Tickets for TEST are now on sale at www.ticketcorner.ch. Point B is now in sight, and the road ahead is straight and secure. The champagne is on ice. What was the road like to get this far?
The second TEST Happy Hour for investors and supporters featured a beam-in by skype with TEST director Hannah Price for a virtual meeting.
A crystalline Friday evening unfolded on the patio of the TEST working headquarters (aka Krista’s house). The sun solidified its hold on the evening sky after a bumpy day of clouds. Hannah Price, the director of TEST, had just arrived from London on some of these golden rays of sun
The first person who will live to the age of 150 and beyond is already alive today. Is this really possible? Almost all the processes in our bodies work better when we are young. Changes in gene expression usually start to take place after age 50, sometimes resulting in serious illnesses.
One of our main tasks with TEST is to enlarge the circle of professionals involved in the production. Our goal is to aim high by engaging top-notch individuals from across Europe. Though Basel remains our home base, and many of the actors and musicians come from here, the city is our off-off Broadway location. We want to take TEST to bigger markets.
The theme of duality is the core of the TEST concept: right meets wrong, grief meets joy, evil meets good, science meets nature. The TEST visual director, Jussi Hyttinen, came to Krista’s house near Basel on June 27 with his sturdy Nikon and a trunk full of lighting equipment to capture what this duality looks like in the faces of the actors. The schedule was nonstop, starting at 9 a.m. and not ending until the last click on the camera at close to midnight.
London was heating up with the rest of Europe on the first day of July. No one was complaining, though. Life spilled outdoors from the cafes and pubs and onto the streets of the city.
The city was transformed into some kind of southern metropolis, and the grand old British capital seemed a little bit unsure of how to handle its new status. But Londoners and tourists alike knew what to do. Shorts, t-shirts and plenty of liquid refreshments were the order of the day, as the public enjoyed a rarity – a great English summer. There was no sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun. The sun was waiting for us.
Hilary Mantel, the author of the “Wolf Hall” novels which are now being adapted to the stage, was asked by the New York Times recently: How does it feel to see your characters come to life?
She responded by asking another question: When were the characters dead?
The car’s front visors were down as we squinted ahead on the German Autobahn. It was a gloriously bright and warm Sunday in late winter. Destination: Ludwigsburg and the Bauer Studios.
Stefan, Dani, and Anne converged from nearby Offenburg; Jamie, Krista, Marc, and Alari drove up from Basel; and Jakob took the fast train down from Hamburg. The purpose was to lay down the vocal tracks on one of Marc Storace’s solo numbers in TEST, the song “I Been Thinking A Lot.”
Two “p” words come to mind when you talk about creative tasks: passion and perseverance. Although the final call on success may be out of your hands, passion and perseverance are the way you set yourself up for the possibility of success.