Done

Well, between the Lear reading and Lysistrata and Jazzy's project and Scapin and Finals, I don't think that I'm going to be able to do any sort of extra project. Not to mention I don't really have the time or energy to do anything else.

But I am still considering teaching some sort of class for high schooler's this summer at my old high school. That way I can stay fresh with my skills, teach others (which I love) and still make some money! I think it will totally work out for the best. Especially considering that I'm going home right before finals to figure out stuff with my health. It will all be OK.

So What's Next?

So with the awesome mask show behind me, what's next? I'm working on Scapin and that will be opening on March 13 and running for 5 weekends. But once it's open, then what? Will I just ignore the fact that I will have many evenings a week free? Should I rejoice in this and just relax for awhile?

Of course not!!!!!

I'm trying to figure out what's next for me. I really want to do another student directing project, I'm just really afraid I won't be able to get any actors to help me out! I just really want to do something small, like a 3-5 actor thing. Maybe I'll wait til URCAS time to try to do it. I just know people are so stressed out right now between the Cabaret and Lysistrata.

As far as the content, something short. Something melodramatic. I really want to do a show based on ridiculous opera. Last semester, when Alicia and I went to go see Verter, I was really inspired to do a plain, straight up classic (Death of a Salesman, Antigone, Hamlet, etc) and do the show in a very ridiculous operatic fashion.

We'll see....

Because You Are Alive

So the audience had a particular role in the development of the scenes and in watching the performance. For starters, the actors on stage are performing for the sole purpose of entertaining the audience, so it is only fitting that the audience maintain their energy in the direction of the actors. It's a very reciprocal relationship!

So while the attentive audience helps the masks keep up their high energy, they also are responsible for letting the masks know when they've made a mistake. And they do this to remind the actors behind the mask that they are alive. Of course we make mistakes: We Are Alive! If we never messed up we would just be robots going through the actions, and what fun is that!? And we would not be destructive about it, instead, we would literally applaud the actor for making mistakes and reminding us that he/she is alive!

Applause would be instigated if any of the following things happened: if the mask was not looking at the audience when he/she committed an action. When the mask did not look where they were walking. When the mask did not respond to my questions on the third second. Not one/two/or four, but on the third second.

As we have seen, the audience is integral in the formation of a good character or scene!

Here are some pic of the audience!

Pictures of an Awesome Performance

So I tried for a long time to import the video onto here, but I was very unsuccessful. I'm going to try next to post it on YouTube, but who knows. I thought in the mean time I could at least post a bunch of pictures of our awesome performance!!!

a Zombie!!!
Jack touching himself...

Jason!

Stacey is a....Chipmunk?

The Beaver!

Alicia is uncomfortable

I'm pretty sure this is a picture of a boy who really likes bugs...

We Were Great!

I feel terrible, I haven't posted on this blog in quite a while. Especially now that our final performance is 10 days dead in the ground.

The final show went great though! We ended up having an audience of around sixty people (which is nothing to scoff at!, we were all very happy). And the audience really seemed to love it! They were laughing, they were paying attention; no one was sleeping or picking their nose aimlessly, which is was I was trying to prevent.

First, I have to thank my Stage Manager and my Props/Costume Lady: Gwen Weil and Rachel Simmons (repectively) for all their work, for without them there's no way our show would have happened. They got there super early and helped me to set up and made all our props and made signs for the hall way and everything. They were absolutely essential!!

Our cast was: Jack Sterling, Jessica Batey, Lucy Mason, Madison Hannahs, Kelly White, Alicia Buxton, Jason Hanson, Stacey Cotham, and Lee Bryant. Each one of them brought something special and important to both our production and our creative process!

It was just a really special night! My mom and sister were able to come down from St. Louis and comprised part of the audience in addition to students from Rhodes and U of M, and faculty from Rhodes. It was quite a turnout.

We kept up with our tradition of destroying a pinata before the show so we were all on a sugar high, and as Gwen was sweeping the stage, the actors put on masks and as masked characters invited the audience into the space and sat them down. Batey was awesome, she was playing her mask who only cares about money (that's the only thing she says too..) and somehow ended up getting a dollar bill as well as someone's linx card. It was awesome, spontaneous theatre.

The show went great. We did about half and half improv to rehearsed scenes and the audience seemed to love everything. Alicia did an improv that was especially great. She (somehow) managed to keep it G rated and played a leader of a gang who gave other people spinters (which she used Kevin Collier to demonstrate). HOW FUNNY!

The whole thing was a success and as happy as I am that it's finished I'm especially sad to end working those wonderful individuals. Pictures and a video soon to come!

Urgency

Everything that these masks do automatically becomes a life or death situation. Whether it's going to the bathroom or eating a sandwhich or kissing your grandmother on the cheek, it is NOW or NEVER for these masks. Therefore, urgency is vital!! Through our project, we developed a new term for urgency (it's just too long to say anyways, especially when you're trying to be urgent about something). Urgency = Chong. And don't try looking up Chong on the internet. You won't find code for Urgency....you'll probably only find Asian porn...like I did...

Nevertheless, Urgency (Chong) is crucial when working with masks. If the masks perform actions at the rate of everyday life, then they are nothing special. For that matter, how boring is it to watch an overexaggerated character on stage simply walking! No! Chong!

To practice Chong, we play two games that help us get faster! One is an alteration of "May I? Yes you can!" where you must trade places with another actor within the circle, but while walking there, the person you are exchanging with must find someone else to exchange places with before you get there and so on and so forth. If you are not fast enough, you get a big smack on the butt!
We also have Bottle-Stool Races where two teams have a relay race to demonstrate dominence. Go fast or lose!

Some pictures of funny masks:

Here was a school boy in art class. He had a bad teacher.

Golf during high winds only produces tragedy.

Don't open umbrellas during high winds either.

DEATH!!

A Game We Like

WOLF & SHEEP

So in this game, a group of people all lay down facing the same direction. These are the sheep. From the group, one person is picked to be a lone wolf. The wolf's job is to separate one sheep from the pack to devour it, and turning it into a second wolf. The two wolves then work to separate another sheep which becomes a third wolf and so on. The sheep work to hold on to each other for dear life. And all the while the sheeps must be making desparate sheep noises and the wolves must howl viciously.

The Audience

Who is the most important actor in any performance? The audience of course! For masks, especially, everything we do we do for the audience. We entertain the audience, and in return, the audience provides a life for the mask. For if an actor puts on a mask in an empty room, he is indeed simply a man wearing a mask. It is the audience, moreover, that provides life to the mask and truly makes a character out of him.

Therefore, we love our audience and want them to have the best time possible.

In order to do this, we maintain constant eye contact with the audience so that we are constantly entertaining and they are constantly giving life to the performers. That means anytime you are walking around stage, you are looking at the audience while you do it. But if you're always looking at the audience how do you know where you're going? Well of course, before you start moving, you look where you're going to go. This serves two functions: 1) It allows the performer to see where they are moving so that they don't fall while they are moving and looking at the audience. 2) It signals to the audience where we're going! (we're nice to the audience, remember?)
So the order is: Look where you go, look at the audience, move there.

The same is true for any action. Say you want to throw a football. Well you have to look at the audience when you do everything. And you have to signal to the audience what you're going to do. So if they football were on the ground you would have to do this:
Look at football, look at audience, pick up football, look where you're going to throw, look at audience, throw football.

This might sound confusing, but when practiced and seamless, it creates an animated picture that is both extremely funny and easy to follow. See how fast you can do it! So go for it!!

Why?

Why do a show at the McCoy featuring the archetypal masks of Italy's Commedia dell'Arte? What can masks do that actors showing their plain faces cannot?


I often get into the argument with theatrically inclined individuals as to what is the purpose of theatre. And of course, there are many arguments. Many advocate theatre's power to hold a mirror up to society, to comment on how the world is operating and force the audience to really think about structures that they support and the way they live their everyday lives. Some argue that theatre can be used as a means of social change in which messages are proselytized to an open audience waiting to be educated or influenced. Others contend that theatre's true value comes in exploring our own humanity. Why do we do the things we do? And why do we react the way do? What are the social conventions that create the individual, and beneath that, what are the innate human traits that connect us all? What makes our sadness the same as the sadness felt by an individual on the other side of the world?

But one reason for "why do theatre" I feel is often unrepresented. And that is a matter of entertainment and escapism. Why do movie theatres sell out Spider Man 3 night after night when lives theatres commonly struggle to break even and fill the seats in their performance halls? I feel that the answer to this question lies in what our society is looking for right now. While I think it is important to address big questions like global poverty, the looming cloud of war, and daily abuses of human rights, there is only so much that any person can take before they explode out of obligation, constant demands and stress. People want and people NEED to be able to get away, if only for a couple hours and let their shoulders down, and breathe, and allow themselves to laugh.

Living in the moment, not thinking about last weeks' mistake or tomorrow's meeting, is essential if one ever hopes to notice the beauty that truly does linger in our everyday world. And that is what I hope to be able to offer an audience.

These masked characters that we are creating through our collaborative effort are hyperboles. They are as much cartoons as they are children. They live their lives in a constant state of self and external discovery and every action they perform is the most important thing in the world to them at that moment. Honestly, for these characters, everything they do is a matter of life or death. For instance, a masked character could be walking down the street happy as can be just to be walking and then smell a pie. Suddenly, he is overcome with hunger and if he is not able to eat that pie immediately he will think death is imminent.

I want to give the audience of this show a chance to relax for an hour. A chance to forget about that paper due on Friday or that snide comment your friend said to you two days ago. I want to offer the spectator (and I hate to use that word for I hope to find a way to make them more alive within both the creation and the development of the show) a chance to live like the masks life. Moment to moment. Sure you're sad your grandma died. But there's a puppy to play with! Yes, you're sad because you failed your grad school entrance exam. But there's a three-legged race going on!!!

How we manage to do this will be the difficulty of the art. But there is room in the argument for the purpose of theatre that says that theatre can be used to relieve stress. It can be used to relive our childhood. It can be used to reinvigorate our imaginations, for without those, we have truly lost our connection to the limitless possibilities our world has to offer.