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We are now well into rehearsals for SPRING: A Knoxville Sonata. I feel obsessed with this play—the way a director should feel. When I like a play this much, I find myself thinking through it all day, imagining details, considering passages, seeing its world.
I have worked on new plays as an actor in professional workshops, and I have directed plays where an ensemble devises the piece, but this is my first opportunity to direct a new script. It is one of the more joyous theatre processes I have experienced.
The playwright and I have known each other a while, so I know she writes from a place of poetry and compassion. The writing has the economy of poetry but the depth and detail of a novel. It’s a wild contradiction, but it works.
I have also somehow managed to assemble a really, really strong team of actors. These people are amazing. I keep thinking—when I was considering this play, I let a few colleagues read it. Almost all of them said, “I don’t really get it. It doesn’t do much for me.” But that is because they couldn’t imagine it as it would actually play in space and time. The actors in the play, fortunately, have not only brought this world to life, but are doing it in a way that is compelling, grounded, and honest. The play makes so much sense on its feet, and I love that all the actors involved happen to be capable of bringing sophisticated text to life and fully inhabiting it. 3D people in lived bodies. Love it.
We have had fun in rehearsal imagining the lives of these people, inventing details about their lives, and experimenting with gesture, connecting to the ground and earth, floor patterns, and other outside-in ways of developing character. One night we worked with an eastern (far east, not North Carolina) acting exercise where we spoke a line of text with eyes as open as possible, then again with the eyes somewhat open, and again with the eyes almost closed. The effect this had on the body, as the actor followed through with the whole-body physicality cued from changing the gaze, was remarkable. Complete transformations occurred from this minor physical change. What fun!
Here’s a photo from rehearsal. I hope to see you at a performance.
-SCC
[Nikole has agreed to intern for us and will be performing, researching, and doing general tasks related to being amazing. She will be blogging during her internship. This is her first installment. --SCC]
So first, let me introduce myself. My name is Nikole Gilliam, and I’m a senior at Hardin Valley Academy. (Whoo!) Also I will say that I am not a blogger and this will be the first for me out of a few so bare with me.
Some of you might have seen me in a few plays and/or musicals in the community. I have done community theatre since I was a wee and awkward fourth grader and I have loved it my whole life.
This semester I’ve been given this amazing opportunity through my school and Suzanne to do an internship with The Water Series. I am super excited, as I have told Suzanne in countless emails. During this time, I will not only be getting to watch how a theatre company is run, but I also have a part in the upcoming show Spring: A Knoxville Sonata. This play is an original work and I had the opportunity to actually be apart of the workshoping of it.
When Suzanne asked me to play the part of Billie I instantly said yes because I love Suzanne and her directing talent, but I also had fallen in love with the script. It is so beautifully written and I belive so many people will be able to relate to it and feel what the actors are going though on stage. There is so much talent that is in this production, it is no wonder I am nervous about our first rehearsal. And I am the youngest cast member! I know that I will learn so much from everyone though.
I cannot wait to start this process and write more blogs about how awesome Spring is going to be. I will be a blogging expert by the end of this!
For those of you lucky enough to have seen "Super Spectacular" in March at the TKD space downtown, you experienced the joy of original work. Joe Kolbow and Jonathan Niel, the writers and performers, share their thoughts (below) about generating material.
Become a fan of their work here.
Joe and Jonathan are professional actors in NYC and have trained in classical acting, clown, physical theatre, and more. Their theatre company, The Donovan Ensemble, is based in NYC. I hope their thoughts are of value to you, whether you are an actor, artist, or theatre enthusiast. --scc
Creating exciting new ensemble created theater requires a small miracle to pull off, but with patience and dedication it can bear fruit like a well-tended garden. Here are a few ways The Donovan Ensemble makes the magic happen.
Ingredient 1: Time and Space
Joe: I’m not just talking on a metaphysical level here. When working in and around New York time and space are in high demand. It takes dollars to rent an empty room to run around in. It takes dollars to commute to that room. Already our nonexistent show is adding up. The room will be useless if we don’t have anyone there to play as well. New Yorkers schedules are notoriously full and each additional person added to the project makes it exponentially more difficult to plan.
We have found success with the following formula: Find free rehearsal space, use a small cast and have a realistic rehearsal schedule.
We are fortunate to have developed a relationship with a nearby church that allows us to rehearse and perform there gratis. In return we give them a percentage of any proceeds from shows there.
Additionally we are starting small. Our first show was a solo show, so there weren’t a lot of schedules to coordinate there. Our second show uses two people so scheduling remains simple.
We took a few months of rehearsing once or twice a week to come up with our first 45 minute show. This allowed us to really focus on creating fun stuff without being too stressed about a deadline.
Ingredient 2: Create a structure where ideas can bloom
Jonathan:
We work in a few different ways; but we always start off with a physical activity such as yoga or simple stretching to get our bodies and mind cleared and our bodies active.
From there we like to play children’s games and get in a frame of mind of pure fun. We find our imaginations work a lot faster if we’re in the space to play and the second we start getting too heady and intellectual is the moment we drop everything and play charades or “you’re it”
We always have a set plan for the rehearsal but we’re not afraid to deviate if that is what will help the final result.
One of our most helpful creative tools has been Laban Movement Analysis. Devised by Rudolf Laban, LMA draws on his theories of effort and shape to describe, interpret and document human movement.
The Effort shapes, the eight combinations are descriptively named Float, Punch(Thrust), Glide, Slash, Dab, Wring, Flick, and Press. We spend roughly 8 minutes on each shape. Then we add another layer to this mix. We use these combinations with colors. We lay on our backs, close our eyes and think of a particular color. We inhabit the color and any images that pop into our head. We begin to add the Laban Effort shapes; moving like this color. A “red punch” might act quite differently from a “pink punch” and finally we give that particular color a name and a voice. Say you were doing a scene in a play and you needed something different out of your character – you can quickly try it using the movement and voice of Seaweed Sam (green); Sunshine Bear (orange). With these colors we have developed fun and multi-dimensional characters. This is just one of the ways we work in developing a piece. So go out and have fun exploring your colors. If you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right.
So there is a little taste of how we get the creative juices flowing. The next steps are agreeing on the material for a show and structuring it into a performance. Here’s where a director comes in handy – but that’s a subject for a different blog entry.
Our playwright Percy Bell dropped a line in response to my 8/6 blog post:
A great book to check out in the investigation of symbols and folk culture is from a hefty book called The Icon and The Axe, particularly the first essay "The Forest." While The Icon and the Axe concerns specifically Russian History and peasant culture, it gives a great deal of clarity to exactly what you are talking about.
Because I was reading Russian history and listening to The Mighty Handful, much of the play is infused with Russian folk themes: house of carved wood, the axe, the ghost, the woods, and the eastern idea of
exchanging one's life for something returned.
I did this partly for the fact that I only have fragments of Appalachian culture left in my memory, so I relied on bringing that spiritual space to life, giving it fullness with the Russian one.
Nature is also a theme. It is nature that tends to save Fiona. Lastly, the seasons are part of the play, at least hopefully they will be brought out.
The play takes place in late Autumn, but depending on the memories they talk about or a certain scene, it changes each season during the course of the play's action.
-Percy Bell
Some actorly friends of mine got together Tuesday night for a reading of Percy’s new play, Spring: A Knoxville Sonata, which will premiere in November.
It is really fun (and by “fun” I mean amazing, mystifying, challenging, exhilarating…) to workshop a new piece. Usually, the playwright is involved in the process, but alas, our Percy is in NY.
The actors at the read through gave really valuable feedback. As a whole, the group was taken by the play’s leitmotifs and themes: wolves, hands of cards, generational disconnects and longing, alienation (physical, emotional, spiritual), the woods.
I am easily inspired by symbols, metaphors, and themes. This play has crackling dialogue and gloriously poetic passages, which I enjoy, but it is the play’s Chekhovian undertones (and overtones)—a casual reference to a mountain lion being on the loose, slightly recalling the loss of land to a hand of cards—that jolt me upright. As an audience member, those moments are the ones I most enjoy.
When a major character mentions that a mountain lion is in the area (without expressing great concern), it makes me wonder: is SHE the mountain lion? The reference acts as a filter to the rest of the dialogue: Who (or what) is the animal on the loose in this scene? Does that person even realize it? Does anyone else? How aware are we of our own behavior? A mirror is held up to life and I am forced to ask questions about my own journey.
That is exactly why I love theatre so much.
Good plays are necessarily introspective, with meaningful questions at their core(s). But it is your job as an audience member (or theatre maker) to extract the question as you see it, as you hear it. Maybe the question you extract is the one you’re most afraid of, or the one you’ve been sitting on.
Yes, good plays ask something of us—and judging from Tuesday night’s reading, I am confident Spring: A Knoxville Sonata will do so.
-SCC
Your blog posts are welcome here.
Are you working on a theatre piece? Did you just see an interesting play? Have a good article to share?
Send me your thoughts (in bloggishly postable form). Contact me for more info or to brainstorm.
-SCC
We have arrived at a point where we must ask, “What is relevant?” Can we still stand on a stage and speak words? Do we need to Twitter the text of a play for it to be noticed? Must we integrate youtube to make it matter? What is necessary?
I like working toward innovation, but I must remain rooted in what is essential. Without being sensitive to the story, an idea/a concept/an image may overwhelm the play. When that happens, it’s painful (usually for the actors as well as the audience).
This line of thinking grows circular. When I hear myself say, “Stay rooted in what is essential—lean on THE STORY,” I sometimes feel this is limiting. But when I get really excited about a new idea, I wonder if I’m already leaving the story behind? This is our challenge: keep things fresh while keeping things meaningful.
I would love to hear your thoughts about what innovation means these days. We have many technological options that have not been incorporated into theatre. But can they? Should they? What does it mean? Will the story be augmented, enhanced? Will the question at the core of the play become clearer due to innovating?
In short, will the story prevail?
-SCC
