ABOUT
The Renaissance Guild is a small theater group in San Antonio, Texas that puts on several stage productions each year. During October of 2004, TRG put on the play Frankenstein by Victor Gialanella adapted from the novel by Mary Shelley. Veteran director John Poole was chosen to direct the play, and a round of auditions quickly determined who the cast would be.
The cast then began rehearsing in a small room underneath a church. Since finding free rehearsal space is so hard to get, just about anything is acceptable. This also marks the point in which I, with camera in hand, began filming nearly everything that happened with the cast from then on.
After weeks of rehearsing in the church, everyone was granted admittance into the actual theater space to rehearse on the stage, a much better environment, indeed. On October 15, the play opened and was well-received by most, even though director Poole agonized over every decision he had made about the play and was unable to watch it himself. Standing outside the theater, his only company was a cigarette and some kid with a camera.
The play continued until its final showing on Halloween. As soon as the play had finished and group pictures were taken of the cast while still in costume, backstage was cleaned of all traces of the cast's presence and Frankenstein was put to rest once again.
Fortunately, my fifteen hours of raw footage was plenty to cut together an effective documentary about the toils and tribulations of no-budget theater. This documentary, titled Creating Frankenstein's Creature, is a lasting representation of what it takes to bring theater to life.