Changing the rules, 'Theresa'
then strays
By Louise Kennedy, Globe Staff | March 29, 2007
...The Village Theatre Project and
Boston Playwrights' Theatre have assembled three skilled
performers here; Stacy Fischer, Julie Jirousek, and
Cheryl McMahon invest all their characters with distinctive
personalities, quirks, and real warmth. Jon Savage
contributes an appropriately real/surreal set, Mary
Grusak's costumes are at once simple and ingenious,
and
Haddon Givens Kime has managed to write a recurring
tune that embraces everything from '50s doo-wop to
African drums to "Ave Maria."
"Ave Theresa" Here is the main theme of the show.
Schubert's "Ave Maria" gone doo-wop. I had a
really hard time hitting those high notes...
"End of Act 1" In this cue Theresa tries to pray,
but after all that has happened, ends up being too distracted
by her new secular existence. Stacy Fisher played Theresa's
frustration beautifully during this cue.
"Oh Theresa (where
have you gone)" This
cue was written for a scene in which Theresa's little
sister turns on the radio and dances around the kitchen
to this song... I tried channeling Dr. John for this one.
Sound Advice
The music I wrote for this show is your basic run of the
mill doo-wop. Since Theresa is an ex novice nun who, in
the script, has a propensity for playing Schubert's Ave
Maria when she gets blue, I decided to take Mr. Schuberts
harmonic structure and change the lyrics a bit.
The craziest thing I've had to deal with soundwise in a
long time happened during this show. I had originally designed
the show for two Minidisc decks... Old school, if there
ever was such a thing. Anyhow, these decks were on their
last legs. One ended up ERASING 20 or so cues one morning.
So BPT ended up purchasing a new laptop with SFX on it.
I hate SFX, but it gets the job done. Completely NON intuitive
software. Ugly UI and an all around crappy Windoze program,
except that it really does control theater sound pretty
well... So I ended up having to rebuild the entire show.
4 solid days of work, in less than 3 hours during the night
of our final dress. Good times! Luckily our lighting designer
had a friend who came in and helped me out. Thanks Matt!
