to the Learning Pack for The Colby

The Colby Sisters
of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Background Pack
Written by Harry Mackrill
Tricycle Creative Learning
The Tricycle’s Creative Learning programme works to develop the imaginations, aspirations and
potential of children and young people in the diverse community of Brent and beyond. Collaborating
with schools and young people, we use theatre, drama and film, to bring unheard young voices into
the mainstream; creating work that engages the emotions and provokes debate. Whether as
audiences, writers, performers or producers of new work at the theatre, young people are at the
Tricycle’s heart.
About this Background Resource Pack
This document is designed to give an insight into the research and rehearsal of the Tricycle’s 2014
production of The Colby Sisters of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by Adam Bock, directed by Tripp Cullman.
Contents
The Tricycle Theatre Production
p3
Character Biographies
p4
New York Society
p6
Assistant Director’s rehearsal diary
p8
Interview with Adam Bock and Trip Cullman
p13
The Tricycle Theatre 2014 Production of
The Colby Sisters of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
By Adam Bock
The Production opened at the Tricycle Theatre Kilburn, on Wednesday 25 June 2014.
The Company
Heather
India
Willow
Gemma
Garden
Mouse
Ronke Adekoluejo
Isabella Calthorpe
Claire Forlani
Charlotte Parry
Patricia Potter
Alice Sanders
Director
Designer
Lighting Designer
Sound Designer
Assistant Director
Costume Supervisor
Casting Director
Accent and Dialect Coach
Trip Cullman
Richard Kent
Oliver Fenwick
Emma Laxton
Harry Mackrill
Natasha Ward
Briony Barnett
Richard Ryder
Charlotte Parry, Isabella Calthorpe, Claire Forlani, Ronke Adekoluejo, Alice Sanders, Patricia Potter
Photo credit: Mark Douet
CHARACTER BIOGRAPHIES
The Colbys are a wealthy family from Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. The five Colby sisters have all relocated to
New York, where most have married wealthy and
powerful men and became the toast of New York High
Society. They are the trend setters of the upper classes
and regularly feature in magazines such as Vanity Fair,
and on page six of the New York Post (see New York
Society section of this pack for more information).
WILLOW MARSHALL
The eldest of the Colby sisters, Willow is often the most
downtrodden. She lives with her husband, Robert – an
architect who is finding it difficult to secure a job – and
her two children, Silas and Jenny. Willow left Pittsburgh
as a young woman after she married Robert and they
live in a comfortable Brownstone on the Upper East Side
of Manhattan.
INDIA GIBSON
Second eldest of the Colby Sisters is India, who studied
at Brown University. She is married to a famous artist,
Joe. The two of them share a glamorous lifestyle and,
while based in New York, they often travel the world for
Joe’s work. India is the most reserved of the sisters and is
also the most loved.
Isabella Calthorpe (India), Patricia Potter (Garden),
Charlotte Parry (Gemma), Claire Forlani (Willow)
Photo credit: Mark Douet
GEMMA BYRON
Gemma, the eldest twin, is the most socially powerful of the
Colby sisters and uses her influence within the family
dynamic and also in New York Society. She is married to a
billionaire, Jeremy, and spends her time organising Galas and
fundraisers for New York socialites.
GARDEN STANLEY-MYERS
Garden, the youngest of the twins, is most like the Colby
Sisters’ mother. She is a solid unit with Gemma, but when
she becomes unhappy, she is easily dominated by her twin
sister.
Ronke Adekoluejo (Heather)
Photo credit: Mark Douet
DIANA “MOUSE” COLBY
The baby of the family, ‘Mouse’ lives in a neighbourhood –
which might be SoHo – that was once edgy, but is now yet
another domain of the New York elite. She inhabits a slightly
different world from the rest of her sisters. She is looked
after by all of them, but ultimately is a free spirit who
explores the world without inhibition or a sense of the
society ‘rules’ that govern her sisters.
HEATHER LEE
Heather is Gemma’s faithful personal assistant. From a large
family herself, she understands the family dynamic and is
willing to look after Gemma and the sisters as best she can.
Isabella Calthorpe (India), Alice Sanders (Mouse)
Photo credit: Mark Douet
NEW YORK SOCIETY
The Colby Sisters is a play about
family dynamics, more
specifically the relationships
between siblings. It also
interrogates the social
constructs of New York High
Society and how the upper
classes in America interact.
Adam Bock was initially inspired
to write The Colby Sisters by a
famous Vanity Fair cover
featuring the Miller family, three
American society sisters.
The Colby Sisters inhabit a very
specific part of New York
society. For us as a company to
understand the social dynamics
of the world of the sisters – and
how this feeds into the drama of
the play – we had to research the
social constructs and
conventions that constrain them.
The Miller sisters, clockwise from left: Pia Getty, Alexandra von Fürstenberg,
and Marie-Chantal, Crown Princess of Greece; Vanity Fair, June 1995.
Photo: David Seidner
www.vanityfair.com
“American aristocracy was defined by inherited wealth. There were no complicated grades of
nobility and confusing courtesy titles to contend with. The equation was, and remains, a simple one
– the older the money, the grander the bloodline.”
Nick Foulkes, High Society
The social systems of New York descend from the wealthy Dutch settlers of the 17th Century, who
prospered from the fur and tobacco trade for which America would become renowned. In the 1660s,
the colony shuttled back and forth between British and Dutch rule – but the prominent families of
this time have become the bedrock of American High Society.
Like London and other large cities, New York became a favourite haunt of the “social” classes in the
early 19th Century. Theatres and hotels were built and there was an increasing importance placed
on being seen in the ‘right’ places. Henry Sands Brooks opened a men’s tailor in 1818 and served
sherry to customers, turning shopping into a social event. New York also blossomed thanks to the
canal built between the Hudson River and the Great Lakes: it was an engineering marvel and allowed
trade and tourism to boom.
The ‘Gilded Age’ of New York High Society was the turn of the 20th Century, which is famously
recorded by writers F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby and The Beautiful and the Damned) and Edith
Wharton (The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence). This social boom ended with the Wall Street
Crash in 1929, but the social structure remained, and was maintained through America’s growth
throughout the 20th Century. As US power grew, and Wall Street re-emerged as a centre of the
Western capitalism, New York Society developed. By the 1970s and 80s (when the Colby sisters
would have been born) opulence was back in fashion. As Nick Foulkes says in his book High Society:
“It looked like the values of the gilded age were making another comeback. For the first time in what
seemed like ages, it was socially acceptable to have money – and to show it.”
General interest in High Society was consolidated by the development and power of the media,
especially following the birth of the internet. Gossip columns became powerful ways to sell
newspapers, and to be seen by the rest of society, bringing us to the world in which the Colby Sisters
know and live in today.
High Society in American Media
Page Six, the New York Post: A famous gossip column in the NY Post, regularly featuring socialites
and celebrities. The column runs photos of galas and events similar to the one in Scene Two of the
play.
New York Social Diary: A website that publishes a calendar of events for socialites, and the
photographs taken during them. It originally appeared in 1993 as a monthly column in Quest
magazine.
The Social Register Association: A directory of names of the prominent families who form America’s
social elite. The first New York Social Register was published in 1886 by Louis Keller, who had the
idea of consolidating the names of the important and influential people of New York on one list. The
publication of names in the Social Register is governed by an advisory committee.
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR’S REHEARSAL DIARY
Week One
It is 9:30am on Monday morning, and the cast and creative team of The Colby Sisters, along with the
full Tricycle Theatre team, have assembled in the bar downstairs for the ‘meet and greet’. This is
where every member of the large team comes together for the first time and introduces themselves.
Artistic Director Indhu Rubasingham welcomes the team and speaks of seeing an early rehearsed
reading of the script and how she immediately
knew she wanted to produce the play.
Following the welcome, the cast, stage
management and creative team (along with
the Marketing and Artistic departments of the
theatre) venture into the rehearsal room for
the first read-through of the play.
The read-through is a nerve wracking
experience for all involved, but is a vital first
step in the journey of rehearsing a play. It is
the first time we all hear the play out loud,
with the voices of the actors who have been
cast. Happily for everyone involved, the first
read of The Colby Sisters is very moving and
very, very funny.
When rehearsing a piece of new writing, it is
useful for the playwright to be in the room
throughout the process to hone and edit the
text. During our first reading, playwright
Adam Bock is busy scribbling away, making
notes and annotating his script. When the
play is read out loud, the playwright and
director can hear every detail that is missing
or line that is superfluous.
Ronke Adekoluejo
Photo credit: Mark Douet
The rest of Week One is dedicated to ‘table work’; the work done prior to getting the play up on its
feet. It is usually a detailed mining of the text, where the ensemble dissect the play and begin to find
answers to the questions that arose during their preparation. As The Colby Sisters is the story of a
family, it is important that we are all share a very precise image of the history of the sisters. Claire
Forlani, who plays the eldest sister Willow, starts us off by asking what their mother would have been
like, and we soon create a very vivid portrait which incorporates each of the actors’ initial thoughts.
Over the next few days we detail each aspect of the sisters’ lives; Charlotte Parry (playing the elder
twin, Gemma) is keen to understand the age gap between each of them, whilst Isabella Calthorpe
talks at length about her character India’s relationship to the family, and why she is able to act as a
mediator between the siblings.
The play also looks at themes such as fame and high society in New York. Trip Cullman, the director,
and Adam become invaluable tools for the actors, as they both live in New York and have first-hand
experience of the world the Colbys inhabit. Trip immediately clarifies the type of celebrity that the
sisters have: ‘Page 6’ of the New York Post. They are not ‘reality’ television stars; they are famous
because of money and the power it brings.
Week One ends with individual design meetings
between the designer Richard Kent, Trip and
each of the actresses. Image is everything for
the Colbys and Richard’s design will tell us a lot
about each of the characters just by looking at
them. Each actor comes to the meeting with lots
of ideas and contributions, and it is apparent
that each element of making theatre is a
collaborative process.
Week Two
Having spent the first week of rehearsals
discussing the characters, researching their
world and investigating each moment of the
text, we start Week Two by finding the physical
space inhabited by the Colby sisters. The stage
management team mark the dimensions of the
stage onto the rehearsal room floor and we start
to block the play, which involves making
decisions about where the actors, set and props
should be at all times. Adam has written a very
Claire Forlani, Charlotte Parry
Photo credit: Mark Douet
specific opening image which he and Trip are
keen to replicate as accurately as possible. The
image is one of India sitting very still on the sofa of a photographer’s studio, but despite her stillness
she has several thoughts running through her mind. We take care to mark these physical moments
out as we would do if they were spoken text, creating each individual beat, or thought, and then
working together to find India’s objectives.
We continue this slow and detailed work throughout the play, and as we do we discover new
moments which need further clarification through rewrites. The world of New York is vital to the
play, but because it was originally performed as a rehearsed reading at the Sundance Theater Lab in
America, it was assumed that the audience already had an awareness of the geography of the city.
Trip and Adam realise that a British audience would need greater clarification, especially around
names such as ‘Bergdorf’s’ (New York’s equivalent of Liberty or Harvey Nichols) and ‘Park Slope’ (a
suburb of Brooklyn).
This specificity of location was aided by the rewrites,
but Trip also encouraged the actors to articulate each
phrase – and what each place means to the sisters –
with clarity and purpose. The actors are aided in this
process by the dialect coach, Richard Ryder. He
comes in early during the second week to watch
rehearsals progress and listen to how the actors’
voices naturally fit the upper class American accent.
This observation is then followed by individual
workshops with each actor to help tailor their own
voice to that of their characters. As the dialogue of
the play is so fast and has a staccato rhythm, Richard
also creates a warm-up for the group to release their
voices before rehearsals and help them work
together as an ensemble.
Week Three
The work with the acting company continues in
earnest throughout Week Three of rehearsals, but
slowly the creative and technical elements of the
production also enter the process. Adam has written
a play with five vastly contrasting settings: we see a
photographer’s studio, at an exclusive New York gala, Gemma’s apartment, a tennis court(!), and the
lobby of a Brooklyn restaurant.
Isabella Calthorpe, Patricia Potter
Photo credit: Mark Douet
Richard’s design incorporates the concept of image and photography by using 4 large photo frames.
These frames will move around the stage (by our stage management and crew) in order to create the
different spaces. Early on in Week Three the creative team meet in order to start planning each
scene change: several charts are presented so that we all know what props will need to be removed
from the stage and how the new ones will be brought on. It is a complex process and all the logistics
need to be clear and well-rehearsed. Trip decides that the character of Gemma’s assistant, Heather
(played by Ronke Adekoluejo), should be seen ‘working’ throughout the play so that the audience
understand, in contrast, how privileged each of the sisters are. From this we decide that she can help
set each scene, and that the scene changes should be a distinctive and integral part of the play.
Oliver Fenwick, the lighting designer, and Emma Laxton, sound designer, will aid the story telling by
contributing to the very specific world in each scene change.
We end the week with a stagger through of the play. This is the first time we put each scene together
and hear the whole story from start to finish. The acting company handle the journey really well and
the story telling is clear and succinct. It is interesting to watch how the scenes connect to one
another and how the drama crescendos. The actors understand for the first time how to tell the
complete story of their characters, instead of working on each individual scene in isolation. The
intensity of the play allows the emotion to build and several moments which have been difficult for
us to navigate suddenly unlock. A good end to the week before we head into our final week in the
rehearsal room!
Week Four
Alice Sanders, Ronke Adekoluejo
Photo credit: Mark Douet
In the final moment of Scene
One, an unseen photographer
comes and takes the Colby
sisters’ portrait - which will
develop before our eyes and be
projected onto one of Richard
Kent’s frames for the duration of
Scene Two. In preparation for this
moment we have our very own
photo shoot in order to capture
the image that will be projected.
In addition to the photograph
being used for the production,
the Marketing Department at the
Tricycle will also use the image for promotion of the play.
Happily, what is a production and marketing necessity becomes the perfect acting exercise for the
company! The actors are dressed in the ball gowns which Richard Kent has designed and made (with
Costume Supervisor, Natasha Ward and a team of makers) following the costume discussions in
Week One, and there is a makeup and hair artist on hand to make them look as glamorous as
possible! The actors are, for one morning on the Kilburn High Road, experiencing the life that the
Colby sisters would on a daily basis.
With the photograph taken, we get back to rehearsals. The rest of the week is based around detailed
scene work and full runs of the play. Each member of the creative team, along with stage
management and technicians, watches the runs. It is important for Emma (Sound Designer) and
Oliver (Lighting Designer) to understand the shape and movement of Trip’s direction, so that they
can tailor the sound and lighting to it. We also set the sound equipment up in the rehearsal room,
and develop the soundscape for the gala and (perhaps most importantly) the tennis match before
we go into the theatre for the technical rehearsal.
We end our time in the rehearsal room with one final run of the play. The actors say good bye to the
room and stage management pack all the props away before we move into the theatre. All the work
that has been achieved through rehearsal now has time to settle during the technical rehearsals
before we run the play in full again – next time, in front of an audience!
Week Five
Over the weekend, the set is moved from the workshop to the Tricycle and the stage is prepared for
Monday’s first tech session. Before the actors arrive, Trip and Richard walk through the screen
movements, marking each scene for Oliver to then light, whilst Leo – our video consultant – works
alongside them to fit the image of the photograph and a short film used for the beginning of Scene
Three onto the screens.
The technical rehearsals of any play are a slow and detailed process – it is a time when the actors
work on stage, but do not need to pitch their physicality or emotion at performance levels. Instead, it
is a time for the creative team to work and help enhance all the work the company are doing on
stage.
As well as the intricate scene changes, there are also many costume changes – usually very fast
ones, from elaborate ball gowns into day wear or tennis gear. It takes time to get the timings of these
changes down and Rosie, our wardrobe assistant, works hard to get the actors changed as quickly
and efficiently as possible.
By Wednesday evening we have gone through the technical elements of the full play and can finally
piece everything together in a dress rehearsal. This is the first time since the rehearsal room that the
actors perform the play in its entirety, but this time they have to fill the auditorium of the Tricycle
Theatre, whilst retaining the intimate relationships and moments they took so long to create in
rehearsal.
Finally, on Thursday evening, we put the final piece of the
jigsaw together when we perform in front of an audience
for the first time. It is a thrilling experience; telling the
story that we all know so well to strangers, and it is
exciting to hear to what lines get the strongest reactions
–throughout the night there are huge laughs and gasps
of terror. Through the following week we listen to the
audiences’ reactions and make sure we are telling the
story as clearly and effectively as we can. Trip and Adam,
and the entire creative team, watch each preview
performance and then join together the next day to work
through the notes. With each show the production
becomes more technically efficient and impressive.
Now, all that is left is Press Night, where the critics come
to review the work, and then the run of the show. Over
the next six weeks, the actors will continue to fine tune
each moment and work to react spontaneously and
naturally to moments they perform 8 times a week.
It is exciting to see how far we have already come, and I
am eager to see how far the copmpany move forward
from here...
Isabella Calthorpe, Alice Sanders
Photo credit: Mark Douet
INTERVIEW WITH ADAM BOCK AND TRIP CULLMAN
How did working together on The Colby Sisters come about?
ADAM. We met each other when I was writing The Thugs at SoHo Writer/Director lab, and we were
both working with someone else, but then we decided to work together. That was about 12 years
ago. And as soon as I wrote The Colby Sisters I showed it to Trip and asked if he wanted to do it, so we
workshopped it at New Dramatists, a collection of 50 playwrights, and then we applied to Sundance
and spent 3 weeks last summer workshopping the play we a company of actors at the Sundance
Theatre Lab.
TRIP. This is our fifth production together so we have quite a long history of collaborating. The first
play we did was a play of Adam's called Swimming in the Shallows, which is about a boy who falls in
love with a shark in an aquarium, and then they go on a date... at the beach... [much laughter], and
then a play called The Drunken City, followed by The Follows and A Small Fire. Each show was in New
York except for The Flowers, which we produced in Chicago.
How did the Tricycle bag the world premiere of this show?
TRIP. I met Indhu about 3 years ago at Sundance Theatre Lab, at Banff in Canada and we hit it off
really well. When she came to Sundance last year as a respondant, and her job was to respond to
each project that was being developed at the
Lab. She really liked The Colby Sisters and it was
then she decided to programme the play over
here at the Tricycle.
Talk a bit about your director/writer
relationship? What works between the two of
you?
TRIP. I think we share an aesthetic sensibility,
and we have a long history of working together
so no longer have to be careful around one
another - we can cut through the bullshit,
which is useful in the rehearsal room ADAM. We have the same sense of humour TRIP. We do! But I think The Colby Sisters is a
little different because in the past Adam had
presented work to be produced that was closer
to a completed state than when we started
working on The Colby Sisters together, so it feels
like this is much more of a piece in which my
input into the development of the script itself - not in terms of writing, but in terms of thinking
about the story and themes and how they
Adam Bock and Harry Mackrill
Photo credit: Mark Douet
developed - had a more present impact
upon the way in which Adam decided to go
about writing it.
ADAM. I had just started to work on musicals,
which is much more of a collaborative
process because you are writing alongside
the person working on the score, and it is
sort of great to come in and not know what
to do next, because you have someone else
to feed you ideas. So when I went to
Sundance, I said to Trip and the group, as a
kind of joke, that this time I was going to
listen to what Trip said about Colby. And then
when we had our first rehearsal he made
quite a big suggestion and I realised he was
right - and I had to go away and rewrite the
play as a result.
Another thing I really like working with Trip is
that sometimes the director doesn't like the
playwright to talk to the actors, it all has to
go through the director, and I think "well, I
wrote the thing, I'd quite like to be involved"
Trip Cullman
- and Trip doesn't mind that which is quite
Photo credit: Mark Douet
nice to me. So it felt fair that I would let him
have something to say about my writing, since I always have something to say about what he is
doing!
Where did initial inspiration come for The Colby Sisters?
ADAM. It came from a couple of places. What I tell people is that the first one is that usually in a play
you'll have one or two actresses, and one of them MIGHT be blonde, so I thought to myself: "What if
the actors were ALL actresses and they're all blonde?" I thought that would be funny, because
usually when you have a blonde actress one stage she is playing a certain TYPE, but we could have
five different blondes on stage...
So then I remembered a picture I had seen a long time ago, of the Miller sisters in Vanity Fair. The
Miller sisters were famous 'society girls'. And it made me realise that there is a history of celebrity
sisters who become famous as a group - you know we've had the Hiltons in the States, and the
Mitford's over here in the UK, and there used to be the Langford sisters in Canada, who were very
famous in the 1950s. So I thought, I'm going to write about these five society sisters.
TRIP. In all of Adam’s work, he works from metaphor, and I think in The Colby Sisters there is a
metaphor about these society girls and the pressure that builds on them, and really what the play is
trying to explore is inter-personal dynamics between family members, and especially between
primary family members. And I think there is a glossy, glittery surface of the ‘society’, but I think what
is underneath that is a play about family.
ADAM. I write about social systems that are bound tight. And then something happens which
challenges that system – so will systems return or will change happen? Often, it feels like a system
tries to keep itself a system, and that people get caught in that. And I don’t like that – as a gay man, I
feel that the system doesn’t work for me so I am always interested in how the system changes.
What are the differences
between working here and
at home?
ADAM. Well we don't have
tea breaks!
TRIP. I think there is a big
challenge in that I'm used
to working with actors I
know, and these are all
actors I've never worked
with before. So I had to
figure out if my way of
working would fit a group
of people who were
strangers to my process.
Trip Cullman, Charlotte Parry, Isabella Calthorpe, Patricia Potter
Photo credit: Mark Douet
ADAM. It feels like there is a lot more THEATRE over here. You know, back home I live right in the
middle of Broadway, but over here it feels like there is just more...
TRIP. I think because there is subsidised theatre here, it feels that there is less of a responsibility over
here for the visiting director to help gain patronage from private monies. So that’s a huge relief
because it means when I’m working on a show, I can simply concentrate on that.
How do you think British audiences will react to the show?
TRIP. That’s a big question mark. I have no idea. I’m excited to see.
Which Colby Sister are you?
ADAM. I’m like India because she’s the pretty one...
TRIP. And I’m like Gemma. Because I’m a director and I like to control things, and Gemma does too.