baby, it's not cold in here.
yes, i had a perfect view of the stage (and the one musician) for this theatre-in-the-very-round (hot) venue! it wasn’t miserable by any means. they gave us paper fans and complimentary bottles of water. it just wasn’t… minnesota in the winter? :)
12 KINDS OF ICE
book and lyrics by ben steinfeld
directed by rick dildine
based on the book by ellen bryan obed, illustrated by barbara mcCintock (2015)
cast:
abby gilbert as ellen
neil shurley as dad
as presented on august 7, 2pm, at the cristal palace, downtown greenville, sc for the scnpf
did the venue match the vibe?
no.
was the venue a vibe?
absolutely.
the cristal palace was also the venue for the world premiere of THE HOUSE I LIVE IN: JOSH WHITE’S AMERICA which debuted during the 2026 scnpf.
in partnership with the children’s theatre of minneapolis, this new 2-person family musical was, well… misplaced at 2pm on an august summer in south carolina?
i mean, my imagination is powerful.
but sometimes the elements win.
it was 90+ degrees outside, and while “the cristal palace” had generators and giant clear tubes (possibly) blowing in air conditioning, one of the biggest critiques i had of this show was: they never told us where they were.
and south carolina kids? not all of them have seen snow.
let alone gone ice skating.
or know that bodies of water freeze enough to play on top of them.
(i did spend three years of my childhood in michigan, so i at least had the context of snowball fights and my dad coming home in a stranger’s clothes once because he’d fallen through the ice while ice fishing with my uncle once.)
of course i went into the south carolina new play festival (its fifth year!) knowing that these aren’t full productions. they’re staged readings. and this was a “music-stand musical.”
while the cast may have had the material for longer, they’ve only had rehearsals for THIS WEEK. so they still have the scripts. and there’s no costumes. no stage lighting or scenery. no orchestra, just a talented piano player at the keys.
the main character, abby, is reminiscing about her childhood with her dad, and, as the title declares: the 12 kinds of ice.
the first one is the thin layer on sheep pails that breaks at her touch.
the second kid is the kind you can pick up; the kind that resembles shards of glass.
the third kind won’t break, even with the heal of your boot…
and eventually? i lost track after type seven (“garden ice”) because they stopped calling out the numbers. or were just naming them. or describlng them. and i didn’t know if it was a type or a descriptor.
which gave me all kinds of note-taking guilt. like i’d missed the last two points of a five-point sermon.
to be clear: i enjoyed the show.
abby gilbert’s voice was incredible.
the music was gentle, and probably only sounded mostly all like the same song because it was on a piano and only featured one or two voices. (while i have an appreciation for music, i have Zero training/expertise).
and maybe a few of the tunes only brought FROZEN to mind because we were talking (and singing) about ice? (no reindeer, or traitorous princes, though. this was all non-fiction memoir-esque. zero faerie tale or magical elements.)
did i understand why we had to switch between adult ellen and kid ellen? not really.
except by the end, dad is gone. as in, you know, dead. so i guess adult ellen is looking back on her childhood.
but as a children’s writer myself… i dunno how much kids care about that?
kids’ books deal with death a lot.
but not always from the “he died 20-years ago” perspective.
they’re kids. they’re dealing with death now.
so that’s something (were i to be asked an editorial/development/screening audience opinion) i’d ask the show writers.
as well as not mentioning mom until about 30-minutes in. i thought dad was single parenting? so mention her earlier if being raised only by her dad wasn’t a plot element.
so parents being imperfect isn’t something kids typically learn until they’re older, but “you’re the grown up. you have to keep it together,” ellen tells her dad.
her dad confesses the parental secret: “we don’t know what we’re doing.”
but aside from all the types of ice they celebrated together every year, the perpetual cycle and rink building, the biggest lesson even adult ellen remembers and reprises:
“anything that’s good, anything that lasts, are the things that didn’t happen fast.”
and while somewhere within the list of non un-numbered ice types, ellen tells us we’re jumping ahead thirty years. and a week ago today? she learned her dad died.
even she admits:
“i don’t really like the ending, but i don’t know how to change it.”
(i couldn’t help but think of the nbc show SMASH. when they did out-of-town tryouts for BOMBSHELL and the lights went down on dead marilyn monroe. of course they needed a resurrection. a happier memory number to end on instead of clapping—or heavens forbid standing ovation—her death.)
so i don’t know about this one.
maybe it didn’t translate in the south.
maybe the lack of more than one kid in the audience and the lack of ice skating on stage … no. it wasn’t a lack of any of that.
i applaud the work, but i’m not sure they know how to end this one, either.
do i like the idea of 12 kinds of ice, particularly the last one: DREAM ICE.
“the kind of ice that comes to you in your sleep.” when you can “skate anywhere we please.” and the best part about dream ice? “it never melted.”
it’s “the one you keep with you when the others have gone away.”
so how do we tie together the winter memories with a sad story of a dad’s death? i dunno if we’re there yet. but that’s why the new play fest is celebrating new works. works in progress. in workshopping. getting them in front of audiences with professional actors so the creators can go back and evaluate what’s working— and what might need to happen before the kids can sit through it and resonate with it and remember it as fondly as our main character does.
bonus intel: i’m v. proud of me for talking to the stranger at my table before the show began. (an environmental lawyer from d.c. who recommended some regional theatres up there doing interesting work; so worth a road trip beyond the refurbished and renovated folger shakespeare library! yay!!)
the best quip of the show:
the annual ice show they’d put on in the backyard rink that dad would make for the neighborhood was called “icicles.” which was “spelled differently each year depending on who made the program.” :)
i decided to live my best life these two days i got to attend the festival, so on the way to my first reading, i had lunch at automatic taco. they neglected to list cilantro as a (topping) ingredient on the veggie, but i was able to flake most of it off. and of course i enjoyed a little light reading pre-show, too. ;)
in the next blog post, i’ll give you a recap of the play reading I AUDITIONED for (!), and my fave of the festival. :)