by Janine Sobeck
This weekend might go down as one of the craziest busy times in Arena's Artistic Development Team's history. Redhand Guitar at Georgetown, Green Fest (for the Buckminster Fuller show) at the Convention Center, and The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later at the Lincoln Theatre.
You'll be hearing from some of the other Art Dev members as to what they were doing, but as our avid blog readers will know, most of my attention was focused on Redhand. Last week was highlighted by the fact that each day a new element was added. Tuesday costumes started appearing. Wednesday was projections. Thursday the band joined the actors. And Friday we put it all together for the very first time. By the time Sunday rolled around and the presentations started I could barely contain my excitement and my amazement over what had been accomplished in such a short amount of time. You see, this type of developmental step, especially bringing the full creative team together this early in order to really test out the ideas, is not typical in new musical development. We were really pushing the limits on what was possible in the effort to give Evan and Mike everything they needed in order to bring this project to the next level. And by Sunday it was pretty clear as to what was working and what needs additional attention - while giving everyone a great sense of the potential of this project.
Since everyone left I've been going through a bit of withdrawal, and it depends on the hour of the day what song is stuck in my head. For the moment, I'll leave you with the crowd favorite...Help Me to Forget. Though I must say...there is nothing about these two weeks that we would actually want to forget.
Play: Help Me to Forget
Comments