Credits

When my teacher discussed credits with the juniors today, I realized that I had not fulfilled all of my credits. Though certain roles could be stretched into additional credits, I felt that I still needed another production to round out my three. Thus far I have participated as an actor in various productions, specifically the children's theatre piece we performed last year. I have also participated as a writer in various pieces, including the House of the Spirits piece Kim and I worked on earlier this year. In order to fulfill my third production credit, I have become a part of Kermeka's crew. Kermeka, a junior, will be directing a children's theatre piece from our IB class called Cinderella, Inc. As part of her crew, I will be mostly in charge of managing all props and set items. The most important prop that I will be responsible for is a dragon head that an actor will be wearing throughout this performance. I will be creating this head in the coming weeks with paper mache and so on. The rest of the dragon will be re-created by draping a piece of cloth over the backs of students so they can then form the dragon's body. I have prepared sketches and will be presenting them to my teacher and the director next week.

Say What?

In our various groups, our class took turns today performing our Kabuki pieces. This was one of the few opportunities we had to actually go all the way with our performances. This means self-written scripts, memorized lines, costumes, make-up, and even musical accompaniment. It was a great experience, but perhaps it was just because I did not have to wear the stylized make-up of the Kabuki style. Our onagata, Jason, was more than willing to don a kimono and paint his face ghostly white as the lead female role. We also took another path by having our script in complete rhyme. This added another musical element to the accompaniment that Anna would be providing with her "goo jung." Even though her instrument was not typical of the Japanese environment, it still brought an Asian flair to the performance. The performances were all around hilarious and entertaining. It was truly one of the first times we had wholly delved into a world theatre that none of us had been familiar with. The response was so overwhelming from our teacher that we have decided to perform these pieces for other students. She will be setting up a performance date in March and we will see then how other students like Japanese theatre.

Help!

After speaking with the IB juniors, I have recruited some help for my production. Karina will be costuming my show. In the process of devising my piece, I have amassed a large number of family photos from when my mother was living in Vietnam. There is a variety of '70s clothing that I hope Karina will be able to emulate. I will provide her with these photos later in the week. The second pair of hands I have acquired came in somewhat of an inadvertent way. We have currently been rehearsing a Kabuki piece that we will be performing later in the week. Anna, a member of my Kabuki group, will be playing a Chinese instrument that is phonetically pronounced as "goo jung." It reminds me very much of my culture and the time from which my parents came from. While she was rehearsing in class, I got the idea to incorporate her somehow into my performance. It would be wonderful to add that type of live element to my piece. And so, after speaking with my teacher, I have decided to incorporate Anna. I already have some places in mind as to when she will be able to perform. I am still currently debating whether I would like her to be onstage playing throughout the performance or only at certain times. We shall see...

Boat People

I require a boat for a scene that is crucial to my piece. I had not realized before the fast approaching day of our performance, and therefore I did not think of getting started on the set or props this early. My teacher brought this to my attention today. I am now beginning on sketches for this boat that I require. After speaking with my teacher, we agreed that styrofoam insulation material would be best suited for constructing the majority of the boat. I then approached a stagecraft student in my cast about aiding me in the construction of this boat. With the styrofoam insulation material forming the front of the front of the boat, the structure will be supported from the back with L-shaped brackets. I am currently deciding upon the dimensions of this boat and taking into consideration who will be behind. A big component that is coming into play when designing this boat is the effect that I want to create. When my parents were fleeing from Vietnam, extended journeys were made in overcrowded boats. I will create this effect by making a smaller boat in which the actors will be squashed in and so on. I plan on building this boat within the next two weeks. Stay posted!

Read Through

Today was the first read through of my script, and let me just say it is a completely different thing to hear your words being read aloud as opposed to seeing them on paper. I felt that for the most part my actors were able to capture my intentions in the writing. There was one actor in particular, however, who seemed to completely butcher his sentences. I felt that perhaps this would improve upon better acquaintance with the script. This first read through was really the first time I was able to see other people's responses to my script. Even from this first reading I could feel the emotion building among the cast, just as I hope it would among the audience. The point I was waiting for in the script came near the end. I had purposefully written for the main character to say "I died that night" to emphasize the maturation of her character. As the actors reached that point in the script, I could hear the gasps. This is what I hope will happen among the audience when the time comes for the performance. I understand that the audience will not have the script before them, making it more difficult for them to process what is going on stage. I just hope that everything translates well on stage.

Casting

So, work has finally begun on my IPP. I feel like it has been ages and ages since I have brought it up in my journals, but here it is again. With my mother's oral history as my stimulus, I devised an entire script on my own. At this point my teacher has read over a portion of the script but she had found it confusing. I don't know if this is something I can solve on my own because my mother's story has become so ingrained within me that I feel like the audience would be able to assume all the missing links. I believe that is the problem; I cannot separate myself from the work. It has become so personal that I can no longer look at the plot objectively. I hope that now with the piece casted, I will be able to ask my cast for their honest opinion. As they will be the ones developing the characters behind the plot, they will be asking the vital questions (How old is she? Where did he come from? How many siblings does she have?). These are questions that I have tried to answer in writing the script, but as you know it is impossible to answer everything. The story becomes little more than a pile of facts if written with this intention in mind.

And so, back to the purpose of this entry. Earlier this week Kim and I sat down to discuss our casts. We had compiled a list of interested students and we began divvying up the group from there. I did not go into casting with any preconceptions as to who I wanted and so on. The only actor I particularly wanted for my cast was Stephanie Lee, as I had seen her play the lead in a serious piece before. Though the piece was not so well received by the high school audience, I felt she communicated the message well enough. This was just what I needed for the serious matter of my own piece. The rest of the cast somewhat fell into place. I based a lot of my decisions upon other work that I had seen in the class, tailoring roles to the actor's strength. But all in all I thought my piece would be a chance for the actors to step outside their comfort zone. Serious pieces are not often attempted within our theatre program. I will begin work with my cast tomorrow.

Success

There were observers in class today but I think it brought was actually beneficial to the class. Usually it is so difficult to get the juniors to speak that we end up staring at each other in silence for half the period. But today, people were just volunteering all over the place with opinions and suggestions. The first portion of the class was spent watching a scene titled "My Quiet Neighbor." Two students performed this in anticipation for the Cal Poly Pomona Scenefest. As a class, I felt that we were able to put forth a lot of productive critiques. People were moving beyond the obvious and were trying to stretch themselves. For the first time, people defended their opinions and made it known to the actors. The second portion of the class was spent presenting our make-up renderings for various characters in the Kabuki piece we read. My design was for Hanaka, the mistress of Taro, a servant in the piece. Since females tend to be colorless, save the bit of red on their lips, I chose to make a different interpretation. Using pink to highlight the eyes, I created an abstract heart framing Hanaka's eyes in a magenta color. It might have looked a bit Commedia-like but I think that was just because I could not mimic make-up with color pencils. Even though my group will not be writing Hanaka into our script, this was a great opportunity to apply our knowledge to a practical task.

Kabuki

It's been a while since we've explored a new style of theatre, but today we began our section of Japanese theatre. We started discussing Kabuki, which started out as an all female cast. This eventually evolved into an all male ensemble style of theatre because women chose other professions. Apparently Kabuki is still popular today, especially in Tokyo, so it is still a viable form of theatre. Kabuki uses elaborate make-up, which is what differentiates it from Noh or Bunraku. Noh and Bunraku tend to be done in historical and traditional styles while Kabuki continues to evolve to this day. Kyogen is the form of comic relief in Noh theatre. This made an interesting parallel to the the Greek comedies and tragedies as our teacher reminded us of the satyr plays. Anyways, back to Kabuki. The onagata is the male actor that plays the female in the piece. He is often the most respected of all the actors because it is so difficult to play a female. Part of the art of kabuki is doing your own make-up. Considering how historical this style of theatre is, putting on Kabuki-style make-up is a highly prized and highly developed skill. In preparation for studying the style more closely, we will be creating a prequel/sequel to a Kabuki piece we read from a class textbook. We will also have the opportunity to do full make-up for the two main characters. There will be pictures to come!

And the Cast Goes To...

For my IPP, I will be casting from the advanced drama class. Yesterday, Kim and I compiled a list of all the students that were interested and began parceling out the actors. Since I have been able to see what they are capable of over the past years, I had a pretty good idea of who could work with what role and so on. My cast is pretty diverse, which is something that I was aiming for. I felt that the actors in my cast have fortes in various styles, both comedy and dramatic pieces. I think that A Long Way Home will give many of them the opportunity to explore a difference aspect of theatre that they have yet to attempt just because performances are so much easier to take when they are comedic. This reminds me that I don't know if my piece will be well received by a high school audience. The last time something of this nature was performed was the story of the japanese girl and the thousand cranes. Though I loved the message and meaning of the performance, I felt that a lot of it was lost on the audience. I guess I can't get hung up on whether the audience will like my piece. All I can do is put out the best product that I can. By the end of the performance, though, I want the audience to care for those characters onstage just as much as I do.

Busybody

So over break, I have been fleshing out my script for the IPP, and I must say that I am quite happy with it. At the moment, I have six pages of material to work with, but I don't even know if that is sufficient enough for a 20 minute performance. Our script for The House of the Spirits was probably a 5-page script and that only ran 12 minutes long. Once again, I am banking on the fact that all the technical effects will help the performance to run longer than what it would seem. I also feel that there needs to be room left open for dramatic pauses to allow the actors to fully develop within the performance. Now that my teacher has looked over the script, I have continued to keep revising and adding more material. Clarity is the main problem I have been struggling with. I have found that living with my script for so long has made me impervious to all the questions that I have yet to answer for my characters. Sometimes I just feel that is too difficult to go back and add in more dialogue when I feel that it may disrupt the flow of the piece. I am truly excited for this project, but the writing process has been extremely difficult and frustrating. I am also a bit lost as I now wonder how I can root my performance in theory. When I was writing the script, I felt as though I was just letting the inspiration come to me. I was not consciously thinking about theory but now I may need to start. Perhaps this will be a way for me to better communicate to my actors the objective of my performance. It's time for some research.