ISTA/Scene March 07

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“Come as you are and leave with a different perspective on life.” Hanna Lopes Coelho, St Nicholas School, Sao Paulo, Brazil Adults were asked to help, but even they played only a supporting role, following the lead of the Thespians. Because of the sheer number of students, it was necessary for me to do a lot of the time management, but I did so only in consultation with the student director. It was a fabulous experience for both the elementary and the high school students. The Elementary School students loved working with the high school students, and I think the feeling was mutual. It was a great community builder too, as 3rd graders now know seniors and were greeting them in the school hallways like they were best friends. Kate Caster – International School Hamburg, Germany GOD’S FAVOURITE by Neil Simon: published by Samuel French, Inc., New York This is a comedy based on the biblical story of Job. You know the one... God and the Devil have an argument about who has the most faith in God. God tells the Devil his ‘servant on earth’ is Jo Benjamin (Job) who will never renounce God, no matter what the Devil does to make his life miserable. Simon has modernized the story with some funny twists, including a bumbling messenger from God sent to tell Jo Benjamin the bad news. We endeavored to do a double cast with this show because it only has 8 characters. It did work nicely as it was a great opportunity for our community to see 2 quite different interpretations of the same script. It was, however, a bit difficult during the rehearsal process. Fortunately, I had a wonderful student director. KISS ME KATE: book by Sam & Bella Spewack, music & lyrics by Cole Porter, published by Tams-Witmark Music Library, Inc., New York This musical is quite a good one for a large group. We were able to use 7th- 12th graders with the variety this show has to offer. This show provides an excellent opportunity to costume characters in the 1950’s as well as the Elizabethan period. Not only does it have wonderful Cole Porter music, it has an interesting storyline... a little different from the typical musical 4 | Scene | 2006-7 March Issue 3 comedies around. This is a play within a play where the leading actor and actress (who used to be married and now can’t stand each other) are putting up a production of “The Taming of the Shrew.” The off stage antics cross over to the on stage performance. Besides this, a side story involves 2 comic gangsters who are trying to extort money from another cast member for his gambling debts. Some of the more well known songs include: “Brush up Your Shakespeare,” “Why Can’t You Behave,” “Wunderbar,” “Too Darn Hot” and “Always True to You in my Fashion.” STORY THEATRE by Paul Sills: published by Samual French Inc., New York This show was developed with my 9th grade students for Elementary School children. It is a compilation of some of the best-known children’s stories plus a few odd ones. The great thing about his script is that you can do parts or the entire show. We chose to use most of the stories and cut the more gruesome ones. There is also a lot of opportunity to create each story with unusual and interesting characters. It works really well as an ensemble piece with no real set and minimal costuming. It’s a dream budget show. Doug Dean – Marymount International School Rome, Italy ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST by Dale Wasserman The rehearsal period for this high school production lasted five months. Each student developed their character’s “back story” individually and we spent a long time discussing mental health and the wafer-thin line that separates sanity from insanity. I worked on the “less is more” principal; I didn’t want a group of over-the-top “nutbags”, as McMurphy refers to them. I wanted real people that had simply found life too complex to deal with. That, for me, brought out the tragedy of their situations and lended extra weight to the coldly villainous attitude of Nurse Ratched. This is NOT an easy play to do well, I was fortunate to be blessed with an extremely talented and dedicated group of students. Our set was stark white and I went with a soundrack of Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, reflecting the play’s anti-establishment themes. REVOLTING RHYMES by Roald Dahl This was an 8th grade production. We had spent part of the year working on clowning, physical comedy and status and this piece gave us an excellent chance to put what we had learned into practice. The narrator of the six stories was a clearly identifiable authority figure, albeit one who had his status lowered as the plays collapsed around him. We introduced ideas taken from Michael Green’s Coarse Acting Shows, with actors “forgetting” lines, outsized props, misplaced sound effects, wobbly scenery etc. We made many of the props and costumes ourselves, including two life-size ugly sisters, complete with detachable heads. The bottom line was though, that through all of this, the actors still had to tell the story and tell it clearly. I cast 30 actors but it could be done with far fewer. The stage started in pristine condition but, by the end, was full of props, chopped-off heads, used dynamite sticks and discarded costumes, leaving the poor narrator utterly beaten as the curtain drew. It was SO much fun; I can’t wait to do it again with another group! THE TROJAN WOMEN by Euripides This was the high school production that we ended the 2005/06 academic year with. I had a group that was almost entirely female and, in particular, four gifted girls to play the challenging roles of Hecuba, Cassandra, Andromache and Helen. I wanted to strike a balance between the traditional Greek style of performing and a more modern, naturalistic approach. So, rather than having the chorus speaking in unison I asked each of the girls to develop an individual character and shared the chorus lines between them. The middle school art teacher, a talented artist in his own right, designed a post-apocalyptic set for me, with rough, patched tents, washing lines, broken machinery, fallen buildings; a world deprived of the luxuries we now take for granted but somehow still recognizable as our own. This is a moving, powerful and challenging play.
Alenka Dorrell - American International School Budapest, Hungary Kabuki MACBETH: three Scenes from Shakespeare As part of a final directing unit, three IB student directors tackled the Prophecy, the Letter and the Final Battle in Kabuki style. Each student actor also took on a production role. The results were spectacular and the learning curve immense for everyone. The play lent itself well to the style. Our witches created some very Kabuki special effects (fishing lights in their teeth, cobwebs sprayed from their sleeves), the kata for the warriors and the extremely bloody fights with convenient mie to underscore the action (and allow everyone to breathe!) gave the choreographers a job while the designers worked with Kabuki colour symbolism for the Hanamichi floor cloths and the wall hangings. There was space for the musicians to compose a drumming and flute score and our narrator spoke the text in Japanese and English! THE GRADUATING CLASS by the High School Theatre Ensemble of AISB This was a devised production. We set it in an International School, improvising with characters from different walks of life/circumstances. The basic premise was a student thinking on the questions posed by her headmaster at Graduation, ‘Where have you come from Where are you going’ After every rehearsal, I took away the notes I had written from the students’ improvs and wrote the script that way. This is obviously going to be a touch frustrating in terms of writing because often you would rather the story was different (!) but it is a great way to teach devising and character; and to give the kids ensemble ownership of their piece. It was also hugely popular with the audience because they recognized so much from it – though we tried hard not to tell any personal stories. THREE SISTERS: an adaptation based on the play by Anton Chekhov My IB Seniors are exploring Naturalism through site-specific and Promenade theatre, by rehearsing and performing in my house. The first two acts take place in the living room, the third act is in the basement and fourth act takes Calderdale HS place in the garden! I can report that we are having a ball doing this piece. Working within a domestic environment has been fantastic. So many moments happen differently. A stage rehearsal for instance, had Vershinin walking around when talking. In the living room, this was clearly ‘unnatural’ so we made it much more static but used hands and faces more. In terms of production too it has been fascinating. Mood music doesn’t work at home, but you can do all sorts of things with stage lighting. Our performance is, for instance at 6pm but the first act is daytime, spring. We are placing large lights outside windows to shine in and give the conceit. Because it is cold here, torches and fire heaters are part of the 4th act (now set at night...) Interestingly, the 3rd act, in the smallest space, works the best of all. Anne Marie Drodz – Bilkent University Preparatory School, Turkey ANTIGONE by Jean Anouillh adapted by Anne Marie Grade 12 IB Theatre Arts students gained an experience of performing this play in a professional small studio theatre in February 2006. The play was adapted to suit the individual needs of 7 students. They were given enough individual exposure but were not overburdened with large chunks of text to memorize. The essence of the play was kept intact – maintaining themes of oppression, teenage rebellion and search for identity. Drawing on Greek myths and the theatrical conventions of Greek Theatre, (masks, ritual dance and choral movement), we also used rehearsal techniques drawn from Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed” which was later incorporated into the fabric of the play, eg, Colombian Hypnosis, Mirroring, Image Sculpturing etc. This was interlaced with modern music and modern references in terms of props and costuming. The set design owed much to the influence of Peter Brook with a minimalist approach and an “empty space” feel to the piece. The 7 actors gained a worthwhile experience of performing in a professional theatre space and gained a synthesis of the two year journey they had taken from Greek Theatre in Year 1 through to Theatre of the Oppressed in Year 2. THE DINING ROOM by A.R. Gurney The Grade 11 IB Theatre Arts class performed this American classic in May of 2006. Each of the six actors played six to eight characters in the course of the two-act play. As the director, I was thrilled to finally have the numbers and talent to put this piece on the stage. This was also the first time at BUPS/BIS that students performed a full length dramatic piece, another sign of how our theatre department is expanding. The structure of the script made every student stretch themselves to reach the ultimate challenge faced by every actor: How does one create a believable character onstage They had to exit, unbutton a shirt or pin up their hair and come back on stage as another character entirely. Due to scheduling restrictions, the IB students worked on the piece for over three months before it went up, requiring them to sustain focus and commitment on a much higher scale. The main challenge of the piece, technically, was the set and props. The dining room in question had to be stereotypically American WASP, yet versatile enough that it could withstand the 11 scenes played around it. Students learned the incredible frustrations every prop master goes through: how to find not just a spoon, but a whole set that not only matches each other but the Scene | 2006-7 March Issue 3 | 5
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Page 31 and 32: ISTA PROFILE The ISTA Consultancy S

ISTA/Scene March 07

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