Final Reflection on Collaborative Project

Helen and I worked well together on this project. I think the final script reflected both my and Helen’s strengths as writers. We were mostly on the same page when it came to writing character dialogue, though I took a slightly larger role in determining the wording of the more significant beats and turning points. We decided on the sets and lighting together. Helen picked out most of the props, in particular the things on sale in the shop scenes and the clothes Lucretia looks at in Scene 3; the suitcase in Scene 4 was my idea. With both the sets and props, we wanted to include only just as much as we needed to get the point of each scene across, in order to save time setting scenes up.
The two songs featured in the piece, the one I hummed as I exited Scene 2 and the instrumental that played during the final scene, were chosen by me. I think the ending song, originating from the soundtrack of a video game I like, perfectly fits the ethereal, melancholy mood of that scene. The song I hummed was meant to be the chorus of the song “Come Hang Out” by AJR; I chose it because the lyrics are about the singer being too focused on work to hang out with his friends, which is very reminiscent of Lucretia’s characterization. If I’d thought about it more in advance I might have had the original song, preferably an acoustic cover if one existed to sell the idea that Jess was the one playing it, play over the sound system to make its inclusion more significant.
In earlier drafts, I was playing two characters, Lucretia’s roommate and an unnamed, older, returning customer at her shop. I never really figured out how I wanted to play the customer character, other than them being generally polite to Lucretia, and so I think it’s for the better that that character was cut. When playing Lucretia’s roommate, Jess, I went for a laid-back vibe to contrast with Lucretia’s uptight no-nonsense attitude. I did my best to show that Jess does genuinely like Lucretia, and is not a malicious person, but is still manipulative, irresponsible, and unreliable. If I was not also working on my role in the school musical, I would have spent time adding more nuance to Jess, but I think my performance was still satisfactory at the end of the day.
The idea we were trying to impart with this piece is that it is important to strike a balance between working to secure your future and enjoying yourself in the moment. Lucretia is admirable for working hard to make a living and achieve her dream job, but she is so focused on that that she does not care for herself emotional well being in the meantime. Jess was a burden, not actively working towards her dream and generally not pulling her weight in the relationship, but as soon as she leaves, Lucretia is totally alone; she has never found it worth the time or effort to seek out and forge any other friendships. I think we were able to get this across to the audience, particularly through Helen’s monologue in the second to last scene.