Thursday, November 28, 2013

aslan is on the move | tales from the tour

Last Friday our signature production of THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE began its month-long tour with a stop in Chilliwack. Up next is Mission, and then the show will move on to Kelowna and Kamloops. Over the next few weeks the cast and crew will be blogging with stories and pictures from their experiences on the road called "Tales From the Tour". Read our first entry 
from actor Mack Gordon below:

Kaitlin and the requisite venue photo. 

When we walked into the Chilliwack Cultural Centre, the house was black and the stage lights were up. Lauchlin and Kerri were hard at work setting levels for the show. We didn't have access to the Wardrobe itself during our week of rehearsals leading up to the one-night-only in Chilliwack. Kaitlin and I opened the doors of the cupboard, climbed inside, rummaged the hangers about the bar. I stepped off the stage and into the audience. It took me almost a minute to get to the back of the house. Kaitlin was on stage muttering lines and polishing blocking. I could make out her words all the way from the back. Good acoustics. I spoke in my thirty cm voice to see if I could get her attention. She was in her own world. I returned to the stage and lay down, stretching my back bone, raising my arms above my head. We could hear Lauchlin and Kerri chattering about something. We looked up into the shadows. For a brief moment, I still don't know why, the house lights came up. We feasted our eyes on the empty audience that we would soon be playing. The seats were bright as cardinals. 

The house was so wide it was like looking through a cinema lens. The walls were coated in the taught fabric you see when you dream about movie theatres. Kaitlin's eyes widened. She'd never played a house this big. Her laugh pinballed to every corner of the auditorium. I laughed too. I shouted a few lines about bugs and bears to wake up my voice. And then my warm-up was done. We left the stage, ready for the first show of our 2013 Winter tour.

Mack takes in the 600 seats of the Chilliwack Cultural Centre!

Up next, THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE stops at the Clarke Theatre in Mission on Saturday November 30th at 7:00pm. Ticket info and more can be found here.  

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