November 11, 2011
Have you ever wondered how a play gets written with sixteen different playwrights? It’s no easy feat, let me tell you that! With fourteen actors, plus Michelle and I, sixteen is the magic number with our Thursday group at the Cooke Center Academy. I’m so impressed with how everyone has worked together to bring new ideas to the table and how open they’ve been to trying things out in front of the group!
As I told you in my last blog entry, our group decided to set the play at a summer camp. After making that decision, everyone dove right in to exploring the characters and creating original scenes. The actors have played counselors, new campers, campers who are afraid of ghost stories, campers who like being outside, campers who are homesick, campers who are bullied, and so many more and their original scenes will form the basis of the final script, which will be finished by next week’s class! But unlike when I wrote the last blog entry, I now have photos and videos to share!!
So I want to invite you to come explore the process with us. It’s not easy to be given fifteen minutes to create an original scene (When Meredith, the playwright working with our Saturday group, heard that the actors on Thursday were given that prompt, she literally exclaimed: “I would freeze if I were given only fifteen minutes to come up with a scene!”) but every single actor in our group is a total “yes, and…” rock star. They all just rolled with it!
Check out two of the scenes they created:
Here, Geraldine plays a camper who’s feeling lonely and homesick and William plays her friend who talks her through it:
And here, Yumi plays a counselor teaching Jake and Nagisa to build a campfire, and Jake steps up when Nagisa has trouble:
It’s pretty incredible, right?!?! Those scenes were written at the class before last, giving everyone the chance to come up with a first draft of their character. Yesterday, we delved further into that work so that we could flesh out the characters in the play. For example, Geraldine came up with a back story for her character, Alex, in which Alex ends up becoming a bully because of how sad she feels and how jealous she is of the campers who have friends. Geraldine and the rest of the group then decided that by the end of the play, the other campers will get through to Alex and she’ll learn that being mean isn’t the way to deal with loneliness.
Even without getting philosophical about how relevant and moving that
story line is, it’s inspiring to me to watch our group find their own
voices and create characters that are close to their hearts. By the end
of class, everyone had named their character and come up with a basic
arc for them in the play. So we know who the counselors will be and some
of the problems that our campers will face throughout the play. And
because the group loves playing freeze dance so much, it’s pretty
obvious to Michelle and I that we’ll be setting the final scene at the
camp dance!
So that means that next week starts our formal rehearsals with the script. I can’t wait!!
But for now, check out some pictures of the Thursday group:
William and I using a pretend umbrella during Charades
Yumi and William showing what it looks like when you're cold
Jake using nonverbal communication to ask Michelle "May I have this dance?" during a game called No Words
Nagisa saying, "I'm bored." during a game of No Words
William and Geraldine rehearsing their scene
Geraldine and Nagisa watching another group perform their scene
Jake, Yumi, Nagisa and I rehearsing their scene about learning to make a campfire
Hope you enjoyed the backstage peek. Can’t wait to share more!!!
Jenna
No comments:
Post a Comment