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Senior theater critic Chris Rawson talks with Stuart Carden, associate artistic director of City Theatre, about his production of Mary’s Wedding, the intimate epic about love and loss, running at City through April 5.
To listen to the interview click here :
The scenic design created by Luke Cantarella to be built in our Lester Hamburg Studio Theatre features a wall of light-boxes covered in an abstracted image of sky and field. The light-boxes are illuminated from behind and can move to provide a wide range of backdrops for the play’s multiple locations. The play begins in an open field with two NTSB agents (plane crash investigators) exploring the aftermath of a crash. Soon the action moves to a bar, hotel room, and hospital. In the model below you can get a sense of how the light-boxes work to create a compelling backdrop for not only the exterior scenes but the interior ones as well.
Posted by Stuart Carden, Associate Artistic Director and Christine Pini, Artistic Assistant
Last week marked the beginning of rehearsals for Human Error. We were pleased to have playwright Keith Reddin join director Tracy Brigden and cast members Tasha Lawrence, Ray Anthony Thomas and Matt Walton in the rehearsal room. Costume Designer Ange Vesco and Resident Sound Engineer Liz Atkinson were also in attendence.
After Keith Reddin spoke about the genesis of the play, Ange Vesco touched on her ideas for the costumes and Tracy Brigden shared the model of Luke Cantarella’s set design. Rehearsal then began with a read-through of the play…we’re off to another great start!
Posted by Christine Pini, Artistic Assistant
I’m not an experienced blogger as evidenced by my extreme neglect of my blogging duties…but my inability to find the time to compile some thoughts more regularly throughout the rehearsal process is a great testament to the tremendous amount of attention this play requires! I knew the simplicity on the page was deceptive – but I didn’t know how deceptive. It’s one of the more complex shows I’ve worked on and demands a good deal of imagination, focus, and technical facility. There are only two actors on stage the whole time so just memorizing the lines is a job in and of itself!
It’s been an absolute blur of activity since we started rehearsal… as we’ve begun to pull the layers back on the show, the depth of the text continues to reveal itself in fantastically surprising and continually challenging ways. As we discover those new challenges, the magnitude of the amount of work involved (on all levels of the production) is daunting but invigorating. I couldn’t be more excited about the team of artists compiled by City Theatre for Mary’s Wedding…it’s an honor and a privilege to be counted amongst them. Every day at work is a joy…there is something so wonderful about this play that inspires very unique and individual responses…and everyone involved has a great passion for the telling of this story.
We’ve begun previews of the show – which means we’re rehearsing for about 5 hours during the day and then performing the show at night. Those rehearsals allow us to continue crafting the show to best fit into the space as well as add new technical layers of lighting, costumes and sound to flesh out the dream world we dwell in. We’ve been learning a great deal about the show as we’ve had our first audiences…and one of the things I’ve learned is that it is physically and mentally exhausting – in a good way!! It’s a nightly workout and I appreciate that from a show…It continues to grow nightly as we settle into the space and the technical elements combine with the work we did in the rehearsal hall…
This is a fun time for an actor…the whole things starts to come together and the technical elements that have been living only in your imagination throughout rehearsal are suddenly vibrantly alive in the space. Our designers and crew have done a fabulous job of complimenting the work we’ve done in rehearsals and – in many ways – elevating it to another level. I cannot rave enough about all of their work…
And I can’t wait to see how it’s received by people…I think we’ve got something really lovely on our hands and am excited to share it with City Theatre’s audiences!!
Here at City Theatre we are in the heart of technical rehearsals for Mary’s Wedding - this is when all of the technical elements of the performance get added to the hard work the actors have done in the rehearsal room. Director Stuart Carden and actors Braden Moran and Robin Abramson have moved into the theatre where they are joined by lighting designer Andrew Ostrowski, costume designer Susan Tsu and sound designer/composer Andre Pluess. Everyone is working hard to put the finishing touches on the play before the doors open to the public for previews.
(If you want to learn more about Andre Pluess and Susan Tsu, click on their links to the right under “Designers”)
Posted by Christine Pini, Artistic Assistant
The technical crew has been working tirelessly to build the set for Mary’s Wedding. They have made great progress as can be seen in the photos below, taken only a week apart. What began as a skeletal structure of platforms and ramps has been fleshed out with facing made of rough-hewn “barn” wood, a textured treatment on the floor that resembles cracked, dried mud, and the beginnings of the photographic paper sky being hung. With previews only days away, the pace and hard work will continue and Tony Ferrieri’s stunning set will be fully brought to life.
Posted by Christine Pini, Artistic Assistant
Early in the rehearsal process, director Stuart Carden and actors Robin Abramson and Braden Moran explored how to physically express several key moments in the play. In addition to generating ideas for the physical vocabulary for the production it also gave the actors and director the opportunity to explore the stage space. One of the exciting parts of this process was testing how the moments in the play that take place on horseback might be realized in a theatrical way on stage (there will be no live horses in this production!). You will find some snapshots of this part of the rehearsal process below. In addition, there are some great photos of the actors on a special horseback riding trip.
Posted by Christine Pini, Artistic Assistant
Last week was a busy one at City Theatre, with a workshop of our final show Speak American and our next mainstage show Mary’s Wedding vying for use of the rehearsal hall.
After initial introductions, the first rehearsal of Mary’s Wedding began with a presentation by set designer Tony Ferrieri, who shared his vision for the set with the aid of his color model (seen in earlier blog posts), pictures he used for inspiration, and plenty of grass harvested from around town.
Costume designer Susan Tsu was up next; she talked about her ideas for the two characters and passed around fabric samples and beautiful paintings she created to showcase her designs.
Lighting designer Andrew Ostrowski and Sound Designer/Composer Andre Pluess were finishing up other projects and could not join us for the first rehearsal, but we look forward to hearing from them soon to round out the design elements for the show.
Finally, we heard a few words from playwright Stephen Massicotte, who made a special trip to be with us for the beginning of the process. He gave unique insights into his experiences with past productions and a deeper understanding of the play. We all then sat down and the actors – for the first time together – read the play aloud.
We’re off to an exciting start!
Posted by Christine Pini, Artistic Assistant
Playwright/director Eric Simonson was in town last week for a workshop of his play Speak American which opens in May. Workshops are an important part of the play development process because they allow the playwright to hear his work read aloud so he can make any necessary changes. The two day workshop ended with a reading for staff members, who are all excited to watch this play’s journey from Page to Stage.
(not pictured: Chase Newell)
Posted by Christine Pini, Artistic Assistant
