Reading Pete McElligott's play "With A Bang"

Hayley is doing a process-forward reading of With A Bang by Pete McElligott with their fiancé and collaborator, Colin Trevor alongside a group of actors from their Stella Adler conservatory class.

I have been looking for a play to produce when I graduated acting school that would be both affordable, finished and...well, good. It wasn't until I saw my friends Robbie and Christian perform in a staged reading of our former teacher's play, that I discovered I could, in fact, have my cake and eat it too…one of my favourite scene study teachers, Pete McElligott, is a playwright?

From left to right: Colin Trevor, Egor Pluzhnikov, Matilda-Paige Gervais-Flannery, Mark McKenna, Eddie Flannery, Liz Cooper. Not pictured: Hayley Pace, Alessandro Yokoyama

I emailed him and listed off the group of actors I'd like to work with to see if he had a play for us, and he emailed me back, With A Bang, with words to the effect of, "This seems like a play Hayley would like." And boy was he right. It's funny, quirky, hilarious, action packed, smart, weird as fuck, sci-fi, and caters to designers. Pete had deliberately written for each key designer to have an opportunity to flex their creativity. As a designer, that was music to my ears. Not all work are portfolio buffers. The stuff that have always impressed my prospective employers, have been the shows I designed that are concept-heavy. I am excited to see if I am going to end up taking both the roles of the lead, and set designer. Sounds like another deathwish to me.

Either way, we are still figuring this play out, and we are wondering if it’s a good fit for us. The fun thing about process-forward work is that we don’t have to commit to anything, or push for product. We want to try stuff out, sit with the material, ask questions of it, and be open to all outcomes. I think the play is daring and demands a lot of its team. I personally like the challenge.