Hello! Welcome to the first blog post of the Pepperdine Scotland 2024 season. With that said, we are happy to take our new, original play no one is coming to save us at the Fringe at the Pleasance Beside very soon! Written by our wonderful playwright Lewis Hetherington, the play challenges the way young people think about and tackle climate activism, grief, relationships, and the future in a world facing the forces of climate change.
I am writing this as we begin our time in Glasgow so we’re already 12 hours of flight time, 20+ hours of van time, and a week-long Glenelg trip into Scotland, but plenty of things had to happen first before we could get to this moment. Here’s a quick recap.
The excitement began way back in October 2023 when the company list was posted in the call board hallway; we finally knew the company we would be traveling and working with. Then, it all began to feel extra real in February/March 2024, when we had our spring break workshop. The workshop consisted of so many things: we met Lewis and our producer Sam Hardie who both flew out from Scotland, did group exercises and activities, devised script drafts fresh off the press, did mini forms of climate protest on the Malibu campus, sang endlessly to “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield — a lot of things were packed into that week, but it was absolutely essential for us and for our play. As a member of the design team, the spring break workshop was especially formative, too. It allowed us designers to get a glimpse of what this story really was at its fiery core (RIP crystal core, you will be missed).
Once the school year ended, it was go time for us student designers. We read and re-read each draft of the script as they came. Through discussions with our director, Hollace Starr, we started brainstorming design ideas and researching imagery inspiration. We went down so many interesting paths, including one idea where the storytellers would push around heaps of fast fashion clothing with push brooms across the stage lol. Anyway, long story short and plenty of production/design meetings later, we settled on the fundamental design elements and got ready for play production week in mid-June.
Playpro meant about half of the company came back to Malibu a few days early to help pack, construct, pull props, prep costumes, etc. For scenic, we spent time painting the floor drop and testing out the tuffet builds. Painting the floor drop was fun! Even though I am also an art major who is used to working in the studio art sense, I have neither painted this large nor in this context before, so that was a great experience. The tuffet build was another important discovery we made during playpro week. The idea of the tuffets was something that felt so abstract during the design stages. Thus, it was truly exciting to see them come together, especially when we used them in collaboration with lights to test their glow-from-within quality.
When the rest of our company arrived the night before our departure, we said goodbye to our American ways with a barbecue in the afternoon and smores in the evening. We had to be up at 4am the next day. Some people slept early, some people slept a little, and some not at all. Bright and early, we dragged our luggage from Seaside to Smothers to head to the airport. The flights weren’t too bad, other than a few maintenance delays. Personally, I just slept on and off, did some work, watched a show, and monitored the flight map. Landing in Edinburgh was the most unbelievable thing—we looked out the window and all we could see was green! That made me so happy and excited for the new journey ahead.
We spent our first week in Glenelg and it was a dream! Although the van ride to the highlands was long, our local guides Eddie and Cami kept us attentive with their captivating stories. The time we spent with them is irreplaceable. I am beyond thankful for the hospitality and guidance of every person we met in Glenelg. But I also wanted to recognize how relieving it was to be in a place so one with nature. I took a lot of inspiration from the curves of the hills, the colors of the grass, and the texture of the rocks. I brought my watercolor set and sketchbook on some of our wee walks so I could sketch down landscapes and monuments. (And or our ceilidh I showed my sketches to audience members and did four mini paintings live!) It was just so reassuring to be surrounded by nature in its full potential, especially with our show and climate change in mind.
Our week in the Highlands recently concluded and now we are in Glasgow to dig deep into rehearsals at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and classes at University of Glasgow. A lot has already happened, but a lot is yet to come. I’m super excited to be in the rehearsal room as the directorial team/actors pull apart the text and find its new life! This is just one beginning of many beginnings 🙂
By: Zoe Macarewa
Comments are closed