Quick Trip North

     Early in April I applied to participate in the 24-hour theater festival sponsored by WAM Theater in Pittsfield and the Mop and Bucket Improv Group from the Capital District.  I was fortunate enough to be among the 20 or so actors selected for the event.  I drove up to Averill Park from Durham a few days before the event.  It was a gorgeous Spring day, and I came up the "back" way, I-81.  This route is always about an hour longer than using the I-95 corridor, but it is certainly more scenic and less hectic.
     The festival, which was originally planned to be held at the GE Theater at Proctors in Schenectady, had to be moved to Schenectady High School.  Located at that facility is the John Sayles Theater, which is a large "black box".

     The event started Friday night with a "meet and greet".  Several of my theater friends were also selected and it was great to see them.  The whole procedure is really interesting.  Here's how it worked.  When we arrived we put our names in a hat.  All the actors put their names in an actor's hat, the directors in a director's hat, the stage managers in the stage manager's hat, all the assistant stage managers  in the . . . well you get the picture.  The tricky part is that there were also 5 authors present.  The author's went first picking names out of the director's hat.  The authors also picked out of a hat that contained the numbers 3, 4, or 5.  These figures represented the number of characters that had to be in the play the author would be writing.

'     My name was pulled to participate in a play to be written by Kat Koppett and directed by Michael Burns(they are the co-founders of Mop and Bucket and just happened to be married - luck of the draw). Our play called for 4 characters, and I was joined by Brendan Cataldo, Dana Harrison, and Jacinthe Connor.  We were all interviewed by the playwright.  We discussed a bit about our backgrounds, characters we would like to play, and interests.  We then went home.
     By the time we returned at 9 AM Saturday, Kat had written a beautiful 20 minute play.  Using a physical similarity between Brendan and I(height, weight, and glasses), she crafted a story that was part "Its a Wonderful Life" and part "Topper". It used some of the information we had provided as part of the interview process. It was a creative piece of work that I found very moving.  Fortunately, we were able to use our scripts in the performance(although  Dana, Brendan, and for the most part Jacinthe were "off book".  I just didn't trust myself and I felt the material was good enough that it should be presented as written not paraphrased.  Anyway, many thanks to Rachel McEnany, assistant director, for words of encouragement when I got down on myself.
      My fellow actors were tremendous and really did great work.  It was a pleasure to have met and worked with them. The whole process was extraordinary - kudos to all involved.  A slideshow of the process can be seen at http://bigez.smugmug.com/Events/24-Hour-Theater-Project/29497847_NBK4V4#!i=2520692287&k=kxhPXgR
     While I was up North David and I played a little golf and picked-up a canoe given to us by our friends Chase and Mac.  Chase and Mac are in the process of selling their home in Hillsdale and when David and I went down to pick up the canoe their flowering tress were glorious.