http://www.facebook.com/pages/Headwaters/130791476935722?v=wall&ref=t

The show is up and running, and it’s marvelous.  Lots of information is available at http://www.snca.org and tickets are still available for the remaining performances through July 25.

The 31 performers in the cast, the 10 members of the SNOrchestra, the stage crew and the many volunteers it takes to run Headwaters have all done an extraordinary job this summer, and audiences are responding with standing ovations.  This play is a remarkable gift, to everyone who touches it or is touched by it.  

Come see, and enjoy.  

So instead of a nerve-wracking experience where you have to read a script or perform a monologue in front of people you don’t know (a standard professional theater audition), the Headwaters Talent Inventory starts with introductions, movement, theater games, and singing, so that long before anyone has to read from the script we’ve made a mini-ensemble of people who know a little bit about each other and who enjoy watching each other play with the script.

Seven intrepid souls joined three veteran Headwaters performers, plus many of the production team — producer Lisa Mount, co-producer Tommy Deadwyler, co-playwright Jerry Grillo, Music Director Walter Daves,Vocal Director Brandon Nonnemaker, and assistant stage manager Mike Kaiser — in singing the song that will open the show, "Ain’t No Place."  We made pretty harmony together, and everyone managed to sing the chorus in a round while moving around.  Ain’t no mean feat.

On Saturday afternoons (March 13, 2010), puppet designer Lynn Jeffries worked with puppeteers Amber Nelms and Sara Drueke on the shadow puppet segments from Birth, Death and Places In-Between.  Jerry Grillo came in to read both Jimbo and Cowboy, and Courtney, Ginny and Layla came by just to watch.  Lynn helped Amber and Sara set up the complicated sequence of movements it takes to make shadow puppets look life-like.  The final shadow puppet scene is really moving (which might be hard to imagine, if your only experience of puppets is the Muppets). We videotaped the puppet sequences from both the front and the back of the shadow puppet screen, so that we have a reference for what should be done – a refresher for Amber and Sara, and useful instruction for their back-up puppeteers.

On Sunday March 14 Lynn worked with Alainey Penn, Elizabeth Hughes and Jacob Wheatley on the bunraku puppet of the horse Cowboy.  Amber Nelms read the role of Jimbo as Lynn guided the three puppeteers through the conversations Jimbo has with his horse.  We discovered new movements – Cowboy leaps and rears now – and Jacob picked up the art of hoof movement quickly.  Alainey remembered half her lines from last summer, and has gotten even more adept at moving the horse’s head to illustrate the words she’s saying.  

Headwaters has been very fortunate to receive consistent support over the last four years from the National Endowment for the Arts.  We recently applied for a grant to commission the next new script for Headwaters, and in the process prepared three video segments from the 2009 production.   The NEA application is a useful deadline in many ways, not least because we needed to have some current video of the show on the web.

Wish the production luck as we wend our way through the decision-making process at the NEA.  It’s quite fair, and appropriately rigorous.

Work on Headwaters continues in advance of the first rehearsal on May 22.  Stay tuned.

Previous Headwaters cast members, Story Team members, and people new to the whole Headwaters experience had a great time sharing stories of being a "come here" or a "been here" and more motherly advice – key components of Birth, Death and Places In-Between.  

I’m having wonderful conversations with the professional artists who make lead the community performers in the process of making a show for everyone’s enjoyment.  There will be changes to this summer’s version of the play – songs in new places, more explication of the Fates, just to name two – but the things people loved about the show will remain.  Beautiful music, surprisingly moving puppets, movement that adds depth to the stories, and, of course, stories from our goodly portion of beautiful northeast Georgia.

One of the major improvements for the SummerFest 2010 edition of Headwaters will be amplified sound.  What we in the trade like to call ’sound reinforcement.’  Choral microphones suspended from the gym’s rafters will make the performers just a little louder.  

Events on the Headwaters horizon:  Talent Inventory on March 13, 2010 at 11:00 am in the Community Hall at the Sautee Nacoochee Center.  Anyone who wants to be in Headwaters is asked to come to this orientation workshop.   Also on March 13 and 14, prospective Headwaters puppeteers will have a workshop with designer Lynn Jeffries.  For more info, contact headwaters@snca.org

So glad the season has begun. 

Lisa

It ain’t over yet, by a long shot, but as we near the final stretch, there is cause for consideration of the process we have been through to make this remarkable show. It began with ideas batted around at this time last year, when Jo Carson, Jerry Grillo, Jerry Stropnicky and Lynn Jeffries assembled in Sautee Nacoochee along with me (Lisa Mount), Terri Edgar, and Tommy Deadwyler, and we began to talk about what the "new Headwaters" should be like.  Jerry S admonished us all that it had to be a play with a strong central theme – the first two years’ patchwork structure served for the initial outing, when all we had to do was show people stories about this place, tied together by the place itself.  For the second of our commissioned plays, we decided to aim for a show about family.

There’s some debate as to whether we made it – yes, family is shot all through the current Headwaters.  But I’m not sure that’s what people are taking away from the performance – the final weekend will be an opportunity to pose the question.  

The creation process of a community story play is one part hunting material, another part crafting it into performance text, and still many more parts assembling and promoting the performance itself.  We have been blessed with a talented and dedicated ensemble and an amazing artistic team.  We have made the historic gymnasium into a much swankier performance space than its ever been (I dare say, not having been here quite ten years, but I challenge you to tell me when it’s looked better).  We provided a big set of "wow" moments with the shadow puppets as a way of re-telling the story of a man whose only solid relationship was with a horse.

We’ve been really fortunate to get great press coverage in Northeast Georgia about the show – articles in the White County News and the Northeast Georgian, and oodles of time on the radio (hooray for GPB and WPPR!).   And audiences have been strong – with expectations that we’ll sell out the final Saturday night. 

Check out this podcast with Candice Felice of WPPR, interviewing me and Jeff Mosier about the music of Headwaters.

Headwaters Music
 

What that interview doesn’t say (because it’s only four minutes long) is that the music in Headwaters came from many places, and was suggested by many people.  Jerry Grillo brought "The Come Heres and the Been Heres" to the show; Jo Carson’s been longing to have "Ezekial Saw the Wheel" in one of her story plays forever, and we borrowed our version from Lisa Deaton.  The Lilies of the Valley (a group of women singers spawned in the first year of Headwaters) sang Dede Vogt’s "Purgatory" this spring, and it was too perfect not to use in the show.  My pal Chip Epsten of the Accidental Vaudeville Revival (band) put "Idumea" on the table one night.  Tommy Deadwyler knew we had to play "Dooley" and he suggested that "Blue Suede Shoes" was right for the Brothers Tim and Daddy-o — a band name conferred by Walter Daves, who was the one who identified the old version of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," after Vicki McMorrough suggested it.  It’s a veritable celtic knot of musical influences.  Jeff and I worked on two songs, "Ain’t No Place" and "My Mama Told Me," out of ten in the show.  

"And it all gets cut down to size in the end," says the cutting Fate, and on Sunday July 26 we will make Headwaters disappear for another year.  We’ve been asking folks for money after every show, and we hope that some has come our way to help support the work of making next year’s play an even better show.  The suggestions are already coming in – and you’re welcome to add more.

Here are four short video clips to give you an idea of where things are.  Remember, this is a rehearsal, so you’ll see some missed lines and the occasional deer-in-the-headlights look.  It’s shaky-cam, all hand held, but interesting nonetheless.

A segment from the shape note song Idumea, which asks the question "Am I Born to Die?"

A bit of the opening number, "My Mama Told Me"

A portion of the Act 2 opening number, "Ain’t No Place"

Part of the monologue "Man in a Suit" performed by Sara Drueke

These rehearsals are a process of creative problem-solving.  For example, adjusting to the loom that the Fate character Lacy will use: Barbara Brady briefly declared it a tool of the devil, but then Jennie Inglis, the loom’s owner, gave her a few quick pointers and it became a much better relationship between Fate and loom.  The seating platforms that SNCA was able to purchase last year with a generous contribution from the Appalachian Regional Commission are wider than the design had anticipated, eliminating an entrance at the northeast corner of the stage – necessitating adjustments in choreography and the transitions between scenes.  Jerry Stropnicky used Wednesday and Thursday’s rehearsals to give people their direction for the transitions, and stage manager Jessi Evans has made a detailed map of how the show runs, which will be posted backstage.

This is a crucial  point in the rehearsal process.  Joyous, because the whole company gets to see how the pieces come together.  Difficult, because as of now (Sunday 6/28) there are only seven rehearsals left before our first (and only) preview performance for friends and family (tickets $5 at the door) on July 8.  It feels like there’s soooo much to be done: performers learning their lines, last edits on the script to catch little discrepancies and remove redundancies, finishing the set, learning how to make the puppets come alive.  What I know from a life spent in the theater is this: it feels like it will never come together, and then it does.  Not by magic, but by hard work.

The puppets are a joy to behold.  Our scenic and puppetry designer, Lynn Jeffries has spent many days in the gym cutting out shapes and gluing them to dowels for shadow puppets, and I bet that even now she’s at her work table creating the horse puppet for Cowboy. Many people were skeptical about puppets – we’ve all seen so many bad imitations of the muppets, it’s hard to imagine that there’s any other kind of puppetry. The puppets will be one of the great surprises for audiences who come to see Headwaters: Birth, Death and Places In-Between.  Jimbo and Cowboy’s misadventures are illustrated by shadow puppets, using a screen that looks like an extension of Lacy’s loom. 

Cowboy himself is a 3D puppet, with articulated limbs and a very expressive head – a conception brought to the text by playwright Jo Carson, and made real by Lynn Jeffries.  Alainey Penn, who’s playing the voice of Cowboy, has become an adept puppeteer who’s very funny.  This is one of the delights of producing a community story performance: Alainey wasn’t real sure about this stuff last year when her stepfather Mike Fisher asked her to make Headwaters :: Stories From A Goodly Portion Of Beautiful Northeast Georgia her summer activity with the family.  This year, she’s one of the leading lights in the cast – knew her lines after the first week, and quickly grasped how to be a voice and manipulate a horse’s head simultaneously.

We continue to work on music and movement, acting and reacting, even as we add technical elements that will make the production look, frankly, sumptuous.  Tonight we have our first technical run-through, and the performers  will learn how the show feels under stage lights – another thing to get used to.  Headwaters performers are asked to learn a lot as they go, and they’re wonderfully willing.

Here’s a short excerpt from the play’s opening song, just to offer a taste of where the music and movement are going:

Here’s a moment from Elise teaching the company one of the songs:

Here’s another moment, from the end of the rehearsal, where Elise had people who had never sung together before making harmony:

Friday night, May 29, Music Director Walter Daves and Vocal Director Barbara Luhn worked with the full company to master the songs in the show, some of which have been written especially for this world premiere production of Headwaters.  Easy and fun songs like "Dooley" (which you may remember from the Andy Griffith Show) and the gospel song "Ezekial Saw the Wheel" are joined by a challenging number from the shape note hymnal, "Idumea," and two original songs by Lisa Mount – "My Mama Told Me" and "Ain’t No Place."  

Director Gerard (Jerry) Stropnicky has been working with the cast to create characters, learn how to interpret the wonderful words written for them by Jo Carson and Jerry Grillo, and how to present the stories they tell and act out in the most engaging way possible.  Scene rehearsals began with readings  around a table, and have now progressed to working on the stage and moving through the design created by Lynn Jeffries.

From June 3 to 7 choreographer Celeste Miller worked with the cast to create movement designs for the opening of the show, the closing of the first act, and the top of act two.  Celeste took the gestures that the cast created with Elise Witt when learning "Ain’t No Place" and incorporated them into a much larger palette of movements, involving the whole company in illustrating the notion that this place, our goodly portion of beautiful northeast Georgia, is a place that’s like no other.

On Sunday June 7, Tommy Deadwyler organized a marvelous group of professional and avocational carpenters who descended on the historic gymnasium and built the platforms for the set in nearly record time. Jerry Stropnicky described it as something akin to a ballet, where people who had worked together for a very long time knew exactly how to move in sync to get things done quickly and well.

We are now deep in rehearsals – Jerry is staging work, the cast is getting off-book, people are learning the music and remembering the movements that accompany them.  We’re preparing for a sneak preview during the SummerFest kick-off Lawn Party on Saturday, June 13, where the cast will sing "Ain’t No Place" and "Dooley" and Kathy Blandin will perform one of the "Ain’t From Around Here" monologues from the show – a taste of one of the ten stories this script follows through many twists and turns.

There’s much work yet to be done to prepare Headwaters for its opening on July 9 – designer Lynn Jeffries arrives on Monday June 15 to begin creating puppets and completing the set.  We’re all excited to see how she creates a puppet of the horse Cowboy, who confronts his former human companion Jim-bo in the redneck bar in Purgatory (appropriately called The Last Chance).

Stay tuned!

The list of who was here was  quite remarkable: director Jerry Stropnicky, designer Lynn Jeffries, playwrights Jo Carson and Jerry Grillo, movement designer Celeste Miller, lighting designer Jessica Coale, costume designer Jeannie Crawford, stage manager Jessi Evans, and, of course, the stalwart SNCA producing team – me (Lisa Mount), Tommy Deadwyler and Terri Edgar.  Jo Carson and her trusty companion Al Bentz drove down from Johnson City, TN on Friday afternoon.   Lynn arrived Friday night from Ashland, OR, where she’s working with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival on a new production of Don Quixote.  Jerry Stropnicky arrived Saturday morning fresh from a new community story play in Harlan, KY, his and Jo Carson’s second play for the "Higher Ground" project.  Saturday afternoon the work began in earnest, with a read-through of the script and discussion of what was working and what needed revision or re-envisioning.  We talked with Lynn about what might be portrayed by puppets – her design specialty, and a treat for the cast members who get to become puppeteers.  Those conversations continued right up until the 8 pm showtime for Cowboy Envy in concert at SNCA’s Center Theatre – a celebration of exquisite harmony and campy humor.  We hooted and hollered, and stood up to applaud Rodger French’s accordion solo of The William Tell Overture (Hi-ho Silver, away!).

On Sunday morning, we dug into the music for the show, and we now have a palette of songs to choose from as the play construction continues.  On Saturday we had done some serious editing and identified several places for re-writes; on Sunday, we confirmed those as we talked through each scene and what it (and the play overall) needed from the music we bring to the work.  We’re fortunate to have terrific musical resources in Sautee Nacoochee, and Walter Daves and Barbara Luhn have agreed to work together as conductor, with Walter constructing and directing the SNOrchestra and Barbara building a joyful noise of choral singing.

Sunday afternoon was the first company gathering: the great getting-to-know-you moment.  Jerry Stropnicky filled everyone in on the work that had been done to get to that moment, and asked everyone in the room to "check in" by introducing themselves and offering up why they were here -  answers ranged from  "because Courtney told me to" to "I did Headwaters the last two years, and it’s the most meaningful performance I’ve ever participated in" to "I want to find out more about this show, because I think I want to be a part of it."  We sang together – the original version of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," which will likely be the show’s closing number.  We moved together, under the direction of Celeste Miller, for whom dance is "movement aware of itself" – something everyone can (and does) do.  And we mapped ourselves, finding out who was where in the birth order, how old we all are, where people’s grandmothers had been born, and who had the strictest mother. 

During the discussion about relative parental strictness, Jerry Stropnicky solicited some pieces of motherly advice from the company, to make up some of the performance at the very top of the show.  Some priceless gems include:

• always tell the truth, just don’t always be telling it
• remember not to burn your bridges because you’re definitely turning back later
• you can write the letter but wait 24 hours before you send it
• be sure your sins will find you out
• don’t do two stupid things at one time

My mother has two pieces of advice she gives out regularly: "if it moves, wash it; if it doesn’t move, vacuum it" and "if money can fix it, it’s not a problem."  That last one usually gives people pause, but if you think about it, it’s true, except, of course, when you ain’t got no money.  But even then, it’s a useful way to think about things.  The real problems are things money can’t solve.  But I digress.

 Jerry Stropnicky, left, talks with the company members who "mapped" their place as only and first-born children.

We read and sang through the play, or what of it was suitable to be read (in other words, not needing major revisions) and what had been chosen for singing.  The company responded very strongly to the play – they saw how the many stories are woven together, they really liked the way it was funny and then serious and then funny again, and they were comfortable with the fact that the play dodges in and out of what might be called "reality."  Jo, in trying to write one of the stories in the play, decided she would use a framing device featuring The Fates, of Greek mythology, Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis. Their names aren’t as important as their archteypes: the spinner, who spins the thread of life; the weaver, who weaves us all together; and the cutter, who ends our lives (and, in the words of Marlon Geiger, gives us our "backstage pass to the universe").  The company members talked about who the fates are, in life and in this play, and how the stories we’re telling illustrate what they do.  And, then, there’s the title of the play: Birth, Death and Places In-Between.  (More names for the Fates, although Jo and I thought up the title before she had written that scene.)  

Sunday night was a final meeting among the out-of-town artists (Jo, Jerry Stropnicky, Lynn) and the local yokels (me, Terri, Tommy, Jerry Grillo) that was conducted over a sumptuous meal – the amazing culinary offerings of MK Wegmann.  Never let us forget how important food is as artistic and social glue; we all agreed to let MK practice her art any time she wants.  We talked through the play, talked more about the puppets, looked at the remarkable connections and interconnections in our lives, and made merry.  We also managed to talk through tech and production schedules, since this was the last time this group would be face-to-face before rehearsals begin at the end of May (and because we’re a bunch of indefatigable type-A personalities who have little separation between work and life – and that’s a good thing).

Monday morning Lynn, Jerry, Jerry, and I were interviewed by Candice Felice for the Community Life in Northeast Georgia program on WPPR 88.3 FM, which provided a lovely summing up of the weekend (the program will air in May).  Tommy took us on a tour of the Swanson Center at Piedmont College, which is a stunning facility for performance and communications.  Wow.  As we gathered in the parking lot for a final farewell, we all agreed that we’d done a lot of good, hard work over the weekend, that the play was stronger as a result, and that there was much more yet to do to make Headwaters: Birth, Death and Places In-Between flow freely by the time July 9 rolls around.

Stay tuned…

Making Headwaters begins every two years with a long process of gathering stories from all over Northeast Georgia.  People sit down in pairs or in groups with a tape recorder, letting questions like “how did your parents meet?” and “was there a time when you had an adventure in the woods?” open up rivers of stories..  People from White, Habersham, Rabun, Stephens, Banks, Hall, Union and Lumpkin counties have shared stories for Headwaters, and in the process have come to understand even better why they love where they live.

For the 2009 production, Headwaters: Birth, Death and Places In-Between, the story collectors asked for stories about families – both the biological kind, and the kind people create for themselves when they’re no longer connected to the folks they were born to.  Stories about births and about people who come back after death to help the living also emerged.  Stories about families on both sides of the law – moonshiners and revenuers – defy the common “good guys/bad guys” stereotypes.  Northeast Georgia is rich in stories, and Headwaters is a way to display our local wealth.

Two playwrights – Jo Carson and Jerry Grillo – go to work on the stories that are collected and translate them into monologues and scenes, seeking to find in each one a “passage” or transformation that is a journey of some kind for someone.  The key to dramatizing community stories is to find the way in which people are changed by the experience – whether they know it or not.  Jo Carson has written a book, Spider Speculations: A Physics and Biophysics of Storytelling, about how stories work in the human body, and how community story performance can change a place –  often by re-framing the story so that people see something they thought they knew in a whole new light.

As the stories begin to come together, the producers (Lisa Mount, Tommy Deadwyler, Terri Edgar) and director (Gerard Stropnicky) choose and commission music that helps to set the scene or tell the story.  Music is an essential part of mountain culture, whether it’s old-time pickin’ parties or jam bands at outdoor festivals.  

Headwaters is a collaboration among professional theater artists – producers, director, designers, playwrights, choreographer, music director – and local performers who may or may not have much theater experience, aided by an advisory group that has worked together for many years.  Part of what makes the experience of seeing Headwaters so unique is that the people onstage are acting out stories of people they know, of places they’ve been, of a community in which they live.  Another part of what makes the experience so satisfying is that the professional artists bring, collectively, hundreds of years of theater-making experience to the process.  So Headwaters is a genuinely relevant work of art: stories from and about a place, performed by people in and from that place, shaped by people who know how to make a show that’s more than just entertaining, because it has real meaning.

The local performers who are part of Headwaters do not “audition” for the show in the traditional way, where some actors are chosen and some are not.  Instead, Headwaters conducts “Talent Inventories” where the producers and director learn what skills and talents people have and decide how they might best be used.  In the words of Jo Carson, “who comes, is” – anyone with a willingness to commit to the six weeks of rehearsal and three weeks of performance is automatically a part of the show.

As the cast comes together, so does the script.  The text for the play is always shaped by the people who are in it.  For the first two years of Headwaters in 2007 and 2008, the show opened with a series of “I come from” statements, like “I come from a river that’s rocky and fast” and “I come from music rockin’ the barn.”  For Headwaters: Birth, Death and Places In-Between we’re likely to hear about people’s families.  These statements come from the cast as well as the playwrights, director and producers.  About three months before the full production premieres, the cast is assembled to read through the play – which always results in a few revisions, as the writers work to fit words into people’s mouths.

Headwaters isn’t just people onstage telling and acting out stories.  It takes place in an environment that is designed to help tell the story, and, for 2009, that design will be created by Lynn Jeffries, who has worked in communities all over the country on performances like Headwaters, as well as adaptations of classic plays – Romeo and Juliet in Port Gibson, Mississippi, for example, with a black Romeo and a white Juliet.  And the performers do more than speak and sing, they also move.  Movement for Headwaters is created by Celeste Miller, who describes dance as “movement aware of itself” and is an expert at creating choreography that comes from stories and experiences. Being in Headwaters is athletic and challenging, which makes seeing Headwaters engaging and thrilling.

It takes money to produce Headwaters, and the Sautee Nacoochee Community Association raises the funds each year to ensure that the professional artists get paid, that the sets get built and lights get hung, that there are posters and flyers and a web presence so that people know about the show.  Funding for Headwaters: Birth, Death and Places In-Between has come from the National Endowment for the Arts (your tax dollars at work), the Georgia Council for the Arts, and Alternate ROOTS through support from the Ford Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation.  Several generous individual donors have made gifts that round out the budget of approximately $55,000 in cash, with lots of in-kind donations as well.  

When rehearsals begin in late May, the process begins to speed up and take shape quickly.  Performers learn to move together, sing together, and create the world of the play in imaginative ways, all under the expert guidance of Gerard (Jerry) Stropnicky, who has more than 30 years of experience as a director, working with the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble in Pennsylvania (which he co-founded) as well as with several major community story plays – Swamp Gravy in Colquitt, GA and Higher Ground in Harlan, KY, for example.

Over the course of six weeks, the performers learn all manner of new skills, and create a self-reliant community – if something goes wrong, there’s almost always someone to cover it.  During the first year of Headwaters in 2007, two of the performers were volunteer firemen, which occasionally required impromptu understudies.  Those first responders also came in very handy when a piece of scenery fell and injured a young performer – no need to call 911, since 911 was right there, wearing bear costumes.

By the end of the rehearsal process, the Headwaters company has become a family – a functional family, with a job to do.  New friendships are born, boundaries of race and age and ability are crossed, because people have meaningful work that requires the concentration of all.  And it’s a unique activity – no one else can make Headwaters but the people who are in SNCA’s Historic Gymnasium throughout June and July of each year.

The key component of any production is the audience, and inviting them – you – to take part in the production begins long before rehearsals start.  Headwaters has a distinctive image, created by local artist Andy Slack with two vivid posters that depict life in these mountains.  Word of mouth, group sales, internet marketing, posters in shop windows, announcements in the SNCA newsletter, ads on the radio, and lots of coverage from local newspapers and magazines all combine to let folks know that Northeast Georgia’s very own community story performance is happening –  from July 9-26, 2009.

The performances are an experience in themselves.  Dinner is offered in the Center’s Community Hall before each show for an extremely reasonable price.  The Historic Gymnasium is transformed into a performance and exhibit venue, with seating surrounding the stage and photographic and video exhibits in the public areas.  

Some of the people who are in Headwaters do it for the applause.  Being beloved by 175 people is an intoxicating thing.  Others of the Headwaters company are in it because this place matters to them, and they have found a way to demonstrate that with their talents and gifts.  Still others are part of the production because of the community it builds – as rural people have always known, working side by side with folks is the best way to get to know them.  With all of these reasons operating onstage, Headwaters becomes more than just a show.  It is a collective process of observation and understanding, as we come to know the people and creatures of this particular place, through the stories we tell of one another.

Audience members find Headwaters a very moving experience – “I laughed and I cried” is heard after every performance.  The play contains “wow” moments of real beauty, and singing that truly lifts the spirit.  The performance style can take some getting used to – this isn’t television-slick, folks talk like they talk, and act like they act.  We all know we’re being told stories, so it’s not like a movie that absorbs you in its visual world; in Headwaters audiences are asked to use their imagination.  Together, performers and audience members create a shared image of a place they already know.  

When the production has run its course and the last performance is over, the set is “struck,” the seating dismantled, costumes and props stored, and the Historic Gymnasium returns to its all-purpose setting.  The company of performers and technicians and still more volunteers share a great big pot-luck meal, and go home for some well-deserved rest.  And planning for the next summer’s play begins.

Headwaters is a play that runs on a two-year cycle: a brand new script premiered in the summer of 2007, and was revised in the winter of 2008 and produced again, much improved, as part of SummerFest 2008.  The first production is an exuberant experience, the second production is sublime.  The second year gives the artists an opportunity to make good ideas really terrific.  The new Headwaters being created for the summer of 2009, sub-titled Birth, Death and Places In-Between, will be revised and refined for the summer of 2010.  

Headwaters is a performance, but more than that it is a team of people who want to work together to make something much larger than themselves about a place that matters.  Many of the professional artists know and trust one another through their long association with Alternate ROOTS, a membership organization for community-based artists in the South (co-founded by Jo Carson).  Many of the community performers and professional artists worked together on Center Theatre productions of Putting it Together and are the creators of the irreverent cabaret Late Night Off-Center.  Many of the local participants attend church together.  Nearly all have done something else with the Sautee Nacoochee Center at some point, but for some it was a return after many years away.

When the question is asked “How does Headwaters get made?” the answer is clear: an act of collective will.

The production journal will offer a behind-the-scenes look at what Headwaters is all about for 2009 (as well as history on how we made the show in 2008 and 2007).  Bookmark this spot and come back regularly for updates on who’s in the show, what it’s about, and how it’s all coming together.  And mark your calendar to see Headwaters in person: July 9-26, 2009 in the Historic Gymnasium at the Sautee Nacoochee Center.

Roger Williams and Jerry Grillo as the Bears in Headwaters 2008