A Crackin' Day! Tues. July 20th

A big day- we went through most of the choral sections of the play, making leaps and bounds forward in our exploration and there were some very exciting moments.

Here's the company rehearsing a scene from the play- when the people of Thamesmead learn about Smackheaded Peter's vision of bringing peace on earth with low-cost heroin... (A little disturbing to rehearse this section in a church?)



This is a big, beefy beast of a play and it's challenging us all: creating physicality for the drug sections, playing large Choral scenes, taking heroin on stage... I'm also taking a conceptual approach to the play which, on a new play, is unusual for me...More about that later. The main experience from yesterday is that the "we're beginning to get there" feeling was emerging ... Yee Ha!

We had the full company together for most of the afternoon and it was delight to have the energy, focus and expertise of everyone in the room. Great strides, great strides forward.

We've moved into the church sanctuary this week: an accidental double-booking at the church. Although it's got it's challenges, (water dripping through some light fixtures and sometimes-smelly AC) it's also lovely to have the light from the stain-glassed windows in the room. It's a little odd to be rehearsing a play with a messiah-like figure in it, inside a church, but it may be helping...

Here's the Holy Family from Parkdale United Church



Lots of producing things to work on in the evening-

A cracking day!

July 14th- Choral work a go-go

We worked a lot today on choral sections of the play- But we'll be dressing the actors in The Sad and Cautionary Tale of Smackheaded Peter in contemporary clothes, rather than traditional Greek costumes.



During the morning I remind myself a few times that conforming to choral work or 'speaking with one voice' can be challenging for many actors. I also remember that I had years of dance training and choir practices when we all moved or sang in unison- and that those hours built up my trust in the cumulative power of many people working in unison... It's the opposite of much of our contemporary actor training, mine included. And to many actors I'm sure that it doesn't even 'feel like acting'- it's not realism or naturalism- and their initial discomfort is completely understandable.

So, with this in my mind, we began the day with a super vocal warm-up (Richard Stewart leading), then set off to work and had a good morning exploring choral scenes. Over the course of the morning it (the choral speaking) began to get easier and tiny tendrils of group listening, trust and enjoyment began to emerge- and I began to get excited about the choral work in the play! It needs virtuoso team-play to make it dynamic and I love it...

In preparation for our first stagger-through, we spent a portion of the afternoon working on the game 'who moves what, where and when?' (scene changes, but it's more fun if it's a game) then we did a bit of scene work and that was the day!