Acorn

Claire Moyer, CLA '07

Director of 'Home Free!'

Acorn: Why did you choose this play?

Moyer: I really wanted to look at a play that dealt with alternate realities. Last year while in London, I was doing classical theatre, Shakespeare, and I wanted to do a modern piece. I wanted something a little farther from our daily life. I liked how the characters [in 'Home Free!'] created their own reality.

During auditions, what was it with seniors Justin Giza and Sarah Gosnell that caught your director's eye?

When I was casting, I was looking for how they' physically fit the part. It was difficult because the characters are in their 20s, but they have very childlike manners. It was important for me to find people who look like they're in their mid-twenties, but could act like a child.

Sarah and Justin are both seniors, they work hard, [and] they have a really lovely chemistry together.

Throughout the show, Lawrence (Giza) and Joanna Brown (Gosnell) hold conversations with imaginary characters. How did you work with your actors in making this believable?

It was easy to start, because the script was so well written. We would have [Production Stage Manager sophomore] Morgan Edwards and [Assistant Stage Manager sophomore] Elyse Smith stand on stage and Justin and Sarah would have something to respond to and something they could stare at from eye level. It would give them a physicality of an actual person.

I also had Justin and Sarah find images from online and magazines [of what they thought characters looked like] so they can relate to a physicality and not just a space.

Giza played a hyperactive man-child. Gosnell played a pregnant woman. Where did your actors draw inspiration from in order to perform these characters?

Often, actors would create long-winded back stories, which is fine, but here we worked on finding characters within [and supported by] the text.

There was a lot of physical work, especially for Sarah. Her character was six months pregnant and had a heart condition. We talked about different tensions in the body and we worked on different exercises.

Lawrence and Joanna are involved in an openly incestuous relationship. How did you direct this so it didn't turn the audience off to the show?

I think parts of the show made the audience squirm, and I was OK with that. You had to find humanity for these characters. If you understood their situation, it could almost justify their actions, and the idea is that they're so dependent on each other and so in love with each other, the lines begin to blur, and that they are adults and sexual beings - but also still siblings.

They decided to stay somewhere in the middle.

What do you see as the most successful aspect of your show? What do you wish could�ve been improved?

I was really happy with the show in general. There's always fine tuning that can be done: Having an audience is a whole other aspect involved, so I wish we had a longer run.

I would've worked harder on articulating Claypole and Edna to them [the actors], and I would've focused on the antagonism that develops from living in such close quarters with another [person].

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