entrances and exits

This is the peerformance ampitheater seen from above.

Where it is wet, it was bone-dry for the last Quarryography performance. Some of the dancers, me included, hit behind the horizontal rock--and our problem was gravel, not water.

The dance floor

A cableman progenitor

Left--one of the trails the audience will walk up needs a little work.
.Anne Hooke (IHT) shows Jennifer Morrow (OHA) a map of the trails. George Fields (IHT) looks on


Entrances and Exits

Usually a theater has a stage door, guaarded by a guy named Charlie with a cigar in his mouth. Performers and stage crew walk by him with a wave, and everyone else is barred from entry. If you want to catch a performer you wait outside in the rain with your little autograph book in your hand, or you make an appointment, and Charlie has your name on a list. Audience members enter through the lobby.

When your theater is a quarry with big open spaces and lots of trails, some ending on the edges of cliffs, and your are expecting a couple of hundred people to make the trek up either the main road/trail or a trail from the water-side, it's hard to control where people might end up.

Such a big production needs a staging area, dressing room and a place for the performers to hang out, preferably out of sight of the audience.

Ann Hooke and George Fields, IHT, met Linda Nelson and Jennifer Morrow (OHA) at the quarry on a gorgeous July morning to figure it all out. Walking the trails up and down, figuring out where they needed signs telling people which way to go, or not go, the four noted rough spots that need trimming, confusing spots that need volunteers to watch and places that are just not passable.

Ann had the map and a clipboard and they all walked. The walk started at the parking lot for all, then from the top of the quarry everyone walked down to the bottom. It sounds more onerous than it was--the day was drop dead beautiful. And by the end of an hour, they had it figured out.

Still, looking at that open space, it was hard to imagine it filled with heavy equipment, a steel drum band and an assortment of performers wearing exotic costumes. One year it was pink granite blocks that balanced on our heads. Beanies with wands extending from them--milkweed. And ball gowns. Tutus. This year it might be vinyl wings, tried out by the 7th-graders earlier. There's no knowing.

One thing is a constant--that fabulous quarrry. Stone underfoot, hard and unyielding. It's worse when it's slippery with water.