ISTA/Scene March 07

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“Loads of fun and a real revelation about what general classroom teachers are able to achieve by integrating drama into their classroom.” Deborah Morehouse, Jakarta International School, Indonesia Ash Huxtable – International School of Penang, Malaysia WOLF LULLABY by Hillary Bell: an IB Theatre Arts production Second year students were keen to choose and collaboratively direct their own production. After reading a series of scripts they were immediately drawn to Bell’s tale of a nine year old Angie who is accused of murdering a twoyear old boy. The story draws inspiration from the nature vs. nurture debate that surrounded chilling real-life child murders (e.g. Mary Bell and James Bolger), resultant media attention and the effects this has on the accused, their parents and law enforcers. The students took up a challenging piece with enthusiasm and a great deal of consideration. They enjoyed the way that the story unfolded in a series of psychologically realistic scenes but gave them the opportunity to use anti-realistic techniques, staging and technical effects. A great play for original music and sound composition that is guaranteed to have your audience squirming in their seats. The real success comes when the audience are unsure whether they are meant to hate Angie or feel sorry for her. THE INSANE ASSYLUM: a Commedia dell’ Arte scenario Another IB project that challenged students to recreate the traditional atmosphere of a commedia performance. The project began with an introduction to mask using the excellent resources of the Trestle Theatre Company and their Basic Mask Set (the set comes with a detailed teacher’s resource pack with lesson by lesson workshops). Students took the skills learnt in this unit out into ‘streets’ performing original, short, spontaneous scenarios during primary school break-times. Here they learnt the hard way about the unpredictable nature of audiences as well as the limitations and boundless magic of masks. They used these experiences and new-found skills in approaching the demands of commedia, to improvising and rehearsing the ‘canavaccios’ of THE INSANE ASSYLUM. They had by now made the transference to commedia 10 | Scene | 2006-7 March Issue 3 masks, bought over the internet from Darkside Masks in New Zealand. The students also designed and realised their stock character costumes as well as undertaking workshops in Lazzi acrobatics and circus skills (mostly juggling). The final performance was done in a small 100- seat theatre that the students transformed into a surreal lantern festooned wonderland. Preshow sought to energise the audience through displays of circus tricks and live musicians in an attempt to recreate a noisy market place. Traditional fourth wall barriers were broken in order to bring the audience closer to experiencing the production rather than just watching it – techniques learnt in the initial ‘street theatre’ mask work were invaluable. World theatre tradition transformed into a living, breathing event. PUTERI GUNANG LEDANG: The Fairy Princess of Gunang Mountain This devised performance took the very popular and well-known Malay folktale and re-told it using the traditional practices of puppetry, dance and music with a creative twist. The story revolves around the Sultan of Malacca and his arrogant assertion that he will marry the Fairy Princess of Gunang Ledang. A quest ensues, marked by terrible trials and results in a set of impossible demands laid down by the Princess. A cast of 40 were divided into Sultan’s subjects, a group of savage tigers, wild men of the forest and guardians of the Princess. The main three characters of the Sultan, his trusted warrior and the Princess herself were giant six-meter tall wayang golek puppets operated by students. The groups learnt traditional Balinese dance movements in a series of workshops. These movements were then used as a basis for more contemporary choreography (designed collaboratively by students and staff) as the students learnt to tell the story of “Puteri” through dance/drama. Transition narration was provided by wayang kulit puppets and voice-overs. An original score was devised by music students who used their work as part their IB and GCSE composition/performance requirements. This score also mixed traditional and contemporary styles. The whole piece lasted about 40 minutes and was performed on the school field as the centre-piece of a performance evening called ‘Ria’ (Malay for ‘celebration’) that focused on the living culture of Malaysia – ‘bringing the outside in’ – where invited performance practitioners were brought together to demonstrate their art for the school and local community. An exhausting exercise for a small department – but unbelievably worthwhile and inspiring. Greg Jemison - American International School of Bucharest, Romania SIAMESE FIGHTERS was a short play I wrote when I was teaching in a large comprehensive school in the UK. It was written at the request of a local primary school that was undertaking projects to highlight the problems of bullying in school. I worked with a small group of middle school students on re-working the play to make it relevant to an international school in Romania. This was a small scale production - bare stage, no tech and minimal props - aimed at performances for Grades 4, 5 and 6 plus a performance for parents, faculty and friends. The play looks at bullying at different levels and at how victims can also be bullies. The script provides a framework for considerable improvisation and the performance finishes with the cast coming back on stage in character to face the questions of the audience. In fact this aspect of the project was the most grueling for the performers as some questions were very searching and really put the characters on the spot. Our major production was a musical melodrama called CAMILLA or CAPTIVE AT KENTIGERN COURT with a cast of 45 with almost the same number involved in support roles. It’s set in the early 1800’s with highwaymen, tavern wenches and aristocracy (mainly High Schoolers) and downtrodden servants (Middle School) oppressed by the wicked onearmed Sir Pegram and his sinister sidekick - Flitch. Comedy and tragedy are juxtaposed and the moment when the smallest servant stands up to his wicked master and has his neck
Beijing MS broken on stage guaranteed gasps of horror from the audience. Fun too for the tech guys who experimented with snapping celery and carrots in front of a mic to reinforce the effect. The music is scored for string quartet plus flute, piano and percussion and not having any string players we pulled in music students from the local University who were fantastic. We have good links with a local theatre and also a film studio who were invaluable in helping us with set, props and costume and this involvement with the wider community really helped to energize the students involved. I wrote the play some years ago with one of my students who wrote all the music. Our most recent purely High School production was Moliere’s THE MISER. There was some cutting and a fair amount of translation to make the play more accessible and contemporary. The production was not period specific and costuming was eclectic with Harpagon in tail coat and battered top hat and the sly servant La Fleche in baggy jeans and entering on a kid’s scooter. We used Commedia as a way into much of the physical comedy and this gave the cast the opportunity to create their own Lazzi and visual comic details. For the scene where Harpagon searches inside La Fleche’s baggy pants for stolen goods the two boys created an amazing and hilarious routine. Initially many of the cast were doubtful as to whether the play would be funny for a contemporary audience and felt such achievement when the audience responded as they hoped. We used a soundtrack based entirely on the Hooked on Classics series of well known classical pieces with ‘naff’ disco beat. Nancy Jenkins – Anglican International School, Jerusalem (formerly at International School Yangon, Myanmar) THE VENETIAN TWINS by Goldoni in a translation by Ranjit Bolt This is the second time I have directed this play, which I saw performed by the RSC twice! This is a brilliant, entertaining and irreverent translation, yet still suitable for schools. I worked with a cast of 14 for over 12 weeks, all of whom were aged between 13 and 18. I cast two different students as the twins on both occasions. In Rangoon, one was a boy and one a girl. The use of half masks made this possible. Girls also played the father, several of the servants and the villain of the piece. This play can be performed with minimal set and lighting and it is possible to localize a lot of it, so the inn became the American Colony Hotel, Jerusalem etc. The audience loved it and so did the students. MY FAIR LADY I worked with about 25 students, aged 11 to 18, a Musical Director playing a piano and two Choreographers. I had to re-cast the musical in a morning because the school board banned my first choice, BLOOD BROTHERS, that I had chosen partly because I had promised the students we would do a musical, only thought I had one student who could sing and believed I could handle the choreography myself. Three hours later I assembled the cast of BB and announced a change of plan. We had a minimalist set and lighting, but we went to town on the costumes and props. I also had choreographers who made the dancing really innovative and exciting and the costumes were spectacular. It was extremely ambitious, but the students pulled it off. If we can mount a production like this, from within a Middle School/High School of 70 students with no music department, no drama department apart from extra-curricular and no dance training, anyone can... THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST The challenge of what to do after MY FAIR LADY... We decided on something more intellectual with a small cast, which would allow the two students who played Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering to play opposite each other again. I worked with 9 students aged 15-17. We went for a sumptuous set and less elaborate and authentic costumes. Students and audience loved the play, but the cast did comment that the first night audience was much better because they got more of the jokes. This production also featured an African- American Lady Bracknell! And this year... GUYS AND DOLLS. We now have a music teacher, so she will start a choir in October and teach all the musical numbers, I will cast the musical in January, for performance in June. Beijing MS Fenella Kelly - Cairo American College, Egypt SPARKLESHARK by Philip Ridley from the National Theatre anthology of plays for young people CAC had been experiencing some bullying and discrimination problems before I arrived at the school, so I thought this Middle School play would help highlight and address some of those issues. I auditioned as soon as I arrived and had an overwhelming number of students audition. I therefore decided to double cast the show and also avoid stereotyping by doing so. For example, the bully was tall and blonde in one show and very small and dark in the other; the object of bullying (the character of Finn, an older sibling with speech and communication problems) was a stocky boy in the first show and a tall girl in the second. The ‘popular’ girls gang was also different each night, with one group being predominantly American and the other group being more international. We worked on the play for 8 weeks and simultaneously the Middle School Stagecraft classes (one of which I was teaching) designed and built the set and designed the lights. Students felt true ownership of the production and the large student involvement meant that audiences were large, and hopefully our message reached many. Scene | 2006-7 March Issue 3 | 11
Page 1 and 2: Scene 2006-7 March Issue 3 THE QUAR
Page 3 and 4: Editorial 2006-7 March Issue 3 ASKI
Page 5 and 6: ng in Schools and then set them abo
Page 7 and 8: Alenka Dorrell - American Internati
Page 9 and 10: narratives throughout the play, tol
Page 11: for this show, although you can buy
Page 15 and 16: estricting our set to black boxes a
Page 17 and 18: “It was wonderful to see young pe
Page 19 and 20: have suggested to ourselves the wro
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Page 25 and 26: “My tree of knowledge expanded by
Page 27 and 28: of the text. The Asian setting perf
Page 29 and 30: Calderdale HS Beijing MS visual art
Page 31 and 32: ISTA PROFILE The ISTA Consultancy S

ISTA/Scene March 07

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