Quick thoughts from Risa on the Assembly2 Meet with Actors

Early morning here in Montreal, sucking back some of that black addictive brew before facing another grand day o’ fringing. My “We Plug In” indyish/celtx shirt is wrung and hanging out to dry, and the breeze in our apartment / office space is cool, though it looks like it’ll be another sunny scorcher - perfect for sausages and beer in the fringe tents between street fests.

Yesterday Sarah and Tessa met at the Fringe parc early to prep for our first official onsite meeting with Assembly2.0 participants. I came trundling down in time to realize I’d forgetten the Celtx USB’s so hussled back up to our place again (I’d forget my head these days, if it weren’t attached already - fortunately we’re based just a few blocks away from Fringe central.) When I returned, the meeting was well begun with all kinds of different actors trickling in over the next hour so, browsing through scripts written during the previous leg of the relay, giggling, getting inspired, getting teamed up.

Our Assembly team had read through the scripts to make some basic notes to have on the front page of each one- how many parts, settings, etc. But none of us had read all of them, so, as Tessa pointed out, it was particularly cool to watch actors get their hands on them, find one they identified with or were inspired by, to hear different snipits of concept conversations happening like “we could just do the first half.. but you’d need to respond to me in some way, thuogh it’s not in the script” or “i think this sounds like stream of consciousness, so I’m going to make it a one person play instead of doing it with 4 actors” or “yah, I think i can convince my friend to do this with me..let me call him!” or “I like both of these, not sure yet which one I’ll claim”.

We talked about how these scripts had come into being - passed from TJ Dawe to scriptwriters to actors, with illustrations plugged in between - and explained that, as in a relay, your leg is all on you. You can change or adapt or do what you like with what your given, the challenge is to keep the relay going forward, evolving - it’s an experiment and it’s about the process, not perfection.

Now I can’t wait for the next Assembly2.0 meet Wednesday in Parc des Ameriques, as actors return to meet the musicians! This next leg adds a spin and kink and loads of new sounds to their staging just 2 days before the final shows start! And after the hand off… Hip Hop Karaoke!!