Cross-over days

We had a full day with the full company of The Sad and Cautionary Tale of Smackheaded Peter yesterday. I was looking forward to the day with extreme excitement.

We did worked on some transitions, did a run-through, had a production meeting, changed the beginning of the play, worked more transitions and then had a sound design meeting. That's the order of what happened...

One of our old frenemies, time, tried to sabotage the atmosphere in the rehearsal room at the start of the day. People were a little nervous/tense about running through the play, getting off book, some uncertainty about some physical sections of the play, thinking about transitions- there are still sections of the play that we've not been able to rehearse with everyone present, it's been a tricky process...and the challenges of working several nights in a row at restaurants/shows etc were also affecting energy levels in the room. However a little company TLC began to change the atmosphere and we had an excellent first run-through!

It's not pretty yet- but we're definitely get there and frankly, if it was too pretty at this point in the process I'd be worried about us 'peaking too soon'!

So, now, in our unique rehearsal process, I move on to Anything Goes for a week and the acting company on Smackheaded Peter brew/mull/digest the work/embed lines today in a rehearsal lead by our wonderful Stage Manager, Lauren Williams and our very capable Assistant Director, Andrew McNaughton.

I'm torn about today. If I could split myself in half, (and not frighten people), I'd do it. Half of me would love to be at The Grand, meeting stage management, the props department, the costume designer, our vocal coach, (Rick Kish), seeing Susan Ferley (my boss) and production manager in preparation for Anything Goes and the other half would be incredibly happy to be with the Smackheaded Peter company to build on the work we did yesterday. I'm frustrated to say the least- and also, what a wonderful problem to have- I can't be two places at once.

If my brain were hair (which thankfully it's not!) it would look a little like the drawings of Shockheaded Peter, the German character Struwwelpeter, or Shockheaded Peter. I hope though, that that is where any similarities would end... Struwwelpeter was a boy who had poor personal hygiene. According to the Wikepdias (the source of all extensive research!), "Literally translated, Struwwel-Peter means Shaggy-Peter. According to Ellen Handler Spitz, the book was intended as a highly exaggerated send-up of the pietistic children's books of the day in which good little children came to good ends, and the badly behaved did not."

Shockheaded Peter is definitely an influence on our play, The Sad and Cautionary Tale of Smackheaded Peter... but it's not about the hair or the hygiene! Promise...

play day, research?

Time is flying by and tomorrow we start rehearsals! Definitely looking forward to getting in the rehearsal room with this play and this most excellent group of people.

I really wanted us to have a little research time... or a play day... before we sat down to read the play, so on Friday we had just over three hours of time in a rehearsal room at the Tarragon Theatre rehearsal rooms. It was a wonderful opportunity to have some play time on two particularly challenging parts of the play.

The Sad and Cautionary Tale of Smackheaded Peter has choral sections and drug hallucinations- so I wanted us to start working together on choral and physical work, without having to be too result-oriented. In the choral section I was wondering if we would need to 'orchestrate the voices' to create dynamics- so I was surprised to discover that it (the text) didn't seem to need it. We'll play with this again another day- I wonder if we'll feel the same? I really thought that it would... In the drug hallucination that we played with we simply played with a large, stretchy piece of fabric that Brandon had brought in a played with the images that sprung from 'cocoon', 'safe', 'warm'. The most extraordinary moment was when the company wrapped one of the actors up from head-to-toe in the fabric, while he was upside-down. He really looked like he was a big human cocoon! He looked a little like this... (but with several people around him)


We also had some fun with contact improv and played with the 'cocoon', 'safe', 'warm' images without the fabric...lots of wonder physical images emerged. What really delighted me was the generosity and risks that the company were taking- It was a super atmosphere in the room.
The company really dove into all the games/exercises- It was an excellent morning and I came away with a much richer understanding of how to move forward- to realize this fantastically heightened and challenging play!

We also had a production meeting- The set will be recyclable- hurrah! and the viral video shoot is coming together, which will be fun.

All-in-all, it was an exciting day- and so... onwards and upwards into week 1 of rehearsal.

We're rehearsing in the heart of Parkdale, at the Parkdale United Church. They've been very welcoming and I'm very happy that it's our 'rehearsal home'. Much of the church is actually apartment housing for new Canadians and seniors. Here's a photo-




To finish... here's a link to an excellent article and short film about Thamesmead, the area where the play is set. Thamesmead was built as a 'new town' just over 40 years ago- It's recently been getting some much-needed renovation. Please watch the short film and experience a little of the community and humanity amongst the brutal architecture...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/apr/16/communities

Thanks for reading... more soon!