Practice Monologue Link & Reflection

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One of the things I focused on for this project was figuring out where the pauses in my speech should be. I could not always have them in the most natural places, because it would make the song structure of the original text more evident. The length of the pauses was also important. Making them too long disrupts the flow of scene and makes the audience uncomfortably awkward, or could give the impression that you forgot your line; but pauses that are too short can go entirely unnoticed and does not provide enough time for a clear shift in emotion.

Since I already had most of the monologue memorized in song form, my other biggest concern was the staging of it. At first, I was not sure how to frame the scene, which in its original form is a mother talking to her son, as a monologue with only me on screen. I considered directly addressing the audience, but it did not feel personal enough; I considered saying it to an invisible person on stage with me, but it was awkward and had me facing away from the audience. I eventually chose to frame this as the mom talking to herself after looking at a photo album that reminded her of when her son was younger, which avoided the pitfalls of the other options.

If I were to do it again, I would try to involve some more physicality like Rei did in his monologue. I would also want to start speaking at a higher volume so the audience could move clearly understand me (and then adjust the rest of my volume accordingly).

Twelfth Night at YaleRep Review

I saw YaleRep’s production of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, directed by Carl Cofield, last Wednesday, starring Moses Ingram as Viola, William DeMeritt as Orsino, and Tiffany Denise Hobbs as Olivia. The play is a comedy of mistaken identity. After being shipwrecked in the strange country of Illyria, Viola disguises herself as a man named Cesario to get a position working for Orsino, who has his heart set on marrying Olivia. While trying to court Olivia for Orsino, Viola falls for Orsino herself, and Olivia falls for Cesario. Things only get more complicated when Olivia’s twin brother Sebastian arrives and the other characters confuse him and Cesario for each other. Meanwhile, the play gets additional comedy out of a subplot involving Olivia’s family and servants messing with each other. It plays with themes of gender and class.
What makes this production unique is how it was influenced by the afrofuturism movement. This is obvious from the first scene, where Orsino is shown using a VR set that projects images of Olivia.

The other major uses of futuristic technology in the show are when VR is used in a second scene to torture Malvolio (a scene I found legitimately uncomfortable in a way that robbed it of its comedy), the voice effects applied to the fool Feste’s voice when he sings, and laser swords... well, swords with blinking lights on them accompanied by a constant swooshing sound effect that got grating after a while. There was also one small moment where the currency the characters use is shown, but from as high up as I was seated, it was hard to tell what it was, and it only came up in that one scene. As cool as the effects like the one in the image above were, I think it would have been cool to weave the futuristic technology into more of the show rather than just featuring it in big scenes and music numbers, even just in subtle ways.
But there’s also the “afro” part of afrofuturism to consider, and that’s where this production shines.

The earthly colors of the minimalistic set with the pleasing gradient of colored lights behind it, and the way parts of it effortlessly slide in and out of place, almost makes the set feel like a living, breathing thing. The architecture might have stolen all of my attention if not for the incredible costumes.

The costumes, with their bright colors and intricate patterns, were beautiful and elegant. Most characters had a signature color to make it easier to tell them apart; for example, Orsino’s suits are orange and Olivia’s dresses are dark blue, two colors whose contrast symbolize the distance between the two characters. 

The music in the show perfectly fits this aesthetic. It manages to sound not only futuristic, but also atmospheric and energetic. 

It’s difficult for me to pick my favorite actor from this production. In general the comedic scenes got more of a reaction out of me and the rest of the audience than the emotional one, which I believe to be a byproduct of it being a Shakespeare show; his complex dialogue can make it difficult to follow along with plot and pick up on subtle emotion, but with proper emphasis, it’s much easier to tell which bits are supposed to be funny. As such, the comedic actors left a greater impression on me in that sense. My favorite of them was probably Maria, since she at first appears to not want to put up with the other characters’ nonsense, but she reveals herself to be just as fun loving as the rest of them. My least favorite of them would be either Malvolio, mainly because his scene at the end of Act 1 dragged on for so long, or Fabian, who gets introduced later than the others for some reason and is essentially interchangeable with the rest.

However, I never really got attached to any of those characters. So in terms of forging an emotional connection while also still being comedic, my favorite characters would be either Viola or Olivia. As someone who usually doesn’t get much out of romance stories, I think they both managed to sell the moments where they realized their romantic feelings pretty well. Olivia’s progressively aggressive attempts to flirt with Cesario were amusing, and there was something about Moses Ingram’s performance as Viola - the initial naïveté with a sharp wit and effortless charm underneath, the sympathy she shows for other characters  - that had me routing for her the whole way through.

Afrofuturism Resources

https://dribbble.com/shots/4420927-Afrofuturism

Music: http://strangesoundsfrombeyond.com/magazineitem/afrofuturism-past-meets-future/
Fashion: https://thenerveafrica.com/15438/afrofuturism-takes-fashion/
Architecture: https://nonagon.style/african-architecture-afrofuturism/
Fashion & architecture: https://www.dezeen.com/2018/04/06/african-architects-designers-championing-afrofuturism/

Collaborative Writeup

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Wnk9jW-fyj5-Nt-5-uWzbGNooqd9TnVwDBcUAF8Lms

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.

Let’s Hear it for the Kids: CA Footloose Review

I was a part of Cheshire Academy’s production of Footloose in the Black Box theater, directed by Jennifer Guarino, from March 1st through 3rd. The play, based on the 1984 film of the same name, was written by Dean Pitchford an Walter Bobbie, with music by Tom Snow. This production starred Tony Wang as Ren McCormick, Olivia Williamson as Ariel Moore, and Aaron Luo as Reverend  Shaw Moore.
The play starts with Ren and his mother moving from Chicago to the small religious town of Bomont, where a tragedy five years ago led local reverand Shaw Moore to enact a series of restrictive laws, including a ban on dancing. Unable to tone himself down and fit in, Ren resolves to challenge the law with support from fellow teens in the community, including his new best friend Willard and Reverand Moore’s rebellious daughter, Ariel. Along the way, romance blossoms between Ren and Ariel, and Shaw’s walls crumble, until Ren convinces him to abolish the law as the first step to letting go of his grief. As this production was put on by an international boarding school, the Director’s Note in the program emphasizes the angle of Ren as an outsider having to adjust to the customs of a new place. In comparison to the original Footloose movie, where Ren was played by Kevin Bacon, Tony’s portrayal definitely comes off more as an earnest, well-meaning outsider who can’t help but be honest and true to himself, rather than a semi-bad boy just looking to kick up a fuss. I personally connected with this portrayal a lot more, especially since it creates a greater contrast between Ren and Ariel’s drug-dealing high school dropout boyfriend, Chuck Cranston.
I liked how some of the costumes were color coded. Ariel and her three gal pals each had a signature color that made it easier to remember them as individuals. I really liked how, in Ren and Ariel’s first intimate scene alone together, Ren was wearing a red jacket to match Ariel’s red color scheme; I wish he had worn it in other scenes too to capitalize on that symbolism, like in their duet.
In terms of staging, I liked that there was a balance between complicated sets (the Buger Blast, Joe’s Bar & Grill) and comparatively more simple sets like the Moore home. It created a contrast between the limited, plainer world the adults of Bomont run, and the bigger, more lively world beyond their control. Like in the past few CA productions, the triangles were well utilized to set the backdrops of scenes. I particularly liked the grafittied triangles used for the train scenes; they not only served their narrative purpose well, but were also just very visually pleasing.
One thing unique to this production was an intro scene set before the play’s main plotline, showing a dance party being interrupted by a car crash outside. This is meant to represent the death of Shaw’s son, the event which led him to outlaw dancing. The addition does help set the show’s more serious undertones early on, without being as overly dramatic as showing the car crash itselfwould have been. However, because the five year timeskip in between this scene and the proper opening number is not indicated in the show itself via dialogue or the playbill, with the actors wearing the same costumes in both scenes, I worry someone unfamiliar with the story of Footloose might have been confused.
While I briefly talked earlier about Tony Wang’s portrayal of Ren, I would now like to highlight my other favorite performance in the show: Aaron Luo as Reverand Shaw. He does a lot to make the play’s antagonist, whom one might assume at first glance to just be a fun-hating bigot, nuanced and sympathetic. You could see the joy in his face when he was delivering his opening sermon, showing the passion he had for his job. He displayed multiple distinct levels of anger, allowing the tension in his scenes to build more gradually (the scene before his solo number in Act 1 being a prime example) and keeping his performance from being one note. In his final monologue, where he gives Ren permission to throw a dance, his vulnerability compared to the calm, charismatic professionalism he had worn around others up to this point was emotionally compelling and highlighted Shaw’s development. While he did not get many comedic moments, his “embarassing dad” moment in the final prom scene was adorkable and always got some laughs.
Overall, I really enjoyed the show. The cast had great energy and were consistently hillarious, with emotional performances from the leads. The music was great, with strong harmonies and vocal solos.
Footloose is an example to me of how plays do not have to stick to one tone throughout. Characters like Willard add levity to every scene they’re in, but everything to do with the Moore family had me emotionally invested. For a show I had initially assumed to be cheesy and morally simplistic, lines like “I’m sorry your father won’t ever get to know you” from Shaw to Ren hit me hard. I don’t think the balance always works; some lines that are meant to be meaningful just come off as silly to me, like “I’m becoming a mime”. However, after seeing this production, I can see why this musical is a classic.

Collaborative Devised Project Check In

The previous draft of our project mainly suffered from its length; not only did it go over the fifteen minute limit, but some of the individual scenes took too long to get to the point.
The first big change we decided to make to remedy this was to eliminate the customer character. They were intended to show how the attitude of Helen’s character, focused on working for the future and not valuing relationships with other people, ended up backfiring in a way that hurt her business, the thing she put all her time and effort into. However, because this character was only in two scenes, their subplot ended up just distracting from the main plot. As such, we decided to cut the character. The first scene will still be set in the shop, to establish Helen’s character’s dedication to her work, but we will instead use this scene to show Helen’s character meeting her roommate for the first time. On top of saving time, this change should make it clearer to the audience what Helen and her roommate saw in each other that led them to start their relationship.
The other major change we have made is combining scenes two and three, the two scenes in the apartment between Helen and her roommate. Since Scene 1 now establishes their dynamic and what they like about each other, showing how the rifts form in their relationship should only take one scene.
Beyond this, the other scenes can remain mostly the same, though we will be tightening the dialogue so that they don’t drag as much. We are confident that these changes will greatly improve our project.

Devised Project 2nd Draft Reflection

In preparing for the second draft of our project, we started by going over the script for the first draft to refine the plot. Previously we had only written down the general idea we had behind scene, but in our script analysis, we broke down each scene into the emotional beats & turning points. Though we never wrote down the dialogue line for line, clarifying the beats helped us keep on task when practicing the scenes, though, as the twenty minute draft we filmed today showed, we still have work to do in that apartment. We also need to work on not repeating the same points over and over, instead using each scene to give a slightly different perspective, so that our characters don’t become one note (in particular, I noticed as we were filming that Helen seemed to default to the word “money” when she ran out of points to make); as well as elevating our emotions over the progression of scenes.
Going back to what we have done, another significant improvement we made to this draft was the addition of lighting. I think once we have decided on the definitive starting and ending lines for each scene so that the lighting cues can be more clear, the setup we currently have will be sufficient; they keep the focus on the right sections of the stage, and the red lights that came on as Helen and I were arguing with each other, I felt, heightened the mood. We would like to add some more sound elements for the final draft: specifically, a breaking sound effect for when Helen drops the cup in scene 4 (assuming we keep that scene, which I’ll get back to later), a ringtone for when Helen’s roommate gets called in scene 2, maybe a bell sound like the kind when enetering a small store, and crowd nosies for when Helen is walking around the city in scene 7 (which we could maybe also use in scene 5, when we’re supposed to be in the mall).
Our main concern with our final draft is cutting it down from twenty minutes to 13-15. While, as I already mentioned, tightening up the dialogue should help with that, I could see us cutting a full scene or two altogether to make it short enough. While we initially decided to include the scenes of Helen at her job to display her drive for working, the customer character isn’t as well-woven into the main plot as I’d like to be, and spending the extra time to make that happen would only lengthen the work. So we may end up cutting the shop scenes to keep the focus on Helen and her roommate, though we still need to emphasize how important work is to her.

Devised Project Proposal (with Helen)

Here’s the link to the Google Doc

Reflection on Devising Workshop

I really enjoyed the devising workshop today! The texts we read through were both very interesting but in different ways. My interpretation of the mouse and cat fable unintentionally drew from my memories of playing Javert, which was cool to realize. Like the mouse, Javert is so sure of his worldview that he can’t fathom there being any exceptions to the rule. The cat only tells the mouse there was another way right before eating it. When Jean Valjean gets Javert to question his own morals, he can’t love with the implications, and so ends his own life to escape “the world of Jean Valjean”. This isn’t really related to the workshop, just a fun thing I though of but didn’t want to have to explain if I brought it up in the moment.
 Some of the movement excersizes were familiar to me from last year, but I preferred doing it with a bigger group of people and seeing what everyone else came up with. It trains you to act on your first instinct and then make it work from there, which I imagine will be useful for our devised project.
I think my favorite part of the workshop was coming up with the impossible stage directions. With mine, I wanted to capture what it feels like to not be fully engaged with the world around you, to be stuck in a mindset where everything seems inconsequential and your own being feels empty. The way I wrote it, it ended up almost like a short story or poem, and I really liked it. Going on to stage it, while incorporating other aspects of the workshop, was lots of fun. It was good to work with a slightly larger group than normal, since when we do our project, we’ll have six people throwing around ideas.
Overall, I felt like I got a lot out of this experience. I feel prepared to collaborate with my classmates and turn our ideas into a cohesive piece.

“Thinking Like a Director” Takeaways (p. 69 -94)

• A resonant approach conveys, whether overtly or subtly, why the play is being produced at that time (p. 70); it must take into account the play’s central conflict and have a point of view about its world (p. 72)
• Every production of a play is different because it is directed by a different person (p. 71)
• Production history can often be a guide to those elements of a play that are most malleable... pinpointing them is a way of reminding yourself of where you need to make dynamic choices (p. 74)
• Changing the setting tends to be more difficult in more realistic plays (p. 76)
• Recognizing conventions doesn’t require a director to follow all of them (p. 79)
• No one design can encompass all the ideas and environmental possibilities that a play suggests... overdesigning usually occurs when director and designer don’t trust the play (p. 84)
• Without the juxtaposition of some dissimilar elements, designs can become status and overbearing, confusing the story and encumbering the play with a single time (p. 85)
• Directing is often about sweating the details (p. 88), and the director continues to learn about a play as the production proceeds (p. 90)
• Light creates focus, movement, mood, and variety (p. 93)

Director’s Notebook Draft

Director’s Notebook for “She Kills Monsters” on Google Docs

"Thinking Like A Director" Takeaways (pages 11-66)

Takeaways:

• Theater has no choice but to be contemporary (p. 14)
• The director as artist owes obligation to their aesthetic and to the essence of the play (p. 15)
• Directing requires a reservoir of energy and a sense of urgency and commitment (p. 16)
• Director’s are scavengers (p. 29)
• Begin the interpretive process by breaking the script down into units of action (the characters’ desire and how they physically pursued them) (p. 32)
• A beat marks a change in the actions of all prominent players in the scene (p. 38)
• Articulating actions and obstacles is a matter of both intellect and empathy (p. 43)
• The director should know how a character’s actions add up to create one major desire, the super-objective (p. 46)
• Identify the central conflict before themes, since the latter can be vague and applied to countless plays (p. 47)
• Differentiate between the subject of the play (what it’s about, themtatically) and the central action/event (p. 50)
• Name scenes to better remember what happens in them (p. 55)
• List the play’s potential challenges (p. 64)

Questions:

• Explicit versus subtle (p. 56)

Director’s Notebook: Stage Model

When designing the stage for my production of “She Kills Monsters”, I started by making a list of each scene, noting what props would need to be part of the set and any times where there was a location change without time for a proper scene change. The major examples of the later I found were  scene 15, where things shift between Agnes’ apartment and the D&D world, and the transition between scenes 5 and 6, where Agnes goes from being in Vera’s office to the D&D world in the middle of her sentence. In order to keep these transitions simple, I decided to design the stage to have both the real and fantasy worlds be set up all times. The thing separating them would be two layers of curtains, one a sparkly dark blue, and one orangey-brown in front of it. The brown curtain serves as the backdrop for the scenes in Athens, Ohio; namely Agnes’ apartment, Vera’s office, and a few one-off locations. The blue-black curtain serves as a more mystical-looking divider between the two worlds, and would be the backdrop for two specific scenes that don’t take place fully in either: the intro narration and scene 11.

Before going into more of the stage design, a quick clarification: the kind of stage I’m using for this project is a Processmium stage. In the best case scenario, I would want it to be only about 2 feet off the ground, since I don’t want to distance the audience from the action any more than the fanstasical elements will likely do by default. At the end of the day, I want the audience to get invested in these characters, and see their struggles, even when abstracted in the fantasy realm, as real (or as close to real as theatre can be without going full Brecht).
The back wall of the set is a “painting” of a forest, with the upper center looking like a section of wall from an ancient castle (since that’s where the climax is meant to take place). The window would actually be a hole in the wall, which I imagine would specifically be useful for when Agnes fights the four-headed dragon at the end. The platform just beneath this window would be needed for that, but in general, I wanted to add more levels to the stage, so this platform can be used earlier as well. Actors can get on and off the platform via the ramps on either side.
Beneath the platform, there is a mini curtain showing a small body of water, which, when drawn back, reveals the fiery cave that  serves as the set for scene 4. The scene requires a couch, which I had considered designing to look like it was made from the stone around it, but instead decided to make it a normal red couch (a duller red than the one I used in the model for a real production). I had two reasons for this: first, since this scene takes place early in the show when Agnes hasn’t fully committed to the fantasy, and Orcus, the demon who lives in this cave, is meant to subvert expectations of a seriously threatening villain, having it just be a regular couch fits better; and second, having a regular couch means it could theoretically be used in real world scenes, to give them more than just the table/desk and chairs that are there by default.
Speaking of which, the table/desk and chairs would be on stage right for the scenes in Vera’s office, and on stage left for the scenes in Agnes’ apartment (maybe even with some actual D&D stuff on it to sell that Agnes and Chuck are actually playing the game). The only other major props needed would be a counter for scene 2 in Chuck’s workplace, and some packed boxes for scene 3 in Tilly’s bedroom.

Avant-Garde Theater Theorists (Notes)

1. Peter Brook
1. England, 1925-
2. Worked at Royal Shakespeare company in London 
3. Values simplicity and common sense 
4. Founded International Center of Theater Research in 1974
5. Also a movie director
6. Wrote The Empty Space
7. Four theaters:
1. The Deadly (constructivism)
2. The Holy (Theater of the Absurd)
3. The Rough (Brecht)
4. The Immediate (Clean slate audience reaction)
2. Bertolt Brecht
1. German; Lived through World War II 
2. Wanted to make political theater that made people want to take action in the real world
3. “Alienation effect”: don’t identity/sympathize with the characters (principle inspired by Chinese opera)
3. Theater of the Absurd
1. European existential fiction writers post WWII
2. Find the comedy in tragedy
3. Not much plot; gets you to think
4. Major theorist: Samuel Beckett
1. Irish novelist, playwright, theatre director, poet, and literary translator
2. Spoke French and English
3. Wrote black comedies like “Waiting for Godot” 
4. Jerry Grotowski
1. Born August 1933  died January 1999
2. Polish theater director
3. Went to Stanislavski’s school
4. His permanent company first appeared in Western Europe in 1966
5. Preferred to perform works in regular spaces rather than designated theaters
6. Audience seated around or even in the action
7. Emphasized physical movements, human connections, and vocal training
8. Actors used emotional memory
9. Method: The Poor Theater
1. Small groups of actors, small audience 
2. Simple staging, lighting, costumes, and special affects, putting more weight on the actors’ performances
3. Experiment with physical, spiritual, and ritualistic aspects of theater

Theater Terms and Concepts: A Review

   Doing the silent movies reminded me of the importance of facial expressions, posture, and clear actions when acting, to convey your character, even when you are not the focus of the scene at that moment. Having the videos be set to pre-made music helped teach me the importance of pacing, and gave me ideas about establishing the mood of a scene. There are ways other than music to establish mood on a proper stage, such as lighting, sound effects, and set design, which I will have to keep in mind for the future.
   Doing the tableaus reminded me of being aware of the audience when staging a scene. They don't necessarily have to see every actor at all times, especially if obscuring a character adds to their portrayal as being mysterious and secretive. However, in most cases, you'll want to keep the actors from having their back to the audience, and having the blocking allow as many audience members as possible to see the actor's gestures and expressions. For example, when we did the Sleeping Beauty tableau, the way we staged the first scene had to be tweaked multiple times to make sure that the princess and her parents were not blocked from view by the witch, or that Olivia and I did not have our backs to the audience the whole time.
   When it comes to the more directorial side of things, coming up with plots for the silent movies, and deciding how to stage the tableaus, showed me that simplicity can convey a message to the audience in a way that is not only easier to grasp and follow along with, but in certain instances, more impactful than something with multiple plot turns and complexities. At the same time, I also have to be sure that enough information is conveyed to keep the audience on the same page. This lesson came specifically from the Robin Hood tableau we did, where the transition between scenes two and three threw some people off. In my head, there had been a short confrontation between Robin Hood and the Wolf in between scenes, but all the audience saw was inconsistent staging. Deciding which information to share and which to leave out for the audience to think about for themself is something I am sure will be relevant for the Director's Notebook project. Another aspect which came into play when creating each scene was what genre the scene was going to be, as that affects both how the actors portray their characters, and all of the technical aspects.

Summer Work Assessment (Ideas for “She Kills Monsters” Director’s Notebook)

I chose “She Kills Monsters” by Qui Nguyen for the Director’s Notebook and read it over the summer. The play takes place in the mid-1990s in Athens, Ohio and follows the exceptionally average twenty-something year old Agnes Evans. After her parents and teenage sister Tilly die in a car crash, Agnes Evans finds herself drawn into the world of her geeky younger sister’s favorite pastime, Dungeons and Dragons, playing through a campaign Tilly never finished with help from local Dungeon Master Chuck. Along the way Agnes comes to understand her sister more than she ever did in life, and works through some of her own real-life issues, such as her relationship with her boyfriend Miles. Other major characters in the show include Vera, Agnes’ friend and the guidance counselor at Tilly’s high school; Gabbi and Tina, Tilly’s bullies who appear as evil succubi in her fantasy world; and Tilly’s three D&D companions, Lilith (Lilly IRL), Kaliope (Kelly IRL), and Orcus (Ronnie IRL).

About half of the show takes place within Tilly’s D&D campaign, “The Lost Soul of Athens”, and this affects any production of the show in a major way. People who have never heard of D&D have to be able to follow along well enough to appreciate the show’s story and other aspects; however, you also don’t want to give so much exposition that it comes off as dry and boring. There are multiple monsters that Agnes and the team have to face, such as a Bugbear; Farrah, a one-time fairy boss; Tiamat, the four-headed dragon Agnes has to face alone at the end; and characters Tilly based on people she knew, like Vera the Beholder and the shapeshifting gelatinous blob named Miles. The one performance I saw of this show had the monsters portrayed by puppets, and I feel that offers more creative potential than more people in costumes. The one exception I might make would be Farrah since she has dialogue, but you could have them voiced by the puppeteer or even the play’s Narrator - or, since all the characters in the campaign but Agnes are being played by Chuck in the real world, he could do it. I would like to give Chuck more of a presence in the roleplaying sections, at least early on when Agnes isn’t as receptive to the fantasy, because at one point Chuck and Agnes get into an argument because he feels awkward about her venting her problems to him as if she’s talking to the real Tilly. Having this juxtaposition more present in the show before this point would make the moment hit harder.

When it comes to the set and costumes for the D&D portions of the play, I think it would be cool to have them start off pretty simple, almost looking like something Tilly and her friends could have thrown together. Then, as the story progresses and Agnes becomes more invested in the campaign, they can become more complex and fantastical. The idea comes from the costumes the gods in the recent Broadway revival of Once on This Island have, with varying levels of complexity depending on how into the roles the characters are at that point. I’ve seen images online of productions of this play that had costumes on both sides of this spectrum which I could potentially take some small inspiration from. During the scenes that take place in the real world, the characters should probably be dressed more plainly to form a contrast, though it might be cool to have Anges’ outfits go from having muted colors at the start, when she sees herself as painfully normal, to brighter, more varied colors. In addition, since the play’s setting is Ohio in 1995, the set and props can’t include any items from further in the future, and probably shouldn’t include anything that wouldn’t be common in that area.

There are some character aspects I have in mind for this project as well. Agnes and Miles have the most prominent arcs in the show, so the other characters should have strong stage presence and clear surface-level personalities for the audience to understand and remember them. Of course, when there’s a chance to show subtle character, we want to take advantage of that. Speaking of Agnes and Miles, it’s important that the audience is sold on their relationship, despite the difficulties they face, since it’s meant to be part of the happy ending that the two end up getting married and living happily together (according to the ending monologue). I remember initially finding Miles unlikeable when I wanted a performance of the play, and while it’s fine for this to be the audience’s first reaction, going too far in that direction could lead some audience members to root for Agnes splitting up with him, and thus leave them disappointed with the ending.

What is theater?

Theater is a performance, usually put on by a group of people (though there are one-man shows), taking on the roles of characters, for an audience. The actors get to become someone else, even if that person is a ficitonalized version of themself in the case of an autobiographical play. They can express and release heavy emotions through their performance, or just have a fun time getting to do stuff they couldn’t or wouldn’t in real life. There are other ways to participate in a play: helping with the lighting, sound, set, costumes, props, or being a member of the stage crew. No matter the size of your role, it feels satisfying to see everyone’s hard work come together, and those involved come to have a greater appreciation for the value of cooperation. 
The audience gets to experience the story unfolding life in front of them. It feels much more personal than sitting in a big cinema, watching flat characters on a sceen. And where re-watching a movie is largely the same experience, with it being dependent on the viewer to notice stuff they missed the first time, with a play, not only can you have different actors giving their own take on a character, but because it’s live, there might be other subtle changes that add to the freshness of it.
For me personally, I enjoy having an audience and being able to show off sides of me most people are unaware of. I remember multiple faculty coming up to me after we did Les Miserables last year to express how surprised they were by my intimidating performance as Javert. I have a lot of fun putting scenes together with my fellow actors at rehearsal, but I’m still working on letting go of my perfectionist tendencies and cutting others some slack rather than getting so easily frustrated with them. We always manage to pull it all together in the end, and it often comes out even better than the setup I had fixed in my head. I need to have more trust in the rest of the team. The last thing I’d want is to give off the impression that I think I’m better than everyone else.

Welcome Back! (Test Post)

Director’s Notebook Proposal (Year 1 Final Blog)

Next year, I want to use the play “She Kills Monsters” by Qui Nguyen as the basis for my director’s notebook project. I learned about this play from a performance Mr. Marshall’s son Dave participated in at his college this past year, and I found it incredibly funny and creative, and at times surprisingly relatable. The plot follows young adult Agnes Evans as she attempts to cope with the death of her nerdy teenage sister Tilly through experiencing Tilly’s hidden hobby, the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, for the first time. By playing the game with Tilly’s friends, Agnes comes to learn more about them, her sister, and herself, while gaining a new appreciation for the kind of obscure escapist fantasies Tilly found her refuge in. The show covers themes of family, mourning, secrets, understanding and appreciating others, and escape into fantasy. There is also a large focus on homosexuality as part of the plot, as and the topic is treated with due respect the whole way through. 

The fun part of doing a director’s notebook for this play will be imagining all of the scenes that take place within the game world. The stage type will have to allow for multiple scene changes in order to create different fantasy locals, such as an enchanted forest and an ancient castle. The outfits for the characters’ in-game personas could be done in a way similar to how the recent Broadway revival of “Once on this Island” handled the costumes for the gods. In that show, the gods have three “levels” of costume: their regular islander outfits, their full god outfits, and an in-between stage. With “She Kills Monsters”, when Agnes is first trying out Dungeons and Dragons, the costumes her other party members wear could be pretty simple, almost looking as though they’ve been thrown together from whatever was around, while still portraying the general idea of what each character is supposed to be (an elf warrior, a fiery lustful demon, etc.). Then as Agnes develops more investment in the game, the characters’ outfits can become more complex, so that by the end they would end up seeming as though they came straight from a fantasy video game. There are a lot of photographs easily found online of other productions that I could look over for potential inspiration (though of course I would never directly copy any of them).

Of course the player characters are not the only magical beings in the world of Dungeons and Dragons - there are also all of the enemy monsters the team has to face, from common generic creatures like goblins to giant bosses, such as the four-headed dragon known as Tiamat who serves as the final boss of the campaign. The performance I saw of this play brought these beings to life on stage through a combination of extras in consumes and puppetry, which I feel would also be necessary for my version. Even though the monsters are all pre-established Dungeons & Dragons characters, there is always room for slight artistic embellishments. I think that this show will be a ton of fun to do a Director’s Notebook for, as I genuinely enjoyed the show and its characters, and the premise and plot allow for a lot of creativity when it comes to the technical aspects of theater.