I will be doing a series of sketches during rehearsals for the upcoming season of Phantasmagoria which is a critically acclaimed Victorian horror troupe, celebrating 11 years of performance. Since about 2009 I have been documenting their performances, but this year as I emerge from COVID isolation, I will document with sketches, every stage of their creative process.
John DiDonna invited me to join in their Zoom meeting where he discussed with the cast the upcoming season. So much respect was shown for the cast as plans were made for the slated rehearsals. In past seasons, the stories were written individually of given members of the case and then those stories were laced together to build a whole. This year a script is being written overall that focuses more on the characters themselves and their relationship to their macabre fate of reliving these stories. I am only guessing what this might mean, but it sounds exciting.
Many of the cast I have sketches before, so it is always a joy to see them again. Being an outsider looking in, it is hard for me to distinguish them from the characters they play. This zoom meeting gave me a glimpse of them as everyday actors relaxing at home. I enjoy sketching the odd angles that computers get of people as the laptop cameras look up at the giants seated in front of them. So many ceilings and oblique views up walls.
I knew time would be limited so I had to catch the 12 screens with as few lines as possible and quick splashes of color. There was no time for second guessing. This should be an adventure. I haven’t documented every stage of a production companies process since 2009 when I sketched every rehearsal of War of the Worlds.