TAKIN’ IT TO THE STREETS: QCT on the Road
Written by Director of Education, Brendan Shea
There was a moment during rehearsals for Jack and Phil: Slayers of Giants, Inc., where we needed to build a magical pawn shop out of two ladders, a wooden plank, a rehearsal cube, and a bag of beans from Target. That was easy. Later, we asked ourselves: How many different props could we make out of caution tape? We decided the answer was five. And then there was the day we figured out how to show “fire” without any special effects—turns out we can use caution tape for that, too.
The touring show is a unique brand of fun. I like to think that every student theatre production is fun (and challenging, and exciting, and transformative), but QCT on the Road is different. It’s fun in the way that a puzzle is fun. It stretches our creativity, tickles our intellect, and activates our imagination, unlike any other show in our season. The mission—should we choose to accept it—is to take a QCT student theatre production out of the building to schools, community centers, and libraries all across the region. Hence, the highly accurate name of the program: QCT on the Road. The game is simple. But, like Tetris (or, if you’re me, literally any card game), it’s hard to master. Because our entire show needs to fit inside a van.
(It’s a new van, by the way. And it’s amazing.)
Theatre trades on spectacle. The earliest surviving definition of theatre, from the Greek philosopher Aristotle, includes spectacle as one of the six essential elements of drama. When you attend a play or a musical at QCT, you expect a certain level of production value—lighting, scenic design, music, amplified voice—to transport you into the world of the play. We have incredible designers, volunteer craftsmen, and production staff that pull off the impossible several times a year to transform our stage from the streets of New York to a diner in Tennessee to the Orient Express. We have a fully equipped, massive venue to serve as our canvas. We’re privileged in this community in that we’re used to experiencing live theatre on a large scale. Did I mention Jack and Phil has to fit inside a van?
The good news is that, by Aristotle’s admission, spectacle is actually the least important part of the dramatic event. Story, character, language, ideas—this is what theatre is made of. Communicating these elements to an audience requires nothing more than bodies, voices, and a shared imagination. And apparently ladders, a wooden plank, and lots of caution tape.
So yes, we got creative (a theme of Jack and Phil is DIY creativity and resilience, so everything is made out of hardware store stuff), we experimented, we laughed a lot, and we figured it out. Now we will bring this show to students out in the county who may not have easy access to live theatre. No, these elementary school students won’t see moving LED lights and a detailed set. But our imagination will meet their imagination, and a story will be told. This is what I love most about the touring show. Theatre is presented in its purest form. And yes, it does fit inside a van.