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Updates

12/4/2020

Things are changing and stuff is happening!

I've gotten a lot done in the pandemic, but one thing I haven't made much progress on is updating this blog. There are still two or three YEARS of shows I need to update on here. But as always (pandemic or not) I'd rather be doing than reporting. And so I interrupt my backlogging catch-up process to bring current updates!

My gender

.Back in June, I finally came out as a non-binary trans person. For clarity's sake, I will add that I'm not taking down photos on this site of me presenting as male, since it's part of my history, I still enjoy the pictures, and I intend to keep playing characters of all genders (as I always have!)

Go Go Go Goroff

I got really excited about the congressional campaign of Dr. Nancy Goroff, a scientist who believes in climate change. So I wrote this parody of Go Go Go Joseph from Joseph and the Amazing Technical Dreamcoat, and with the help of a few dear collaborators turned it into this music video and unofficial campaign commercial:

Creatures of Yes Renaissance

You gooooootta catch up on Creatures of Yes videos, which we've been releasing weekly! I'm now producing and co-writing as well as puppeteering, building new puppets and fabricating set pieces. I voice Murmel, Agnes, Walter, and Alphonso. Here's our first short film (which kicks off the weekly series we are currently in.)

More updates to come!

There's so much to catch up on, both new projects as well as old stuff I never had time to write about. I can't believe I haven't done an actual post about The Amazing Story Machine yet. Gah. Check out this cool little film we made. Or look at the trailer below:

Right now I'm studying woodcarving with master puppeteer Bernd Ogrodnik. Toby and I are doing more work on The Comedy of Wizards and developing a new holiday show, A Krampus Carol. Here ends this disjointed post.

Gruff! on Long Island

6/2/2020

Continuing my backlog of posts, here's a post about my production of Gruff! at Long Island Children's Museum. The good folks at LICM saw our production of Gruff! at The People's Improv Theater as well as well as a performance of our Off-Broadway run at Vital Theatre Company. They loved the piece and wanted to do their own production - but they wanted Doppelskope to join them on their creative staff for the project. This was my first time directing on my own, and the first production of Gruff! that tried hiding the puppeteers (which is now my preferred style for the piece, and I'd like to go further with it.) Here's a sizzle reel from the production!

Here's our first table-read of the piece....

And here's a production still...

Toby, Ora and I have also adapted Gruff! into a screenplay. I would love to see it on the big screen. I think it's unique as a direct call to action against climate change for family audiences, and I think the world needs that now.

The Updates Beginneth

4/21/2020

photo by Jim Moore

I'm fine! Are you fine? I do hope you are. This covid-19 epidemic is a stressful and terrible time. I am grateful to be healthy and safe - and to finally have some free time.

Lost Nation Theater's spring production of Gruff! was, of course, postponed. The summer premiere of The Comedy of Wizards (a fantasy musical adaptation of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors by myself and Toby Singer) was likewise postponed. My Brooklyn hospital residencies as a pediatric clown are VERY much postponed (I'm more of an existential worker than an essential worker.)

What am I doing? I'm writing - Toby and I continue work on The Comedy of Wizards, and Growl! needs reformatting.
I'm learning to make my own puppets - watch out world!
I'm learning more German.
I'm practicing juggling.
I'm practicing monitor puppetry.
I'm playing a lot of Munchkin (I highly recommend this board game if you have two or more fellow quarantiners) and hnefatafl (a great board game for two players, and a great compromise since Kate Kenny won't play chess with me and this game is slightly similar. Plus, you get to pretend you're a viking when you play it.)

I'm looking forward with hope towards next year. Lost Nation Theater shares my hope that we can reschedule Gruff! I'll be reassuming the role of Aquifer as well as directing it. I'm also hoping the premiere of The Comedy of Wizards will happen next year (I was slated to direct that as well.)

I'll also be updating this blog with a backlog of updates and content going back two years! Oi. I'm planning to roll out posts on some kind of semi-regular schedule so I don't get overwhelmed. So, to start with, here's a short slide show of pics from Twelfth Night at Lost Nation Theater in the summer of 2018, directed by the amazing Amanda Rafuse.

I also doubled as Fabian, who ended up being a preppy stoner in this production. Somehow I don't have any photos of that!

It just occurred to me that this was also the last play that Kate Kenney and I got to act in together. Since this blog is mostly perused by important directors and influential casting agencies, and not just by my mother, I hope you will take note and rectify this situation post haste (but after the epidemic.)

Until next time...

Variety

2/25/2019

Sometimes this is what a work week looks like...

Day 1: transport set from LI to Manhattan, do two performances of The Amazing Story Machine.

Day 2: MC and perform magic at a new circus show at The Muse, ABCirque and Play.

Day 3: Work on costume and script for upcoming Circus/Puppet/Variety show about gender.

Day 4: Write synopsis for new glove puppet show.

Day 5: shift as Pediatric clown at hospital.

Day 6: Memorize lines for upcoming production of The Turn of the Screw. I'm playing 3 or so characters.

Back in Vermont!

6/27/2018

Yesterday we had our first read through for Twelfth Night at Lost Nation Theater and it was a wonderful experience. It's a revelation to hear the play out loud, share your work with your cast for the first time, and take in their choices. There was more laughter than you sometimes hear at a table read, especially for Shakespeare.

I also know and have worked with most of the team already, and those that I haven't are fellow LNT regulars so I already feel familiar with them. This in itself is a remarkable feeling - a reunion of a rehearsal process, a homecoming.

Meanwhile Ora and Jacob are hard at work on The Amazing Story Machine back home in NY.

I miss working on Gruff! (the team at LICM killed it btw) but being up here and doing Shakespeare again with so many friends is the perfect antidote.

UPDATES! April 05th, 2018

4/5/2018

I GOT SOME NEW KILLER REVIEWS!

"Christopher Scheer also does a stand-out job as the primary monkey. He has clearly been trained in some of the more dynamic and difficult acrobatic tricks, and while the entire cast presents some impressive skills, Scheer shows a level of comfort while performing that made for a memorable performance." - Luke Muench, East Penn Press, on Wild! - a new circus project by Atlas Circus Company at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre

Photo by Ken Ek

"The most beautiful and romantic moment of the evening was an exquisite [aerial] pas de deux between Kate Kenney and Christopher Scheer as the fairies Peaseblossom and Mustardseed." - Jim Lowe, Times Argus, on A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Highland Center for the Arts

GRUFF! GOT A KILLER NEW REVIEW TOO!

While I was off having those theatrical adventures, GRUFF! was gathering more acclaim Off-Broadway in NYC. I am a proud co-author. Check out this entire review by Deb Miller which says things like:

"Everything that great children’s theater should be... entertaining, engaging, and educational, in its delightful interactive delivery of an important message... Along with that is the unspoken goal of getting kids excited about going to the theater from an early age. Message received and mission accomplished!

The show is at once smart and silly, with humor that will get even the adults laughing and heeding the warning about our endangered planet.

The entire cast is irresistible...Gruff! is guaranteed to keep children (and adults) spellbound."

images by Eric Michael Pearson

DOPPELSKOPE WON A GRANT FROM THE JIM HENSON FOUNDATION!

We'll be using the funds to create a new show called The Amazing Story Machine.

I MADE A NEW PUPPET REEL!

CREATURES OF YES IS STILL AWESOME!

I puppeteered several characters in this amazing Christmas special. New character voiced by me coming soon!

OTHER THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

I recently played Perseus in Andromeda by Kate Mueth and the Neo-Political Cowgirls! I'm getting ready to direct Gruff! at the Long Island Children's Museum. I'm returning to Lost Nation Theater this summer to play Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night. Things! Things!

Me as Perseus, with my hobby horse, Sparkletuft.

Bears, Goats, Clowns, Creatures, Fairies and Gods

7/3/2017

Well it's been a year since my last post and there are a lot of updates! Let's start with Doppelskope.

Doppelskope: Taking Over the World Maybe

photo by Eric Michael Pearson

GROWL! The completion of The Grilogy

In the summer 2016 we premiered Growl! at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre, thereby completing our puppet musical Grilogy (Gruff!, Grimm! and Growl!). Growl! is a zany reinvention of Goldilocks that could be summed up as "baby bear's revenge, but also lots of 1950's-style commercials for fake woodland products and ridiculous chase scenes and a lightsaber karate battle". We deconstructed capitalism, explored the ethics of scientific inquiry, and flushed a bear down a toilet.

Artistic Director (and one of my mentors) Charlie Richter called the show our "most hilarious entry yet" and "performance art for kids".

All the main characters were played by Ora's beautiful, intricate tabletop puppets, but parts of the show were told with giant overhead projections, and others with tiny rod puppets. I love playing with scale.

Ara Bartlieb of Lehigh Valley Stage called the show an "effervescent concoction" and "inventively eye-popping". He also wrote

“More adults than tots littered the theater during yesterday's 1PM performance, and I honestly can report that their response was even more enthusiastic than the youngsters'. And, trust me, the tykes were getting their money's worth of giggles and often outright guffaws at the non-stop onstage antics of this fine assembly of actors. I am willing to bet that, unless you're under ten years of age, you won't be able to keep up with its relentlessly sharp turns and witty reinterpretations of the story you thought you knew. The show runs one hour to the precise tick of a finely wound watch, with nary a child nor grandparent nor nanny showing signs of distraction for even a second.”

You can read Mr. Bartlieb's entire review here.

One of the songs from the show became a stand-along slam piece that we were able to perform twice at La MaMa. Check out the video!

An Existential Sing-Along goes to Puppet Showplace

In November 2016 we brought our original signature show to Puppet Showplace in Boston. We had befriended the artistic director, the fantastic, talented and intelligent Roxie Myhrum at the 2015 National Puppetry Festival. We stayed with Paul Vincent Davis while we were there, and it was a real privilege to hear some of his stories and puppetry/life wisdom.

GRUFF! Everywhere!

GRUFF! at the PIT...
We first performed GRUFF in 2014 at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre. It was the first show in our Grilogy and it was also the project where we first discovered that all three of us are coincidentally passionate environmentalists. It seemed more important than ever to bring back GRUFF! in 2017. The show uses ridiculous comedy, high drama and catchy songs to call audiences to action in the fight against climate change and the fossil fuel industry. We updated and improved on the script, and filled the audience for nearly every show at the PIT!

Ran Xia wrote a fantastic review for Theatre is Easy. Among other kind and insightful things, this is what she had to say about me! "Scheer is extremely likable as Aquifer, the progressive and optimistic young troll, with nuanced chemistry with both Gruf and Mimir (which is not easy since muppets don't have that many facial expressions)."

My ultimate dream is to have GRUFF! published and/or adapted into a film, and our momentum is continuing. GRUFF! is currently being performed at the Lilly Theatre of the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, and will shortly open OFF-BROADWAY at the Vital Theatre Company, where it will run for the entire month of August.

In Defense of Pleasure

Back in October of 2016 I finally premiered my solo show In Defense of Pleasure at Lost Nation Theater. I've been performing at LNT for eight years so it felt absolutely like the right place to premiere such a personal work, in a place that's come to feel like a second home with many important friends and family. The show is about my early years in NY, struggling to make a living as a clown, to find love, and to reconcile my background studies in philosophy with the realities of freelance clowning.

Jim Lowe of the Times Argus wrote that my performance was "very personal, and very funny….it was certainly for adults, but filled with plenty of child-like joy. The stories were riotously funny, as told by an expert storyteller. Throughout, Scheer offered samplings of his magic tricks and comic schtick. He brought a couple of brave audience members into the show, involving them in his delightful zaniness. But In Defense of Pleasure is a lot more than a barrel of laughs. Beyond the clownish exterior is a man seeking love and truth."

The Creatures of Yes

Of all the different styles and media I perform in, one of my very favorites is puppetry on film. There is something so satisfying, playful and magical about working with a monitor as you perform. Over the past year, I've occasionally helped as an assistant puppeteer for a web series which is also my Favorite Thing on the Internet, the Creatures of Yes!

Jacob Graham (the show's creator) is a wonderful collaborator: he also designed video and lasers for our new production of GRUFF!, and is stepping into the role of Aquifer in my absence for our August run of the show.

What Else?

I dialect coached Maybe Never Fell for Axial Theatre! German accents (my favorite). I continue to be the resident pediatric clown at three Brooklyn hospitals. Ora and I performed twice at Puppet Playlist and we had a weekly performance of SHRINK: Puppet Therapy going for a little while.

What Now?

I am currently performing in Wild by Atlas Circus Company (back at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre). It's a beautiful nouveau cirque show about a boy who joins a group of run-aways in the jungle. I play the first run-away he befriends who brings him into the tribe.

1. It's awesome to be back in the air for a show

2. I am way better at juggling now

3. It's amazing working with Noah Dach, Tommy McCarthy and the whole Atlas team

4. I am always sore

What's Next?

Performance Schedule

--Until July 29th
WILD at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre

--August 9th-13th
A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Highland Center for Performing Arts in Vermont (with more aerial acrobatics!) (and with Kate Kenney!)

--August 27th - September 3rd
ANDROMEDA by the Neo-Political Cowgirls (Montauk)

Because of my Summer adventures, I've had to momentarily leave the cast of GRUFF! for our first off-broadway run. It was a tough choice, but I realized it was the best of both worlds - I get to have new adventures that continue to stretch and challenge me as an artist, while the story I created with Doppelskope continues to have a life of its own. I'll be stopping by several GRUFF! rehearsals as an outside eye and I look forward to fully rejoining Doppelskope in the fall!

Well, it's been a crazy year and a half...

11/12/2015

Being too busy to update your website means you're successful, right? Or just bad at the internet? Or good at not being on the internet? Enough chit-chat, down to brass tacks. We've got 8 major theatre productions and several other exciting gigs to cover, which I'll do in roughly roughly chronological order.

Gruff!

Gruff! was Doppelskope's first musical. It premiered in 2014 at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre and it was our first collaboration with Toby Singer as composer. I was Gruff!'s co-writer, assistant director and puppet captain. I also puppeteered Aquifer, a frantic little troll with a big heart.

Gruff! allowed us to take the playful and absurd aesthetic that we developed for ourselves and expand it to a larger ensemble and a higher level of production value. Among other things, it's The Three Billy Goats Gruff retold through a radical environmentalist lens.

The Morning Call wrote that Gruff! is "a playful romp with a serious message". With a 36 show run, I like to think we started many family conversations and instilled a love of nature and a distrust of corporate greed in thousands of children.

Fellow playwright Josh Shapiro wrote "Gruff! doesn't dumb down language or plot for the sake of kids, and it doesn't toss in the occasional joke aimed exclusively at adults. It is truly for everyone. Gruff! knows that kids are smart. It teaches them without insulting their intelligence. I see their faces light up whenever their inputs are acknowledged. And some might think to themselves 'if I can make a difference in the show, why not in the world?'"

Audience member Alyssa Trombitas wrote "Gruff! made me laugh so hard out of pure delight the lady next to me shushed me."

Image by Mark McGillivray

Team Spirit's Surrender

Ora Fruchter and I both puppeteered for Team Spirit shortly after Gruff! In this wickedly odd music video, the band, all portrayed as puppets, sell their soul to the devil. The band prerecorded their voices and I puppeteered the lead singer, Ayad. Rocking out with a puppet may be the closest I come to being a rockstar.

In addition to getting to rock out, Ora and I puppeteered Satan's limbs as he sat on his thrown (with Julia Darden as the head puppeteer).

The 39 Steps

I played Richard Hannay in Lost Nation's production of The 39 Steps. I've wanted to play Hannay for years, ever since I first saw this show at New World Stages.

Jim Lowe of the Times Argus wrote "Christopher Scheer, an expert clown, was the only actor to play a single role. As Hannay, he managed a wonderful balance among hero, fool and clown." Incidentally he also wrote that I was "straight enough for the others to play off him," and I had a lot of fun using "straight enough" by itself as a pull quote.

Alex Brown of Seven Days wrote "Scheer is a delight as the square-jawed hero.... He makes the jokes, stunts and storytelling all appear effortless, a mark of consummate skill.... Scheer captivates by losing himself in the moment."

The Comedy of Errors

Comedy ran in rep with 39 Steps. I played both Antipholus twins, opposite Eric Love playing both Dromios. This was a very exciting project for me, as it was my first opportunity to explore Shakespeare with my Fiasco training. Under Kim Bent and Brett Gamboa's direction, we raised the stakes as high as we possibly could, and between that frantic urgency and the direct relationship I was able to create with the audience, this was the most fun I've ever had with Shakespeare.

Jim Lowe wrote "Christopher Scheer and Eric Love, both expert comics, simply reveled in the roles of Antipholus and Dromio respectively. They not only delivered delightful comic characters, their intimate interaction is dangerously funny." Alex Brown focused on the differences between my two characters, writing that "His transformations are sharp enough to make his mustache look like a villain's as Ephesus and like a sweet youth's first facial hair as Syracuse." This is the first, and so far only critical analysis of any of my mustaches.

Widdershins

Right after 39 Steps and Comedy of Errors, Kate and I devised our own mini-circus to perform at Lost Nation's annual halloween party! Widdershins is a hybrid of aerial acrobatics, clown and theatre. We're currently shopping it around to book gigs.

Winter 2015

I had a few months off between theatre contracts, so: I became the resident pediatric clown at 4 different Brooklyn hospitals. I recorded a voice over for the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre. I had a callback for the Dinosaur Train tour. Ora and I created two new short pieces for Doppelskope. I worked on Long Spoon with Sara Newman. I played an awkward youth pastor for a new web series called Church Office (footage forthcoming). And of course I did a bunch of shows for Shrink: Puppet Therapy with Ora, Bradford, Toby and Yoshie.

Eurydice

I played Orpheus in Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice at Lost Nation Theater. Eurydice was the most beautiful, moving, epic and effective theatre project I've ever been a part of. It was directed by the extremely talented Eric Love, who I've now been working with for years as an actor and who has rapidly become a formidable director. I played opposite the sublime Kate Kenney. The play was a beautifully integrated hybrid of text, aerial acrobatics, music, mask and dance.

Jim Lowe called Eurydice "a spectacular dream."

Alex Brown wrote "In outstanding performances, Kenney and Scheer emphasize the simple clarity in Ruhl's distinctive language. They play lovers without irony and suffer without artifice, giving equal weight to the play's humor and its dreamy lyricism....Scheer is a charming mix of ardent and offhand. His love never needs its flames fanned — he has simply discovered a powerful truth and doesn't need to embellish it."

It's always exciting to return to LNT and grow with my ensemble members old and new.

Treasure Island

Lost Nation produced Kim Bent's adaptation of Treasure Island in rep with Eurydice. Jim Lowe wrote that I "created a colorful and delightfully enigmatic Long John Silver." Arrrrrgh!

Grimm!

Ora, Toby and I returned to Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre to create another original musical puppetry/clown hybrid! It felt like we took the artistic success of Gruff! and grew on top of it as writers, theatre-makers and collaborators. I love working for SMT - they are wicked smart and supportive as producers, and they hook us up with amazing designers (in this case - Lex Gurst on costumes, Tim Averill on set, and Daniel del Busto on lights.)

Ora and I played Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm. Toby accompanied live all summer. As Ora frequently pointed out, I was born to play a German steampunk clown.

Grimm! is a new family musical about the wonder of storytime and imagination, and the new challenges that families face as personal devices divide our attention. In Grimm!, a dad falls under the spell of the Blue Glowing Madness and gets lost in his personal devices. His daughter Charlotte must travel through her storybooks and through outer space to save him. In this highly interactive, fast paced show, audience members cheer for storytime and blast lasers at attention-sucking alien robots.

Images by KenEk Photography

The Morning Call described Grimm! as "bizarrely inspired" and said "Doppelskope has crafted a creative and quirky fable about imagination!"

Muhlenberg professor Irene Chien nailed it with this audience feedback: "The show was thematically dead-on in terms of playfully (and non-didactically) addressing the tension between the undivided attention of live, face-to-face storytelling that parents all aspire to and the reality of parenting distractedly while attached to mobile devices. And it gave the kids and I a platform for an important and hopefully ongoing conversation about how those screens of 'blue glowing madness' fit into their lives and our family interactions. As a parent who is sick to death of Disney's colonization of fairytale princesses as plucky but ultimately insipid and gender-normative, I appreciate the irreverent physicality and boisterousness of the two main female actresses, and the re-imagining of the Grimm fairytales to focus on the agency rather than passivity of the girl characters while still remaining true to the brutality of the original stories. The puppetry and choregraphy with the smartphone/tablet lights was clever and played tricks with stage illusion in a visually delightful way. Harriet's (three-year-old) feedback: 'I loved it! It was so funny and not scary at all! The glowing was mysterious.'"

The National Puppetry Festival

I met wonderful people and saw some amazing puppetry at the National Puppetry Festival, held at UConn. I went as part of the team for Depict-O-Mat, which performed for 6 hours on the opening day. Then Ora and I performed The Existential Variety Hour as part of the fringe portion of the festival.

Lee Armstrong and Kamela Portuges wrote in the National Puppetry Journal that Doppelskope was "a highlight of the festival" and that "the show embraced the audience, sharing the innocence of childhood and the angst of adult life."

Here we are embracing some of our amazing new puppeteer friends after our performance.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Back at Lost Nation Theater, I dove right into a new quick change comedy. I played Sherlock Holmes as well as all the alluring females and dastardly villains. Jim Lowe wrote "Christopher Scheer, a Lost Nation veteran and virtuoso clown, plays Holmes and most of the other characters, morphing quickly and easily."

My favorite character was Cecile, a mysterious Brazilian woman, pictured above. Playing Sherlock wasn't bad either...

Photographs by Robert Edy of First Light Studios

As You Like It

Photograph by Kim Bent

Kim Bent cast me as Touchstone in As You Like It, inviting me to bring whatever clown skills I could to the table. This got me inspired about the role of clowns in Elizabethan theatre, and through a little research I discovered that then (as now) the clown's most important function was rule-breaking. I stuffed pancakes and mustard in my mouth during my first speech and tried to share them with the audience, I got attacked by a raccoon in the forest, and I generally ignored the fourth wall (my favorite).

Also, in an innovative move, Kim had me play Audrey (Touchstone's new girlfriend) and William (a rival suitor). Audrey and William were both portrayed by sock puppets that Touchstone invents out of boredom and desperation while stranded in the forest.

Jim Lowe wrote "Contrasting [Rosalind's] subtle comedy was Christopher Scheer’s ridiculously funny clowning as Touchstone. This wasn’t slapstick; rather it was overt comedy that was delivered with wit. It was just too funny, and it fit this play perfectly. (He also plays Audrey and William, but you’ll need to see the production to find out how.)"

Alex Brown wrote "the boldest move is the production's most memorable innovation - all three sides of the Touchstone-Audrey-William triangle are put in one actor's hands. That hint as to how it's accomplished is the only one you're getting, but actor Christopher Scheer conveys all the necessary nuances of a last set of lovers in a play already stuffed with them.

Next up... the future! Stay tuned.

Today Was Not Atypical

4/9/2014

11 AM - Costume fitting for upcoming stilt walking gig

1:30pm - Hospital clown shift

5pm - rehearse "clown and chicken" interaction at The Muse (see picture). This is for a benefit performance this weekend.

6:45pm - aerial silks class

9pm - puppet improv rehearsal

This week has also involved design meetings, script writing, and grant and residency applications. Also looking forward to magic performances and an entire weekend of Shrink: Puppet Therapy.

Been Too Busy to Update!

3/18/2014

Check out this interview I did with the fantastic Erin McIntyre for broadwayworld.com - we discussed my upcoming shows in Allentown and in Montpelier, as well as Doppelskope. Speaking of which, Ora and I just had a successful run at The Tank of An Existential Sing-Along. Here is an awesome review!

image by Colleen Napolitano (based on a photograph by Zach Kronisch)

Upcoming performance calendar:

Shrink: Puppet Therapy
March 20th @ 7pm @ The PIT
April 11-13 @ The Tank

Gruff! A New Family Friendly Musical... with Goats!
by Doppelskope
June 18th - July 26th

The 39 Steps and The Comedy of Errors
at Lost Nation Theater
September 18th - October 19th

That's all for now!