The Journey Begins!

Hello!

My name is Matthew Hill and I am serving as the shepard of this flock. I am pleased to be serving as the director of this production as well as a producer of sorts. Having brought several shows to the Hollywood Fringe already (The Dumb Waiter in 2011, Fool for Love in 2012, and D is for Dog with the Rogue Artists Ensemble also in 2012), my experience will hopefully prove useful as we prepare this production.

   I admit that I am a little unsure as to what to write to start us off, so I suppose I should just say how I got involved. It seems as good a place as any to start. I graduated from the University of La Verne back in '08 and since then I have been returning on a professional basis to design for them. Last year I was thrilled to be asked to teach. I co-taught an 'intro to design' class with my mentor, David Flaten, and taught an advanced 'CAD design' course. Through my continued work with ULV and their talent, I met Sierra, Alexis, and Cody. (I already knew Mike Roche and in fact introduced him to La Verne).
   Sierra became interested in doing "Medea" for her senior acting thesis (something I hope she will write about here) and asked myself and our friend Melody (the grad assistant at the time) if either of us would be interested in directing it. We both were and left the decision to Sierra (again, something I hope she will write about as I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mel's directing [and in fact Mel is the more experienced in the director's chair]). Sierra and I spoke on day late last Spring about what my take on "Medea" might be; I explain that my interests align with the hyper-theatre of the Rogue Artists Ensemble and that I would love to use elements of puppetry, projection, song, and masks to create a mythic telling. Alexis, Cody, and a few others were brought into the conversation; some were interested and stayed and some moved on. We spoke off and on throughout the Summer. The other faculty (whose approval is needed to mount this production) feels that Sierra is better suited to Antigone (which if we were type casting would certainly be true; her youth brands her more sister than mother). But undiscouraged, Sierra has moved forward with the challenge of breaking her type. To this end, we began discussing adapting Medea to suit her age/look/disposition--a conversation that has since led us to make some bold choices with regards to the telling of the story and the characters of Medea and Jason. And that brings us up to now, more or less. We are a week from the start of the semester and preparing to pitch the production to the department.

I think that is all I have for now. Thanks for reading!

Cheers!

Matt