Finals-- Journal Check

Pages that arent online:

• music graphs
• director's pitch
• various Boal/Commedia handouts
• vocab lists
• rehearsal schedules

Boal-- Actors and Non-Actors Alike

Boal:

• opened my eyes
• made me more comfortable on stage
• forced me out of my comfort zone
• caused me to think about situations in the outside world
• helped me build relationships with other actors
• taught me how to manipulate my body with different walks, expressions, actions, gestures, etc.
• taught me how to communicate the idea i want to get across with my acting
• taught me that theater is everywhere
• helps me keep my eyes open

The Very Same Stars

The Very Same Stars

This is the first year I've ever made a play. The first year I've even made CALLBACKS, never mind the actual play itself.

I definitely think theater class has helped my projection and acting. But most of all my confidence. I'm not saying my audition was BRILLIANT because it wasnt, but obviously it was good enough to get into the play. I just had a lot of energy. Idk. :)

I guess I just didnt realize how much I really HAVE changed this semester. Cause the things I'm doing now-- I NEVER would have thought I could do them in August.

I dont have a very big role. I play the Rain in Ghana, and also a Japanese dancer for the Bon Odori. I do wish I had some speaking lines, but I'm glad to have at least this part. I'm glad to be a part of this at all. Its so much more different than I thought it would be. A lot more relaxed. Like being able to do homework when youre not onstage-- holy crap. I never would have guessed. Haha. And playing musical chairs the first day? I love this :) :)

Invisible Theatre

Two words:

EPIC FAIL.

So for our invisible theater project, Brittany, Ariel, and I wanted to do a little project on teacher favoritism. The point of invisible theater is to get people involved and have people think about things in life-- and also to see how people react to certain situations.

This can bring up some good conversations about morality and ethics.

And since many people in our spanish class complain about teacher favoritism, we figured that would be the best subject to tackle.
And it would have worked too, if Gutierrez hadnt dropped the ball.
She played the wrong game so that Brittany and I were unable to start our argument.

Ha. Great.

Forum Theatre

Forum theatre is what Boal used to empower his audience. To teach them how to take a stand for themselves and how to gain the courage to step up and face the problems/overcome the obstacles they were faced with.

In our world, there are honestly not that many intense or hardcore issues to deal with. Nothing seriously damaging or pressing in our society. We live in a community that does not have problems with intense poverty or with severe economical restrictions. There is hardly any gang violence, traffic flows naturally, the geography is fine, the landscape beautiful, and we are hardly ever subject to natural disasters. We live not in a war-zone or battleground. So for forum theatre, what issues are there to address? We toyed with the idea of taking on something like alcoholism, or divorce, or maybe an issue within the school that angers everyone. Like crowded freshman hall. Haha. :)

But in the end, my group chose to address child abuse.

The subject caught me off guard when Scott mentioned it because it is an issue very close to my heart. I played the role of the abusive mother, who shouted and yelled at the daughter who "could not do anything right".

I know the purpose of forum theatre was to empower those in the audience, but even as a part of the act itself, it really hit me deeply.
Being able to play the role of the oppressor, rather than the oppressed, was more inspiring than I expected it to be. And it showed me that the oppressor has the power to change the situation as well, if only they look inside their own heart and see what is right and wrong.

All the Kings Men

Diction-- southern dialect/syntax, old-fashioned styled of speaking

Sound-- 1920s and 1930s era music, playing in background like a radio while people are standing on a soapbox

Spectacle-- specials when working on soapboxes, mostly bright white gels//on-stage scene changes//gunshot wounds and blood

Thought-- government is corrupt and the harshness of the world always turns people's dreams wrong/corrupt/backwards

Plot-- Jack Burden witnessing a corrupt world, Willie is abusing his power as Jack watches his downfall

Action-- Willie is an innocent farmer and runs for office, then he realizes he's being used, decides he doesnt want to be used, slowly becomes corrupt, has an affair.... etc.

More Boal Games

Dynamyzing Several Senses

-blind series
-space series




By now, our class has grown much much more comfortable with ourselves and with the other people in the class. These Boal games are very physical, very personal, and sometimes very intimate. There is constantly potential for awkward situation, if you are uncomfortable with touching other people and forming/shaping people's bodies. At the beginning of the year, we moved nervously-- conservative, reserved, shy. But today we felt each others faces, held intense staring contests, shaped each other as balls of clay and sculptures.

You see it not just in Boal games, but also on stage, with improv activities and skits, etc.

We are growing more comfortable on stage.
We are growing more comfortable as actors.
We are growing more comfortable with ourselves.
We are growing more comfortable.
We are growing.
We are.




Plain and simple. :)

George Wolfe-- More on Directing

Ideas--

• find a beat before the melody

"It's like getting on a ride right until 11:00 at night..."



Models/Sets--

• pull away walls/scrims
• rotate set pieces
• pull away set pieces into fly space
• attention to detail
• use coloring and lighting (different gobos, gels) to depict message
• light has great psychological power
• shadows are just as important as the light

**opposing forces in all of us

**sum up a play into two words
"showed love"

**you want your audience to get the big picture, but still taste the sweetness of the details

Ideas and Inspiration from Julie Taymor

my idol.

Technical Notes

List for the Technical Aspect of the Play:

1. Meet and talk about production concept
2. Set design
3. Costume design
4. Prop list
5. Makeup design
6. Sound design
7. Light design
8. What style do we want the play to be in

• check out acting approaches

Quotes from Julie Taymor

"A director channels the ideas"


"Human emotion can be expressed through simply the relationship between a hand and a face"


"Part of technical theatre is creating an ILLUSION"


"You dont have to understand every word to be able to understand the characters"-- pay attention to gestures, expressions, and movement


"Lighting is magical because it is this energy you cant touch or feel" --manipulate the color and DIRECTION of the lighting


"Live theatre is very exciting-- its not canned, its not frozen"


"Directors must justify everything"

Directing Notes

Process for Putting on a Show:

1. stimulus-- the piece you're performing (script, play, variety show, etc)
2. production concept-- idea of how youre performing it
3. research-- checking out how people have performed it before, looking up background and stuff
4. pick cast and crew
5. cold read and rehearsal process
6. blocking (singing/choreography)
7. characterization rehearsals
8. off-book night
9. detail rehearsals (run-throughs and clean-ups)
10. dress rehearsals
11. performances

Ramantics 08.

Circle of Life.

• cultural integration-- Baba Yetu was an African song performed in honor of the children in Ghana. A large portion of proceeds of Ramantics was sent to the YouthAlive: Ghana project to aid underprivileged children


• decades/generations-- not sure if this was intentional, but there definitely seemed to be a generational themes.

--Officer Krupke-- 1920s and 30s
--Radio-- 1980s
--Money Makes the World.../Sub Sub-- Victorian Era?

(This relates to the circle of life because it refers to the passing of time/ circles of history.)

Technical notes:

• lighting on Duel of Passions-- lights should have stayed off, just showing silhouettes, no gobos, liked the dark red gel


• griots descending from balcony-- beautiful/creative effect, should have been more graceful/ thinner ropes if possible (blocked view of stage)

Tree of the Theatre of the Oppressed

Original goals of the Theatre of the Oppressed:

• Newspaper theatre-- dealing with local problems


• Forum theatre-- part of a literacy program


• Invisible theatre-- political activity


• Image theatre-- establishing dialogue


• Rainbow of Desire-- understanding psychological problems


• Legislative theatre-- transforming Desire into Law

Boal discovered that these forms can be used around the world because theatre is simply "human language." Theatre of the Oppressed is a balance between Discipline and Freedom in the Game of Dialogue.

"Without discipline, there is no social life; without freedom, there is no life."

Boal Games

Feeling What We Touch

-general exercises
-walks
-massages
-integration games (violence)
-gravity


Listening to What We Hear

-rhythm
-melody
-sounds&noises
-rhythm of respiration
-internal rhythm

Rainbow of Desire

The Rainbow of Desire-- The Boal Method of Theatre and Therapy, by Augusto Boal (1995)


Thatre is an observation of human life. We see what we are, what we are not, and what we could be-- and because of this, theatre is the thing from which all other inventions and ideas and realities stem.


"Therein resides the essence of tehatre: in the human being OBSERVING ITSELF."

• The observing- I, I-in-situ, and the not-I through an imaginary mirror
• See yourself seeing, feel yourself feeling, think your thinking (capacity for this self-knowledge is "theatricality")
• As an actor, you learn to guide yourself, see yourself, ACT on yourself.
• Part of "seeing yourself" is discovering varieties, discovering alternatives, imitating other people/actions/animals. Only with acute self-awarness can you do that.
• DICHOTOMY-- seeing itself seeing.

~the being becomes human when it invents theatre~

• fill the space between "I am" to "I can be", the space between what is, but does not exist
• theatre is the true nature of humanity
• at first, actor and spectactor were originally the same beings, they are now separated.

Introduction to Boal

"We are all theatre, even if we don't make theatre."

We practice things, we learn things in theatre that teach us about real life. Shouldnt we all have that opportunity?

"Create first in theatre, in fiction, so we may be better prepared to create it outside afterwards."




As actors, we learn how to act, we demonstrate it, we teach others. Just as magicians teach people their tricks.
This is the philosophy of Augusto Boal. Everyone is an actor. Everyone can learn. Everyone can create theatre.

Be theatre.

--

Theatre in the Real World-- Olympic Ceremony

In almost every public ceremony, theatre plays a role. Or at least there are theatrical aspects and concepts in almost everything that is performed. Whether thats a speech, a play, an assembly, a wedding, a concert... or even....

The Opening Ceremony of the Olympics

The purpose of the opening ceremony of the Olympics was to entertain. To draw people in. To get them excited.
It certainly accomplisehed this goal.

• Lights-- low and dramatic, bright spotlights on key performers, completely dark for some scenes
• Sound-- huge booming sound, really dramatic effect
• Colors-- brights colors, mostly warm colors to attract attention (nations use patriotic colors/symbols)

Seeing the unseeable.

"In its essence, all [theatre] requires is an actor, two planks, and a passion; and at a pinch, it does not need the two planks."

Thinking back on all the plays I've seen-- not only Rampart productions but You Can't Take It With You, As You Like It, Monty Python, and other professional productions-- it's hard to imagine seeing these plays without the lights, extraodinary sets, soundtracks and special effects. It's almost as if the play wouldnt BE a play without these elements.

But if you had to ask me what the most important element of theatre is, I would say the actor. An actor can transform words into action, pictures into scene. They have the power to capture an audience, inhabit any character they wish. Only through the actor's movement, voice, expressions, actions, and words can the audience feel the true joy, pain, or intensity of a scene.

It is the actor who lets us see the unseeable.

More on the Frogs

Things that jumped out at me:

• chorus constantly comments


• parabasis-- "Its only a play"


• FULL of innuendo


• cast mastered the score-- fantastic job
  

Thought: Get off your ass and DO SOMETHING.

Plot: Dionyses and Xanthius travle to the Underworld to bring back George Bernard Shaw

Action: The Frogs-- recurring

Diction/Sound/Spectacle: think of the way they set it up to make you feel like you were a part of the Greek mythology

It was all metaphorical--
Frogs represent the ever-present fears of mankind-- haunting Dionyses in a way. Frogs also sit on their lily pads all day and wait for their flies to come to them. They represent the laziness of mankind.

The Frogs

Went to see The Frogs last night... :) I'd go so far as to say that it was THE BEST theatrical production I've ever seen at Rampart. Wow. The first half was absolutely hilarious...

"Viagra.. God of perseverance!"

(Love this quote. Especially because perseverance is one of the key characteristics of Rampart kids... Every time I see that written in huge bold letters on the gym wall, I won't be able to keep myself from laughing... hahaha.)

The second half was really profound... which required actually paying attention... haha. But I thought they did an excellent job balancing humor and deep subjects.
Phenomenal. :)

One thing that did strike me though.... There was quite a noticable difference between the amazing experienced actors and the not-quite-so-amazing ones. The really good ones didnt seem like they were ACTING. The WERE their characters. Case in point: Mr. Hudson Hatfield did a fantastic job with this. As he performs... he draws the audience in. And you see him as Dionyses, not as an ACTOR playing the role of Dionyses. Whereas with Laura, I generally saw her as an actress playing Xanthius. Here's what's been bothering me though. I Can't tell what the difference is. They are both talented actors, but what does Hudson do that sets him apart? Or Jess, shes's the same as Hudson. What do they do differently?

My best guess is that it has something to do with their diction. Or their emphasis on words. Somehow they make it sounds more natural....

Ahh. I dont know. Something to ponder. :)

Sophocles

-he wrote Oedipus Rex
-first prize-winner for writing tragedies-- Thespus (he also introduced first solo-speaking actor instead of chorus)

• used masks

-Euripides & Aeschylus (Father of Tragedy) aslo famous playwright
-Aristophenes (writer of The Frogs, The Birds, The Insects, The Clouds)
-going to theatre wrapped everything all in one- football game, rock concerts, play- all combined into one social event

• sometimes even a church service in there
• skipped work for a week
• like community theatre

-chorus: provides commentary on/accompaniment to the action of the play
-playwrights wrote about both pleasurable experiences of life and the unalterable causes that lead to death

• causes conflict in plays

-hubris: protagonist with ego taht leads to downfall

-text:

1. prologue-- introduction
2. parados-- entrance to the chorus
3. episode-- action of the play
4. stasismon-- general comment/reflection on play, usually from chorus-- strophe and antistrophe
5. exodus-- summarizes the moral, chorus leaves

-parabasis: the spot in the play where the playwright blatantly tells his audience his opinion/purpose for the play

-deus ex machina: when the Gods save the day; everything works out

-orchestra: center of stage