And so we met.
We put two charts on the wall, one labeled NONTRADITIONAL and the other TRADITIONAL.
Under NONTRADITIONAL, we listed:
- Kim has a friend who is a film producer who has some unproduced scripts of varying qualities that we could play with; Marc added a scenario he had imagined for some time involving a young mental patient whose father pays to “produce” his screenplay
- Laura suggested fleshing out songs with plots
- Dale asked that the group be a brainstorming center for his A Visit to William Blake’s Inn
- A quick and interesting way to produce work and perform it was the theatre company’s old Readings series, in which performers brought together texts which had not been created to be performed, and then created performances out of them. Dale gave several examples from years past. Ginny cleverly suggested we call ours Text Messages.
- Marc stated that he at some point wanted to work on a group process piece. Dale concurred.
Under TRADITIONAL, we listed:
- Scene work: we simply work on scenes from plays and develop our craft from that
- A Play: put on a play
- Acting 101: probably via scene work and exercises
We discussed space issues. Most of the mailing list had voted on Mon, Tue, and Thu as being our preferred times, but the dance studio is not available during those times. We are still awaiting official word from NTC. We’ll check on using Wadsworth auditorium, the University of West Georgia space (across from the dance studio), and Newnan Hospital’s lobby as a last resort.
We then began to work. We used Ordeal for One: The Art of Telling the Truth, from Marc’s experimental theatre handbook. In this exercise, you must describe a memory that never happened, but could have happened, to you. Dale, Whitney, and Marc shared a “memory,” and then Dale improvised a shared memory with Ginny, who kept correcting him.
We will meet not this Friday, but next Friday, April 28, at the dance studio. If you plan to attend, go to the Assignments page and download the Ordeal for One: The Art of Telling the Truth assignment. (Also, see Marc’s comments in this post.) We will all share in this exercise, plus look at some scene work. Make sure you have a notebook/journal. This is going to become more and more important.
The floor is now open for comments and stuff.
In attendance: Whitney, Meghan, Kim, Michael, Laura, Melissa, Dale, Marc, Ginny
Oh, and there’s a new rule.
4. Fail.
I had such a great time yeaterday. It is so great to work with people who are so openand willing to work with you on your talents. I hope more people can come next time and we can get these things going.
The meeting was another testament to the fact that our contact with one another is ceaselessly inspiring (to me, if to no one else).
Peter Brook, legendary director and theatre theorist, once said that the purpose of the first rehearsal was to get to the second rehearsal. I was a bit antsy, to say the least, because we have so many options before us. I am grateful Dale made us play at the end of the meeting and then created the fourth rule, “Fail.” I have a tendency to want to bear the burden of everyone’s creative hopes and dreams. We can’t carry that around. If you play, you play, if you don’t you don’t, and either way it’s okay. Our first meeting wasn’t like a blind date where we spend the entire time haunted by some “decision” we know we finally have to make: “Yes or no. End or continue.” We’re already married in my mind, so we have many days and unlimited possibilities before us.
I want to state, again, that I think we ought to fully realize and produce *William Blake’s Inn*. It will be a great exercise in allowing something to “be what it is” in our creative development without worrying about pleasing a producer, a suit who worries about plot, for instance. This is about visions–having them, relating them, delighting in them.
If we begin to play with film scripts or film scenes or songs, I want us to be at a point where we can work with them without being in awe of them, dazzled by false gods (or real ones for that matter). So we develop a company outlook by exploring strategies and aesthetics and various what-nots first, then we bite into the material. (We have to know how to protect ourselves when not working with “proven” material.)
On THE ART OF TELLING THE TRUTH. I want us to produce an evening (coffee house-ish, readings-ish) with the above ironic title and based on our work with that exercise. Last night has inspired me to try and create one (prepared, not improvised) and to write some more about ways of using and developing the exercise. [Ed. note: These comments, on approaching this exercise, have been broken out into their own post.]
I like the idea of an evening of our false memories. (Can we call it Falsies, bringing to mind mammaries? No?)
I like the idea of the infinite variety: are you/your character telling this memory to the assembled audience, or is the audience watching you tell it to someone else? At some other time?
I like the idea Marc brings up in his comments of the eventual performance piece being an untruth. Or even a delusion.
On Marc’s comment, I like the idea of working with screenplay/script excerpts, but respect his point about the baggage we may carry about same. My proposed mitigation for this is to take scenes or scene fragments out of context, and experiment with replaying the same fragments multiple times with either no context or a new context we propose (or maybbe even draw out of a hat).
Imagine the climactic scene of A Few Good Men transferred to a dinner table discussion between mother and daughter? brothers? employee and employer? apocolyptic setting? Nazi Germany?
I am jealous… I say The Lacuna Group should transfer all operations to Dayton Ohio so that I can be a part of this.
If you have a space we can work in on Thursday nights, we may have to do that.
Ohio, home of Pere Ubu and Lacuna. Wow.
We have tons of open spaces on campus! Pere Ubu??? Nevermind… it is probably some band formed in the 70’s in Cleveland… Oh Marc… you are anything but predictable
Leadman David Thomas wanted to nod to Alfred Jarry’s character and acknowledge the fact that he, Thomas, was shaped like a pear, also like the original drawings of Pere Ubu. *Dub Housing* is my favorite album.