THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT!
OR: October is both Halloween spooky season and also Domestic Violence Awareness Month
A Note from the Artistic Director
Content information: the newsletter and the play of A Lonely Realization reference sexual assault throughout.
Before you read this note, BUY YOUR TICKETS FOR A Lonely Realization!
I’ll wait.
OK. Now you can read. This note is a big old love note to a very special group of theatre makers including my dear friend Buddy Todd.
The Shattered Glass Project works with theatrical material about traumatic situations a lot of the time. Practicing our skills to do this in a safe way is always an intense experience. We have been fortunate to work with many local experts in intimacy over the past 5 years, including as intimacy directors (Jess K. Smith, Want, 2022); actors (Jasmine Lomax, All New Cells, 2023); and teaching artists (Kate Drummond, Ian Bond and Jasmine Lomax). Our production of A Lonely Realization, which will open in less than two weeks, deals specifically with the aftermath of sexual assault. The extensive use of absurdity and humor throughout the play doesn’t lessen the potential for traumatizing the actors in the process of rehearsing the play.
So it was exciting and very important for me as the director and for the cast as a whole to bring TSGP board member Buddy Todd into the room to help us establish ways of creating a safe rehearsal space for emotionally difficult storytelling. They also helped us to craft our cast agreements and left us with somatic exercises to release the tension of difficult rehearsal processes.
Buddy Todd, dramaturg and intimacy coordinator, A Lonely Realization
Being an intimacy director is a role in creating a play that is pretty invisible to the audience, along with being a dramaturg, which…hey! That was Buddy too! They worked with playwrights Darby and Emily long distance from Ireland for over a year, and helped grow the script of A Lonely Realization from the original 45 minutes to a full 100-minute play.
So this director’s note is to say, “Thank you so much, Buddy! We wouldn’t have a play without you and we are incredibly grateful for your creativity and the safe space you created where we could make art!”
Rebecca O’Neil, Artistic Director, Shattered Glass Project
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P.S. We’re sponsoring a post-show discussion on Sunday, October 20th with the playwrights and two of the fabulous folks who provide support for sexual assault survivors in our legal community. Please keep an eye out for an email with the full details!
A Lonely Realization Opens Oct 18!
L-t-R: A Lonely Realization Director (Rebecca O’Neil), Stage Manager (Clair Kaminsky) & Assistant Stage Manager (Hana Oh)
Director’s Journal, or The Top 10 Skills I Have Learned or
Practiced Really Hard While Directing A Lonely Realization:
by Rebecca O’Neil
I’ve been asking myself to write a lot of stuff about this production and this script, which sends me thinking in many different directions. Here’s a preview of the director’s note for our program. If you’re interested in a deeper dive into a more academic textual and thematic analysis of the script, check out this blog post:
Not everyone sees humor as a tool to drill deeply into something like sexual assault in artistic and educational spaces, but I think sometimes it’s better to laugh yourself sick than to scream and beat your head on the wall. You want to remember the things that make you laugh or go “ewwww...”. Hence, A Lonely Realization, which is a funny effing play employing humor, facetiousness, absurdity, jocularity, bad jokes, rotting corpses and the sometimes stupid and self-centered nature of being a human to explore some serious shit = institutional and individual responses to sex and gender-based violence in a way that reflects the experience of the survivor. We do this with three actors, one old pair of jeans, 15 characters, a lopsided set with a DIY vibe, voices from the ceiling, a bunch of puppets, a slew of toys, and reams of craft paper.
In a world where women (and many other people) are losing legal rights to their voices and to their bodies, especially their reproductive and sexual autonomy, a story about how individuals and communities learn to respond as bystanders and support the victims and survivors of sexual assault is an important creative teaching tool. We hope our tale will promote healing and recognition and galvanize our community members to be better friends, educators, and human beings. So please: laugh. And remember.
Here are the top ten skills:
Interrupting. It’s ok to interrupt the actors in the middle of a scene to give them a note. This is sooooo hard to do.
Being nit-picky without giving line readings. As an actor myself, I hear the words a particular way, but I can’t play the role for them.
Reminding the playwrights what their script says. These playwrights are acting in their own piece. They frequently ignore their own words and punctuation, which is an interesting conversation!
Making the cast do it again. They call it practice or rehearsal for a reason - doing it again is the only way to get it down.
Taking breaks. I’m just sitting here watching - my butt gets tired, but the rest of me isn’t. Thank heavens for the stage managers!
Saying no. I don’t always like what the designers are bringing me. It’s ok to ask for something different if I’m not seeing IRL what my head is imagining.
Telling myself no. Sometimes what I see in my head can’t be done that way.
Saying yes! OMG, that was fabulous, do it again!
Failing with style. Saying, well, that was a terrible idea, let’s try something else.
Being grateful. I get to work with a magnificent group of people
L-to-R: ALR Director (Rebecca O’Neil) & cast/playwrights (Emily Stone & Darby Sherwood)
YOU ARE INVITED!
…To Community Day at ACT Theatre, Co-Hosted by The Shattered Glass Project!
Includes a Post-Show Discussion at 4:00 PM featuring TSGP Artistic Director Rebecca O’Neil - “Women in Plays: a conversation”
Katie Forgette (Mrs. Loman is Leaving playwright); Julie Beckman (Mrs. Loman is Leaving director); Rebecca O’Neil, The Shattered Glass Project Founding Artistic Director; and Shana Bestock, ACT Artistic Associate share their experiences and reflections on what it means to be a woman in plays. We’ll talk about our work, how we get it it done, and what the particular experience of having been socialized as a woman in this culture has to do with how we make theatre together. Then we’ll open the conversation up to our shared experience of the women characters in Mrs. Loman is Leaving. Light refreshments provided.
Discounted tickets available for TSGP Fans
Community Partner Ticket offer: WOMEN25 for $25 tix
TeenTix - the usual, $5 each, 2-for-$10, available for pre-purchase online using codes TEENTIX or TEENTIXSUN (put code in before choosing seats!)
Lend your voice!
…& join us for this free play reading & discussion event!
1 pm, Saturday, October 19th
at the MLK FAME Center 3201 E. Republican St., Room 109
You are invited to the official WA state reading of the play GOOD LAZY WOMAN by Catherine Stewart. This reading is part of a national initiative to get readings in all 50 states before the election in November. This project is ambitious! exciting! and important!
Since 1789, only 3% of the 12,506 individuals in Congress were women, and less than 1% were BIPOC women. Catherine Stewart - writer, director, filmmaker, playwright - wrote GOOD LAZY WOMAN to honor and amplify the words of pioneering women who have shaped American history. Click the link below to learn more & accept your invite.
