Get Ready With Me

GRWM

Get Ready With Me

Get Ready With Me is a theatre play from Productions Chien Pas De Médaille, written, staged and acted by director Étienne Jacques.

The play

Isolated in a small town north of Quebec where he has just moved in with his mother, a young videoblogger, whose reputation is second to none, tries to defend himself against threats he is facing up on the Web. He will be caught out at his own game and will in turn become a bully. At that moment, it will be necessary to choose between the future or assume the consequences. Between these two options, feelings of freedom and of well-being seem far away.

Étienne is an adopted Abitibian. Through digital technology, he wanted to approach actual rural topics like exile and isolation. Those will reach both teanagers and adults, in the hope of creating a dialogue between the two after the representation.

Digital design

The play has only one projection surface. Made by set designer Andréane Boulanger, it takes the shape of both a diamond, representative of the character's popularity, and a reptile scale, which act as a armor when the character withdraw into himself. This set purpose change whether the character is in a video or in the real life. In the first one, it acts as a screen, and displays images and videos to illustrate his talk, as on a YouTube podcast. In the second one, it takes a much darker and personal way, and illustrate the feelings of self-imprisonment with a crocodile skin appearing as the play go along.

The set becomes also a refuge for the character in the play, he can come inside and be in a cocoon, in a comfortable place. When he is FaceTiming his mother, the front-facing camera is live recorded and projected on the set using an RTSP application and Derivative TouchDesigner. Rather than using a recorded video, using live effect give the spectator the real-time action of the comedian and strengthen his acting and the circumstance. He is not longer acting like on a YouTube podcast, but he is himself.