Friday, August 31, 2007
Portable Theater (Just Go With the Flow)
New York Times: "UNDER a full moon on Tuesday night, in a little-known corner of Staten Island, the Mabou Mines theater company was afloat, rehearsing its latest work. Jutting from Pier 7 1/2, a 90-foot barge, built up with several stories of scaffolding and filled with actors, musicians, costumes and props, bobbed gently in New York Harbor."
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6 comments:
Wow, it seems a quite interesting show and worth watching for audience. Outdoor performance is always like a challenge and bet. The weather is first biggest issue. Then the power, the distance of cabling, safety, the wind (if wirless mic used) and power permit…etc. And don’t forget “water” and “bathroom”. While the director and the producer are seeing a site, they seemed to forget the production manager and the tech director accompanying them. School of Drama will be doing “Comedia” this year. It will be a good experience for all. Expecting…
It's amazing how any project, no matter how big or small and no matter how thoroughly you to to anticipate and plan, can be affected by problems that you would never even have imagined. It's always frustrating as an artist, especially when you're on a schedule, how an idea can be completely changed by physical constraints and the will of nature and physics. But not only do I think this story is a good reminder of the realities of creating, I think it's also really inspiring. Knowing that a such a big vision can be achieved despite setbacks makes me feel a lot better about the work I'm doing and my ability to complete my own small projects.
This looks absolutely incredible. What an exciting challenge to deal with. Even just looking at the picture is amazing. What a beautiful landscape for a production. In an enclosed space you would spend so much time and money trying to get your background or feel to be even 1/10th of this - but with a lot more money and work, you get something that is 10 times what you could have ever created yourself. And if this production is as good as it seems - the time, money and effort is certainly worth it. Even starting with such an incredible landscape, it still leaves designers with a lot of exciting options of what to do. I'd be really interested in seeing all of the specs and specific technical information involved in mounting this. Because obviously there are limitations if your out in the water, but hey, some sacrifices are necessary.
The whole time I was reading, I couldn't stop thinking about Commedia. For outdoor projects like this, there's more problems that affects so greatly the indoor projects don't have to even think about. The interaction between the audience and the actors are far more greater if it's outdoor without the sound and the lighting. Location is also really important, as we know in the article. And it is much easier to just walk out in the middle of the show if you're in outdoor than indoor. I guess it all depends on how the design and the storytelling delievers most effectively to the audience.
That is quite the undertaking right there. Just thinking about the extra amounts of coordination with various government agencies while trying to keep a show running at the same time makes my head hurt a little. I'm somewhat amazed that they were able to pull this off in only a year as getting all the permission and equipment together in that time seems nearly impossible.
It�s a fun challenge to do theatre in rep. Having to set up the show before every performance and strike the show after every performance is challenging to do on schedule. Adding to that challenge by making the show in different locations with different issues to worry about makes it sound all the more fun. Though we are not going to have the pleasure of dealing with a show on water, I�m looking forward to dealing with the problems of a Traveling show.
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