For approximately a year now, Avatar Repertory Theater has been planning a production of Alice in Wonderland. The last 3 months have been an increasingly hectic time - trying to get the sets and costumes and marketing and rehearsals done. The last month...way too many hours spent.
But worth it :)
Seems our first show was a success with comments from our first performance like "ART has really pushed theater in SL to a new level" and a great first review.
(Our tease/bait posters)
Its been a huge amount of work for a lot of very talented people on the A.R.T. team. From the inital creation and revisions of a script, thru to the mind-numbing job of trying to organise 17 people spread across the world in different time zones. And we decided to try and create everything ourselves...skins, hair, clothes, props, sets, even some original music. In hindsight... probably a little too adventurous for such a big production (13 set changes for instance) but we made it and survived!
Its a really fun production with some laugh-out-loud moments...special effects, funky costumes, fun props, and some surprises for the audience. Runs about 90 mins, costs $500 ld (about $2 US) - arrive early please :).
A small word about Tim Burtons version..We found out about it approx 3 months into our planning - we decided to deliberately not see it so as to not be influenced. And we tried as much as possible to distance ourselves style wise from the Disney version as well. We just wanted our version to be 'our' version ya know?
On a personal note, although I never anticipated being involved in Theater in Second Life... it is very engrossing to be able to be involved in pushing the boundaries of such an ancient art in a new medium (real time virtual 'worlds'). We have actors and audience from all over the world, gathered on one venue at one time to perform. Although we are limited in the amount of traditional stagecraft (our actors describe it as virtual puppetry and a radio play combined), we do have the ability to do special effects and transitions normally reserved for post-production on film and TV. And it's a spontaneous performance - although planned down to small details, we never know quite what Second Life will push at us. Things like 'crashing' out of SL have to be coped with smoothly strategies such as "crash actors" who basically stand around waiting for such events to happen - already costumed and ready to go on at a moments notice.
A word about Avatar Repertory Theater : such a great group of guys n gals to work with :)
All putting in many many voluntary hours to push the boundaries on what we see as a new and exciting form of theater. A wide range of interests, ages, and talents all combining with energy and humour - and I really think it shows in our productions. It's great to be involved with a group of people who enjoy what they do and it's a true and rare pleasure to work with them.
No comments:
Post a Comment