Spotlight on Natalie Caruncho

Natalie Caruncho is in both casts, playing Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet" and Young Lizzy in "The Bluest Water," and has been traveling around with Endstation, giving fun and interactive lectures to high schools around the area.

Natalie's first foray in the performing arts was in dancing, at a very young age. She attributes her early dancing to her mother, who's a dancer. She was then introduced to musical theatre, and worked in that area throughout middle school and high school. Her inspirational high school teacher, Mr. Troy Fisher, first put the thought of acting into her head, but it wasn't until Natalie took a straight acting class in college that she really decided to make it her major. She recently graduated from Florida State University with a BFA in Acting. I asked her why she did acting, and I think her answer is much more impressive than any paraphrase I could offer, so I'm going to quote her: "I think in a world where we are so desensitized by movies and film and cardboard Starbucks cups, we need to be reminded of our humanity, and come in contact with people and feelings, and be challenged to think about people. I think that's the power of theatre: we can transport people and give them permission to feel and dream and hurt and think."

Natalie in "The Birds," pictured right.

Natalie met Geoffrey Kershner at FSU while he was getting his MFA in Directing. She then got to work with him on Aristophanes' "The Birds" and shortly after that, Geoff asked both Natalie and Michael to audition for Endstation's summer works, and they both ended up getting roles in both shows (Michael is playing Romeo and Young Bobby/Nathan Fictner/Tyler). Natalie loves the newness of Endstation, and appreciates the chance to learn about the inner-workings of a fresh theatre company because one day, she'd like to create her own work. To her, the Endstation opportunities made for a dream job right out of college.

Natalie's death pose.

Adding to her dreamlike summer, Juliet is a--you guessed it--dream role for Natalie. R&J is taking a lot of her effort right now (she's only been to two Bluest Water rehearsals) because of the work it takes interpreting the language and researching the time period, not to mention getting off book. But Natalie finds it amazing that she gets to create her dream role, and not only that, but star opposite one of her best friends and "a wonderful, wonderful actor." "I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks," Natalie said, "I think we'll have a blast."

Kirin McCrory
Endstation Blogger

Promotional Shots

Here are some shots that Maria Hayden took for promotional use. These photos were sent on to Lynchburg Living for an upcoming blurb about the festival.



These shots will be sent out to media through out the month. We also may use them in email blasts that we create for July.

Spotlight on The Bluest Water playwright Jason Chimonides

Jason joined us last week as we made revisions and changes to The Bluest Water script. This process took place in rehearsals and through work sessions that Jason and I had in the afternoons and evenings. This was a special time to have Jason with us as he just received a publishing deal with Dramatist Play Service for his play The Optimist that just finished its Off-Broadway run with Ground-Up Productions in New York.

I first met Jason in the spring of 2003 when I visited Florida State University as a prospective graduate student. Jason was finishing his second year in the MFA Directing program. Jason had and has a deep history with Florida State University and the city of Tallahassee. Jason grew up in Tallahassee and then attended FSU as an undergraduate. Jason then lived in both Atlanta and Los Angeles working as an actor. In 2001, Jason returned to FSU to earn his MFA in Directing. Jason now splits his time between New York City and Indiana, Pennsylvania where he is on the faculty at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Jason is a theatre generalist in every sense of the word. He does it all. He has worked as a professional actor, he is a musician and just recently performed as a musician/actor in the Off-Broadway production of The People vs Mona, he has directed a myriad of productions, and is now a published playwright. His plays, The Troubadour, Pathological, and The Optimist have all had full productions at the Florida State University School of Theatre. His play Pathological was recently produced by La Costra Nostra in Chicago and he is a member of Manhattan Class Company's Playwright's Coalition and the Dramatist's Guild. As an actor, Jason has worked with Mill Mountain Theatre, Theatre at Limekiln, Alliance Theatre, Theatre Southeast, Georgia Shakespeare Festival, Horizon Theatre, The Canton Theatre, Theatrical Outfit, The Southern Shakespeare Festival and The Gold Coast Theatre Festival.

His direction has been seen at FSU, Theatre Jacksonville, The Northeast Theatre and his own Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

My process with Jason has been an extremely rewarding one. Jason and I are co-creating the piece, but I am far from a playwright and Jason’s skills in this area are the driving force behind the play. We are now listening to the actors. It is amazing what we can learn from “hearing” the play as opposed to simply reading it on the page. There is rhythm and a drive that we need to find and this can only really be completed by hearing the actor’s rhythms and instincts with the text. We are also trying to adjust major plot points and driving action in these early stages. Our editing process with this will operate like a funnel. Changes will occur through out the process, but the big changes will happen early with a smaller and smaller amount of changes as we get closer and closer to production.

Geoffrey Kershner
Endstation Blogger and Artistic Director

We burn daylight, ho!

Geoff broached the subject yesterday, but I'm going to elaborate a bit more on the trials and triumphs of outdoor R&J rehearsals. So far, we've been able to have two successful blocking rehearsals in The Space.

Bill explaining The Space to Jared and Michael.

Now, The Space: technically speaking (from an actor's point of view, though, so actorically speaking?), The Space is taxing. Being outside means hardly any reverberation--projection becomes a heavy burden. Besides the lack of acoustics, there are outside noises to figure into the picture; suddenly, the calming rush of the fountain and the cheerily chirping birds are hassles, not enjoyments--every rustle of the trees means your diaphragm is working harder. There are tree limbs at or lower than head-level of a majority of the cast. There is no offstage: you are either in character or out of character, but always in the audience's sight. We burn daylight (ho!), and I mean it in this sense: 

The show starts in this light:

And then gets like this:

And then gets dark (not pictured). 

Now, there are a few sources of light for when the sun decides to set and the lighting is actually fairly impressive as is, when you consider that none of it was designed to highlight an ongoing theatrical production. But I often find myself wondering if we'll be adding more light--if it will even be needed--and if so, how we'll go about that.

The unpredictability of The Space is both invigorating and terrifying. There is no set...well, mindset for The Space; each day is a new mental realignment. However, Geoff was right--I can't imagine trying to rehearse in a room now, instead of the vastness that is The Space.  There would be no way to legitimately get our blocking down, because The Space would be so much different. That said, let's hope for good weather, so that we can continue blocking scenes (like this next clip) outside.

Staging Memory and Exploring Space

The Bluest Water is a memory play. In a film, traveling through time is done by simply fading from the past to the present through editing. On stage memory can be handled in many ways. The beauty of theatre is that it is an art form of imagination. The theatrical space is more malleable than film. Film provides you all the information you view. This can be fantastical and magical but what you see is what there is. The theatre space is more subjective. The magic of theatre is that the convention allows the audience to actively participate in the creation of time and space.



This doesn't look like much right now (three actors standing in place reading scripts), but this bit of video comes from an early blocking rehearsal of The Bluest Water. Each of the actors will be isolated by a pool of light. The acting space will be malleable with location and time, moving us from memory to the present and back again. Here Jared (Ken Parks) moves from a scene with his wife (Sally Southall) in the present and returns to a conversation he had with a police officer (Thomas Bell) earlier that week about a former patient of his who committed suicide earlier that night. The police officer will be on a raised platform about two feet above the ground. In the back is Nathan (Michael Stablein), the patient, and he too is raised above the ground on a scenic element of debris that stretches across the upstage portion of the stage.

Our set is specific in look and feel but it is not specific to location. This means that we move from location to location and time to time by engaging the audience in this activity. The space is flexible. We change location through the placing of chairs and the actors relationship to the space and each other. We move through time through light and sound and by actually seeing the memories come to life and moving through the space. "Seeing" what the characters recall and what haunts them.

I love working in a malleable space. I think it is what is so exciting about the live form. The audience participates in the action. Where we are and what we are watching is informed by the action of the actors, the visual and aural cues of the designs, and by the engagement of the audience's imagination. Very exciting. Stay tuned for some video of our work with some of the sound design.

Now a little on R and J and their staging process...

Here is director Bill Kershner looking down from the balcony of Benedict. Today the cast of Romeo and Juliet moved outside and began staging the show on the space.


Bill (aka Dad) has discovered the importance of being in the physical space as much as possible during the staging process. This is such a unique setting for the play and trying to problem solve and explore in a mocked rehearsal space would still leave many unanswered questions. Rehearsing in the space creates an organic and practical process. It is also energizing. Envisioning what this will become with an audience watching is very exciting.

The process continues!


Geoffrey Kershner
Endstation Blogger and Artistic Director

Saturday, May 31

As rehearsals began this weekend, the cast of The Bluest Water came together as performers beginning to set the stage, but most particularly as active participants in the story of Hurricane Camille. As part of the Nelson Ensemble, Wanda Bond shared with the cast her personal connection with the hurricane; she was twelve years old when her family huddled on the second floor of their home in Massie's Mill, watching the water reach the tenth of thirteen steps of their home. She remembered the roaring sound of the water throughout the night, as they waited for the water to subside. Even today, Wanda can recall the smell of the mud in the days following the hurricane. Hearing her story was not only moving but grounding for the cast - a constant reminder of the personal elements, the many lives impacted in August of 1969. There is a significant story to tell.

As Jason, our devoted playwright, exits for the moment, having revised, re-arranged, and removed as well as adding portions of text, our fearless director Geoff forges ahead with staging the opening prologue of the show and the complex scenes with characters Jared and Liz. The vision is becoming a reality, thanks to the collaboration not only of the production team, but also with the support from the community and Sweet Briar College. The journey continues...

Sally Southall and Ken Parks rehearsing Liz and Jared Boyle

Sally Southall
Endstation Blogger

Creating an Environment

Affects of harsh weather on the land.

The design process continues for The Bluest Water. We met a few days ago to discuss the environment that is taking shape for this new work. After reading this story and collecting research over the last year regarding Hurricane Camille, to me, the lasting impressions left on the landscape of Nelson County are reminders of the hurricanes devastation. However tragic these memories are, the people, the land, and the stories live on and are retold, bruised but hopeful.



How do we represent this? How do we create an environment that speaks volumes about the gash that was torn in Nelson County's heart in 1969? The designers have collaborated to transport the viewer to the eye of the storm, to the calm that brings destruction; to the memory that has sculpted a terrain upon which we live today.

The set will consist of large amounts of debris arranged in such a way that it appears as though something has pushed through the space and has left an imprint, a memory. Natural colors will aid as a backdrop, or neutral palette to emphasize atmospheric lighting and contrast with costumes. Natural materials will be implemented, wood, stone and dirt. Rusted metals and odd relics will dot our landscape and peak the curiosities of the characters inhabiting the space.

Concept Sketch for The Bluest Water

Stay tuned for more posts with process photos including shop days with construction and painting of the set as well as load in photos later in June.

-Krista Franco
Endstation Blogger and Resident Designer