Thursday, January 23, 2014

Seven Ages: Commencement



Rehearsals for Great Lakes Theater’s 2014 free outreach tour, Seven Ages have begun. Inspired by Jacques rumination on the seven ages of man in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, seven northeast Ohio playwrights were tasked to write a story or fable about one of seven phases of human life.

We gathered in the Hanna Building rehearsal hall, four actors, director Lisa, stage manager Diana and as a special surprise, our amazing costume designer Esther!

The company includes Emily and Annie, two fresh faces familiar to those who followed Double Heart last year (oh, and my face, also) and a welcome new addition in Bobby Williams, for who this is his first outreach tour with us, which I find incredible as he has worked with virtually everyone, everywhere.

This guy.

Esther began by sharing her designs, which for a change are Elizabethan. Four characters from As You Like It gather for shelter and safety in a thousand year-old tree, and pass the time telling stories. As it is Shakespeare’s tale, Esther chose Shakespeare’s time.

Last year the costume changes were a pretty big deal, especially for me. For this production, as we are all playing characters intentionally going in and out of characters for each others' tales, there promises to be more piling on interesting certain pieces -- or as Esther put it, "Anything can be a hat!"



It’s going to be a playful piece of work, the show is about the telling of tales, and while the flavor of each differs, most are humorous. The darkest piece, without any surprise to anyone, is the one I have written.

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