Homestretch

Posted by DCA Theater on October 23, 2011 in July-December 2011 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Project 891Theatre Company

Submitted by Ron Popp, Artistic Director for Project 891 Theatre Company, currently working on Homefront in the DCA Theater Incubator Series

The Homefront reading is Monday night. Today (Friday) Obama has announced all troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by year’s end. On days like today, with the news tickers showing the body counts and the pundits arguing the pros and cons of the past 10 years, it’s humbling to think that I have anything else to add to the ongoing saga. I grew up in a small town and my brother served 2 tours in Iraq. He was wounded the second tour and has fully recovered. That is as autobiographical as Homefront gets.

My brother and I are not particularly close but, while he was gone, I felt obligated to write him. The sad fact was…I really had nothing to say. Our relationship is amiable but we are complete opposites in most every way imaginable. So I would randomly write him about my college classes, my job, the weather, a movie I had just seen…..minor details considering what he was going through on a daily basis.

A few years later it occurred to me that these letters (well, the format of letters) could be used in a play as monologues to the soldier.

That’s how Homefront began. It basically tells the story of a family getting by at home while one of them is at war. The soldier is never seen but much of the action is directed at him. The family is a typical family, going through the trials of day to day living. 

The DCA Incubator Series has allowed me to assemble a cast and director and workshop in a way that we normally would not be able to. We all meet downtown for a few hours after work, read through the script, play with the language and then head home. It’s been a great experience with a great group of people. 

I can’t wait for the final staged reading on Monday!

Risking Aloud

Posted by DCA Theater on October 19, 2011 in July-December 2011 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Project 891Theatre Company

Submitted by Ron Popp, Artistic Director for Project 891 Theatre Company, currently working on Homefront in the DCA Theater Incubator Series

Hearing something that you have written read out loud is an interesting experience. As the actors and director assembled Friday night, the general nerves started, as they always do.  Would anyone here enjoy the reading?  Does this play make any sense?  If it’s funny in my head, does that mean it will be funny being read out loud?  Why did I set the play in Tennessee knowing that the audience would be hearing it in Chicago?

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The Luxury of Space

Posted by DCA Theater on October 10, 2011 in July-December 2011 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Project 891Theatre Company

Submitted by Ron Popp, Artistic Director for Project 891 Theatre Company, currently working on Homefront in the DCA Theater Incubator Series

Most of our use of the DCA Studio Theater space (which is amazing if you’ve never seen it) has been dealing with costumes.

For our upcoming show Our Leading Lady, we are constructing several 1865 style hoop dresses. While this might not sound like a huge challenge, in fact it is. The problem is space. Project 891 Theatre Company, along with most storefront theatre companies in Chicago, rehearses and performs in different places and therefore does not have a “home base.”  Most of our meetings and costume building take place in individual apartments.

However, in the case of Our Leading Lady, the costumes, fabric needed, and patterns are HUGE!  If you’ve ever sewn….or, as in my case, tried to cut out a pattern in a small one bedroom apartment with a cat attacking anything you do….you can easily realize the problem.

Take a look at these costumes from Our Leading Lady to get an indication of how massive they are!

Therefore these past few rehearsals have been solely devoted to using the DCA Studio Theater space as a costume workshop. We are looking forward to the first read-through for our workshop production of Homefront, this week.