Silk Road Theatre Project

It’s summer at the theatre factory*, but just because we’re not in production doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of work to be done.

Strike for Pangs of the Messiah was a long one and, as such, is still going on.   Even with a lot of the crew helping out (including my mom, who’s a rock star and did all of our prop dishes) we didn’t  turn out the lights and lock the door until 11:30pm.  Cutting down the pieces of set so that they were small enough to go in the dumpster was time consuming, as was pulling up the floor tiles and making sure there weren’t any nails sticking out of them, or out of the MDF (which we saved to use on future floors).  I hope Kurt saved a floor tile for sentimental reasons.  They were beautiful.  But, I’m still happy to have most of them in the trash – to have most of everything in the trash or safely back in storage – as it means we have a clean slate for a while.

As part of ongoing strike I’ve gone back to re-organize the lumber pile (thanks Pat!) and strike the lights (thanks Becca!).  The other day I went through the paint cabinet and tossed the mostly-empty gallons.  I still have a riser tear-down to orchestrate, which gets harder with every passing day as people are starting to go out of town for the summer.

In terms of  theatre maintenance (which grows naturally out of strike) I’ve scheuduled some time to come back in and re-paint the floor of the permanent stage.  It used to be black and now it’s time for it to be black again.  Also, I dug the valence curtian out of closet the other day.  It’s been in there since, oh, probably Back of the Throat when we took it down and discovered that it was just put up with drywall screws into the back of the proscenium.  For ease of continued putting up and taking down, I’m shipping it out to Grand Stage this week to be properly grommeted like a normal curtain.

And when not carrying, organizing, sweeping and sorting, there is of course the planning for next season, which is going on at my computer in a series of e-mails and documents and calendars that go back and forth to the respective parties as we get it all squared away.

Yes, just because it’s summertime doesn’t mean a break… yet.

* I would love to give credit to whoever first replied, “it was a long day at the theatre factory” when I asked them how their day was, but I can’t remember.  Still, it cracks me up.

The thing about theatre being a “live” art is that you never really know what’s going to happen.  Most of the time this sense of the unexpected comes from variables in the performance; you can never tell when  lines may be forgotten, entrances may be  missed, or costumes may malfunction.  But sometimes the unexpected comes from the audience – not the actors – and keeps the front of house staff on their toes!

Take, for example, this story from one of last week’s shows.  I was minding my own business in the production office when the stage manager came in, shut the door, and, gesturing toward the lobby, stated, “there’s a baby out there.”

“Yeah?” I replied, missing her point.

“There’s a baby out there that is shortly going to be in the house, watching the show,” she clarified.

Then I got it.  Upon further investigation it turned out that the baby belonged to a patron who had seen several shows in the past, and the mom said she’d received permission “from the artistic director” to bring the child into the performance (We later learned this was untrue.).  The baby went in, and lasted less than one scene before it was causing a distraction for everyone around it, including the actors.  I sent the house manager to pull the child out of the house, assuming that the mother would come with it.  Much to my surprise, a few moments later it was announced on headset that the baby was contained in the box office while mom continued to watch the show!!!  Various courageous souls baby-sat for the rest of the performance.

You can’t really blame a baby for causing trouble at the theatre, though.  The baby didn’t know any better, and its actions were surely not meant as a commentary on the situation of settlers in the West Bank.  Adults’ actions are another story.  Such was the case of the patron who showed up to the show 30 minutes late and still wanted to be seated.  We honored the request at the time, but later had to pull the patron out of the house after the house manager caught her talking on a cell phone inside the house doors (patrons please note: the curtains around the seating block light, not sound).  Other cell phone related incidents from last year have prompted us to include “please do not text message” as part of the curtain speech, which seems to crack the audience up every night.

But by far the most entertaining and most-often quoted incident from the run so far has been the patron who leaned over to the next person and stage whispered so loudly that the tech booth monitor picked it up, “Herschel is the DOG.”  For those of us who heard it, it was all we could do to keep from breaking down laughing.

On April 10th’s Dueling Critics segment on WBEZ’s (NPR) 848 show, critics Kelly Kleiman and Jonathan Abarbanel discuss Curtains. 

http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=33429

At the end of the discussion Kleiman’s ‘Pick of the Week’ is Pangs of the Messiah.

It’s been a while since the last post and it feels a little disorienting to be back after such a break.  Thinking back on where we’ve been I’m reminded of  that wonderful glossary that helped bring us into the language of the play, the stories from Carol about her favorite thrift stores, Kurt’s model photos, and Rob’s riff on tone – all critical elements being developed to help us feel and see the world that our characters are feeling and seeing.   But, as I knew would be inevitable, the need to create actual representations of the things we were dreaming finally became the priority and we took off to handle tech, previews and opening night.

Here’s a picture of one of the tech tables, computers at the ready.  We had two 6′ers set up – Rob and Mike on one side, Becca, Alex and Michelle on the other, with space in between for Jen, our fearless director, to come up and chat with them, watch and listen.  Dry tech, which coincidentally occurred on a fantastically rainy night, was held at Elephant and Castle, much to the delight of all involved.

One of the best things about everything coming together is the arrival of the show crew.  For a few blissful, chaotic, intense days we have not only all the designers, but all the actors,  backstage hands AND front of house crew running around.  It seemed like every time I opened a door I was walking into someone, like Laura here, who’s hauling shoes from the costume storage to the dressing room.

Then, at the height of intensity, we suddenly realized that it was “no more changes” day – the last chance for making corrections and adjustments to the design before we had to be satisfied and let the actors settle in what we had created.  There was a collective deep breath, held until the curtain fell on Satuday night.  And then we had  a party.

It was a lovely party, well, two parties – the first at our partner restaurant, Trattoria #10 (look on the back of your ticket stub for a 20% discount from them!) , and the second at the home of a friend of the playwright.

And now that the parties are done?  I just got the performance schedule reminder, sent by the stage manager to the cast and crew to keep us on track.  I’m making photocopies for tonight’s Theatre Thursday reception.  There’s a line through for the actors, and an understudy rehearsal, and 2 post-show discussions… basically, no shortage of things to keep us busy and in good spirits and we head into the run.

By Robert Steel, composer and sound designer

What is tone?

Origin:

1275-1325; ME (n.) < L tonus < Gk tónos strain, tone, mode, lit., a stretching, akin to teínein to stretch.

Below are various definitions of tone:

1. quality or character of sound.

2. a quality of color with reference to the degree of absorption or  reflection of light; a tint or shade; value.

3. a particular mental state or disposition; spirit, character, or tenor.

4. a particular style or manner, as of writing or speech; mood: the macabre tone of Poe’s stories.

5. prevailing character or style, as of manners, morals, or philosophical outlook: the liberal tone of the 1960’s.

6. style, distinction, or elegance.

As a composer for media (theater, film, video, video games), the first question I ask myself is “What is the tone?”.  The tone may be consistent across the narrative or it may be constantly shifting or mutating.  Either way, the tone at the beginning of the narrative is a key to the rest of the work.  Defining the tone at the top requires that I not only understand the text but also the director’s intentions.

We talk tone.

What is the setting? Location, color, material, size, complexity.

What is the period?  Era, year, month.

What time of day is it? Morning, afternoon, evening.

What is the weather/season?  Fall, Winter, Summer, Spring, snow, hot, humid, pleasant, rain, sun, wind.

What are the characters wearing? Color, fabric, accessories, shoes.

How are the characters relating to each other? Casually, with tension, with irony, with sarcasm, with joy, with affection, with grief.

All of these questions need to be answered before I can start composing the score for Pangs of the Messiah.  Although I will be looking at the entire narrative for structure, tone, dialogue rhythm, intention, direction, time and space, it’s that first cue that’s the tough nut to crack.  A composer can easily sidetrack the production with a cue that isn’t quite right when it comes to tone.

We talk tone.

What is the setting? Interior house.  Samaria Community Settlement.  Video Projection.

What is the period?  Sometime in the near future.

What time of day is it? Evening.

What is the weather/season?  Summer. Hot.

What are the characters wearing? Neutrals, cottons, dirt, blood, religious pieces.

How are the characters relating to each other? Underlying tension. Mild frustration. Fear.  All of these are quite subtle.  The playwright is giving us hints of the future of these characters at the very top.

So now I need to translate the tone to the opening music cue.

What is the color?

What is the texture?

What is the rhythm?

What is the tempo?

What is the harmonic language?

What is the melodic language?

What is the intensity?

Most of us are going into a world we don’t know when we sit in that theater seat. I know that I want that opening cue to be mysterious.    I don’t want to telegraph or overplay my hand in that cue.  The cue needs to tell us everything and nothing.  It needs to tell us that something is up but nothing more than that.  Will I be using Middle Eastern scales and harmonies or will I take some elements of Klezmer or Jewish Liturgical music?  Will I do a variation of the song “Pangs of the Messiah”?  Will I do none of the above?

Sources:

American Psychological Association (APA):

tone. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Abbreviations Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved March 05, 2009, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tone

Chicago Manual Style (CMS):

tone. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Abbreviations Dictionary, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tone (accessed: March 05, 2009).

Modern Language Association (MLA):

“tone.” The American Heritage® Abbreviations Dictionary, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. 05 Mar. 2009. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tone>.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE):

Dictionary.com, “tone,” in The American Heritage® Abbreviations Dictionary, Third Edition. Source location: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tone. Available: http://dictionary.reference.com. Accessed: March 05, 2009.

BibTeX Bibliography Style (BibTeX)

@article {Dictionary.com2009, title = {The American Heritage® Abbreviations Dictionary, Third Edition},month = {Mar}, day = {05}, year = {2009},  url = {http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tone},

By Carol J. Blanchard, costume designer

Designing the costumes for Pangs of the Messiah is a definite challenge.  Right from the start it was obvious that the show called for naturalism in the costumes, and that means that clothing is worn, not costumes.   So I knew from the start that I would be purchasing 98% of everything that is worn onstage.   Only a few pieces for select characters need to be “newer” looking too.  So most everyone’s clothing needs to be broken in. washed and worn for months, or years. and that always means lots of work.

To get distressed clothing, I can’t shop on the internet or in my favorite stores.  I have to go to shops that specialize in used clothing.  Shopping the Goodwill, Salvation Army, Unique Thrift and Village Discount takes a different frame of mind.   I have to gather my renderings, make lists of every piece worn by every character, copy measurements and sizes onto shopping lists, and grab lots of cash.   Then I start out on what I refer to as “my search and destroy” mission.

I go from shop to shop, making purchases and constantly hoping that every shop I go to will be the last one.  If you’ve never been shopping this way, I would urge you to try it once.  You are looking through racks and racks for just the right cut, the right color, the right texture….and when you find just that, you pray that it is also the right size.   The whole process is like searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack.

Some stores are better for men’s wear, some stores are great for shoes and accessories….each has their better sections.   And you learn by experience where you want to try first.  The Village Thrift on Roscoe is one of the best.  They have a large shoe selection downstairs.  It’s possible to find just about anything you need.  They have a great men’s jeans and trousers section…very organized….all by color, so it’s easy to go to just what you are looking for.  They have tons of ladies dresses and blouses, as well as winter coats.  And fabulous prices all the time.  I once bought a beautifully tailored cashmere men’s topcoat, brand new with the tags still on, for $15.00!   And the tag from Harrods (yes the London store) read 213 pounds.  What a deal!!!  Salvation Army on Clybourn is great for men’s suits and dress shirts.  Several racks of shirts usually mean you can find the color, pattern and size.  They have a great dress section too…as well as sleeping robes and lingerie.  Unique Thrift on Elston is rather exclusive….wide aisles, very neat and arranged by color…..easy to find things.  But more expensive than the rest of the stores.  You are paying for the luxury of neat racks and aisles you can move around in.

And so I have been steadily scouring the thrift stores, returning week after week since their stock changes on a daily basis, and piece by piece finding just the right clothing for the show.

Another unusual task required by this show was the purchasing of Jewish religious articles.  Learning about Teffilin, kippahs, and Talitot was extremely interesting and an education unto its own.  But finding where one could buy them, while staying on a budget was daunting.  There are many vendors here in the states, even some in Chicago.  But finding those pieces in just the right design….and for the right price took me to Israel.  My research found several dealers which offered teffilin replacement pieces, new boxes, new straps…which were very inexpensive.  I decided to go with these.   I found the hand knitted and crocheted kippahs….beautiful and inexpensive too.  I came across wonderful tallit katans complete with tzitzit, and again inexpensive.   And so have put through two orders to Israel and have been pleasantly surprised with the beautiful products they have sent.

With every show there are new challenges, new products to be found, and new information to be learned.  I am in love with my career as a costume designer for many reasons, but mostly because I learn something new with every production.

By Rebecca A. Barrett, Lighting Designer

Today I am drafting the light plot. Some people prefer to draft on the computer, I prefer to draft by hand – at least for the rough plot. There’s something satisfying about the feel of the pencil on paper that resonates with me, awakening images and drawing me to the settlements of Israel. So, as I am gazing out of my window at the city skyline in this predawn light I am also in Samaria, golden motes of sunlight spilling onto the dining room table of the Berger family. Their world is so drastically different from mine, with its guns and bombings and yet so heartbreakingly the same. My heart aches for those people.

There are some images that have been inspirational to the lighting design of Pangs. These images by other talented artists and photographers have helped draw me into the world of this play.

The first images represent where this play begins: a Mediterranean homestead, the Israeli Promised Land.

As the play progresses, we will be using flashlights and other moving light sources to underscore the growing tension and unease. In so much of the video research I have seen, there is someone caught in a spotlight and in the background, truck headlights scan the streets and flashlights illuminate the dark with their narrow beams.

Throughout the play we will highlight these characters in their everyday lives as they struggle to cling to the land they love and protect each other from harm.

And in the last scene…

Well, I don’t want to give away the end. You’ll just have to come see for yourself. Anyways, I should get back to drafting…

Check out playwright Motti Lerner’s interview about PANGS OF THE MESSIAH on Chicago Public Radio.  Actors Bernie Beck and Susan Adler are featured as well.  

http://audio.wbez.org/wv/2009/02/wv_20090220a.mp3

For those of you feeling that you need more information to fully understand Pangs of the Messiah, please consult this glossary, prepared by dramaturg Kefah Crowley.  Please note that this is not an exhaustive list, but a sampling of some terms you will hear during the show.

Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock- a mosque and a shrine respectively, considered the 3^rd holiest site in the Islamic world, from where the Prophet Mohamed is believed to have ascended to heaven. Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock are located in Jerusalem’s Old City, on the site revered by Jews as the Temple Mount.

Goy- The Hebrew term for a Gentile or a non-Jew.

Headscarves- Married Orthodox women are required to cover their heads. Many married Orthodox women wear headscarves, some wear wigs.

Jewish Diaspora- The communities of Jews outside the historic Land of Israel, traditionally associated with the expulsion and dispersal of Jews to other countries following the destruction of the First and Second Temples.   

Kibbutz – a communal, typically rural Jewish settlement in Israel associated with strong socialist, egalitarian, and Zionist principles.

Knesset – (Hebrew word for “assembly”), the Knesset is the Israeli parliament

Mukhtar - (Arabic word for “chosen”), refers to the head of an Arab town or village selected by means of consensus.

Pangs of the Messiah- In Hebrew, “Chevlai shel Mashiach,” or “birth pains,” refers to the future in which there will be seven years of tribulation that lead to the coming of the Messiah. This era will be known as Chevlai shel Mashiach.

Shomron – (Hebrew word for “Samaria”) - Biblical term used to describe the territory known as the northern West Bank.

Talit – a Jewish prayer shawl worn while reciting morning prayers.  It is also worn for Sabbath prayers in the synagogue and on holidays.

Tefillin – also called phylacteries, a pair of black leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with bible verses.

Temple Mount- The Torah records that it was at this site in Jerusalem that God chose to rest his Divine Presence.  The two great Jewish Temples, built by King David and King Solomon and destroyed by the Babylonians and the Romans respectively, were built on this site. According to Jewish tradition when the Messiah comes, he will bring with him the third and final Temple, which will rest on the Temple Mount.

Yesha Council- Yesha is the Hebrew acronym for Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yehuda, Shomron, Aza), also referred to as “the territories.” The Yesha Council was founded in the late 1970s as the successor to Gush Emunim, the organization that led the settling of Jews in the territories captured in the Six-Day War of June 1967. The goal of the Yesha Council is to strengthen and increase the Jewish presence in the occupied territories by continuing to build settlements.

Zionism- A return to Zion (Jerusalem). Zionism is a political and religious movement that seeks the return of Jews to their biblical (historical) homeland in Palestine. Old Zionism was premised on the belief that the Messiah would lead Jews back to their home. New Zionism (19^th century Zionism) shifted the responsibility for the return from the Messiah to the Jewish people themselves.

by Kurt Sharp, set designer

I burst into tears at the first read through of ‘Pangs of the Messiah’ the other night. I think the reason was that hearing the actors honestly and simply put forth the arguments of the play made me very angry, the way that a great tragedy can.  I remember seeing a production of Romeo and Juliet once and feeling a sense of dread at what I could tell was going to happen and sadness at the waste of it all.  But instead of merely ending a feud between families in Renaissance Italy, the events of ‘Pangs’ could happen in Israel tomorrow and directly affect us here in Chicago, with results that are terrifying.

At the reading I presented the model of the setting. There is much that is specific to this play about the West Bank settlements, so visual research provided a language of textures and materials that would reinforce our sense of place. Silk Road’s performance space is intimate and its rafters suggest the exposed construction of a great room ceiling. This particular living room is not only a rabbi’s home, but also a command center for a political and religious movement. Its’ jumble of worn furniture reflects this family’s changing goals and sacrifices. It seems a little chaotic at this time of crisis. Set in the near future, the show utilizes projections and voiceovers during scene transitions to emphasize the constant exposure to violent struggle, and the escalation of political and religious tensions.

It was wonderful to meet the playwright and hear him speak about the play. Motti Lerner has a character in ‘Pangs’ express concern that the school children in the settlement may be being traumatized by their use as a roadblock to stop soldiers– that saving the settlement by such means might sacrifice the sanity of the people who will inherit it.  It hit me during the read-through that idea drives the whole play. Each of the family members we meet is already damaged in some way. And what about the grandchildren we never meet?  If they have lost their humanity, what will it matter if the Messiah comes?

The set model