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Pre-Show: LUCY at the New Voices Festival

By: Quinlan Shearer, 4th year actor and creator of LUCY
February 26, 2021
a fire in a doorway of a log building. Above the door the word Lucy appears, as if on an exit sign.

The original inspiration for LUCY came from my own personal history of watching sci-fi and fantasy films. I wanted to see if I could achieve some aspect of this on the stage while maintaining an entertaining and engaging story that is believable to witness live.

I was most excited to get working with the actors and designers directly. I love hearing their outside views on my work and it was exciting to see the different perspectives that everyone brought on the piece.

It was challenging to separate my roles as director and writer. We would be working scenes and I would be thinking "that's not how I imagined it when writing it" but then my director brain would ask "do you like where it is going?" That was always something that I would bounce between; wearing the director’s hat and wearing the writer's hat. There were some questions that actors would ask that, as the writer, I had the answers to but as the director I wouldn't necessarily know. I had to try to hold myself back from giving them too many answers so that the play could still feel like it was partially theirs. 

This is still a work in progress and the only way that I can see forward with it is to get it in front of an audience and get their feedback.

That's what I hope to do during the festival. The show is going to be presented in two parts, Part 1 on Friday and Part 2 on Saturday. After each part there will be a talk back with the audience but rather than them asking questions about the process of writing I am hoping that this will be a feedback session where I can get an idea of what they are taking away from the performance. I want the audiences to be a part of the creative process, they aren't viewing a final product but a work in development.

I hope to take this piece further, ultimately to a live, in person performance. I am hoping that New Voices will be a stepping stone for LUCY rather than the end of the road. When I began writing LUCY the world was in a very different state. I wrote the play with the intention of pushing boundaries of what technically can happen in a low budget live show. I still want to explore this and see if the images that I have in my head are achievable on a stage.

My advice to others on their creative journeys is to write what you want to see on the stage. Regardless of where it goes or what you do with it, it will be an enjoyable process because you can get lost in an imaginary world of your creation.

LUCY is being presented as part of New Voices LIVE, March 5 and 6.