Journal

=//**Theatre Journal**//=

Entry 29: December 10, 2009 This was the final editing session, and we finally got to watch the whole thing from start to finish. We are officially done with our project and it is ready for conversion to other mediums and potentially, entrance into various contests. It is relatively short at 4'58. It turned out that we had repeated Morgan's scene as Madame Cassandra twice, once and then immediately after it and had never bothered to watch all the way through to the end to find this out. We added the titles and transitions between all the sections of the movie, though when we attempted to show our handywork to Mr. Hadley, we found that in full screen we could not see these titles or transitions. And we even had gotten popcorn ready for the occasion...

Entry 28: December 8, 2009 Today, we had begin to include Geoff and Morgan's bit, as well as tidying up the rest of the piece. Our movie has fully and finally moved away from anything Brecht would have authorized. Except for the very first scene, there is no mention of Brecht and no obvious use of his techniques. This is not a problem though, as it was always expected that Brecht would take a backseat role to our (or maybe my) original vision. I have a terrible domineering effect on groups in which, through manipulation, bribery, and tears I get what I want. Nonetheless, the whole piece looks well done, but for a trailer it is not particularly exciting and it is definitely much too long, clocking in at 6'39. However, next class we can probably edit the piece and get it under five minutes.

Entry 27: December 6, 2009 After reviewing what we had, we knew we needed to get more footage and we decided that the next two interviews could include elements of the supernatural to spice up our trailer. We wanted to add more mystery to the set up--to balance out the two scientific types that Phil and I played. Geoff decided that he would play a rogue demon hunter, primarily because he was interested in wearing a long black coat that he found in the costume room. Morgan on the other hand, we decided would play a psychic who could supposedly speak with Girl 38. We did the shots of Geoff in the store room, with a lot of metal around him to give a sort of steampunk/Blade-esque look. We also made him take his shirt off and wear a large number of chains that we found in the room, because what kind of demon hunter would he be unless he had some sort of chain hanging around his neck. We also gave him a medallion and pliers to squeeze. He spoke mainly about his life as a rogue demon hunter and there were only a few usable clips that related to Girl 38. Though we are shooting a trailer about her, it is easy to get off topic. Morgan, aka Madame Cassandra the psychic, was shot against the very nice red felt background of the lighting booth. She was dressed up in the way that you might expect a crazy woman to dress, with wild hair and (my personal favorite) a Pheonix Suns hat that Phil found in the costume room. Her character was difficult to hear and we figured that she would work fine for individual splices of shot without a large focus on what she actually had to say. Morgan did not speak loud enough into the microphone that it got lost. Also, we pretended that there were spirits in the room around us and she began freaking out.

Entry 27: December 4, 2009 [ON THE WEEKEND!] Morgan's Independent Project was on Grotowski, a Polish theatre practitioner famous for his focus on physicality. This focus lead to extremely intensive training sessions and even in this independent project was a little bit grueling considering how out of shape I am. We spent a few minutes jumping around to Donny Osmond singing "I'll Make a Man Out of You" and I was already in pain. I can only imagine what actor's in Grotowski's own workshop had to go through. The most enjoyable portion of the session for me was the final bit in which we were expected to take a story and intepret it in our own way with a focus on physicality. We had to perform the typical Judeo-Christian Gospel story in which God cast Adam and Eve out of Eden after eating the apple of knowledge. As Nabra pointed out, in Grotowski's method, there seem to be many similarities to dance, which Morgan agreed with, saying on that Grotowski would have complained about the uncompromising attitude which some dancers may take to their activity. Grotowski on the other hand was more interested in properly expressing the emotion, whatever that is, on stage and if dance is appropriate then it is to be used.

Entry 26: December 2, 2009 [School closure] Today, again with the school being closed, the HL theatre class, a few assorted others, and myself went through Philip's Independent Project, so that he would not have to reschedule it to another day. What he chose to do had many similarities to what we tried to do with the younger kids. Therefore, it felt repetitive to me, but he did introduce two new ideas to our original scheme. The first was the addition of the game in which you pass something around and everyone has to speak either a question or an answer or both (in this case it was "what is it?" "its a pen" "what is it?" "its a pen" "what is it" "its a pen" "oh, its a pen"--highlighting the Absurdist emphasis on repetition). Also, he added a game in which you have to say phrases and do actions in different orders, which calls to mind the Absurdist desire to abandon the Aristotelian regularity of plot structure and maybe Taratino it once in a while.

Entry 25: November 30, 2009 [School closure] Despite the school closure, the upperclassmen came into theatre to do Da Sol's Independent Project on Augusto Boal. I admittedly have never had much exposure to Boal but I didn't like him. Understanding his background gave me an insight into why his theatre was the way that it was, but it still seemed oversimplified. I mean, the guy basically blamed Aristotle for oppressing the unprivileged masses. Me, being the diehard Nietzschean that I am could not appreciate his anachronistic dichotomy--especially given my interest in the Theatre of the Absurd. Also, it was difficult for me to connect what Da Sol was telling us to do to Boal's own theory. I didn't think that enough attempt at connection was made, and she should know that we don't mind getting into the nitty-gritty of theatre philosophy.

Entry 24: November 22, 2009 The first session of editing took place, which mainly involved getting all the necessary pieces to begin a story. I believe that this should be a sort of trailer, and as such, only hints at what will happen during the rest of the film. It is important that it is exciting as well. I also did the voice over which will be heard at the very beginning of the film. It was made clear during this editing portion that we will need more interviews at the very least. Four or five more would be ideal, but given our limited resources we will have to do with maybe 2 or 3 more. I know that we can at least include new characters for Geoff and Morgan.

Entry 23: November 20, 2009 Philip's character was something to behold, and it absolutely killed Geoff (who knows Philip for the comedic genius that he is). We shot him as Dr. Von Hindenburg, a child psychologist, and he put on a faux German/French accent (we were not sure at points during the shooting which he actually was, though it is clear that he attempted to make it sound German words like "impossible" sounded distinctly french). Geoff played Lilland Jensen, a reporter from CNBC news who had come to visit Dr. Von Hindenburg and get his take on the issue of Girl 38. At one point, the dance studio came on and we got philip to shout at them in his German accent. I couldn't continue shooting for laughing so hard--Morgan had to do it. The actual shooting was done outside the theatre near the ramp and in the theatre seats. It is my belief that a lot of times, documentaries are shot inside theatres. We are continuing our march away from Brecht, whom I never really enjoyed all that much--though my opinion is changing. The further changing of the scene, espcially off the stage makes the documentary more realistic and closer to my original vision but further away from Brecht's intentions. We are moving in our own direction!

Entry 22: November 18, 2009 Today, we shot my character, a criminologist from an unspecified university. His name is Dr. Anthony Prometheus and he speaks about the case in a very scientific manner, bringing up some of the evidence on the case. Like the previous bit, this takes place as an interview between Morgan and me. Interviews of this sort are meant to create a variety of perspectives on the case of Girl 38. Prometheus brings up the hard facts, and refuses to see beyond what can be seen in front of his eyes--taking a very skeptical view. Hopefully later on, we can introduce characters that believe that Girl 38 is a sort of supernatural creature. We did not shoot this scene on the stage, but instead we shot it in a small room adjoining the stage. This change of scene serves to hamper the Brechtian nature of the production, because it introduces an element of reality in the piece. We attempted to accomodate for this by reading out some of our stage directions. Also, Dr. Prometheus helps bring in the recording of the song we were expected to include in the piece. We decided that the Girl placed a creepy 911 call before she burned down the house.

Entry 21: November 16, 2009 Today, we did the filming of the very first scene with the Firemen. It was good to finally break out the cameras and start shooting. We had Da Sol operating a camera on a tripod, filming Philip as a reporter while Geoff and I run across to put out the "fire". This section will most likely form the very first part of the film. The fire was interesting in that it is merely through a projector, which is projecting a YouTube image of a fire onto the large blank screen, combined with red lighting. The shooting took longer than it should have, especially with the knowledge that we will most likely use on a small portion of it in the final film. It was shot in a very Brechtian style, in which we attempted to make it clear that we were indeed not approaching a fire, but were merely on an empty stage.

Entry 20: November 10, 2009 We finally put the capstones on our narrative (in the Brechtian style anyways). We finalized our freezeframes. The first freeze frame is the reporter coming onto the scene and seeing the little girl for the first time. Morgan plays Girl 38, Eli and Geoff play firefighters, Philip plays the reporter, and Eli also plays the cameraman. Brecht seems to have taken more than a few liberties with his work, in terms of presentation, but I'm not sure he would have been fine with one person playing two roles. Maybe he would have been. I am not sure. The second frame is speaking with Dr. Prometheus, a criminologist. He brings evidence to light, which is largely just childrens toys. The final frame is an interview with Dr. Von Hindenburg, a German psychologist who runs a school for children. He does a short psycho-analysis of Girl 38, bringing several theories to light. We decided that we would do one documentary in the style of Bertolt Brecht and another in the manner that we originally envisaged it. Once we finished our work on the freeze frames, we performed this exercise in which we spoke in third person, going through our three freeze frames. For example, I would say something to the effect of "the Cameraman assures the Reporter that his hair looks great", as if I were reading out stage directions. Brecht himself had some actors read out their stage directions to remind the audience that they are indeed watching a play and not watching real life. In a weird turn of events, the day ended with a strange emergency. We went into the costume room to pick out the costumes that we are going to use for the documentary, and suddenly we hear an alarm going off. Mariam rushes us out of the costume room and onto the field. At first I assume that it is a drill, but there is no one else out on the field, so we realize that it is not a drill but rather an actual fire. I couldn't help but enjoy the irony of the whole situation--we were talking about fire for three days and then the theatre gods felt that they had to grant us our wish (ostensibly).

Entry 19: November 8, 2009 - made up song using the lyrics from Pop Goes the Weasel (cockney slang) - began thinking of freeze frames This theatre class began with an unusual request to make up a children's rhyme that describes our narrative. We chose "Pop! Goes the Weasel" (if we thought our prompt was creepy, it was because we had never seen this rendition of "Pop! Goes the Weasel": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7A2XtRaKUU. As a commenter said, can anyone say "stranger danger?"). According to Mr. Hadley, Pop! Goes the Weasel is cockney slang for pawning off one's Sunday best. The thing about nursery rhymes is that they are always associated with children and the innocence of children and it is extremely fitting since our whole idea plays with the possibility of children as being less innocent than they may seem. We wrote lyrics to our idea, but I am not satisfied with it. I don't think that the girl's motives should be so explicit "my parents made me clean my room/I didn't want to/I really showed them/I set my house on fire". It is more ominous if we do not know why the girl is smiling (as someone in the class said, it is a Mona Lisa smile because it is unclear what is actually is). We know we want to include a recorded version of this song in our skit, because, as mentioned above, little kid songs can be very creepy in the right situations. We figured it would be the last 911 call placed before the fire, and before the parents bodies were dug out. However, I am in favor of using the regular lyrics because I feel like it is more strange and ominous if its just a nursery rhyme and nothing else.

Entry 18: November 4, 2009 To began by us finding out that MS drama had been fully cancelled. Thats just great. The lesson continued and we worked on our narratives for Girl 38. It is a slow going process. Having a lot of people during the developmental stage is both a blessing and curse. A blessing in that there is more input from different people, but a curse in that you have to synthesis many different ideas into a cohesive whole. It could come out looking like a bloated monster if you try to fit too much in. Our narrative was furthered in that we decided that this girl would be largely a complete mystery. We worked out the who, what, where, when, why. The girl would be 9-10 and there would be no record of her going to school, but there is a birth certificate and we decided that her real name would be "Nika". The house would be a regular house, but the neighbors would assert that they had never ever seen this girl. This documentary will naturally draw from the horror movie likes of Chucky, Paranormal Activity, Blaire Witch Project, as well as this cheesy one I own called Night Skies (about UFOs, as I am disturbingly interested in ufology). (**Note, added posthumously: Paranormal Activity Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UxLEqd074; influence on my ideas for this production**)

Entry 17: November 2, 2009

Today, we began by watching a set of YouTube clibs describing the life and times of Bertolt Brecht, a theatre practitioner from the early to mid 20th century. He was interested in the political and social commentary aspects of theatre, no doubt the effect of his Marxist teachings. His theatre seems to me to be largely a reaction to the realist, naturalist theatre put forth by practitioners like Stanislavsky. Not entirely I suppose because many of the realists were concerned with social considerations. Brecht seems to be concerned with the social power of the theatre, to provide information in a manner that does not reduce what is being seen on stage to a mere fantasy. From my understanding, Brecht wanted viewers to see that though what they were seeing on stage was a reenactment, what they saw did indeed happen in real life. In fact, the counterintuitive nature of his method of social commentary (showing an obviously falsified reenactment to incite the audience to know that what they were watching was the truth) in many ways, has solified his position as an authoritative voice of social commentary and as an inventive dramatist. Work sheets were handed out to help explain some of the difficulties of Brecht. The second half of the lesson was that we were put in groups and were given a stimulus with which we were to create a story. We were given a creepy picture of a little girl smiling in front of a burning house. The idea that jumped into all of our minds (or at least mine) was that of a documentary where we explain that this girl is basically an unknown. The specifics do not have to be worked out. The point would be that the audience does not know who the little girl is exactly, yet there are many conspiracy theories. It would great to have Philip as a German professor of some sort. We also had the idea of attaching many important fire words to characters and places in the narrative, as little information tidbits. We decided that the girl would be known as "Girl 38" because the fire truck is fire truck 38. We are going to be filming this piece when it is finished, which is where we got the idea to do a documentary.

Entry 16: October 29, 2009 In the Theatre again once more, after our extended hiatus from the source of our strength. We began by going back over our practice group PPP, in which I was in a group with Morgan, Nabra, and Geoff. Morgan had written everything that we had discussed out and presented us with a list of where we could take our play. We decided that the work should end with the death of the Id (in Freudian terms), or the death of the soul in a way. It would work out that the soul and spirit are crushed at the end of the place. Our performance would be sparse, with very little on the stage, except for maybe a chair or two at any given time (**Note, added posthumously: in retrospect, it is very Brechtian**). The only two characters who would have speaking lines would be person A and person B, who would not have names but it would be clear that person A is the one that exists in the real world while person B is the Id or the mind. There would be spotlights on the two people at all times in the show. Otherwise, there would not be much light at all, to give a certain dream like quality to the entire production, because the action is meant to exist in the mind of Person A. The stage would jutting out, to give a more personal feel to the production. We also heard from the other groups. The ideas of Philip's group really impressed me. The idea that there would be some 30 people on stage. Their idea for the Man is extremely inventive, but the actual staging of it would be difficult (particularly when you have to "suck" people into the Man).

Entry 15: October 27, 2009 We were back in Room 38, which is not a room that I particularly like. It is out of the way, cramped, unappealing. Mrs. Yendel came and spoke quickly about MS Drama. We got in our little groups and spoke about the props we will need for MS Drama, which include flash cards, and the stimuli. We still have not written out our flash cards which means that we will have to do that at some point this week to prepare for the weekend. When we were done with this bit of business, we got into groups (my group was myself, Morgan, Nabra, and Geoff) and began discussion about the PPP, which will be done by both the Advanced Actors (I think there are three of us) and the IB theatre class. The period of explanation left a few doubts as to what the PPP will actually entail, but I think I have a grasp of it. For our stimulus, we chose a paintings by Frida Kahlo, entitled "Le Due Frida". I have never liked her work and this really is no exception. From this work, we took primarily the image of duality. In particular, the duality of a person, as shown by the two halves of Frida in this picture holding hands. We interpreted the Frida in the white dress to be the soul, while the Frida that is dressed more casually is the outer self. We explored the idea of dopplegangers (the German myth about the spiritual self) and other selves existing out in the real world, but we didn't find anything that we liked until we had the idea of having multiple personalities existing inside the person's head. We had the idea of a two person play, with only those two characters existing on stage. Yet the still interact with other darkened characters the most important action takes place inside the mind of the characters. It would a largely dialogue driven play. We could not figure out what might cause the two sides to split, which would be the only way that this show could end. It would have to end with the death or submission of one side or the other. Also, at some point, Morgan was able to tie this back to "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" but for the life of me I cannot remember how.



Entry 14: October 25, 2009 Today, we went to Room 38 because the Theatre was being used. All in all, it was a slow day. We talked about both Middle School Drama, which was rescheduled, and about the Research Investigation. The Research Investigation looks tough, and as an Advanced Actor, I am more than a little glad that it is just something that I will have to watch. Also, we read and analyzed the quality work of a "certain former CAC student". Philip, Nadia and I were in a group and I think we were a little too harsh in our criticism. The essay was good, but there were definitely areas where undue praise is not needed.

Entry 13: Kenickie, High School Musical "Grease" When I tried out for Grease, I had only watched portions of the whole thing. I got the cast list, and the only character that really stood out was Kenickie because that name is great. I feel like I cheated because my competition didn't exactly exude the necessary masculinity to accurately portray the Greasers of my imagination. There needs to be a toughness that I felt was lacking, as a lot of the people who tried out were either young or young-looking. So I played that up during the audition process as much as I could, during the singing and the acting. Well, I take it back, the acting not so much, because I wanted to do Hamlet. Hamlet is the only character I've ever really wanted to act on stage and to this day I have not had the opportunity to. Also, he sounded like the best character to actually play on stage--I mean, who doesn't want to play a tough, surly Greaser? Plus, there are a lot of ways to work a character whose description includes the line "has an off-beat sense of humor". I find myself in good company.

Entry 12: Write-Up, IB Theatre Night IB theatre night was a success by anyone's definition. Our goal of getting the audience out of their box from the outset was a great success. From my podium I could not see much of how everything was going on, but I saw whole lines of cattle listening to Kareem ramble, which I thought was hilarious. Would Stanislavsky have been proud? I doubt it, but it was a weird mixture of absurdism (my child) and Stanislavsky. I feel like explaining the super objectives was greatly simplified when they saw it in the context of that little production. Which is how I felt the whole night was--a little production. Our little pre-IB Theatre Night rituals solidified many of the traditions that I hope to carry on to the future. The little pre-game warm-ups are an integral part of any good showing, be it sport or otherwise and our dramatic stretches certainly pumped me up. Doing theatre without an audience is an unusual experience, because there is less strain on putting on a show than otherwise. More on this later. The whole Theatre Night was as chaotic as I expected it would be. Knowing that we had never actually successfully gone through all of our workshops. I thought the visualization was a lot more relaxing than the last time, even though I still maintain that Da Sol should not be the one who should be reading it--her voice is not exactly relaxing. The recall thing, with the objects was a complete failure, and it bored people. And, it was a little difficult to pull off tying together Creative Mood to anything, really. Actually during ours, I noticed that Nadia tended to dominate the conversation. She is not good at the whole sharing is caring thing (chances are, she is an only child). I feel bad that we were all so scared of her dad. Beyond these few minor complaints, I think on the whole, the night was a success. Not even the fact that Mr. Hadley didn't allow the light people to do their thing put a damper on this experience.


 * Quarter 1**:

Entry 11: October 8, 2009 On this fine day, we began by meeting in our groups to discuss our Stanislavsky workshops. I met with Nadia and Anita both at the same time for the first time. Nadia has been MIA recently and it has made group discussion difficult. We are not entirely sure what we are going to do because explaining Tempo-Rhythm and Creative Mood are not easy subjects to tackle. Creative Mood especially seems difficult for me to handle. I feel, is not something that can be the focus of a experiment but somehow needs to be shown. Our ideas for the larger workshop promise that we are going to have an exciting IB theatre night that may generate enough interest for people to actively want to come to the next one. Plus, if this is a success, we will be more willing to put the necessary effort in to make every Theatre Night a success.

Entry 10: October 6, 2009: //Notes on Theatre of the Absurd// In this day and age, a discussion of the Absurd seems to me to be more important than any discussion of realism. Though realism is not dead, culturally, studying the Absurdists will better acquaint us with popular culture. Over my break in London, I read the play "Rhinoceros" by Eugene Ionesco. A biting social commentary, and one that left a deep impression on me. The use of simple imagery in the text to convey a complex idea on stage seemed to me marvelous. The depiction of the absurd as being normal--the flipping--would no doubt have impressed the philosopher and writer Albert Camus as well. These men were all trying to note the inherent ridiculousness of our lives and, in the case of "Rhinoceros", in our attempt to "fit in" with our neighbors. Visually, the practices adopted by men like Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, or Tom Stoppard all resonate today. Especially it seems in the making of music videos. This video by Men at Work clearly point to some absurdist practices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNT7uZf7lew. Plus, its a catchy toon. Also recently, I watched the film "After Hours", directed by famed director Martin Scorcese. The use of changing time sequences, repeated dialogue, the abandonment of logic all recall the great Absurdist works of the 40s and 50s. The trailer alone gives an unearthly feeling and we can have no doubt that Scorcese looked to Esslin's crew for advice in this work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLHM-wPecz0. The whole movie can be seen in that trailer. And I love how that sweet swing music plays innocently in the background as this guy describes a horrible night. Well worth watching.

Entry 9: September 27, 2009 I come back and everything is in chaos. No Middle School Drama, no more performing Ibsen, and now we are doing a workshop related to Stanislavski. HUH?? Well, the theatre class on September 27 was pretty slow. All that really happened was that we went on the computers and worked on our workshop materials on theemptyspaces. I am working with Nadia and Anita, but Nadia was incognito (with some infection that escapes me at the moment). I did not go back to theatre class after that, as it was not required. I do not think I was missed. I am disappointed about the MS Drama, but thankfully it was only moved to a later date. November is going to be a full month.

Entry 8: September 13, 2009 We began with a Stanislavski exercise, involving two people. The first person was required to attempt to leave the scene by politely saying "I want to go", while the second person was to politely ask them to stay by saying "I want you to stay". Those two lines made up the entire act, repeated over and over. The first characters had the idea that only one way was open to leave from (stage left), but Chris changed the rules simply exiting stage right. Stephanie and I had a go at it and I was shown up. The cardinal sin: I flubbed my line by telling her I wanted her to go (I was the accomodating host I guess). GAH! Then, we looked over realism further, and received very helpful hand-outs that cleared up everything that was confusing about it. As I said before, it is unusual that this type of theatre took so long. The Greeks it seems were too caught up in their whole pantheon to worry about person X buying food from person Y or what have you. We read over some plays, but having come to no conclusion, I believe that we voted for Mr. Hadley to decide which plays we chose. In the end, I was relegated "A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen, which I have not read [**Note, added posthumously: we are not actually performing any of these**]. I was instructed to direct, which excited me. I believe that, though I do not have the "professional" experience that some of the other members of the class have, I am ready to take on any task that is set before, and with relish. The idea of directing suits me, because I much prefer to give directions than to receive them. And the idea of directing two actors as good as Nadia and Morgan would make anyone a director. Again, I have never read "A Doll's House" and I can make not head nor tail of this sinister trailer of a performance that was slated for June 2008 in New York City: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvMNBzNC2rk

Entry 7: September 11, 2009 Today, we performed our open scenes one after the other. It is probably not great that Phil and I are in the same class because I function best with him and we can (and maybe are) glued at the hip. He is a great actor and anytime we get to work together, ideas usually bounce off one another pretty easily. Our first open scene was performing as two old ladies at a carnival. I was a nasty old hag who dumped dirt in his pie or whatever he was eating. Much to my chagrin, he enjoyed it and I was openly disgusted and secretly frustrated by being foiled. In the second version of the open scene we performed, we were both workmen in some steel company in Pennsylvania. I was busy trying to turn this wheel but Philip's character was slacking off. Tired out, I got him to try and left to check on something else/get a drink of water. He injured himself nearly upon touching the machine. Coming back, he blatantly lied to me and I got mad. Long story short, we picked a couple of winners. After everyone performed our open scenes we all went to the library, to look up realist plays by men such as Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, and George Bernard Shaw. Ibsen is considered the first of the great realists. I found this site to be particularly helpful when exploring where the ideas of realism came from, not only in theatre but in the arts in general: http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/spd130et/realism.htm. I am an visual arts student as well as a theatre student and it is plain to see that changes in the one often preceded changes in the other. I personally looked through relatively arcane texts by Ibsen and I didn't see anything that caught my eye. My understanding of realism is still limited, but I am coming to understand that it is a sort of slice of life type theatre. It is theatre that cannot be removed from its place and time, much like hippies or muskets. It is incredible that it took over two thousands years of theatre before we decided that playwrights should focus on prevalent social issues (in this respect, we can see that realism is clearly influenced by thinkers like Karl Marx). Finally, I was handed two plays by August Wilson, the first entitled "Fences" and the second entitled "Joe Turner's Come and Gone", both depicting tragic aspects of African-American life (which is largely the focus of August Wilson). Also, the importance of Constatin Stanislavski cannot be ignored. His ideas about finding psychological truth on the theatre stage have influenced many generations of theatre practitioners and many cinema actors.
 * Note, added posthumously:** because Stan the Man is the focus of our IB theatre night, his ideas are going to be at the forefront of our discussion

Entry 6: September 6+8, 2009 Over these two days, we went through yet more Middle school drama workshops. Writing in retrospect, it is difficult for me to remember exactly what transpired (admitting my own limitations, aren't I a card?). The three that stuck with me the most was the mime workshop, the Shakespeare workshop, and the workshop related to improvisation, in that order. I was impressed with the mime workshop because they were attempting something that struck me as being difficult. Its easy to slide by but good theatre does not come out of laziness. The idea that they could have an entirely mute session really stood out as a good idea. However, knowing middle schoolers for what they are (I too was one of these) it seems impossible. Plus, besides this novel first idea, they were extremely vague about what the actual goal of their session was. The Shakespeare workshop seemed like it would work with a younger audience, in particular the bit about insults which, as Mr. Hadley noted, would not be so unusual to find out on the playground. Mr. Hadley, Karma and I performed an interesting routine in which we changed the famous bubbling cauldron scene from the Scottish play into a cooking show. There was some confusion as what that particular exercise exactly entailed, because on one side it was intended as being someone reinterpreting the Shakespeare into something new and unusual (like a cooking show) and on the other hand it was someone "dumbing down" the immortal bard so as to be understood by the kids. Improvisational humor always impresses me and the ability to stand up and be funny is one that seems to me to be a useful one. However, it is a rare person that can get up and be funny with no preparation and to teach that is no easy thing. I was trawling YouTube for a funny clip relating to improvisational humor and frankly, it seems to be largely a dead art. Their activities were relatively common improv games, that will be very suitable for younger kids. Either way, I am looking forward to hearing how the middle schoolers improvise. This is a site that I have found to be useful in terms of finding games and understanding the underlying concepts of improvisational theatre (its a little tacky): http://www.learnimprov.com/

Entry 5: September 4, 2009 Philip and I jumped right into our MS drama workshop with the Theatre class, and it dealt with the Theatre of the Absurd. It is divided up into three parts. The first part is an introduction where we explain what the theatre of the absurd is, provide some examples, and give a general framework for the students to work with. The second part, we do a few games to get them thinking in the right mindset. I think to understand the Theatre of the Absurd, you have to be thinking in a slightly disjointed way to begin with, able to take all sorts of madness in stride. Our two drama games are the nonsense game and the illogic game. We worked out some of the kinks within these two games. In the nonsense game, we thought it might an interesting addition to get the other groups to guess what the performers did, and to give out the given circumstances on flash cards as opposed to just saying them out loud to maintain this air of mystery. The illogic game was a momentary point of confusion between Philip and I, though I believe we worked out the problem. Philip thought for a moment that your voice should portray the emotion, though all I really meant was that the words are what are supposed to give that impression. Finally, we moved onto our third and final part, which involved the use of stimuli. Once again, my genius idea to use a dead fish as a stimuli was shot down by dear Mr. Hadley. However, he suggested the wonderful alternative of a dried squid and I was satisfied. My prerequisite for the items used would be that the items can have no real practical purpose. Phil and I looked in the storeroom for some weird props and we came up with an oar, a train lever, and giant spring. Weird enough objects I think. Also, we decided that we would come up with one prerequisite for each object, like "you cannot row with the oar" &etc. We gave one strange object to each group and then sat back and saw what they came up with. I was duly impressed with it, as each group managed to hit on at least one aspect of the Theatre of the Absurd from the simple instructions we gave them and their own intuition. I think it will work well. We took about 40 or 50 minutes which is well over the time limit, so we'll have to cut that down in a large way. With the remaining time, we all picked partners and sketched ideas for an open scene to be performed the following class. Philip and I came up with two old ladies at a county fair taste-testing competition, nastily putting down anyone who had the bad luck to bring them food.

Entry 4: September 1, 2009 Again, we sojourned to room 80, as the theatre was being filled by the milling morass of middle school students. In room 80, we began with a tiny bit of stretching courtesy of Phil, and then played the very typical drama game "Freeze". My personal favorite impression came from Phil's dirty old man. My main problem with that game is that usually somebody with interrupt you right as things start to develop, or at least that’s how it worked out this time for me. After playing "Freeze", we began a discussion of Stanislavsky (again). Well, discussion is the wrong word to use, as we had no part in the discussion part, due to our lack of knowledge. I suppose that’s the sad thing about the theatre, or most of the arts rather--most of the students who enter the class enter with a complete ignorance of its history and practices, in a way that a subject like History or Math would never have to endure. Either way, we discussed Stanislavsky's Ten Steps, as determined by Barton (whose first name escapes me). In particular, this lesson was devoted to two aspects: "given circumstances" and "through-line of action". To explain these, we each were divvied up into groups of two comprised of one male and one female and we ran performed the dialogue on the script. But this was not just any script: it was in two columns, on one side you have the characters actions and dialogue and on the opposite column you had the intention of the action or the dialogue. This was to help us understand what we were trying to portray with each action. Upon it being performed, I have to admit I was deeply impressed with Nadia I'm happy to say, even though she was not my partner.

Entry 3: August 30, 2009 This was a slow day. We began by talking about Stanislavsky and his feelings about what became anglicized as "mental readiness". Or something like that. The exact name the feeling was given escapes me. I am just getting used to discussing theatre with the area-specific vocabulary. To achieve this readiness, we were told to begin by doing yoga stretches, led by Mr. Hadley. These mainly served to relax the limbs and joints. After this, the class laid down on the ground and we did a sort of mental relaxation exercise, where we imagined that we were being submerged in a vat of nice, warm water, among other things. Very relaxing. For the second part of the lesson, we gathered into little groups and wrote definitions to "What is Theatre?", "What is Acting?", and "How Do You Develop a Character?". I worked with Da Sol, Geoff, and Karma. Unlike the other groups, we each wrote a little answer to at least two of the questions, and I myself answered "What is Acting?" and "How Do You Develop a Character?". I believe we are going to see these at the end of the year--it will be interesting to see the mental progression I will have made, if any.

Entry 2: August 26, 2009 For this lesson we absconded to the Middle school, because the floor was being used by the dance class. In room 80, we were all set up to watch some YouTube videos and then make Laban notes about them. The projector was making everything difficult and we were unable to do this because the internet connection didn't seem to process fast enough. Instead, we gathered in groups to think about our MS Drama classes. I was working with Philip and we discussed a number of ideas. We got to talking about various forms of theatre and we chanced upon the idea of making our MS Drama session be a form of living theatre, in which the kids are direct participants in a theatre production. I mentioned the book __The Wave__, by Todd Strasser, and we thought about bringing the kids in and forcing them to endure a sort of fascist dictatorship. I forget how we connected this to a theatre practice--I suppose probably didn't. We eventually decided on trying to do an expose about the theatre of the absurd, and there are a number of interesting drama games that can explain some of the thinking behind absurdist theatre.

= = Entry 1: August 24, 2009 Today, we continued our discussion of Laban. We were further introduced to his unique style of notation, especially combinations of speed, weight, and space that formed relatively common combinations. These combinations were given specific descriptive names such as “pressing” or “floating”. It was interesting because I felt that the descriptors gave an accurate depiction of the action. Of all of them, “wringing” stuck out in my mind because the fast, heavy, and curved combination really did seem like wringing. Another interesting point to make: though words like “fast” and “curved” seem vague enough to allow for many different interpretations, it seems like many people had similar ideas about what it looked like. I allow though that people may have observed other people and acted accordingly. Another point: I noticed that some people did not want to play the game, which bothered me. Second, we performed a little skit in which all of the characters had to run though at least three of Laban’s combinations, taken from a sheet we were given. My character did “pressing”, “wringing”, and “floating”. Finally, we ran through what we had learned about the teacher we observed. I had chosen Mr. DeWolfe and I performed a farcical representation of what he does. I was told to watch his hips. Seeing him later, he does sort of swing them from side to side. It is going to be a challenge to accurately recreate that.