Creating a Schmooze
By Jason Jonathan Joseph

First they played, then they created, then they put it down on paper, then some of the material got chucked out, then there were more additions, polishing and hours of sweat, fatigue and homicidal thoughts. Finally, it’s 23 March 2011 – “5 minutes to curtain!” – it’s lights, set, props, make-up, set, cast and crew, ACTION!

ACTION! The action on the night is all the audience sees. The magic that made Schmooze happen, however, started just barely over a month before.

A young cast of 12 talented first and second year students were chosen to make up the cast of Schmooze that created, refined and rehearsed everyday. Daniel Hutchinson, the musical director for the show actually said to Ford that “the best decision was for you to say there is rehearsal every night, from the very beginning.” The cast literally breathed, ate, and pooped Schmooze.

The process of creating a piece of theatre from scratch, devising a theatrical thunderstorm that will make everyone in the audience wet from all the excitement and amazement is not an easy task. But Ford set out to do just that with Schmooze. Ford spent endless hours and sleepless nights thinking about the show and writing up pieces of the script to hand to the cast that might not end up in the final-cut of the production anyway.

There were often many moans and groans from the cast because of the many cuts, edits and additions to the script, well that which could be called as a script – seeing as they were constantly working off of a concept or idea that they kept building upon, or changing completely. Ford believes: “If it doesn't work, just call it, leave it, and tomorrow come back to it... the beauty of rehearsal is that it is everyday,” but in same vein, “if it (still) doesn’t work: Can it!” And indeed if something did not work for script or Ford’s vision, it got cut.

“I hope that you guys realise, acting is everything,” Ford said to the cast, “I don’t need motivation; acting is everything. I can just do it and see what happens, you know? You’re not hung up, your free, you’re free with that.” And Ford gave his cast that freedom to explore where this play could go, but he also knew when to rein them in.

Often the cast did not know where Ford was going or why they were doing some of the things they were doing. Mathabo Tlali, the actress who played the talk-show host G in the production, said: “Sometimes I didn’t know what Mr Ford was doing, or how this was going to help towards the end of the formation of the final product of the play, but now in hindsight I am glad. It all really helped in finding the character and the story and everything.”

The creation of Schmooze was a very long journey that would often have Ford saying “I don’t know where we are going, but we are going there together.”

Truly, Schmooze is the fruit of so many people’s labours, sweat, tears and late evenings at the Drama Department. The set alone had to be especially made for Schmooze. With about three and a half weeks to the opening week of Schmooze, Willie Coombs, the man responsible to most of the set construction of the Drama Department productions, was given the task of creating the two-metre high platform that needed to support all 12 actors at once at one point in the play. Then there is the props team that had to be constantly getting little bits and bobs for the play, and the lighting crew who spent hours creating, refining and fixing lighting cues, and the sound and audio-visuals teams that constantly needed to be on point when it came to their cues in order to make sure the magic of Schmooze happened seamlessly.

When one thinks about it, Schmooze was really a very elaborate show. There was live music, recorded tracks, audio-visuals, numerous lighting changes (67 lighting-cues to be exact) and of course the acting, dancing and choreographed physical the actors performed on the stage.

Ford commended his actors and crew on how they tolerated the process it took to create Schmooze: “The aggression, spirit and courage with which you guys went after this, even after I continually changed the weather everyday is amazing,” said Ford. He noted that they worked “from the outside in, which is hard. It’s hard!” Speaking to his actors, Ford reminded them that “acting is anything ... that stuff that you guys went for, I was just really astounded by your courage, and the way you stuck with it, everyday. And you were there. I mean, cheers to you.”

Schmooze – created from nothing by the aggression, spirit and courage of Ford, cast and crew.