Character Development!!!

Welcome back! Veronica here, ready to share new details from Curtains Up! This week we worked on character development. All of our amazing actors came up with the characters themselves. They were able to express themselves through acting as characters they designed.

Here are some exciting photos and videos from our last session!

Nicky and Sam collaborate on his character development 

 In this photo Kendall is presenting his character Billy to the group.  Let's see Billy in action in the clip below!

Above, meet our playwrighting team Michelle and Jacob.

This group is working to develop a scene.

We'll leave you this week with a clip of Teddy introducing us to his character Maxwell in the DMC character song.

Next week the actors move on to the first stages of pilot
developement. Can't wait to show you all about it. 

- Veronica

Introducing.... Veronica and the Fall 2013 Curtains Up Program!!!!

Hi, my name is Veronica, and I am the social media intern at Daytime Moon Creations. I am a current student at the Cooke Center Skills program. I am so excited to share photos and videos from the Fall 2013 Curtains Up program with you!

NOTE from Liz Castner, Program Director: Curtains Up is in its fourth week, and our program at Cooke Center SKILLs is in its second week at this time! We here at Daytime Moon had an amazing summer, but we are so happy to be back with our actors this fall! Hope you enjoy our blog posts, videos, and photos!

Now I'll give the reins back to Veronica.

First, I am going to show you a video of our actors singing the Daytime Moon song.

Amanda and Brittany goofing around at rehearsal

Kendall and Elanna take a nice break together

Tag, you're it! Jake A. points out our photographer in the Name Game

Dancing queen Sarah lives it up on her 16th birthday!

Christine and Elisa act it out!

Alex and Sam enjoy birthday treats - yum!

Karen and Meher show us a double arabesque

Getting into character, Kendall shows us a day in the life of a lumberjack.

I hope you enjoyed the photos and clips of the first three weeks of Curtains Up. I'll be back next week with more updates! See you then!

Recapping Last Week's Show with Jareth and Megan!

Last week was "Courting Magic." Courting Magic took place on Saturday May 18, 2013. It was cool to see the legal court and magic court come together. The show was funny and entertaining. The jokes were hilarious. The costumes were very detailed. The actors and audience looked like they were having fun! 

Everyone's favorite part was the whole show, especially the dance scenes, but we tried to think of a specific part, too!

This was our favorite dance scene. It's when Prince Vincent and Princess Eile meet and he tries to give her a nickname.

Megan’s favorite part was seeing the evil business executive and watching the prince perform. Jareth’s favorite characters were Jonathan the evil business executive and the prince. We chose to show you the scene where we meet Jonathan for the first time because it's funny and it reminds us of Law & Order.

And this is the scene near the end when The Highwayman performs for the whole group!

Hope you enjoyed the videos!
Jareth and Megan

A Reflection

Today's the day!!! It's hard to believe how quickly 8 weeks goes by. It feels like just yesterday that I was catching up with familiar faces (when did my returning students get so tall?!?!) and getting to know my first-time actors. 

This program, from the beginning, has held a special place in my heart. As many of you know, just a few weeks before the first class, I made the heart-wrenching and thrilling decision to take a yearlong sabbatical from Daytime Moon in order to move to Boston and pursue my masters degree at Harvard's Graduate School of Education. Knowing this would be my last program before moving for a year has deeply colored this experience, and emotional contradiction of heart-wrenching and thrilling has never gone away. This group of students, more than any other, has challenged me as an educator--How can you create a space where someone with tons of acting experience and someone with very little both grow? How can you create a play space that pushes a wizard and a princess and an evil business executive to collaborate? Further, how can you create a script from that?!? 

But these students have also given me the greatest rewards. They are kind and open to exploration. They want to play. They have sought to better understand the world around them and the minds of themselves and each other. What teacher wouldn't feel blessed beyond belief to have such students? What director wouldn't thank the theatre gods for the privilege of creating a production with such willing playmates?


The students in this program--Jake A., Sarah, Christine, Karen, Teddy, Nicholas, Alex, Jake M., and Kendall--have made this spring a time of great joy for me. Every week, I leave class on Cloud Nine, sure that there is no where in the world I'd rather be. Every week, playing with them, I question whether leaving for Boston is the right decision. My heart aches when I think about leaving our classrooms, even for a year. But when I hear them confidently say their lines, when I see the light of understanding in how a children's book author, a flower, and a lawyer could be in the same story, when I see the pride in their eyes when they see a line they said in rehearsal in print in the final script... I know that furthering my education is the right decision. Because these students have made me want to be better. They have pushed me to better understand my practice as an educator, to better appreciate the unique power of the arts, and to better serve the exceptional population I've chosen to spend my life with. They have inspired me to take the next step in my own education, so that I am better able to impact theirs. So that Daytime Moon, as special as it is, will cease to be a unique model of recreational arts programming, and so the amazing students we work with will never cease to shine. 

This show, "Courting Magic," is truly a testament to the spirit of creativity that has lived in our classroom since Day 1. Truly: an attorney, an author, a flower, a musician, an evil businessman, a magical dancer, a princess, a wizard, and a prince all play an important role in this story. When I say it is the most exciting production to date, I'm not lying--I'm amazed to see how seamlessly it has come together and in awe of the lives these students have created for their characters. So, as I pack up my bags and head to the theater, I can think of no better way to begin the next chapter of my life: making a little bit of magic with the exceptional people who've inspired me to take the step. 

I hope you'll join us for the show. Tickets to "Courting Magic" are free and can be reserved here: www.daytimemooncourtsmagic.eventbrite.com. 

Can't wait to share it with you!!

Cheers,
Jenna

Behind the Scenes at "Courting Magic"

Hey, 

Last week Megan and I wrote interview questions for  the key players on the "Courting Magic" team: Jenna the director, Michelle the playwright, and all of the actors in the play.

These are the questions we asked Jenna Gabriel, the director:

How did you become a director?

I lucked into it actually! I grew up performing, and moved to New York for college with the goal of being an actor. I had some amazing teachers at NYU who encouraged me to broaden my horizons and try my hand on the other side of the process. I still love to perform, but I think directing appeals to my love of storytelling and of working with a group of people to create something magical!!

Did you want to be a director?

Not at first, but once I tried it, I realized how much I enjoyed it!

How do you remember everyone’s names plus their characters’ names?

Haha, that's a great question! It can get tricky sometimes, especially because in this group we have two Jakes! In one program, we even had a student who played a character that had the same name as another student!!! That one got really confusing. One of the biggest things that's helpful is that we have a lot of returning actors in our programs. So I've known some of the students for years! Another thing that helps is the fact that, because our playwright writes the show based on the unique people in the group, we don't have character names until at least halfway through the program. By then I've usually learned everyone's real names!

Is this the hardest job out of all of them?

I'm not sure. I think the level of difficulty of a job depends on your comfort level with it. For example, Michelle makes a much better playwright than I would. I'd find her job very difficult, but she does it with great ease. Jake A. makes a MUCH better Highwayman than I would... I'd never feel comfortable singing "I Walk The Line" in a sold out theatre! But I do think that the director's job is unique in its importance. You can't make a play without all of the different jobs, but the director is sort of like the quarterback of the artistic team. A huge part of my responsibility is making sure that everyone is doing their job and working as a team to support the actors. A great director knows how to inspire their team and bring out the best in each designer, playwright, and performer. So hopefully I've been able to do that!

How long have you been working with Daytime Moon?

Since the very beginning! I actually am one of the founders of the company and, outside of our classrooms, act as Executive Director of Daytime Moon. While I'm not the only teacher/director on our staff anymore, I've been responsible for developing the unique curriculum that Daytime Moon provides to our participants and uses to develop our amazing productions. It's been a crazy ride since Angelica and I first started talking about Daytime Moon in 2007, but it's been a huge part of my life that I wouldn't trade for anything. When I see our students take their curtain call, I know this is the most important thing I've ever done.

What’s your favorite memory about being in this program?

Oh wow, I don't know that I could choose!! I think my favorite part of every program is the first day our actors see the final scripts. They've put in all this work and created these amazing characters. They've improv-ed scenes that often feel kind of crazy and weird because the characters don't quite fit together yet. And then they see this script. And it's professional and it's a story and it's funny and sweet and special and--most importantly--it's THEIRS. The moment when our students realize the impact their voices have had on the final product is always inspiring to me. In that moment, everyone looks full of confidence and on top of the world. They look sure that they can do anything. That's the ultimate power of theatre!

***

 

These are the questions we asked Michelle Kuchuk, the playwright--

 

How did you become a playwright?

I've actually had more experience directing and critiquing plays than writing them! Playwrights will often submit plays for professional critique to me via Nicu's Spoon Theater (where I also serve as Literary Director); I'm a tough critic but it is of my opinion that writing plays are INCREDIBLY challenging - there are so many elements to juggle!  But I had so much fun developing and writing our play with our CCA actors last fall, I asked Jenna if I could take the next step by writing for our younger kids for this program.

What’s your favorite play?

You know... last fall you asked me what my favorite plays were, and even picking a few was hard!! The best play I saw on Broadway last year was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, a playwright whose plays always inspire me.

How did you fit all three stories together? How long did it take to fit all the stories together?

Luckily, the characters that our actors created fell into those three semi-distinct groups you mentioned (and not more!). There was clearly a "royal" group, and then a good guy and a bad guy in another group... the perfect conflict.  The other two characters became this great opportunity to link the two other stories together - the fact that Alex wanted to be an author gave us the idea to link them in that way. I had help on this initial idea from Jenna and Ella and our actors... but it took me a long time to fit all the stories together in the actual script! There were a few moments when I thought I wouldn't be able to figure out the puzzle of the last scene [when the stories literally converge]!!

What was the hardest part about writing this play?

I think the hardest part about writing this play was smoothly combining every story, character, and element that our actors developed themselves and wanted to include, while at the same time creating something that actually made sense and that the audience (and me!!) could follow!  This was the most challenging part... but possibly the most fun :)

What’s your favorite memory about being in this program?

Hm... that's another extremely tough question to answer! I have so many amazing memories, and it's not over yet! I think one of my favorite memories is when we had the actors pick out costume pieces from our character chest. It was incredible to watch them develop a character in a matter of minutes with just a little help from their buddies!! They introduced their characters and gave me some of the best lines that I promptly inserted RIGHT into the script. It really made my job pretty easy...! But truly: it has been such an amazing experience to write this play with the characters that these kids created.  I am so happy to have been on "this side" of it all, and can't wait for the show on Saturday!

***

For the actors, we got to videotape them responding!! Jenna and I put this video together today:

Hope you enjoyed this backstage look at "Courting Magic"! Don't forget to reserve your tickets at www.daytimemooncourtsmagic.eventbrite.com.

See you there!
Jareth

You're Invited!!

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We would like to invite you to Courting Magic!!  It’s funny, sweet and unique. It is unique because it was written by Daytime Moon Creations and inspired by the actors! It’s also unique because there are three stories in one. Crazy the Terrific and Lily the Flower are trying to figure out how to write a story. In the Royal Court story Prince Vincent wants Princess Eile to be his friend, but Eile doesn’t want Vincent to her friend. They each have a fairy godmother to help them out. They remind us of the show Fairly Oddparents. The other story is The Court of Law. In it Jonathan the evil business executive  tries to destroy the Highwayman’s show and Kurt the attorney has to help. Then later all of the two stories become friends.

See you there!

Jareth and Megan

***

In a magical land where creativity blossoms, a children's book author, Crazy the Terrific, is struggling with this latest story. He finds help in the most unlikely of places: a flower named Lily who also loves to write. As their friendship blooms, Crazy tells Lily the stories of two Courts. In the first, a Royal Court, Prince Vincent tries to win over the friendship of Princess Eile and prove his worthiness to her guardian, The Wizard Drake, with the help of his own fairy godmother, the magical dancer Gabe. In the second, a Court of Law, The Highwayman, a Johnny Cash impersonator, is being followed by a suspicious evil businessman named Jonathan. He seeks the help of Kurt, Attorney-at-Law, but when Jonathan bursts onto the scene even more evil than could be imagined... what's a musician to do??

Worlds and plots collide in this story of stories, as Lily the flower tries to help Crazy finish his masterpiece. Can the seeds of creativity take root to solve all of the problems? Will all the characters find a way to be the best of buds? Are there this many flower puns in the actual play??? THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT!!!

Daytime Moon Creations invites you to join us for the world premiere production of "COURTING MAGIC," at the Peoples Improv Theater on May 18th at 2:15PM. Produced in association with Nicu's Spoon Theater, "COURTING MAGIC" is the final production of Daytime Moon's spring 2013 program, Curtains Up! and is based on characters created by the program participants.

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Daytime Moon Creations, Inc. is proud to present

COURTING MAGIC

by Michelle Kuchuk, based on characters and stories created by the Curtains Up! players

directed by Jenna Gabriel

Associate Producer: Nicu's Spoon Theater

May 18th, 2013

2:15 PM

The Peoples Improv Theater, 123 E 24th St

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Daytime Moon Creations offers unique, recreational arts programming to children and young adults with special needs. Through extracurricular programs in the community and in-school residencies, Daytime Moon fills a programming gap by offering an outlet for creative expression to this underserved and exceptional population. Further, by housing a unique inclusive internship program that welcomes college and graduate students pursuing a career in the field, as well as young adults with special needs seeking vocational experience, Daytime Moon provides needed services and support to individuals with special needs navigating the difficult transition from school into the workforce.

www.daytimemooncreations.org

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Founded in early 2001, Nicu’s Spoon is dedicated to producing socially reflective theatre that presents new ideas, challenges stereotypes, and touches the heart in an unexpected way. We are the central theater group in New York City who acts as a home for all - differing colors, abilities, ages, genders - we do not specialize in ‘the sight impaired’ or ‘the hard of hearing’ or ‘people of color’ - we are the only company which from day one has been a home for all artists - many may now join us or use us as a model but we are the central home base. We celebrate collaboration in developing productions that are pertinent for today’s global, diverse and rapidly changing world. New York City is full of people of different ethnicities and abilities; on the move and unheard. We give voice to those who are very much a part of our world, but whose stories often go untold. We are committed to involving the spectrum of diverse and multi-abled voices in play selection, programs & internships, our artistic, production and volunteer staffs, and in our audience.

We are a leader in working with all colors, ages, genders, abilities and ethnicities in NYC. Each play involves the rainbow we see around us on the streets of NYC. We see only possibilities. We change the world, one play at a time…

www.spoontheater.org

Jareth and Megan's Takes, Part 2

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Hello Everyone!

As promised, here’s Part 2 of Jareth and Megan’s recap of the last two classes. Now we’re talked about last Saturday, which is the last Saturday before we start working with scripts!!! So the theme of the class was Characters. Specifically, what characters our students would like to be in the final show. Using our treasure chest of character props and costumes as inspiration, students came up with their own characters and spent the class exploring!

The first video on today’s blog is being introduced by Megan:

The Character Song is with the students introduce their character by saying their name, what they are and what they do. I know the song from elementary school. We used to sing it on the first day of school to get to know each other! But I haven’t heard it since then. It looks like they had a lot of fun in the video.

 

 

After introducing their characters briefly in song, each student got the chance to come up in front of the group and do a longer introduction. Jareth introduces the his favorite character:

 

In this video, Alex plays a man who is a children’s author and gets nervous a lot. He gets nervous on walking forward, so he walks in circles. My favorite part was when he had an umbrella. He reminds Megan of Jimmy Cricket from Pinocchio.

And Megan introduces hers:

Teddy played a business executive named Jonathan. Teddy came up with his own character name, his costume, and his lines. His costume was my favorite. He likes breaking up  bands and burning their records and shredding them. It makes me wonder how the characters can fit in because they are all different. 

The last character story they want to share is Jake’s:

Jake played a magician and ask Teddy to be his volunteer, which Jake turn Teddy into a lion. Our favorite part was when Teddy roars like a lion.

Like Megan noticed after watching Teddy’s video, all of our students came up with wildly different characters!! In addition to the three Megan and Jareth shared, we also have a crime-fighting attorney, a princess who always gets her way, and a magic dancer... just to give a few more examples. So in the last half of class, we explored what would happen if we put them all together! We divided into three groups and started writing some scenes!

Alex and Chrstine’s video was Jareth and Megan’s favorite. Here’s what they have to say about it:

In this video, a guy talks to a flower, which is weird because you can only see this in the movies or books. We both think it would be weird to see a talking flower. The flower said that if the author tells her his stories that she will help him decide which one to write about.

This is all pretty exciting!!! Can’t wait to see what happens once we bring the script in!

Cheers,

Jenna

Jareth and Megan's Takes, Part 1

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Hello All!!

We are officially halfway through the program and Jareth, Megan, and I have a lot to share!! It’s been amazing so far. As a teacher, I have to say that I feel a little spoiled: in addition to 9 amazing students, I somehow lucked into not one, not two, but THREE amazing interns: Mikey’s been helping Michelle with the script in class, and Megan AND Jareth are helping me sift through all of the great videos from class.

We missed our meeting last week, so this blog post will come in two installments: this post, about class on Saturday the 20^th, and another post about last Saturday the 27^th. Then (not to give too many spoilers away…) this coming Saturday, Michelle’s going to have a draft of the script!!

Jareth and Megan each chose their favorite videos from the class on April 20^th. So, without further ado, I give you Jareth and Megan’s takes!

Here’s what Jareth had to say:

The Machine Game is when they act like parts from a machine. In this video they acted liked a car. They played a driver, seat belt, wheels, gas pedal and the steering wheel. I liked when they acted the parts from a car.

 

In class, the group played Mimic Photo again. In this video, there are two robbers who want to take away $5,000 from the sheriff. So they take away the $5,000 and run off. I liked when one of the robbers just took the money and ran.

This other picture is of two princes. I think maybe they are brothers. In this video, they are blaming each other for something that one of them did. They start to fight. They should stop fighting and be honest. I liked when they were pointing fingers at each other.

 

And here’s what Megan had to say:

The machine game is a game when a group of students acts like parts of a machine.  In this video, they are all working together to make a Jack in the box. 

 

In this video the group is playing a game called Mimic Photo.  In this game, they each have a partner. They get a picture and they have to reenact what’s in the picture.  This video is my favorite.   The video is about a rock star and an announcer putting on a show.  

 

Hope you enjoyed their recap of class. Get ready for Part 2…it’s all about CHARACTERS!!!

Cheers,

Jenna