Finding Spoon River

Where does one look for a fictional town? As the set designer for Spoon River Anthology, I had no map or photographs to draw from. The Spoon River I envisioned was mine. The Spoon River Director Laura Schier envisioned was hers. The cast members envision their own Spoon River, as do the play’s many loyal followers.

After much thought, what came to me was this: Spoon River exists in a forest of the 5 seasons of life. (described in Tradition, Meet Other Tradition) There are 5 trees, each representing a season, and that seasons emotion. My goal as designer was to give the audience a visual jumping off point, and to let your imaginations take you the rest of the way. The set is minimal and representative, and the real Spoon River still lies in the hearts and minds of the viewers and the actors.

So let me ask you – What does your Spoon River look like?

Tradition, Meet…Other Tradition

Director Laura Schier approached the LTC Board with a vision – a fusion of traditional American folk music and poetry infused with concepts from traditional Chinese medicine. This type of innovative thinking is what drives LTC to continue putting on the lesser performed and forgotten gems that comprise the dramatic world.  If anyone else had told me that this was their concept, I might have done a bit of a double take, but with Laura, the fusion of these two cultures is more than natural. It represents her.

Laura is a woman of many cultures. Since I have known her, she has studied Irish Step Dance, choreographed traditional Vietnamese dances, lived in Africa with children who have HIV and AIDS, and has always reserved Tuesday nights to spend with her family (the ones she was born with and the ones she chose) at Folk Club. She and her family and friends at folk club were no strangers to the Spoon River Anthology. Laura grew up with it. She could sing me all the songs even before the scripts arrived. She was going to direct this show, but what would make it unique?

A few years ago, Laura announced to me that she was going to go to a school called Tai Sophia Institute in Maryland to study Applied Healing Arts. Among the many things she has brought into her life from Tai Sophia is an understanding of the seasons of life. In Traditional Chinese medicine there are five seasons, Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer and Late Summer.  Each of these seasons corresponds to an element such as wood, metal, and water, and is also a way in which practitioners discover the specific rhythms each season manifests within the body.This is visually represented on the stage by the colors that correspond to each season. The summer element is associated with the color red and is seen as the passionate emotions of hate and impatience,transforming into love, joy and awareness.  Late Summer is correlated with the color yellow, abundance, and the emotion of sympathy. Fall, represented by the color white, includes sad and melancholy emotions, and of letting go.  The Winter, or the color Blue, is about the unknown – what will happen next, and what do I do when I get there? Spring, related to the color green, is about expansive energy, of growth and of new ideas.

These concepts fit in perfectly with the passing of the citizens of Spoon River. Each lived or died in a different season of life, and have returned to tell you about it. Spoon River is not a story about death, but about life. It is not a ghost story. Come out and join us and let Laura Schier’s vision of Spoon River call you home.

Until the Curtain Falls,

LTC

P.S.  Tickets are now on sale online. Just go to www.leesburgtheatre.com

“Spoon River, Spoon River is calling you home…”

Spoon River is on its way to the Leesburg Theatre Company stage, and we here at LTC are becoming giddy. This show marks two very exciting firsts for us.

1- Spoon River Anthology will be the first ever LTC musical! For the past few years we’ve listened to your feedback, and what we heard loud and clear was “We want a musical”. Well, LTC cares. We do. We love our audience, and we want to see you happy, so here it is. LTC’s first musical!

2- It is with great pride that we debut the directing stylings of Laura Schier! When we selected Spoon River as our first musical, Laura was the obvious choice. Laura is what you look for in an innovative director. She is connected to the roots of the show, she was raised on the music, but she is approaching it from her own unique perspective. More on that perspective in the next post.

Spoon River opens on January 23rd, and plays for two weeks, and tickets go on sale this Friday. For details, visit www.leesburgtheatre.com.

Until the Curtain Falls,

LTC