Some Plays I Am Doing

Well, really just the one, in this blog.

So since like the begining of March, Ellen and I have been directing a show called Gone Missing with the year 12s at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts. This has been a ridiculously nostalgia filled venture, us being year 12s at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts only two years ago ourselves.

So we found this script randomly while browsing the fairly limited drama section at Kinokuiya and I personally really like it. It's a verbatim piece constructed from interviews the actors did with random people in the street about stuff they had lost. For someone who has managed to lose her script, her diary, her keys and probably at least ten pens in the last four days, this seemed fitting and very moving. Also it was just nice to be kind of back in the saddle again and taking creative control of something after a year of sitting around on my fat behind doing sweet fuck all.

I like to think we have made some kind of dint in the creative development of these kids, that we've taught them something they didn't know before, that we gave them an opportunity the teachers might not have, that they'll look back on this experience and think, wow, I totally expanded as an actor during that process. I'm not sure it's worked out like that. There have been...blockages. And unexpected obstacles. And moments where I have been so on the brink of going completely beserk and throwing drama blocks across the room because people don't seem capable of following the simple directive TO BE QUIET.

Having said that though, I would probably do it again in a snap. I'm a sucker for punishment. I mean don't get me wrong, I will be Having Words to Appropriate Authorities about the Issues We Have Experienced. But there's something about being behind the steering wheel of actually creating a piece of theatre that makes you appreciate the final product so much more. Also I am probably a control freak by nature so any outlet for me to get to tell people what to do is always going to go down well.

Seriously though, I think that even without doing any acting for this show I have made myself a better actor.

Explaining this pithily in writing isn't going very well. I think I am better at rambling obsessively over miniscule and meaningless moments (check out that alliteration) than I am at expressing the things in life that are more important to me. Well, I suppose that's to be expected in the public arena, isn't it?

This has moved quite far away from its intended subject matter.

OK so basically, the show is on tomorrow and Wednesday night. It does seem like an awful lot of effort for just two nights but I guess I'm a believer in the product being the process. Hopefully what they will walk away with is a lasting memory of the effort it takes to put together a decent show. Which it will be. No, this blog is not at all a way of releasing my nervous energy pertaining to the fact that in 24 hours time we will be 11 minutes into the show and in our final run today I had to stop them three times because they couldn't seem to stand on their spike marks. Shut up.