Director’s Notes

The first time I directed at Parkside was when I was a student. My junior year I served as the Assistant Director for “The Foreigner” and I was also tasked with directing the understudy cast. As part of that role, I took the understudies to goodwill one night where we picked out each actor’s costume. Later that same year I directed a short play by Eugene O’Neil called “Before Breakfast”. To make the set, the lead actress and I walked the underground tunnels of Parkside looking for anything we could find to dress the set, which eventually included a refrigerator from the biology department, a broken podium from the math department, old mops and so much more! These are some of my fondest memories of my time as a student.

Any theatre artist who has worked long enough in the industry will eventually be involved in a show where there are small audiences. Sometimes you are lucky enough to be a part of a show where the members of the cast out number the audience every night of the run. Of course, more often than not, these are the shows that you’ve worked the hardest on.

Now we’re purposefully doing a show with no audience in the seats. How do you take a show that relies so heavily on audience interaction and translate that to a stage where there are no audience members at all. Well, I thought back on my time at Parkside, because here’s the thing I didn’t mention before, the audiences for those two shows, were non-existent. Sure there was some parents and some students who were required to be there, but other than that, no one. So, we decided to embrace this new normal by remembering our old normal.  

That’s what our version of “The Complete Works…Abridged” is. Three actors (plus a few Bob’s), working their hardest, on a limited budget, with limited resources and no live audience. It’s a blast. I know you’re going to love it as much as we loved working on it and maybe you’ll learn something along the way. For instance did you know that all of Shakespeare’s tragic heroines vomit everywhere when they die? So sit back, maybe make some popcorn, turn your phone off-silent, unwrap your candy wrappers at will because, hey, you’re watching this show from the comfort of your own home. The rules are what you want them to be!

All photos courtesy of UW - Parkside