Raconteur Theatre Company

Straight off of our production of Ghosts we have launched into rehearsals for our December production: Mom and Pop by local Columbus playwright Sarah Tobin.  Part of my duties as director is to share my concept of the play with the production team.  This is what I recently sent out to everyone.

Mom and Pop
Written by Sarah Tobin
Directed by Jill Ceneskie

Every generation must choose its path.  Do we follow our dreams or do we follow tradition?  Do we support the family owned businesses of our neighborhoods or do we opt for the convenience of the large corporate mega stores?  These are the issues I want our audiences to leave with in their minds.

Hendrick Hardware is warm and inviting, but should also appear as though it is lacking something as each generation we see is lacking.  The present day generation lacks direction in the face of too many options; our 1958 characters lack options in the face of unexpected events; our 1937 characters lack family unity in wake of a new generation being born.  With each generation we see a little warm disappearing but it is never gone.  There is love for the store, even if they don’t want it for their own lives.

Some scenes will contain very similar blocking to reflect that idea that although each generation has its own dilemma, at the very core of it, struggles are all the same in many ways, and we all face these problems in our own time.   We can also see each character’s level of connection to the store through blocking.  We see, for example, that Franz, Bart, Ed, and Gus are comfortable in the store and will wander in and out of the aisles for various purposes.  Luke will walk straight through the aisles but take no notice of them.  Eda, on the other hand, is at home in the store but avoids a commitment to its function, as she is never seen walking through any of the aisles.  Gerda, Gail, and Becky avoid the area where the aisles are, showing their disconnect from the store (each has her own reason for this disconnect).

All in all, we see how the early generations affect their children and the complications that one man’s dream can cause for generations to come.

*****

And that’s that.  Now I’m working on scheduling one on one meetings with each designer.  It’s nonstop from here to December 4th when we open!

Jill

In our short existence as a company, we have come upon and overcome many obstacles already.  Why should today be any different?

We are nearing the opening of our production of Ibsen’s Ghosts and at the same time we are preparing to start the production process for our next show (Mom and Pop by local playwright Sarah Tobin).  This is our first experience with overlapping production calendars, and it presents some new…er…learning opportunities.  Although we are continuing to slowly grow our company by bringing in more new and terrific people (we have really great people on board for Ghosts!), there is still a lot for the core founding company members to handle.  So, at a time when we are all maxed out with preparations for this production, we need to be focusing a lot of energy on the next one right now!  For example, we have auditions for Mom and Pop on the Sunday and Monday of tech week for Ghosts, and the Monday immediately following the tear-down of Ghosts will be the first rehearsal of Mom and Pop.  It’s truly non-stop.  On top of that, we are all, of course, working full time outside of the theatre.

This is my cue to get overwhelmed.

So, I tell myself to breathe.  I tell myself that all this work is worth it.  I tell myself that the passion I have for theatre has its outlet here– in a place I can call my own, and in a place I can be surrounded by other hard-working theatre lovers.

We can do this.

Jill

I recently had the honor of being nominated by the Critics Circle as the Best Actress in Columbus. While I didn’t win, it was, as they say, an honor just to be nominated. It seems that my award ceremony invitation was, unfortunately, lost in the mail. However, I prepared this acceptance speech, and figuring that a good acceptance speech should never go to waste—despite losing—that I would share it here.

“Oh! Wow! I can’t believe I’m standing here right now. This is even more fantastic than I ever imagined. I want to thank everyone who has believed in me from day one for encouraging me to continue on as well as the people who didn’t believe in me, because it was those people who fueled my desire to prove them wrong. Thanks to my family and friends, and especially my husband who always pushes me to realize my dreams. I love you, Andrew. Finally, I wouldn’t be here without the wonderful direction of Tricia Jones and my inspiriting co-actor, JT Walker. Thank you all!”

And my time is up.

That was awesome. Thanks for going on that little journey with me. Seriously, finding out I was nominated was very exciting. One of my favorite things about this nomination is that it was for a role in Raconteur’s debut show. I think that makes it doubly awesome.

And since I didn’t know about this until the winners had already been picked, I didn’t have all that wondering to do; I could just enjoy the fact that I was considered among all the actresses in all the shows that took place over the last theatre season.

Still grinning,

Jill