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.