by Andrew Cuk
6 December 2011
Tomorrow night we open.
First night that my anxiety woke me up at three in the morning. What was I thinking? A devised theatre piece based on Macbeth with a group of third year acting, design and technical students in the Professional Theatre program at John Abbott College. Am I crazy? I’ll have three weeks to improv and devise a 90-minute non-linear script, but most of the decisions about cast and production must be made by the beginning of the school term in August. Whose idea was this? Oh yeah, mine. Good thinking, Andy.
The night before my first meeting with the set and costume designer. No script. My colleagues tease me by asking how’s the script going. There is no script. It’s a “devised” piece. It will be written with the actors. The student designers are worried. No script. How can they design a set and costumes for 21 actors with no script? They will hang on every word I say. They want me to have all the answers. I don’t have all the answers. No script. Still waking up almost every night in a panic.
Set and costume design presentation and the first day of rehearsal. We have a set design and maquette. Costume renditions for 33 characters and 12 theatrical masks. A preliminary props list. Three songs written by Montreal composer Janet Warrington. And a structure of 13 scenes. How appropriate for a play entitled Three Witches...13. No script.
