Wednesday September 13 2006 -

Dear Blog - 15 minute break so a quick blog - Day 1 - first read - all Tarragon staff (15 of them)in the room sitting in chairs just beyond the table - at the table: writer, cast, and production team of Oxford roof climbers: - playwrightStephen Massicotte - director Richard Rose - Lise Ann Johnson dramaturg par excellente and GCTC Artistic Director - set and costume designer Charlotte Dean - lighting designer Graeme Thomson - our sound designer couldn't be there but his name is Todd Charlton - our stage manager Kathryn Westoll - and assistant stage manager Tara Tomlinson - script coordinator MK Piatkowski -Diane Pitblado our speech and dialect coach - (Wow! what a bunch - nervous? - what me nervous!?)

We first get to introduce ourselves around the room and state what part we play in the scheme of things - some directors like to get cute with this part and have funny or pithy comments accompany intros (tell a joke - describe a pet peeve - talk to your neighbour then introduce her/him to the rest of us) - but Richard likes to cut to the chase

Charlotte Dean who designed last year's No Great Mischief - gives a design presentation - so we are introduced to the world we will inhabit - a maquette with tiny chairs and tables and people gives us a feel of the overall look - the mechanics of entrances and exits are described - and with the help of the model and the taped out floor ( stage management is busy long before the actors arrive) we can get a sense of things to come -

then we read - I'm not sure what draft we're on by now but the read goes well - applause all around - at lunch Richard and Lise Ann confer with Stephen over where this latest pass at the play sits - there are changes coming and the afternoon is spent talking over impressions -

I quickly eat a lunch and slip into the fancy duds I've brought along - it's off to Stratford for me - an actor's life hi diddle dee dee - you get to work on a piece and focus but still there looms the need to find future employment - and when a call comes to audition for the Stratford Festival well ... - Marti Maraden made this happen for some of her Ottawa actors - over Marti's eight years of running the NAC she formed a strong link to the Ottawa acting community - she brought us in to work in a way that had never happened - in fact she announced from day 1 that she would be looking to that aspect of the Centre's mandate - so we"veterans" were invited on the mainstage and a younger generation that included Jonathan Koensgen and Simon Rainville and Jordana Cox and David Coomber and David Bernstein got to experience the 'big house' under Marti's nurturing direction - the NAC was revitalized over her tenure there and her loyalty to we actors continues - last year Kate Hurman had a season there and this past Monday a few more got to be seen by ... well let me tell you bout that -

- so I walk in to aroom full of the most celebrated band of actors and directors you could assemble - Richard Monette and Martha Henry and Diana Leblanc and Brian Bedford and Marti Maraden ... the table stretched across a rather large room and it was filled with Canadian theatre luminaries - my jaw went a little slack and I just sais: Wow!

-didn't sleep much that night

Day 2/3/4 - so the work around the table has continued as those initial responses to the
draft are implemented- Stephen is heroic md the writing goes on - Richard talked a bit yesterday about how we are of necessity cut off from the sources of inspiration out in the world as we bury ourselsves in work that supposedly mirrors life - then out of the blue comes news of another massacre in Momtreal and I think yeah we do seem to get cut off

It's now Thursday of the first week and we are still plugging away at the text and looking to be up on our feet soon - rough blocking (stage movement - well for a director it's kinda stage pictures) - this afternoon we had the inimitable John Stead in for gun work - he's the expert - fight directors like John S and our own John K come with a discipline to make sense out of violence and mayhem 0 guns are scary things and they can make boys act silly and everyone a little skittish - they make me nervous - I love the mechanics and the architecture of them but I hate the violent potential - what I adore in working with them is the stillness and the protocol that everyone gratefully embraces -

the work is exhausting somehow though and I feel drained - so home to my buddy Sandy's - next time some talk about the people you meet - play nice -P