To Please the Audience - A Comedy of Terrors

By Elaine Avila

Directed by Kathleen Weiss

at Pacific Theatre

Director’s Notes

The only thing more satisfying than rehearsing a play I really like is working on a new play I really like. The process of rehearsing with the playwright in the room is so exciting when one is fortunate enough to have a talented and open-minded writer like Elaine as part of the creative team. It has been a great learning experience for the actors to see the script develop along with the characterisations and staging of this play.

I have a long history as a dramaturge with To Please the Audience. The play was part of Women in View’s IncubationProject and was read in the 1998 Since that reading, I have been eager to see the play produced be Women in View Festival. cause it is highly imaginative and needs full staging to fulfil its potential. It has proved to be an ideal vehicle for our TooBa students because it demands a highly physical acting style. Also, we have gotten the chance to further the TooBa mandate of the development of indigenous work. We are training students who will devote their talents to the realisation of original Canadian work whether they create it themselves or work with existing writers.

To Please the Audience is an extremely theatrical play. It has been great fun to work on such lively comedy with such intriguing characters. I hope the show is as much fun to watch as it has been to work on.

- Kathleen Weiss