Behind the Scenes at "Courting Magic"

Hey, 

Last week Megan and I wrote interview questions for  the key players on the "Courting Magic" team: Jenna the director, Michelle the playwright, and all of the actors in the play.

These are the questions we asked Jenna Gabriel, the director:

How did you become a director?

I lucked into it actually! I grew up performing, and moved to New York for college with the goal of being an actor. I had some amazing teachers at NYU who encouraged me to broaden my horizons and try my hand on the other side of the process. I still love to perform, but I think directing appeals to my love of storytelling and of working with a group of people to create something magical!!

Did you want to be a director?

Not at first, but once I tried it, I realized how much I enjoyed it!

How do you remember everyone’s names plus their characters’ names?

Haha, that's a great question! It can get tricky sometimes, especially because in this group we have two Jakes! In one program, we even had a student who played a character that had the same name as another student!!! That one got really confusing. One of the biggest things that's helpful is that we have a lot of returning actors in our programs. So I've known some of the students for years! Another thing that helps is the fact that, because our playwright writes the show based on the unique people in the group, we don't have character names until at least halfway through the program. By then I've usually learned everyone's real names!

Is this the hardest job out of all of them?

I'm not sure. I think the level of difficulty of a job depends on your comfort level with it. For example, Michelle makes a much better playwright than I would. I'd find her job very difficult, but she does it with great ease. Jake A. makes a MUCH better Highwayman than I would... I'd never feel comfortable singing "I Walk The Line" in a sold out theatre! But I do think that the director's job is unique in its importance. You can't make a play without all of the different jobs, but the director is sort of like the quarterback of the artistic team. A huge part of my responsibility is making sure that everyone is doing their job and working as a team to support the actors. A great director knows how to inspire their team and bring out the best in each designer, playwright, and performer. So hopefully I've been able to do that!

How long have you been working with Daytime Moon?

Since the very beginning! I actually am one of the founders of the company and, outside of our classrooms, act as Executive Director of Daytime Moon. While I'm not the only teacher/director on our staff anymore, I've been responsible for developing the unique curriculum that Daytime Moon provides to our participants and uses to develop our amazing productions. It's been a crazy ride since Angelica and I first started talking about Daytime Moon in 2007, but it's been a huge part of my life that I wouldn't trade for anything. When I see our students take their curtain call, I know this is the most important thing I've ever done.

What’s your favorite memory about being in this program?

Oh wow, I don't know that I could choose!! I think my favorite part of every program is the first day our actors see the final scripts. They've put in all this work and created these amazing characters. They've improv-ed scenes that often feel kind of crazy and weird because the characters don't quite fit together yet. And then they see this script. And it's professional and it's a story and it's funny and sweet and special and--most importantly--it's THEIRS. The moment when our students realize the impact their voices have had on the final product is always inspiring to me. In that moment, everyone looks full of confidence and on top of the world. They look sure that they can do anything. That's the ultimate power of theatre!

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These are the questions we asked Michelle Kuchuk, the playwright--

 

How did you become a playwright?

I've actually had more experience directing and critiquing plays than writing them! Playwrights will often submit plays for professional critique to me via Nicu's Spoon Theater (where I also serve as Literary Director); I'm a tough critic but it is of my opinion that writing plays are INCREDIBLY challenging - there are so many elements to juggle!  But I had so much fun developing and writing our play with our CCA actors last fall, I asked Jenna if I could take the next step by writing for our younger kids for this program.

What’s your favorite play?

You know... last fall you asked me what my favorite plays were, and even picking a few was hard!! The best play I saw on Broadway last year was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, a playwright whose plays always inspire me.

How did you fit all three stories together? How long did it take to fit all the stories together?

Luckily, the characters that our actors created fell into those three semi-distinct groups you mentioned (and not more!). There was clearly a "royal" group, and then a good guy and a bad guy in another group... the perfect conflict.  The other two characters became this great opportunity to link the two other stories together - the fact that Alex wanted to be an author gave us the idea to link them in that way. I had help on this initial idea from Jenna and Ella and our actors... but it took me a long time to fit all the stories together in the actual script! There were a few moments when I thought I wouldn't be able to figure out the puzzle of the last scene [when the stories literally converge]!!

What was the hardest part about writing this play?

I think the hardest part about writing this play was smoothly combining every story, character, and element that our actors developed themselves and wanted to include, while at the same time creating something that actually made sense and that the audience (and me!!) could follow!  This was the most challenging part... but possibly the most fun :)

What’s your favorite memory about being in this program?

Hm... that's another extremely tough question to answer! I have so many amazing memories, and it's not over yet! I think one of my favorite memories is when we had the actors pick out costume pieces from our character chest. It was incredible to watch them develop a character in a matter of minutes with just a little help from their buddies!! They introduced their characters and gave me some of the best lines that I promptly inserted RIGHT into the script. It really made my job pretty easy...! But truly: it has been such an amazing experience to write this play with the characters that these kids created.  I am so happy to have been on "this side" of it all, and can't wait for the show on Saturday!

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For the actors, we got to videotape them responding!! Jenna and I put this video together today:

Hope you enjoyed this backstage look at "Courting Magic"! Don't forget to reserve your tickets at www.daytimemooncourtsmagic.eventbrite.com.

See you there!
Jareth