And a little child...

/

Yesterday I was in charge of an artist workshop for Alchemy, specifically a costume/mask design/construction workshop for those who were interested in the March from the Dark Side.

The most interesting thing was not the adults who were there, but an 11-year-old boy whose dad brought him because he’s interested in crafts and costuming. We’ll call him Charlie for privacy’s sake.

I showed him the Wilder Mann book for reference and then offered him the materials I had at hand. He decided to make a mask out of an old Amazon shipping envelope.

We got out the sketch pad, and I suggested a design something like this:

Just one big eyeball, with horns.

Charlie and his dad began to work by locating his eyes and mouth and cutting those out. By the time I circled back around to them, Charlie had cut a piece of burlap to hot glue to the envelope. (Charlie was a dab hand at hot glue, his dad said.)

I took a sock we had in the supplies and cut the top off to make an elastic back to the mask. Charlie and his dad then cut that into two strips and hot glued them to the sides.

Charlie decided to go with two eyes instead of one big one, and he pointed out after I sketched them in that if we painted them onto the burlap, he wouldn’t be able to see. I re-sketched them lower, leaving the originals to become eyebrows.

He then painted in the whites, and decided the irises should be red. (Of course.)

While I was working with another person, Charlie took the remainder of the sock and cut slits into it, which I pointed out looked like feelers or octopus legs (like Cthulhu, although I refrained from mentioning the Elder One to the child). I cut another one for him, and he put those where the mask’s mouth should be.

Finally, I took two pieces of cardboard, did a little cutting/folding/gluing, and Charlie hot glued those on as ears, painting them a combo of red and white to match the eyes.

And here he is:

Isn’t that great?

It was great fun to watch Charlie do the whole ABORTIVE ATTEMPT > GESTALT > SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION process, something I didn’t have to teach him because it’s built into us if we don’t get it taught out of us in school or squeezed out of us by our fear of failure.

And kudos to Charlie’s dad, who had seen the workshop on Facebook and — because his son is into crafts and costuming — brought him to this thing and encouraged and helped him the entire time. The kicker: Charlie’s dad is not a burner and had no clue that this was part of something like Burning Man, of which he had only the vaguest sense of the recent mudbath in Black Rock City. I was completely charmed and impressed.

Midsummer: Now it can be told...

/

This weekend was performance weekend for Southern Arc Dance Company’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I have a summary for you.

We started back in January with a series of “interest” workshops, which turned into “how to do Shakespeare” workshops, which then just kept going as rehearsals. We accreted cast members as we went, not because they auditioned but because they were recruited.

Few of the cast had ever been in a play; only one had done Shakespeare before (Mike S., who played the Old Duke in As You Like It back in 2020). We rehearsed only twice a week (Thu night/Sat morning) because the dancers were already over-committed with their regular lessons.

So you might be astonished that what audiences saw Saturday night and Sunday afternoon was a lovely, charming, and generally well-acted bit of Shakespearean whimsy.

My staging was to be environmental/site-specific. For our performance at the McRitchie-Hollis House Museum, we would start out on the front lawn with a cocktail party for Duke Theseus and Hippolyta. The Rude Mechanicals would be hired as waitstaff to serve drinks. Audience members would mingle with the young lovers and the court, chatting and learning all the gossip about who loves whom. Peter Quince would show his new script (Pyramus & Thisbe) to anyone who would listen.

We’d start with Theseus telling his party planner Philostrate to go find entertainment for the wedding night — which Bottom realizes is their big break, so he shoves his tray into the hands of the nearest audience member and rounds up all the Mechanicals.

The lovers finish their bit, and the Mechanicals gather to cast their play. As they finish, from behind the museum comes a flock of small fairies bearing glowing orbs — they entice the audience to follow them around the museum to the garden in the back, where we perform the rest of the play, finally sitting for Act V and the performance of Pyramus & Thisbe.

Fun, right?

Our first runthrough at the museum was Tuesday night, and it was immediately clear that the traffic noise from the two major streets was too much. (Thank you, big-ass pickup trucks and motorcycles.) So we ditched the front yard/fairy parade.

Next to go was the audience roaming free and following the action: the garden space was too small (which I should have calculated). And as that runthrough went on, I reblocked and revamped and re-everythinged until the entire show had an entirely new flow.

And by the time we had an audience on Saturday night, it was wonderful. (Then on Sunday, we were in a park in Hogansville, GA, and it reflowed all over again.)

Was it exhausting? You bet. I’m too old to be bus-and-trucking a show here and yon. Was it challenging? You try training a nearly completely inexperienced cast to do Shakespeare. Was it nerve-wracking? Ever had team members just plopped onto the team willy-nilly?

Was it worth it? Absolutely. I started directing in Newnan 48 years ago, and the first Shakespeare Newnan saw was Midsummer, 45 years ago, and it was with the teenagers who had no other theatre program in their life. We called it the Newnan Associated Summer Theatre Youth, or N.A.S.T.Y. for short.

This Midsummer was like that one: working with young people who were talented but unsure, but who soon were swimming in the language as if it were no big deal. Every night produced a new discovery, a new delight.

You shoulda been there.