“My Family is here.”
“Was here.”
Taking Stock, a drama by Paul Logsdon and Milan Smith, opens October 15th at Pensacola Little Theatre as part of our Studio 400 season. The play follows the O’ Gara siblings Gwen, Michael, Kat, and Bobby as they meet the day after their mother’s funeral to discuss what to do with the family home. As they sift through boxes filled with childhood memories, they unearth more than they bargained for. Can they resolve their issues and come out of this as a family?
Anthony Mowad as Michael O’Gara and Eleanore Armani as Gwen O’Gara in rehearsal.
Logsdon and Smith are two local playwrights who wrote and developed Taking Stock over several years, with the process starting back in 2017. Most of us picture some sort of creative genius furiously typing out their beloved script, and while the creativity was certainly there, Taking Stock was written in a different way.
“There were four of us in a scene that our teacher, Jeanmarie Collins assigned us, and it went so well, we decided to workshop it into a play”, explains Milan Smith. Using the Spolin Technique, the actors, which included Logsdon and Smith, were able to bring the beginnings of Taking Stock to life. With Logsdon focusing in on character work, originating the character of Bobby O’Gara during the process.
Viola Spolin teaching a theatre class.
Viola Spolin was an innovative theatre educator, academic, director, and acting coach credited with developing a method for actors to be more present in the moment on stage and to make choices in a more improvisational way. These were later simply referred to as Theatre Games and became the essential framework for American improvisational theatre. You can see the influence of improvisation during scenes where the siblings fight like brothers and sister so often do. This lends a wonderful realness to the script that will help audiences connect with the characters on stage.
Learn more about Viola Spolin and her contributions to the theatre HERE
Nathan Simmons as Bobby O’Gara, Eleanore Armani as Gwen O’Gara, and Anthony Mowad as Michael O’Gara in rehearsal.
Smith and Logsdon worked and reworked the script with the help of some local actors. Smith explains how the rest of the piece came together, “over the Spring and Summer of 2019, we filled out the script, edited it over several sessions, then took a few months having friends read it for us. Those folks were incredibly helpful and offered a lot of suggestions for tightening up the script. (Frankly, we were very lucky in who we got.) After that, we read for PLT's Scripteasers in late 2019, and Renee took it from there. We were lucky to get her as director too, she's very insightful.”
Renee Jordan serves as director for Taking Stock, she previously directed the production over zoom during the 2020 Covid 19 lockdown, helping Pensacola Little Theatre bring local theatre into our community’s homes. She fell in love with the story and decided it needed to be put on a stage. “I wanted to get those 4 people in a room,” Renee explains. “While Zoom gave us the chance to keep putting out content, it just emboldened me to want to put these four people in that house. It has added such an energy to these characters and such power to their words I am excited for audiences to really get to experience this show on its feet.”
Putting Taking Stock on its feet are four local actors who have been hard at work in rehearsals since the beginning of September. Eleanor Armani takes on the role of the oldest sister Gwen, Anthony Mowad as the oldest brother Michael, and Ashley McGlothren along with Nathan Simmons portray the youngest siblings Kat and Bobby.
You can see Taking Stock in the M.C. Blanchard Courtroom theatre October 15-17, 21-24, 2021. Get tickets at the link below or by calling the Box Office at 850-432-2042 Monday-Friday 12-5pm.
This production is sponsored by Tonya Zimmern with Keller Williams, Gulf Coast Realty. Other financial support for PLT programs is provided in part by the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and ACE.