In some other comment, Marc has mentioned the handbook he put together for his GHP students. I’ve been reading through it, it’s more like a textbook!, and beginning to work with him to edit it into a web-based document for our use. The more I read, the more excited I get about our potential as a theatre collaborative. Continue reading “Marc’s handbook”
Category: starting up
Don’t dream it, be-e it…some short performances around the question of how to stage the Rocky Horror (Picture) Show
You can do the script (which I’ve never read) and let it inspire your decisions. But how can you be free from the film version? How could you be free from the film if you decided to do The Sound of Music?
RHPS is an interesting case since the fans tend to know every frame of the movie. And part of being a fan is being able to stage perfect lip-syncable facsimiles which run in tandem with the screen action. Any fan, therefore, could direct a great production if reproducing the film is the goal. And as a goal, why not?
Can you do an updated version? Continue reading “Don’t dream it, be-e it…some short performances around the question of how to stage the Rocky Horror (Picture) Show”
An example of what I hope to get out of Lacuna
I’ve been asked to share an ensemble experience I had as it relates to Lacuna. In 1997, we were doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was the second time I had directed this play, and I wanted to try something very different. I had brainstormed with Marc some ideas about the play that I had, and had settled on doing it in a kind of environmental setting. In fact, we moved the audience around: they started in nice, neat rows for the Athens scenes, but when we moved to the wild and woolly woods, we asked members of the audience to move their chairs out into the woods with us: they could chose where to put their seats anywhere in the oval-shaped playing area.
Before we began working on the script itself, we spent a couple of weeks with Marc trying to teach us some of his weird stuff, some of which sunk in and we were able to use. I taught ways to approach and play Shakespearean text. Everybody participated. We had a large cast, ages nine to 40+, and everyone learned what was being taught, weird or not. Continue reading “An example of what I hope to get out of Lacuna”
There’s this script, see…
Go to the comments and list plays you think Lacuna could/should do. (See the post below for kinds of theatre events you’d like to see us do.)
So what we’re going to do is…
What are we going to perform? What kinds of things would it be possible to offer audiences? Go to the comments and list to your heart’s content. Make this list kinds of performances. See the post above for specific scripts you’d like to tackle.
Some organizational suggestions
Dear Fellow Company Members,
There. That was easy. Say it and it’s so. Now we’re a company. I propose we meet and talk about how best to bestow our gifts on the Newnan-Coweta theatre scene.
The only really insanely ambitious part of this would be the first meeting since it would be best for all interested parties to attend and there is no such thing as a perfect time.
Here’s my suggestion about how this first meeting might work. The how is easier to think about than the when: Continue reading “Some organizational suggestions”
What I think this group should be and do
I think this group should be a collaborative study group:
- We should meet on a regular basis, with an agenda for each meeting that we’ve agreed on beforehand.
- This agenda might have a focus on a particular acting exercise, or scene work, or discussion, or improv, or acting style, or vocal work, or any combination of the above.
- Every member of the group can propose an agenda. All proposals are equal: like Marc says, we can vote on what we want to do next, and we can take our time about getting around to everything on our list.
- Membership of the group should be porous, especially if we use space at the Newnan Theatre Company. Members of the group should feel free to audition and perform with NTC’s regular season, and regular NTC members should feel free to join us. No pressure, and no rivalry.
- We should try to perform something once a quarter. Once a year, it should probably be something as big as Mame and performed in Wadsworth Auditorium.
Discuss.