SummerWorks and beyond

The past three weeks have sped by.

SummerWorks ended very well. We had a super audiences for our three performances- and I was extremely pleased with how the play gelled over the run. It was an immense pleasure to work with the company on this beast of a play! We were listed in the Best Ensemble Category of Now Magazine's 'wrap up' of the festival- a testament to the company's work. Thank you again to all the peeps who worked on, helped, supported, encouraged and attended our production- it meant and means an huge amount! (The picture above is of the Smackheaded Company in full-flight, photo by Scott Gorman. And here's Bryan and Emily in an earlier scene from the play- I'll be posting more production photos very soon...)



The last couple of weeks have been a swift change of pace from our re-investigation into poor theatre....

It's been 'a systems go' with Anything Goes. The day after our last performance of The Sad and Cautionary Tale of Smackheaded Peter I began the the 19 hours that I had allotted myself to do the blocking (or staging) of the piece. This would just be the 'first pass', but the only week when I had priority (the two weeks prior to that were focusing on music, the two weeks after 'my week' gave priority to choreography and tap dancing). Well, we did it! Normally I allow myself about 15- 20 mins/page on a 'first pass' blocking rehearsal. To get the work done in my 19 hours I worked at 8.5 mins/ page... and had 43 peeps in the room, most of the time. It was a wee bit intense...and I'm not sure that I'll ever do that again... (Thankfully I've arranged lots of small, 'non-priority' rehearsals that run concurrently with choreography rehearsals, so I've had a more traditional 15- 20 mins a page since then!)

We also had one, 'full Equity week' with the teens. This was a six-day week of rehearsing 10-6. On our last afternoon that week we had two treats: a pizza party and a stagger-through of the musical. (The staggering was not caused by the pizza- it was just that we were putting it all together for the first time- that's generally called a stagger-through...)

Now we're on a five day break so that the cast/production students can focus on getting back to school. When we start back I begin to move into production mode on Anything Goes. I'm very excited about getting onto the Main stage at The Grand!

Today though it's R and R. Reading and relaxing... Reading The Native and Suicide Brunette (the two plays I'm directing at the Old Red Lion in the UK in Oct. by excellent Northern Irish writers Gary Mitchell and Christopher Hanvey) and relaxing...I'm immensely grateful for a wee break- it's been a busy and brilliant ten weeks.

Two Different Beasts

It's getting late- and it's been quite a week.

Again, it's a wonderful problem- lots on my plate at present...

Two very different approaches for two very different productions.

The Sad and Cautionary Tale of Smackheaded Peter, very organic and it's evolving reaaallly well!

Anything Goes- In between listening to music calls and doing table work on the smaller scenes, I'm sat with drawings of the set and charts of the scene breakdown, cast, character lists, scenic elements and mapping out the entire show before I've started blocking it. I'll have less than 24 hours to do my 'first pass' on all the scenes... so I better have all my 'seagulls in a row'. There's a lot more infrastructure around Anything Goes- and that means a lot more paper!



Also, we had a couple of workshops to confirm our company acting vocabulary- The acting company on Anything Goes are delightful- young, keen and bright.

The Acting Company on our SummerWorks play are working very hard to be present in rehearsal- many of them are weary from rehearsing and working...

However! the light is visible at the end of the tunnel. We tech Smackheaded Peter this coming Tuesday! Yeeeee Haaaaa! I'm looking forward to that! and our first performance is on Friday evening at 10:30! Yeeeee Haaa! There are moments in rehearsal that are very exciting! and it's getting more beautiful and wolf-like every day...

okay- sleep needs to happen.

more later...

Day 1- text to free play

Day one:

Meet and Greet

Sign letters of agreement

Read the script. It was an intense reading- the concentration in the room was considerable... Here's a photo of peeps around the table delving into this rich play.


Then a brief talk about the play- Any strong feelings, thoughts... What did you learn about it this time?

And then we start scene work with Bryan, Emily, Paul and Marilla

It's clear that two of the practical challenges for the production are our old friends time and money. We're doing this play at SummerWorks on an Equity co-op basis, (known affectionately in England as a 'profit-loss') so peeps are working to pay for lives while also rehearsing- it's always a fine balance. I'm in rehearsal and also organising things outside of rehearsal, (so no time for earning money at the moment); I'm immensely grateful for my next directing gig, Anything Goes, which is subsidizing my life during this rehearsal process.

We'll be spending some time cutting the script this week. Although it's 55 pages and we've got 75 mins. and that should, in theory, be enough time for the play to be played, we learned in the read-through that it's about 90 mins... gulp! So, out come the proverbial red pens. I'm sure as we get to grips with the text and accents (which are pretty super all ready-) that it'll get quicker- and I'll just make sure by doing cuts earlier in the process, rather than later.

We dive into the first couple of scenes of the play in the afternoon- simple text work, looking for 'changes of units' and giving the scenes a rough 'physical shape'. This is all pretty standard 'Stanislavsky approach' at the moment, however, it's a great way to begin to understand how the language of the play feels for the actors and get a basic structure that we can then play with next week.

Soon- the day has zoomed by!

Bryan, (who's playing Smackheaded Peter) and I finish the day with some work on monologues- we have a good time playing with language, it's clear that he's starting to have a good time with the sections that we're doing and then! it's time to head home.

An excellent first day: intense reading to text work to playing with great freedom!

Tomorrow- choral work...

Contrasts galore

Well, the last few months have sped by-

I've been working at The Grand Theatre, in London, Ontario, as the Apprentice Artistic Director. More on that later... It's been a super experience and I've been mentored by the wonderful and thoughtful Susan Ferley, the Artistic Director. I've learned an immense amount about running a large theatre company and have also directed Macbeth (with 19 high school students!), The Little Prince, (with a wonderful cast) and a number of short Canadian plays, (at The Playwrights' Cabaret, co-directed with Susan Ferley and Jeff Culbert).

The next few months are full of contrast, which is why I decided to reconnect with the ol' blog.

First on the list is a new British play that I'm directing at SummerWorks Theatre Festival in Toronto. It's called The Sad and Cautionary Tale of Smackheaded Peter, by Simon Glass. It's a tongue-in-cheek fable about Peter, born on the impoverished Thamesmead Estate in south-east London (UK). His quest is to free the poor and bring peace on earth with low-cost heroin. Oddly, it doesn't all go well... It's a subversive, hysterical combination of high and low art- if you're nearby Toronto during this excellent summer festival please come along.

Next, it's back to The Grand! I'm directing the Grand's High School Project on the Main stage this summer- the 1930's musical, Anything Goes. We'll have about 45 teens in the production- and all the people in the production, on-stage and back-stage are mentored by the theatre professionals at the theatre. It's a unique and inspiring production experience. I caught the tail-end of the rehearsals for Grease last year and it was very exciting. I'm looking forward to working with all departments and tapping along with Cole Porter's wonderful melodies...

After that eight-week rehearsal process I'll be zooming back to the UK to direct two new solo plays at The Old Red Lion, Suicide Brunette by Gary Mitchell and The Native, by Christopher Hanvey. More on these solo pieces a little later- I will say though, that they're going to be virtuoso acting pieces-

So, I hope to share some experiences from these three entirely different rehearsal/production processes. It's a season of contrasts... I'm delighted to be working on such a range of material, in wonderful circumstances, with excellent peeps! And a little terrified about it all as well...

More soon...

The Sad and Cautionary Tale of Smackheaded Peter is going to be a blast!