Opening Night/Opening Day

Yesterday marked our first opening day/night as we attended the opening performances for all our rotation one shows—The Kid Who Talked to Penguin’s, A Rat’s Mass and Lulu. Pretty amazing day really. To finally see everyone’s work after hearing so much about Lauren and Adam’s visions for their shows and their process in their rehearsal rooms, was a total thrill. Penguins was such great fun! Adam’s charm had the kids enthralled from start to finish. He had such joy working on the Kiddstuff show (as I did watching it), so great for the creative heart and soul. Lauren’s Lulu showcased some powerhouse acting from the company—but I’ll admit my not-so-secret love for her talent with movement. I was floored by her stunning transformative, storytelling movement work.

These first two rotations we are getting to do our “director’s choice” plays – which for me I decided to take to heart what I heard over and over to go for a play that would push me creatively. So I chose, A Rat’s Mass, by Adrienne Kennedy, a writer I have wanted to work on for quite some time. So it was a fantastic experience to finally get to wrestle with a complex, fascinating, intense material and flex my imagination on this classic avant-garde piece.

When I first saw the Wedge, my brain immediately began to fire images that I could see living in the space—ways that I hadn’t even dreamt of before. It’s a blessing to have a space that forces a director to explore use of space. When I first started grad school I learned that I saw things as flat images in my head. Thus I had to work hard to visualize moments/scenes/plays in 3 dimensions. Working in the Wedge was like taking the next step. I realized that was capable of seeing the play in 3D but it was always a proscenium space. Now I realized I could go further and conceptualize the play in 3D without limitations. What if I thought “Oh yes! that moment should happen in the air above ground!” or “We should be seeing this moment upside down!” Freeing and utterly thrilling. I feel really fortunate to have this time and space to grow artistically, and this is only week three!—I’m excited to see what other new discoveries lie ahead in the rest of the summer.