Improvisers in the House: The Dollhouse Project

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Improv actors love games, and Danielle Davidson has carefully crafted one for them. The Dollhouse Project is a semi-structured experimental theatre project where a group of four improv actors and two non-improv ones are put into an unfamiliar environment each night and are given specific props and sound cues to create a narrative. Neither the actors nor the audience know what is coming. The audience and actors will together see what sort of action evolves out of this shifting mise-en-scène.

“There are beats, and they may or may not achieve them. My stage manager, Marilyn DT, knows the order in which they will enter and which prop they get moments before they go on stage,” Davidson explains. The actors are dressed and kept separate until they are brought to the stage by the stage manager. “They won’t be able to see one another.”

“It’s a project about fate and faith,” Davidson says. “There are set plot points but there are middle liminal spaces where I don’t have control. The fate is the goals, the faith is the liminal space.”

And that’s about all that Davidson can reveal about the Dollhouse Project. All she can say is that it is “set in a particular time with a particular look.”

This kind of free-form experimentation requires actors who are up to the demands and Davidson took care selecting actors for her project. Each night of the show features a different cast, but she has complete confidence in them. “They are all talented and brave. I’ve performed with them all before. They’re the best improvisers I’ve collaborated with and they are excited about experimental things. I chose people who were willing to take a risk with me.”

Davidson is co-producing the work with Brent Skagford who has served as her mentor and guide. Skagford is known for being an improv teacher and coach as well as just an all-around improv legend. He helped Davidson shape aspects of the show. “When Brent and I were coming up with this piece, I was describing its structures and putting things up like walls and containers, and its time and space. He was like, ‘You’re describing a house.’ It’s the metaphor of a dollhouse. If you have a dollhouse and you drop a doll into it, and the doll has a mind, it believes itself to be in this space and these things are true to it here and now. But in a different house it would be a different world.” She adds, “Brent is the overall person who reminds me I’m doing good.”

Davidson made trust and letting go a key part of the project. “I set all of my creative team on their own journeys with a synopsis. The creation of the project, the rehearsal process, it’s a practice in trust and a process of letting go. I think that is the key to peace of mind.” Several individuals in particular have been critical. Marlaena Moore is in charge of the set and costumes while Marilyn DT takes charge of the production during the show itself. She also names John Casey “who created a sound journey along a time line. The players will have to respond to it and have it make sense with their narrative.”

This willingness to lead with a loose grip juxtaposes Davidson’s 20-year+ long career in the dance world. She was active as a dancer, choreographer, educator, and even running her own dance company. “I did all the things,” she says. “I was ready for something new.” When she retired from dance, a chance show in Boston led her to improv. She had to give the discipline a try herself and fell in love. “It’s the collaborative component has been the most exciting for me. You build a house brick by brick and you’re receiving and offering, and doing it spontaneously.”

Davidson seems to have found a meaningful and satisfying place in the improv world. She credits the Mile End Improv and Theatre VME with taking a risk on her project. Notably, Artistic Director Jason Grimmer and Katherine Dubé have been particularly supportive.

And along with embracing the community, she embraces the positive impact of letting go. “In the end, you have to trust the project and trust the show in the moment. That’s the best way to have peace.”

The Dollhouse Project is at Theatre Variations Mile End (5337 Boulevard Saint-Laurent Montréal, QC H2T 1S5) on October 5 and 6th. Tickets are sold out, but otherwise are listed HERE.