Midsummer in Mid-Fall

Work has officially begun. I am putting in some hours at the artistic office working under Kevin wearing his Artistic Director hat. We have half a week to finish pre-production arrangements on "Midsummer" before the beginning of rehearsals. The "Midsummer" company will unite members of the Dallas Theater Center resident acting company with local Equity actors, MFA acting students from Southern Methodist University and talented members of a local performing arts high school. One of Kevin's goals in his second year as Artistic Director is to stimulate a Dallas-centric community of artists within his company, and this production will be a very important first step in creating that space.

In my own pre-production preparation, I am in the process of comparing the production script (edited by Kevin) with a facsimile of the unedited First Folio 1623 text. I have a hard copy of the facsimile in front of me, and I am crossing out the lines that Kevin has cut in pencil as well as writing in word changes and additions. This gives me a visual representation of what Kevin has chosen to prioritize. The goal is to identify every change that he has made to the script. These changes are evidence of his point-of-view on the script, proof of what he believes is important, and what he thinks is superfluous. This is a critical first step in engaging with the version of the story he wants to tell in the production. For every Assistant Director, the number one goal is to figure out what story the Director wants to tell, so that we can help with how he wants to tell it.

Some cuts are relatively simple:

You can see that an entire chunk of dialogue between Lysander and Hermia have been cut in an effort to expedite the exposition that the audience is certain to be familiar with. See if you can spot the extremely famous line that Lysander will no longer say in the production!

Other edits are more complex, such as this one:

What looks like a relatively simple tweak has eliminated an entire character. This happens to be the only mention of Philostrate, a gentleman-in-waiting who is sometimes doubled with Puck (as Theseus is sometimes doubled with Oberon and Hippolyta with Titania). Kevin's production does not involve any doubling, and so this relatively minor character has no real function. Out he goes!

I am also sleuthing around for the various pre-production materials that exist. Typically, the Director has been working with his associates and his designers for months before the Assistant Director arrives. While assisting is still a universally agreed-upon method of apprenticeship in the professional theatre, it is also a role that still makes a lot of directors uncomfortable, and some times more of a hindrance than a help if the relationship between mentor and mentee sours. I am studying ground plans and set sketches, looking at the costumes currently being worked on in the shop and listening to an iPod playlist that Kevin has put together for the show, all in an effort to get on the same page. One of Kevin's trademarks is the use of contemporary pop music in classical productions - the juxtaposition of the here and now with the then, which immediately and concisely contextualizes our attitudes with theirs. Which means that I am entirely un-hip in comparison, and am doing some frenetic catching up with my pop culture know-how before I make some embarrassing reference to Miley Lavigne transition music!

(posted by Ed)