Working on Ruined from the Outside In

Jambo! My name is Artisia, I am the director of Ruined and thought I would share a little bit about the process I am using for the show. We have been rehearsing since February 21st. We spent the first week doing some dramaturgical work - read through, discussion, video..., the second week blocking (took a break for Spring Break) and resumed blocking this week. As of today, Friday, March 16, I am happy to report that we have blocked 12 of the 13 scenes of the play.

My goal was to approach blocking as an artist would drawing the shape of a body. One usually begins by creating shapes, then layering in muscle and other details. Thus for Ruined, I began by creating a general outline of movement by first (particularly in the smaller scenes) allowing actors to create a general traffic pattern for themselves. I see what natural inclinations they make and then adjust or layer my outline onto their movement patterns. Together we create shapes or what we call compositions - stage pictures based on the given circumstances of the text and initial impressions.

Now that we have created an outline, next week we will begin to fill in the muscle. The muscles of the body allow us to DO, to be in MOTION, and they grow stronger the more they are utilized. The muscle in terms of the rehearsal process is where we begin to layer in all of the justification for why we are doing, moving, reacting, etc. We start playing our objectives and testing our tactics against our outline. What doesn't work, we reshape until our compositions are solid and natural. In the case of Ruined, there is also violence, dance, music and dialect. Thus, we have regular rehearsal calls for the fight and dance choreography (as opposed to workshops in the initial phase), the band begins to attend rehearsals more frequently, and the accent (if not mastered) will begin to sound more authentic. We will be here for roughly the same amount of time we spent in the first phase - 3 weeks.

Lastly, we will finish our drawing process with adding the unique details that distinguish our body from another body...the shape of the eyes, the color of the skin, the mole behind the right ear lobe, the handlines in our palms. These would be things like tempo, rhythm and general comfort within our environment. The work of the other designers add to this phase significantly as the set, costumes and lights are loaded into the space and we move from the studio into the theatre. This part of the drawing process will take us right into openning nite!

I am truly excited about this production and will make guest appearances on Chrich's blog from time to time to share my thoughts. He is such a wonderful addition to this process as he is truly an actors' director. I also appreciate having such an apt Stage Manager, Kelsey Schneider, on my team as well. The two of them are helping to make the creation of this portraiture a beautiful moment on the journey to meeting you on openning nite!

See you at the show,

Artisia