A Light in the Attic

Earlier in the year we had all been introduced to the possibility of participation in DTASC. For IB students, DTASC is practically a lighted sign flashing "CAS hours, CAS hours". But of course there is more to the experience than simply catching up on CAS hours. From the beginning, the entire class had already informally agreed to submit some sort of entry together. Yet only today did we truly decide upon the children's adaptation category. Many of us didn't have a running idea to start with for this category because we had already all responded to our teacher's first suggestion, Shel Silverstein. The quirky and somewhat bizarre poems where exactly what we were looking for to set us apart from the rest of the entries. With Silverstein in mind, I once again began my involuntary idea process and by the time we left class, a firm and innovative creative plan was in place. As I had suggested a blend between the Grotowskian theory and the freeze frame concept, we were all able to agree upon a derivative branch off of it. The overall concept of our children's theater piece is that there is some sort of family photo taking place on stage when suddenly everything freezes as the the photographer pushes the button. The family members, within a supposed picture frame, are frozen as well when the photographer comes to life to illustrate for the audience the truth behind each family member. And from there, each person would be assigned one of Shel Silverstein's poems to creatively interpret which in the end we would all link as a whole. Once again theater has been able to bring us full circle in everything that we have learned.