On the Dark Side of Twilight: Workshop Players

Ten years ago, Great Lakes Theater produced my first outreach tour "On the Dark Side of Twilight."

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Mistakes were made.

May I begin by saying our hosts at Workshop Players were stunning fabulous, resourceful, helpful and, might I add, cheery? This was a first-time venue, the GLTF outreach tour had never stopped here before. An old, small schoolhouse, converted into a state-of-the-art community theater-in-the-round in Amherst, with a staff on hand to help us load in, set up and load out, and they made us delicious, hot soup!

Honestly, this one hundred seat theater has the cleanest, best appointed green room I have ever seen. And because it's downstairs, they have these cameras to keep an eye on the stage. For our purposes, tonight, however, we lost a bank of seats to make room for our set. Even so, there was not much room, and setting up and performing was a bit of scramble.

We also had a deeper, narrower stage with people on three sides, which made blocking a challenge. Some of the words coming out of our mouths were a challenge, too. I do not know what shook me at the outset but I kept bobbling words in a manner I was not used to. But the response from the full house of ninety (yes! another full house!) made it emotionally possible for me to shamelessly chew the scenery during The Interview.

A prop was misplaced ... something was said twice ... but we didn't break any furniture (that happened yesterday) and really, considering the sheer weight of costumes, props, sound cues, blood and fog, I think we are managing things pretty well. It helps when we get soup.

Emily pointed out to me that almost the entire back row was filled with teenage girls, with long, straight, black hair. Sad girl win!