Stratford, Prince Edward Island
Forgive me for not journaling sooner, but frankly, I needed to decompress! What a day Friday was! And I mean that in a very good way - I think it's safe to define the 9LoLMM workshop as a success!
The day started off with the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, for those who don't know) coming out to interview us for their evening newscast! Was I nervous? Sure - but how many times do you get to be on TV? As for the workshop itself, with so many details, there was a lot of places where things could have gone wrong. But very few did, and it looked and sounded great! The cast did a great job considering how little time they had to pull things together, and considering the many changes that took place as the rehearsals continued on. Let me just publicly thank The Confederation Centre of the Arts and everyone in our cast and everyone on the technical side of it for making all this happen!
I would have to say it was a full house. Only as the workshop started did it occur to me - sure, we find things funny or sad or whatever, but would the audience feel the same way? Especially with the dialogue? But it didn't really feel like anything fell flat - people laughed at things that were intended to be funny and seemed to get a lot of the Maud in-references. As for me, hearing words that I wrote up there, hearing an audience react to it...well, during An Epoch In My Life when Maud and Anne talk about "the realization of dreams pursued" and how "the power of imagination has changed our lives"...well, it felt like they were talking about me. It was quite the emotional moment!
We had a Q&A afterwards...that could easily have been the hardest part. There was no guarantee people were going to like it, understand it, approve of it - and here we had to go up on stage ourselves and field questions and comments in front of a room full of people. But the reaction was really very good. People really seemed to like it, and praised us for how accurate it is, and told us how important a piece it is and how much value it has. And of course, they loved Leo's music! So that was really a high as well. It was pretty surreal - made even more so by the fact that we hadn't gotten much of a chance to eat the whole day!
Then, thanks to our neighbours here in Stratford, we were able to see the CBC interview, which you will find below. Now, you may ask - what's next for 9LoLMM? Well, it's all going to come down to financing. I think we have a really good shot toward getting this on stage in time for the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables next summer. So, if you saw the workshop - or didn't but still believe in what we're trying to do - contact The Confederation Centre of the Arts and tell them you want to see The Nine Lives of Lucy Maud Montgomery playing there in 2008! After all, money might talk, but an audience shouts! And that makes you guys the most important part of the equation. Believe it!
We also were featured in Prince Edward Island's leading newspapers - The Guardian and The Journal-Pioneer - check out the new Press section for scans! 9LoLMM is on its way!
Oh - did I mention we were on TV? ;)
23 September 2007
14 September 2007
Stratford, Prince Edward Island
The rehearsals go on, with much adventure. It's become necessary to do a much more scaled down version of the show for the workshop. Plus, it's all confirmed that the show is still way too long. Not that I didn't realize that even after the last rewrite. It's just that getting the show to a length that's acceptable for everybody is now going to require structural changes. Up until now Leo and I have retained the structure, completely cutting out only a few scenes and just making lots of edits to the dialogue. I guess that was a good start. One thing I've realized in the past couple of days is that I do have a tendency to write a lot of exposition and state the obvious - God knows I did that in Undo the Deed. So, now armed with this knowledge, certain dialogue cuts are now presenting themselves quite easily, which of course is a good thing. How I'm going to ultimately fix some of the other problems, I don't know yet, and it's been a bit of a stressful time. I was always warned that the day would come where I'd have to "kill" my "baby", and that it would be painful. I'm going to look at it as growing pains!
Anyway, the workshop is next Friday and it's all been 24-7 for me this week. When we haven't been at the theatre, I've been here creating visuals for the rear projection screen we're going to have - captions, stills, video. It took a while to edit the footage Christopher got from the train in Saskatchewan last month into a useable 3-minute piece. Christopher documented his progress and I'm proud to feature him in this latest installment, which is a bit of a departure from our usual fare but no less interesting and important!
Leo had to go back to L.A. for a few days so I'm flying solo over here. I ran up to Cavendish again to film the sunset, and tomorrow I have to go back and get the sand dunes and other locales. The next video will have to do with...well...getting video! For now you'll just have to get on the train where Maud herself travelled in 1890 - it might even be the same track! Hey, we go for authenticity here!
The rehearsals go on, with much adventure. It's become necessary to do a much more scaled down version of the show for the workshop. Plus, it's all confirmed that the show is still way too long. Not that I didn't realize that even after the last rewrite. It's just that getting the show to a length that's acceptable for everybody is now going to require structural changes. Up until now Leo and I have retained the structure, completely cutting out only a few scenes and just making lots of edits to the dialogue. I guess that was a good start. One thing I've realized in the past couple of days is that I do have a tendency to write a lot of exposition and state the obvious - God knows I did that in Undo the Deed. So, now armed with this knowledge, certain dialogue cuts are now presenting themselves quite easily, which of course is a good thing. How I'm going to ultimately fix some of the other problems, I don't know yet, and it's been a bit of a stressful time. I was always warned that the day would come where I'd have to "kill" my "baby", and that it would be painful. I'm going to look at it as growing pains!
Anyway, the workshop is next Friday and it's all been 24-7 for me this week. When we haven't been at the theatre, I've been here creating visuals for the rear projection screen we're going to have - captions, stills, video. It took a while to edit the footage Christopher got from the train in Saskatchewan last month into a useable 3-minute piece. Christopher documented his progress and I'm proud to feature him in this latest installment, which is a bit of a departure from our usual fare but no less interesting and important!
Leo had to go back to L.A. for a few days so I'm flying solo over here. I ran up to Cavendish again to film the sunset, and tomorrow I have to go back and get the sand dunes and other locales. The next video will have to do with...well...getting video! For now you'll just have to get on the train where Maud herself travelled in 1890 - it might even be the same track! Hey, we go for authenticity here!
04 September 2007
Stratford, Prince Edward Island
OK, so I'm supposed to be shooting videos catching you up on all the latest. I've shot a little bit here and there, but it didn't really work out - and frankly, I've been too busy gearing up for the workshop! I've been kind of stuck in a bunch of administrative stuff, such as making song lists and prop lists and lists and lists and lists. Also, it took me almost three full days to cast the show using the Confederation Centre's theatre company. It was tricky because A) we've got so many bloomin' characters, and B) there's a split in the age groups of the performers, and many of our characters fall into that missing age group, so I had to get creative. Then, because each actor is playing more than one role (sometimes six!), I had to make sure I didn't double them over too close, else they not have time to switch from one character to another. Boring stuff like that. :)
Leo bought a HD video camera last month for the purpose of starting to shoot the video that will be up on the screen. In fact, getting back to documentary videos, my friend Christopher was the first one to actually use the camera when he got some very special footage that I'll let him tell you about when I get a moment to dub and edit that particular video. :) Anyway, it looks like we will actually have some sort of video up for the workshop, so on Sunday we went around and did some test shots in Cavendish and on the way to it. I don't know exactly how it's going to work out...but things are definitely moving forward.
"Tomorrow" (in quotes because it's after midnight as I write) we have a big day ahead of us - our first full day working with the cast. Leo will work with some of them on the music in one room, and the artistic director and I will start running lines with the actors in another room. I hope to start getting some video of that!
If I sound a little on the incoherent side, it's because I'm tired...I guess I should start getting ready for bed and rest up for this big day! I have to say, every once in a while it hits me - usually at the theatre - that "Wow, we're actually doing this!" I see the name of our show on their paperwork and it really sinks in. 9LoLMM is really starting to take on a life of its own now - and it will, even more so, after this week!
OK, so I'm supposed to be shooting videos catching you up on all the latest. I've shot a little bit here and there, but it didn't really work out - and frankly, I've been too busy gearing up for the workshop! I've been kind of stuck in a bunch of administrative stuff, such as making song lists and prop lists and lists and lists and lists. Also, it took me almost three full days to cast the show using the Confederation Centre's theatre company. It was tricky because A) we've got so many bloomin' characters, and B) there's a split in the age groups of the performers, and many of our characters fall into that missing age group, so I had to get creative. Then, because each actor is playing more than one role (sometimes six!), I had to make sure I didn't double them over too close, else they not have time to switch from one character to another. Boring stuff like that. :)
Leo bought a HD video camera last month for the purpose of starting to shoot the video that will be up on the screen. In fact, getting back to documentary videos, my friend Christopher was the first one to actually use the camera when he got some very special footage that I'll let him tell you about when I get a moment to dub and edit that particular video. :) Anyway, it looks like we will actually have some sort of video up for the workshop, so on Sunday we went around and did some test shots in Cavendish and on the way to it. I don't know exactly how it's going to work out...but things are definitely moving forward.
"Tomorrow" (in quotes because it's after midnight as I write) we have a big day ahead of us - our first full day working with the cast. Leo will work with some of them on the music in one room, and the artistic director and I will start running lines with the actors in another room. I hope to start getting some video of that!
If I sound a little on the incoherent side, it's because I'm tired...I guess I should start getting ready for bed and rest up for this big day! I have to say, every once in a while it hits me - usually at the theatre - that "Wow, we're actually doing this!" I see the name of our show on their paperwork and it really sinks in. 9LoLMM is really starting to take on a life of its own now - and it will, even more so, after this week!
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