Stage Banter: The Arena Stage Blog

Voices of Now

By Emily Thompson, Senior Community Engagement Fellow

Last Friday five of the Fairfax County Voices of Now Ensembles gathered at Robinson Secondary School for the second annual VON School Share!  Seventy-five VON artists from the Burke, Key, Kilmer, Robinson, and Whitman Ensembles gathered to show each other a selection of each of their plays. The school share allows the artists to perform in front of an audience before the Voices of Now Festival at Arena Stage. 

All of the artists gathered to present fellow artists, teaching artists, partner teachers, and the Mentors, with a two-three minute selection of their plays in progress.  The evening began with some ice breakers, a focused vocal warm-up, and a giant group 7’s warm up that ended with some gorgeous weight shares created by partners from different ensembles.  It was inspiring to see the artists making such beautiful and dynamic art with people they had never met before.

The evening’s line-up of sharing consisted of the Kilmer Ensemble with Moving Target, the Robinson Ensemble with Open and Shut, the Burke Ensemble with Breaking Free, the Whitman Ensemble with Take Away, and the Key Ensemble with Carry On.  All of the artists watched the material presented on-stage and noted in their journals what they liked about each performance.  After each performance, the performing ensemble got to hear feedback from the artists and teaching artists in the audience.  Audience members pointed out what we liked in each piece- especially noticing what movement pieces, images, and important questions reached us. 

The School Share is an important chance for artists who are well into the process to get a feel for performing their pieces in front of an audience.  It is also a wonderful opportunity for the artists to see and be inspired by each other’s work and to feel connected as a community of VON artists creating and sharing art.  The evening ended with the artists getting to spend some time together over pizza and a massive game of Smithsonian. 

Notes from Rehearsal: The Age of Innocence

by Maria Edmundson, Artistic Development Fellow

In January of this year, I had the opportunity to work as an assistant on a two-week long workshop of Karen Zacarías’ adaptation of The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton, directed by dramaturg Jocelyn Clarke. 

So, what is the purpose of a two-week workshop of a play in development and what does the process look like?  The principal question Karen and Jocelyn had for this project was, “does this story work on stage?”  Is it a play or is it just parts of a book that are being read on stage?  As for the process, we began with table talk, reading the script.  Very quickly, however, we moved away from the table and into the Kogod Cradle, to put the play on its feet and discover its structure.

A central investigation in this workshop was how the piece works as that hybrid beast, an adaptation.  The goal of an adaptation being, of course, to exploit the new form to reveal or shed light on a new facet of the work ,rather than to retell the story as it is in its original incarnation.

Karen decided to frame the events of the novel with Wharton’s narration by doubling two roles played by one actress: the object of the protagonist’s adoration, Ellen, and a character who is author of the work, Edith.  It became clear that we needed a set of rules to govern how the Edith character creates and controls the world of the play and how she switches from Edith to Ellen.

These rules resulted in a vocabulary of movements, gestures, and music.  For example, Edith always wears a red shawl, delivered and removed from her by her helpmeet, a cheerful butler, and whenever Edith sits in a scene to listen to her story unfold, her chair has its back to the scene.

This set of rules expanded to dictate the movements of the company.  Gestural lines were to be round and flowing, not angular and sharp.  When actors were not in a scene, they arranged themselves in frozen tableaux at the back of the stage.  These rules were created to mimic the rhythm and structure of society in the world of the play.  In The Age of Innocence, Wharton offers a commentary on society as much as she tells a story of ill-fated lovers.  Society is the driving force in the lives of the characters and must be an engine of the play.  The vocabulary of movement sets up a society in which stillness, precision, and beauty reign.  The tableaux ensure that the group sees everything.  There is no escape from the eyes of the world.  This frozenness and distance also allowed us to stage frustrated longing and desire outside of our contemporary vision of what that looks like.

The development of this vocabulary was a conversation between Jocelyn, with his clear eye for movement and ear for music, the actors who imagined the play out of thin air, and me, who perused the music of Andre Desplat, Arvo Pärt, and Max Richter and operated the sound board.

In the end, I could see the opera, the ballroom, and the church; and in answer to the questions we were investigating, I thought yes, this is a play.

Notes from Rehearsal: The Mountaintop

By Carla Thomas McGinnis, Management Fellow and Mountaintop Directing Fellow

My name is Carla Thomas McGinnis and I have been working as the directing fellow for Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop.  Being in rehearsal this week has been a pleasure.  The artistic team comes to Arena after being at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas.  It has been incredible to see the director, Robert O’Hara and the actors Bowman Wright and Joaquina Kalukango take what they created there and adapt it for our Kreeger stage.  Even in the rehearsal room, their performances have been poignant and at times haunting.  They have really done impressive work to keep their performances sharp, dynamic, and fresh. 

There are some performers that when asked to take on the role of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would attempt an impersonation – an imitation.  But Bowan has found the spirit of King and Joaquina’s performance is so real, so human, that you can’t help but get wrapped in.

In rehearsal the team talked about the reactions they’ve gotten since their performance in Texas. For several of the people they spoke with, The Mountaintop was the first play they had seen and they all said that they that planned to go back to theater.  I think that is a true testament of the power of this play.  This story is for everyone.  It is for those who lived through the Civil Rights Movement of the ‘60s.  It is for those who may not know much about it.  It is for first time theatergoers and theater veterans. 

This production is a can’t miss journey to the mountaintop. 

 

The Mountaintop is in previews at Arena now! The show opens on April 4th and runs through May 26th.