DESIGNING THE CHILDREN: A SCENIC JOURNEY, BY AL COSTA

In the end, the design is about containment. It’s a single room, but one that holds memory, regret, and consequence. The beams lean, the windows look out toward the sea, and the cottage becomes a vessel for human lives caught between the comfort of home and the vast uncertainty pressing at the edges.

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Craig Joseph
INTERROGATING INTIMACY, BY JULIA FISHER

As an intimacy director, at least half of my job is asking questions. I have questions for actors; for directors; for costume, lighting, sound, and set designers. But my favorite questions (even when they can’t be answered directly) are for the playwright.

As a playwright myself, I know that every stage direction (at least in most scripts written since the ‘70s – but that’s a conversation for a separate blog post) has been just as carefully crafted by the playwright as any line of dialogue. So it is my job (and joy!) to analyze intimacy-related stage directions with as much love and vigor as an actor will analyze their lines.

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Craig Joseph
THE WORK OF THE DIALECT COACH, BY MATT KOENIG

Ever wonder what exactly a dialect coach does on a production? Now’s your chance to find out! In today’s blog, join Matt Koenig as he walks you through the type of work he’s doing for our upcoming production of THE CHILDREN. And try out some dialects for yourself!

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Craig Joseph
AN INTERVIEW WITH NANNA INGVARSSON

Recently, we had the opportunity to sit down with Nanna Ingvarsson, who is making her Seat of the Pants debut in our production of THE CHILDREN, playing the role of Hazel. Here are some excerpts of what she had to say about the play, her role, and her process of acting in general.

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Craig Joseph
THE GENERAL BEAUTY OF THE CHILDREN, BY CRAIG JOSEPH

If you’ve been following Seat of the Pants for a while, you know that one thing we do to get our cast and production team on the same page is to collaboratively create a conceptual statement to guide our interpretation of a script. Though it’s written by the director, it comes out of conversations we have as a team around the table and discoveries that we make on our feet in the rehearsal room. Here’s a teaser of where we’ve landed for our production of THE CHILDREN, opening on October 24th!

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Craig Joseph
AN APPROACH TO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, BY TOM WOODWARD

So, my approach to creating the character of Robin in THE CHILDREN by Lucy Kirkwood is not about actually creating him at all. I consider Lucy Kirkwood the creator; I am merely a Vessel and a Messenger of her words. I am also an Interpreter of her punctuation, the spaces and pauses she offers up in the threads and the thru-line of how Robin co-exists in the shrinking world borne out of a dire and heightened circumstance that has changed everything for him and his wife.

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Craig Joseph
FOCUS, CONNECTION, & TRUTH, BY MICHAEL J. MONTANUS

. . . my job as an actor was to support and connect with my cast mates through listening and reacting, making my contribution as truthful and as vulnerable as I could every night. Because no matter how insignificant it might seem, the beauty and truthfulness of everyone’s work shines the brightest when we’re all equally invested in our circumstances together onstage. 

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Craig Joseph
BEING A TECHIE AT A READING, BY SAM LANDGRAF

Readings tend to bring out voracious readers of plays or books, other playwrights, and avid theatre goers or performers. As a technical theatre person who is not a wordsmith, or a huge reader, and most definitely not a performer, I am not the typical audience member and I don’t hear or see the play in the same way.

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Craig Joseph