Only actors and a director's voices occupy Squires Studio Theatre. There is no set. It's the week before spring semester begins and the first week of rehearsals for the theatre department's latest mainstage production, "The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek."
The play will show tonight through March 1 and again from March 3 to March 5 in Squires Studio Theatre at 7:30 p.m.
The play is set in 1936 in a town somewhere in America. Cat Capece, senior communication and theatre arts major, plays Pace, a 17-year old girl who is obsessed with running the trestle. Freshman environmental policy and planning major Eric Park plays 15-year old Dalton, a boy who is intrigued by Pace.
They're working act I, scene four of "Trestle." In this scene, Pace and Dalton are at the trestle for the second time in the story. Pace is explaining to Dalton how they're going to run it and tells Dalton that he's not going anywhere.
"We're going to do it again, and I just want you to move," said director Bob Leonard after the actors finish a run of the scene.
"What's going on inside the body when this is going on?" Leonard asks Park. "She's two years your senior, which is a lot. You can't initiate what you want. He's got ants in his pants."
Within the scene, Pace ultimately has more power than Dalton. Leonard tells Park that he needs to stop staying in one place for too long because that is representative of a high status that he does not have with Pace.
Leonard walks up to Park, places his own hands on the actor's shoulders and "steers" Park into a circular walking pattern around the Studio Theatre stage and tells him that he needs to feel that on the inside.
"It felt unnatural," Park said.
"Of course it does, because you're not Dalton. I think you began to find some Dalton, Eric," Leonard said.
After the actors have run through it a few more times, the director gives his closing words.
"A lot of growth happened here tonight. A lot. Some of the blocking was messy ... But It's a really nice connection," Leonard said of the developing relationship between the two actors.
The two Virginia Tech student actors have started to create their characters for the theater's latest production. They have a ways to go, but they'll be there by opening night.
Within five weeks, scenes must be created and characters must be found. Blocking is set and fights choreographed. Props need to break the way they're supposed to and stage weapons need to be purchased. The set has to be built and sound integrated. From the very moment the play is chosen, to making sure all the props are in place -- creating a mainstage production is an involved group effort. "The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek" was chosen in March 2008 along with the four other mainstages performances that will be put on this year.
Department head Patty Raun said it's tough to build a season and "We were playing with the dynamic this year of the comic and the tragic. We've got a Greek tragedy, Greek comedy, modern tragedy, modern comic."
"Trestle" is the modern tragedy and Raun said they chose it because Leonard was passionate about it and it provided a balance to the season.
Casting was held in fall 2008 and Leonard said it was a very useful audition process and that he was able to learn about actors in the process and found those who we're willing to share what they do.
BLOCKING
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