We are so excited about our next show Stealing Home, here at Live Arts Theatre, that we had a lot to talk about with our Director, Becca Parker. (Read part 1 here:) So we continued the conversation and have a bit more to share with you.
Q: Besides being seriously funny, can you tell us why the material in this show is exemplary and and attractive to you?
A: On one of my trips to New York where I go to the bookstore and read scripts all morning. Then I take a break for lunch and go back and read more scripts. This script was sitting on the self one day and I read it and bought it instantly because I knew that Live Arts was going to do it. The reason I knew Live Arts was going to do it was I was laughing… the play starts on page 5… and I was laughing by page six. There are not only funny lines, but there is so much for actors to do that is not written in the lines, but written in the stage directions. It’s their reactions. You can almost see their gears going. The script is written to be extremely fast paced, so there is always something.
Q: We are roughly at the halfway point from auditions to opening night. Talk to me about how you are feeling at this moment about the progress and how you see the dynamic of the actors revealing in the show?
A: I’m actually feeling kinda good about it and there are some moments that are starting to appear. Most of the magic will occur when we are off book, which is happening this coming weekend. And it is once we put the books down that the characters really start to come to life on stage. So I am excited in the fact that if I am starting to see these awesome characters now, what is going to grow in the month after we reach that point where we no longer need scripts!
Q: The over arching theme from what I have observed and surmised is family. Can you talk to me as a director, how this show illustrates family to you?
A: To me, my experience with family is very different from most “normal” individuals, in that a good portion of my family is adopted. I myself was adopted as a family, about a year and 3 months later, my sister came home an then finally, my parents gave birth to an biological child, my brother, who looks just like them. You’ve got me, and I don’t look like anyone in my family. My sister is from Korea. So I grew up with the notion that your family does not necessarily have to look like you.
This has carried over into my adult life. My friends are my family. And if I refer to you as a member of my family, you are my family for life. I’ve had people argue that “that person is not your family and should not be at family get togethers” because they are not family by blood or marriage. That doesn’t tend to go well. So for me, this whole idea that this guy could be her son is not that far fetched to me. I think it is far fetched to everyone else in the show, but I think I’m like Beulah, in that if I say you are family, you’re family, and if I say you are my son, you’re my son. And Beulah just does not waver in the love of her family for the entire show. And I think once she has accepted someone as family, that is it and it does not matter. So the show definitely looks a lot at the concept of family which family can be good, or incredibly dysfunctional, which is not normally good for everyone, but for those watching the dysfunction take place, that are
not part of it, it can be humourous. And that is where the humor in the play comes from. I think you will see a lot of family moments, perhaps from your own life that you can relate to.
We at Live Arts Theatre are very excited to share this hysterical farce with you! Come see us one weekends from March 24-April 8, 2017
Location: Belfry Playhouse (downstairs at Norcross Presbyterian Church
3324 Medlock Bridge Rd
Norcross GA
Inquire here about tickets: http://liveartstheatre.org/stealing-home