Headwaters: Birth, Death and Places In-Between is well underway.  Rehearsals began on Wednesday, May 27 with a reading of the script, which caused changes from the playwrights almost immediately – nothing like hearing your words aloud to let you know what makes sense and what doesn’t.  The second night of rehearsals was a visit from a very special guest, singer-songwriter-teacher Elise Witt, who conducted a singing workshop with the company that helped people learn how to breathe and how to listen, as well as how to make beautiful music together.

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!

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Headwaters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.