IDEA.

I wasn’t sure if we were planning on having an intermission in our play or not, but I think it would be an awesome idea. In “Weaving Individual Performance Pieces Into a Show,” it gives some great advice on how to do a successful first act ending. It explains that if we are to have a first act ending, it has to leave the audience hanging, and leave them wanting to come back. Which is obviously important, because if the play is boring by the end of the first act, no is going to be in the audience for the second.

The reading says that we should be smart about placing the ending on the first act in a good place of the show. We should have already made the conflict clear to the audience, and demonstrate how everyone feels about the said conflict. In this case, all our characters are of course trying to hunt down these ways of beating the opposing team. While brainstorming on a successful first act ending, I had a couple of intense ideas. I think someone should be in their realm, learning a skill, and then become injured. Maybe even die. It just has to be completely out of the blue, and unexpected so that it shocks the audience and leaves them wanting to know what’s going to happen, oh so desperately. So, I think we would have a successful first act ending if someone was badly injured during their sport, to the point that the audience didn’t know he would even survive. Survival should be the important question. Whether it’s survival of the person, survival of the team, or survival of the quest as a whole, just because of the injury of this one character.

That would for sure leave our audience on the edge of their seats, and we would have a very interested and glued audience on our hands.

WORDS.

While reading “Weaving Individual Performance Pieces Into a Show,” I found the section about the opening of a play extremely important. In the reading, it explains how critical the opening really is to the entire show. The first few moments capture the world of the entire show, and set the mood for the play to come. The opening must intrigue the audience and capture their imaginations, and if we do that, we could have a really successful show.

The writer mentions a very successful way to open a show in explaining the play Sarafina! In the opening scene, children dance around and sing about their homeland. He says that the energy is incredible, and the audience is instantly taken away by the energy and story being expressed through song. I think it would be amazing to use our idea of opening with us saying our feelings about sports, but turning it in to an opening number composed by all of us. It would be this wild sports-crazed fanlike song, with a whole bunch of energy, just like at sports games. And instead of us just stating how we felt about sports, we could sing how we felt, and act around our words. It would offer so much energy for the show, and instantly draw everyone in to our play. All the different sports we could be talking about would be happening right behind us, and would make for an epic show to watch. Success!

BLAIR

For the ELP assignment that I performed in class, I interviewed my little sister, Blair. I really wanted to interview her because of my interest in injuries and medicine. When I was in high school, I was on the swim team, and the cheerleading squad. But when I was a junior, I had had rheumatoid arthritis for 4 years. At this point in my cheerleading experience, I would pride myself on tumbling and stunting. But this far into the disease, and about 5 medicine trials later, I wasn’t getting any better, and all the stress I was putting on my joints in cheerleading was just making me a lot worse. So after days and days of not being able to move after a practice, I made the decision to leave the sport, and prayed I could find something else I was meant for.

My sister had a similar story. And her and I could relate, so that’s why I wanted to do the performance of her interview. My sister, as you all probably remember, was a volleyball player, then tore her ACL, and her teammates weren’t there for her, and because she wasn’t helping out with wins, they ignored her and weren’t even her friend anymore. After she healed, she went on to try out for cheerleading, and is enjoying that and the friendships she has made a lot more.

But as I was interviewing her, the things that she said made me so sad. I was trying to imagine her as just another person I was interviewing for the project. But, this was kind of the first time her and I had a real sit down, and talk about her negative experience. Through the experience, I was just there to help her recover and be a shoulder to cry on when she was in pain. I was never never to hear about her heartache, that was so apparent in her interview. I knew that if I wanted to capture the ELP accurately, I had to imagine myself in her shoes, and instead of focusing on all the technicalities, like her hands, and head movements, I needed to focus on her voice, her breath, and the way her words made her move.

I think I captured my sister a lot better than I could have captured Robert. But then again, he was so simple, that maybe the ELP would have been more accurate, but less useful in our project for sure. This ELP project was so helpful, and the challenge of it really taught me some valuable skills in acting and essential skills we’ll need in writing this play.

POINTS

For the ELP assignment that I performed in class, I interviewed my little sister, Blair. I really wanted to interview her because of my interest in injuries and medicine. When I was in high school, I was on the swim team, and the cheerleading squad. But when I was a junior, I had had rheumatoid arthritis for 4 years. At this point in my cheerleading experience, I would pride myself on tumbling and stunting. But this far into the disease, and about 5 medicine trials later, I wasn’t getting any better, and all the stress I was putting on my joints in cheerleading was just making me a lot worse. So after days and days of not being able to move after a practice, I made the decision to leave the sport, and prayed I could find something else I was meant for.

My sister had a similar story. And her and I could relate, so that’s why I wanted to do the performance of her interview. My sister, as you all probably remember, was a volleyball player, then tore her ACL, and her teammates weren’t there for her, and because she wasn’t helping out with wins, they ignored her and weren’t even her friend anymore. After she healed, she went on to try out for cheerleading, and is enjoying that and the friendships she has made a lot more.

But as I was interviewing her, the things that she said made me so sad. I was trying to imagine her as just another person I was interviewing for the project. But, this was kind of the first time her and I had a real sit down, and talk about her negative experience. Through the experience, I was just there to help her recover and be a shoulder to cry on when she was in pain. I was never never to hear about her heartache, that was so apparent in her interview. I knew that if I wanted to capture the ELP accurately, I had to imagine myself in her shoes, and instead of focusing on all the technicalities, like her hands, and head movements, I needed to focus on her voice, her breath, and the way her words made her move.

I think I captured my sister a lot better than I could have captured Robert. But then again, he was so simple, that maybe the ELP would have been more accurate, but less useful in our project for sure. This ELP project was so helpful, and the challenge of it really taught me some valuable skills in acting and essential skills we’ll need in writing this play.

EPIC

When we were first assigned the Everyday Life Performance project, I was seriously confused. I has no idea how I was supposed to imitate someone, and someone so different, it wasn’t until after interviewing two different people that I realized, it doesn’t matter how different I think people are from me, everyone is insanely different from everyone. So, essentially, this was a huge challenge for me, and I’m sure for us all.

I don’t know if any of you have forgotten about Mr. Robert Day. The man who came to the first meeting and discussed his swimming history. He also mentioned that he was interested in rock climbing, and really enjoyed watching soccer. He talked so much, and since him and I had the similarity of swimming, I was excited to have a successful interview with him. But, I was so wrong. We sat down and began to talk, and of course my lap top wasn’t recording the first 8 minutes, so we started over. I asked him about his swimming experience and why he got in to it. He replied saying that his siblings did it, so he did it. I asked him to tell me some stories about swimming, about the meets, and challenges of it all... He had nothing to say. He just smiled and said, “nothing really happened. It was just something I did.” Same goes with all the other questions I asked him, about his rock climbing experience, and why he likes soccer... “Yeah it’s fun,” he’d say. I asked all these questions, and basically, came up with absolutely nothing.

But, I guess that was one of the things that I should have expected to happen. Because, ELPs are meant to surprise you and leave you hanging. It’s a person. You can’t change who they are, or what they want to tell you, and don’t want to tell you. So, I walked away disappointed. I have the video of course, so if anyone wants to see it, just ask me. Fail on my part though. My next ELP was definitely more successful.

INTERESTING.

In the “Weaving Individual Performance Pieces into a Show” reading, I have come up with some ideas. The “Finales” section is what stuck out to me the most. Probably because the finale is one of the most important parts of the entire show. “The actors will generally be able to seize upon some aspect of it that offers a glimmer of hope,” the author says. Hope. This gets me thinking about what I want the character to leave the audience thinking when the show is over. Is our hope just for the Theatre program’s future, or our individual future, or could we tie something deeper into the moral later on?

“...Gives them courage, instills faith, or inspires them to rededicate themselves to the challenge ahead.” The article also says that returning to a previous part of the show with great emphasis makes for an epic finale. I really like the idea of that. Since our show is about the arts, and standing against sports, and “the man,” I think faith is definitely something that should be apart of our show. Maybe someone could have faith in God, another have faith in the arts, another faith in sports, and so on. Faith could become a theme in the show, and I think faith is something that everyone can relate too. Everyone has faith, even if it’s just in a photo, or a person, or a dog, right?

The last paragraph says it all, “If the group hasn’t created a piece that fits the bill, design one now!” This is something I am really excited about. This section gives great advice, and I think we as actors should discuss what experiences in our lives have given us these glimmers of hope, and what has really instilled faith within us. Then we could come up with unbelievably epic finale, which would be insane as a song.

Song?

Today, I am blogging about the “Trying Out” Realm. I was thinking about the music that we could use for this realm, if we ended up deciding that we definitely wanted to do that. Last week as James and I were brainstorming this realm, we came up with the scenario of a talent scout being caught into a real audition, mistaken as aun actor. He was completely unprepared and forced into audition for an impatient director. He was humiliated, and experienced what a lot of the actors that he works to find experience every day, rejection.

So, whilst brainstorming some music in lyrics, I came up with a few ideas. In the reading, “Building Dialogue, Lyrics, and Choreography,” it talks about the thoughts of the “victim” and the thoughts of the “bystander.” Example used for the Victim being, “I’ve got a right to be here, why are you bothering me? I was minding my own business, I didn’t ask for this.” And an example for Bystander being, “They’re just arguing, there’s nothing I can do. If I don’t say anything, It’s like saying it’s okay.”

This is what I see happening in the realm. The Scout would be the Victim in this scene, and the Director is the Bystander.

Director: Take it from me, it’s a dirty world. It’s a biting bee.

Scout: Take it from me, they’ll spit you up, to watch you bleed.

Director (or duet): Don’t look so doomed. Let ‘em do, what they came to do.

It’s a very indirect and poetic way of explaining the situation, and with any music for a musical, the less Disney, the more powerful it’s going to be. So, I really like the idea of using underscoring throughout the play, and making the actual songs intense and memorable. I have a song I’d like to tweak, and change the lyrics around a bit for this show. But, I definitely see it working.

so exciting.

While reading “Building Dialogue, Lyrics, and Choreography,” I found several things extremely interesting and helpful. Since our meeting on Friday, we have all decided that a musical is something we would all be interested in doing, and this excited me so much, because I have been writing and producing music for years. But, I never thought I’d try composing music for an actual musical. So going back over this reading, I have found a few things that are helpful.

The types of potential forms of performance pieces when it comes to monologues are soliloquy style and testimonial style. Soliloquy style is a character working out a problem out loud, and testimonial style is a character describing an experience. I think it would be incredible to take these moments that would normally be monologues and turn them into songs. They’d make for an epic moment in the music. The solos would be great for talking about a problem or experience, and then when a scout is going through a realm with just their guide, we could turn a song into a duet. Then as more people enter the scene, whatever we decide, it could be become a trio, or a chorus, and so on.

I like how this reading explains that there are no limits to writing music and lyrics. There can be a whole scene of lyrical language, or a whole scene of just realistic speech. Or they could be mixed in to each other however it is written. I just think this is going to be awesome to work out once we get the realms down, and after reading this reading again, it is so much more helpful.

Revolutionary

As I was running on the treadmill today I thought about something that my most recent interviewee said during her interview. She talked about how she liked sports because when she saw people doing something that looked like so much fun and that was so much fun to watch that she inherently wanted to do it and that is how she got involved in football. This made me think of my experience this past weekend seeing the play Wicked. Now, did I leave the theatre wanting to go out and audition for Glenda— No. I’m not that out of touch with reality. But I did leave the theatre feeling inspired by seeing such a great piece of theatre and with that bred the desire to produce quality work. My reason for bringing this up is that, in the initial interview when she made this statement, my thought was, “oh my gosh I have never watched a football or basketball game and wanted to play.” I couldn’t relate to her statement at all. However, after contemplating it, I realized that we got the same exact feeling from watching something that we enjoy and whether hers be a sports game and mine be a theatre performance, we both left feeling inspired and wanting to take action. I have never made this connection with sports before and really only categorized the arts as being an agent of change, but it occurred to me, that sports can have the same affect which I find revolutionary.

A Radical Idea, Part II

Going along with the idea of creating a sports environment, perhaps we could also stage some tail-gating parties before a couple of the shows. Part of the experience of a sports event is the tail-gating, and since this is a combination of two worlds, we should embrace it. Also, maybe we could also invite the audience to arrive in all of the fan attire, from pendants to foam fingers, and also provide them with some of our own attire. I would like to see this show put out some foam fingers, drink-hats, and other sports-fan paraphernalia. I think that it would tie back into the idea of creating a similar environment for both communities. It provides the mooring of a sporting feel, while also showing support of the theatre. While this may seem like small details, it is usually the small details upon which the audience shows support or not.

A Radical Idea

The whole creation of this show has gotten me to thinking that since we are combing the worlds of theatre and sports on the stage, why don’t we encourage them to treat the show like a sporting event. Ordinarily, the audience at a theatre is made to be quite for the whole performance. The only time a silence like that falls on a sports stadium is when everybody has gone home. Perhaps a familiar topic will not be enough for the audience to fully invest themselves into this show. A familiar setting will also be needed, and that means treating like a sporting event. Instead of hushing a cell phones, let them ring. Instead of glaring at every uttered whisper, let the audience cheer and jeer to their hearts’ content. If we are going to combine both worlds, I say that we endeavor to combine them fully. Not only will this be a welcome relief for some of the audience members, it will also be a good challenge for us as actors: To have a whole audience cheering or jeering us as we perform would test our nerve, and our ability. It would also show to the audience that we are well versed in this show, and that we know it so fully, that their screaming will not be enough to derail us. While it may be a radical idea, I think that a familiar environment would be beneficial in enticing audience members to attend the shows.

Collaborative Production

While a show continues to develop and mature, due time and consideration must be given in order to properly be able to produce the show. Thus, according to Cornerstone, one must look toward the five Fs: Forum, Facsimiles, Fold, Found, and Fabrication. The Forum of this show shall take place in the Thrust theatre, and since it already bears a strong resemblance to a sporting arena, we should develop that to its fullest. I do not think that we should limit the space to just one sport, as we will be using it for a variety of sporting events, and designating the floor to be any particular field would inhibit another realm, or force us to switch out floors, which would take a lot of time. In my opinion, the dialogue would allow the audience to clearly distinguish between sporting events while still allowing us the full freedom of a blank area. I would also leave the stage black: The universal theatrical symbol of open space. Facsimiles can easily be accomplished with the aid of chalkboard paint and chalk. Chalkboard paint can be found for $24.97 for two quarts at Home Depot. As for chalk, it seems to be pretty cheap, although, it could get expensive if we decide to erase the stage every night. For safety, let us go with one box of color chalk and one box of white chalk. The folk aspect of this production could be supplied through costumes and dialogue. Since this is a university sett, portrayal of University of Louisville coaches might be frowned upon, so using University of Louisville apparel should suffice quite nicely. The Found objects could quite possibly come from the University of Louisville sports department. They must have a whole host of balls and equipment that is not being used at the moment. We could also ask the general public to donate pieces of sporting equipment for use in the show. All of this will greatly reduce the amount of equipment that we would otherwise need to purchase. The Fabrication aspect of the show comes from not only the community drawing the land marks upon the chalkboard paint, but also it is a part of the show which they helped to create. Along with the created objects comes the Big Sweetey’s Super Fired Sugar Burgers with extra Lard Balls™. I think actually having a table with some of the burgers would help to not only entice audience members to see the show, but also allow the fourth wall to be broken just the much more. All in all, I think that this production could be done with relatively little money used. With that said, we should retain as much as possible in the event that unforeseen expenses should arise.

Time to Get Artsy!

So, design proposal time? Let's get on it!

For our central group of actors, I really like the thought of us all having our own jerseys. They definitely need to be red and black to reflect our local culture (FOLK) of the Louisville Cardinals. Maybe where the team name usually goes we can put "Actors" or "Thespians" (insert lesbian jokes here), with numbers and our names in the usual places. This website (http://www.teamsportswear.com) offers many different styles for around $20 each, so let's say maybe $200 for those as a maximum. However, I definitely think it's possible for us to construct our own for much cheaper, though we'll need to look further into that.

Besides that, I think we need pretty generic bottom halves, since the seven of us will be playing many different roles throughout the play. This is where we can work in objects donated by the community (FOUND). Like for coaches, we can add a hat, jacket and whistle. Or when we play athletes, we can switch out jerseys for the jerseys of real athletes from UofL or from high schools in the area.

For designing to the space (FORUM), we really need to play with the similarities between the Thrust and stadium. Having the floor constructed to look like a basketball court or baseball diamond seem like the best option, in my opinion. And I really want the back wall tobe covered in chalkboard paint so we can do our Beetlejuice-esque door, maybe with a staircase leading to a platform on one side about 4 feet up that we can sit on, jump off of, etc.

For representing community landmarks (FACSIMILES), I want to play around with the advertisements used at baseball fields. Can we have ads on the rails of each section of seating with pictures and names of local landmarks? Louisville Slugger Museum, Churchill Downs, Actors Theatre, the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, etc. Could we get a few places to sponsor our play, provide us some more money for an ad slot?

I think we can get the community really involved with our more abstract ideas (FABRICATION). For Bradyman, "If Tom Brady was a superhero, what would his costume look like?" For our tech-obsessed fun realm inhabitants, can we get a bunch of junk and ask "If someone took a swim in the Ohio River, what kind of stuff would be stuck to them?" For our mascot, "What would the incarnation of theatre look like?" And have them attach items as they see fit.

Design Proposal!

Design Proposal - Grace Bors

So we’re designing out set for the Thrust Theatre, which is the FORUM. When I picture our set, I see the floor as a basketball court, or a football field. It might be expensive construct the floor to appear as such, but I think with Charles’ ideas, it’s a great possibility. As for the FACSIMILES that we should include in our show, we have amazing options. I think our Louisville skyline is so familiar and iconic all around the country, and is especially important to Louisville natives. I picture the back black wall as a chalk board, and an artist drawing in the skyline as if it were at night, so just black and white. I’m sure an art student, or a theatre student who can draw would do that for free, so that would be amazing for us. To reflect on our local culture, our FOLK, maybe we could make our mascot a cardinal. Or just a red bird, whatever is legal for us to do. That way everyone would instantly know that our play includes something near and dear to them, the UofL Cards. This costume would definitely take up much of our budget. Check this one out, it’s the cheapest I could find for $229.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Parrot-Cardinal-Mascot-Costume-Adult-Fancy-Dress-/200534080038

Now for our familiar objects and props, our FOUND. I’m thinking we should use different types of sports balls and familiar sports props players use everyday. Like pom poms, safety googles, whatever. All these items range from $15 to $40. Hopefully we could just bring balls and items we already own and don’t really use anymore. The FABRICATION part of out design could be really fun. What if we had the audience bring poster boards that they would bring to a sporting event? Or maybe if we did have the chalk board, we could have them write their favorite sports on it, or who they bet will win the game between us and the UofL team. This would be all be free, and wonderful for us since we’ll have the audience engaged in the show before it even started.

As for the costumes we would wear, I think it would be really cool if the scout in each realm wore the sports uniform they were representing in the scene, and all the other characters around them in just all black. So, that one costume would be exaggerated, and everyone’s main focus. I found some legit uniforms that are as little as $20 but go up to around $50. It just depends on which sports we write in and need to represent.
http://stores.all-sports-uniforms.com/-strse-Basketball-Adult-fdsh-Youth-Uniform-Sets/Categories.bok

So, all prices included, costumes could cost us around $450, mascot costume included, give or take. Our props could cost around $200, and our set pieces are questionable. But we would have at least $2000 to spend on the floor and and constructing the entire set, and still have $850 to spend on advertising, and other expenses. I think our budget will work fine for what we need as long as we all work together and well with the people helping us out.

A Sporting Event

So no one comes to our meetings. It’s ok, we get stuff done. However we do not have the appropriate press structure to access a community. People who are sports fans like to watch sports, they don’t necessarily like other fans. In fact they may actively dislike fans of other teams. Perhaps if we increase our specificity, like U of L, or U of L women’s basketball fans people would feel more responsibility to their community to show up? But then too specific makes the fans harder to find?

Our group is having a problem trying to build a community and write about the community at the same time. We have not found/made/borrowed any meta-structure of sports fans. It is not fun to host parties when no one shows up. However that is the nature of this community and we are acting within it. It’s also a hobby that people do in their leisure time and a meeting, even a community one, sounds like work. 

I am not bemoaning my time wasted by their absence though. We got a lot of work done. We are working on an adaptation of Frogs and Dante’s Inferno. There is something nice about working with Classical Theatre in this context. Classical Theatre is from a time when stages were more similar to sports arenas, where the chorus was made up of soldiers, and the plots were epic. That theatre seems more similar to sports than our current version with character shoes, makeup kits and knee pads. 

Also the conventions of Classical Theatre give us a framework and structure to act upon. We are really combining many structures, classical theatre, the innings of a baseball game, the television airing structure, the rules of sports, etc. We are operating in a world with so many rules, it is as if we are playing a sport. 

His Words, Not Mine

The Everyday Life Performance project was very challenging. Last year in my voice class we did a Voice Donor project in which we recorded and imitated two classmates. For some reason that was substantially easier than the ELP project for me. I think this was the case for two reasons. First, these were my classmates that I saw every day. Second, it was for a voice class so I was more concentrated on the technical aspects of the performance. For my ELP project, I only see the person I interviewed occasionally and so I am sure that made it more difficult. Also, there was this feeling of not only do I want to achieve the technical aspects of this speech but also really wanted to deliver the message of what this person was saying. I found myself developing an attitude about my interviewee and what he was saying and reflecting on how he meant this story to be received. I concentrated a lot on the text and on how I did not want to miss one “umm” or one word that would lessen the truth and accuracy of what he said. To me, there was this combination on focusing not only on how he said it but also on what he chose to say. I wanted to get both of these aspects across in my rehearsing and in my performance. It was a great experience for me because by not concentrating on just the technical, but also the words, I was able to relate to this person as a human being and not an imitable character. He chose those words, not me, and I think it’s important in this process to actively reflect on those words and why those may have been chosen over others.

Subject Matter in ELP

My first interview lasted over an hour. This was because I was learning so much I didn’t want to stop and my interviewee wanted to share so much that he didn’t want to stop. Some things that I learned or found interesting in my interview and that I find valuable to this project are the reasons why people become/stay fans, violence in the actual competition, and the business side of athletics.

My interviewee, Chris, mentioned that the typical reasons people become fans are due to family members, friends, and location. The reasons they continue to be fans is because of the length of time and the amount of emotion invested. Chris discussed how the win/loss record is not really a factor in fans continuing to be fans which really surprised me. Chris also discussed violence in the competition itself and how there is no need for this. This is why sports have officials, and Chris’ point of view is if the officials are doing their job properly, then no violence should occur— but instead, people relate violence to certain sports, like hockey, since it often occurs. Also, football is a violent sport by nature, but due to the strenuous rules and severe penalties for fighting in football, it does not occur as often. It made me think of the fans of these two sports and how I associate more violent fans to hockey than to football and how this violence affects the audience of that sport.

Finally, Chris discussed the business side of sports and how that was originally his interest of study, but due to moral concerns, he had to get out. He discussed the hypocrisy that exists in athletic programs and more specifically, at UofL’s. He stated how the mission of the university is to promote education for its students at all costs but there is obviously a disconnect when they are scheduling conference football games during the week when students have class so they can get the money ESPN is willing to dish out for this recording. As Chris states, “It’s just not in the best interest of the educational needs of the students”. Chris sees the relationship between student athletes and the university as a symbiotic relationship of exploitation. They both are taking advantage of each other and exploiting the other. It was this hypocrisy that caused Chris to switch concentrations. I think these topics are very important and hope we can find a place for them in the play.

Fantasy Fanatic

I think another topic related to sports that is deserving of attention is the betting/gambling component. For example, my boyfriend right now is obsessed with watching every professional football game to see how many points his chosen players accumulate to see if he won the bet for the week in fantasy football. Also, appropriate in timing, the World Series are being played and every day on Facebook I see people placing bets on the winner.

Gambling in sports has been a component since the development of organized sports. In my research of social class and sports, I found that the first organization, the New York Knickerbockers that developed baseball as an organized sport in the 1840s, developed this out of gambling. And it wasn’t until they realized that they had a higher chance of winning more money, that they invited lower-class citizens into their group.

I think investing, betting, or gambling money is a huge factor in defining a “fanatic”. Would I consider my boyfriend to be a fanatic? Yes. He bets his hard earned money on football players, but since he watches so much football, he feels confident in not losing that money.

Also, my boyfriend has special rituals and superstitions when it comes to watching sports. For example, when Notre Dame plays he has to be at home watching the game in his Notre Dame attire. He will not watch the game until he is wearing all parts of his attire. These are his superstitions that he thinks will help his favorite team win.

Time, emotions, money— these are all the things that are invested in sports which up the ante in being classified as a fanatic.