PEEK INTO PROCESS @ AMERIKIN

The second show of the season is well underway in its process weeks before the formal rehearsal period begins. In these first six(ish) weeks, the cast and creative team meets to dive into tools that might prove useful when production rehearsals start. Some standardized tools that we are finding to be universally fruitful in our SOTP productions are “The Play Through”, “Observations & Interrogations”, “Michael Chekhov’s (MC) The Four Brothers”, “Stanislavsky’s Principles of Objectives and Given Circumstances”, and “The World of the Play.” There are certainly other tools making their way into the box, but these are the ones that serve as a solid backdrop for the work we build. Over the next weeks, we’ll talk more about these other tools, but today we’re going to introduce you to the World of the Play for Amerikin.

We did a similar post Grand Concourse this past fall. If you’re interested in seeing more, check it out!

For this tool, the director assigns the cast and designers the task of finding media that helps us engage with the world of the play. In the case of Amerikin by Chisa Hutchinson, we’re in Sharpsburg, MD in 2017 (or roughly thereabouts). It’s a place with a lot of history, and yet Hutchinson places us there in a very contemporary setting sharing that it’s a small town where the community depends on its close social hierarchy…and some less savory long-standing institutions.

The company is asked to find 4 pieces of media that is denotative of the world they imagine for this play or their character, and 4 pieces of media that is connotative of the world they imagine for this play or their character.

Here are some of the denotative and connotative pictures our company came up with - enjoy!