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.

Informal Review of “Propless!”

Overall, I enjoyed the improv show on Saturday. The cast of twelve was varied in personality and levels of outgoingness that made them each feel like a valuable member. Unfortunately, the members chosen for each skit did not always balance each other out, and I’m not sure if this was because they were determined randomly or if it was just an error of judgement on the director’s part. During the first round of the “blindfold” activity, Krystal and Olivia were paired together. Neither of them came across as particularly confident, especially compared to other cast members like Jerry and Ray, and because of their lack of initiate, the skit dragged with repetitions and contradictions. However, this is the one example I can remember where the match-up of the actors caused a significant problem.

The skits I found the strongest were The Laughing Circle and the second round of The Dating Game. In the former, it seemed that having time in advance to create a loose character to build on helped the actors to come up with ideas when it came around to them, even if some were one-note. In terms of The Dating Game, Nan and Aaron had great chemistry, giving just the right number of hints to their true identities. On the flip side, the first round of this activity was one of my least favorite parts of the whole show. Julia Shatalov gave a surprisingly good portrayal of Santa, but Helen took a bit to fit into her role, and, most significantly, it felt like Reí didn’t even try, to be blunt. When Sam asked him where he saw himself (as Julia) in five years, the word “Broadway” immediately jumped to my mind, but the prolonged silence of waiting for Rei to give any kind of answer made everything super awkward. Still, even with moments with a distinct lack of laughter, I found a smile on my face for the majority of the show, and considering the limited amount of time these high schoolers had to get used to improv, I felt satisfied with the experience, and at times pleasantly surprised.

Hamlet: My Vision

Imagine that you will direct Hamlet. Explain your vision and how it will be staged. Include specific details about the type of stage, tech elements, and overall concept for the show. 500 words. Due by midnight.

One of the difficulties in performing a work of Shakespeare’s is that, due to its age and language, modern audiences can have difficulty relating to it. With Hamlet in particular the barrier to entry is even higher since most of the plot revolves around the politics of a monarchy with an inactive, moody protagonist. If I were to direct a production of Hamlet, I would want to put a spin on it that eliminated as many of the walls between the source material and the audience as possible. One way I came up with to do that was to reimagine the story as being set in a modern college. Ophelia’s father Polonius would be a professor but all of the other major characters would be students. Claudius and Gertrude would be Hamlet’s close friends instead of elder family members, and instead of Hamlet’s father getting killed by Claudius, it would be Hamlet’s twin brother who committed suicide after being relentlessly bullied by Claudius. Gertrude was dating Hamlet’s twin but after his death started dating Claudius. The relationship between Claudius and Polonius would be that of a student sucking up to their teacher, who thinks the kid can do no wrong. Laertes would still be Ophelia’s brother, she and Hamlet would have had some form of past relationship, and she would still commit suicide during the events of the play. Horatio would still be Hamlet’s close friend and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would be Hamlet’s former friends who go to a nearby school. 

The kind of stage I would want to have for this is a thrust stage, as it allows the audience to see the action from three out of four sides. It also opens your options for blocking and choreography. Normally you want your actors to be facing the audience as much as possible so that they can read the actors’ faces, but if you have the audience on three sides, then the actors can face those sides without having their backs to everyone. The main locations would be Hamlet’s dorm room, the auditorium where the play is performed, Polonius’ classroom, and the outside campus. Lighting, sound, and effects could work together to create a dreary, rainy atmosphere.

With the technicals, I want to make this story feel real and grounded. If the audience can relate to this version of the play, then perhaps they will get something out of it that they wouldn’t just reading or watching the original. Because of that, the costumes should be accurate to what young adults in modern times (jeans/sweatpants/shorts/skirts, shirts/t-shirts). In particular, Hamlet should be wearing dark, less formal clothes, since in his negative mental state he probably wouldn’t care about keeping up appearances. In contrast, Claudius and Gertrude might dress up more to show off their status. Ophelia should wear floral patterns with a focus on the color blue, since her character is symbolically tied to flowers and water.

Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh & Ethan Hawke): Directors' Visions

Kenneth Branagh version
I think the director’s vision for this version of Hamlet was to recreate the entire story in a style reminiscent of a fairy tale. Some of the aspects that I see as adding to this vision are the generally bright color pallet, particularly inside the castle, the clearly magical nature of the ghost, and the general sense of grandiose. This is particularly noticable in comparison to something like the Mel Brooks version, which is set in medieval times and has an overall dark, despressing tone. In Kenneth Branagh’s version, all of the dark symbolism is centered around the protagonsit, Hamlet, creating a stark construct between him and the many people who, he feels isolated from after this great tragedy he’s undergone.
Almost all of the story in this version is just directly recreating the original play; however, the few changes that were made seem to point towards the idea that this is meant to be a fairy tale. A prime example of this is when Polonius is reading the letter Hamlet wrote to Ophelia and we, the audience, see a brief flashback to Hamlet and Ophelia happily in bed together. This directly implies to the audience that Hamlet and Ophelia did once have a romantic relationship, like something out of a fairy tale. The original play does not have any flashbacks of this manner, and so the previous state of the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia is left more vague, contributing to the greater complexity of the story as a whole. Of course fairy tales can be complex, and this production is far from simple. However, by deciding to answer one of the questions the source material provides, the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet is trying to say something about the nature of their relationship rather than leaving it up to the audience’s interpretation, and fairy tales are known for teaching lessons.


Ethan Hawke version
The Ethan Hawke version of Hamlet from 2000 is a wildly different adaptation that brings the story of Hamlet into what was then modern times. The vision of the director was not just to place this story in what would be a more familiar setting for its audience, but also to use what the modern setting provided him to advance the story. This version makes extensive use of the mediums of photography and film to tell the story in a new way and give the film as a whole a whole unique flavor. Ophelia, for example, is a photographer in this adaptation who takes and gives out pictures of flowers rather than actual flowers. The ghost of Hamlet’s father, though he later shows up as an actual spector, makes his first appearance on a tv. Instead of putting on a play to try and determine whether or not Claudius is guilty of murder, Hamlet instead puts together a short film with the same premise, using clips from old movies.
This last point in particular actually serves as a methaphor for the adaptiation itself as well - it takes the story of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and remixes it, updating and rearranging the story. There are scenes that are cut or moved around, making it not a full adaption like the Kenneth Branagh movie. For example, early in the film we see a looped clip of Hamlet on multiple screens pointing a gun at his head, with the voiceover saying the famous line, “To be or not to be”. However, the full scene this line is from does not occur until later into the film, when Hamlet is in a dvd store. Ophelia’s suicide is also foreshadowed when, during a conversation between Claudius, Gertrude, and Polonius at an indoor pool, Ophelia hallucinates throwing herself in.