Wild but true - after nearly two years of exploration and development followed by six swift weeks of rehearsal, Early Morning Song premieres next Friday, October 14. Click here to purchase tickets right now!
It is strange to work on a piece of theater for so long, yet ultimately have it come together so quickly. If you pore back through this blog, you can see the long slow percolation of this project’s genesis and evolution; but the casting, rehearsal, design, and promotion process has felt so amazingly quick in comparison. It is surreal and exciting to see it all rapidly coming together now.
After our intensive kick-off workshop at The Playwrights’ Center and the first few weeks of rehearsal, I stepped out of the process for a few weeks for some travel to Boston and Maine. It felt strange to be away; and yet we had reached the point where the script was ready to go - plus I really had to stop changing it, so that the performers could have time to learn their lines. Having performed my own language (which tends to include a lot of repetition, density, layering, and sometimes rather counter-intuitive logic) in recent years, I was well aware that the memorization process for this project would be much more difficult and take more time than, say, the average living room play. And of course, once you add an intricate movement score under the language - not to mention sound, costumes, and lights - that turns into some serious multitasking.
So I allowed myself to peel away for a little while.
Of course, “peeling away” doesn’t actually mean disengaging with the work. My time away involved a number of long walks through forests, carrying our play in my pockets. I thought about Emily Mendelsohn’s recent writings on performance, climate change, and practicing an ecological way of seeing through complexity, corporality, contingency, and collective action - so eloquently articulating impulses in my recent writings that I’ve never quite been able to name. I talked with Emily and other artists who met up with us in Maine about listening and patience, about sinking into the long view that trees invite us to take, about the important roles that expansive approaches to theater can play in this practice.
Coming back to Minneapolis on Monday was a bit of a jolt; the city and my growing to-do list felt so loud. And yet, as I watched rehearsal last night, I was surprised to recognize the feeling of the forest, the contemplative space of it, seeping through the DNA of the piece. Somehow, in a dark black box theater in the heart of the city, as six brilliant and hilarious performers sang and danced, stitched scenes together, wrestled hard with unruly lines, searched for their specificity of focus - somehow, unexpectedly, the vast presence of the forest became visceral in that space. I can’t totally explain it, but I found it super exhilarating - a reminder of the worlds and possibilities we can carve out together.
By the way, have I mentioned lately this show also references punk rock, cheerleading, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead, among a lot of other things?
I hope you’ll come experience it all for yourself, and tell us where it takes you. As I’ve indicated before, there’s definitely no one singular way to receive or interpret this play. While it speaks its own very particular language, we imagine different people will have very different experiences based on the perspectives, associations, and projections they bring into the space - which is a phenomenon I love, as it always makes for fascinating conversation later!
To further whet your appetite, here a few more bits and pieces to explore in the coming week:
Lately I keep sitting with these recent collages by Linden Eller (a dear old friend and former housemate), which feel rooted to the piece for me. If you check them out, be sure to click on images to view them individually - each one is so very intricate.
I listened to this podcast with Emily and Theo up in Maine on the heels of the first presidential debate. It not only helped temper our frustrations, but also includes some excellent conversation about fear and the dire importance of exercising imagination: Beating Trump for Good: Love, Imagination, Empathy with Jeff Chang, David Kyuman Kim, and Rebecca Solnit
This TED talk, “The Anthropocene” by Will Steffen, was recommended by Sarah and serves as an excellent introduction to the proposed new geological age in which we’re living.
While pulling up that talk, I remembered another really good and relevant one by a scientist (who, incidentally, is quoted in the play): “How trees talk to each other” by Suzanne Simard
Finally, do purchase your tickets in advance, ok?! With only three weekends of performances, it’s gonna fly by fast...
Images:
1 - Dolo McComb in rehearsal (photo by Matthew Benyo)
2 - Miriam Must, Jen Scott, Kimberly Lesik, Dolo McComb, and Sarah Parker running lines in rehearsal
3 - One of my favorite forest paths, in New Portland, Maine
4 - Kimberly Lesik in rehearsal (photo courtesy of Red Eye)
Humans pushed into 'danger zone' by breaching 4 planetary boundaries: Study
Humans pushed into ‘danger zone’ by breaching 4 planetary boundaries: Study
HONG KONG: Human activity has affected half of the processes crucial to planet stability, posing a risk to current and future societies, says new research. At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings.
The paper contends that we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries.” They are the extinction rate;…
Estudo climático coloca a humanidade em "zona de perigo"
Fonte: Terra
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As mudanças no clima e o alto número de animais e plantas em extinção estão empurrado a Terra a uma “zona de perigo” para a humanidade. Esta é a conclusão de um estudo científico feito por 18 especialistas internacionais, grupo liderado por Will Steffen da Australian National University, que acaba de ser publicado no renomado jornal Science.
