Post Auditions Production Meeting

Rushed back to the house at 4 pm, baked pear tarts and cooked bolognaise sauce – feeding the creatives tonight, 6 pm.

Thank God Staycee arrived early – put her to work in the kitchen while I jumped in the shower and Nicholas ran for more supplies.

Greg Clarke presented a white card model of the set – first iteration: brilliant, stylised, physical landscape – constructed of flooring timber – rakes and levels, some of them backed by upright vertical planks, creating phalanxes of tree “trunks” through which the actors will move.

“An opera of a set,” he called it. Damned straight.

Chris Tollefson, our lighting designer, responded with talk about shadows, about palettes of light, the idea of uplighting through the floorboards when we entered the ‘alternate’ world of Quin’s interior monologues – his direct address to the audience.

Krista Berga (sculptor and corpse creator) loved the set, LOVED it - and thought that Mary, Corpse Mary as she was called, should be made of the same material as the world, perhaps. As a corpse, this entity had returned to the earth, the physical – on stage it should be made of the same material as the physical environment which these characters inhabited.

Great energy in the room. Staycee took notes:

• Elaine to continue working on the rehearsal draft; liaise with Powerhouse on rehearsal space; run point of contact with !Metro Arts for Tolli (Chris Tollefson, our lighting designer), keep !Metro Arts abreast of production developments and liaise with Robert on possible use of their tech intern;
• Greg to proceed with design, in concert with director;
• Greg and Krista to liaise with Nicholas on timber yard visits;
• Nicholas and Elaine – to continue developing marketing collateral;
• Staycee to begin production lists, props, etc.