Where we are after one year
Well, we’ve made it. Exactly one year ago, Kara, Doreen, Sian, Jennifer, Kay and I sat down in Sian’s teeny little apartment and decided to take a risk — to experiment with the longest development process I’ve ever engaged in and create an original performance based on the lives of Americans who were a part of the 19th century movement in literature, thought and religion called: The Newness. Newness for real!
As the work has developed, we’ve narrowed our source material down a bit from The Newness. We’re investigating the lives and loves of the Peabody sisters, three women whose contributions to American education, literature and women’s suffrage movement lasted nearly the whole of the 19th century. Along the way, we’ve mixed in an interest in some female icons from our own youth – Phyllis Diller, Frida Kahlo and the ubiquitous Brady sisters. It’s PEP’s collage approach to creating theatre! When we come back together to work in August, Our American Ann Sisters will continue to mix it up– developing moments of stand-up/sketch comedy routines and a smorgasbord of dance/ vocal musical numbers – a vaudeville extravaganza! Now if we just had a sword swallower to stir into the pot…
As for rehearsals, we’ll be on summer hiatus until the middle of August, but until then you can plot your very own strategy for infiltrating and influencing our process! We are encouraging, daring and soliciting any and all interested parties to help us write our script….Are we shameless or what?! Please check out the past blog entries for more information on participating. Or, if writing isn’t your bag, join us in the Fall for our Directors’ Roundtable or participate in our Performers Workshop. You could even find yourself onstage as a member of the Ann Sisters ensemble, so brush up your magic tricks! All of these community events are being offered FREE of CHARGE and are open to the general public. Contact company member Sian Richards (siancookie at gmail dot com) for more details or use this form.
It’s a funny thing I notice about creating theatre. No matter how short or long the process itself is, those moments in time that mark the end of one phase of work and the beginning of the next are always very clear. Right now, as we conclude a full year of development of material and source research, the playmaking gremlins that live in my head are screaming out for a script. And they’re pretty loud. So, help us please! Write something! If the assignments that we have posted don’t cry out to you, contact Jennifer and get yourself a different one…Only don’t tell her that I told you to.
Stay tuned…
Martha
