Podcast appearances and mentions of rose roberts

Who would you trust to save the planet? In the final episode of the first season of The Trust Race, we look at climate change. We speak with Dr Rose Roberts about the importance of indigenous knowledge in understanding the impact of climate change, Professor Hannah Daly about the different types of expertise we need to address it, and Professor Heather Douglas about how we get everyone on board. Presented by Shane Bergin, produced by Shaun and Maurice, the podcasts are an output of the Horizon 2020 project PERITIA. This podcast has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870883. The information and opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Commission.

Alun R facilitates the first of 4 sessions of Jason Cordova's PbtA game of Gothic Horror in Victorian London. This session was organised as part of The Gauntlet RPG Community's monthly calendar of games (www.gauntlet-rpg.com). We meet 'Razor' Rose Roberts, the American who has only been in London for a month or so; Annie Morrish, the Vessel who made contact with dark entities while still in the womb; Dr Victor Weiss, the Mother, and his servant and Factotum, Chambers. While Dr Weiss is busy the other hunters investigate reports of a haunting. There's an over-worked cook in search of help, a deception to gain entry, blood ... and carnations. Then ... strangulation, visions of other places and other times and ... a very sinister boy child ...

Long time missionaries to Italy, Robby and Rose Roberts, came to share an update on their ministry with us this past Sunday. Robert also shared three hard truths he has learned on how to have an effective ministry in our neighborhoods, families, church and work. 1/12/20

Serial killing would seem to be rather ghoulish subject matter for a comedic play, yet Arsenic and Old Lace has been a reliable audience-pleaser for over seventy-five years. Sonoma Arts Live has a production running through February 10. Joseph Kesselring’s tale of the Brewster sisters and their pension for helping lonely old men meet their maker via a glass of elderberry wine debuted on Broadway in 1941 and ran for 1,444 performances. It starred Jean Adair, Josephine Hull, and Boris Karloff as black sheep Jonathan Brewster. A film adaptation by Frank Capra followed in 1944 starring Cary Grant as Jonathan Brewster. Though the play has since become a staple of the American theater, like an old haunted house it’s starting to creak. Mortimer Brewster (Michael Coury Murdock) returns to his childhood home and his Aunts Abby & Martha (Karen Brocker & Karen Pinomaki). After getting engaged to the next-door preacher’s daughter Elaine (Julianne Bradbury), Mortimer is horrified to discover his aunts have taken on the most macabre hobby. They’re helping lonely old men find “peace” and disposing of the bodies in the basement. Luckily, Uncle “Teddy” (Tim Setzer) believes himself to be Teddy Roosevelt and is always willing to dig a new lock downstairs at the Panama Canal for the latest “yellow fever victim.” Mortimer figures he can pin everything on the obviously insane Teddy, but things get complicated when brother Jonathan (Mike Schaeffer) shows up with a physician friend (Rose Roberts) and a body of their own. Director Michael Ross has some good talent at work here. Mmes. Brocker and Pinomaki are delightfully dotty as the sisters, and Setzer invigorates the stage with his every appearance. However, Mr. Murdock is too one-note as Mortimer, showing little range of emotion considering the insanity that’s going on around him. He rarely seems to be “in the moment”, often appearing to be casually awaiting his next line. Ms. Bradbury is far more animated as Elaine, making one wonder what she see’s in Mortimer. Schaeffer and Roberts are two very talented actors, but I’m not sure these were the right roles for them. I found Schaeffer’s menacing Jonathan undone by his distracting John O’Hurley (J. Peterman from Seinfeld)-like voice and Roberts baby-faced Dr. Einstein too youthful to capture the character’s exhaustion and desperation. Nice stagecraft compliments the performances. The black and white set (by Michael Walraven) and costumes (by Janice Snyder) evoke a classic cinema period-like feel. Arsenic and Old Lace is definitely a nostalgia piece, best enjoyed by those familiar with it. ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ runs through February 10 at Andrews Hall in the Sonoma Community Center in Sonoma. Thursday through Saturday performances are at 7:30pm; the Sunday matinee is at 2pm. For more information, go to sonomaartslive.org.

NCTM Favorites 2018 Presented by: Julie Ruelbach, Rose Roberts, Carmel Schettino, Karen McPherson, and Leigh Nataro If you weren’t able to attend the NCTM Annual Conference this year or attended some sesssions that were less than helpful, then this Global Math Department webinar is for you.  Come hear Note: Watch the full presentation at: https://www.bigmarker.com/GlobalMathDept/NCTM-Favorites Sign […]

In Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, Count Franz Orsini-Rosenberg assesses Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro with the criticism that it has “too many notes.” Cinnabar Theater’s current production suffers from the opposite - it’s missing a few. Amadeus is actually the story of Antonio Salieri (Richard Pallaziol), the most celebrated composer of his time and a man who’s dedicated his life to God and mankind as thanks for God’s granting him the gift of musical talent. Enter Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Aaron Wilton), a crude, boorish reprobate for whom reasons Salieri cannot fathom has been gifted by God with musical genius. Salieri, feeling mocked by God and unhinged by what he sees as a betrayal, seeks revenge on Him by destroying His vessel. He will bring about Mozart’s ruin while seeming to be his friend but destroy himself in the process. Shaffer’s historical fiction won the 1981 Tony Awards for Best Play and Best Actor in a Play (Ian McKellen) and the film adaptation matched that with its 1985 Oscar wins for Best Picture and Best Actor (F. Murray Abraham). Both Pallaziol and Wilton have their moments as Salieri and Mozart with Pallaziol at his best when Salieri is at his most duplicitous. While Wilton succeeds in bringing a high level of obnoxiousness to his Mozart, there’s little chemistry displayed in scenes he shares with Rose Roberts as Mozart’s wife Constanza. Chad Yarish leads an uneven supporting cast as the amusingly befuddled Austrian emperor Joseph II with Tim Setzer also effective as the pompous Count Johann Kilian von Strack. Where this Jennifer King-directed production really falters is in its design elements. Scenographer Peter Parrish brings little more than a few platforms and some haphazardly hung drapes to a play whose settings include an 18th century Viennese palace. A large center scrim used occasionally for shadow projections went curiously unused for most of the production. Parrish’s lighting design was also lacking, really only effective in a scene where Salieri collapses in frustration after he reads page after page of Mozart’s compositions and finally succumbs to his genius. Skipper Skeoch’s period costume design had to do double-duty in providing a sense of time and place with wigs and makeup by Jolie O’Dell also providing nice atmospheric support. The show concludes with Salieri, speaking for all “mediocrities” in the word, absolving them. Sadly, that’s not in my power here. “Amadeus” runs Friday through Sunday through April 15th at Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma. Friday and Saturday evening performances at 8pm; Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2pm. For specific dates and times, go to cinnabartheater.org

This autumn sees us profiling the results of our giant listening exercise to find out what people think about mission. Thank you if you were one of more than 2,000 people who completed our survey, online or at festivals this summer. You can see more about the results by going to the Mission Is tab at churchmissionsociety.org. In the coming months we will be busting some myths about mission based on what we have found out. One we tackle this month, is that mission is basically about helping people. We meet mission partners working in Asia and Latin America, who very obviously do mission that is helping people, but on reflection, what makes it distinctive, what really matters – is something else. First we go to Brazil, where Andy and Rose Roberts lead Revive – an NGO caring for girls who have suffered various kinds of abuse. Andy shared with Jeremy Woodham what got Revive started, the difference it makes – and what makes it different. Then we move to Pakistan, and meet a mission partner who is serving the people there through education, bringing her experience and skills to help train teachers in church schools. She will remain anonymous here, but what Naomi Rose Steinberg discovered when she talked to her about the state of education in Pakistan, is that the personal touch counts. We have no closing reflection this month, as our third interview provides for more purposeful reflection than usual. It is part of a conversation with Jane Jerrard that forms part of our new “Mission Is” bible study, shortly available on the resources section of our website churchmissionsociety.org. Jane, who also worked in education in Pakistan – for two decades – talked to John Orchard, who asked her: is mission just about helping people?

Big shot Broadway producer Jerry Cobb has a problem. He’s in desperate need of a big comedy hit to impress the Hollywood bigwigs and pave his way to fame and fortune on the left coast. He’s rented a suite in one of Arizona’s finest hotels where he and Charlie Bascher, his assistant, await the arrival of Broadway wunderkind playwright Danny “Nebraska” Jones. Things aren’t going well as there are slight temperature control issues with their rooms and things don’t get much better when Jones arrives. Seems that he is in a bit of a funk. He’s experienced a painful loss and his best idea for a comedy begins with a child being devoured by wolves. What lengths will producer Cobb, assistant Bascher and a surprise visitor go to in getting the script they want? That’s the premise behind Robert Caisley’s A Masterpiece of Comic … Timing, making its Bay Area premiere at Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse. Caisley has a history at the Playhouse, where at least five other of his works have been produced. For his latest, director Craig Miller has gathered a cast of experienced farceurs – Chris Schloemp, Benjamin Stowe, Devin McConnell, and Rose Roberts - and has them running (and jumping, and crawling) around the Studio Theatre’s nicely appointed Royal Palms Hotel set. They all play standard character types. Schloemp is fun as the dogged producer, willing to say whatever needs to be said to get what he wants. Stowe does what he can with a stock role as the nebbish assistant who’s incapable of “toughening up” to the level of his producer boss - but gee whiz he’ll try! McConnell seems to be channeling John Turturro’s Barton Fink character from the same-named Coen Brothers film. Character similarities aside, he is involved in some of the show’s best sight gags. Rose Roberts is a comedic dynamo in her politically incorrect role as a blonde bombshell who gained her success the old-fashioned way. The show seemed a bit long, with Act I leaning heavy on exposition and set-up and Act II, while moving quicker (with a major assist from Roberts), let a few things run on too long before the ultimate payoff. Characters in farce are often one-dimensional, as they certainly are here, but I would have liked to see more variety in the delivery and level of those characters. If a character’s energy level runs from A to Z, it can be exhausting for an audience if they all start at X. In an early scene, producer Cobb explains that “Comedy doesn’t necessarily have to ‘mean’ anything. You take a hundred jokes and put it in two acts, there’s your plot.” - which is pretty much what Caisley has done here. Some of them work, some of them don’t. Some are original, some seem awfully derivative. They’re all delivered with bombast and the cast does wring a fair amount of laughs out of the material, which is nothing less than what I’d expect from a cast of this caliber. A Masterpiece of Comic… Timing isn’t that by a longshot, but it does make for an amusing night of theatre. Comedy may not have to have a meaning, but it sure as hell better have laughs, and Miller and company mine the script for every laugh they can. It may not be a Comstock lode of laughs, but there’s more than enough silliness to cover the price of a ticket. A Masterpiece of Comic… Timing plays at Santa Rosa’s 6th Street Playhouse through May 28. For more information, go to 6thstreetplayhouse.com

There’s a line that comes about halfway through Edward Albee’s classic play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Unlike so much of the rest of Albee’s brutal and brilliant drama, it’s not a line full of anger or recrimination, or witty humor, or caustic observation. As such, it stands out like a whisper in a rainstorm. It is uttered by an extremely inebriated young woman named Honey, curled up on a couch after a period of extreme alcohol-fueled nausea, making her barely-conscious remark in response to her host, George, telling a deeply personal story, which Honey’s own husband, Nick, told George less than an hour before, while Honey was indisposed in the upstairs bathroom. As it so happens, it’s a story about Honey. “This story sounds familiar,” she murmurs softly, unexpectedly adding, “Familiar stories are the best.” Sometimes, that’s true, isn’t it? Sometimes, familiar stories are the best. That’s why classics like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” keep cycling through our culture every so often. They might have been written 55-years-ago, like “Virginia Woolf,” but the good ones – like “Virginia Woolf” – always seem to have something to say. Whatever familiarity you might have with Albee’s masterpiece, or with George and Martha and Honey and Nick – that furious foursome of funny-and-ferocious married academics whose relationships all unravel spectacularly over the course of single evening - you’d be well advised to leave your expectations - and perhaps your past disappointments - at the door of Main Stage West, where director David Lear and his first rate cast are serving up a dry and dirty, perfectly poured presentation of Albee’s caustic excoriation of modern marriage and the deadly addictiveness of illusion and deceit. If I seem to be using a lot of words, I am. After nearly three hours with these loquacious, word-wielding folks, you too might find yourself luxuriating in the rich highlights and lowlights of the English language. In the play, George — a sensational Peter Downey — is a middling history professor at a small university, and his wife Martha — Sandra Ish, also marvelous — obviously resents him for his lack of academic ambition. Early one morning, after a lengthy faculty dinner, George and Martha have invited another couple over for drinks. Nick—John Browning, quite strong in a difficult role—is the school’s new biology professor, and his wife, Honey—a remarkable Rose Roberts—well, um, Honey has a habit it throwing up a lot when things become too “intense.” So, you know, woe is them. Director Lear keeps the tone masterfully light, recognizing that the escalating intensity of all those words works best when they’re delivered as if it’s all pretty hilarious – which, amazingly, it often is. The production’s best moments include Ish’s priceless expression when a potted Venus flytrap is placed in her hand as a “hostess gift.” Or Downey’s hilariously multi-layered response to Nick’s saying, “Well, you know women.” And words cannot describe Robert’s jaw-dropping brilliance when Honey launches an improvised dance that includes elements of ballet, hand-jive and a mime stuck in a box. The brilliance of Albee’s script, of course, and this razor-sharp interpretation, lies in the awareness that beautiful truths can be found even amongst people as vile and ruthless as these. Yes, they are, to varying degrees, swine, but they are remarkably believable swine. And as George so memorably puts it, late in the show, “You have to have a swine to show you where the truffles are.” 'Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ runs Thursday–Sunday through March 19 at Main Stage West www.mainstagewest.com

This month we look at one of Church Mission Society’s focus areas – people at risk. We believe God cares deeply about the most vulnerable people in our world, and so do the people we meet this month. First we look back with Laura and Simon Walton over 16 years of faithful work with people at risk in Tanzania, including those living with HIV. Then we meet Becky Reid who has been working alongside Andy and Rose Roberts at the ReVive safe house in Olinda, Brazil. Revive was set up by our mission partners Andy and Rose to provide refuge and restore the lives of girls from the streets who have often suffered abuse of terrible kinds. For our last interview we travel back to Africa and Uganda, where Richard Rukundo, a Church Mission Society local partner, coordinates children’s and youth work for the Anglican Church of Uganda. He has been totally re-engineering children's work and safeguarding in the church there.

It has been said that there is nothing less dramatic or more lacking in entertainment value than watching a writer write. In the clever comedy-drama ‘Seminar,’ presented at Wells Fargo Center by Left Edge Theatre, playwright Theresa Rebeck—the mastermind behind such stage hits at The Scene and television’s Smash—deftly transports her patented hard-edge comedy style from the worlds of stage-and-screen to the land of the literarily engaged. By never showing us a writer in the act of writing, but rather showing us a quartet of authors in the act of defending and describing their work, Rebeck shows them at the vulnerable core of who they are. And it’s a blast. Mostly. If anyone could really determine a great novel or a lousy novel by just reading the first who pages, then maybe I should only be watching the first ten minutes of a play before rendering my own opinion as to its overall worth. That’s not possible, of course, and for a playwright as adept as Rebeck to take such lazy shortcuts, actually showing us people in the act of recognizing a literary work’s excellence by it’s first several paragraphs, is disappointing. Thankfully, the value of ‘Seminar’ lies in its entirety, not in one or two false moments, and on the whole, ‘Seminar’ is outstanding. “Don’t defend yourself,” intones Leonard, early in the play. Played by actor Ron Severdia with a mix of weary resignation, playful, grinning antagonism, and vicious, sociopathic bloodlust, Leonard is an esteemed author-turned-teacher-for-hire, and he doesn’t like it when a writer defends herself after he’s criticized her. “If you’re defending yourself,” he tells a whole group of young writers he is in the middle of eviscerating, “then you’re not listening.” Directed by Argo Thompson with a strong ear for the rapidly shifting rhythms of intellectual debate and literary double-speak—though with a conspicuous tendency to have his entire cast perform facing and rarely to each other—Seminar follows a bunch of would-be writers who pay a Leonard $5000 apiece to give them a private class, “critiquing” their writing—and everything else about them. Rose Roberts, as the Jane Austen-loving Kate—who rents the New York apartment where the classes take place—is at the top of her game, and as her variously talented classmates, Jacob de Heer, Devon McConnell, and Veronica Valencia give strong, appealing performances in a play in which every character has something great to do, alternately required to be torn apart, or to learn the fine art of tearing apart others. As Leonard gleefully pronounces, “Writers, in their natural state, are as civilized as feral cats.” This entertaining exploration of artistic egos under pressure is a bit over-cooked at times, but on the whole is as deliciously fierce, ferocious and funny as a pack of wild animals. And like a wild animal, it doesn’t always behave itself. “Seminar” runs Friday through Sunday through November 28, at Wells Fargo Center for the Performing Arts, presented by Left Edge Theatre. www.leftedgetheatre.com

Halloween is upon us, and to get us in the mood, two infamous supernatural sex-comedies are currently haunting 6th Street Playhouse. Both plays are crammed with witty retorts and sexual innuendo, both feature ghostly visitations and eye-popping fashions—but only one has the Time Warp and a guy dressed in fishnet stockings. Let’s start there. Richard K. O’Brien’s infamous musical The Rocky Horror Show—playing at 6th Street for its third consecutive year—manages the impressive magic trick of transcending its own quirky script deficiencies. Under the direction of Craig Miller, the production employs a kind of theatrical misdirection, distracting audiences from the fact that the story of Rocky Horror is a bit of a mess, by turning the whole show into one joyously raucous, sex-positive “event,” complete with cross-dressing costume contests at the intermission, and a rowdy post-show dance break in which the audience is invited to Time Warp with the cast. Assisted by musical director Justin Pyne, whose magnificent rock band is spot-on perfect, this is a Rocky Horror that brings enough high-spirited fun to outweigh the loony flaws of the story, and additional credit for that should definitely go to the fearless commitment of its cheerfully extroverted cast. As Dr. Frankenfurter—the not-so-sweet transvestite from outer space—Rob Broadhurst unleashes a torrent of high-heeled, pelvis-thrusting glee, and Zach Howard rocks hard as the duplicitous butler Riff Raff. Mark Bradbury and Abbey Lee, as the virginal visitors Brad and Janet, do fearless, first-rate work in the show’s trickiest roles. And nice supporting performances are given by Rose Roberts as the conflicted groupie Columbia, a delightful Zac Schuman in the dual roles of delivery boy Eddie and his government agent uncle Dr. Scott, and Amanda Morando as Riff Raff’s dry-witted sister Magenta. Though haphazardly paced, and plagued with some opening night technical issues, this Rocky Horror succeeds, big time, by brazenly showing it’s true colors—From beginning to end, this is one big dark-humored dance party disguised as a play. After three years, all I can say is, Let’s do the time warp again. On to Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, a drawing comedy that was the Rocky Horror of its time, the story of a milquetoast writer haunted by the ghost of his manipulative first wife while struggling with the passive-aggressive machinations of his second. Directed by Meghan C. Hakes, the 6th Street version delivers visually—with a great set and some very entertaining ghost effects—but it totally misses the mark in terms of its tone and rhythm. Hurt by its tentative pace and some wildly uneven . . . often unintelligible . . . English accents, the show takes what might have been a bracingly tasty martini and turns it into a rather diluted cocktail of clashing, but still slightly fizzy, soft drinks. Despite fine, engaging performances by David Yen as optimistic author Charles, Gina Alvarado as the ghostly femme fatale Elvira, and Lennie Dean as the well-meaning medium Madam Arcati, the production woefully miscalculates the underlying point of the play—which can’t be described without spoiling key second-act surprises—resulting in an ending is a strangely disappointing clash of contrasting ending, on that’s visually magical and the other that is suddenly, unexpectedly un-fun. 'Blithe Spirit' and ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ run Thursday–Sunday through November 8 at 6th Street Playhouse. www.6thstreetplayhouse.com

Something kinky has been taking place lately in the world of mainstream entertainment. Sadism and masochism are now to romantic comedy what romance and comedy use to be to romantic comedy. From the 2002 movie Secretary to 2011’s three-novel series 50 Shades of Grey (released as a movie earlier this year), many of our favorite new “love stories” are disturbingly, conspicuously twisted. Standing somewhere between those two examples is David Ives’ Tony-winning 2010 stage play "Venus in Fur," now running at Main Stage West in Sebastopol. Winner of the Tony for Best Play and Best Actress, Venus in Fur stands as a career high-water-mark for Ives, who’s best known for work like All in the Timing and Lives of the Saints, both collections of short one-acts. Ives’ work, by and large, has tended to sacrifice plot in the service of playing with language. Few playwrights are as masterful and entertaining with words and sentences as is Ives. But as an inventor of compelling stories, he’s always been a little lacking. Perhaps that’s the reason he’s chosen to adapt so many classic tales by other people when tackling full-length plays, works like Piere Corneille’s "The Liar" and Moliere’s "The Misanthrope." With "Venus in Fur," Ives fuses his best instincts into one show, fashioning a language-rich play about a playwright-director who’s just completed an adaption of the 1870 novel Venus in Furs, by Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. And here’s where it gets kinky. Sacher-Masoch is the gentlemen for whom the term “masochism” was named, and Venus in Furs is the novel that brought the concept of sadomasochism into public awareness. At Main Stage West, Anthony Abate plays Thomas the playwright, who has been auditioning actresses for the part of Vanda, an aristocratic woman who spontaneously takes a sex-slave and learns to mistreat him in degrading ways. As Thomas is about to leave his New York office, with the role of Vanda still uncast, in walks an actress whose name is also Vanda (mysterious!), played by Rose Roberts, who’s pretty much astonishing from start to finish. Vanda is a hot mess of an actress, dropping F-bombs left and right, desperate to audition though she’s three hours late, clutching a bag of props and costumes and a copy of the script she’s somehow gotten her hands on - despite the fact that almost no one has read it but Thomas and his producers. It is difficult to describe what happens next without spoiling the delicate series of revelations and red-herrings Ives incorporates into his gradually intensifying - and frequently hilarious - if not exactly plot-heavy story. The audition quickly turns into a battle of wits, sexuality, and gender assumptions. Thomas is surprised when that Vanda seems to have memorized the entire script, and as the audition commences, he reluctantly reads the role of the sex-slave to Vanda’s dominatrix. Sacher-Masoch’s soft-porn story-within-the-story - which Vanda eventually eviscerates with her dead-on critical analysis - eventually overlaps onto the intensifying power-play taking place between director and actress. There’s a bit of smoke-and-mirrors going on in Ives’ script, which would have little story at all were it not for the story within the story, but Ives’ work the smoke and mirrors well enough that few will notice that not much actually happens. But then, what does happen is extremely entertaining and even a little thought-provoking, thanks largely to director David Lear, who adds a few bold additions to Ives’ original vision. Ultimately, this uneven but highly intelligent play has lots to say about what men and women think about men and women. Funny, thoughtful, and painfully to-the-point, Venus in Fur is so good it hurts. "Venus in Fur" runs Thursday–Sunday through April 25 at Main Stage West. Mainstagewest.org. I’m David Templeton, Second Row Center, for KRCB.