Star bright, star bright, you’ve got the answers that I like

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This article was published 27/04/2023 (1241 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When she’s onstage, Temeka Lawlor channels her three-year-old self in order to capture the wonder and magic of experiencing something for the first time.

Lawlor — who co-created Zooom, a 45-minute production by Australia’s Patch Theatre — also envisions herself as a mini-version of her artistic director, Geoff Cobham, to fully immerse herself in her role.

Zooom is a story of a lost star that finds itself in a girl’s bedroom. The two of them go on a journey together as the girl helps the star find its way back home.

The show opens Friday and runs to May 7 at Manitoba Theatre for Young People.

“I imagine is that she’s part me, really three, really experiencing the world, and part mini-baby, nerdy, obsessed-with-light Geoff,” Lawlor says.

“I remember Geoff telling us a story about the first time he fell in love with light. He was up in a hill somewhere and he looked up at night and there were fireflies everywhere, and I imagine that, what it would have been like for him, seeing those fireflies.”

In addition to his love of illumination, Cobham took inspiration from the book Harold and the Purple Crayon, in which a young boy builds his own world with a crayon, and used that as an entry point to tell the tale of the star, nicknamed Ember.

There is a loose structure to the play. Ember falls into the girl’s room. The girl, who is also called Temeka, traps it in her night light and plays with it until her father tells her to go to bed.

Temeka falls asleep; when she is woken up by Ember, the adventure begins.

It’s a journey of transformation and empowerment.

“She is quite insular, introverted and spends a lot of time in her bedroom alone” Lawlor says of her character. “I imagine she’s very interested in figuring out how things work, and she goes on this journey of letting loose, going with the flow.

“I think she’s a bit magic from the start and doesn’t know it until the end of the show, when she sees all the things she can do.”

The play combines the exploration of perspective and the exploration of light to create an imaginary world. Ember starts off as a little pixel of light; as the play progresses, it changes into lines and animation, inspiring the children in the audience to create their own narrative.

Audience members are invited to “bring a piece of dark” to the show that will be exchanged for their own personal light.

Lawlor developed the show in 2019 with Angus Leighton, who does backstage puppeteering, and technical designer Alex Hatchard, but the trio of creators were never meant to be part of it.

“We were only asked to do a week of development, prompts, and show and tell. Just piecing the show together,” Lawlor says. “They said to us, ‘We are not looking to cast you,’ but after that week they were like ‘It’s your show!’

“We were so lucky, and we’ve been there since. The show is so special and we are glad to share it,”

av.kitching@winnipegfreepress.com