The last two nights of rehearsals - Wednesday and Thursday - have gotten easier and easier.  Tonight was monologue night, and we have good ones, with performers who are eager to explore what this particular theatrical form offers.  We worked on critters and parts tonight - Raccoons and dogs that fetch dynamite and Gloria Brown’s fake foot.  (If you want to know what I’m talking about, you’ll just have to see the show.)

Last night, we worked on the very personal stories of the Grillo  family, and for this we employed the lively From family — all five of them.  At one point, in an archetypal community performance moment, James From had his toddler son on his back in an REI kid backpack, and his infant daughter in his arms, as he entered to fetch his 7 year old in a wheeled chair.  He handled it with great grace. 

We had a very good Story Team meeting on Wednesday, too.  These are the folks who have been advising on this project for the past year and a half, connecting us with resources, gathering and transcribing stories, providing food and housing.  The active members of the Story Team are Linda Erbele,  John Erbele, Joyce Etheridge, Jerry Grillo, Jim Johnston, Sue Murphy, Hamilton Schwartz, Joanne Steele, Hope Holloway, Sheri Kling, Wally Warren, and of course Tommy, Terri and me.  We’ve had other folks help out at specific moments, but these people are the core.  We spent time figuring out which river organizations to talk with about promoting the show and their good work at the same time.  And we came to an agreement about how to wrangle opening night. It’s a group that knows how to work together.

The last thing I’ll do tonight is revise the "I Come From" section of the show.  This is a piece of community story performance making that Jo Carson has kept consistent for many of the 30+ plays she’s written in this genre.  We hunt for interesting ways to describe a place or a state of being, and then preface it with "I come from…"  Some of the ones Jerry Grillo, Tommy and I selected last night (from a broad field of choices) include "I come from a farm family of Southern Baptists and Yellow Dog Democrats by way of a city that doesn’t like either one of them."  And "I come from doctors who made house calls and got paid in fresh produce."  And "I come from kids splashing in the creek, and music rockin’ the barn."  These will start the text of the play, following an opening song and a cascade of people down the waterfall of the gym’s bleachers.

Tomorrow (Friday) night, Celeste Miller returns to refine the movement she and the company created last week.  People were talking all week about letting children walk and roll down their backs last Friday night.  It will be great to have  (nearly) the whole company back together again. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 at 11:56 pm and is filed under Headwaters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.