TWO WEEKS FROM TOMORROW
2017 - Present

In a sparse rehearsal room, a group of amateur actors attempt to stage a new version of Anton Chekhov’s classic play The Seagull. [ include a line or two about seagull by stanislavski ]

Their collective memory in the making is summoned to the space via a shared astral experience, woven together from both the waking and dreamed moments lived by the troupe in their effort to realize the production. 

“Its not a play about how things are or should be, it’s life in a dream, so the normal rules don’t apply”

Foregoing a direct engagement with the text, the troupe attempts to arrive at an expression of the play emerging from their own ideas. The experimental demands of the director’s methods border on the mystical as she attempts as many indirect routes into Chekhov’s text as her actors will allow. As this strange troup goes further into the Russian story of desire and ambition, uncanny parallels and hallucinatory visions emerge amidst the taking on and dropping off of costumes and masks, replacing their spirits with the spirits of another, a descent to madness or euphoria is inevitable.

Characters existing in the space between the roles they take on and the roles that take them on,

As opening night looms ominously on the horizon, the shape of the finished work becomes increasingly unknown and the strange crew confront the possibility that their artistic ambitions of a new transcendent piece might produce a catastrophic failure. 

Linear time is given over to an experience of the minds’ free associative unfolding of memories as recalled by a collective in this metaphysical rehearsal room, a void space brimming with the potential of the infinite.

TWO WEEKS FROM TOMORROW is based on a working process of Anton Chekhov’s ‘The Seagull’

Written by Timothy Adams, Sarah Ambrose, Christopher Givens, Madeline Gaudet, Joshua James, Grace Kennedy, Brooke Volkert

Directed by Christopher Givens

Starring:

Brooke Volkert as Karen / Masha

Grace Kennedy as Elaine

Joshua James as Clark / Trigorin

Justin Rolling as Marcus / Dorn-Sorin-Polina-Shamraev

Madeline Gaudet as Penny / Nina

Sarah Ambrose as Willamena / Arkadina

Timothy Adams as James / Konstantin

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Starting from research into filmmaker Mike Leigh’s method for devising films through a months long improvisation process, I worked individually with 7 actors to develop characters based on a person they knew intimately at one time in their life. These characters were then introduced to one another in the context of a new theatre company being assembled. For two months, structured improvisations were carried out between the group in various combinations with the sphere of Chekov’s The Seagull as a rotation center we regularly orbited around. Improvisations were transcribed and written into a stageplay and presented as a 3 hours staged reading.
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Project History:

2/28/17 - 3/29/17
Character selections/creations with actors and reading The Seagull.


3/31/17 - 4/20/17
Character and scene improvisations: the actors audition, go through exploratory exercises and rehearse scenes from The Seagull.

4/21/17 - 4/28/17
Transcription of recorded notes, audio, and video from improvisation rehearsals into a script.

5/1/17 - 5/20/17
Close readings and further development of script.

5/21/17
Staged reading open to the public.

_____________________________Random notes:

Accelerating whirlwind of movement and alternate realities as a way of finding a stillness within the storm, “detachment and illumination at the center of the hurricane

Riding on a wave of fragmented thoughts branching off and dropping seeds, acceleration of energy, exhilaration of sound movement and creation, transmission of ecstatic energy which comes through within highly disciplined moments to a point of envelopment within another world.

decidedly not a career, unfulfilled artistic ambitions, psychodramatic acting exercises

to change the world of art, do something different
encourages the mind of the viewer to finish the piece

confused methods, vague intentions, group commitment is cult like

Catching life as it flows through the net of consciousness, spirit as embodied in language, spirit as animated in body

Seen fractured as if through a crystal, logical progression from one scene to another is foregone in service to the unfolding of fragments linked by a mysterious bond.

Adventurous attempt, continual improvisation, perpetual creation, continuous flow of movement. Keep the pendulum swinging

the wireless mice will give the play the quality of happening in their heads

***Watch Celine and Julie Go Boating, Watch OUT1
front hallway is the hanamichi, the bridge on which we perform to the gods and a path on which to walk in order to pay one’s respects to them

final bow is for the divine spectators said to reside behind the actual audience

chalk ladders broom microphone a gate a fan spinning hardware sdcards

1 floor dolly, 1 low stage, 1 chest, 1 hat rack, 5 stools, 1 short bench, 1 long bench, 2 cubes, 2 chairs, 1 red dolly

end with a riddle — What’s outside the window?