"This Beautiful City" at RTP is truly Beautiful (Walid as Asst. to Director & Dramaturg)

Click here for the article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch


This Beautiful City, playing for the first time after it's New York City premier at the Vineyard Theatre, has made it's Richmond debut at the Richmond Triangle Players. The show is part of Richmond's Acts of Faith Festival-- the largest faith inspired theatre event in America. This collaboration between the faith community and Richmond’s professional theatre companies will run from January til March with various shows lined up, This Beautiful City being RTP's entry into the festival. I was fortunate to shadow the director, John Knapp, and learn from both the actors and creative team during this theatrical process as the "Assistant to the Director" and "Dramaturg."

This Beautiful City, a provocative new play with music about the expansion of the Evangelical movement in Colorado Springs, was created by the investigative theatre company The Civilians. While conducting interviews with people involved with or affected by the mega-church movement, scandal broke about New Life Church pastor Ted Haggard and shook the entire city. This Beautiful City is a fascinating and timely look at faith and how it affects the American landscape. The Civilians’ work has been called "superb" by the NY Times and "clear evidence of evolution in the world of modern theatre," by Time Out New York.

Working on the production as the "Dramaturg" I was able to gather information on homosexual scandal and it's correlation (or lack of) with the popular and huge Evangelical movement in Colorado Springs. This information, collected via-news articles, YouTube clips, blogs, documentaries, statistics, and other websites, made this experience different from some of my previous theatrical endeavors. Discovering all this information and sharing it with the cast and crew really made the show real to me, as the subject matter is non-fictional. The several characters that the cast of 6 played reflected the information and happenings in that period of time, making the characters three-dimensional and realistic rather than "characterchures". Also, this made the interview-monologue style of the show lively and personal, as the characters addressed the audience. The musical numbers (with music direction by Kim Fox) served as an appropriate through-line and kept the show fresh and engaging instead of stale and monotonous, which I've seen happen when a script isn't exactly "dialogue" based but "monologue" based instead. 

Direction and coaching, by John the director, made the wide range of characters played by the cast members doable, with a great sense of ease. Personally having worked on productions primarily in an Academia setting, joining the professional team as the Assistant to the Director at RTP, I experience a different process than what I was use to in educational theatre settings. Rehearsals were a lot more "laid back" and company members treated the show like their job rather than their hobby or personal interest. This made the process economical, smooth, and for the most part, stress free, providing me a lot to learn from.

This Beautiful City is considered to be a "play with music" instead of a musical. I was interested to learn how the director was going to execute staging the musical numbers as they're not dance-based. The system John used for "choreography/movement" was influenced by musicalized blocking and beautiful stage pictures created with the platforms and levels that are part of the simple set. As a whole, this show is not simple at all, but the magic of it's art and direction gives the show it's needed simplicity and clean cut, captivating feel. Experience the magic yourself--the show runs til Feb. 5!!!

Thank you John Knapp and the company of TBC for a wonderful experience!

Make sure you check the show out:

Dates

Opens Wednesday, January 12 and plays Thursday-Saturday evenings at 8:00 pm, through February 5, 2011.
Sunday matinees on January 23 & 30 at 4:00 pm, with talkbacks immediately following.

Tickets

$25 for Opening Night, Friday and Saturday evenings; 

$20 for Thursday evenings and Sunday matinees.

To reserve your theatre tickets, go to Purchase Tickets
or phone 804-346-8113.

Location

At RTP’s new theater located at 1300 Altamont Avenue
Just northwest of Boulevard and Broad Streets

Running time: 2 hours with one 15 minute intermission.

For more on the show or Richmond Triangle Players, click here.