Romeo & Juliet

I have not performed on a stage in years. In my high school career, Romeo & Juliet was my first school production (not counting our class-produced performance of The Good Soul of Szechuan) and from it I have garnered experiences and knowledge that I never would have otherwise.

I had studied IB Theatre at higher level for over a year, participated in numerous workshops from a variety of people, but I had never had an opportunity in which to make use of what I learned. My role as Lady Capulet and just being a part of the Romeo & Juliet cast gave me a chance to change that.

I never knew how exhilarating it was to perform. I had never even imagined it. However, the feeling I experienced once I completed the play was astounding. I don't think that I have ever felt such a sense of accomplishment. The other more experienced members of the cast tell me that they have never been so close after a play before, and I don't doubt it - the sense of camaraderie and trust that we built up is amazing. I have gotten to know people I could never have known without this experience.

And I am grateful.

I had always thought of myself as a girl that lacks commitment. I have countless personal projects I had started but never completed. However, I've learned from Romeo & Juliet that I thought wrong. If I put my heart into it and have people supporting me, and if I make the time to try, I can accomplish amazing things. I can persevere and complete something. I can finish a project and make something great.

I have learned so much about myself and just creativity and cooperation in general.

Guest Speaker: David

• Student of Mrs. Moon during the time of the R&J Movie (DiCaprio, 1996)
• The decision process of a director
• brings a world to life
• willing something into existence
• Tische School of Film
• don't necessarily have to go to a school for film; need dedication and determination to learn and train, however
• school is for the people that you meet and the portfolio
• Competitive work environment
• come prepared to set

Before : "THIS WILL BE THE GREATEST THING EVER!"

Later...: "oh my god I just hope it doesn't fail" <-truer words have never been said

• Art is an emotional process. It's natural. -Mrs. Moon
• "You have to finish it" - this is one of the most important aspect of anything, especially art; screenplays, writing, anything. Finish it. Finish it. Finish it.
• It is a miracle that good movies exist.
• "They almost perfected film-making... and then sound came."
• ((Trampolines are always great))

RI - Elements and Notes

• You can include images
• Parenthetical references
• Make every word count
• The more specific, the better
• ((Grotowski's philosophies are fascinating))
• Notes Below the Cut

What The Body Does Not Remember

Firstly, I will express how much regret I have for being unable to watch this performance. The idea of the human body and its reflexes and the unconscious tension - TBC listening to class

IPP: Why Scriptwriting?

My dream is that one day, the characters I create can be real to someone else.

After all, they are already real to me, so I can't help but hope that someone else - complete strangers to me - will one day love them as much as I do. I have written for five years now, and I've always written with one intent: to have the characters that are so real to me to be real to someone else as well.

I have wanted to complete writing a play, ever since my first Scriptwriting Frenzy attempt back in 2009. I never did succeed writing a 100 page play in 30 days, but it was the process that was memorable. I've imagined for a long time now what sheer satisfaction I would feel should I ever complete a work.

I think this IPP is the time for me to do so.

Though I was enjoying myself back then, I was also a child - I wrote for the fun of it, but I wasn't truly driven by passion, nor did I have any knowledge to aid me in the process. Now that I am a student of IBH Theatre, I have read several different plays, seen numerous different performances, and more than ever, I am passionate.

I want to write a play, put the ideas in my head down on paper, and have the characters I create live and die in a world of my creation.

I am a writer, after all.
It's what I do.

Workshops with the Experts

Daniel Foley

• There is so much I've learned from my brief encounter with Mr. Foley, particularly when it came to performing Shakespeare. I tried to keep his lessons in mind during the performance of Romeo & Juliet.
• The importance of vocalization; warm-ups, enunciation, and projection
• The musicality of Shakespearean language
• Awareness of the body; especially in physical scene
• the safety of the partner(s) is of the highest priority, above all else
• it is all in the effect produced, not the actual means; no need to actually punch someone to make something seem realistic
• hair pulling; slap; punch
• basic stick-fighting

Chad Austin

• A unique personality; I took notes on his character for future reference.
• Of the lessons he gave, I found particular value in his 'interview' exercise
• first impression is important
• it is very difficult to be yourself and confident
• nerves come when you least expect them, so always be prepared

TPPP Outline

WORK IN PROGRESS

Mark Hill

• [get picture from Mrs. Moon]
• spacial relations; Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki
• experience with Butou theatre and the spirituality of it
• differences between western theatre (vocalization; centered higher up; positive space) and oriental theatre (physical; centered lower down; negative space)
• the importance of an ensemble; peripheral vision
• dynamic stillness; counterpoint, etc.

The Pillowman

• first experience with post-modernism
• very raw, surreal, and disturbing
• fascinated me as a scriptwriter

The Odyssey

Mother Courage and her Children / Bertolt Brecht

Good Soul of Szechuan

• First experience with production elements; newfound appreciation
• Learned about dramaturgy; its importance in a play; a new interest
• Learned about lighting; learned about different types of lighting and how lighting can so affect atmosphere
• Difficulty balancing practicality and ideas

Bunraku Theatre

Commedia del Arte

Romeo and Juliet

• first major production in high school
• enlightening and thrilling experience
• called upon lessons with Mark Hill (on Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki) in reference to spacial relations, physicality, and the ensemble
• called upon workshops with Daniel Foley on Shakespearean language and vocalization
• a demonstration of how theatre evolves with time; the themes in Shakespeare are universal and timeless, so even set in a different setting, it is relevant and plausible.

Shadowland

• an inspiration to me
• an example of theatre that evolves; theatre ant technology
• physicality of the show
• Reminiscent of Suzuki in that every moment is aesthetically beautiful

Salar de Uyuni

• theatre is a world that reflects and changes with the world around it
• a world that reflects me, and everything I do causes ripples in the world around me
• it is ephemeral and never stops changing - in the Salar de Uyuni, the sky changes, and it is reflected in the water; everything on the flat is reflected and every movement of the wind or a step causes ripples in the environment.
• theatre is reflective, changing, and beautiful.

Arthur Miller and The Crucible

http://the_english_dept.tripod.com/miller.html

"Fear doesn't travel well; just as it can warp judgment, its absence can diminish memory's truth. What terrifies one generation is likely to bring only a puzzled smile to the next." 

"The Crucible was an act of desperation."


Arthur Miller

• Death of a Salesman, The Crucible
• Was married to Marilyn Monroe
• Cynical; middle-class citizens being harmed, social justice
• Witch Hunt, Antisemitism, Red Scare, again and again, history repeats itself ; Miller lived familiar to all this fear.
• Miller found motivation in the liberals who wanted to oppose the violation of civil rights during the Red Scare Interrogations but were too fearful to attempt.
• In 1951, Miller wrote a screenplay called "The Hook", about union corruption on the Brooklyn waterfront.
• Harry Cohn, the director showed the script to the FBI
• Cohn then told Miller to change the threatening and murdering gangsters in the script into Communists instead.
• Miller refused, and Cohn sent him this condemning telegram: "The minute we try to make the script pro-American, you pull out."
• It is hard to let go of our belief that society must somehow make sense. Our unwillingness to believe that society is condemning and harming innocent people drives us to internally deny and ignore the evidence that is there.

Mccarthyism

• The practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism."

"As with most humans, panic sleeps in one unlighted corner of my soul." I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate Miller's skill with language.

Analysis of The Crucible

• Idea; The Special World (create a planet)
• Dialogue/Anything in PoMo
• Roots
• Given Circumstances
• Polar Attitudes (pendulum of change)
• beliefs
• prejudices
• perception
• tolerance
• assumptions
• Previous Action
• Dramatic Action of the Characters
• Character Development
• Archetypes
• Reactions
• Speech patterns
• Motivations
• Etc. etc. etc.
• The Crucible
• Religious beliefs
• Environmental situation
• Social environment
• Political environment
• Economic situation
• Geographic position
• Time

Post-Modernism

American Idiot: A New Genre
I had listened to music before, but nothing quite like the Green Day rock that characterizes American Idiot.
I had watched performances before, but nothing quite like the organized chaos that marks this Broadway hit.

It was easy to understand how the set design won an Academy Award for this show. The whole tone and mood of the performance was conveyed to the audience from the beginning, and only emphasized and strengthened throughout the play. There was always a surprise.

TV screens lined the whole of the stage, alongside graffiti and newspapers.

Victor ou les Enfantes au pouvoir: Cruel and Absurd
Well, though the performance wasn't actually 'cruel' and 'absurd', it did deal with Theatre of Cruelty and Absurdism, two styles of production that I had yet to see firsthand. I'd call my experience a success, and I was fascinated by the unique gripping and disturbing nature of the play as a whole.

However, this was also the first time I understood how frustrating it must be for Koreans to watch plays in original English (Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, and Avenue Q being cases in point). I feel as if I've lost so much of the nuance, meaning, story, and essence of Victor ou les Enfantes while struggling to read the rapid translations off to the far sides of the stage. As for mise en scene, there is just too much to discuss. What first...

The first image of the stage.

The lighting is red, bathing the stage in an eerie crimson light. Hanging from above is a huge mass of tangled... something. Others seemed to view them as tree roots, but I thought them too thin for that - they seemed more like a hanging mass of hair, wrapping and tangled in on each other and casting shadows upon the walls. Two lights. Two shadows. Opposite sides of the stage.

And in the center is a small three-sided room with thick walls. Within it is a chair and a man... boy... stock still and unmoving, merely taking in the red light and letting it cast shadows upon his face. With arms around his knees, he sits in that cramped room. Claustrophobia - that was the first word that came to mind.

Throughout the play, the size of the room differs - it slowly expands, opening wider and wider as scenes unfold in the play, which I felt symbolized not only progression of the plot but the main character's own mind. However, eventually, the walls expand to the point that it crushes one of the other characters behind it. From then on, things begin to close up again, until the end, where the main character and his family lied dead.

Shadows dance across the walls, almost in a world separate from the action on stage. Children become enormous. Adults become small. Chairs become monuments. And the roots are always there. They formed a winding, tangled pattern on the walls and the floor, enveloping and entrapping the shadows of the actors.

Chairs also played a large role on stage, not only as props, but as a part of the set. There was initially only one chair. However, as the story continued on, more and more chairs made their way onto the stage, so subtly that I didn't notice until there were at least fourteen more arranged about the stage.

One particularly striking moment was when all of the chairs were facing inwards, when the two child characters were reenacting the scene of their parents' affair. It had an eerie effect, and seemed to suggest that this whole thing was a spectacle - people were watching. Not actors, but the chairs all facing them simply gave that feeling.

King Lear: The Suzuki Experience
I truly felt the language barrier this time. I was unable to understand elevated language such as Shakespeare in Japanese and couldn't read it fast enough in Korean. However, even without the beauty of Shakespeare's language, I could appreciate the beauty of the performance just fine.


This was my first time seeing Suzuki truly performed, and I was immediately struck by the movements of the play. Each actor didn't walk - they shuffled, but so gracefully that they seemed to glide. If I hadn't seen the movement of their legs beneath their costumes, I would have thought them ghosts.

The aesthetic beauty of Suzuki's directing was astounding. Every moment on the stage could have been photographed and each would have been as interesting as the next.

The set itself was simple - merely a line of sliding doors. However, depending on which doors were open and what lighting was used, the whole environment could change in its entirety. First it was a corridor, but next it could be a line of pillars, or a chamber, or the outside of a building, or even a large hall.

There were slats of wood hanging from above, which created shadows in such a way that it cast a barred design across the floor - simple, striking, and significant.