Radiant Vermin
By Phillip Ridely
Jill and Ollie are an expecting couple living in one of the most dangerous parts of town when they receive an odd offer from an odd woman -- a Dream Home. They meet Miss Dee, an omniscient government real estate agent, who presents to them a run down house in a run down neighborhood, giving them the house for free as long as they do one thing: fix it up. When one night, a homeless person sneaks into their home and Ollie accidentally kills him, they discover an odd capability this house has: self-renovation - through murder. They want to tell the audience all about their experience, and why they committed these horrible acts; they’ll be the first to tell you, it was all for their baby.
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Jill (25-30): While she would like to maintain an aura of innocence and simplicity, Jill's character is extremely complex. While she will have nothing to do with the murders (it will upset the baby), she is the one constantly prodding her husband to continue committing them. She is extremely controlling on Ollie, and knows just what to say to get her way. In the end, she will do anything she has to to get her hot water and her dream home- and she can always justify it by saying it is for Benjy.
Ollie (25-30): Ollie, the more cautious of the couple, would like you to believe that he is the one in charge. While he is certainly very knowledgeable, his morals and limits are easily moldable. While he may not be in charge, he is certainly "Mr. DIY," and he "fixes up the house" all by himself. While he may spend his free time murdering, he is still a teddy bear inside, and that side eventually gets the better of him.
Miss Dee (40-60): At first Miss Dee may come off as your sweet neighborhood real estate agent, there is much more to her than initially meets the eye. Nobody knows where Miss Dee came from, but Miss Dee, being omniscient, knows everything about everyone. While she is certainly complex in her methods, her one goal is obvious: sell dream homes.
Proposed Set Design
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Rehearsal Schedule
Week One
The first week of rehearsal would be focused on viewpoint activities and memorization. Viewpoints have the unique ability to, depending on the exercise you choose, both build trust and teamwork in an ensemble and allow actors to get into character. In this show in particular, both are extremely important. The actors portraying Jill and Ollie will have to be able to completely trust each other. Additionally, with the nature of the show and its fast pace, the actors will have to be able to know their characters like themselves, and viewpoints would help that. The time we don't spend on these activities would be spent working on memorization. As there are two characters who are on stage for almost the entire show, I anticipate lines could be an issue. Also, in order to work on character as much as I would like, the actors will need to be off book as early as possible.
Week Two
The second week of rehearsal would be primarily focused on blocking, however we would still do daily viewpoints exercises. This show lends itself to extreme actor-based blocking (as in the actors block the show themselves with the director's guidance), so blocking would be very loose and never necessarily set in stone. That being said, there are still some very complex parts that would be difficult to block, such as the first murder scene and the birthday party scene. I believe that it would be very possible to block the entire show in the week, even when taking time every day to practice viewpoints.
Week Three
In the third week, we would work a lot on character building, trust building and cleaning. I hope that this week would produce an incredibly close cast. As I have said, having a cast that entirely trusts each other is vital to this show, so this could end up being the most important week.
Week Four: Tech Week
As always, tech week would be primarily a time for technical aspects of the show together. For this show in particular, I am sure we would spend a lot of time working on lighting. At the same time, it is a time for the actors to get comfortable in the space they will be preforming in. I want the actor to feel comfortable enough to change things they do even in shows, so I want them to feel comfortable with everything else first. While the majority of time would be spent allowing the crew to do whatever they need to do, I would also spend time doing space exploration viewpoints. As always, we would do all activities before we do a run of the show.
3:15-3:30: Highs and Lows
As I have stated several times, theatre starts with trust. Everybody involved in the show (including the production staff, crew, adviser, and anybody else who might be in the room) sits in a circle and shares a good thing and a bad thing that happened to them that day. In my experience, one of the best ways to allow trust to form is through a daily check in like this.
3:30-4:30: Viewpoints!
I would spend this time doing a variety of viewpoint activities. I would attempt to switch the exercise we do every day as to make sure the actors are able to gain something new every day.
4:30-6:00: Focus of the Week
See above what we would focus on each week of the rehearsal process.