A Balancing Act

Ensemble Director/Facilitator, Kali Quinn writes...

"It is a tricky point in our process where I fear many “ohshit” moments because we are getting closer to the product, the mountain. Howdo we stay true to our process at this point and let that conversation bedirectly reflected in how we rehearse? How do I acknowledge the fact thatactors will go further into the process as characters now and I will zoom outfurther as a director? How do I do this without losing the play? How do I dothis without feeling our very horizonal/consensus-based process turn hierarchical?Age old questions.

Some possible solutions:

1. Continuing to get more specific/articulate by addingcompositional elements: For example, tonight we witnessed four minute grouppresentations that all centered around “the heart of the matter” (whatever thatmeant for the individuals that had gravitated toward those partners). Onceseeing these, we had a much better understanding of what in our story was past,present, and future. Now, we can take those moments and sculpt them further byasking the groups to work again in a specific area of the space, add entrancesand exits, include a song, unison laughter, etc. and then instead of themfeeling like we are all of a sudden “blocking a play,” my hope is that theywill feel ownership of the material and their character’s point of view that wecan shape it together little by little. Similar to blocking, but not the samein my mind.

2. Calling out percentages: It’s important to know how muchof our mind is in character point of view vs. thinking as a playwright. Thisway we distinguish between the two kinds of conversation for ourselves and as agroup.

3. Acknowledging phases of convergence vs. phases ofdivergence: There are times in a devised process when we are out being huntersand gatherers of new ideas to put in our pot. I think of this divergence as anoutward, opened arm kind of energy. We are creating and accumulating newmaterial. Titling new vocabulary and putting it on post-it notes. Thenconversely there are times when we are bringing all of these ideas together. Ithink of this as a funneling, creating a path to bring things onto. Differentthan a pot full of stuff. Converging: Connecting ideas, connecting post-itnotes. Leaving some things behind. Sometimes this second phase feels more challengingas it begs for more decisions and letting go. We wax and wane between these twophases in order to moving forward. I will call this out at the top of a week ora rehearsal. We could even (in order to physicalize this understanding) stepinto a circle together vs. turning our backs and stepping outside of thecircle.

Overall, I don’t want to force my ideas, rather I want topresent a game which by being played can teach us all what wants to happennext. In a physical-based, momentum driven way can lead us into a popcornbrainstorm of “What if’s?” that we then use to take us into the same game witha new layer or onto a new island that we can discover, explore, and go deeperinto the gold of. This group has remained curious, open, listening, and dedicatedto their character’s and the overall play – so it truly feels like anything can happen!"

-Kali Quinn
Director

"I got it!"

Day Fourteen

What do you got?! An important convention that we have been playing with in recent rehearsals is receiving and giving something powerful. That powerful thing, which has yet to been defined, is unique to each character. While our exercises always differ, the general game is to pass a "thing" from character to character in a predetermined order. The "thing" is invisible and mimed with the actors' hands and body conforming to the shape, size, and weight of whatever they're receiving. 

For Adam Wennick and Bronwyn Barnwell, not getting what they wanted was "frustrating and painful" while the thought of losing what Vicky Moyer was making her character Nero "paranoid."The characters were also asked to listen and react to other's receiving and giving this "thing", Kat Schmidt described certain character reactions as "triggers" to her own emotions. Every actor, during the post-exercise discussion, had interesting and unique responses to the exercise. 

We're on our way there!

DAY THIRTEEN

"We don't know where we're going but we're on our way there!"
-Designer Elaine Williams

Fresh off a House Party Weekend and BisonFest, the ensemble was glad to return back to rehearsal and   a routine. The evening started off with fairly extensive physical and vocal warm-ups which allowed the actors a chance to get ready and focused for the rest of the rehearsal.  

An important part of mask work is the Lazzi, a joke or bit commonly found in Commedia dell'arte productions. Our characters are beginning to discover personal and group Lazzi's that can develop into more detailed and plot oriented scenes. While our work tonight wasn't focused solely on establishing these Lazzi's, they can be great starting points for scene work in a devised process like ours. Further exploration and development of these scenes will continue throughout the week along with musical exercises led by CJ Fujimura.

     

From the Actor's Perspective: CJ Fujimura

"tonight i came from gamelan rehearsal. i focused on the "playing" of music. i find the cables and connections needed to make electronic music cumbersome sometimes, but the effort is worth it. i once said "these loops are finnicky" and brendan bormes (a musician and close friend) responded "but they're worth it." i felt these words tonight. kali and i had a similar conversation last night after rehearsal about working with the "jam man". (her loop pedal). 

the cast has established some meat to these characters and their relationships are happening on their own. i improvised sounds while members of our group played relationships into scenes. this way of working felt good to me. after a heady rehearsal last night (which was also good), tonight was an experiment in reveling in moments. i played the instruments that seem loud enough to hear from the audience without being mic'd. i also played samples and synthesizer sounds. we found a lot tonight. we've arranged ourselves as part of a silly machine that i love. i envision our show as an attempt to make seen the corners of this world. 

i find this group fulfilling. i think we've established a way of communicating well. i've gotten the chance to experience and connect with different creative people that are in difference places in life. i think we're all discovering and growing as artists. maybe this is will be the success of the show. this is a group that will make a little sumthin :)  

i see dichotomies in our work. i also see us working to make connections, which is more like unity or a singularity. the best part about working with other people is finding the presence that none of us can be alone. between two people it is the third presence that is not quite either of the two people. or three people."

-CJ Fujimura '13

Sound Director 

From the Actor's Perspective: Connecting Theatre History, Theory, and Rehearsal

"Circles, souls, melons, masks… these are but a few of the ideas and images that have been thrown around in the intense and incredible rehearsal process that is our “soon-to-be titled” production. It has been a phenomenal experience so far and what’s even more incredible, are the connections we discover between our work inside AND outside the theatre. As artist-scholars, we constantly connect what we learn in our academic classes during the day to our production rehearsals at night, and for me, some of my biggest connections are with my theatre history/theory classes.

WARNING! - What you are about to read are not final decisions made by the ensemble and production team for our production. The following are ideas that have been brought up in rehearsal and my own observations based from those ideas.

As rehearsals progress, our ensemble is incorporating hundreds of years’ worth of theatre, from the stage adopting a diagonal version of polyscenic juxtaposition that was used in Medieval Theatre, a physical division of Heaven, Earth and Hell similar to Elizabethan Theatre, concepts from multiple kinds of religious rituals, etc., but what strikes me is our progression towards the creation of a “unified” play. Not only unified in a sense that all of our work is coming together, but that it is beginning to fall into the criteria of Greek philosopher Aristotle’s concept of the unities, from his work The Poetics. For Aristotle, to be unified the action of a play must 1) be set in one place, 2) last no more than one day, and 3) must be within one plot. Having developed an environment for our stage, we have created one setting where our characters’ actions take place, which consists of many sections for different groups of characters. We have been discussing using a circular form for the structure of the play; the play ends where it began, possibly showing a “day in the life” of these characters. Finally, as we rehearse we discover how each character is connected in some way to each other and to the greater being that is the production (reminds me of the show LOST), which can lead to one plot within the circular form. As artist-scholars, this is but one of the many connections my ensemble members and I make every rehearsal, and it goes to show that no matter how much the creative process progresses, bits and pieces will always remain from the Souls of Theatre Past…"

-Matthew Dranzik ’13
Ensemble Member

This is a show about...

DAY ELEVEN

A dance party turned warm up turned rehearsal (it's sorta becoming the norm around here.) With character interviews behind us, today's rehearsal took a new turn. First, the ensemble had been assigned to write two sentences each, answering:

1. What is this play about from your (actor's) point of view?
2. What is this play about from your character's point of view?

This is clearly a pretty daunting task considering they only have one sentence to condense everyone's ideas into their own words but our actors were up for the challenge. Today, the ensemble was divided into three groups of six who compiled their individual sentences into one. These three views of our show were then analyzed, by the entire ensemble, and the most reoccurring words and specific themes were noted. This is a major dramaturgical step for the production and will push us forward into our rehearsals. 

After a short break and vocal warm up, it was time to get back into mask work. Our set has started to take shape and a tentative ground plan has been established. Director Kali Quinn is having the rehearsal exercises start to take place in terms of this ground plan to see what works and what doesn't. It also a chance for discoveries to be made by the actors.

The evening ended with a long discussion of the themes and concepts that we have been exploring. We are still in the exploratory phase of our piece, but are starting really make strong directional choices in terms of the story we are creating.

Fire, Sound, Circles, and the Moon

DAY TEN

Ask any of the ensemble members and they'll tell you that they can't believe we are only having our tenth rehearsal today! The amount of creation that has occurred in these ten rehearsals feels like we've been working on this project for several weeks.

Today was another important day in working on further developing our characters and building character relationships. In addition to finishing up our character interviews the ensemble was given time to play together, in mask, to continue to explore the movement and voice. While we have been doing these exercises from day one, each rehearsal our work becomes more detailed and more complex as the characters start to take shape. This type of devising work will also help us identify common threads and themes that could be further developed into our storyline.