So, I’ve been helping Angela with Hope Theatre Company’s upcoming production of Anne of Green Gables. I was soooo excited to help that I pretty much immediately did what I usually do when I start thinking of rearranging the bedrooms in my house: I printed up some graph paper, cut out color-coded paper furniture to scale, and then I started laying out the stage, scene-by-scene.
Before I knew it, Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe had taken up residence in my mind, and my every waking moment was like, “Anne, I’m sore-y. Can’t we be friends?” and since I was playing Anne, I said, “Why Gil, if by ‘friends’ you actually mean ‘in love for all eternity’ then yes, we can be friends.”
I do the graph/ paper furniture thing, because my house is small and moving furniture around is as exhausting as playing tetris when it starts going way too fast and you have no coordination skills.
Well, so now I have these tiny little pieces of furniture that fit perfectly on my tiny paper stage, but now I’m not so sure we’ll be able to find the real furniture to fit our real stage and my tedious plans will be for naught! If that’s the case, I may have to resort to cutting out life-sized paper couches and tables for the stage with instructions to the actors to just pretend to sit on the furniture. In actuality, they will be doing some pretty harsh squats, which might not be bad for their health in the long run.
I could be doing them a huge favor! Acting is good for your health!
I’ll do that. I’ll grab some construction paper and tape and build the best farmhouse-at-the-turn-of-the-century couch ever, and then I’ll say, “Here’s a paper couch for you,” all the while emphasizing the merits of pretending to sit.
