The last stretch...

During the month of October I found myself growing more and more anxious about this endeavor that we were taking, however, now, at the end of the semester, I am really proud of what he have created as a group. We have been working hard to try to create a piece of theatre that is compelling to both sports-fans and theatre-fans, and I think we have done so.

The script that we have now is, in my opinion, the skeleton of our piece, and what we have to do now is add the muscle. Maybe that’s a bad metaphor because we have quite a bit of workable dialogue. I guess what I mean is that we still need to shape the dialogue – translate it, if you will, into something more conversational and easy on the ears. The metaphor I’m looking for here is, we have the skeleton and muscle, now we need to get that muscle into the gym and work it out.

I believe that the fine tuning of the script will obviously take place during our rehearsals next semester. Because of this, I propose an extremely early rehearsal schedule, meaning, we should be rehearsing/rewriting/working this script as early as the end of January. I think we should meet 1-2 times per weeks, for maybe an hour each session. That will give us the opportunity to create something that is ready to work come March when we actually start rehearsing “normally.” Any thoughts?

Power of Responsibility

What I think is awesome about this process of creating a piece of theatre through the communities and interviews is that although we cannot control what our interviewee says, we can control what of his/her speech actually makes it into the created piece. Of course we will use what is the funniest, most poignant, what makes our interviewee look/sound the best, etc., but that decision is ultimately up to us. As Peter Parker's uncle would say, "With great power comes great responsibility." It is our responsibility to use the information given us to accurately represent our storytellers, and at the same time, tell our own story. Based on what we have created in class so far, I think we are on the right track. We are certainly not going to paint anyone in a bad light, and if we use the text that we have gathered, I don’t think there is any way that we actually could. All of our interviews are on “our side,” right? I mean, we don’t have any interviews from those who would be considered “the man” or perhaps the CEO of Big Sweeties Sugar Burgers.

In terms of what we have been devising vs. the information we have received from our interviews, I think we can go further with integrating the two mediums. Also, we seem to be really comfortable when devising montages that outline the realms we are journeying through, but our weaknesses seem to be incorporating dialogue that creates a scene. Perhaps this is where we can do more with the interviews. Do you think there is a way to maybe combine and blend 2, 3, or even 4 interview transcriptions and create scene? We’ll have to make up some lines here and there, but do we have enough to do this?

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.