Today’s Date: July 22, 2019
Show Title: The Roaring Girl
Director: Stephanie Ann Foster
Assistant Directors: Cortland Nesley and Molly Harper
Stage Manager: Joe Marsh
Dramaturg: Madison Miller
Rehearsal Room: Deming
What we did: We switched spaces today! After starting our journey in the Grafton library we moved into the Deming black box. We began, as we do every time in rehearsals, with our focus in with RDA Molly, and then, as soon as all of our gear was moved in we began immediately with Act 4 scene 2. After a full and fun run of that scene, we powered through into Act 5 scene 1. We finished out our full day with a focus out after wrapping up all of Act 5 scene 1, and went on our merry way (to workshops!).
QUICK AND QUOTABLE
FROM THE PLAY
“What’s done is in merriment.”
-Laxton
FROM THE DIRECTOR
“Can you give a little more, just some more little flourishes? We are circus
performers, poor circus performers.”
-Stephanie Ann
FROM THE CAST:
“Is this the ‘men aint shit’ scene.”
-Eleanor.
Yes, yes it is Eleanor, it always is.
“Why you do dat?”
-Virginia
Sometimes bad things happen to good people, aka, poor Mistress Openwork.
Production Insight:
Context matters. Dramaturgy matters. I am incredibly thankful to be working alongside RDA Cortland, who is a passionate dramaturg and new playwright advocate. Throughout this process, I’ve harboured uncertainty about the need of a dramaturg (myself) in the room, mostly from my own naivety. Cortland has shown me that even if the text is a lie and nothing is real (thanks Lia), that at some level there are still lots of answers to be found within the text, answers that bring color and life to the world of the play. Cortland offers such intense passion for contextualizing theater and making supported, interesting, bold choices, that his energy in the room is infectious. In a room, wondering what fadoodling means, and how that word informs an actor are essential to building clear characters. There are intellectual interactions between actors and dramaturgs, and the give and take is what makes choices in the world unambiguous, translating art into experience. By Cortland’s example, dramaturgy takes a new meaning in our room, and the campers have done an exceptional job constantly questioning both the history and context of the text. Their hard work and curiosity has brought so much joy to our room and given us an opportunity to truly play.
Maddie Miller
Maddie Miller (she/her/hers pronouns) is a North Carolina native, and a sophomore BFA Theater Performance major at Emerson College. In her free time she can be found COQ (crying over quarto’s [Ask her about Q1 Hamlet and her wonderment at instability in early modern text]), taking power naps before planning her world domination, and finally: writing monologues, and poetry about intersectional feminism, art, and Shakespeare. She is more than ecstatic for her first year as a production intern, and can’t wait to get to work!