Act 7: 2015, Devising A Play About A Murder and Justice

We began the workshop process for FAIR, about the life of Laura Fair. Laurie and Katie’s dad had given a book called Shady Ladies to Laurie for Christmas… and well, it has a lot of murderous stories in it. Wishbone was hooked and ready to devise! (Note: Mandy took all of these photos and no matter how hard we look, we can’t find evidence that she was in that room with us, but she very much was!)

Laura Fair shot and killed her lover in broad daylight off the coast of San Francisco in the late 1800’s. She was the first woman in California every sentenced to death… but her story doesn’t end there and it is far more complicated than that. Laura Fair’s story had all the hallmarks of a Wishbone show - larger than life characters, comedy and tragedy interwoven and an inkling that there was a deeper story lurking under the surface.

Elizabeth Finley began exploring the title character of the play. Paul Vonasek, Jeremiah Jones, Mandy Stertz, Kimberly Van Ness, Laurie Jones, & Katie Jones were all together in the devising process. Katie Jones led the group through Moment Work, which she studied with Tectonic Theatre Project members Greg Pierotti and Leigh Fondakowski. This process involves creating moments in time around movement, props, costume pieces, etc. and blending these moments with verbatim text from interviews, letters, and other documents. We also did many different improv games and improvised narrative work to give life to the stories we were reading. Kimberly Van Ness was already diving deep into court transcripts from the actual historical trial.