Men on Boats

One of the activities the cast was hoping to do was to sit around a campfire and roast marshmallows together, so we worked a campfire night into dramaturgy week. We set up a speaker with river sounds to create the environment of sitting next to a fire on the bank of a river, and—though we had S’mores rather than bacon, apples and biscuits—it felt as though we were in a scene of the play and sitting around the fire after a long day on the river (it had been a long day in our rehearsal boats).

Did you know the average width of the Colorado River is the same distance as the length of a football field?

For the final day of our dramaturgy week, we split into our boat groups to create our own boats. With only a limited supply of ducktape, cardboard and plastic tablecloths, the cast was given the task of building a seaworthy vessel (or pool-worthy, in this case.)

For the second day of the pre-fall semester rehearsal and our next dramaturgy workshop, we pulled everyone together to explore a giant map of the expedition.

After our first rehearsal as a cast, we met in our director Julia Ashworth's backyard for a dramaturgy workshop. This kicks off a full week of dramaturgical activities helping the cast explore the history and culture of the text, Men on Boats.