's plane is shot down in the war.

And Marta (Stephanie Sommer) is a naturalized Canadian whose German immigrant father's eccentric ways have landed him in a camp for suspected spies and subversives.

The performances may lack polish but they're highly effective. As we follow these women from 1939 to the European war's end in 1945, we get a sense of real lives unfolding before our eyes. We feel the strain, the heartache, the disillusionment, the resignation — and the slow, agonizing passing of time.

Murrell's play performs a neat trick by conveying the brutal realities of a war on the opposite side of the Atlantic through the reactions of those left behind on the home front. It also prompts reflection on our own country, which is now fighting two wars that affect relatively few of us personally. Murrell's depiction of Canada in the '40s shows us a culture in which every man, woman and child led lives shaped by that country's commitment to what we think of as a just war.

So it does what a play is supposed to do: It makes us think about where we've been and where we're going.

"Waiting For the Parade" runs through July 20 in Studio 116 of the UMKC Performing Arts Center. Performances are at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Seating is limited. To reserve tickets e-mail Kathryn Bartholomew at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . A $10 donation is suggested.