We had a bit of a different week this time around. While it was a shortened week, I've come out of it feeling much more confident about the direction we're heading. On Monday, we played a couple theater games, then created an outline for the opening scene, complete with setting, actions and motivations for each character. On Tuesday, we continued like this and ended up with what I feel is pretty workable. We have each scene outlined (with some specifics!) and can move to developing more concrete dialogue chunks. Karsten has worked a bit on some set/light designs for each scene. Things are coming along... I think we are reasonably on track, but might not reach full run through when we had originally planned at the beginning of December, but I can't imagine it would be long after that.
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This week was another point when we needed to take a step back and re-evaluate our progress. I've felt like we keep circling around our ideas to a certain extent, without zeroing in and just going with some of them, so I know one of my goals in the next week is to bring some more clarity of purpose to the moments we have. I know that the actors being able to sit down and really develop their character's backstory was helpful in informing the motivations of various scenes. We also tried out a couple improv exercises, like Expert and speaking in unison. These became a little silly, but they prompted an interesting discussion on the role of humor in our production, and we have since attempted to run moments from a couple of different perspectives to really focus in on the important elements. Finally, we worked on identifying containers for our piece, which are listed below:
This week was perhaps the first that we started to really think about the totality of the project. I feel like I'm now operating with a different perspective on how to approach our devised piece. On Tuesday we spent time working on bookends for our show, which has given it more narrative structure. This makes me feel more secure about the project in general, as I was starting to get a little nervous that we were getting lost in conversations about hypotheticals. One of the most important pieces of this revelation was a discussion about an effective timeline and method to complete the piece. We have determined that we will spend the next three classes (11/14, 11/15, 11/17) continuing work on fleshing out our moments and will have a defined plot and set of scenes by the end of class on 11/17. We will then spend each class between then and the first of December working an individual scene, with the intent of being able to do a complete run through 12/1. Karsten and I also discussed splitting our time during this period between working directly with the actors and beginning work on design and continuing script improvements separately to give the actors a chance to develop their own work. We will continue to update as we find a balance for directing ourselves through rehearsals.
Three topics deserve three updates!
Handout 6 This worksheet asked us to brainstorm various types of starting points from which to devise. Of course, we had already accomplished this to a large degree, so many of the ones we recorded as a group were from our initial brainstorming phase. However, it also served as a moment to reflect on some of the further starting points and themes we had developed in our first few weeks of physical exploration, and I was able to add in a few additional starting points. Revisiting this step actually was able to clarify what we had done so far a bit. Handout 7 This worksheet asked us to brainstorm several activities to stimulate development of our starting point ideas. I would say this is the phase we are in right now, so it's not nearly as much a retrospective reflection as Handout 6. While I recorded several that we have tried, the one I really want to focus on is something we tried briefly on Tuesday of this week. Based on what I've read about Frantic Assembly, I tried out the role of script writer as our group discussed personal moments inspired by our starting points. This yielded two short scripted interactions that we can then try out physically and derive further. I think this exercise will be extremely helpful, not just for the writer, but also for design team members. This week In addition to the aforementioned exercise, we have also started to zero in on a plot structured around a single character who has experienced amnesia. We have several experimental characters, like a doctor, a patient and a nurse, but we are also playing with how all these characters could ultimately be revealed to be the same character. Therefore, we've been playing with how to warp time in our production a bit, and the exercise we did a couple weeks ago imitating each other is coming in handy. More to come! |
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February 2017
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