thirteen ways

We headed to Richmond VA last week with quite an entourage.

For our third intensive session of The Only Moving Thing preparation (you can read about and see excerpts from parts 1 and 2 here and here) we welcomed Assistant Director Mark DeChiazza (replacing Susan Marshall, who couldn’t attend), Lighting Designer Matt Land, and Costume Designer Mary Kokie McNaugher. Our Stage Manager, Barbara Whitney, was stuck in a hellish snowstorm in Chicago, a victim of one of hundreds of canceled flights at Ohare airport.

This was the week where The Only Moving Thing began to feel like a “show”, and by the end, everyone was beginning to feel (very) quietly confident about it. The curtain goes up on TOMT in five weeks.

Mark, who is on staff as a dancer at the Met Opera, worked with us in a way that perfectly complimented our time with Susan Marshall, not surprising given his 15-year association with Susan’s company. During our two sessions with Susan we worked in broad brush strokes: fleshing out vague concepts and penciling in dramatic and theatrical arcs. Mark took us into much greater detail, putting each moment under the microscope, honing the nature and specifics of our movement, but always carrying on Susan’s interest in “task oriented movement” as opposed to artificial “acting”.

U of R’s own fabulous Matt Land spent the week working out two functional lighting plots for the show (and giving the Alb guitar lessons; see YouTube clip below). The Only Moving Thing will be performed in concert as well as theatrical spaces, so it is essential for us to have an effective lighting plot for each.

Mary traveled from New York to try to make us look casual but stylish, classical but with a bit of rock. Basically she had the unenviable task of trying to make us look hot.

Our second “public” showing during this workshop time was a University of Richmond “Rep Class”. 8bb typically plays in this class whenever we are in town, and we usually get a few questions and comments, but this time they were called upon to be a critical “public”. They didn’t disappoint, and brought up a number of very interesting suggestions

There was a lot of sitting around. I have written before of my difficulty adjusting to the difference between the no-nonsense (”ruthless”?), learn-the-bloody-music, creativity-free-zone efficiency of the classical music world, and the slow, tedious, demanding, learn-it-on-the-fly realm of theater. Folks in the opera world get used to this early on, but it is a way of working that instrumentalists rarely encounter. Many times last week I wondered, sometimes out loud, “Did I join a chamber music group or a circus?”

Also contributing to my frustration was the fact that we were still very much “on book”; with all of the touring and residency work since the beginning of January, there just hadn’t been sufficient time to devote to memorization work.

Below, Mark looking very lonely in the orchestra seats of Camp Concert Hall.

The final run-through was videotaped. We were happy with the theatrical result, but the scrappy musical product prompted the Duv to issue this threat: “If that video ever turns up on YouTube, someone is gonna wake up dead. I’m looking at you, Munro.”

Below, l to r: the Phot, Mary, the Kap, Mark, the Alb, the Mac, the Duv.

Below, excerpts from rehearsals: 1. Mark gives the Phot a harmonica lessons; 2. Matt Land gives the Alb a guitar lesson; 3. The Alb piles the Mac up with metal objects…