A Beautiful Day Reflection in December

My goal is to write a reflection after every show to share on my blog. I hope that these posts can give a bit of insight into the theatrical process. As a creative who likes to work in areas that don't involve acting, or ‘behind the scenes’ as everyone calls it, much of this work is not fully understood. A month after the closing of A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes, here are my thoughts.

To my lovely company, thank you. It is not every day you get to work on a show with some of your best friends. I loved showing up every day to play and try new things with the people I love. The work that we did was incredibly silly and required us to be comfortable experimenting and making a fool of ourselves. I am proud of the loving space that we built and rebuilt over the course of rehearsals. To my designers, technicians, and stage management team, thank you endlessly. I loved seeing our vision come to life and I hope you are as proud of yourselves as I am of you.

I love physicality. I practice yoga, I like the gym, and I love to dance my heart out at parties. I have never merged my artistry and my physicality into one project. It was a challenge. I took it upon myself to participate fully - I am not above looking like an idiot in rehearsal. The first weeks were spent learning about Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints. We walked through invisible concrete, pretended we were seaweed, and painted portraits with imaginary paint seeping out our pores. It was weird. But it taught me how to express the feeling of a scene through unconventional movement, blow it up to three times its original size, and create a picture.

This was my second directorial position in university. I did not intend to become a director, but I am not surprised that I love it. The pieces coming together, seeing the bigger picture of it all - it is fascinating. I look forward to my next projects and cannot wait to keep telling stories from the director’s chair!