Day 6

             We’re off to Fuji Farms to take a well-deserved break. Now is a time for reflection and a little separation from the piece. Today’s rehearsal flowed well, it was short and fast paced. We decided to eliminate as much criticism from our ecosystem as possible. We are learning to declare ownership of moments in order to clarify workflow.

            Today we showed improvement in avoiding spirals of negativity and frustration. It felt like a lighter energy but not at the expense of quality moments. And we couldn’t be prouder of that. Tomorrow there will be not blog post and Sunday our blog goes live (Because that’s the deadline for deciding a title!). One of our favorite moments of the day happened spontaneously and outside of the structure of an exercise (Detroit’s ex-girlfriend appeared). Week 1 was about generating material, but more importantly it was about learning how to work together as theatre artists. Week 2 we’ll continue to generate material and begin to hone the focus of our piece… but for now its time to leave the show in Windham for a short spell!

                                                                                                             -CJ and Tina

Day 5

Overflowing toilets. 

A kitchen to clean. 

Sopping wet towels 

(Not the good kind of water). 

Bugs. No, larva.

Some kind of miniscule Jaba the Huts underneath the carpet where we rehearse. 

An allergy attack that had me sneezing for over half of the day. 

A couch lift (to get at the bugs) that left Tina’s back feeling quite not alright. 

A washing machine that likes to tell you how hard its’ working by bucking like a bronco.

           

             This is not a complaint rant, I’m just trying to paint a picture. Sometimes rehearsal seems hard and it is. But sometimes rehearsal looks more like a refuge than other times.

                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                          -CJ

Day 4

Oh how far we can travel in just one day! So our original nugget walking into this adventure was “Creation Destruction and Potential.” After spending some time with this theme we’ve realized it is actually not a theme at all. It is more of a life cycle of sorts. Or life belief perhaps. It feels more like a moral to a story than a kernel of a story. Anyway, this realization has led us on quite a tumble. I’m struggling to explain the relevance right now. Its been a late night rehearsal. Let me try again.

This morning we worked on this idea of “blank slate”. Meaning, Detroit is abandoned. There is nothing there. We could fill that void. We could create what we want. We could save Detroit and so on and so forth. But Detroit is not a blank slate at all! There is history there. Homes with people in them. People who’ve lived their whole lives and created their stories there. Today we worked conceptually. 

Idea (ex. blank slate) à moment (ex. inflating our egos- going from blank slate to “I’m going to save Detroit”) (using an umbrella as a fire billowing device).

This evening we worked more in a relaxed, free form, play/experimentation setting. We’ve noticed though that our moments are typically one of us doing something and the other person watching/giving suggestions…its really hard to play together because we don’t know what it looks like! Tomorrow we are going to try to get a mirror in the space. Tonight we experimented with blankets, clip lights, and a few hats.

Two totally different ways of running rehearsal:

            Conceptual à “moments”

            Play/Experimentation à Moments/forms

Also, we’ve altered our rehearsal schedule to 9-12 and 8pm-11pm. This is SO much better for light play (we need the dark!) and better for our sanity. All day and homework at night felt like zero break time. So yeah, I’m feeling like we are hitting our groove. Starting to roll…

Trying to keep an open mind.

Not fit the show together too soon.

Let it breath.

And let it rest.

            (until tomorrow!)

                                                                                                            -Tina

Day 3

Today I learned that this rehearsal process is not just about making a play, it is about making a lifestyle. Tina and I are cooped up in this cabin to create theatre, which makes this unlike any other show I’ve been in. The content is tied directly to our lives and our lives are wrapped up in the process. As we go along we are not only experimenting with forms of theatre, theatre exercises and practices, but we are also experimenting with the meaning of rehearsal. In some cases it seems best to hyper structure a rehearsal but at other times it seems best to just sit around the rehearsal space in pajamas playing with clip lights. I can’t wait to see what comes from this endeavor.

                                                                                             

                                                                                                                   -CJ

Day 2

First full day of play! We met some lovely characters, played with some sun hats and a huge daisy umbrella, read some Wittengstein text and discussed creation-destruction-potential as a cheesy topic. I think of sex, war, and babies. Which is kind of silly. I guess “CDP” seems so vast. So overwhelming. By lunch I was feeling slightly direction-less. I wasn’t sure of my own opinion regarding CDP other than I notice it in all aspects of my life…(see still super super vague). I was searching for something to sink my teeth into. 

And it happened, a “what if” moment over a lame tuna sandwich. 

What if our show is about moving to Detroit? The stereotypes, the assumptions, the warnings and lectures we’ve received, the look of sheer horror, the “you better get some pepper spray.” We specifically avoided making a show about Detroit from the moment this opportunity presented itself. We avoided like the plague because we didn’t want to be these two twenty-something white artists preaching about a city we know nothing about. (Although everyone else seems to have an opinion about the city) 

I repeat: We know nothing about the REAL Detroit, but we know a lot about what its like to tell people you’re moving there.

                                                                                               

-Tina