Pre-Show: Juice at the New Voices Festival
Juice follows the lives of Tammy and Chris, as they spend several afternoon’s together in their usual hangout spot; an old, dirty, work shed. In act one they are eleven, in act two they are sixteen and in act three they are twenty-one. With an unpredictable dynamic, two big imaginations and a ceiling that could come tumbling down at any moment, the character’s grasp at understanding themselves and the world around them. A play about how people navigate childhood trauma and deal with having no real control over their lives.
I wrote this play because I strongly believe that childhood trauma is an issue that needs to be explored in the theatre. When light is shed on this issue awareness and empathy is created. Society needs to understand the everlasting effects that trauma can have on a person's life.
Inspiration
Juice is inspired by childhood imagination and play. The unique language in this piece is inspired by the silliness of my two younger brothers and how we communicate with one another. The location of this play is inspired by my childhood home. I grew up in the rural and bucolic outskirts of Nelson, BC. My older sister and I used to explore the neighbouring yards, and on the property of the house across from us lived an old woman with a yard full of run-down work sheds. We used to explore these sheds and let our imaginations run free along the old pictures, rusty tools and broken baseboards.
“What's the juice?”
Juice is a word that one of my high school friends and I would use to represent gossip. It was a fun way of getting the latest update on what was going on in the world around us. It was a way of connecting and relating to one-another; just as Tammy and Chris are doing in this play. The character’s in this play are reaching for an understanding of the life that they feel they have no control over.
Working in the virtual world
Doing rehearsals over zoom has been really challenging. The actor's have had to work extra hard to connect with one another. We have been playing a lot with space - how can we turn a bedroom into a shed? Doing digital theatre is a whole new way of thinking and training that takes time and exploration. Additionally, this play has a lot of physical interaction between the two character's - trying to create that over zoom has been a mind game that has taken a lot of patience and deliberation.
A recorded workshop presentation of Juice will be presented as part of the New Voices Festival Gala, later this term.