This is not a rehearsal

If you had visited us during our recent 2-week design development workshop, you would have likely heard this said: “This is not a rehearsal. It is a workshop”. You may be thinking: rehearsal, workshop, potayto, potahto. Wrong.  Our recent design workshop required a few mindset shifts from our story-focussed workshop in December last year. This small distinction made a world of difference when developing the design of ‘Dani and the Age of Wonder’.

Design not Story

As a design workshop, everything needed to address ‘how’ we tell this story. For two weeks, we would have actors and designers in the room. Our designers were Nati Pereira (Set/Props) and Ahi Karunaharan (Music/Sound).  The focus was to support the designers and their design process. As the playwright, any script challenges had to become secondary.

Testing the possibilities of this material with the actors, led by Margaret-Mary

Actor Talia not Writer Talia

To make things more complicated for myself, this was my first time stepping into the role of Dani. I did not anticipate how jarring this would be for me. I was so used to seeing the work from the outside, that being in the work felt completely foreign. I had to learn to take off ‘Writer Talia’s’ hat and leave it at the door. But, I had the privilege of having my dramaturge, Anders, with us throughout the whole process. He held the story for me while I was ‘actor Talia’. And if we had a script issue we couldn't ignore, I could step out of the scene and switch to ‘writer Talia’.

Workshop not Rehearsal

Finally, we come to what I believe was the most important mindset shift for us to make:

Rehearse (v) - to practice with the intention of working towards a desired end product

Workshop (v) - to generate, explore and test ideas

This distinction liberated me so much when stepping into ‘actor Talia’ for the first time. I didn't need to achieve an Oscar-worthy performance. I was simply a body in the space to generate and test ideas.

This mindset shift extended beyond which ‘hat’ I was wearing. In the second week, we hit a rut on a particular a scene that we had revisited several times in different ways. I found myself getting frustrated at why we couldn’t seem to figure out the best way to stage the scene. But talking to Margaret-Mary and Anders, I realised why I felt frustrated. Without realising it, I had slipped on my writer and designer hats, on top of my actor hat. Worse still, I had shifted my mindset from workshop to rehearsal. From exploration and testing, to working towards an end goal. I had tried to solve the design problem and solve the script problem at the same time. But a) designing wasn’t my job, and b) the script wasn’t the focus right now. And guess what? None of it was wasted on Nati. While we were striving to ‘solve’ the design, Nati had developed a new design, which incorporated elements from all our explorations.

From left to right: Margaret-Mary, Tom and Nati present her design ideas at our private showing

Overall, it was a challenging 2 weeks. But it taught me so much about the importance of getting into the right mindset.

The ‘Wonder’ Team

Director: Margaret-Mary Hollins

Actors: Dawn Cheong, Hone Taukiri, Tom Webster, Nikeidrian Peters, Wesley Dowdell

Set/Prop Designer: Nati Pereira

Music/Sound Designer: Ahi Karunaharan

Dramaturge: Anders Falstie-Jensen

Stage Managers: Chloe Bettina, Sam Cheong

Producer: Natalya Mandich-Dohnt (Hand Pulled Collective)

Proudly funded by Foundation North’s Asian Artist Fund.

Space generously provided by Auckland Theatre Company’s Open House