Director's cut: 'Our Town'
Guest director Candace Taylor talks about her experiences putting together "Our Town" at Naperville's North Central College:
Week 1
As I drive to Naperville from Chicago, I am nervous and excited - appropriate emotions, I suppose, for the start of rehearsals and the unfamiliar route.
It is always strangely daunting for me to begin to work with a new group of students, though I have been teaching for a long time. The image of all of those eager, smiling faces looking to me for guidance, education and a little bit of fun tossed in with the work, still intimidates me somewhat.
The students enter, talking with one another, making jokes and settling into the circle of chairs to begin the first reading of "Our Town." I greet them, make a few introductions and we get down to the business of reading through the play from beginning to end.
Even on a first reading, I am impressed, not just by the students' ability and enthusiasm, but also, on hearing this play once again, by Thornton Wilder's amazing storytelling and vision. This is a very good play that remains relevant and moving.
Week 2
We break the play down into little bits to start. I hold individual meetings with each actor to get to know them a little and give them an idea about how to go to work on their characters physically, emotionally and vocally. We try out a faint New England dialect, we walk around to get an idea of characters' gaits and gestures, we liken people or actors we know to the roles they are playing to open our imaginations.
We laugh and work out a way to communicate and I give each of them homework. I have cut the number of actors from about 30 to 12 in order to give students with smaller parts more to work on. Some actors must play three or four roles and each character must be distinct.
Week 3
I am getting used to the drive as we move into smaller group rehearsals. This week the goal is to put the actors on stage and work out their paths across the stage, entrances and exits, and begin to form vital character relationships. I am delighted.
The students pick up suggestions from me and add ideas of their own in an attempt to create a fully rounded character that comes from them, not from some preconceived notion I have. This is my favorite part, and the joy of teaching. It always thrills me to see the unforeseen thing that is produced when creative minds get to work. I find myself being so moved in some places by these words and the young people speaking them that I forget to take notes.
Week 4
Now it really comes together. We combine the little bits to find an arc in the story, to find a through line, to add details and atmosphere. We spend long nights on each act and I am beginning to see a whole.
My simplification of the cast size includes the actors making live sound effects and changing the scenery themselves. The effect is one of a group of people coming together to create something simple and evocative of a community gathering; theater's version of an Amish barn raising. During one rehearsal of Act III, I am moved to tears.
Week 5
This week is the last before we go into technical rehearsals and give up our private club to join a larger one. Scenery, costumes and a whole crew of people will be introduced and put in their places in this production, both on the stage and off.
Thus, we must secure our hold on all of the parts in order to make sure we can communicate the story in a way that will last during the necessary distractions that come before an opening. We run the entire play every night, each with differing results. Too slow sometimes, too soft, too unfocused and finally, last night, just right.
I don't know what next week will bring when the technical elements arrive, but I do know I couldn't have done this play without the help and dedication of a very large group of generous people. The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.
Emily says in the play, "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it - every, every minute?"
This journal is my small attempt to "realize" my life while I live it.