JUN
10

Let’s Take It Outdoors!

By Christina Hamlett 

Former actress and director Christina Hamlett is an award-winning author whose credits to date include 52 books, 278 stage plays and squillions of articles on the performing arts.  www.authorhamlett.com. 

It’s a bird!  It’s a plane!  It’s...  mosquitos!

The promise of warmer temperatures and longer hours invites us to take our talents outdoors and perform the same shows previously restricted to an indoor space.  It’s fun to imagine this is how it was when yesteryear caravans set up shop in whatever towns they encountered and turned meadows, courtyards and shady parks into impromptu performance spaces.  While it sounds easy enough in theory — didn’t the early Greeks make do with even less? — being upstaged by Mother Nature isn’t the only challenge on our alfresco checklist.

Weather permitting

If you’re blessed to live in a region where the seasons behave themselves, summer weather lends itself to afternoon and evening shows replete with folding chairs, blankets, and picnic fare.  Although you can’t control the weather, you do have control over a Plan B contingency to move the show inside or at the very least provide your actors with umbrellas!  Truth be told, although audiences won’t brave a storm if they know one is imminent, they are surprisingly forgiving if they get lightly sprinkled on once the play is underway.  Be mindful as well that you don’t want your audience seated where they will be squinting into bright sunshine — dress rehearsal at exactly the same time as your performance will enable you to remedy this.

Ambient noise

Outdoor urban areas present a plethora of noises, such as horns, sirens, motorcycles, loud engines, loud pedestrians, barking dogs, crying babies, and more.  Also, is your performance space in the flight path of airplanes?  And even birds can interfere with a show — geese and screeching peacocks being prime examples.

Again, audiences will understand these are out of your control.  As long as you train your actors to hold for auditory interruptions to pass before continuing, everything will be fine.  For fun, incorporate noise simulations during rehearsals to get them used to anything that might throw off concentration.

Projection

If your performers have been spoiled by the marvelous acoustics in a theatre, they’ll be in for a shock that acting outdoors requires them to aggressively clip their consonants and rely on a diaphragm-heavy delivery.  Everything — including physicality — has to be on a grander, almost melodramatic scale because of all the elements competing against it.  Facial expressions and gestures must thus enhance whatever is being spoken so the dialogue itself can be better understood.  If it’s in the budget, consider wireless microphones to amplify voices.

Inclusivity

In a traditional theatre, your actors know the audience is out there but can’t really see them.  Outdoor performances are the opposite.  It can either prove to be an unsettling distraction or it can bring an intimacy and immediacy to the performance by dissolving the “fourth wall” and acknowledging that actors and audience exist in the same plane.  To that end, your actors need to accept that the people watching them are behaving differently than they would in a more structured environment.

As an example, I use the many times my husband and I attended California Philharmonic performances at the Walt Disney concert hall versus those on the grounds of the Los Angeles Arboretum.  The latter seemed to encourage the appalling behavior of audience members talking and eating loudly, table-hopping, and checking their cellphones — all while the orchestra was performing!

Keep it simple

Backdrops, furniture and lighting must embrace minimalism if you take your show to an outdoor venue.  Since theatre is all about illusion, strive to distill your production to its “less is more” bare necessities.

While you may need some freestanding “walls” and doorways to facilitate entrances and exits, there’s nothing wrong with taking a page from Shakespeare’s plays at The Globe and allowing your audience to fill in the imaginary blanks of forests, ballrooms and cafes.  Consider, too, how the physical backdrop can lend itself to a unique theatre-going experience.  A colleague, for instance, once used a parking lot wherein her double and triple-cast actors moved from one section of cars to the next with 15-minute segments of a murder mystery.

Lighting

Afternoon and early summer evening shows can tap a free abundance of sunshine.  But what if transitional lighting is needed once the sun goes down?  In scouting your location for the performance, do your homework insofar as whether there are power outlets or if you will need mobile generators.  Outdoor café lights, footlights, solar strips, and battery-powered lanterns are an inexpensive investment to ensure your audience won’t miss any action when darkness falls.

Lastly, get the bugs out

As charming as summer is, it means longer hours for mosquitos and moths.  Although the latter can add a bit of enchantment to an already magical setting (i.e., A Midsummer Night’s Dream), mosquitos are an unwelcome addition for all actors and audiences.  Along with citronella repellants and pie tins of sugar water, the addition of basil, peppermint, lemongrass, or lavender in small pots around your staging area will keep them at bay until it’s time for those well-deserved final bows.