ISTA/Scene March 07

estricting our set to black boxes and
platforms. The stage was a fluid area
through which students moved freely,
as if in a school, including moving from
the performance space into the
instrumental area. This text was
extremely flexible and we felt that we
could adjust it to match our group’s
strengths effectively. GREASE, of
course, is an old stand-by. While there
aren’t many ‘moments’ in the text that
challenge actors emotionally, it is such
good fun that students challenge
themselves. We really focused on
character acting and comedic timing
for this one. We spent eight weeks in
rehearsals (three meetings a week),
splitting time among choreographic,
dramatic, and music rehearsals. We
had a stationary set consisting of a
scaffolding platform with a stage-right
staircase and backstage access, a set
of lockers and several benches that
served multiple purposes.
INTERVIEW: a one act play from
AMERICAN HURRAH published by
Dramatists Play Service, available
alone or with AMERICAN HURRAH,
www.dramatists.com
High School
This is a fantastic text to challenge
drama students. It is approximately 20
minutes long but those twenty minutes
are extremely intense and demanding.
The first half of the play consists of
four anonymous interviewers
bombarding four ‘average’ people with
questions regarding their lives and
work experiences. The audience
understands that this questioning
process in meant to approximate the
situation of a job interview. However, in
the absurd world of the play, the
questions drift away from reality,
becoming more and more absurd and
seemingly more and more probing,
even diabolical. The second half of the
play follows the same characters
through a series of monologues that
move the action from the impersonal,
surface realm of the first half to a more
internal realm. Overall, the play is a
fairly cynical statement on life,
suggesting that the world is a cold,
impersonal place where only the fittest,
or cleverest, survive. In terms of style,
the play verges on the absurd. It is
very fast-paced and requires a strong
sense of timing. While individual actors
will be challenged and showcased, the
play provides tremendous
opportunities for creative ensemble
work. It has a minimal set (eight chairs
or boxes) and technical demands and
is very flexible in terms of performance
space. We developed it over the
course of about five rehearsals for a
one-off performance, but I have also
used it as a contest piece and as part
of an evening of one-acts.
Keith LeFever – Schule Schloss
Salem, Germany
UBU REX by Alfred Jarry
We read this play in our middle school
theater workshop session looking at
possible sections for scene work. The
students were so fascinated by the
intensity of the play that we decided to
produce it for Parents Day, which was
five months away. At first we would
read a scene, then use the basic
structure to improvise. In this way we
could experiment with the play and
find our own levels of expression. We
also cast the play using the
improvisations as the basis for
character selection. We ended up
having most of the main roles played
by girls; only Tatzensaum and Bubelas
were played by boys. Then we brought
in a professional acting coach from the
National Theater in Mannheim, to do
an intensive two-day workshop on
body language and extreme forms of
expression, using masks and group
exercises. We developed ideas such
as slow-motion racing, the ‘great
escape’ of the Queen and Bubelas
over 12 meters long being supported
only by bodies and not touching the
floor, finger puppets to represent
thousands of angry citizens, and using
shadows as a method of execution.
Our four musicians used tools that
they found in the janitor’s room as their
instruments. We used the floor of our
Gym as the stage and it was 6 meters
wide and 16 meters long. We had the
audience raised on two sides with the
stage being in the middle. At each end
we had a two level scaffold and two
Beijing MS
wooden slides which lead down to the
main stage. This provided plenty of
space for the 28 actors and gave us
endless possibilities for movement and
the ‘crowd’ scenes. The entire tech
was done by the middle school
students. The lighting was particularly
complicated and detailed and
demanded long hours to hang and
focus. The make up crew had a blast
as we let them free to come up with
outlandish designs, which produced a
green Ubu with bones, bugs, and body
parts in his hair. We had a wave of
illness that reached the cast; therefore
our rehearsal time was cut short. We
asked the school if we couldn’t use
some class time to finish the play, our
request was rejected. Therefore we
showed the rise of Ubu, but not the fall.
THE LEARNED LADIES by Moliére
This play we performed with the high
school group as a main stage
production. As usual we were
searching for a play with strong female
roles as the balance of power in our
theater group hardly ever swings the
other way. Most of the group had
exceptional speech skills and had been
with me for almost four years. The play
has wonderful themes such as family
dynamic, intellectual snobbery and, of
course, the role of women in society.
We used a great German translation
that was modern and phonetically
ingenious. Because of the language
we decided to set the play in the fifties
which had some of the same attitudes
toward women, daughters, and
intellectuals as in Moliére’s time... more
or less. The choice helped our prop
and costume department and cut
down on our overall production costs.
We had the stage set up in a sort of
thrust mode, which was shaped more
like a “T”, with the living room jutting
out with the bar and entrances at the
back. Having the audience on three
sides increased the intimacy of the
Scene | 2006-7 March Issue 3 | 13