Ducky & Murdock
… SHADOW SHOWS IN DEVELOPMENT[CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO SHADOW SHOWS LIST] Read about the creation and development of Nasty new original work by the Shadows. Please feel free to comment or ask questions — discussion is welcome.
STANDING AT OPPOSITE ENDS ARE DUCKY & MURDOCK by Scott Shannon Developing in rehearsal with the following cast:
Past Shadows involved in the process
Writer / Director – Scott Shannon STANDING AT OPPOSITE ENDS ARE DUCKY & MURDOCK As a result, we were in this weird place where scenes in the first third and last third of the play have all been worked with a settled foundation, while the middle third of the play was kind of in limbo – I know this must have left the actors in a weird place, uncertain about the core of the play and thus how that might impact the beginning and end for them as the performers. As a process, it’s made the development interesting for me and I REALLY like that the middle of the play was found with the 2 actors who will be staging the show.  Ducky + Murdock rehearsal Nov 22/2023 Another piece that was “found” is the connective tissue between the scenes. I purposely wrote separate and discrete scenes instead of a flowing narrative, hoping that these scenes would add up to a “flowing narrative” with the help of this connective tissue that would adhere each scene to the next. My original idea was that this “tissue” could work in such a way that each instance could migrate between different scenes as a way of keeping a “flow” while the order of the scenes themselves shifted with each performance. While I still think it might be possible to play with variations on the order of scenes, it became quickly apparent that this was a taller task than I’d anticipated, not having properly thought it through, and the presence of the actors in the process made this obvious – at this stage, I am throwing and changing enough on them over the process that it would not be fair to the actors nor would it enhance the play. And so, I settled the suggested order of the scenes I had noted in my draft of the script – this order, if I was gonna pick one, makes the most sense to me … for now. So now the connections between these scenes have been constructed during this process, taking my original idea and twisting it all into a new thing based on attempting the original with the actors and it failing miserably in practice – my idea did not work in a practical sense. Another practical need was moving the boxes between scenes as many of find the boxes in new locations, so the new connective tissue between the scenes incorporated this practicality into the actions of the actors. The boxes are moved between scenes by one or both actors while they are playing out a “mini-scene” of sorts based in movement accompanied by an ongoing musical theme throughout: The Maritime Waltz by Stompin’ Tom Connors. I stumbled into this song while searching for a piece of music over the past couple of years. I wanted something older sounding and had first gone way back to songs from the 1930s-40s, but nothing really felt right … then this Stompin’ Tom song bubbled up somehow for me and it’s a perfect fit and helped prompt the idea for how the scenes could be connected. And so we had a full play by Nov 10th – later than I’d wanted, but it took the time it took for the writing and other elements to all jive together for me. I think the actors felt the play’s completion was too late – HA! – but not much I can do about that other than help them get comfortable with the new material as quickly as possible, which is what we’ve done over the past couple of weeks – at least, that has been my focus: let’s do what you need to cover. And kudos to them, they both have stepped up and swallowed down this new text very quickly which allowed us to work through it over the past couple of weeks and join this middle third with the first and final thirds the actors had already worked into a good place. I certainly didn’t want to put them in a position where they felt anxious about how this could all “possibly come together”, but I’m afraid I may have inadvertently done just that, and yet, as we worked each scene and carved our way through I felt really good about what was accomplished. I think these 2 performers will find themselves owning the text/show by the time we hit the end of the week, which should give us a few runs over the weekend in a more comfortable position.  Ducky + Murdock rehearsal Nov 22/2023 Tuesday will be our first full run of the play, top to bottom with all the elements joining scenes, the music we want to use between scenes and for the opening/closing. I am stoked. As I have watched runs of full scenes or runs of many scenes flowing together over the past week, I have felt some strong feels in the room with the performances. Now, I have a very personal connection to the material, but my hope is that it rises to a universal connection with those in the room … the show is kind of family-themed, by which I mean it talks and focuses on the idea of family with the connections made therein, and we are all part of a family in one way or another … I hope the memories of my family, tweaked into a fiction of sorts, are able to connect with others in the room … there are moments in the performances from these actors that are hitting me in exactly the place I’d want, as the guy who designed the show/story … looking forward to sharing these moments with our potential audience. scott STANDING AT OPPOSITE ENDS ARE DUCKY & MURDOCK  Ducky + Murdock rehearsal Oct 4/2023 We started with the “beginning” of the play (more on that later), but it gave me a chance to really try some of the staging ideas I’ve built into the script, albeit played out in a rough manner (these are early days), and yet it gave me hope that I wasn’t entirely crazy with what I was picturing could work. Another aspect of the play will manifest itself during rehearsals, a movement and song-based angle to the show, and I’m feeling even more certain it will work, especially when I watch these 2 actors in the room. We worked briefly through a movement-only scene, and then through a couple of scenes that establish the actors as “Shadows” of their characters, which was a great start to the process and showed me some difficulties ahead in terms of establishing “versions” of the characters throughout, sometimes with a single moment in a given scene as we play between memory and the “present”. scott STANDING AT OPPOSITE ENDS ARE DUCKY & MURDOCK scott STANDING AT OPPOSITE ENDS ARE DUCKY & MURDOCK * This play is also exploring that unknown future as the world where my plays occur – everything I’ve completed or am currently working on ties into “The Great Seclusion” … but this story veers away in a different direction than the Shadows-saga I’ve recently carved out. scott STANDING AT OPPOSITE ENDS ARE DUCKY & MURDOCK scott STANDING AT OPPOSITE ENDS ARE DUCKY & MURDOCK scott STANDING AT OPPOSITE ENDS ARE DUCKY & MURDOCK  Amanda Thorne & Jason McIntyre – rehearsal for DUCKY & MURDOCK Yesterday was a good day. And 2 weeks ago, I had a good day. I’m speaking of good theatrical days, where it felt right to be making something with others – thank you Amanda and Jason! Amanda jumped into the Shadow world last year and Jason has recently joined our Nasty creative process to become the latest Shadow working with me on this piece, and I am very grateful to have his talents involved. We are now (finally?!) in the closing stages of this project as we work towards a performance of the show in the spring of 2021 with these 2 incredible performers embodying the spirit of my grandparents’ lives within the fictional world of the plays I’ve been creating.*  Amanda Thorne & Jason McIntyre – rehearsal for DUCKY & MURDOCK We haven’t done too much, just read through the scenes I had in a form I was willing to share and played a bit with the very first scene I wrote for the play way back in 2012 – Scene M has developed and refined since that first version, but it is in essence a play in itself having been created for sharing and performing at a Remembrance Day event hosted by TNB that year. This scene has kept me pushing towards more from these two characters, hearing and wanting to share further their stories. Likewise, having Amanda and Jason willing to play with these words and others I share with them is truly a gift of an opportunity that I am taking full advantage of to bring this play and these characters before some sort of audience in some way in the coming spring. Just the little work we’ve done together thus far has charged me up with some renewed focus on this text and shown me that working with these two actors is going to be a wonderful experience. I also had Amanda and Jason read an old play I have about experimenting on tables, which I’m now looking toward re-mounting in the coming year … if life permits such adventures … scott * I seem most interested in exploring this unknown future as the world where my plays occur – everything I’ve completed or am currently working on ties into “The Great Seclusion”. STANDING AT OPPOSITE ENDS ARE DUCKY & MURDOCK scott STANDING AT OPPOSITE ENDS ARE DUCKY & MURDOCK scott STANDING AT OPPOSITE ENDS ARE DUCKY & MURDOCK  Crystal Chettiar & Michael Holmes-Lauder rehearsing Standing At Opposite Ends Are Ducky & Murdock So not much happened with the writing of this project since my last note, but I have since workshopped the text I have with a couple of other kind actors, Michael and Crystal — thanks for your time! After stepping away from our developmental work on THE FIRST/LAST PLAY, but still having a couple of actors willing to play, I figured we may as well revisit my Ducky & Murdock story. Ducky was my paternal grandmother’s nickname, and Murdock was my grandfather’s name, otherwise known as Nanny and Grampy to me. The play is inspired by their memory and the stories that run through my head, but it’s by no means a biographical story about my grandparents — I’m using them as a launchpad into another world.  Michael Holmes-Lauder & Crystal Chettiar rehearsing Standing At Opposite Ends Are Ducky & Murdock When Becky and I performed a scene from this play-in-progress a couple of years earlier for a Remembrance Day event out at TNB, I didn’t really have a chance to gain perspective on it as a performance since I was in it. And so, using Michael and Crystal for a few recent rehearsals to play with the text again was very fun, educational, and in all honesty a relief — it actually seemed pretty good! Can I say that … ? Regardless, very cool to have Michael show me a more gentle side to ‘Murdock’ than I’d imagined, and it was a treat watching Crystal bring a vulnerability as well as a determined strength into ‘Ducky’ — only wish the 3 of us got to play together a little more before she left for Banff, and then on to National Theatre School (break a leg!).  Michael Holmes-Lauder & Crystal Chettiar rehearsing Standing At Opposite Ends Are Ducky & Murdock So it was cool to have the chance to see Becky and Crystal in the role of ‘Ducky’, and Michael and myself as ‘Murdock’ — just nice to see the text float across these different voices and bodies, and that the “characters” are different each time while maintaining the same core. Both Becky and Crystal are small in stature with intense energy, but the ‘Ducky’ the each created was just as telling of them as it was the text or “character”, because the actor and the character are all messed up with each other, so you can’t have one without the other, meaning each time it’s different — I was thankful to see the words worked for each woman’s approach. Stepping away from this as I start to plan for an actual production of something for the coming fall … no telling just yet … scott STANDING AT OPPOSITE ENDS ARE DUCKY & MURDOCK REHEARSED/PERFORMED Oct-Nov 2012 The scene we played comes from a larger piece about two people in love during war time. The writing continues and one day I hope to revisit this project. scott |
Nasty Shadows Theatre Co. 
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