NOVEMBER 1998 ----------------------------In this issue------------------------------------------ New Column: Techie's Corner by Michael Powers: Set Design, from the beginning The Play's the Thing: Peter Brook and the Art of Collaboration Enter Laughing: T'was the Night Before Opening, and TheatreGenie Rubin's Corner: Dance vs. Dance CyberTheatre Monthly: This month: Acting-Pro, Creative Planet, Parodies of JH and Les Mis, and Theatredirectories.com Voices in Contemporary Theatre: Is Fiction more real than reality? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ TECHIE'S CORNER Hello to everyone and welcome to the first Techie’s Corner column. In the coming months I will cover a wide variety of subjects from the production side of Theatre. Topics will run the gamut from costumes to props, sets, lighting, FX etc. My intent is to go into more depth than you would get from a stagecraft newsgroup or listserve group, and to cover only one main topic each month. If there is a special area or thing you want covered I invite anyone to contact me through the ICQ link on the staff bio page. For those readers who don’t know me, my name is Michael Powers and I’m the Technical Director at the Meadow Brook Theatre, and a free lance designer in the Detroit Area. I’ve been in Theatre for 35 years and at one time or another, have done just about every job in this business from performer to director, designer, et al. This month’s topic will be: Set Design, from the beginning. You’ve just been told that you’re designing the scenery for the next school/community show. You’re a newbie in theatre and are wondering if design is for you and just what does set design involve. Let’s define just what scene design is, and what the designer’s responsibilities are, and what tools and skills are necessary to be a designer. The most important tool is your imagination, the most important skill is the ability to channel your imagination in an intelligent and cohesive manner. Other skills that are necessary are the ability to read and analyze a script, and the ability to look at a piece the way a director or choreographer does. While skills as an artist and draftsman are very valuable, they are not absolutely necessary. There have been excellent and famous designers with little or no skills as an artist or draftsman. However, their success came in spite of that lack, not because of it. It also does not mean an aspiring designer should not make every effort to develop those skills. Without them you will have to rely a great deal on accommodating technical directors and Master Carpenters who can take ideas off a paper napkin and with a smile, turn it into scenery. You may be lucky enough to work with such people on a regular basis. Then again, you may get one who has neither the skills nor temperament to give you a hand. Last but not least, if you are at a theatre that is fully staffed, you might find that you are only one of several designers that they are working with at one time. They expect you to present them with a reasonable set of plans to start with, because they don’t have time to develop your plans for you. If you don’t develop your sketching and drafting, you will find it much more difficult to communicate your ideas to the directors and to the people who will build your designs. I am not saying that you must be an engineering quality draftsman, quite the opposite. I have worked with designers whose drafting skills ranged from the proverbial magic marker on a paper napkin to those of an experienced architect, and with designers whose sketches resembled everything from clip art to art class scribbles to real works of art in their own right. The thing that set the good designers apart from the poor ones was organization. The good ones always have the show thought out and planned. The drawings, regardless of quality, are organized and clear. Even if the "sketch" or rendering is a collage of clip art, it communicates what the designer wants. If you want to be a good designer, sketch, draw, and paint at every opportunity. You will find that the skills will develop. The fundamentals of drawing and painting are not an art but merely a craft that can be learned. What you draw and paint is the thing that will make you an artist. The most basic description of a designer is someone who "creates the environment of the performance." The performance can be ballet, opera, drama, film, video, or what have you. Notice I did not mention walls or backdrops or platforms. Those are still a long ways off. Right now, we’re examining the creation of "an environment"......how does one go about such a thing? The first thing is always to read the script. This may seem "well, Duh! Of course!" or just the opposite, it may sound unnecessary because "I’ve seen the movie 20 times" or "I did this show a couple of years ago. I know what it looks like!" No matter how well you think you know the show, you don’t really know it. Even if you’ve directed it before, you don’t really know it. If you are leaning toward the latter thought, things have changed since you last experienced the show. The director is different, the theatre is different, the times are different, you have had more and different life experiences. All of these things will influence your vision of the script. "The times are different? What do you mean, it’s only been a couple of years!" How would you have looked at a script about Lincoln’s assassination just before and just after Hinkley shot Reagan? Would you look at a script about presidential integrity the same way today that you would have one year ago? The point is: to read the script every time you do a show as though it was a new and different experience that you’ve never had before. Read it with a fresh mind and throw out preconceptions and thoughts of "well, when I was there, we did it this way....". Remember, there are as many right ways of doing a show as there are theatres doing it. There are, of course, just as many wrong ways of doing it. What is "right," is the concept that fits the director you are working with, and the theatre you are at, the cast you have, the budget, the crew, the theatre facility and the "when" you are doing the production. Now! How does one go about reading a script. It’s not as easy as simply reading it and finding out what happens. When you first read a script to design any element: sets, costumes, lighting, sound, or FX, it should always be as though you are reading it for the very first time. Don’t look at the stage directions and the descriptions of the set that "they" used. Don’t look at the picture or floor plan in the back of the script if there is one. The set they used was designed for that specific theatre, with that specific director, with their specific budget. That theatre may have had a much larger or much smaller stage than you will be working with. You may not have a fly gallery or a trap room. They may have had a staircase coming up from the orchestra pit and you don’t have a pit. They may have had the front door stage left because their stage was too shallow to have a crossover and the dressing rooms were stage left. I always have my wife go through a script and mark out all descriptions of the set and the blocking. That way, when I read it I don’t have the thoughts of the Broadway director, designer, or cast influencing my thoughts. Now as you read the script, note everything that you need. Not what would be nice, not what you would like, but what you absolutely ....NEED....! My personal experience is that the more light weight the script, the more "things" you need. Look at Shakespeare. We have pushed and pulled him, updated him, thrown him into every strange situation on earth and several in outer space. Yet we are still doing his plays after almost 400 years. All in all, the only thing he truly needs are the dialogue and a space to say it. Does that mean that, we, as designers are unnecessary? No, we still have to create the atmosphere and environment in which the dialogue can have the greatest impact on the audience. For example, the script reads, "Don crosses left, picks up the magazine from the coffee table, and flips through it while waiting for Mary". Do you need the magazine or coffee table? No! What you need is something to exhibit Don’s impatience while waiting. The script reads, "Mary slams the door in John’s face, stopping his advance while she flees." Do you need a door? No, you need something to stop John’s advance. It can be a door, a chair, a drawbridge. The point is you must find those things you really, really need and why you need them. Everything you imagine should be rooted in the script in some form or another. Maybe what you envision is a "dark and gloomy night". It should be evoked by the events, emotions and dialogue in the script, not the stage directions from the Broadway production. The next task can be done before or after the first director meeting. Talk to the director and find his initial concept as to location and time period. Now is the time for "Homework"! Go to a library or similar source and find everything you can about the time and place of the directors concept. Look in the newspaper archives and get a feeling for the public opinions and thoughts of the times. Was it a bull market or a bear market? Was it a time of expansion or isolationism? What were the political trends? If the director wants to set Romeo and Juliet in the 1930’s, what is it about the ‘30’s that is distinct and unique? The more you can learn about the period the better. In addition to finding out the "What" of the time, look for the "Why". The "Whys" of a time or place will help you to use the "Whats" to enhance the look or feel you are trying to get across. A good example of this is the set design for the original Batman film. As the camera pans through the city in the film’s opening moments, the viewer feels insignificant and dwarfed by the size and scope of the buildings and architecture. When the view pans up to the sky you get a feeling of something overpowering and ominous above. What is it about the look of the city that makes you feel this way? The feeling was conceived almost 1,500 years ago when the European peoples were introduced to the concept of Christian theocracy. The new, monotheistic God was all powerful, judgemental, vengeful, and angry. The architecture of the middle ages that we call "Gothic" is characterized by towering spires and vaulted ceilings designed to make the viewer realize the small and insignificant role he played in the scheme of the universe. When the Batman movie was first conceived, the cityscape could have been anything. Anton Furst looked at the script and saw that the Gotham City populace was another society in which the individual was diminished by massive forces beyond his control, pushed into a role of servitude and fear. His "New Age" gothic look, halfway between reality and science fiction was awesome. He took his knowledge of the historic architecture and it’s "Why" and produced a stunning image of Bruce Wayne’s city. As you read the script you will form a mental image of the "setting" and it’s style and the atmosphere. Make a list of the things you feel are needed and the general atmosphere in the scenes. Go to the director with this list and merge his/her feelings and concepts with yours. Now! And only now, you can begin to put real concrete images to paper. At first, sketch thoughts and impressions. Sketch feelings, sketch ideas. Don’t sketch specific places or things. This is the point where you and the director finalize the show "concept" or "point of view". What is "concept"? A good example of concept is the Pittsburgh Public’s production of "Two Gentlemen Of Verona". The director looked at the opening scene between Valentine and Proteus. In that scene, Proteus laments that he has neglected his studies because of thinking about Julia. Later Valentine falls instantly and completely in love with Silvia after spying her for an instant standing on a balcony. The director took these moments from the script (and others, of course) to form a concept of two young men graduating from "Verona" high school and leaving for "Milan" University during the American roaring twenties. The concept came from the script and worked with the story. The actions of the two young men fit the age group they were set in, the rapid paced antics of the rest of the show fit well with the "crazy" times of the twenties. Next you take the "needs" list and the images and the trends of the period, kneed them with the director’s concept and "bake" them with a period of contemplation. Now you can take your preliminary sketches, pictures from books, magazines etc. and form a strong basis of what you and the director want the show to look like in terms of style and line, color and texture. Now re-read the script and this time look at it from a director’s point of view. How would you block certain scenes, where would you have entrances and exits? What kind of movement would you use, smooth and flowing or sharp and fast? Do you need to provide easy movement from one part of the stage to another or do you need to intentionally hinder movement. For example, in "Born Yesterday" there is a scene between Harry and Billie in which Harry is very angry with Billie. Harry is the kind of man who would not hesitate to hit a woman if there is nothing stopping him. In this scene, you, as a designer, have to provide the director with a believable barrier to separate the two. Donald Oenslager, the original broadway designer, solved the problem by placing the entrance to hotel suite’s bedrooms off a small landing. The landing was about four feet above the main room, with an iron railing. For the scene in question, Harry was at the far end of the landing from the stair, leaning over the rail toward Billie. To actually hit her he would have had to break off the confrontation, gone to the stair and down, around the sofa....... ! What the designer did was to place a believable barrier between the two so the confrontation could escalate without a physical outcome. Now at last, you can start thinking about walls and stairs and doors and the rest of the physical world you are about to create. Look at your research and preliminary sketches. Develop a floor plan of what you want the set to look like. If it is realistic with walls and doors, etc. sketch out the rest of the building, where the other rooms are, where the characters are when they are not on stage. This will make your set more realistic and help to provide the director with logical entrances and exits. You are not going to build these other rooms but you need to consider them in your planning. If you are designing a set with levels and platforms, determine where "other" places are for each scene. If the road to Scotland is off right in the first act, your audience will want it to be off right in the second act. Once you have developed a preliminary floor plan for your set, it is time to make it a reality. Here there are many different routes to the end depending on your particular circumstances. What is your budget, do you have to use existing scenery pieces, does your theatre build everything from scratch, etc. With whatever restrictions or existing conditions you have to work with, now you revise and adjust the design to fit. Now you draw a finalized floor plan with measurements and dimensions. This plan will include furniture, rugs, specific props that take up floor space such as a baby buggy or a wheel barrow. It should also include backings behind doors, backdrops, masking curtains etc. At this stage you need to draw a black and white sketch of how you want the set to appear. Many designers will also make a "white" model at this time. The sketch or model tells the director what he will be working with. The stage manager will need the floor plan to layout rehearsal space and the sketches/model to show the actors what the set will look like. The next set of drawings are the Front Elevations. This set of drawings shows every wall, door, window straight on with true dimensions and details such as light switches, baseboard, door casings etc. The front elevations need to show where pictures will be hung and where curtain rods (don’t draw the curtains!) will be attached. They need to show where light fixtures such as sconces will be located. They do not show wall paper patterns and such, as that is not necessary for construction. The front elevations show the technical director what he needs to build the set but not how to paint or decorate it. Now you move on to the Painter’s Elevations. These drawings are just like the front elevations but they don’t need detentions or measurements, they need color and wallpaper patterns, shading and texture. These are how you communicate to the painter what you want the set to look like. If you have a detailed design on a floor or wall you may need to do a separate drawing in full scale to tell the painter exactly what you want. The painters elevations are also necessary for the lighting and costume designers. This is their chance to see your colors and to discuss how to make the three elements work together. For example, you don’t want your lead to wear a yellow calico dress in front of a Yellow flowered wallpaper. The last step for the designer is a color rendering and/or a scale model of the set. A color rendering shows the set as you want the audience to see it, with light and shadow and people in costume. This step is the final selling point of the design. The sketches or model help everyone from the director to the publicity manager. The lighting designer can see the style in which you want the set lit. When the actors see the world they are working in, it helps them to build character. A photo of the model in the paper can help sell tickets. This, in a nutshell, is what is involved in set design. Is it the whole picture? Not even close. I have not tried to give details of how to design for arena stage or thrust. I have not tried to list design methods and techniques. During the middle stages there are endless details to work out with the director, the costume designer, the lighting designer, the shop the property people. Every design at every theatre with every director will have it’s own set of rules, problems and details. Are all of these steps necessary? No, there are times when you can skip some of them depending on where you are working, how long you have worked with them, how the shop works, if you are painting your own show etc. If you are interested in design, the following is a short list of books that will help. Theatre Backstage From A To Z: Lounsbury, Warren C., University of Washington Press: Seattle. Scene Design And Stage Lighting: Parker, Smith and Wolf; Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York. Theatrical Design And Production: Gillette, J. Michael; Mayfield, California Designing And Painting For The Theatre: Pectal, Lynn; Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PLAY'S THE THING Hello theatre lovers! Well, Hedda Gabler is now part of theatre history as far as productions go. All in all it was an exciting production and was well recieved. The most unusual part of the rehearsal process was working on a new translation of the play in which the actors were allowed to craft the language to match the particular character being played. It was the most collaborative process I, as an actor, have even undergone in theatre. And speaking of collaboration, this month’s article is about Peter Brook, a director who exemplified the idea of collaboration in all his productions. Brook let every person connected to the production find a way to enhance the rehearsals and performances. Peter Brook and the Art of Collaboration To understand the work of Peter Brook is to understand how collaboration can establish a work environment that allows the creative process to flow from each member of the production whether it be actor, director, or designer. Peter Brook leads the members of his production team to the well of creativity and allows them to drink their fill of new discoveries. He encourages them to step out boldly with ideas. He then shapes those ideas into what will become a unified production. In Women Stage Directors Speaks, Rebecca Daniels states that, "If leadership and authority are fundamental qualities of a good director, so too is the ability to collaborate, to be inclusive of and sensitive to the creative input of others and to create an open and encouraging environment where artistic interaction can thrive and prosper," (Daniels, pg 91). According to her definition, Peter Brook ranks high among the good directors. The question then is what shaped Peter Brook into the director that he has become? Peter Brook was born in London on March 21, 1925 to Russian refugees. By the time Brook was 16, he had tired of school and set out to make a mark for himself in the theatre. Brook graduated from Oxford in 1945. At 21 he directed Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost for the Royal Shakespeare Company and when he was 23 he began directing operas for the Royal Opera at Covent Garden. Around 1963 things began to change for the director. In 1963 Brook began to explore other forms of theatre and radical experimentations into the presentation of a production. He and Charles Marowitz examined the French theorist Antonin Artaud's ideas of theater of cruelty which in turn, " . . . led to important productions of Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade and Shakespeare's The Tempest." (Collier’s CD-ROM). In 1970, Brook set up the International Centre of Theatre Research (CIRT) in Paris. Among its productions were Orghast, the story of Prometheus with dialogue from an invented language, and an 80 minute version of the opera Carmen, stripped of the chorus and performed on a stage covered with dirt.. As Brook continued to push the boundaries of theatre outward, he began work on one of his best known productions, Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. This version of Midsummer Night’s Dream would become a very important collaborative work for Brook, the designers, the actors and the audience. Edward Trostle Jones, writing about Brook’s production, stated that in the program notes of the play Brook, " . . . alludes to Meyerhold’s dictum that the fourth creator in a dramatic presentation besides the author, director, and actor is the spectator whose imagination takes flame from the actor’s creativity," (Jones, pg 113). Brook would turn to Sally Jacobs for the set design. Jacobs began working with Brook in 1964 after hearing that he was doing something quite different in theatre. She recalled that his type of theatre was not an easy adjustment because, "It was hard work. I wasn’t used to working in that way -- where you work through an idea to see if it’s really going to be effective," (Glenn Loney, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, pg 45). After working on Marat/Sade with Brook, she decided to take a few years off to raise a family. When Brook began Midsummer Night’s Dream, he called upon Jacobs to help him create an intimate space which would present the actors doing the play. During a meeting with Brook, Jacobs had been making Christmas cards whose colors and patterns led she and Brook into the design process. As Jacobs said, "That’s marvelous for a designer, when she has a director who understands design problems," (Loney, pg 51). Later Brook and Jacobs found other outside inspirations for the design. Brook stated in his book The Shifting Point that, "Sitting with Sally Jacobs the designer, seeing Chinese acrobats, we found the key: a human being who, by pure skill, demonstrates joyfully that he can transcend his natural constraints, become a pure reflection of pure energy. This said ‘fairy’ to us. A new imagery could begin to flow from Sally’s rich creativity," (Brook, pg 97). And flow it did. From the all white box set to the trapezes which would fly the actors in the air, Jacobs was able to create, with Brook, an environment that was unlike prior versions of Shakespeare’s play. Jacobs said that, "The white space gave us a sense of distance but at the same time it was very intimate. . . . Mainly, it was to create an intimate acting area, which would nevertheless give us a place where the rest of the actors who were not in the scene could surround the action and continue to watch it," (Hume/Reeves, pg 146). The actors were also part of the overall collaboration. At first one trapeze was planned, but when Alan Howard and John Kane, playing Oberon and Puck, became quite skilled on the trapeze, another was added. When the actors asked more entrances, Jacobs design was altered to accommodate them. Alan Howard, who also played Theseus as well as Oberon, found working in this collaborative way quite exciting. He stated that, " . . . because of his [Brook’s] encouraging absolutely every member of the group to contribute all the time, it was terrific!" (Loney, pg 39). Another account of the production stated, "Brook locked himself, so far as was possible, inside his Chinese box with his actors and asked them to look inside themselves to solve the ‘mystery’, to find their own individual rhythms, explore the limits of their own individual possibilities. Working together with them, he made this astonishing show," (Hume/Reeves, pg 153). Another member of the Midsummer design team was the musician Richard Peaslee. He had worked with Brook on numerous productions, including The Screens, Marat/Sade, US, and Orghast. Peaslee did not want to work on the Midsummer project due to what he saw as a frivolous play amidst political unrest in the world. He said that, "This was not long after the riots and deaths at Kent State . . . . Somehow A Midsummer Night’s Dream seemed all very remote from all that, so I was not very interested in working on it . . . . I should have known better because he always makes projects interesting," (Hume/Reeves, pg 143). Peaslee joined rehearsals during the last four weeks, using the improvised melodies of the cast as the basis for his music score. Summing up his experiences of working with Brook, Peaslee said, "One of the reasons it is fun to work with Brook is that he has the same idea, the same definition of music as I: that it is organized noise," (Loney, pg 68). Five years and several productions later, Brook came upon the subject that became a life’s work for him. In 1975 Brook and Jean-Claude Carriere met with Phillippe Lavastine to hear stories of The Mahabharata, which means "the great story of humanity." Over the next five years Brook and Carriere listened to, without reading, the epic poem considered one of the great tales of India. They made several trips to India to get a feel for the country. In 1982 Carriere began the draft of the play, as he tried to turn the poem into a play. Length was a problem because the " . . . original Sanskrit poem is, according to Carriere, about fifteen times the length of the Bible . . ." (Hume/Reeves, pg 254). Carriere’s French final draft of the play was finished in 1982. In 1984 the rehearsals began, but there was no definitive structure to tie the stories together. Over a nine month period of rehearsals a clear line began to emerge: Brook’s staged version takes the form of a story told by one of the characters, Vyasa, to a Boy. The story is written down by Ganesha, who has a man’s body with an elephant’s head. The actor who plays Ganesha later discards the elephant’s head and becomes a central character, Krishna. The entire epic is performed by twenty-two actors and six musicians -- the musicians become part of the action. (254) Brook’s other collaborations on The Mahabharata included casting the production with the help of ICTR’s Marie-Helene Estienne. Casting of the show would be long and arduous. As Estienne recollects, the first problem was that the actors had to speak French very well. She also said that, "In addition, we respected our usual criterion: openness in the actor. He must be open internally to the subject matter, and externally to the collective work," (Williams, pg 367). The set design was assigned to Chloe Obolensky. She and Brook worked together for many months trying to come up with a scenic base for the production. Her artistic vision seemed to reflect Brook’s own feelings about the creative collaboration. Brook always pushes for the new and fresh for a production. Obolensky stated that, "When I work, two things are always present in my mind: find what is right for the piece, and find what is fresh," (Williams, 368). For the music Brook would find a new candidate. Toshi Tsuchitori took to the production in such a way that he moved to India for two years to study the music. He and Brook wanted a sound that was neither entirely Indian or non-Indian. Brook states in interview that, "There was a lot of collective work to arrive at a certain tonal colour, which in fact is a direct result of the musician’s own avid search," (Williams, pg 369). For Peter Brook, collaboration is as much a necessary part of theatre as are the playwrights, actors, directors and designers. As he puts it, "Through collaboration, theatrical aim and necessity gradually become clear at every moment, and we are able to find what sustains them . . ." (Williams, pg 369). For all his intent on including the collaboration process as an integral part of his directing style, there are times when those around Brook are reminded who is ultimately in control. As Rebecca Daniels states, "The notion of successful collaboration obviously does not preclude the existence of leadership . . ." (Daniels, pg 91). David Williams writes that, " ‘What is achieved determines what is to follow’, Brook says. That sounds objective; but when it comes to deciding what has been achieved, it is Brook who calls the shots." (Williams, pg xvii). Williams goes on to explain that Brook, " . . . has repeatedly been able to imagine the kind of work needed by a particular time, and bring it into existence through research, collaborative exercise, and theatrical magic. The results pass his own test, as work exceeding the powers of any single artist; but equally confirm him as their prime creator." (Williams, pg xvii). Brook will always be considered " . . . important for his radical reworkings of classical plays, especially his non-period Shakespeare productions; and for his international theater research, which brings together stage artists from Western and non-Western cultures for longterm collaboration on projects," (Collier’s Encyclopedia, CD-ROM). Brook steps boldly outside the traditional restraints of theatre which keeps the audience at a distance from the performance. For the audience, he chooses to place the performance in their lap, making them part of the experience shared by the actors and designers. For the actors, Brook offers new, experimental ways of working which will build them into a collective basis for the production. For the designers, Brook challenges them to create brave new venues and musical experiences. And for Brook himself, he allows all that is around him, from actor to audience, to help shape the production into something unique, " . . .an event in the sense that is could have never been repeated," (Hume/Reeves, 149). Annotated Bibliography Blumenthal, Eileen. "Peter Brook" Colliers Encyclopedia, Volume 4. CD-ROM. Feb.1996. An article on the life of Peter Brook. Brook, Peter. The Shifting Point. New York : Harper & Row, 1987. An autobiographical work by Peter Brook Daniels, Rebecca. Women Stage Directors Speak. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1996. A look at women directors at work, including collaboration. The Empty Space. Dir. Gerald Feil. Mystic Fire Video and Seven Valleys Entertainment. 1994. Peter Brook’s book The Empty Space was the basis for this film version of his corps of actors working in Brooklyn. Jones, David Richard. Great Directors at Work: Stanislavsky, Brecht, Kazan, Brook. California: Unversity of California Press, 1986. Four of the great theatre directors examined. Jones, Edward Trostle. Following Directions: A Study of Peter Brook. New York : Peter Lang Publishing, 1985. A study of the directing style of Peter Brook. Hunt, Albert, and Geoffrey Reeves. Peter Brook. Great Britain: Cambridge Unverisity Press, 1995. A biography of Peter Brook. Loney, Glenn, ed. A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Authorized Acting Edition. Great Britain: Dramatic Publishing Company, 1974. The complete text and staging of the play, including articles and interviews by Glenn Loney. Williams, David, ed. Peter Brook: A Theatrical Casebook. Great Britain: Richard Clay, Ltd., 1988. Interviews, reivews and articles regarding the works of Peter Brook. --- Caprice Woosley is currently pursuing her BFA in theater (directing and playwriting), after 25 years working in and around the theater. She is a produced playwright, actress, and amateur dramaturg who enjoys researching plays. She is a host in the Writing Forum where she co-hosts a Writing Discussion Group. She also hosted "Shakespeare Unplugged" and "Murder and Mayhem" in the Theatre Forum. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ENTER LAUGHING T'was the Night... T'was the night before opening, and in Front-of-House, There wasn't one patron, not even a critical mouse. The actors, who were blocked on the set with such care, Wondered if the PLAYWRIGHT soon would be there. The techies were nestled all snug in the booth, Wondering, "Who could write such a play and be so long in the tooth?" The director in tweed, the SM all in black, Had just hunkered down to try to get the show back on track. When at the Stage Door, there arose such chatter, The SM flew from his headset to see what the #!%#! was the matter. Away down the aisle, Exit, Stage-Right, He upset the Props Table - oi, what a sight! The Leicho Down-Left, with a gel all in blue, Gave the scene a sad light, barn-doors all askew. When what to his bloodshot eyes should appear, But an over-used ten-speed, with eight working gears! And a dishevelled young rider, moving anything but quick, The SM knew in a flash, it must be that derelict - uh, PLAYWRIGHT! More noisy than chainsaws, her bike slowly came, While she whistled and shouted the odd cycle brand name. "Soon Norco or Peugot, CCM or Raleigh! Oh for a twelve-speed, or maybe a Harley! One measly commission, some royalties, just a few! Maybe then I could afford another gear or two!" As no-shows that before the first reviews mount, (the audience fearful to trust its own account) So into a pile fell the Backstage Crew, With a Costume Rack, a ten-speed, and that !#%#! PLAYWRIGHT, too! And then, after a five-count, the director could hear, A discourteous dialogue coming from the rear. As he reached for his Bromo and lithium comound, Out from the wings the PLAYWRIGHT did bound. She was dressed "early-Sally-Ann" from head to her foot, Covered in rough-drafts, through which she did root. A monologue stuck to her knee, at the back, And a two-hander out-scene, hanging like a sack. Her eyes, how they dilated! Her wrinkles, how scary! Her cheeks were like Moses' - her face, almost hairy! Her droll sort of mouth was drawn up in a snarl, And the tatoo on her chin was dedicated to "Carl." The stub of a pencil she held in her teeth, Shavings of lead fell about her, like a wreath. She had a sad face and a fragile kind of ego, That trembled when she wrote, like a quake in San Diego. She was moody and brooding - a right jolly old elf, And the director cringed when he saw her, in spite of himself. But a wink of her eye and the revisions in her head, Soon gave the cast to know they had nothing to dread. She spoke not a word, but went straight to her work, Re-writing the script - then she smiled at the jerk - uh, director, And laying her pencil aside of her prose, She gave "thumbs-up" and brought the drama to a close. Then she faded into the shadows as the cast took the light, And that show? Well it flew - to the director's delight! And not 'til she had left, cycling into the night, Could she hear them exclaim, "Thank God fer the PLAYWRIGHT!" c 1998 by Sandra Dempsey Calgary, Alberta, Canada TheatreGenie An actor, a costumer and a stage manager found an old bottle in a pile of junk backstage. The actor rubbed it against her sleeve, and poof! A genie appeared. "You got me fair & square," the genie said. "So you each get one wish." "I want a world tour in a starring role," the actor wished. "Granted," said the genie. Poof! The actor was off on her tour. "I want a yacht and unlimited funds to cruise the exotic ports of the world," said the costumer. "Granted," said the genie. Poof! The costumer was off on his tour. The stage manager rubbed his chin, thought a minute and said, "I want them back after lunch." Carole Clement Mentor, Ohio USA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ RUBIN'S CORNER Dance vs. Dance The 1998-99 theater season is off to a slow start on both sides of the "pond". However, two shows, one on each side of the Atlantic are now classified as big hits. Saturday Night Fever continues to be the hot ticket at the London Palladium and Footloose, after opening to fair reviews, is at hit at Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York. Saturday Night Fever is the remake of The Bee Gees hit movie. Arlene Phillips directs this version of the story of an immature Brooklyn youth. She has been nominated for an Emmy, a Tony, an Oliver and an MTV award. Mostly known for her choreography, she has created a series of excellent dance numbers. Adam Garcia leads the dancers in the part of Tony Manero. Anita Louise Combe dances up a storm in the role of Stephanie Mangano and Tara Wilkson as Annette handles the singing. Mike Porter has created a song system that recreates the days of disco. It is guaranteed to leave the audience deaf. However, between dance numbers we are subjected to the worst acting on both side of the "pond". Englishmen and women trying to do Brooklyn accents does not seem to be working on the London stage. To make matters worse Phillips has chosen to leave the "dance face mikes" on her cast during story development. It not only looks silly, but it sounds silly. Perhaps our director should have thought about using a narrator to tell the story. The dramatic scenes are just little pains that connects the terrific dance numbers. We hear such musical numbers as "Disco Inferno", Night Fever", "More than a Women", "You Should be Dancin", "Jive Talkin", "Tragedy", and "How Deep Is Your Love". On the New York side of the Atlantic we have Footloose. Another musical made from a movie. Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie did this adoption. Unlike its English neighbor this dance show has forgotten to include dance numbers until the second act. Like Saturday Night Fever it uses a young cast of unknowns led by Jeremy Kushnier and Stacy Francis. This cast with the help of Stephen Lee Anderson and Dee Hoty can act. The production contains nine new musical numbers along with its standards such as "Footloose" and "Let Hear for the Boys". The supporting cast are excellent dances and singers. However, until the middle of the second act they seem to stand around the stage looking cute. The story involves a law, which prohibits dancing in a small town in heartland America, has been taken seriously by the producers. The lack of dancing seem strange since this is billed as a dance show. There seems to be enough going on in this show to satisfy the young audiences. Mr. Bobbie was quote as saying, "We want the dance in the show to be an explosion-a joyous, dynamic, youthful explosion". You better go see Saturday Night Fever, Mr. Bobbie Perhaps if we had the two directors redirect each other’s shows we might have two blockbuster hits with a better acting and dance numbers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CYBERTHEATRE MONTHLY Acting-Pro http://www.thegrid.net/virg/ Seven weeks ago, we announced a new e-mail discussion list, ACTING-PRO, geared specifically for theatre and film professionals, theatre educators and acting teachers. The group now includes over 200 subscribers from the USA, Canada, and UK, and the dialogue (and debate) is vigorous and stimulating. Our aim is to have a place where working actors and directors can discuss all aspects of their craft, from the theoretical to the practical. We share ideas, challenges, useful information, and observations. If you're not a pro, but a dedicated beginner, community theatre regular, or just someone who cares passionately about theatre and motion pictures, we invite you to join us. ACTING-PRO needs your voice too. (And there's no SPAM and it's absolutely FREE !.) NORMAN B. SCHWARTZ Moderator Creative Planet expands! http://www.creativeplanet.com/ There's so much cross-pollination between stage, film and video, it's silly to ignore such a fabulous treasuretrove as Creative Planet and it's new siblings: VFXPro -In Partnership with The Visual Effects Society DesignInMotion -In Partnership with the Broadcast Designers' Association EditorsNet -In Partnership with The Motion Picture Editors Guild A Parody Tonight Granted, it's not quite Forbidden Broadway for brutally insightful satire, but Sarah Miller's cyberspoofs of Jekyl and Hyde, and Les Mis at least attempt to deflate the hype-monster shows and stars a tad, if not the lemmings that perpetuate them. Remember Books? http://www.theatredirectories.com Directory of Theatre Training Programs, edited by Jill Charles of Dorset Theatre Festival in Vermont. Profiles 440 colleges, universities, and conservatories; undergraduate and graduate programs. Listings cover admission, tuition, faculty, curriculum, facilities, productions, philosophy of training. Appendix includes articles to demystify the process of deciding where to train. Index is a chart of degrees offered at each program. $25.95. Published by Theatre Directories, PO Box 510 Dorset, VT 05251-0510; (802) 867-2223; Theatre Directories also offers a Special Report (#4) on Choosing a Training Program in Directing, Playwriting, Design, Tech, and Management ($7.25) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ VOICESThis week discussion in one of my playwrights groups turned to the strange chicken and egg relationship between Reality and Fiction. One acquaintance shared her theory that "fiction may be more real than reality. It is probably a distillation of many examples of the same specific action and result, or the illustration of the generality resulting from observation of these examples." It makes sense, writers do generally, as the chestnut dictates: "write what they know" and the one thing we all know is the real world. In addition to drawing on reality, we often distill it to clarify the storytelling. Novelist Richard Bach wrote "If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats" - bear in mind that this came from a man that frequently wrote fictional stories in which his doppleganger was a character. IMHO he learned a lot about who Richard Bach was from making himself a believable character in his stories. Think about it, you can give up writing and move South to teach, without knowing a lot about why you're doing it. If you're writing a character that's giving up writing to move South to teach, that action must be a logical outcome of who that person is and what's happened to them up until now. It also changes who they are which will effect future choices. That's real enough for me. What about those who find fiction, or specific media or genres to be silly? Theme Park entertainment, plays based on children's stories (or myths that have been incorporated into children's stories), science fiction and fantasy, and anything based on animated movies or comic-books suffer most from "kids stuff" syndrome. Why? Some audiences simply lump anything fictional with bedtime stories, while "grown-up" reading material and entertainment is based on fact. Theatre is, afterall, play-acting. How silly, how childish. If we can keep our cool, we who appreciate theatre and storytelling, can sometimes educate these audiences to all the serious, grown-up, real world needs theatre can fill. That doesn't mean just issue-of-the-month plays, but story-telling, in all it's forms that shows up in culture after culture - we gather around the fire with fellow human beings, we eat together, and we tell stories. Edward Albee says man is the only animal that concocts these metaphors to explain ourselves to ourselves. And I believe it was William Hazlitt that said "man is the only animal who weeps and laughs..." -- Insert comedy/tragedy mask here if the listener is truly dense -- "...for he is the only one struck by the difference between what things are and what they ought to be." Quote of the month: "Cats was the first in a series of British spectaculars to make the actor negligible" -from USA Today's article on the CATS video From the Mailbox: Just saw Book of Days, world premiere of Lanford Wilson's newest. Really liked the whole evening. Had a few friends in the cast, and the director is an old friend.....they had Wilson up for the entire rehearsal process, there every day, cutting, changing. Very nice evening ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 1998, Mersinger Theatrical Services