Production Week (aka Tons of Moving Parts)

It’s production week for The Weavers, and folks at On Cue Performance Hub asked me if I wanted to write a blog post each day describing what we’re doing or what I’ve learned. Sounds like fun to invite people on this journey, I thought, as I explore what it takes to produce a live theatre show. Hint: there are a lot of people involved, and there are tons of moving parts. I’m a playwright, but writing the script is the tip of the iceberg.

Today is Family Day in Saskatchewan, which prompted me to take stock of how far The Weavers company has come since the new year. (We’re not really related; we’re all just trying to put on the best show we can.) Back in January, we began our rehearsals over Zoom because of COVID concerns. You may have heard that Zoom meetings have their ups and downs. I only started talking while I was still muted 431 times! A personal best!

Anyway, the work continued. As the playwright, I paid close attention to feedback from the actors, the director, the stage manager, the dramaturg, the sound and light designer, and the costume and set designer. Somehow, I had not managed to write a perfectly stageable version of the play by this point. That was a shocker, haha.

People had many questions about the play’s content. What makes this character tick? Why does X event happen here? What does this sentence even mean? Can we cut this? Can we add that? Who are these characters? What do they wear? What will the set look like? There were many inconsistencies in the text of the play that needed to be combed through and corrected. That’s just a small sample of the issues we worked on. It’s a lot for a writer to process, but thankfully I always knew that company members had my back.

I wrote the final script at the end of January and we finally moved into a rehearsal facility – The Spot at the Southland Mall. Thank you, Jesse and Strathallen for this opportunity! Finally we got the play up on its feet and began to explore how the characters would move and interact in space. There was a lot of discussion and exploration. Interestingly, I got to stay in the rehearsal room for the entire time. Usually when a play goes to production, playwrights attend the first week of rehearsal and that’s it. This time I was able to witness the director-actor-stage manager dynamic in great detail. Let me tell you, those folks are good. They know a lot of stuff.

So what’s happening today? The actors are going over their lines on Zoom with the director – just because it’s easier, not because they have to. I’m at home trying to get the prop laptop to work properly. The screen isn’t lighting up when you open the lid; thank you, Windows Vista. Typically archival photos of the production are taken during rehearsal. I’ve reviewed the stage manager’s excellent list and added a few more. And there’s always a few more things to work on.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, February 22, will be a big day. We’re finally moving into the performance space. I’ll have more about this tomorrow!

“Thank you, Windows Vista”