Really?? I just got an email from the mom of one of my little Rat people. Her child injured her knee, can't put weight on it, is on crutches and will be having knee surgery 2 days after our little show. Her child plays "The Mayor" and is supposed to dance like a possessed rat when the Pied Piper plays his pipe...of course. It's sort of a key plot point. (sigh) My husband just laughed...Is it inappropriate to put her in a wheelchair? (period appropriate, of course!) The stage is literally too small for her to try and crutch around--and dangerous--the traffic patterns are 'iffy" at best. I'm waiting for a brilliant brainstorm. I will also have to reblock the Town council scenes so that she stays still and the TC moves around her....And forget having her enter from the house--she can't get up the stairs to the stage! As Winnie the Pooh says, "Oh, Bother!"
ANYWAY...I am doing a taped interview today as part of our promotion for our production of Les Mis (not Rats!) in April. I've done interviews with Kay before and it's always weird because it isn't aired until April--so you have to pretend that it's April. Ha! And as Stephen (my husband AND producer) reminded me, I have to be the play-by-play instead of the color commentator this time because he won't be there, i.e. Don't forget to mention the show dates, stupid!!...and other details like that! (Can you tell that we are in play-off season? It's all Boston, all the time in this house!)
In prepping, for this interview--I've realized once again how beautiful Cheri's set design is. We met initially over a year ago and set guidelines for what the set needed to do: 1) The story is vast, fluid, fast and changes location and time quickly, so our set needed to be fluid, dynamic and versatile. 2) Locations need to be using a minimum of physical pieces-same reasons. 3) The physical time and place is grimy, dark, stark and gritty. There is a texture and a tone to each scene. 4) Projected images instead of traditional backdrops add texture, depth and a sense of place that can't be duplicated or matched by physical set pieces, AND don't have to be built or moved 4) Because of all these ideas, the intersection and integration of set, lights and images is critically important--we need to not only work together, but create collaboratively. We met 4, 5, 6 times with Andy (lighting designer) and Tom (projection designer) Belinda (TD) Sean SM and Freda, my assistant and GROUND our way through every single scene and what I wanted the story to be doing at each point. After over a year of work, Cheri's end result is our language and our ideas, physicalized. It's breathtaking in it's purity and commitment to our original ideas about the story. It's like... the feelings and words in my head about Les Mis went into Cheri's brain and came out a design. Like a MIND MELD!! So awesome!!
As I start working with my choreographer, Jane and my assistant, Freda on designing the movement, my appreciation for this set design only increases. It gives us such a sense of place and space! Even working with our weird little Lego people on the model is a thrill!
I've added some links to your left. Some interesting articles about Law and Grace in Les Mis, as well as an eye-opening piece about "Play" in auditions. I've also put a link to our company webpage, so that you can see my character descriptions and audition "stuff". Enjoy!
To the Barricades!
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