Over the Top - Establishing the Western Front

This project started several years ago as one act comedy.

At that time, it was pretty simple.  I recast the belligerent states as guests at a garden party. Frank and Francine are still in a long term custody battle for Al and Lorraine, Sophia is fickle with her affections, and Angela is enjoying cocktails in the sun.  All is well (sort of) until Little Prick and Serbia have another fight.  The party turns ugly when the uncles get involved.  When the brave Belle Jen gets caught in the fracas, Angela is roused from her splendid isolation and fetches her fighting gin.  

In 2014, Vanessa Gilbert developed in more detail some of the elements that we both thought would be fun to build upon to make this a more mature piece, particularly the garden party aspect.  She and I also explored some visual storytelling possibilities, both with puppetry and with digital media.

The Last Living Veteran of the Great War

introduces the show

Our veteran emcee

starts keeping score as the war begins

Race to the Sea Cards - Aplha Test

These were the first cards developed in collaboration with the ensemble as we developed the pace and tone of the game

Beta Versions

We worked to get a set of cards ready for audience play

Recriutment packets

(Race to the Sea playing cards) are prepared before the show

The Great War starts to lose its shine

Servant to the emcee

start to explain the game, Race to Sea which recreates all the excitement of the Western Front getting bogged down into a stalemate

The scoringkeeping

continues throughout the show

Audience members

try to follow allow with the absurdity of the Great War

The Last Living Veteran

is released from duty

The result of that exploration was a new script, in which the original play is one strand in a larger performance.  The new script called for movies, puppets, servants and canapés.  It also called for a game.  And this called for some resources.  Joseph Megel at UNC-Chapel Hill supported our development of the game through the UNC Chapel Hill Process Series.  This gave us a chance to test some ideas on how a game with the audience in the middle of a play might work.

For more information, visit www.overthetopshow.com