Oregon Children's Theatre Blog

June 21 and 22, 2008

Staged Readings and Symposium on Adapting Novels for the Stage:

All of the readings went well with good feedback from the audiences. One of the great surprises was on Saturday when a familiar face walked through the door. Don Lieber a bass player from Portland brought his daughter to the reading. He had seen the listing in the New York Times and his daughter loves Lois. Don had no idea of my involvement in the play, so we both were surprised to see each other. Nice reunion. As Nancy Swortzell said “Only in New York”

On Sunday we participated in a panel discussion about adapting Gossamer and other novels for the stage. I thought an hour and a half would be long, but time flew by. Cecily conducted a workshop and then the reading. A great day lots of learning. David Montgomery and the staff for New Plays for Young Audiences hosted a reception after the reading and then it was time to head out to Portland. My cab driver to the Newwark airport was a self professed psychic  and proceeded to tell me about all of things he had predicted in the past including a friends death. He got lost going to the airport, but predicted I would live to be 99. I can’t imagine a better way to leave New York.

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

Hey guys! The show looks amazing. Rehearsal started with a run through of the entire show without stopping. The cast is really coming together. An example of this is how the actress who plays the Young Woman got sick while she was on stage, right after her first monologue and had to leave. Without skipping a beat, Lisha, the girl who reads the stage directions and makes all the crazy soundscape noises, filled in and read her parts, knowing all of the cues. It really shows how much everyone cares about this production, and the wonderful amount of teamwork that is involved.

Near the end of the read through, a theater production class came in to watch and ask questions for Stan, Cecily and Lois to answer afterwards. This was just the kind of thing I needed, because they asked all the questions (and many that I wouldn’t have thought to ask) I would have liked to talk to those three about. Lois talked about how she tackled adapting the book, which she did by writing many stage directions and then taking them out, so she could visualize the show. Cecily explained what her job as dramaturg was and the process she went through in looking at the structure of the play. She was mainly focused on the three major character arcs of the Young Woman, John and Littlest, and would analyze each scene to see if they had moved throughout it. When she noticed that the Young Woman’s arc moved too smoothly, she brought this up to Lois, who eventually rewrote her part so that things were not so easy. She also pointed out that Stan did a very good job of enhancing the actors understanding of their arcs, because he rehearsed each main characters scenes together (All of John’s scenes were acted back to back, same with the Young Womans, as well as Littlest). She had not seen this approach before.

At the end Lois brought up and answered the big question. How do you know when you’re a great writer and a success? Her answer was a little surprising, however very important. She said that it is when you are able to not consider your prose immortal and can cut lines. She told a story about Edward Albee who, when confronted by an actor about a very wordy monologue, was able to simply cut a whole block of his words without thinking twice.

The cast was let out early by almost two hours, because honestly, they have the show down cold. Everyone is very comfortable and happy, and it is very apparent.

Unfortunately, this was my last rehearsal that I was able to watch. I have to go back to Washington DC this weekend and am not able to see any of the final readings. I hope that you all enjoyed this blog, I had a great time writing it! Thank you very much for reading it, and thank you to Stan and the program for letting me come and watch this fascinating process!

Sweet Dreams!
Olivia

June 17, 18 and 19

Check out Olivia’s blog for details. Things are going great. On Wednesday evening it became a play; all of the words told the right story, all of the characters had there own arc and there is dramatic tension and comic relief through-out. Tonight I set light cues with Darryl the lighting designer and we will run through the play one more time. We might also read through it again without action to make sure the words are all there. Actors, in the heat of the moment, sometimes paraphrase lines. I want to make sure Lois’s script is performed with the words that are written.

Someone asked “What does a dramaturge do?” Great question!  Cecily O’Neil, the Dramaturge for Gossamer, went through each scene prior to the first rehearsal and tracked each characters’ growth within the story. After each scene she wrote yes if she thought the character was going to achieve there goal (for lack of a better word), no if she thought they were not going to make it and maybe if the journey was questionable yet possible. Armed with this information Lois adjusted scenes to create more “maybe scenes”. The more the audience worries about the characters the stronger the dramatic tension.  She also asks questions to help shape Lois’s thinking and main as well. A Dramaturge serves the play! Googel Cecily O’Neil, she is an inpressive writer and a leader in the Theater for Youth field.

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

The only way I can express how good the cast is doing is that we were let go an hour (AN HOUR!) early from rehearsal. We went through the dream sequence a few more times, working on giving Thin Elderly and Littlest a sense of urgency by playing a theater game. Since each of the cast members are sitting behind them making the soundscape noises, their job (during the game) is to try and sneak up on the two actors while they are acting. This causes the Thin and Littlest to have to constantly look around in order not to get tagged and thus automatically amps up the action.

The dream sequence is breathtaking. After working out all of the kinks and getting the actors comfortable with what they are doing, it flows together wonderfully. The actors, who are physically in the scene, have perfected the slightly slowed movements, so that the dream world can be distinguished from the other worlds by the movement onstage.  The soundscape by the actors in the back is just as impressive, three girls sitting in chairs can believably fill the entire theater with noises that sound like the onset of a storm. The skill and teamwork is incredible. Also, the rewrites to the dream sequence help to tidy up the script and lets the audience understand what is going on a lot better. Not only is the Old Woman helping John recover from his nightmare in his dream, but he also helps to comfort her in her dream. This makes the movement of the woman a lot more pronounced, showing she really is lonely in the beginning and the boy’s company helped her change.

After a small break, the cast started at the beginning of the play and did the whole show without stopping. Incredible. Keep in mind that this show was never fully blocked, the actors just fell into the positions that they felt were comfortable with some well placed instructions by the director. Perhaps this is what made going through the whole show a lot easier than expected, that the actor’s chose their places and had a better time remembering them. The more and more I watch this play being produced, the more I understand that giving the actors the respect to come up with their characters feelings and backgrounds, the more ownership they have over the whole piece, which results in a more genuine play.

The cast was a lot punchier and silly tonight, I think they are starting to feel very comfortable with the piece. They are delving even further into their characters and it’s starting to show because they are able to throw more personality into their performance. Especially Toby the dog, he’s excellent.

And as for the dramaturg, from what Stan has told me, it is a person who checks for consistency in the play, although the job description is a little undefined. What Cecily does is she reads along with the actors and will point out things in the play that could cause confusion. Such as the fact that while John said he never had a dog, he was still forced to eat dog food that his father had lying around. From what I gather she is a sort of editor as well as another voice to go to for a second opinion.

Olivia

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

Hey Guys!  So today we started with individual scenes and then worked on mapping out the dream sequence. The first approach at attempting it was to have the actors read the directions like a map and move about the stage however they felt was natural. After a couple run throughs and direction from Stan, the sequence finally came together. It really is a trial and error process that took the entire brainpower of the cast, Stan, Lois and Cecily, our dramaturg, to think of how to present. The part of the cast that will not be in the sequence sits in a row of chairs near the back of the stage and does the soundscape for the sequence, meaning they create the Sinisteed noises, as well as singing the songs that belong to each character. What these girls can do with their voices is amazing.

Since this is a staged reading to perfect the play, there is a lot of discussion about the script and the consistency of the plot. It is interesting that the writer is able to be involved in this process because she can explain points of confusion in the script. I never realized how much analyzing a plot goes through to make sure that everything makes sense. This really hits home the fact that each character needs a legitimate background story in order to justify their actions. The development of a play really does need this many people to voice their opinions on it because the different view points will make it easier for an audience to watch. This is something I have to keep in mind because these opinions make the play bigger than the playwright and understandable by a larger audience. All these concepts are slowly making sense to me and so I hope what I’m writing is at least somewhat coherent. I have a problem with organizing what is floating around in my head and then putting it on paper.

The Museum of Modern Art was even better than I expected, although museums tend to tire me out halfway through. I really dug the Rothko exhibit. When I learned about him in class, I didn’t really understand the whole delving into the self conscious thing but once I sat down and really had a chance to study his work, he rocks.

Olivia

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Hello again! Monday started out with two new scenes that we began staging right away. Most Ancient and Toby turned out to be the same actor, who, while is still  trying to figure out Most Ancients voice, makes an adorable puppy, getting many laughs for simply being on stage.

Up next it was the Young Woman’s three monologues. Monologues are very hard. Especially when the actor is on the phone and has to be believably reacting to someone that the audience can’t hear. Lisa pulled these off flawlessly. She not only has the right timing of the phone call down and the tone of a broken woman, but she can react to the phone call with emotion on her face. A lot of time was spent figuring out the evolution of the woman and physically showing her  get stronger.

In every writing class I have taken, the arc of the character is key. They have to continually progress in some way, always have movement, and end up different from how they started, in order to make a play worthwhile and interesting. It’s no question that the characters in Gossamer all change, however I learned that it’s not just the script that moves these characters, but it can also be the staging, appearance and tone of voice. As the Young Woman cleans up her act, she gets higher on stage. She starts out sitting, hunched over on the floor talking on a cell phone, to sitting on a chair, to standing proudly at her new job. It’s a realistic approach to showing a real character because when people change, it affects their whole being and not the words out of their mouths. This may seem obvious, but again, it’s realizing that the obvious actually happens that is mind opening and important.

Another cool thing that is happening during these rehearsals is being able to see Stan, Lois and Cecily O’Neill, the dramaturg, work through the script. It almost becomes a game as to how much can be fixed by a change in the emphasis on a word or a tonal shift, instead of constant rewriting. And it is up to the director to figure out what to tell the actor, so that the problem can be fixed.

It is going through a scene with the notion of finding lines to cut that made everyone question and rationalize what the importance to the story each lines has. This brought out the connectedness of all of the characters and all the back stories leading to an even deeper understanding to the play, and hardly a line cut.

The director’s job is important. Another ridiculously obvious statement, and another thing I wouldn’t have really understood without seeing it first hand. It is up to this person to take the bare bones of a script and flesh it out, which is not as cut and dry as I had believed. Trying to convey a complete background story, as well as emotion on a simple skeleton of words. It is up to the director, as well as the actors, to decide if the skeleton is laughing or jumping or sleeping, because, as I am starting to see, the words that a playwright produces can be taken hundreds of ways.  I suppose this is why the characters of Othello and Hamlet and Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar can be performed hundreds of ways.

Obvious realization number two, is how important understanding the background of a character is. This is up to the actor as well as the director, and a good director, as I am witnessing, lets the actor chose this for themselves, a good way for the actor to form leadership over their role. The background  is a way to make sense of the characters reactions in the present.

I’m going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art today, I can’t wait. It’s going to be a riot to see the paintings in real life that I had to study on note cards. Again, the studied concept becomes reality.

Olivia

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

Hello! First off, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Olivia Houck and I am sophomore at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. I’m currently studying Dramatic Writing, and so I was asked to write this blog as a student observing the process of putting together a play, that had been  adapted from a book. This is the standpoint that I will be writing from, a newcomer to the theater scene and my reaction to seeing all of the concepts of playwriting and play production I have learned in classes, being used effectively and for real purposes. It is one thing to be able to write the definition of something, but it is an altogether new experience to physically see the  same concept being used,  giving them legitimacy and importance, and it is these “Ah-ha” moments are what I’ll be recording.

Sunday night rehearsal started out with introductions and a read through of the script by the actors who had  just met each other. The first read through went incredibly well, the actors had already decided on the voices they thought that the characters would have and so even though they were not too familiar with the script, it was entertaining to listen to. I have never really worked with professional actors before, so I have got to say that the control they have over their voices and their annunciation is fascinating. The actor playing Thin Elderly was able to change his voice from “slick and suave” to “caring and fatherly” in an instant when directed to do so.  Each actor has a definite idea about the way that their characters should sound, which plays against each other very well. My favorite grouping is between the Old Woman and John. Theresa, who plays the Old Woman, is able to inject patience, nervousness and some slight humor into her voice, all while simply talking to a dog. Three emotions that are hard enough to convey on their own, but she can mix them all flawlessly. Contrasted next to angry and adolescent John, who plays his part so well that the audience can not help but like him. It’s how these actors have decided to play their roles that makes us care about their characters.

Working with professional actors, and seeing what things that they can do, is already making me less controlling over my own work. I am developing a growing faith in actors now, and will be able to write for them accordingly. Knowing what vocal and emotional range a good stage actor has, will make writing a lot more fun because it means they can handle whatever complicated mess of a character I throw at them. Excuse the clichéd metaphor, but its like being able to use an entire box of crayons to draw a picture, instead of the boring primary colors, or emotions.  This is my first glimpse at real actors before the finished product, and with an understanding of them and their process of characterization, now I can write more for an actor and their strengths and not just a simple script with imaginary people playing imaginary people. It’s not that I didn’t trust actors, its just that I had never been around them to see what fabulous things they can do.

(Sorry for the delay of the first few blogs, I have been scrounging around New York for a couple days trying to track down some internet access just figured out how to “borrow” some from a neighbor : )

Olivia

June 17, 2008

Lois and I have a quick dinner prior to the 6pm rehearsal and talk about what we are going to do that evening, the nightmares! Our goal is to leave a road map for other directors who produce the play. The stage directions need to give them an idea of the playwright’s intent.

Rehearsal: Lois has five rewritten pages, so the first thing we do is read through them. They are mainly the boy’s mother’s story. The rewrites are very effective. The goal was to add some suspense and doubt about the characters ability to “get it together” enough to care for her son. Simple things like holding a pack of cigarettes when she is saying, “I quit smoking” help create a real person with real struggles.

At the previous rehearsal I forgot to read one of the Dreamgiver’s scenes. We work through that rewrite. The scene is now more specific and it moves better with great pace and rhythm.  Lois is doing a great job!

The “nightmare section” of rehearsal demonstrated everything I love about working in the theater, experimentation, collaboration and commitment. We try singing off key, gunshots with slow motion death scenes, hand kisses, face kisses, dogs howling, zombie moonwalking and on and on. It was great fun, never frustrating and we finally create a great road map, stage directions, for other directors who work on this play.

Time for sleep with sweet dreams, no nightmares!

June 16, 2008

At the top of the rehearsal Lois walks in with two rewritten scenes. The plan for the evening is to follow the character’s arcs through the play. We are looking at three separate intersecting story lines and reading each character groups scenes in sequence ignoring where the are in the play. It is an experiment to see if we can make any discoveries. We want to see if the stories are as dramatic as possible and that the characters grow and change. We discuss each scene after it is read and make minor tweaks and changes.

As we wind up the evening Lois reminds me that I didn’t get to one of the rewrites and I realize that I let one actor leave early that I need for that scene. We will get it tomorrow night!  

I am a lucky to know Lois Lowry, she is amazing. The actors are fun and very committed. Cecily, the dramaturge, is bright.

It is all good!

June 15, 2008

3pm: Attended the final reading of R N Sandberg’s new play What Can’t Be Seen, the play that was workshopped at New Plays for Young Audiences last week. It is a challenging play. The actors do a great job and the playwright should be proud of his work.

5:30pm: Quick dinner with Lois

6pm     Rehearsal! Dr. David Montgomery is the co-Artistic Director of is a great guy. He has a twinkle in his eye and a joyous smile; I know we are in good hands. All of the actors gather around a table on stage and start reading the script. I really like these young actors, they are fun. Nancy Swortzell is also involed in the reading. She demonstrates her love and knowledge of the theater and her commitment to teaching by aggressively guiding the young cast in creating a sound-scape during a reading. At times she is whinnying like a nightmare horse and snorting and breathing to create the world of the play. By the end of the evening we have read the script twice and Lois is focusing on rewriting two scenes.

10pm  Cab ride home.