Reviving WOODY GUTHRIE

Right after we closed Woody Guthrie's American Song back in January of 2007, there were more than a few requests, both from the cast and from enthusiastic audience members, to take the show on the road.

For various reasons, that didn't work out...until now.

Last fall, as I started working on this season, the idea of performing at Middlebury's newly renovated Town Hall Theater came up. We had been invited to bring one of our shows there, and all of a sudden, Woody Guthrie seemed like the perfect choice. I called the cast, and everyone agreed that remounting the show in July seemed like a good idea.

Having the original cast would make this a relatively easy project. We'd get everybody together a few times to review the music (it had been a year and a half, but everyone involved is an accomplished musician, so they figured they'd pick it up fairly quickly), and then we'd spend a couple of weeks re-working the blocking. That should be plenty of time.

As long as we had the original cast.

However, by the time we were about to start rehearsal, we had to replace three cast members. Other work obligations, an unexpected move out of state and a new baby all got in the way of their doing the show. Now I wasn't doing a revival of the show, but more of a hybrid: a re-mount for four cast members, and an entirely new production for the other three.

We did a few preliminary music rehearsals to get two of the new guys up to speed, but the third new cast member was coming from New York and couldn't arrive until the actual 2-week rehearsal period started, on July 6^th.

So on that Monday, about 10 days ago, I started putting together a show that I remembered from a year and a half ago, but that was going to be quite different in many respects.

The re-staging has been the biggest challenge. FlynnSpace calls for a very specific type of blocking. With audience on three sides (almost 4, in the case of this show), the actors have to keep moving, and they are often facing each other, so that if one actor's back is to the audience, the actor they are speaking to is facing the audience.

Town Hall Theatre has a proscenium stage, and it's really big. In order to capture some of the intimacy of FlynnSpace, we decided to move the set as close as possible to the audience. That helps with the intimacy, but it makes for a shallow stage.

That means that in addition to all the actors facing in one direction (towards the audience) most of the time, they're also moving right to left, without much room for forwards and backwards. It's felt like I've had to switch from directing in three dimensions to only two. It's not necessarily a worse way to work, but it's been very disorienting, and I keep finding that I've got the actors all lined up in a straight line, and so I go back and find ways to add variety to the staging.

There's also the issue of many of us having the old production still in our memory, so that every now and then, as we get to a place where I'm stuck, someone will say, "Well, when we did it last time..." Sometimes that's helpful, but for the most part, we have to find new ways to meet these new challenges.

My memory gets in the way when it comes to performances, as well. I have very fond memories of what the actors did last time, and I have to be careful that I don't ask the new actors to re-create those old performances. For one thing, it wouldn't be fair to them as creative artists, and for another, it would just be impossible. They're different people, with different skills. When I remember to let go of my pre-conceived notions, it's been wonderful to see the new flavors they bring to their roles.

So, here we are, four days from moving to Middlebury, and a week from opening. It's all starting to come together very nicely, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all looks in this new theatre. I'll have more to report next week.

July 16th, 2009