Live from the Rehearsal Hall--Part 1

You may have noticed that from time to time I take pictures during rehearsal.  If you follow me on twitter, you've probably seen some of these pictures.  So here is a post, full of pictures taken from our rehearsals over the past few weeks.

And it's only part one.  More to come as our rehearsals continue!

 

 

 Chuck, Ariel, Crabbe, and Goyle (a.k.a. Travis and Lyle) working with the amazing and musical Susan Quinn on "The Girl Gets Around"

 

McCormack Family at the piano 

 A Father-Daughter game of cards
 

 Ren, Ariel, and their lovely duet 

 Betty Blast, kicking tail and taking names.

 Willard, Ariel, and Ren.  And a beautiful Victorian painting in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some ducks I saw outside the Arts and Culture Centre.  I love ducks.

Even more pictures

I know, I know.  Two posts worth of pictures of small towns, churches, homes, and Oklahoma.  Why oh why post more?

I think pictures can be a great way to get into a character and into the world of a show.  They can give us an idea of the kinds of things our characters might see from day to day.  They can help us better visualize and imagine the places where our scenes occur.  Does this church look like the one we attend?  Is this our high school hallway?  Is this what the Burger Blast might look like?  Photographs and pictures can help us think about and answer these questions.

But, everyone is different.  For some actors, pictures are effective.  For others, music.  Maybe listening to the dialects helps.  As we continue into rehearsals, think about what helps you get into character, what helps you understand these characters, and what helps you find your Bomont identity.

Dialects

A handful of members of our cast have asked about whether or not we're using dialects for the show.  The short answer is not really.  Dialects can be tricky, and making them consistent across the board is near impossible.  If we really went for it, I fear we'd spend hours poring over International Phonetic Alphabet diagrams and sitting in the mirror, trying to make specific vowel sounds and having our family members look weird at us.

But, I definitely encourage you to get the accent in your ear and play around with it.  If we can hint at the cadence of an Oklahoma dialect, it'll be a nice in-between, allowing us to give a sense of where the show takes place through the dialect, without having to spend a lot of time on IPA and hammering out exactly what vowel and consonant sounds we need.

Here is a link to a website with some great sound samples of Oklahoma dialects.  They'll give you an idea of what this sounds like.  Feel free to give a listen.  Again, we don't need to spend a lot of time working up an accent for the show.  This will just serve to get the sound in the ear.

Thanks!

Meet the Cast! Part Three

A few more brave volunteers have submitted themselves to the rigorous interview required to make of these very serious, high-budget videos.  Learn more about your fellow citizens of Bomont below!

That guy who plays Willard Hewitt...who is he?



So, it seems like our cast has a pretty fantastic ensemble.  Could we meet some of them?



Thanks to Simon, Cody, Ellen, and Kade for helping out with this exciting edition of Meet the Cast.

More pictures of where we are

Another set of photos of the rural midwest, in Oklahoma and Texas.  I think they give a great feel for where our show is set.  The last two pictures are of bridges in Oklahoma.  One of these could be our Potawney River Bridge.

Thanks for all your work!

Famous people! In our cast, famous people!

Next time you're at rehearsal, look around the room.  What will you see?  FAMOUS PEOPLE!

Seriously, we have some incredibly busy and talented members in our company.  Not only did we have folks performing in Grease at the ACC a couple of weeks ago and others Hustling to Get Here, but we have in our midst several people about to take the stage in Anything Goes, and a 2012 Music NL Award Nominee.

No joke!

Opening one week from today is...

Featuring Footloose family members Mark House, Angela Feltham, Zach McCarthy, Julia Dunne, Brooke Steinhauer, Lindsay Burke, and Kyle McDavid.  Get your tickets and check it out!

And next time you see him, be sure to congratulate Trevor Bennett, founder of Catcher.  They just got a nomination for Alternative Group/Artist of the Year at the MusicNL awards.

If only Chuck Cranston would finish school and stop dealing drugs, he, too, could be a famous musician!

Where are we?

Bomont.

To quote Ren's Chicago friends, where the hell is Bomont?  I mean, Ren says in the script, that people are flocking there from all over.  But if that's the case, then why-oh-why can't I find it on Google Maps.  And I looked!  I really did!

Bomont is the setting for the show, but the authors of the play did not indicate exactly where in the world Bomont is located.  It is in fact a fictional town, the only Bomont in the U.S. being an unincorporated community in West Virginia.  Or so says Wikipedia.  There are a few Beaumonts, in Texas, California, and Mississippi.  And there is a Baylor County in Texas.  The Beaumont in Texas is, however, not located in Baylor County.

For the purposes of this production, let's set Bomont in Oklahoma.

"But, Tim, why Oklahoma?  Kind of arbitrary, don't you think?  Did you choose Oklahoma because that's the name of your real favorite musical?"

Well, Oklahoma! is a great musical, ground-breaking in its time, but that's not the reason to set our Bomont in Oklahoma.  As you may have discovered in a previous post, the story of Footloose is loosely based on a town in Oklahoma.  Also, eastern Oklahoma is about the right distance from Chicago, where Ren and Ethel live before arriving in Bomont.  So, for our production, Bomont will be located in the eastern section of Oklahoma, somewhere in the Tuskahoma/McAlester section of the state, if you look at a map.

I think the inspiration for our Bomont can be taken from two towns, Chelsea, OK and Seymour, TX.  These are small towns, a bit of a distance from the interstates and big cities.

But what is Bomont like?  Here are a few pictures to help us get an idea.

Local Diner

Bomont Motel

Another Local Eatery

Poster for an upcoming performance

High School

Downtown Bomont

Municipal Building/Courthouse

A Home in Bomont