Concept, concept, concept

This past week was incredibly productive for our team. On Monday we began discussing about or design areas, and finally settled for a color palette. Then we began working on the concept, and came up with a lot of ideas that came down to "destiny", though it took us longer to actually phrase it. On Tuesday we had our play rehearsal, and separated the actors into groups, gave them a scene title, time to prepare, and then they presented to us. On Thursday we did the same, but with different titles and groups. During class we presented our demo versions of product 1 for the IB. By the end of the week we managed to phrase our concept to "destiny is blind, anyone can guide it".

So far, writing the concept for the play, or at least phrasing it, has been the most difficult thing we've done so far for the play. We couldn't agree on our ideas and it became extremely frustrating for every single one of us. Hence, we began by selecting the main themes from the play, and using them and comparing them to try and come up with a main idea. After a lot of exhausting thinking, we agreed that "destiny" was our main topic, and the entire story revolved around it. Now that was the easy part, the hard thing was to put into words, an actual phrase. We came up with a million sayings and we liked none of them. Sometimes they would be extremely vague, and others too complicated. I personally was frustrated with our ideas, and i felt like none of them were good enough. We asked for help from an ex-IBer who give us guidelines on how to come up with a concept, and then it hit me. I literally felt like a light bulb lit above my head, and after i said my idea, we gave it a little teaks and came up with our concept. Honestly, i felt relieved, and like a huge weight was taken off my back.
Our first demo was really interesting to be quite honest. I found a lot of interesting information about the face expressions in kathakali, and i realized that this is a very complicated theatre tradition. As for body movements, there was hardly any information, as kathakali is purely dance, which is a problem for us since our play will mostly be movements and dance in some point. I did find several videos that taught me how to move, and it looked pretty simple. It was not. When we presented in class, i was quite confident with my presentation, and the other IBers were too. I found all of the presentations very interesting, and i feel like i judged kathakali way too fast, as i now believe it is an awesome tradition. The only issue is that we didn't get to finish all of the presentations, because Aileen was teaching another class at the same time. We all think is quite hard to work sort of on our own until our teacher comes back.
As for the rehearsal, i feel more confident about our cast, as I've been seeing a lot of talent among new people. The fact that we started incorporating some poses from kathakali into the balancing the space, has proved to be really use full, and i feel that it is essential to begin with this so the actors get used to the physical requirements of kathakali. And it makes me happy to see a lot of enthusiasm among the cast members who hardly complained, and tried hard to accomplish the positions correctly. We've also been having fun with them, which i think is very important for them not to quit feeling the play is boring. Also, now that the Form VI students finally got to direct the scenes, i feel like some weight was taken off me, and i could concentrate on acting, now that they were doing the job of directing.
In the design areas, we have been advancing a lot, and i think our proposals are pretty good, although i do not agree at all with some of the ideas in the other areas. I think our main flaw with design is the fact we all had a different color palette, so we had to settle for one, which was hard since we all had different ideas that fitted our proposals. After deciding on one, we had to adjust our proposals which was easy since the colors were pretty similar to the ones i used at first.

Two weeks ago i realized that power points were essential for the course, and that their format would be useful for us to present our ideas. This week i did two power points; the demo and the design proposal. I guess now that i learned how to propose ideas through a presentation it became easier for me to do it, and my ideas were presented quite clearly. For theatre makers, it is difficult to actually explain their ideas to someone else, until they are shaped in the scenes, and the problem with that is that proposals are essential to actually have something in the scene. Thus I've concluded that power points actually help me with presenting my ideas, and even though it is not everything I'm imagining, the others in the team actually get what i want to do with the body movements and the costumes of the play.
When it comes to casting characters, I've learnt it is essential to test out the actors first, and see if they fit the role. When we did the scenes, we placed some of the actors in the scene their potential character would be in, for example the scene with the deer. We saw how they worked and acted the characters, even though they had a vague idea open for interpretation. Which also gave us an insight on how this actors created and crafted characters from a simple idea. We did see some interesting ideas, and we did cast a lot of people, but there were some disappointing ones, from actors who were still holding on to previous characters. Which made me realize that letting go of this characters is more important than it looks, otherwise you will get stuck playing them forever, and it becomes more difficult to move froward as an actor.
I've come to realize that theatre involves a lot of factors i never truly acknowledged. Exploring this new tradition from a culture that is entirely different to ours is quite a rich experience. Which made me wonder about the how different cultures, in different times have created theatre with so many different and unique conventions. As for kathakali, the conventions are in fact new to us; the fact that every movement has a meaning becomes challenging for us to learn how to use them, and when to use them. I now realize that i have to become somewhat of an expert on the subject, now that I'm producing and being the master/sensei/workshop leader for the rest of the cast, for them to learn about these conventions too. I'm pretty sure they will judge kathakali as i did, for it is a very weird tradition. But i think they will come around, they always do.
Concepts are supposed to be the main bases of the play, and they are supposed to guide the story, the characters, and the design. So pretty important indeed. To actually come up with it, there is an entire process; requiring a lot of reflection about the play. We had to ask ourselves questions such as: "what are we trying to say with the play?", "why is our play like this?", "what is the main theme?", and many other questions that rose from the answers to the previous ones. But there is something i am really doubting, how important is the concept truly? Because, we have crafted the story, the characters, and the design without a concept whatsoever, and now we are supposed to create one that matches with out play. So if it is the bases, how come we have worked without one? Was it because we are adapting and not creating a play from scratch?

One Play, Two rehearsals

This past week, we began the first rehearsals of the school play. On Tuesday, we welcomed everyone to this year's play, and asked them to sit in a circle and present themselves, stating why they wanted to participate and what were their expectations. While Siu took attendance, writing down the names of our new actors, we warmed up by making the actors balance the space. As we moved forward, we set a few rules, such as when we said one, they had to jump, when we said two they had to drop, and so on and so forth. We moved on to play feet-on-floor, making the tasks harder each time. Finally, we ended the rehearsal with an impro-match, in which we were the judges. We gave them titles such as "The king is dead!", an specific number of actors, time to act, and a theatre tradition such as melodrama. The second rehearsal was quite similar, but we began with "Ha Hondom" instead, while Olenka took attendance. Then, while balancing the space, i gathered the Form VI guys, who will help us direct, in order for me to show and explain to them our proposal for the play, the structure and some details about kathakali along with our application of it to the play. On the other hand, the girls were directing the balancing the space with the rest of the actors, making them group and form shapes such as bridge or a throne. Finally, we ended the second rehearsal as the first one did, with an impro match. On the other side of the coin, during class time, we dedicated ourselves to construct the structure of the scenes. We used the proposal of the play to guide ourselves with the structure, and as the play was divided into 7 acts, we turned each act into a scene. Of course, there were a couple of acts that we knew had to be 2 scenes due to its significance and how long the act actually was.

Personally, i feel extremely strange and old, and i am not linking it. I guess, after 6 years of plays, i always imagined what it would be like when i was finally in charge, and i thought it would be the best thing ever. I do love being in charge, i do love being the producer, and i feel absolutely great, but it is a lot more work than i ever imagined, and even though I'm enduring it, it's still A LOT. The thing is, i always saw the producers as the "big guys", and i always looked up to them. Now, I'm the guy in charge, and there is no "older guy" above me who i can rely on, and i feel old, very old. And on top of that, now I'm the "big guy" for the younger kids, and i need to be their role model, which makes me feel a bit nervous to be the one they look up to. However, it bothers me that some of the older guys (Form IV and II) already know me since a long time ago, and they don't recognize my authority sometimes, and i feel like the bad guy when i put them in their place. I guess that in a process that requires every one's support and collaboration, being the bad guy is essential to make sure no-one is doing as they wish. One thing that truly makes me sad, is that there is literally one boy from 6th grade, and that makes me wonder if that promotion is going to keep on the theatre spirit once they grow up. Also, there is usually around sixty people coming to the school play, and this year there was only about half of it. I'm not sure how well we are going to manage with a shorter cast than the usual, but there is one thing i am certain of: there is a lot of potential in our cast members. I've known most of the actors, and i have seen them improve over the years, and now they have a lot of talent that will make this play amazing. There is even a lot of new talent I've never seen, and i trust they will work incredibly well with us. Now that the structure of our play is complete, i feel much more confident about it, and some of my doubts are gone. I can see things more clearly, and i can say this will be my best work so far.
During this week of the first rehearsals i learned more of what being a producer is. Coordination is key for success, if things are planned loosely, failing is inevitable. As producers, we had to plan every single minute of the rehearsals, and have certain backups, in case things changed. Hence i learned that producers in theatre have to have their plans clear and set straight, for them to work properly with the cast and the directors. Balancing tasks is also essential for this type of work. Being producers and having to run the rehearsals without a director is quite time consuming, and i guess that's why there is more than one producer in each play. I also learned more about adapting a play, and that is actually setting a structure. The next step after the story, is how the scenes are going to be laid out. I learned that some big parts of the story can be altered in scenes for it to work out. For example, the entire beginning of the Ramayana is unrelated to our version, and we manage to structure a scene so that this part of the story, which is important, can take place in a simple matter, this being a prologue were a narrator tells the story. Moreover, i learned that stories can be told in different ways, and a scene can represent parts of it without taking too long. In theatre, creating a play, and adapting one for the matter, is an entire process, and each step gives you a clearer view of how things are going to turn out. Now that we have structured our play, we can move forward to the next step, which is casting our characters. And thanks to our layout, we have a better view of the importance of each character, for us to see who could play them. Also, i have come to realize, that some of the voids we were trying to fill when we adapting, were of great influence when structuring, as they were the ties between each scene, and helped us decide which characters were in which scene and why. Working as producer is quite a lot of work, and later on we will have to double up as actors, which makes me wonder a lot, how can some actors work as both the director and the actor, or producer and actor? How do they manage a balance between both works?

Surviving Pre-Production for the Ramayana

This past week we have been working on adapting the Indian play, The Ramayana, which will be our school play for 2015. On Monday we presented our power points to the rest of the class, of our adaptation for our part of the Ramayana. The task was to analyze, and thus adapt an specific part of the play, which in my case was act 7: "Hanuman's Prank". We had already discussed previously altogether an overview of the entire play, but each one of us had analysed their part more in depth. After presenting, we discussed about every presentation, and moved on to our second task, joining the entire adaptation into one power point, and present our proposal of the play. We spent two days joining the power points into one, but also considering the different changes. For example, there were some ideas we didn't like someone proposed in their part, so we discussed it and voted upon it. Also, we made sure everything made sense, and that there was a reason for it to be like that. Finally, on Thursday afternoon, we had our second pre-production meeting, in which we planned the first rehearsal of the play, that takes place this Tuesday the 17th.
Personally, i think this task was quite exhausting, but interesting nonetheless. When i presented my power point, i felt a bit insecure of my adaptation, since the play is extremely long, and i wasn't completely sure if i was taking a lot off the play or not enough, for it to be appropriately adapted from a 9 hour play, to an hour and a half one. By the time all presentations were done, i was confident we were doing a good job, i felt that we had properly adapted the play, and i was in almost complete agreement with every one's proposal. However, i still felt that we were missing something, that there was some void in our play that we needed to fill in. I guess this feeling comes from the fact that this is our first time doing this, and we just have to trust our judgements. Joining the power points together was a bit more work than i thought it would be, because i was thinking it would be just a copy paste work and a bit of editing, but i was wrong. Everyone had a different way of presenting their work, so we had to edit everything to fit the same format so it wouldn't be confusing. As for our pre-production meeting, it went pretty smoothly, and i feel that we did a great job, and the rehearsal is going to go amazingly. I do feel kind of sad and ashamed that I'm gonna miss half of the very first rehearsal, because of the BSP challenge, however i don't doubt for a bit that the girls are going to do a great job. Probably having two members absent, will impact the efficiency of the group, but I'm confident that they will manage to keep the situation under control, and i will help once i arrive.
Doing a work such as this is very different to whatever we've done before. We've never truly done a power point for theatre class, and now we learned how to do one properly in a new format, a skill that will be useful to survive the course. In theatre, it becomes quite useful to use presentations when trying to show your proposals to others more concisely. Adapting a play is really challenging, but the fact that we divided the work, and then joined it, proves that we are actually a good team, and we are able to share and discuss ideas to produce a wonderful product. When creating a play, you have to tie everything together, and there must be a reason for everything that happens for it to make sense. In which case, i learned that when adapting the play, you have to be careful not to untie something, such as leaving a blank space when deciding to erase something off. For example, we didn't want to explore a certain theme, so we had to take out all the parts that led to that theme so it would make sense and don't leave a void. Also, i learned that everything has to be justified, so when we took out the parts we didn't want off the play, we had to have a reason for it, further driving us to the actual adaptation. At some points, some changes we made had no reason for it, and giving one to it actually made the adaptation clearer and helped develop the next parts of the story. We still haven't developed a concept for the play, but i can see now that as our final adaptation comes clearer, so does the options for a concept. Another thing I find important is the fact that when the play can change a lot, but we have to be cautious with changing the important parts to keep the main ideas intact. Which makes me wonder, how can the great plays of the past be adapted over and over again in so many different and innovative ways yet they all manage to maintain the main ideals, themes and messages?

The Best Theatre Experience in my Life

Being a theatre student for more than 6 years has taught me a lot, and in all those year i have experienced different things that have marked my life in some sort of way. There are many experiences to pick from in that jar of ideas, whether is the exhausting kabuki training, the long texts to learn in my 5th play, or the neverending classes of theory. However, there is one in particular that stands out from the rest, one, that if it would have never happened to me, i wouldn't be going through the adventure IB Theatre, and Theatre itself is.
It all happened when i was in 6th grade, we had just finished the School Play, my first one, and i was quite fascinated by Theatre and acting. During the last meeting, after the play, the director asked me to join him with the IB students in the One Act Play Festival, for me to act with alongside the older students.  For the One Act Play, the IB students had to produce, write and act in, well, a one act play, whereas my role was just acting in it, being a guest and a mere 12 year old. Up until that moment, i viewed theatre as simple acting, and had no idea whatsoever of the other things it required, mainly production. Most of the first meetings required the creation of the play; brainstorming ideas for the story, for the characters, the design elements, concept, etc. Personally, the closer i got to the creation of a play up until then, was the scenes we had to do for class, which require more acting, and less in depth development. For me, it was a whole new experience, a different world for the matter. I got to contribute with ideas, and experience an insight into the world of creating plays, and God was it exhausting! Long hours of writing scripts, and designing the stage, and looking for props, and rehearsing over and over again was quite an energy consumer. One of the challenges, was that it was completly voluntary for me, i had no obligation, thus my school work was not excused by it, and nor was my social life, therefore i had to find some sort of balance, which personally was a lot of work and took some time to get used to. Our play, was about an orphan who killed a mailman and hid the body in the closet, quite a lot of dark humor indeed. By the end of the entire process, we got to present the play in front of an audience from the British Schools of Peru, and well, if there had been a prize we would have definitely received it.
A lot of times i felt like i wanted to quit right there and then, other times i felt like i was going to pass out from exhaustion, and others i just wanted to tell the director to go to a very bad place i won't name. Nonetheless, i kept going, i endured, i faced my exhaustion and i made it through, and i am proud of it and do not regret it one bit. We did have a lot of fun during rehearsals and backstage during the actual presentation, but still we kept it professional when it came to working. Sometimes i got really bored during the production process, but most of the time i was enjoying myself, because i was learing and experiencing this new side of theatre i did not know.
Looking back at it now, i can proudly say that that was the moment i truly fell in love with Theatre, and i guess it opened my eyes to the fact that it was so much more than just acting, and i liked that, a lot. Being part of the creative process taught me a lot about how it works, and actually served me to apply these new alien skills to the classes, and later to the school play.  Besides, it made me a more confident person, regarding my acting skills, my creative skills, and well my personality. Since then, i've been in every school play, no excuses, and i've had many other amazing experiences that marked my life, but honestly, this was the best one.