ISTA/Scene March 07

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“What other event makes professional development feel like such a vacation for the mind and soul” Doug Bishop, Taipei American School, Taiwan choreography for them. After practising some basic drama skills and going over the importance of body language, gestures/mimics and posture we were ready to start. Before the audition part students did research on the play and read the critics. After reading the scripts, they started practising for audition. The play was performed at our school’s OPEN HOUSE DAY. John Pitonzo – International School of Florence, Italy PIRATES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN: Middle School Middle School students ideated and participated in the creation of the script. They spent 3 months putting the play together, creating their own costumes, writing the dialogue, and designing the set. The play involved a ghost pirate recruiting a group of neighborhood kids to locate a long lost treasure in order to end the curse placed on him by a lady Bucaneer for the “haircut” he had given her. They performed the play in front of the elementary school and at Teatro Le Laudi in Florence as part of a doubleheader with Romeo and Juliet. THE TERRIBLE TRAGEDY OF FAUSTINA FAUX: High School This was a take-off on Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus. Faustina, an average student with self-perceived average looks, one true friend and an acceptance into a non-competitive university, makes a deal with the devil for the highest grades, beauty and popularity. Twenty-four years later, highly successful, men at her feet, the devil comes collecting and she has a change of heart. In this version things turn out in her favor as The All. Powerful shows up and plays a dirty trick on the devil. The play had a cast of 8 consisting of Faustina, her friend, Mephistofeles, a good angel, bad angel, a shady teen selling drugs, watches and black magic, God, the Devil, and the most popular boy in the school. This play was 50 minutes long and performed for grades 7 through 11. ROMEO AND JULIET: High School The Upper School Drama class, combined of 21 grade 9 and 10 students, performed a contemporary, slightly edited version of Shakespeare’s 18 | Scene | 2006-7 March Issue 3 love play. They performed this play at Teatro Le Laudi in Florence. The play included contemporary music selected by the students. Catherine Rankin - BISS Beijing International School, China RITES OF PASSAGE: student devised A group of 7 students aging from 11 to 16 worked with me on a student devised piece call “Rites of Passage” for our One Act Play Festival. The main theme was based on what adolescents do to be accepted by their peers. Some of the ideas I had came from other small group workshops but the overall performance was a truly collaborative effort. The focus of the performance was ensemble work so there was no lead character. It started with the idea of a new person arriving into a tribe – “ Deep in the Jungle there is a tribe. The tribe is adolescence and the jungle is here!” The play then progressed through a variety of events such as – smoking (using Madonna’s vogue as a base) drugs; alcohol (poem about the hangover fairy); fashion sense (wigs) and sex. Through out sections the students performed monologues lasting one minute, that focused on an individual’s reaction to the “tests”. The play concluded with an initiation sequence. We performed the piece for the school and audiences at the Festival. The audiences found it to be a powerful performance. AIDS – Student devised The AIDS presentation was for World Aids Day. The performance started with a PowerPoint display with Avril Lavigne’s version of “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”. A group of five students were frozen in still images. After the PowerPoint, the lights came up and each person said a series of statistics. On the second series of statistics, the students moved into a circle. A chant of “Ring a Ring a Rosy” was used as the students moved around in a circle. At the end of each line, students would freeze and one of the students would come to the front, in role to present a monologue. The monologues included: a doctor; a friend of someone in hospital; a drug addict; and two monologues about getting AIDS through unprotected sex. The final sequence had the group saying the whole poem again ending with “All fall down” and the lights went out. It was a powerful piece and gave teachers an opportunity to discuss the issues of AIDS within pastoral care and the sciences. Stan Ratoff – American School in London, UK ANNIE JR from the Broadway Jr series Choosing a musical for MS students – in which the range of the songs are appropriate – can be difficult – at least it was for me. In the end, on the recommendation from my musical director, I looked at the Broadway Jr. series and found Annie Jr. It was perfect for 7th and 8th graders - even though it was originally geared for younger singers. The length of the musical was very manageable (onehour long) and it provided the students with a very positive musical theatre experience. We had a 10-week rehearsal schedule, meeting 2-4 times a week after school for the first two months and everyday for the final two weeks. We had a cast of over 30 students. The first two weeks focused on ensemble building and reviewing the themes of the musical. We read the original Little Orphan Annie comic strips to get a sense of the character and time it was published. The set was created to look like the original newspaper comic strip. Only after the second week did we begin to read the script and begin rehearsing the musical. Everyone in the cast felt that there should be a real Sandy (the dog), so we held dog auditions, with the cast members making the final decision. It was quite an experience working with a live animal – it reminds me of W.C.Fields’s comment that one should never work with animals and children – and here I was working with both! In the end, both children and dog were hits and everyone enjoyed the musical. As for Tech, we hired a lighting designer who worked with me on designing the lighting. He then trained a couple of 8th grade students who ran the lights and sound for the performances. Musicals are big hits within a school
community – sometimes they overshadow a dramatic performance but within an international community, it will be a musical that will bring the community together. THE COMEDY OF ERRORS by William Shakespeare Shakespeare can be difficult for MS students, and sometimes for teachers, but I decided to try my first Shakespeare play. Which one to choose It just so happened that I had tickets to see THE COMEDY OF ERRORS in the West End, London – and I was struck by both the simplistic and humorous way it was produced. I had found my Shakespeare play. Two week before auditions, students were able to drop by my room to read through the script and become familiar with the play. I spent many lunch periods and recess time talking with students about Shakespeare and THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. When I choose a play for MS students, I always try and find a theme that would be relevant to their life experiences. This Shakespeare play was a perfect choice to explore identity – which is a major issue for adolescent-aged students. With a 10-week rehearsal schedule, we spent the beginning weeks exploring the language and how to create ‘normal’ dialogue with the verse. During this time, we had the good fortune to participate in a Shakespeare workshop at the Globe Theatre, exploring themes of the play. We even had a chance to act out some scenes on the stage. This was an invaluable experience for the cast. Our set was all white with revolving doors, which were metaphors for the changing identities. Both set of twins were dressed the same and the action was more Commedia dell’ Arte than Shakespeare. The cast had a ball doing this play and their interest in Shakespeare grew. For me THE COMEDY OF ERRORS was an easy and funny play to do with MS students. It was very accessible as an introduction to Shakespeare. Again, I used MS students as crew, lighting and sound people for the production. THE ODYSSEY adapted by David Calcutt The ODYSSEY is a wonderful play to do because it touches on many adolescent issues such as identity, transition, friendship, risk-taking, love, etc. Another reason for choosing THE ODYSSEY was my policy of allowing anyone who auditions to be involved in the play as either cast or crew. Usually I get around 30-40 students auditioning for the MS play so I always try to choose a play with a large and flexible cast. THE ODYSSEY proved to be an amazing experience for both cast and myself. During the early stages of the rehearsal process, we explored the story and improvised each adventure Odysseus experienced. I also began to explore with the cast the concepts of ritual and storytelling. The adaptation focused on the concept of a story within a story – which made it easier for both the cast and audience to understand the story and to allow monsters and Cyclops to appear on stage by using effigies for these creatures. The staging was simple – chairs for listeners of the story in the play and the floor for the actors telling the story. 9th grade students who were studying THE ODYSSEY in class talked to the cast about the story. The characters created their own dance and rituals needed in the play. Through the exploration and development of rituals, the cast became closer to each other and a real ensemble experience was created for all involved. I also had a high school assistant director who worked with the students. My designer designed every costume and we had parents make them. It was quite an adventure – just like the journey in the story. It was a fascinating experience bringing together parents, cast and crew to work on one adventure – which was an odyssey in itself. Calderdale HS Steve Reynolds – United World College of Li Po Chun, Hong Kong WOZA ALBERT by Percy Mtwa, Mbongeni Ngema and Barney Simon The play was presented by IB Theatre Arts students as their year two/end of course production. It was the culmination of their African theatre unit as well as a celebration (and closure) of the course as a whole. The play features two actors playing a variety of characters with a basic (easy to prepare) staging. It is fast moving, funny and very physical, but also focuses on the serious issue of racism through its Apartheid South African setting. We split the play into four sections and two different students played the characters in each section (because there are so many characters there is little need for character development). A student director was then appointed for each unit. So, the students owned the material and I as teacher just oversaw the production values and transitions between each unit. We rehearsed over an 8-week period (the separately run units made simultaneous rehearsals easy), in lessons and after school. We explored the history of South Africa and physical theatre skills before focusing on the text and delivered a studio performance over three nights to the Li Po Chun college community. THE LIST by Steve Reynolds This play was presented by the Dar es Salaam Young Peoples Theatre, a youth group that was based in the International School of Tanganyika and open to all local young people (no auditions – inclusive entry). The group was dedicated to producing plays Scene | 2006-7 March Issue 3 | 19
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 and 12: for this show, although you can buy
Page 13 and 14: Beijing MS broken on stage guarante
Page 15 and 16: estricting our set to black boxes a
Page 17 and 18: “It was wonderful to see young pe
Page 19: have suggested to ourselves the wro
Page 23 and 24: war is going and terrorize the comm
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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