Making noise with Poe classic
By Casey Gillis on May. 03, 2007
Most set designers want to create set pieces that make little noise as they’re being moved around on stage.
But the minds behind Endstation Theatre’s first production, “The Tell-Tale Heart and the Mind of Poe,” which opens at 8 p.m. May 10 at Renaissance Theatre, wanted the exact opposite.
Artistic director Geoff Kershner and resident designer Krista Franco decided they needed hulking, creaky-sounding set pieces to contribute to the overall creepy atmosphere they were aiming for.
“Poe’s work lends itself wonderfully to the theatrical space because Poe was so concerned with creating mood and environment for his readers,” Kershner says. “We in turn can use his wonderful work to create mood and environment for our audiences.”
The main piece is a large set of cabinets that can be broken apart into three pieces.
“We wanted movable pieces that the actors could play with and create what they need to,” he says.
Instead of a straight theatrical telling of “The Tell-Tale Heart” — “the story, itself, is not a really long story,” Kershner says — he decided to include other stories and poetry written by Edgar Allan Poe, including “The Raven,” “Berenice” and the short story “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether,” and he set the production in an old Victorian psych ward.
“The room is full of these patients,” Kershner says. “We start with just the stories.”
There are six patients, to be exact, and one doctor. Each patient tells one of Poe’s stories, and “in and around the story, things happen that kind of match up,” Kershner says. “They use the set to sort of echo or mirror the things that are happening in the story.”
“It’s a confession of sorts,” he adds. “… As they tell the story, the space comes alive.”
One of the actors, Josh Mikel, is a drummer, so live percussion plays a huge part in the sound effects.
“My big thing was I didn’t want to rip the story apart,” Kershner says. “The actors who are the storytellers are really, really strong. Them telling the story (alone) would be interesting in itself.”
The lighting, too, is nontraditional. Instead of using all theatrical lights, light designer Dan Gallagher is also using fluorescent ones.
“I just thought it would really work to create this sort of institutional feel,” says Gallagher, an Amherst native who is now a freelance lighting designer in New York City.
In most productions, Kershner says, the light designer isn’t around until the final week of rehearsals, but they’re lucky enough to have Gallagher here for a few weeks, so he can play around with the lighting as the cast rehearses.
The entire process has been very collaborative, with Kershner and the actors creating the show entirely in rehearsal.
“I’m encouraging them to bring lots of ideas,” Kershner says. “… That’s the way I like to work anyway because they have to own what they’re doing.”
He also encouraged the cast to bring in things to populate the set with — which has resulted in an eclectic selection of jars, old baby dolls, tools and other items that even Kershner is unsure of what exactly they are.
“We wanted to create a lot of question marks,” he says. “Things the audience sees and (wonders), ‘What was that?’ We just started collecting things.”
In addition to performing the show in Lynchburg, they’ll also be taking it to Live Arts in Charlottesville July 12 through 22 and the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, D.C., July 27, 28 and 29.
“We wanted to do something that could showcase our mission statement,” he says. “(Our goal) is to really sort of focus our attention on the acting and the environment of the space.”
If you’re going:
WHAT: Endstation Theatre’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart and the Mind of Poe’
WHEN: 8 p.m. May 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18 and 19, and 3 p.m. May 13 and 20
WHERE: Renaissance Theatre Company, 1022 Commerce St. in downtown Lynchburg
TICKETS: $14 for adults; $14 for students, seniors, children and groups of 10 or more.
INFO: (434) 381-6537
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