Everything You Need Is Already Around You

Per Janson has returned to Deer Isle for not only this year's Island Arts Camp, but also OHA's new Actor's Boot Camp for students 15-22 - a program born from informal gatherings between Per and the OHA interns last year. We asked Per about that process and what this summer holds. Here's what he had to say...

Last summer, while rehearsing and performing at the Opera House, I had the good fortune to work with interns Marvin Merritt, Callie Jacks, and Emma Grace Keenan on the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.  In our half-hour and then one-hour rehearsal sessions, we were frequently joined by other interns and members of the acting company for rehearsals and wide-ranging discussions about theatre and life.  They did beautiful work and asked great questions, and I found the experience immensely rewarding. 

This summer, OHA has kindly invited me to lead a more structured, intensive workshop that will include a larger number of students.  The Actors’ Boot Camp is modeled on a similar program that all incoming MFA theatre students take part in at Brown University/Trinity Rep, in which faculty members from various disciplines lead workshops with incoming students, and each of the workshop leaders suggests an “element” for students to incorporate in a collaborative, devised theatre piece later that day. 

I believe I am the only student to have gone through boot camp twice at Brown/Trinity, as I first came in as a PhD student and then transferred into the MFA program.  Both times, I found it daunting, exhilarating, humbling, fun, and simply one of the best experiences of my life.  During both of those weeks, I felt I was learning more quickly than I had in years.  I took part in workshops in physical theatre, acting, movement, playwriting, voice, directing, masks, Chekhov, and more.  My recently acquainted colleagues in the acting, directing, playwriting and PhD programs and I took elements such as "an impossible place," "a great fall," "a moment of wonder," and "a confession" and turned them into quickly-generated collaborative theatre pieces, using only what we had at hand.  Sometimes what we created didn't cohere.  Sometimes it astonished all present.  It was challenging, coming up against our own and each other's limitations and strengths, and hopes and fears, and truly inspiring to see what my colleagues were capable of creating out of thin air.

I am eager to share what I trust will be a similarly challenging and rewarding experience with students this summer, and we have an exciting lineup of workshops in store.  Our work will operate from the premise that everything you need is already around you--just listen, observe, collaborate, and create!  Get ready to surprise yourself, and be surprised by others.

Join us at OHA's Annual Public Meeting to see the culmination of Per and the Boot Campers' hard work, plus tomorrow night on the 2nd floor of Stonington Town Hall at 6 pm for an open rehearsal of The Glass Menagerie directed by Per. 

WHY must the show go on?

Let's be realistic: it's a TV channel, and not the National Weather Service, that gave this weekend's snowstorm the name "Nemo." Still, a couple of feet of snow, zero degree temperatures, and wind creating sculptural drifts is still pretty dramatic in its own right.

Under such conditions, it's reasonable to ask the Opera House: WHY do you persist? WHY must the show go on?!

"The show must go on" is an idiom, a well-known phrase in show business, meaning that "even in the presence of troubles or difficulties, the show must still continue for the waiting patrons."

On the flip side, for the theater itself, it also has to do with the reality of our professional contracts. Here at the Opera House, we are contracted with our actors and stage managers through this Sunday, February 10. After that, they move on to other contracted jobs and opportunities, most of them back in NYC, a few here in Maine.

This reflects a truth many don't realize about the theater: it's a job. The actors you see in this weekend's production of Last Gas by John Cariani, directed by Judith Jerome, make their living from pursuing the craft of acting. They study their craft in school, practice it every day, and pay their bills by working theater jobs such as this production. The performances they provide us, on the basis of honing their craft, are transformative: moving our hearts and transporting our minds and spirits into lives related to but different from our own.

Actors Equity, the union of professional actors and stage managers,
 cast members of Last Gas: at left, Richard Price as Guy;
at right, Katie Cunningham as Lurene. Photo by Karen Galella.

With the rise of the internet and the wonderful ability of more and more of us to participate in different areas of life virtually--as writers, film critics, photographers, filmmakers, and more--the line between amateurs--those who do something for the sheer love of it--and professionals has been blurred in interesting ways. The work of amateurs in all areas, including community theater, has special meaning and is vital to all of us. And the work of professionals--those who take the risk of making some of these areas which many of us love, be it playing basketball, painting, or acting, their careers--brings a different and special level of meaning to many of our experiences.

So on a weekend like this, when the challenges and risks of putting on a theatrical production are especially large, we can't just reschedule. Our professional cast moves on on Monday, and we can't reschedule! The show MUST go on! 

Catch a glimpse of the incredible craft this particular cast brings to our Maine island community in three final shows: tonight at 7, and tomorrow at 2 pm and 7 pm.

Forest for the Trees, Part 2

Today, we brought the forest in through the trees.

Too few people get to experience the wild creativity that happens BEHIND the scenes in a theater. With a Scenic Designer, Costume Designer, Technical Director, and tech crew all in residence building out the set and costumes for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” there are so many types of creativity buzzing around the Opera House it could make your head whirl. Today, another wet Wednesday, we fetched a large (15’) log from our woods, and had long discussions as to how to rig it to fly onto the set—as well as how to rig it to ride in on my pickup to the Opera House! Meanwhile, we also fetched and delivered a special type of sewing machine, since our costumer, Jennifer Paar, and her two excellent high school interns, Hannah Avis and Lily Felsenthal, are busy making horned helmets for our fairies; papier mache ass-heads for our “Asshead Ballet;” and minotaur tattoos for everyone. Don’t you wish YOU worked at a theater?! (Photo is from an early costume prototype from the production. Volunteers get to have all this fun, too, so email me if you want to spend some time with this creative whirlwind.)