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The Parrot: An Interview

Posted by DCA Theater on July 7, 2011 in January-June 2011 Season, Lighthousekeeping

An interview with Jess and Scott Ray Merchant about the development of the character of the Parrot in Lighthousekeeping.

Director Jessica Hutchinson recently sat down with Scott Ray Merchant, who plays numerous roles in Lighthousekeeping - including but not limited to Charles Darwin, a Russian Dock Worker longing for love, a sassy librarian, and most notably for today, Starbuck, a small blue parrot.

As Jess and Scott both have day jobs with somewhat easy access to the internet, when we say “they sat down” we of course mean they conversed via Google Chat.  Here’s the transcript.

Scott: Good morning

Jess: Good morning, Mr. Merchant.  So - the parrot.

Scott: The parrot.

Jess: That has to be one of my favorite parts of the whole show - and I also really love how it grew. It really kind of started a joke, right?

Scott: Right. I saw that I was going to be the voice of the parrot on the cast list, so I just sort of followed Tien and Mary around in their blocking.

Jess: Oh wait - really?  That was on the cast list?

Scott: . . .To my recollection. I also happen to have a selective memory but I seem to recall seeing it written down somewhere

Jess: Oh - yes - but we had been thinking about it from a design perspective as a voice-over.
But then we started to abandon the idea of including voice-over in the show (for the “Tell me a story...” moments)

Scott: Ah. makes sense. In that case I’m glad I started screwing around early.

Jess: Well, yes - and that’s part of what I love about it. I remember a moment of shift from “Scott Ray Merchant is a smarty pants” to “oh wait… that’s really specific and awesome work - look what he’s doing with the parrot!”
We talked a bit in rehearsal about the bird you had that helped you build that reality - can you talk a bit about that now?

Scott: Of course, when I was in high school I had a Quaker parrot named Dori. She hated everyone in the world except for me. Dori knew how to say her name, a few other phrases and knew how to laugh: piece of vocabulary she often unleashed if my friends did stupid stuff.

Jess: That kind of really specific affection is part of what I think gives such life to the parrot in the show - the way that he plays such an important role for Silver, to me, really comes from that affection he shows. There are several specific mannerisms - pecking at the chair stuffing, standing on one leg - are those things that Dori would do, or are they invention?

Scott: The first is definitely inspired by Dori. She would chew on anything she could. Also the nuzzling was something she would do quite often but only for me. Standing on one leg is more of a Macaw trait, and I pulled that from watching videos of that breed.

Jess: The nuzzling is probably my favorite. And you’ve worked with puppets before, yes?

Scott: Just once on stage; in Alien Queen with the Scooty and JoJo Show. I got to bring to life one of the chest-bursters from the Alien movies.

Jess: What was the most challenging part of creating the parrot?

Scott: Probably the slight adjustment from how it would work in my head to how it operated in the end. I remember coming up to you and asking how much stress it would be on [properties designer] Jessie [Gaffney] to build a puppet on top of everything she was already doing. Turned out this was her favorite part to work on so I don’t feel that bad about the request. I had been practicing in rehearsal manipulating the head with my thumb and forefingers, but to give the puppet a sturdier skeleton, Jessie used strings pulled at the bottom to open the mouth and allow articulation of the head
Slight adjustment but after our very long tech rehearsals I got acquainted with my new feathered friend pretty easily.

Jess: Does he have a name?

Scott: His name is Starbuck, quite by accident.
During tech someone asked if the Starbucks chair needed to be moved. Nick turned to Amanda and said “wait- who named the bird Starbuck?” So it just stuck.

Jess: Awesome.  Thanks sir - anything else you’d like to say about Starbuck?

Scott: Just that everyone should come see him if they haven’t seen the show yet.

Jess: Perfect - I agree.

You can read more how Jesse Gaffney created Starbuck the Parrot on her blog.  She’s also solved other highly specific prop challenges in Lighthousekeeping, including a wooden Seahorse Fossil.

Lighthousekeeping continues at the Storefront Theater through July 17th.