Since Under Construction has hit the ground running, I asked Anne some more questions looking back on the process of building the show and looking forward to the show’s future:
Looking back at the process of building Under Construction, what was the most fun thing about this process in particular? The most challenging?
The most fun part of the process is how it unfolded. It felt like playing the Ouija Board where you put your hands on a planchette and ask a question and then the planchette moves. We asked the play a question and then the thing began to move and take shapes.
The most challenging: Figuring out how the play started and how the objects would appear, whether you would see them all at the top or if they would be brought out. How can they be reified again and again? It was scary to start staging the first Thanksgiving scene because making a table with two sawhorses and two planks felt so arbitrary.
It didn’t seem like the group ever really got stuck on something for too long. Was there anything that you totally didn’t expect?
I expected for us to get stuck constantly. And we did not. The play kept telling us what it wanted to be and become.
Now that the show is open, has the presence of an audience reshaped some of your thoughts about the show? Did it work the way you thought it would?
I never really know how a play is supposed to work until there is an audience present. This play was no different. The audience lets us know where to meet them.
Now you take this show to two new locations, both of which are proscenium spaces. This show feels so specific to the VJ at Actors Theatre. What is the process of adapting the show to the new space? Or do you more or less have to start from scratch?
We will not have to start from scratch because there is certainly a play and certain spatial relations and scenes central to the experience. But in a proscenium house it will be more challenging to invite the experiential intimacy that we enjoy in the VJ. We will want the audience to come on stage at the end, of course, but it’s a bigger deal to walk up onto a proscenium stage. Fingers crossed!
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