A Director Prepares
As an avid fan of author Kate DiCamillo's work, I knew that a large part of my preparation to direct Flora & Ulysses would be devoted to developing a strong understanding of the source material, DiCamillo's novel, featuring comic illustrations by K. G. Campbell.
In this planning phase of my process, I became fascinated with the way that playwright John Glore translated DiCamillo's beautiful prose into his dialogue, while still demanding the respect and acknowledgment of K. G. Campbell's comic strip illustrations. The marriage of seemingly disparate forms of narrative became a guiding light in the formation of my initial concept for this production of Flora & Ulysses, and further influenced my analysis of the script as I focused on the forces at odds in the play. |
Over the course of the preparation process, I developed the following concept presentation to be shared with the designers at our first design meeting.
A significant portion of my preparation to direct Flora & Ulysses was centered around my understanding of the puppetry needs for this production. In order to have effective conversations with the designers and actors, I had to know how the puppets would serve this play and what those characters needed to be able to do. With those things in mind, the designers could create a world that would night fight against the puppeteer; rather, the work of the designers would work in concert with the performers.
In my preparatory work, I combed through the script to make note of every action the squirrel and cat puppets had. This provided the foundation to be able to engage in constructive conversations with the puppet artisans, the designers, and the puppeteers. Click the puppet rendering for a copy of my Puppet Action Plot for Flora & Ulysses. |
Original Ulysses puppet design by Amy Holroyd
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