Sunday, January 29, 2012

Hell on Wheels

First stilts, now skates! In addition to Tom Campbell’s stilt work for Eurydice, the actors who play the Stones spend the entire production on roller skates. Jake Cote, Dolly Constantine, and Lake Bellavance have been working tirelessly over the past two months to become proficient at roller skating; apparently they even took their skates home with them over December break and wore them around the house! Thankfully all three actors returned from break without injuries, and with a much better grasp of skating.

For several recent Tuesdays the Stones, accompanied by director Meghan Brodie and some of the cast and crew, have ventured to Happy Wheels skating rink to practice with their skates and learn some tricks from their skating mentor, Janette Hough-Fertig. Although the stones became stable on the skates fairly quickly, there were some amusing slip-ups.



Katie Foster, Eurydice’s costume designer, and Shannon Zura, USM’s Assistant Professor of Lighting & Sound Design (and master of all things electrical), were undoubtedly the best on their skates, and quickly learned all sorts of tricks.



The lessons from Janette were apparently beneficial, because once the Stones had spent some time on the set, they were skating around and under the scaffolding as if they had been born on skates.

--Alice Hofgren, Eurydice Dramaturg & Assistant Stage Manager

For tickets, click here.

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