Theatre 99

Good morning, SMblr! This is an assignment for one of my classes; while this isn’t *exactly* a tech brief, it’s right up my alley. I took a bit of an informal approach, but I want to share in case anyone out there would find this useful/have something to add. This is still a draft. 

Of course, there is more than one way to make a calling script; some people like to set up different columns in the margins and others like the dreaded text boxes…. But this is the way that works best for me, in Word, at least. You can do the same thing in Excel too! 

Protect theatre people that aren’t currently working

Protect theatre people working in a non-theatre-related job

Protect theatre people that have only ever worked in community theatres

Protect theatre people with degrees in areas other than theatre

Protect theatre people without degrees

None of these things illegitimise you as a theatre person

THE GRAND PARADISE by Third Rail Productions

“You have full permission to flirt with someone if you think it’ll get you into a cool one-on-one.” 

My boyfriend and I are on the subway to Bushwick to experience The Grand Paradise and we are discussing boundaries. Neither of us are strangers to immersive experiential work, and we’re used to ditching each other in favor of the show. And as predicted, 10 minutes after the doors opened and we watched a siren (Lily Ockwell) seduce one of the tourists, a nymph had grabbed his hand and he was gone.

The Grand Paradise takes place in a Palm Springs-like resort in the late 70s. It’s filled with gods and goddesses, tourists and hustlers, and some of them may have discovered the fountain of youth. I learned the mythology of the hotel from its activities director (Parker Murphy), who led me and another woman into a secret room. Unlike Sleep No More, arguably the most famous show of this ilk, there are many opportunities for small group one-on-one experiences. I’d say I spent most of the show in groups of 4 or less, including a long stint where I was left in a small room totally alone. (This was much cooler than it sounds, but I don’t want to spoil it.) The performers are gorgeously genuine in these intimate interactions. It’s all hushed voices and soft gestures, but the connections feel real. The audience is lightly guided from room to room with some flirtatious touches and the timed opening and closing of doors. While individual experiences will definitely vary. I got the sense that similar scenes would be happening at the same time, but voiced by different actors in different locations. Themes of immortality and perfecting run throughout all the characters’ stories- if you could live in this moment forever, would you? 

I untangled knots in a boat shack with the lifeguard (Zach McNally). I played games of chance with the bartender (Rebekah Morin). I pondered the stars with the siren and charted my destiny with the activities director. And throughout the whole show there was explosive movement and dance tying each moment together. I was dizzy and disoriented, rum-punch-drunk as I felt all their joy and sadness at being frozen in a moment. Both the characters and the actors would be back doing this again, day after day, a sort of immortality all its own.

And as we were eventually led back to the main room, I spotted my boyfriend across the way. I took his hand and realized that like all good vacations, I’d be leaving refreshed, relaxed, and with fond hazy memories of people I may never see again. 

(Alberto Denis, Erik Abbot-Main, Niko Tsocanos, Ashley Handel, Tori Sparks, Jeff Lyon, and Rebekah Morin. Photograph by Darial Sneed.)