Overview
Created in conjunction with Familie Floez, this show asked me and the other 13 members of my cohort/company to each create a character inspired by a real ancestor that we had never met. The process started from research about the ancestor in question – from family stories, photos, primary source accounts (if someone currently alive had known the ancestor in question), and imagination. We then made original, full-face masks to capture the face and personality of the ancestor as we understood them. Finally, we brought these masks to life through devising and improvisation to understand the theatrical character created – which may or may not still resemble the real person on which it was based. From the assembled cast of roughly 30 characters (many of us made two or more masks), each cohort member created an original scene under the direction of Familie Floez and these vignettes were presented to the public at the end of our residency.
