Once Upon A Bride… First Rehearsals

(Post and photo by August Schulenburg. Pictured: Rachael Hip-Flores, Chinaza Uche, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Becky Byers, Sol Crespo.)

Well, first off, I suppose I should come clean right off the bat: I love Once Upon A Bride There Was A Forest. I’m a fan of all of Kristen Palmer’s work (and of Kristen), but I’ll admit, I have a special shine for this play.

For one thing, it feels like many of her particular gifts: a lyric poetry; a playful humor; and above all, these transformative waves of gravity that ripple out from the raw heart of her plays, a gravity emanating from an unshirking account of loss and how it changes us, waves that warp us watchers into new shapes; all of these cohere into a haunting dream-world mirror of our own.

Yes, I do very much like this play.

And I like our Creative Partners in this play. Though a full production may not be best served by this exact casting, diving into this world with our core team gives us all a lived-in knowledge of how this play works.

How does it work? Here are some hopefully non-spoiler questions we’re exploring:

• How much control does Josie have over the world of the Forest?
• Who is the mysterious Man, and what love keeps him in the Forest?
• Is the Warren of the Forest the same Warren  of the city?
• Is Eugenia native to the Forest? And why can’t she calm her own baby?
• How authentic is the love Everett feels for Belle and Eugenia?