Wednesday – Day 296
Posted on 26th May 2013
Wednesday was a full day of theatre. First up was a chat with the creators of “The Unfortunates” and a short performance and workshop for/with them. One insight that provided was that the show had within it a number of intentional ambiguities, designed to encourage audience interaction rather than to leave them as static ‘viewers’.
A quick coffee/snack later, we were touring the backstage of all the theatres with Eduardo Placer, a PGC graduate, the director of a number of PGC spring shows and now, a major company member for the Shakespeare Festival, playing roles in multiple shows including “My Fair Lady” which we were to see later that afternoon.
During the course of our tour we visited all the major theatres of the festival including ‘The Elizabethan’ open air theatre where we performed a traditional English Glee “Down Among the Dead Men” for the empty house, just to hear the acoustics.
Elizabethan Theatre
Almost immediately following the tour, it was time to see our next show, Eduardo’s production of “My Fair Lady”. The show ran for three hours and was absolutely delightful. I enjoyed it a bit more than the previous nights show and there was one superb moment when hats flew down from the ceiling to land on the entire cast’s heads as they were dancing. Attached to wires, the hats descended, detaching as the normal force from the heads tripped a little switch. and the hats came off the wires as if by magic.
Following the show, we stood outside the theatre to perform for the exiting audience however, the rain got in before we did and scared most of the crowd away. 
However, not all was lost as we were called after about a minute, by the executive producer of community who wanted to sponsor an indoor location for us to perform for the twenty to thirty or so people who remained behind wanting to hear us sing. For them, we sung our very hearts out and gave them what I think was the best show we performed all year.
The Producer of Community and Us
After that we had drinks with Eduardo and many clubbers had dinner (though the food in the place we were in didn’t seem much to their liking). Afterwards Eduardo secured tickets for a few of us to go see King Lear. I decided that it would be well worth my while go, especially as the festival was meant to really be a Shakespeare festival moreso than a general theatre festival.
The play was unbelievable and performed in the round, which made for a really engaging experience. Having never read the play before, it kept me riveted and guessing as to what would happen next. Despite my intense enjoyment of “My Fair Lady”, Lear was the most engaging of the shows I saw those twenty four hours and the one to which I also connected the most emotionally.
The show ended at close to midnight and the few of us who had seen the show desperately tried to find cover from the rain outside. I was in a particularly difficult situation myself as I was staying with Katie and Briawna rather than at the hotel and so could just catch a ride with the others. I ended up walking back to the place, arriving far too late, and missing the SMS with Briawna’s number from Stephen who wanted to encourage me to find her in the city.