Closing time

Welp, we're done. The journey has been completed. This show has been the highlight of my theatrical career. The audience response to this went beyond my wildest imagination. I couldn't be happier with the effort of the entire creative team...we did it. I'm ecstatic and elated and couldn't be happier with what we've done.

That word satisfied is in there too.

This is the final update. I just wanted to take the time again to say: THANK YOU. Thank you for supporting this company-less production. There's no second production from us planned. No 'next season.' We came together to do this show and we've done it.

Having said that, there's a world of ideas floating around in my head. Now I can pluck another one out and obsess about IT. But first, I need a break. We're packing our stuff up and leaving Detroit in 9 days. Then we're off to NYC within a few months....AFTER a little well deserved traveling.

If you'd like to stay in touch, email me at jowhalen@gmail.com.

Thank you all!

In the Thick of Things

Well, we're almost half way done with our run here. I've been blown away by some of the compliments we've received...and that's not to brag, but to indicate just how kind people have been. We've poured EVERYTHING into this show for weeks and it's great to be recognized for it.

One thing I'm learning the hard way as a producer is that it's hard to get butts in the seats! I had delusions of sold out houses and scrambling to add more chairs for audience members. In reality, there just haven't been as many people there as I'd hoped. I created a press release and sent it out weeks ago, but got ZERO response from it...still not sure what I did wrong, if anything. I'm starting to get the feeling that not being labeled a "company" doesn't really jive with people around here. That's understandable...people want to support things that are going to be in it for the long haul. Add to that the fact that half of us are moving to New York this fall (Devon, Sara and I) and it makes it even harder to get support.

Which leads me to a BIG THANK YOU to all of YOU! Seriously, without your support, we wouldn't have been able to do this show. Or rather, it would've left me severely financially hampered.

If you still want to help us out then TELL YOUR FRIENDS! Tell them to come see the show! If you haven't come yet, then invite someone to come with you! This is a very good way to support a project without just up and giving money. Word of mouth is about the only press this show is getting, but hey, that's ok. We're happy with how people are responding.

I remember thinking to myself after opening, "I don't care what anyone thinks. We did it! And WE'RE happy." And that still holds true...mostly. But when you make something FOR other people, you want them to like it. And we want YOU to like it! Come check us out!

Here we go!

We had our final rehearsal last night. The show is everything I hoped it would be and more...honestly. I can remember quite clearly what I imagined the show to be three months ago. Reading the play over and over I had a good sense of where I wanted it to go and...BAM...we're here and we're beyond my wildest dreams! Seems like yesterday when we had our first read through. But now....seven weeks later...we're here!

The show is at 92 minutes, no intermission. It's a pretty tight show as it is, but it'll tighten up even more as we run it with an audience over and over.

It's also a FUN show. Watching the actors for about twenty seconds at the start and you can see THEY are having fun. We've really been focused on working with a sense of JOY...not trying to play things so HEAVY...and it's definitely shining through. The actors are alive and in the moment, not trying to do the same show they did yesterday. It's a wonderful, NEW show every night.

That's my favorite thing about theatre. It's the only art form that lacks permanence. You can't capture it and see it again...just doesn't work like that. If you see a show one night, it's not going to be the same show your friend will see in a week or a month. It's unique to the moment. This show is no exception. It will change...the audiences will be different...the actors interpretations will change. These are all good things...a show should never be cemented in my opinion.



I've gotta stop now or else I'm gonna ramble on and spoil the show. I can't wait for everyone to see it. I'm most excited to see what YOU think! We've made it for you and tomorrow is our Christmas morning. I hope you like it.

One Week Away!

Wow....one week away from opening. I can't believe we're thisclose to completing this process. It's a little surreal to be quite honest. I began this journey on May 6th and it's pretty much demanded all my since then...that's almost twelve weeks of work! And it's finally coming to fruition.

I've been apart of a lot of rehearsal processes and the amount of readiness one feels before opening varies quite a lot. Some shows you feel great about...the feeling of, "We were ready to open weeks ago." Others not so much...the final week of rehearsal is a mad scramble to present something halfway resembling a finished product. In our case, luckily, we are experiencing the former. We're in EXCELLENT shape heading into our final week of rehearsals. We now have time to fine tune the show and smooth out the last minute details, which as any director can attest to, is a very good feeling.

I'll be working with Brian Scruggs this weekend to cement sound and lights. It's really quite interesting working the transitions between scenes. Because the actors are changing and applying makeup in full view of the audience, we've discovered that the transitions are little scenes in themselves. They're incredibly engaging to watch. I think people that frequent the theatre will find that we've made some very interesting choices and discoveries. And it will be even more fascinating for people who don't normally go to the theatre...people who don't know exactly what goes on "behind the scenes."

We've made some interesting song choices for the transitions too, though we're still making some final tweaks to those. I'm finding when a song works, the transition can go on forever...when it doesn't I want it to hurry up and get into the next scene. I'm confident that we can really make some strong choices this weekend...especially with how amazing Brian has been at finding just the right song to capture the mood.

As I end most every update, I'm terribly excited for everyone to see this show. We've poured everything into it that we could and I think that shows.


One week away!

Tech week begins

Big week of rehearsals for us. This is when you are forced to eat a shwarma from Bucharest Grill instead of a meal at home. When you're racing around from job to other job to rehearsal to home to sleep. Scheduling sleep is important and necessary at this point.

We're throwing everything at the actors at this point...makeup, costumes, set, lights, sound, everything. And the challenge is always that you have to have everything memorized in your head. "Where does this block go? What makeup and costume am I in for the next scene? Where do I enter?" It's the nature of the biz and both Peter and Kelly are doing great work!

Sara's been coming up with some very interesting makeup options. As you could guess from the title we need really GRUESOME looking injuries. She's tried four or five different recipes for blood. The first was hair gel, lubricant, red food coloring, and water. In the mixing the bowl, it looked great. But when it's applied to fabric, it bleeds out to a pink color...looks fake. But I think we found our winner: Sugar free chocolate syrup and red poster paint! What's great about that is that it has that deep, almost brown looking color. And the best part, is that it washes out!

Brian has moved and focused all the lights. We'll be battling the other events that will be in that space so we have to constantly be moving and refocusing the lights before and after we're in there. But it'll all be worth it. The big challenge is altering the lights that are all focused on a stage and changing it for the round. Our saving grace is that we're in such a small space that we can light it effectively with six to eight lights. Actually, our big saving grace is having Brian, who's a wiz with all things technical and has recently been nominated for a Wilde Award for his lighting at Michigan Shakespeare Festival last year. He's great!

We'll be running like mad until we open. Only 10 days til opening! All the hard work will be worth it and we'll get to rest in 11 days.

It's All Coming Together...

We've been hard at work the last week. The actors are getting off book, we're doing a lot of stopping and starting within scenes, and trying to add makeup/costumes/set pieces to run throughs. It's all been very informative. Whenever we add something, new challenges spring up that we have to deal with. All part of the process.

This particular show is unique in that the playwright, Rajiv Joseph, prescribes that all scene/costume/makeup changes be done in full view of the audience. And as you might guess from the title of the play, the makeup is quite a handful. When we did our initial read-through, the play's text took only 53 minutes. Now that has inflated a bit as we're taking our time with the character's thoughts/taking our pauses, so we're somewhere around 65 minutes of text. With all of the changes that take place on stage, we're looking at around another 20 minutes.Grand total: around 85 minutes. I assure you, it won't be simply watching two actors change and add makeup as fast as they can in the scene changes. We're approaching this as part of the show, so we're trying to put our own artistic twist on it. This will be a very interesting part of this specific production.

It's easy to let the artistry of a show get lost within the technical aspects. As the clock ticks down to opening (two weeks away!) things can get choppy and just throwing a product up on stage can be the goal. That's not going to be us. We're trying to carefully add the costumes/makeup/set pieces bit by bit so as not to be overwhelmed come the week of the show. The actors have to feel comfortable with these extra aspects...they're running the ENTIRE show! I don't want their mind's to be focused on the changes, when they should be focused on the action of the play.

We're getting really excited here, folks! Two weeks from tonight the lights will come up...we'll be ready! Can't wait for you to see it!

Running, man!

We had our first run through last night. Oh, man! It was great! It was dirty, sloppy, unfocused, and confused...everything you'd expect at the first run through. And the best part is, despite all of the craziness, it's still only 86 minutes long! That's right around where the show will be I'm thinking. The pace will quicken, pauses will tighten up, and all the usual refining that takes place through multiple runs before opening will take some time off. But we'll negate that time saving with scene changes, taking our time with the words when we can, and exploratory work. But this is good because this is where we want the time to go. Reflecting on the run last night, I really am quite happy with where we are.

It was interesting to see how everything fit together last night. We had it blocked last Thursday and did table work all last week and this week. Throw it all together and now we have a passable show! What's really going to help is that we're already dealing with the big TECH elements. Peter is starting to explore using makeup and gauze to create his wounds. Our set pieces, which are pretty much six 2'x2'x18" and a trash can, are being manipulated in the space. We have some points where we use chalk in the show and exploring what that means to us. And this weekend we'll start finding costume pieces and the props we don't have.


All of us had a big scare earlier this week when we sat down and looked at the printed calendar. There just weren't enough boxes before we opened! That July 27th box was too close! However, after this run, and realizing that we're still about three weeks out, I couldn't be happier with where we are. Again, a wonderfully productive rehearsal last night.

Lock, stocked, and blocked

We're done with our first full(ish) week of rehearsals and we've got the entire show blocked. It's nice to have the technical out of the way so that we can start really breaking down the play scene by scene. I'm really happy with where we're at and how easy my job is going to be...Peter and Kelly started off with a very high level of understanding of these characters. In many ways, they as people are really close to Doug and Kayleen the characters...and in the way the two interact. If you know the actors and if you see the play, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.


The etudes have been going really well. We've been spending anywhere from 30-45 minutes every night doing these exploratory improvisations. One of the luxuries of working on an 85 minute show is that you have more time for character work in a four hour rehearsal. We're trying to focus on physical and vocal qualities of the characters at their different ages. The tricky part is that we see the characters at ages 8, 13, 18, 23, 28, 33, and 38...but not in chronological order. In order of scenes, it's 8, 23, 13, 28, 18, 33, 23, and 38. Double challenge. We're really trying to observe and explore how these characters change every five years. Sometimes it's easy to spot how they change but difficult to portray. Sure there's a big difference from eight to thirteen, but when you're in your early 30s and trying to put those differences into practice, it's a big challenge. But one we're aware of and one we're having fun solving.

We're still gathering images and ideas that will inform our end product. I'll be honest, a lot of this process is searching in the dark. I don't have prescriptive, pre-conceived notions of what I want this show to look like by the end...and that's completely on purpose. I want collaboration on this project...where the actors, designers and stage managers all contribute artistically to the final project DURING the rehearsal process. It always seems counterintuitive to have the concept cemented, designs finalized, and zero room for compromise BEFORE rehearsals have even begun. The reason it's done this way traditionally is, of course, because we have to start constructing the set, costumes, and lights in time for opening. We're going to be a bit rushed later in the process, but I think it'll be worth it because we will have come up with something that works for all involved.

Welcome to the Playground!

Welcome to the blog for Gruesome Playground Injuries and thank you so much for supporting this project...it REALLY means a lot!

First, here's the kids:
Doug - Peter Prouty
Kayleen - Kelly Komlen-Amadei

And here's the rest of us:
Director - Jordan Whalen
Stage Manager - Devon Davey
Light, Set, Sound Designer - Brian Scruggs
Costume Designer - Sara Hymes

We are about to begin our rehearsal period leading up to opening of the show on Friday, July 27th. I gotta say, this process is FUN. We've already held a couple of read-throughs and creative meetings which have been very enlightening.

First, a little bit about how we're approaching the show. Collaboration is the big word here. The culture at rehearsals is if you have a good idea, inject it into the conversation. I think it's important to have everyone involved and speaking up. In my experience, people are more invested when their ideas are shared and implemented. That's what I want. This might not work for every rehearsal process or every play, but we have the luxury of having a great script that provokes creative thought/conversation and only having six people as part of the team. It's been a very educational and informative experience so far.

Rehearsals. The biggest challenge I'm facing with this show is staging. I want to try things I've never done before. Yes, this comes back to the beautiful performances we all saw in Russia (Peter, Kelly, Sara and I did the Month in Moscow program). There's a freedom to their productions that I just don't see over here very often and I want to this production to have that feel.

So how do we do that? The answer is, well, we're figuring it out. We're using picture files, which I first used with Lavinia Hart. Kelly, Peter and I are all bringing in pictures that illustrate some part of the play/character/atmosphere. These are a great way to provoke creative conversations. By showing these images, it allows each of us to see how other's see a particular part of the play. Seeing a certain image might spark different image in someone else's head, which then leads us to something more EXACT. This allows us to understand this specific story more intimately.

We're also experimenting with etudes. Etudes are improvisations done by the actors to, again, promote an intimate understanding of their characters or the world of the play. One of the challenges for the actors is to play these characters at ages 8, 13, 18, 23, 28, 33, and 38. That's quite the range. By doing these etudes, we're trying to avoid caricature performances and find more specific and realistic portrayals of the characters.

Specific images from the picture files and breakthroughs we find with the etudes will hopefully help us find a fresh way to stage the play. Costumes might not be 100% realistic, but rather suggestive. Same thing with the set. And with all of these discoveries we're find our interpretation of this play.

We'll be keeping you posted pretty regularly about this project. Once again, THANK YOU so much for your support!


Jordan