Q& A with Stage Manager Tina Jach

Q: Victory Gardens produces many world premieres. What are the biggest challenges, as a stage manager, of working on new plays?
A: The biggest challenge is keeping the script up-to-date and making sure all involved have the changes. We do not have a dramaturgy department, so keeping up with changes falls into the stage manager's lap.

Q: How is working on a musical (such as The Snow Queen) different than working on a straight play? Which do you prefer?
A: Working on a musical is different because there are more components. You have music/musicians and different types of rehearsals that can happen simultaneously. On The Snow Queen we also had puppets, so during a rehearsal we had music, puppetry, and staging rehearsals happening in different rooms at the same time. I think a musical can be more fun, but I do not have a preference. The thrill is working on a new piece that nobody else has done before and developing that script with the actors, playwright & director.

Q: What has been your favorite part of working on The Snow Queen?
A: The people and the music. I think it is a great musical.

Aaaaaaaand we’re off!

Previews began tonight – it’s great to see how an audience responds to the work we’ve done thus far. We’ll continue to develop the piece and finesse scene work before we open on Monday the 11th, so we'd love to hear from you if you've attended a preview performance. Join us as storytellers to add your own narrative to the Snow Queeen blog! You can send us your thoughts by posting a comment here or emailing me (click the link on the right).

Here are a couple of photos from our final rehearsal last night – as you can see, we’ve come a long way over the last few weeks!

Gerda and the Enchantress puppet.

Kai and the Snow Queen puppet (check out the Nov. 12 post for comparison)

Gerda in her ‘Jenny Lind’ carriage.

Want to see more? Come check out the full production – you can order tickets by calling the box office at (773) 871-3000 or by visiting www.victorygardens.org. Preview tickets are as low as $26 (and there are discounts for students and seniors)!

Second Guest Blogger

Tina Jach, the production stage manager, will be our next guest blogger. As the stage manager, Tina is responsible for making sure rehearsals go smoothly, tracking script changes (always a challenge with new plays), and calling the show when we move in to the theatre (meaning she is in charge of all the scenery, lighting, and sound cues). Tina has been staging managing at Victory Gardens for seven years and holds an MFA from Rutgers University.

So, if you have any questions about how a theatrical production works from behind the scenes, Tina’s your gal! Drop us a line (either in a comment or via email) if you have any questions for her.

Standby, Tech Week… Tech Week, GO!

First of all, thanks to everyone who attended the open rehearsal yesterday! You asked some great questions and we hope you will be able to join us to watch the full production.

On Friday we made the move from the rehearsal hall down to the Začek-McVay Theatre. Over the past few days, we have been focusing on finishing the staging of the play and adapting to the new space (including wings, backstage crossovers, etc). Tuesday marks the beginning of tech week, where we will incorporate the elements of scenery, costumes, lighting, and sound into the staging. Actress Cheryl Lynn Bruce remarked, “I love tech… you just have to give everything over to the magicians and see what they pull out of their bag of tricks.” Here is what tech looks like, from the magicians’ point of view:

Stage manager Tina Jach’s table contains everything you might need – a script, cue sheets, gaff tape, tissues (it is flu season!), a dictionary, a cookie… what else can you spot?

The light board.

Things will really be coming together over the next few days – you can look forward to more photos and guest bloggers!

You asked for it – Andrew and Mattie’s scoop on The Snow Queen rehearsals

Here are some thoughts on the rehearsal process thus far from actors Andrew Keltz and Mattie Hawkinson. Thanks to everyone who submitted questions!

What has the Snow Queen rehearsal process been like?

AK: The rehearsal process for The Snow Queen has been thrilling. Every member of the ensemble, consisting of musicians, puppeteers and actors, brings their unique talents and experiences to the storytelling process. Throughout the rehearsal period, we have been able to learn a great deal from each other as we synthesize our many different storytelling methods and conventions into the communication of this particular story. Frank Galati establishes a rehearsal environment which is safe for taking risks and making new discoveries. This enables a huge amount of growth at every rehearsal. Michael Smith's beautiful and profound music and lyrics have been a true pleasure to explore. Working with the puppets (designed by Blair Thomas) has also been a wonderful experience. There was a moment a few weeks ago when I was watching the three puppeteers operating the bunraku "Enchantress" puppet, and I realized that I had stopped noticing the puppeteers, and all I could see was the "Enchantress." It is remarkable how the imagination is able to erase the mechanism and only see the magic. The show continues to evolve through each rehearsal, which keeps us all on our toes and makes every moment new and fresh. Over the course of the rehearsal period, we have become a tight-knit ensemble of storytellers, committed to sharing this story with others. We are excited to have an audience to share it with.

Andrew Keltz watches a scene during rehearsal.

What are the challenges of working with puppets?

MH: Working with the puppets (or more accurately with the puppeteers) has been wonderful. Barbara, Jayson, and Eric give each puppet a great personality. Except the witch puppet, she's a real diva, always upstaging everybody. I can't stand her. Just kidding :)

Mattie Hawkinson discusses a scene with director Frank Galati.

Week two wrap up

The past few weeks have really flown by! We’ve had a full house in the rehearsal hall the past few days, with the puppeteers, musicians, and actors all coming together to start staging Act One. It’s very exciting to see all of the elements come together. We have artists from such different backgrounds in the room, and I have been impressed at how quickly they have all learned to speak each other’s ‘languages’.

Downstairs, the technicians are working away to load-in the set and hang the lights. Here’s a shot of their work in progress:


Next week we will be moving in to the space, which will be one more new element to incorporate. If you’d like to swing by and see how we’re doing, please stop by our open rehearsal on Saturday the 26th, 10 am to noon. If you haven’t been inside the Zacek-McVay Theatre yet, this is a great opportunity to see our new space. We will present scenes from the show followed by a discussion with the artists. Call 773-549-5788 to make reservations (coffee, juice and muffins are on the menu).

And, finally, to recap week two…

Rehearsal days: 12
New drafts of the script: 7
Near death experiences with the copier*: 2.5

* Last incident was a joint effort between myself and Sandy Shinner

Baby, it's cold outside!

Stepping off the ‘el’ today, I was met with a blast of cold air that is winter in Chicago. Just when I was thinking there couldn’t be any place colder right now, I walked in to rehearsal to hear Michael working with the musicians on a song about a place called ‘Lapland’. Here are some of the lyrics:

Climb into your Frigidaire
Wearin’ just your underwear
Honey, that’s Lapland
Folks can really chill up there, hon
But I’m a deer who’s gearin’ up to go
Dig, one of these days
I’m gonna gig my way back home to Lapland
Back to them frozen cats
With their frozen flattes
Fifty seven thousand words for snow

No need to pack
I’m gonna shag this wack rack back home to Lapland
Where you sneeze while the Arctic Seas freeze
When the breeze blows from the old ice floe
If the wind blows through your marrow
When you tarry in the forest
If you have to use a caribou
To carry your thesaurus
You’re in Lapland, honey
Not one word for sunny
Fifty seven thousand words for snow

Take a nice inner tube ride down an icicle slide
Clyde, that’s Lapland
Talk about your real cool scenes
I mean, the mean’s eleventeen below, hello!
Do you shiver all night beneath the Northern Lights?
Right, you’re in Lapland
You wish you had an extra shirt
Wish you had a yurt
Wish that you were flirtin’ with a certain purty doe
I don’t know if they’ve got a word for that lovely trail of turd
That leads the herd back up in Lapland
Or for the wind blowing drifts above your shin up to yer chin
Or for your little lost frostbit toe
No words for heat-wave or swelter or tan
Or for mint julep nights by a slow movin’ fan
But that’s Lapland, honey
Not one word for sunny
Fifty seven thousand words for snow…

Brrr, that sounds cold!

By the by, if you are looking for some new reading material, here’s a couple of books the cast and crew have been perusing lately:

The Kiss of the Snow Queen, by Wolfgang Lederer
Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller, by Jackie Wullschlager
The Amazing Paper Cuttings of Hans Christian Andersen, by Beth Wagner Brust

Enjoy!

Guest bloggers

We’re thrilled to announce that our first guest bloggers will be Mattie Hawkinson and Andrew Keltz, the actors who are playing Gerda and Kai.


Mattie is a graduate of Northwestern University – you may have seen her previously at Victory Gardens in Hanging Fire or at Steppenwolf, Lookingglass, or Chicago Shakes. Andrew is currently a junior at Northwestern and was most recently seen in Children of Eden, Jesus Christ Superstar, The American Plan and the Waa-Mu Show, all at Northwestern University. Their posts will be in a Q & A format, so let us know if you have any questions for these actors. You can submit your questions to us by leaving a comment on this post or via email (click the link on the left).

News from the puppetry front

Across the hall from the musicians, Blair’s crew has set up shop, building puppets and building a ‘movement vocabulary’. Theirs is a world of infinite possibilities -- anything can be a puppet, from the most complex bunraku constructions to a simple cutout of a paper snowflake. Below Barbara Whitney builds mock-ups for the Kai and Gerda puppets out of newspaper and masking tape:


As the director, Frank is the bridge between the two worlds – he watches the musicians work and provides input on the script’s development in the rehearsal room and then joins the puppeteers in their studio for preliminary movement work. As the songs have been solidified over the past week, we’ve begun to sketch in some preliminary staging with the actors and puppeteers. Here, Andrew Keltz (Kai) works on a scene with Eric Wetz (shown in the Snow Queen puppet):


Questions? Comments? Leave ‘em here… we’d love to hear from you. Hopefully we’ll have some guest bloggers soon, so let us know if there’s anyone in particular you’d like to hear from (actors, puppeteers, director, stage manager, etc.)

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

Script pages are a-flyin’ over at the Biograph Theater! So far we’ve reordered a few songs in Act One, finessed the musical transitions between scenes, and tweaked a lyric here and there. The combination of the musicians’ talent and Frank’s keen sense of direction have really brought the script to life. As the week has gone on, everyone has grown more comfortable with the music and begun adding some improvisation to the songs. It’s great to see how they’ve really connected with the music and made it their own. Some times, even when someone makes a mistake, it leads to a discovery – Michael can be heard saying things like, “Let’s do that – it’s better than what I wrote.”

It’s amazing how versatile the artists are required to be – the musicians transpose songs on the fly, the singers absorb new lyrics as pages are handed to them, etc. Here’s a few shots of the team at work:


So, to sum up, Bridget Jones style…
Rehearsal days: 4
New drafts of the script: 3
Near death experiences with the copier*: 1

* VG rite of passage

Welcome & First Rehearsal

Welcome to The Snow Queen rehearsal blog! Here's where you'll find the inside scoop on the production – with artistic giants Frank Galati, Michael Smith, and Blair Thomas in the rehearsal room, there’s sure to be tons of juicy tidbits to share. You can check in once or twice a week to find out more about the production’s development, the cast and crew, design details, and much more! Feel free to drop us a note if you have any specific questions about the process or just want to share your thoughts.

Rehearsals began yesterday with a ‘meet and greet’ and read-through of the current script. We’d previously workshopped the production in October, but this was the first time we had assembled the entire production team, including director Frank Galati, hot off of opening the pre-Broadway engagement of The Pirate Queen. Frank clearly enjoyed the music and could be caught smiling and toe-tapping throughout the day – he and Michael are old friends, having previously collaborated on The Grapes of Wrath at Steppenwolf Theatre (which then transferred to Broadway and won 2 Tony Awards). Michael worked closely with the three actors -- Cheryl Lynn, Mattie, and Andrew -- and his team of musicians, tweaking a note or two as the day went on. This musical 'table work' will continue for the next few days, before we tackle any staging or puppet work. Like any new play, it is important to have a strong grasp of the text first, only this 'text' is not just words, but notes and dynamics too!