Tapping Teens- Day Two

That's the banner poster for Anything Goes at The Grand Theatre in London, Ontario.

Today was Day Two of rehearsals. We have 42 in the cast.

The Grand has a great tradition of mentoring, so twice a year they create productions with high school students from London and the surrounding area. In the spring it's a play, (this year I directed Macbeth, while I was here as Apprentice Artistic Director) and in the autumn it's musical on the Main Stage. This is it's the 1930's Cole Porter classic, Anything Goes.

There are students working on every area of the production, mentored by professionals at The Grand. This year we also have a student assistant director and assistant choreographer. The rehearsal process is about 3.5 weeks of rehearsal hours, spread out over 8 weeks. The students have a rigorous audition/interview process and then sign contracts to commit to the production.

I'm 'returning to my roots' on this one... I was, (believe it or not) a tapping teenager... Yes, that's right- I tapped. I was working professionally in musical theatre at tender age of 17. However, although I worked in musical theatre for a number of years, I have not directed a musical. When I started directing I focused on my passion for language and classical theatre.

So- back to the teens.

We started on Sunday with a meet and greet- then I dove into an acting workshop to introduce some vocabulary that we'll be using in rehearsal. That was followed by a session on vocal health and a vocal warm-up with Rick Kish, (our singing coach) and two hours of full company music rehearsals with our Musical Director, David Hall. The seven-hour day sped by!

This week rehearsal is mostly spent learning music, while I introduce text work on the scenes to the actors- we'll be doing basic 'table work', objectives/units/actions and I'm encouraging them to do this work at home, so that we then have a place to start the exploration in rehearsal. I'll have about 5 days to 'get the play on its feet'; it'll be speedy...

On Friday and Saturday I'm back in Toronto on The Sad and Cautionary Tale of Smackheaded Peter. I'm working on this in the evenings this week- producing, organizing, supporting. There's lots to do-

I'd still like to divide myself in half and it's still a lovely problem to have!

Here's the stage that the teens will be performing on- It's a beautiful theatre.

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!

Sunday, July 11th- coiling the spring

We had a very good first week- hanging out in the world of Thamesmead and Smackheaded Peter.

Here's the welcome sign to Thamesmead in south-east London, England.



Almost through the play for the first time- and lots of excellent investigation of the scenes, characters going on. I've had a super time working with everyone- and am looking forward to rehearsal this week.

I want to catch up a bit on 'the differences' on this process...

One way that this is different is that I'm 'producing' and directing. This is the fourth time that I've created a theatre piece outside of an existing infrastructure- and then found/borrowed the money to start the process.

I'm learning lots about producing, but I've put the word in quotation marks because I'm not sure that I'm ready to say that I'm good at it. I'm hacking my way through the undergrowth and learning along the way... Some of it's an excellent experience, other times I'd really just like to think about what's going on in the rehearsal room. And sometimes I have to try and divide myself in half to 'think appropriately' depending on the meeting that I'm in. This mostly happens when I look at the budget and think about the number of tickets that we need to sell so that I can give the actors some money at the end of this process... and then (as the 'producer') I want to scale back the production even though (as the 'producer') I know that's counter-intuitive to the director's (my) vision and that she (me!) is doing everything possible to keep costs a minimal as possible... It's a little odd- and it really makes me appreciate the 'two-headed' structure of many theatre companies: and Artistic Director and a General Manager/Executive Director/(person who thinks mostly about money).

On the other hand... I also love the challenges of this process. I'm not sure I'd like to make theatre like this all the time, but it's a good change- and it's allowing me to create a play that I've wanted to direct for a long time, that is unlikely to be programmed in a theatre that has a subscription-based audience. A play with a premise involving A class drugs, even if it is a sad and cautionary tale, might be hard to justify to a board that has challenges with strong language/sexuality.

For me, some other challenges of making theatre this way include...

-making sure that people in the company/all those contributing to the process feel valued and respected, even though they're not being paid

- scheduling rehearsals for an ensemble play, (with most people on stage, most of the time), while people are also working at other jobs

-making sure that there is enough of an infrastructure to the company (without being able to pay them) that I can focus as much as possible on directing

-making sure that I have enough time to do the producing/organising and try to enjoy it!

Yee Ha!

So, today- a bit of admin. and then I'm sitting down with the play and thinking about week two. We have a stagger-through at the end of the week and good chunks of time together as a full company of nine actors. We're going to be getting the drug hallucinations 'on their feet' and practicing choral work... and I've one or two 'producing' things to do- this is a week when lots of money gets spent!

we'll be posting our one-minute video on YouTube on July 18th

And here's a draft of our poster...