Why this project?
Emma:
I have always been fascinated by ritual and the theatricality surround ritual practices. This stems from being introduced to a religion at a later age, and looking at the rites and rituals of the religion from a secular side rather than a religious side. Once I was introduced to theatre, I started to notice similarities and that indeed peaked my interest in both.
Ritual is not only the actions performed but also specific locations for those actions. A cemetery is a place where a huge amount of ritual practices take place. I was intrigued to ask a question which involves theatre performance in a location used for such immensely important rituals, like a cemetery.
I have also done some research into what audiences consider taboo in modern theatre, and I believe that performing a piece of theatre in a cemetery could be considered a taboo for many people. I want to see whether a piece that is respectful of the space is something that might change people's minds about this.
Liz:
Cemetery has been an exciting prospect to me as a performance space for the past six months. I have been privileged to work with very inspiring artists, friends and practitioners during that time, which inspired me to go to new heights and levels I never imagined I could find myself.
I was walking through Kensel Rise, in the middle of term 2, with Kerol, Julia, Maghsood, and Randy, and I was carrying my little Complete Works of William Shakespeare. At some point the place struck me, and I began to frantically search for the "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" speech from the Scottish play. As I read it out, I realized that there is a place for text in the cemetery and the next moment I was flipping through again, with the mental image already in my head of the Helena/Demetrius fight scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream racing around in my head. I could see them running between the stones, falling to the ground, and a passionate plea of love, surrounded by a place of death. I was enraptured by this image.
Midsummer is the celebration of living, love, lust, and magic. These are the aspects we chose to work with, what is fueling this process and our imagining of the play. The cemetery is place of remembrance, of memories of love for those who have moved on and also a place for the living. It's the physical space where the dead control the living, an element we make use of as the fairies are spirits and manipulate the lovers and the mechanicals in the play.
Rehearsal process
The rehearsal process has been something in which I have never played this part before. I have stage managed many productions, so I know what I rehearsal room atmosphere can be like, but this is different. I am wearing so many different hats, and trying to learn how Liz has been working with the actors. Her methods are different from any director I've worked with before, and she is getting some impressive results with the way she works with her performers. There is a comfortable and loose feeling in the room, but this does not mean that there is not a lot of hard work going on.
The Cast
Our cast is a wonderfully talented group of people. They are all professionals, most of them working and honing their craft in NYC, a majority of them have worked with us in some context in the past. With doing our final showing in a place where we currently are not living, we needed to work out how to "rehearse" with our actors without actually being in the same room with them. This is why we created our blog. It allows us to have an open forum of discussions about all things relating to our performance of Midsummer, but also allows us to give the actors assignments, or tasks, to work on, so that by the time we arrive to start working with them in person, we will all be on the same page.
Documentation:
Evidencing is one of the most important aspects of our process, due to the unique nature of this project. We have over 100 hours of audio recordings, six days of rehearsal footage, not to mention a countless number of pictures. Documenting is important for us as a new company in order to be able to reflect upon the way we work, make improvements to our process and also serves as a stepping stone to move us from one stage to the next.
In this slideshow, we offer a small sample of our documentation. Also you will find books that have been inspiring, as well as a director's notebook, with definitions, objects, and other such notes.
Working Methodolgy:
Since there are only two of us, no one person is in charge, every idea has been open for debate and also for careful consideration. Nothing has been done without the consent of both sides. It's a collaborative process that draws upon the strengths of the individual for the benefit of the group. But it doesn't stop there, because as we made our way through this process, we began to share knowledge to one another, and began to teach each other skills that previously we had learned or had not encountered.
How do we work? We began rather simply. We would find a way to meet up, then just began preliminary discussions on what we wanted the work to say, and how we wanted to approach the work. We progressed from there by making a calendar and a list of events to accomplish by June 21 (and also by Sept 5)
London Cast:
The goal of this process was to rehearse these scenes in a neutral space, then take the scenes into a charge space (the cemetery) and see what being in the different spaces did to the work.
We worked with four extremely generous and talented actors: Alister Austin, Lisa Castle, Steve Wickenden, and Elizabeth Wilks.
The scenes occur both on film (filmed at the site) and live at 7:10, 7:25, 7:40, and 7:55. Please feel free to ask them any questions about the process that you may have.
Who Are We:
[2:36:35 PM] Emma: Emma's previous experience is based in production management and theatrical design, if you want to check out her work, www.emmaschimminger.com . She has many years of experience in lighting design, stage management, and really all around technical theatre practice. Elizabeth comes from the polar opposite end of the spectrum (to some degree) in both work and thinking. Liz is studying puppetry and has a background in acting/directing and scenic painting. Let us explain how this relationship works: Liz wants to use giraffes (for example) in a production…Emma suggests that instead of stealing giraffes from a zoo, they use something constructed to represent a giraffe. In other words, Emma keeps Liz on track, and Liz keeps Emma on her toes.
This project sprang from both of their research this year. Liz was looking at site specific performance, mostly in sacred places, while Emma was researching taboos in theatre. The culmination of the research is this project and discovering new ways to create a performance based community.
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