Creating a world. Remember when Alice chased her white rabbit down his hole and entered a strange new world where little cookies make people shrink or grow to giant proportions, where there the androgynous Cheshire Cat suddenly appears and disappears on a whim and the hot tempered Queen of Hearts lops off people's heads at her pleasure. That is what I have felt like for a week now. Sans the evil queen. I feel like I have entered a world where the creative process reigns. Here there is exploration, here there is an exchange of ideas and here there is freedom; that is with exception to the corset.

Between the work of Kathleen Cahill and Meg Gibson we are exploring what this world is like. We are faced with the fun and challenging task of creating characters who have roots in history but are not the historical figures themselves. This is not a historically accurate piece of theatre. A constant part of our dialogue has been how to balance these historical figures- their lives and work- with what Kathleen has written to tell our story. After all, this story is being told through the filter of Margaret Fuller (19th century poet, writer, news correspondent, transcendentalist, teacher, feminist, mother, and world traveler).  Everything in this experience is colored by Margaret. This story considers what the important moments in her life may have been. Exchanges that defined where she went next, moments of elation, or intense disappointment. Here, we also have the advantage of hindsight. We get to experiment with the idea that the status quo the Transcendentalist movement was pushing against finally had its realization in the 1960s. With the help of Meg we took a creative leap into some improvisation. This was a highlight of the week for me. It was nerve wracking at first but it became liberating to let the character express their inner joy, frustration, fear or simply their inner impulses while a record player was spinning out rock and roll.

Daily we are given new information to incorporate into these characters. Sometimes this information comes in the form of book reports on 19th century ocean travel or 19th century courting traditions; it may be Charlie Chaplain film highlights or simply a game of bean bag toss to unite the cast.  As I sit and watch the work of my fellow cast members breathe life into these characters I can't help but feel part of something really great.

Here we don't have an enchanted flower patch, a hookah smoking caterpillar, or the infamous little rabbit, but I'm sure our little tea party will be just as charming in its own way.