Penfold Blog: An Insight into “3 Days of Rain.”

Every week, ACoT  will ask a local producer to blog about an upcoming work. Here is the first installment.

Penfold Theatre Company www.penfoldtheatre.org is opening their much anticipated show, Three Days of Rain, this weekend at the Hideout Theatre. Ryan Crowder, the Producing Artistic Director of Penfold, wrote in about what his tech week is looking like, and how he feels about opening this show.

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Penfold’s Blog

Whew!  Tonight is our last dress rehearsal at the Hideout Coffee House & Theatre.  Tomorrow, we open Richard Greenberg’s Pulitzer-nominated play, “Three Days of Rain”.  I imagine the afternoon will go something like this:

I’ll call Jackie, the venue manager, to make sure the open mic session that serenaded us during last night’s rehearsal isn’t scheduled again for an evening during the run.  Then I’ll put together some materials for our box office – a space we share with the well-known Hideout Improv Theatre, which is upstairs of our venue.  Oh yeah, and I’ll talk to the church that meets in our space on Sundays to make sure they have ample sound equipment at the ready for their praise music – a conversation I’ll need to repeat with the rock band who comes in for an evening next Wednesday…

It strikes me that we are performing in a building that is literally bursting at the seams with performing artists! On one hand, I feel lucky to be in the eye of such a creative cyclone.  On the other hand, how we co-habitate without killing each other is a miracle cooperation and compromise.

It’s not like “Three Days of Rain” is a low-tech show.  If re-creating the set every intermission wasn’t enough (we time hop from present day to 1960), there’s that whole indoor rainstorm thing to contend with.  Our set, lighting and sound designers were champs to create something effective that works in an intimate venue.  But to do so in a way that accommodates not only our needs, but those of others, too?  That’s genius.

I guess I should say something about the show here. The play centers on Walker, his sister Nan, and their childhood friend Pip, who all meet in an unoccupied loft in lower Manhattan in 1995 to divide the legacy of their late fathers, who were partners in a renowned architecture firm. In an effort to bring some peace to their own lives, the three search for clues that might explain what had gone on between their fathers, and the women in their lives, decades before. The story then shifts to that earlier time, with the same three actors portraying members of the previous generation in the same loft, during the fateful 1960 “three days of rain,” which gives the play its title.

The play debuted in 1997 and was recently revived in both New York and London.  From what Google tells me, it’s only been done once in Austin  recent history, so I’m hoping we get to introduce the show to a new group of fans.

If you’ve read all the way to this point, you’ve practically committed yourself already.  Come see the show!  You can find more information, including performance times and how to buy tickets, at www.penfoldtheatre.org.