Layla Izabela
Mama Gone
A year-long devising process
October 25th 2021
My acting program has a four-hour-long Zoom meeting to decide how the ensembles would be divided. Eleven actors and four directors split into four small ensembles. This is a big part of the International Performace Ensemble program. We've known since day one that in our junior year, we would self-divide ourselves and then spend a year creating a devised show based on a short story. It was a long and stressful meeting for all of us, but it ended up with the best possible combinations.
March 6th 2022
Each ensemble had meetings to decide which two short stories to bring to our professor as our top picks. My ensemble scheduled a meeting where we would each bring in one to three short stories to pitch to each other. While we all pitched in different ways, we did readings of the stories and created Pinterest boards and mood boards, playlists, etc. We spent hours in a classroom showing and discussing each story. I brought in A Great Day for Bananafish by J.D. Salinger and Once Removed by Alexander Macleod. I made playlists for both that I played in the background as we read, discussed the story, and showed my Pinterest boards. We slowly narrowed it down to Once Removed and Mama Gone by Jane Yolen. We submitted it to our professor, with Once Removed ranked number one and Mama Gone ranked number two. We knew Mama Gone would be more challenging, and we were definitely scared, but that is why our professors picked that one for us.
April 6th 2022
Rehearsals started! After deep diving into new devising techniques for the first half of the spring 2022 semester, it was time to set out on our own! My ensemble had six hours of weekly rehearsal plus a three-hour class with one other ensemble and our professor.