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How to make a man levitate on 11 cents and other theatre adventures
By Kim Glann
Playwrights are marvelous creatures who can bring characters to life and tell gut-wrenching stories that can leave an indelible mark on audiences. They are also skilled torturers. The torment they inflict on a whole host of theatre makers from the producer and director to the designers to the actors and stage manager can be crazy making. While it can be agreed that a practical mind would kill the creativity needed to dream up the world of the play, it can also be agreed that this very same brain power can conjure up such simple yet maddening situations as a main character who can defy gravity, as in Barbara Lindsay’s Free.
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| Michael Earl Reid as Marshall "Free" Gunther |
MARSHALL
Oh Stoney, thank you.
(With a laugh, MARSHALL closes his
eyes and rises in an exuberant,
joyful float. Stoney watches,
enraptured.)
STONEY
Oh babe, I wish you could see this. I wish you knew.
(MARSHALL nods.
There is a commotion outside the room...
Neo Ensemble Theatre’s set designer, Kurt Boetcher is doing everything but making Marshall “float,” focusing instead on creating the aging California motel room that is the play’s locale. The levitation effect has been designed and built by James Logan and set builder David Campbell, based on a pamphlet entitled “Touching the Sky” by street magician Andrew Mayne.
Says director Wendy Worthington, “I enlisted James to help because he's a clever guy with many power tools and because he tells me every step of the way that it can't be done and then lets me bully him into trying anyway.
“And now that we're in the finessing stage (with the deadline of opening night looming and the need to make sure we don't follow in the steps of Spiderman and risk dropping our actor), it's down to the ingenuity and technical skills of myself and my intrepid stage manager, Ellen Brunot, who has a lot of power tools and a grim determination to come up with a workable solution.”
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| Wendy Worthington and Michael Earl Reid on set |
I’ve seen some brilliant theatrical ingenuity on the many intimate stages that populate LA. As an audience member, when I am carried away by a magical moment by a 99-seat theatre company on a shoestring budget, I’m all the more impressed (much more so, than say, seeing a jaw-dropping effect at the Ahmanson).
“One of the things I find fascinating about theatre in general is that we are always finding ways to solve brand new problems. We have to,” comments Worthington. “And somehow it happens, somehow we deal with a donated carpet that isn't quite big enough and can't be attached to the floor and the need to construct a maid's cart that looks right but isn't as big as the actual carts [which don’t fit backstage]. And I'm not even going to get into the fact that we do all of this on a budget of about eleven cents.”
Neo Ensemble Theatre presents the West Coast premiere of Free by Barbara Lindsay, January 22 – February 27 at [Inside] the Ford.
Wendy Worthington is one of Neo Ensemble Theatre’s Artistic Directors and one of the founders of Theatre Neo, with whom she has directed and appeared onstage. Other theatre includes “Man of La Mancha” at Reprise and “Die! Mommy! Die!” at the Court. Television credits include recurring roles on “Ally McBeal,” “Suddenly Susan” and “Desperate Housewives.” Film includes “Changeling,” “Catch Me If You Can” and “Cast Away.” Her short play, "Company Business," is currently a finalist in Actor's Theatre of Louisville's National Ten-Minute Play Contest.
Kim Glann, Productions Marketing Manager for the Ford Theatres/LA County Arts Commission, has worked as a local theatre producer and in PR & marketing for the film industry.
