LUSH VALLEY

We’ve been doing some immense refining over the course of this week. With some major improvements in the dances, in songs, and script we are now down to fine-tuning this huge instrument we’ve created, just in time to begin tech-ing! Just being on set has already changed the dynamic; it now feels like a true office where all the paperwork and uniforms and the badges are validated. On top of this, the technology that seemed at times impossible to imagine in the rehearsal space, is breathing a new and exciting life into the show! We still have some big steps to take, but it does feel as though Lush Valley is welcoming its officers!

This week has been very exciting for all of us – Suzi has returned to New York and joined us for rehearsal! Monday was a big catch up day for her and we talked through the entire show, all her scenes, songs and dances. For the rest of the week we continued working on Wanda’s solo texts and her scenes with Jason or Ernie and made some great progress by finding the humor and little details which Wanda’s character brings into the show.
The full cast days during the week very much focused on dance and song. After the run last Saturday, Kristin had the fabulous idea of changing Georgie’s rap into a fantasy sequence and now the entire cast gets a chance to join in into a funky hip hop dance choreography, uncovering some unexpected dance potential in some of the actors! Great fun and considering that the whole choreography was designed and rehearsed within a day, an encouraging balance to a rather bumpy run thru on Thursday with very little and at times slightly challenging audience. Yet, these rehearsals are an important reminder that the show builds upon its diverse audience and that the officers will face different applicants every night. But we started all fresh and confident on Friday morning filming Wanda’s TED talk, officer interview and declaration as well as some of the footage for Georgie’s rap fantasy.

We’ve been continuing with our work on each scene, trying to find every bit of meat and potatoes there is within each. But more importantly, we’ve become completely enamored with the idea of YOU, the audience! From intakes, to think tanks, evem to rewriting our Lush Valley Oath of Allegiance, we’ve been searching through those parts where your voice gets to be heard and how we can best utilize it in our new nation! Taking each tenet of Lush Valley and dividing them amongst our officers, we’re excited to listen to what you think about them and their association within the Oath of Allegiance. What’s good? What’s bad? Or maybe even a different word choice? It’s important that you get to take ownership of what you’re about to pledge as a new citizen! We also worked a lot with the camera’s eye monologues within the intake section of the show, figuring what would happen if our audience members preferred to start a conversation than just listen to what the actor has to say.

It’s not often when you get to interrupt an actor in a show and tell them how to do their job. Well, now’s your chance! What would you say to your immigration officer if you had the chance?

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It’s so great to be taking second passes at each scene without scripts in hands, it’s giving each character as well as Kristin to find the little nuances that are lost when someone is constantly looking at a script. We’ve discovered some really great subtle humor and from that humor, I’ve found a concern and a wanting to know these characters more as people. I think it’s going to make the moments when they have to put on their officer mask seem even more official, which is exciting to see the dichotomy in each.

On Tuesday, we had one of those rare rehearsals with the whole cast! We made a few changes to both of the gesture dances as well as the “Shit Hits the Fan” scene that sets up for the character of Ernie to break out into “Suspicious Minds”. But all-in-all I felt like we moved fairly smoothly and got a bit of work done. One of the most exciting things about collaboration is the large number of ideas that come up and really being able to pick and choose what the best one is! I’d say one of the more frazzling moments of collaboration is the large number of ideas that come up! Although, I’ve always felt like working on these whole cast moments is like working in an office – it may be frustrating from time to time, but you know everyone is working towards a similar goal, which in the end makes it all worth it. Plus, it’s an excellent exercise in dealing with co-workers!

I think we’ve had a great couple of 3 days, getting some definite shape to the piece as a whole and pumping up for the run thru next week!

Thursday afternoon we staggered through the entire play.  A few people were invited as audience members to watch the skeletal structure of what’s been created in the last week and a half take form, and, my goodness, it was a wonderful thing to witness.  As an intern I have been watching each scene being rehearsed individually so it was a marvelous thing to see all these teeny tiny scenes suddenly slot together into this huge theatrical moment!  The bare bones are definitely there and are a great, informative structure to work with over the next few weeks.

Friday morning we worked on Jason and Miguel’s scene, finding the different colours and rhythms inside it.  There is some great humour here as the two characters are juxtapositions to each other and we played with Jason’s naive banter that does not seem so well received by Miguel.  Great fun!  We then worked on Miguel’s lecture experimenting with gestures that had already been chosen and adding a few more.  We experimented with the changing rhythms in the text as one danger with the gestures is they can take over the text instead of complimenting it; but it was captivating to watch as the physical gestures really draw you into the text.

Saturday we worked on Kim and Miguel’s scenes and delved deeper into the text, exploring its subtext.  We also rehearsed the scenes using a ‘melodrama run’ to see if there were anymore discoveries with breaking the genre of the piece ; however, we soon discovered it was already in the scenes, just extremely understated!  Thursday afternoon’s stumble through brought to light some staging issues in another scene that was intended for the Public Office space, so today we worked on re-staging this scene and moving it to the Break Room instead.