Four Clowns: Noah & Jonah (Blog #3 by Courtney Buchan)

Rehearsals for Noah & Jonah are now in full swing! David Bridel has a solid skeleton structure of what the scripts will look like, which means our next step has been to fill in the holes. This past week, we specifically were focusing on how each scene might play out. We know what key elements the scene needs to contain, but we still need to discover who these characters are and what their relationships look like. For example, we know that God put Noah through a test before he was told to build the ark. What we get to fill in and explore through improvisation scenes, is what those tests might look like, Noah's relationship with God, and how successful Noah actually was at completing God's instructions. It's been incredibly fun this past week to explore within our skeleton structure the limitless possibilities we have in telling these stories.

As a director, improvisation has been amazingly helpful for me in this process. The amount of incredible, hysterical ideas our ensemble of 7+ company members have developed, far outshines anything I could have come up with on my own. Creating a piece from the ground up as ensemble, makes for a rich well of ideas to pull from. We spent this past week working on creating substance- improvising scenes that David had roughly structured, and then we'll see which idea gems want to make their way into the final script. By the end of the week we had filled in almost all of the gaps that David had wanted to fill, and we had some amazing comic bits that I hope we can find a way to incorporate in the production.

Now that we've had our week of intense improv, David will go back through all of the videos we've taken, notes we've written, and jokes he couldn't forget if he tried, and start creating dialogue and plugging in ideas. On Tuesday, we'll have a read-thru of the script, and then start working with it. The next step in the process will be to play within the confines of a scripted piece, and see what we can find. It's been such a fun process so far, and the amazing location that we get to work in just adds to everyone's enthusiasm. There's nothing like creating two shows that deal with the ocean, and having the ocean RIGHT THERE. Everyone is exhausted on arriving to rehearsals- exhausted from traffic, from work, receiving a bad haircut, etc. But once everyone has arrived and we take a moment to look at the ocean, breath in the salty air, and play a silly school yard game, we are all ready and exited to work. That's the amazing thing about theatre, by its very nature it brings people together, and forms community instantly. This is good for my soul. I'm excited to get crackin' on this new script David will have! Scripts ahoy!


Courtney Buchan
Co-Director- Noah and Jonah