As the auditions for our Evening of Devised Theatre approach, I must admit that I am a little bit anxious. While I have been involved in devising pieces of theatre before, I have never worked with such limited and restricting time constraints. I think back to two years ago when I worried about the quality of staged readings we could present involving members of our community in simply two days. However, after two years of one act plays, my perception of what a group of determined people can accomplish in eight hours has been eternally shifted. While I worry now that generating a piece of theatre without a script in just eight hours may push us past our limits, I would never forfeit the thrill of the intentionally concise rehearsal process for Artists from Suburbia’s final performance. I am thrilled to be preparing to devise a piece concurrently with directing pieces elsewhere. Generally, when I am tasked with directing a production, after several readings of the script, I begin with research. I look deeper into the script, the playwright, historical context, previous productions, literary critiques, reviews, etc. I don’t always write much down, but I retain a good amount of juicy tidbits from this harvest which reshape how the play works in my mind. Additionally, I usually compile a Pinterest board and a playlist which I will share with collaborators, producers, and designers to contextualize the world the text inhabits in my mind. In preliminary meetings, we wittle down the images to what we will use— I like the color scheme here, her hemline is stunning, look at the way the limbs are all intermingled… and the playlist goes through a similar refinement— this piece could underscore his death, the dancers could reenter here. I am taking similar first steps in order to lead the devising of ‘Darwin’s Ark: An Exploration of Survival of the Fittest’, but the intentions of the work are totally shifted. I am excited to present the images I’ve culled and the songs I have thought of with the actors I will get to create this piece with, and I am even more excited to see images, hear songs, and listen to thoughts that they have in response. In addition to my Pinterest board and playlist, I’ve begun collecting passages from Darwin’s writings, the Bible, and CNN news notifications. I am envisioning that this piece will involve a lot of dance and movement. I don’t know if anyone speaks in it even. But also, it might involve a lot of speaking, or asking the audience to read passages aloud with us, or praying with us… who knows. Right now, I am living in bliss preparing for ‘Darwin’s Ark’ as I refine and rethink about the other pieces I have coming up, I love that I don’t have to let go of any ideas yet for Darwin. I can bring everything I have— unpolished, unfinished, unsure, and undefined, and we will create something from there. I hope that the actors who come to auditions will come armed with an equal amount of unpolished, unrefined, and unfinished ideas. Andrew Child serves as Artistic Director of Artists from Suburbia.
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AuthorBlog posts are written by various members of Artists from Suburbia's productions and staff. Archives
July 2017
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