Show is called Cries of Wolves, look for it to be published in the near future. New
play by one of our alumni. Based on the Chechen takeover of a Moscow
theatre. The show is an exploration of what drives human beings to do things that are usually considered wrong, like taking people hostage, strapping on a suicide vest, shooting people,
etc, even though they know they will die in the end. Quite a powerful
play, if done right. Tech/
stage directions are extremely tough, and in my opinion the scenes are out of order. For the show we rented 3 AK-47 replicas for the gents, 7 M92 replicas for everyone, and built 4 bomb vests for the ladies. Everyone dressed in a hybrid "traditional Chechen" and "Generic Terrorist" look, which worked, but was compicated (part of the reason the tech aspects are hard, the show jumps around). Anyhow, the opening scene is the Prometheus myth, and then there is a
blackout, and the lights come up to one of the men charging an AK-47 and all the ladies running out into the audience with bomb triggers and handguns out. Ended similarly to how the real crisis ended. We dummped
fog into the
theatre for the last 3-5 minutes of the show, and the actors slowly slumped down, as if it was knockout gas. The show was very well recieved, several church groups came and watched it, and a bunch of Russians thought it should be translated into Russian. Seeing as we know that the playwrite already has a FSB file, she is not going to be doing this for a while. Overall, a great show, going to be published soon. Not sure how big its gonna be, but it will have some sort of a presence.
Edit: I might add that they let me run sound for the last 3 runs. Everyone liked the new, increased presence of the explosions and gunfire. People could feel the patio above the
theatre shake. (Before anyone jumps on me, the sound designer thought they had been too soft when they went and saw it, and part of the reason the previous noise boy was dismissed is because he had been goofing with the cues to make them "more even" in terms of volume. The changes (and significant boosting of the explosion effects) was with consent.)