Jess wrote last week about our plans for the Mid-North Association’s annual Summerfest. If you’re just joining us, we commissioned local playwrighting geniuses and Friends of New Leaf Bilal Dardai and Jon Steinhagen to each write a short play based on memoir texts generated by long-time Lincoln Park residents.
The two plays could not have been more different: Jon’s ”The Mailman Knows Who Shovels” follows Jean and Gene through 50 years of marriage and life in the neighborhood in the space of 15 minutes. Bilal’s “Reading Habits of the Drowned Novelist” involves a time machine in a linen closet, a love triangle, and a reference to Occam’s Razor. Strangely enough, both plays included a mention of a haunting message on a headstone — “As you are, I once was. As I am, you will one day be.”
So as we wrap up our 2008-2009 season, closing the books for the fiscal year, gearing up for 2009-2010, I got to thinking about the cycles and patterns that repeat over the course of a production, a season, a lifetime.
One of the great joys of a small-scale event like Summerfest is that we get to experience the whole life-cycle of a play in a single day. 10 am – Readthrough. Encountering the text out loud for the first time. 10:30 – Blocking, tablework. Walking in the world of the play. 11 am - Run-through! Can we remember our blocking, even though it’s written down in the scripts we’re still holding? Meanwhile, Nick is watching and listening, creating sound effects and music cues, so we’re ready for 11:30 am – TECH! After lunch, it’s 1 pm – Opening! Some nerves, some moments feel rushed. 2:30 pm – Closing! I have finally relaxed in to the role. I can enjoy the words, the story, savoring the moments because I know this is my last time with the play.
In my role as Business Manger, this is the week I get to tie up all the loose ends from the season. I have ONE more check to write, one more report to print, and then we can put this season to bed. And as we keep moving forward on plans for next season, it’s interesting to think than in one short year, I’ll be putting that season to bed, too. The plays we we will soon announce will have been designed, cast, rehearsed, teched, marketed, opened, experienced, and closed. As next season is, this season once was, and as this season is, next season will one day be.
Raise your hand if you’re humming “to everything, turn, turn, turn” right about now. Anyone? Ok. How many are singing the opening of “Corner of the Sky” from Pippin? Uh-huh. And that song from Rent? Well, if you weren’t before, you probably are now. You’re welcome.
