The World is a Stage
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What most people often think is a simple show, while reading stage scripts, usually turns out to be the more difficult than most.
Most theatre groups have a play selection committee, and each individual on that committee must read and or see dozens of shows, of which they pass their favourites around to others on the committee. As a whole, they must then pare down the best and choose the productions for the next season. Then they must find directors and producers to get the ball rolling.
The committee must pay attention to what will sell as well, as we not only put on shows but have our own building and upkeep to account for. Last year over $10,000 went to furnaces! Our audiences will take a chance on unknown plays that have catchy titles, and fortunately, after 34 season, most of our regular patrons trust us to put on a show they will like.
One teensy little item often gets left out of the selection project. Can we do it technically? Over the 46 years I have been designing, I would guess close to three quarters of the shows have not considered the set and technical requirements. We have had some crazy times in the past to create what was needed to do a show. The committee person thought it a simple set when they saw it in Toronto, but they had the money to make it so.
By the time the set designer gets the script, it is in print. I start reading and freak out because no one thought of ‘can we do it?’
Well, maybe they do, because although this drives me crazy, I also love it because it pushes me and every department to think outside of the box and makes our group grow.
Our next production, Almost Maine by John Cariani, sounded like a simple show, with the first read. It takes place outside, in northern, inland, Maine, on a cold, clear, crisp winter’s night. There are nine separate small stories being told, with two people each, which if you had multiple screens, would occur at the same time of 9 p.m. in the small town of Almost.
You of course, get to see them separately, in different areas of the stage, however some vignettes need to be inside homes or a bar. As designed by the playwright, all the scenes are done with minimal props to designate those places, and the lighting must be such that you no longer believe you are outside. Much of this, perhaps what you would think would be the most difficult, is not. What is the most difficult is that it is dark out. The stars are out and demanded by the playwright, as it is integral to the show, are the northern lights.
I thought it was my chance to get the group to buy a black backdrop that has a thousand twinkling stars in it. Can’t afford it. We could paint a drop black and poke small white Christmas lights through it! But how often would we use that specific drop (expensive but doable)? It couldn’t be folded up and we have no place to store it. Sigh. A mirror ball! But then the cast and audience are twinkling too.
Hummm, let’s switch our inventiveness to the harder, northern lights. We could put lights on the stage floor shooting up, behind some trees, with three or four different colours. We don’t have and can’t afford the wonderful rotating lights that also change colour, so our lights would not flow and ebb as the Northern Lights do, they would be stationary.
Theatre Tillsonburg has been around for too long and sets a much higher standard to the quality of our shows than either of those two solutions offer. I was stymied.
Then, I went to Stratford to see Carousel and was inspired. I thought we could project all these stars and the northern lights! Do I have enough brains to stop with a good idea? No. Let’s do that on three drops, so the stage is surrounded. That would give the audience a much better experience!
I have 'projected' in several of my musicals, but with one projector and with individual still designs. Even so, I am sensing that others around me don’t think we can do it. That upped the challenge!
Olwyn Coughlin, director, is imaginative and has faith. So we start volunteering family. Sheila Tripp in costumes has developed a new word for conscripting family; they are 'voluntold' to help. Thus was Olwyn’s computer savvy son Andrew and my hubby Peter, who is good with electronics.
We can’t afford to even rent the correct theatrical projectors, so we have borrowed three domestic ones which Peter had to figure out how wire together in different parts of the theatre ceiling so they project where we want them to, and then wire them back to the computer in the sound booth. Peter never says 'this won’t work,' he just works on my ideas until they do work. We don’t get the effect that a professional group with money would get, but it is pretty cool.
So, I hope you will come to see our funny, heart warming, production and our leap into projecting. Almost Maine is on Feb. 11, 12, 13, 14 and 18, 19, 20, 21, at 8 p.m., except for Sunday’s 2 p.m. matinees at the Otter Valley Playhouse, 144789 Potters Road. Tickets are $17 for adults, seniors and students.