Going home

Today is Sunday, June 30th. I am so excited to get back to my family. I've been gone for 14 complete days, and I'm sitting in the tiny airport in Lincoln, Nebraska. I am actually flying back through Chicago in order to get home.

After this entire trip I have seen over 40 hours worth of theatre in 17+ productions. I've also been a part of over 50 hours worth of workshops on everything from teaching, improv, writing to the use of Indian dance terms in the creation of a character.

I've never in my life seen this much theatre in such a short period of time. I was rather inundated with musicals this last week at the International Thespian Festival, and although I haven't been much of a fan of that genre, I've found myself really getting engaged with the musical again. I haven't really enjoyed them since the age of 16-18 yrs. old (20 yrs. ago) and it was nice to get great exposure to them this week. The musicals and the comedy I have seen really help remind me that life doesn't need to be taken so seriously. The dramas I have seen helped remind me that a powerful onstage drama can really affect someone's thought processes and initiate change in society.

The workshops have given me more information in two weeks than I could have gained in weeks of professional development at the local level. I have studied with people from all over the world, from all walks of life.

The work involved in the fellowship has been grueling and at times overwhelming, but I could have never asked for a better way to spend two weeks of my summer. I will continue to seek out grants from Fund For Teachers, as well as many other avenues that will allow me to study in the summer. The rewards are limitless and will pay dividends to the students I teach for years to come. Although my body is exhausted and my mind is crammed with information that will take weeks to sort out, I am rejuvenated and refreshed and excited to share my experiences with my students.

I am also very glad I have completed this blog throughout my trip. It made for some late nights when I might have preferred going to bed, but I now have a permanent document to refer back to anytime I want to reflect on my adventure. It also serves as a teaching tool and will help show my students all the things that are offered at the Thespian Festival. Next year I hope to at least bring 2-3 students to Nebraska. I am signing off now and I thank you for following along on my two week adventure to Chicago and Lincoln, Nebraska.

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The Final Full (6th) Day of Festival, Saturday, June 29, 2013

Today started with about a 90 minute presentation of some of the strongest Individual Events (IEs) of the festival being presented in the giant Lied theatre for the masses. Individual Events are performances by one performer and could be a song or a monologue. The IEs were interesting and the performances were fun to watch. Their performances were broken up by a long series of awards for volunteers, teachers, programs and students across the country. The EdTA has given over $100,000 worth of scholarships this school year, including many thousands of dollars worth of scholarships this morning alone. I also received news that one of the students from the school I'm registered under, from Alabama, had a student that was elected as chair of the International Thespian Officers. There are students that are elected at the school level and the state level and this young lady was elected at the national level. What that means is that this young lady from Huntsville, AL, will be flown to festivals all across the country, about one each month for the next school year. All of her expenses will be paid for by EdTA, what an adventure for a high school senior.

I also had another great workshop from a teacher that has been teaching for 49 yrs. She has written several books on theatre and is a great motivator. She is from California and her name is Gai Jones. She led the class in lots of ensemble activities, many of which I have done, but it was a fun workshop regardless. Here is a picture of the instructor and I.

I then moved on to a workshop on rasaboxes which was led by an instructor from the Alley Theatre in Houston. It was based on movements that were created for Indian dance and allows students to assign different 'rasas' (emotions) to different pieces of scenes/monologues/etc. The workshop is difficult to explain, so I won't attempt it. The instructor assured the teachers she would email us her notes and so once I get them I can understand all of the different rasas with more clarity. This workshop took place in the Temple building. In the front of the Temple building is a large picture of Johnny Carson because he was one of the most famous University of Nebraska alums. He made a huge donation to the university in 2004 to help ensure that many other students will benefit from the educational opportunities in Nebraska. Here is a picture that references Mr. Carson and his gift to the university.

Here is a picture of me in front of the Mueller Tower, the university bell tower.

The festival concluded with a great performance of the musical Shrek by a troupe from Wisconsin. The musical is based on the famous children's animated movie and followed the same plot line closely. The script and lyrics were written by David Lindsay-Abaire (Pulitzer Prize winning playwright of Rabbit Hole). The play was uplifting and left the entire audience singing along after a standing ovation. The young man playing Lord Farquar walked on his knees the entire show (his short legs were drawn or sewn onto the front of his pants) and his legs from the knees down were disguised by a cape. The musical's setting theme was that of a garbage dumpster. The dumpster nearly filled the entire stage, but was on wheels and had different doors on various sides of the dumpster that would open at various times. The dumpster would also spin to reveal a new set. The musical also featured an enormous singing dragon. The actress singing for the dragon served as the puppet master that operated the mouth as she sang. The dragon was also controlled by four other actors (one for each wing, one for the main body, one for the tail). The dragon's eyes & mouth moved and it was really incredible seeing the entire body & wings of the dragon be controlled by a total of 5 actors. The swamp (in this version) was actually the dumpster. It was an interesting take on the story's theme, but I believed that it worked. The show was a great way to end the festival. It was followed up by a final adult social that also had a Shrek theme. Each night the festival had the adult socials (our 4th meal) which featured great food, desserts, bottled water & punch. They would usually go from about 11 PM until around 12 or 12:15 AM The socials were extensively decorated (similar to that of a theatre set) and the food was delicious. I think that the folks at the University of Nebraska are glad the festival is over as well because many of their cafe workers were busy until late night providing the food & clean upfor the late night socials.

 

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Pure and Utter Exhaustion

I wanted to do a brief post about the exhaustion that is setting in on me. I have been working on this fellowship for 13 days now. I knew when I left that I would have fun but it was been surprising how much INTENSE work this has been. I have stayed up late almost every night to post on my blog and it has been a great experience. I feel lucky and blessed to have been a part of this all and I will continue to seek out grants and fellowships for the rest of my career because I don't think I have learned this much in such a short period of time EVER in my life. I've seen more shows than I usually see in a few years in the last 2 weeks. I've learned more from my workshops than I know what to do with, and it will take me some time to sort through it all and organize it into cohesive lesson plans during the rest of the summer. I'm so lucky that I get to rest when I get home and not go straight back to work, because I really need some rest right now. I've met folks from all over the country and we've shared all sorts of ideas.

I've met teachers that operate with little to no financial support (similar to my program) and I've also met people with enormous budgets and huge community support. I met one teacher from South Carolina, it is his first year teaching and he just did Les Miserables and they had a $200,000 budget! For ONE show! Now that is support. It is his first year teaching and he is not the primary theatre teacher, but one of 3 at his school. They have supporters from Canada who fly down each year and stay in the community for one week just to see their shows.

When I wake up in the morning my eyes are heavy, but I know I have to get up and have breakfast and get to the workshops and shows so I don't miss out on any learning and absorbing of information. My body is starting to ache and sitting in the uncomfortable seats of a theatre reminds me that it is my DUTY to produce compelling work for my audiences. If I do NOT do that, why would they want to come and sit in the uncomfortable chairs of our intimate black box theatre, or even worse, why would they want to come and sit on high school lunchroom table chairs to see our kids perform? If they are coming to see us, spending money and their time, we better be knocking out of the park.

Seeing all these talented students from across the country has been super inspiring. It also makes me know that getting at least 4-5 of my students to this festival next year will become a priority. I hope that we can somehow afford to get them here. Fundraising is not going to do it, because all of our fundraising must go towards our program, but somehow we are going to get some kids here because it is the educational opportunity of a lifetime for these high schoolers.

It's also a great learning tool for educators because all we have to do is network and reach out a little bit and we suddenly have someone that is in our shoes, in another state or even another country, that we can reach out to when we have issues. There is no one else like me at my high school, I'm the only theatre teacher, so this allows me to build up that database of information necessary to grow my program in ways unfathomable by myself.

The travel and the long hour work days are wearing me down, but I've only got one more full day to tackle and then I will return home to my family and loved ones. I'm looking forward to getting home Sunday, but I'm also looking forward to one more day of education. I cannot thank the people at Fund For Teachers enough. Fund For Teachers is the organization that paid for all my travel expenses and my entire week of learning in Chicago. I also owe a great deal of thanks to the folks at the Alabama Thespian State Festival who helped me secure my theatre director's scholarship to attend this conference and learn so much valuable information.

It goes to show that although the work is non-stop, the payoff will be incredible and students will benefit from this education that I'm gaining for years to come.

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5th Day of Festival, Friday, June 28, 2013

Today I saw another great musical called [title of show]. The show was about 2 guys trying to write a musical. The script was absolutely genius. There were 4 characters, plus a piano player. The show was jam packed with laughs and truly an intelligent script that poked fun of many different aspects of musical theatre. Normal conversations were converted into dialogue and the way the script moved just felt natural and (at the same time) original. The stage was set simply with 4 chairs of different colors, lined up in a row center, each under a spotlight. The two chairs on the end of the row both had wheels. There was a keyboard on a stand (and a pianist) & some monitors, just up left of the chairs and also a small end table that held an answering machine down right. Everything about the script just really blew me away. At one point a character said he was going to the park and then he simply dragged his chair on wheels over to the SL side of the stage. The character that was already SL said, "You said you were going to the park and then you just dragged your chair over here." There were so many moments throughout the play where the play was aware of itself in the midst of creation and it just really made the script so much more interesting than anything I've seen at the festival. At one point a character said, "You've been so quiet." and the other character responded by saying, "I haven't had a line until now." The process of creating a musical was difficult and they addressed all the issues they were encountering throughout the musical like: the title of the show was [title of show], they only had 4 cast members + a piano & pianist onstage, their set was only 4 chairs, infighting between the cast members during the writing process, jobs where the actors/writers worked while they were trying to produce a hit musical. Everything just seemed so fresh and new and it was a great pleasure to watch it from the perspective of the audience. It also seemed like a small enough cast and a simple enough set, so that we might be able to do the show at my high school as a 'starter' type of musical with 2 males and 2 females.

Today I also attended a workshop on the Meisner technique. If you are unfamiliar with the process of acting, Sanford (Sandy) Meisner was a great innovator in a new(ish) type of acting process where actors dig deeply to get to the heart of the matter in plays/scene work/monologues. Meisner's goal was to help get the 'mind' of the actor out of the way of the 'impulse' of the actor. The exercise that was demonstrated was the repetition exercise where two actors sit face to face and one makes a neutral observation about the other and then they simply repeat. This can go on for a long time. The goal is to react and observe your partner's behavior, but only while stating the same statements. For example: 'You're wearing a watch' and then 'I'm wearing a watch' and this goes on and on. It is an interesting exercise but it is only the very first step in Meisner's work. When I have allowed students to do this exercise it doesn't always, work but this exercise helped me understand the exercise on a deeper level. At any point the instructor can stop the repetition and ask one of the actors, what are you getting from the other actor and then you must be able to state where they are emotionally. If you don't know what is happening, then you are doing the exercise correctly. You get your 'mind' out of the way, 'react' to your partner, and pursue whatever you want from your partner as the repetition exercise continues. These are one of those types of exercises that you must be present for in order to understand, but it IS quite helpful if you really turn yourself over to the exercise.

The second workshop I attended was taught by Stephen Gregg, a professional playwright out of LA. I took a workshop with him at the Alabama State Thespian Festival in 2012 in Troy, AL. I really enjoyed it so I decided to take another one here at the International Festival. This was called Dramatic Writing: Playwriting 2. It actually built off of the information that I was presented with about 18 months ago in his original Playwriting session. His workshop covered the different types of relationships that can be happening with only 2 characters onstage. There are four different options when 2 characters are onstage. Character A can like character B and character B can like A. OR, Character A doesn't like B, but character B likes A. OR, Character B doesn't like A, but character A likes B. Or both A and B do not like each other. He went on to explain that if you add just ONE more character to the mix and have 3 characters, there becomes 64 different options of character relationships. He continued on to explain that if you can write a play with 2 characters or even 3 characters, you can write any play imaginable. He also spoke about the genius the Anton Chekhov used when he was writing because he could have approximately 8 (or more) characters onstage and they could all be pursuing someone or something different and it all remained subtle. Here is a picture with Mr. Gregg and I.

He also presented us with a test that would measure our aptitude to be a good playwright. I took this test very seriously. The test had 7 questions and he stated that people rarely EVER got all 7 questions correct. He even offered $10 to anyone that answered them all correctly. I was in a room with around 20 students and one other teacher. I was sure that I had answered all questions correctly. We went over the answers one at a time. Each question presented us with a scenario and we were to choose (from 2 options) the option of the scenario that could result in the most interesting scene, based on the setup. Here is an example.

A teacher is trying to convince her principal not to fire her. The teacher is

A) two years from retirement

B) in her second year. She's still trying to decide if teaching is the career for her.

So which option (A or B) would give us a stronger starting point for a play or a scene?

The correct answer is A, if you chose B, then the teacher gets fired, who cares, they go and find another job. If you chose A, the teacher is close to being retired and not being worried for work for the rest of her life, there are greater STAKES in that scene and that is all that matters from a dramatic perspective.

I answered the first 6 correct and so did the other teacher. None of the students had gotten the first 6 correct, so it was down to the other adult in the room or myself. I missed the last one and the other teacher won the $10.

In the end he laughed and said that the test was irrelevant. He said in the end that he did think that the answers he selected were the stronger choices, but that the test didn't really measure playwriting aptitude. It was just a test he created. He also reminded us that we were in class with him for 1 1/2 hours and then we'd probably never see him again, but that we all took it very seriously because of the stakes he set up for us (saying no one ever got them all right, saying it could tell us if we were a playwright, offering money to the winner, and also telling us that people who scored 3/7 or below would be forced to go stand in the 'corner of shame'.

It was all an example to help illustrate that STAKES are the most important part of a scene or a play. If the stakes are there, no one in the audience is going to care.

Finally, the real highlight of the day was the production of Peter Pan by Faith Lutheran Theatre Company from Las Vegas, Nevada. At this point I have seen 15 productions in 13 days during my fellowship, including lots of professional theatre shows in Chicago. This production was definitely one of the best that I've seen. The technical theatre elements were astounding, the actors were great, the story was uplifting and the music selected for the play was incredible. There were 4 actors flying (literally) around the stage at one point of the show. This was not the musical version, but the play version and it was unbelievable. I could not believe I was watching a high school show. Granted, this was a school that must receive great financial support, because the production value was that of a show similar to Broadway. The costumes were magnificent and the sets were mind-boggling. When Peter Pan made his first leap into the air, I couldn't believe it. I never once saw the wires, my seat is near the top of the house, but I couldn't see them at all. 'The Savages' came out and did a dance number that was absolutely flawless to some great upbeat dance music. 'The Pirates' were bumbling and foolish and served as great comic relief. Capt. Hook commanded the stage and used his voice a powerful element, but also knew how to hold and play for laughter. 'The Lost Boys' did a great job at their roles along with all the members of the family. The show was directed Emily Ball and the technical direction and adaptation of the script was done by her husband. There was a fight Choreography, a puppeteer coach, a flying effects crew & a choreographer. There were 32 cast members and 2 understudies. There were 55 people involved in the technical roles for this show. It really goes to show that NO GREAT SHOW can be done without enormous support from the technical theatre participants. I wish I could have taken pictures, but that is against the rules in live theatre and I will not break that rule. That is the beauty of live theatre, you actually have to be there in order to enjoy it. .

I am a director of a one-man theatre program. One day, hopefully there will be someone else there to help me manage the ENORMOUS amounts of volunteers, students and parents that it will take to mount a production like this. The technical aspects of a show on this scale are overwhelming and knowing that there were at least 6 other adults working full time on this show gives me some relief because I know that we are simply not there yet. One day we will be, and we might get there sooner if I can get some students and parents to attend this festival with me next year.

One of the most touching moments came after Tinkerbell was killed and Peter Pan rallied the 2,000 seat theatre to scream, "I do, I do, I do believe in fairies; I do, I do, I do believe in fairies; I do, I do, I do believe in fairies!!", until finally Tinkerbell came back to life. I saw grown men and women crying during this rally of hope. You have never in your life been in the presence of so much love and support as I was tonight in a theatre of 2,000 young actors rooting on their fellow young actors in a celebration of art and culture. It was something to believe in and I've never witnessed so much unity in a theatre. The theatre was chanting it all in unison and I was truly moved.

Tomorrow we will see the musical Shrek that came down from Wisconsin and I'm sure it will be great as well.

 

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4th day of 'Festival', Thursday, June 27, 2013

Today I saw a play named, 13, with music by Jason Robert Brown. It was a musical about a young man who is about to turn 13 and the difficulty of adolescence. As soon as he mentioned he was preparing for his Bar Mitzvah, I wondered if the musical would be loaded with a bunch of Jewish references that I wouldn't understand. Fortunately, it wasn't, but the few Jewish jokes it did have, I understood completely.

Here is a shot from where I was sitting. I'm in the second row from the top. Not sure why my seat is so high up, but I'm happy to be in the house at all. This was before the show when they were introducing troupes that won the 'Send a Troupe to Festival' contest. The EdTA raised enough money to send two different trips to Festival this year which was approximately $10,000 per troupe.

Back to the musical. 13 dealt with the angst of being a young teenager, getting your first french kiss, the awkwardness of puberty and the cruelty of young people. It was really a fun adventure about adolescence told through song and dialogue and I just truly enjoyed it. It was perfect for this age group audience. It also dealt with popularity, disability, lying, deception, image, climbing the social ladder & being true to yourself. I also really enjoyed the simplicity of their set that consisted of one major backdrop with a crossword puzzle and throughout the play different words were highlighted that were being referenced in a song. I also really enjoyed the songs and found the script to be particularly funny for the teenage crowd.

Today I also attended two workshops. The were both for teachers only and they both proved to be incredibly helpful. In the first workshop 'Imagination Central: Creativity in the Theatre Curriculum' we were provided resources from a teacher who had worked in the classroom for 40 yrs. who gave us different pointers on how to develop our program. He also agreed to send me (and others) all the documents he had at home from this workshop and another workshop he taught yesterday entitled 'How to Develop Your Theatre Program'.

The second workshop was the best workshop I've attended at 'Festival'. It was called 'Best Practices for Your Theatre Group' and was also for teachers only. We brainstormed and created 5 imaginary classes that we wish we had before we stepped into the theatre classroom. Then the instructor helped facilitate a forum where all the teachers in the workshop shared different ideas from their program that proved to be successful for their students/community. I was typing so much information down it was hard to keep up. To simply allow a group of 15 or so theatre teachers from all across the country to share ideas with one another is a great way to exchange meaningful information. We discussed APPS that work for our smartphones/iPads, we discussed ways to get people in our seats, we discussed fundraising ideas, we discussed ways to find costumes, we exchanged information with other teachers and we simply got a ton of information in a very short period of time. The lady next to me was from Texas and by this evening she had emailed me their Theatre Handbook that is signed by parents and students at the beginning of the year so they all understand expectations.

Lots of great information today and once again too much food. After our 3 meals each day, they have an adult social where we can continue networking and tonight they had another huge spread of food and desserts. I'm not sure why I'm eating four meals a day, including one at 11 PM each night, but that seems to be what everyone here is doing.

 

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3rd Day of Festival, Wednesday June 26, 2013

Today I saw Legally Blonde, The Musical. It was cuter than I anticipated. I assumed that I would be miserable through it, but it wasn't bad. The lead female character did a great job with her songs and the storyline was pretty interesting. There were 14 teenage girls, clad in all white and the majority of them in high heels, that served as her Greek Chorus and I thought that was an interesting twist to the plot. There was also a character named Kyle who worked for UPS and he helped propel a subplot line and served as a love interest for the main character's friend. All of the high school girls were screaming like they were at a Kings of Leon show when he arrived in the hair salon and bent over the package he was delivering to the stylist. The stylist, of course, fell for him immediately. I thought it was so funny because I have a brother who worked for UPS for many years. His name is Kyle. The musical was produced by a Texas high school and they had multiple sets which included a courtroom, a graduation ceremony, the hair salon, a dorm room, a real golf cart, a house, another house (both homes featured full stair cases), Harvard, along with a few others I'm sure I'm forgetting. The story is about Elle Woods and her pursuit of her college sweetheart from UCLA, all the way to Boston. Elle enrolls in law school at Harvard and against all odds gets in, shortly after she is dumped by her boyfriend. The story is about Elle proving to him that she isn't just a pretty face, but is in fact very intelligent and smart enough to pursue the same career that he is chasing. The play also featured two 'real' dogs that both seemed to get the most applause from the teenagers when they came onstage. This play had a few minor body mic issues, but nothing near the amount of the show the night before.

This red bike was another great part of my day. I rented it from the UNL outdoor recreation facility. I had noticed that a number of 'festival' students were riding around on them and I was super jealous. I asked one of them where he got it last night and he instructed me on where to secure some wheels for the remainder of my festival. These wheels allowed me to get about 20 blocks in around 8 minutes. It would have taken me much longer to walk this distance and I would have arrived at the Region III celebration dinner for troupe sponsors embarrassingly late after completing my two part Long Form Improv Workshops this afternoon.

The Long Form Improv Workshops were quite interesting and were taught by a gentleman from LA. He had created his on improv group in Madison, Wisconsin, where they performed sold out shows for approximately 4 years. He then migrated with his improv group to NYC and currently resides in LA where he works for E! entertainment television and NBC. He taught an enormous group of high school students the basics of long form improv and provided some great pointers. I was in the workshop with only one other teacher and towards the end of the 3+ hour workshop, I was once again reminded of the importance of deodorant for teenagers. These poor teenagers just don't know how to apply enough deodorant so that they can not reek to high heaven when in an enclosed space for long periods of time.

Tonight at our Region III dinner, one of the directors of EdTA was reminding us how much our volunteer work was appreciated. She emphasized those volunteers that worked the dance(s) because of the incredibly strong smell of body odor that radiated from the young people after they danced for a couple of hours. Oh, the young people and their sweaty ways. That was another reason I was so thrilled to rent a bike for the next couple of days. I don't mind the walking, it's just the incredible sweating that drips down the back of your shirt and down your legs after you have walked around 20 blocks in stifling heat and humidity. The bicycle allows me to move through the campus and the downtown area with a constant breeze. Here is a picture of the Nebraska state Capital I took while cruising a few blocks this afternoon.

This was a really neat used record/CD/tape store that I found as I pedaled around downtown Lincoln. For any fan of music, these little places are just like used bookstores for the book lover.

Generally they are rather dusty and you have to get after it if you want to find something, but they usually have an interesting man or a woman working at them with loads of information about music. This gentleman had been running his used music store for over 20 years. His hours were from 1:30 PM to 9 PM. I guess he wasn't a morning person, but he was a very cool guy. This type of establishment is the antithesis of your big box store like Wal-Mart, Target or Best Buy. However, his selection was much more vast with a focus on vinyl. Gentleman like this are great studies of character and that is why dropping in and talking with him for 30 minutes about music helps me become a better artist and actor. The more people you meet, the more you soak in, the better characters you can create when it comes time.

 

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Quick apology

Sorry, just realized the video I shot that is posted on the Tuesday page was upside down. I'm still figuring out this iPad thing, so bear with me. I'm not changing it, you get the idea.

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Tuesday, June 25th, Day 2 of Festival

These are photos from an adult social they had for the troupe directors at the Thespian Festival tonight after the nearly 3 hour musical we saw. The musical, The Color Purple, was a strong production but unfortunately it was difficult to sit through because they were having massive issues with their body mics. I am unfamiliar with the show and I almost left at intermission because I didn't know what they were talking about and I was lost. However, the acting was great, when the mics weren't acting up and the choreography was top notch.

There is a giant decoration in the back of the room of a champagne bottle opening because the reception celebrated 50 festivals, but there was no alcohol, only sparkling grape juice. Some of the troupe directors were clearly let down that we didn't get a drink. I mean after all, we are overseeing 3,000 teenagers for a week. But the reception was great.

Everyone refers to this event as 'Festival' and it strikes me as a little odd. I would say 'the' festival, but everyone just calls it 'Festival' as if this is the only festival in the world. It's just the way they communicate it.

Today I went to two workshops. The first one was about creating a Director's checklist and I found the information very useful. I took copious amounts of notes as I've done throughout my fellowship. The little keys on my iPad keyboard are getting a workout. Unfortunately, I am not, and I think I'm gaining weight sitting down and watching so many shows and not moving about. As we neared the 3rd hour of the musical tonight, I thought that I was going to have to run out because I hate being still for so long. The other issue is that here on campus when you dine at the dining hall you can eat as much as you want. That is not a good idea for me. I eat really fast and usually I'm eating my second plate before I realize I was full from the first one. I've got to learn how to slow down at some point in my life. I'm eating salads too, but they taste bad to me because all of their salad dressings make me want to vomit in my mouth.

The second workshop was on creating a Compelling role. The instructor had just gotten in on a red-eye flight from Boston and was weary and tired. He was a gentle and positive spirit, but he really seemed tired. Soon he was allowing students to read from scenes he brought in and giving them notes. I am always happy to receive any instruction, even if I don't get it at the time. I just write down everything I can that feels useful and I'll sort it out later. I know that all teachers/instructors/professors have something to offer so I think it is MY job to figure out what I can pull from the information. Overall, I think he had some good ideas, but I probably would've gotten more out of his workshop on Wednesday after he had caught up on his rest.

After that I came back to the dorms and showered for the second time today. Nebraska heat is pretty stifling, particularly if you are walking around all day. The theatre and adjoining classrooms are about 15 blocks from where we are staying and I venture into the downtown area too during down time so I'm always moving. I found another used book store today and two more plays. Theatre teachers are naturally drawn to used book stores and we will siphon through the loads of copies of Shakespeare, Strindberg, Ibsen and Chekhov to find the rare play that we need for our collection. It's really not even for us, but for our students. We take them to school and throw them on the shelf and they may never make it home again. Today I also bought some new plays from Samuel French (a very famous Theatre publishing house) and picked up 6 new scripts including two books of monologues. Now I would never need a book of monologues and I frankly detest them. They are an easy way out for a student to locate a monologue, for someone who doesn't want to read the whole play. But I teach about 180 kids a year and there's a good portion of them who WILL NOT read an entire play and must find a monologue out of one of these monologue book collections. It makes me angry that I buy them and I wish I didn't have to keep them at all, but they are necessary when you are teaching 34 kids in one classroom. If you don't have monologue collections for kids to easily locate monologues, I'll be forced to tell at least 15 kids that there are monologues located in plays but they just have to look for them. Then I'll end up trying to find one for them and I simply don't have that kind of time in the middle of class. With a monologue book they can flip through, spend 1-3 minutes reading a piece, and if they don't like it, move to the next piece. So I'm buying the books for them, but it also helps me focus on useful instruction instead of trying to complete a student's work for them.

I took my first video of the trip tonight at the kids late night event called a Glow Party. The kids can do different things each night before curfew including improv, games on the quad, or a dance. When I went up there to get some footage, the dance was wrapping up. Imagine a ballroom with hundreds and hundreds of sweaty 14-18 yr. olds. The smell was like a football locker room in the dead of summer. Yes, we educators love our students, but dealing with their adolescent stench is not an upside of our profession. The video is a few minutes long and you can't really see any kids, but you can see their glowing accessories.

 

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First Day in Nebraska

The day started off rough with the flight from Chicago. We loaded on time and all seemed well. Then we sat on the tarmac for around 90 minutes continuing to listen to the captain thank us for our patience but letting us know that storms were developing in our route and that it would be unsafe for us to proceed in that weather in our very small aircraft. We finally loaded back into the airport, waited another 90 minutes or so and re-boarded. Then we sat on the tarmac about another 45 minutes before finally leaving. We ended up arriving about 4 hours late. My wife told me later that Chicago would later cancel all flights and clear people away from the windows because the storms were so dangerous. I'm glad we got out before it got too bad and that I wasn't stuck in Chicago, though I did hate to leave.

Here's the view of the dorms from the cafeteria window. Nebraska sure is FLAT, FLAT, FLAT. When we were finally landing I noticed giant grids of green space, and as we neared the ground I noticed that roads between large square patches of land were dirt roads.

Here's an interesting sculpture on the campus of the University of Nebraska. This festival is huge and has brought about 3,000 students from all over the country together for one week to celebrate the art form of theatre. Below are pictures of two fellow theatre teachers rummaging through the local bookstore for good used plays for our students. I had already found a goldmine of plays in Chicago, but I still found a few more good plays to take home here as well.

I've already seen two presentations tonight, including a show called Making Magic, Defying Gravity which featured 12 young thespians performing onstage with two Broadway stars (Mr. Michael Mahany & Ms. Carla Stickler from the musical Wicked). Despite a few minor mic problems the musical revue was quite a success and it was great to see the young artist onstage with professionals from the industry.

Here's a picture of the Lied (pronounced Lee Yed) center theatre where the performance took place and where all mainstage shows will take place this week. It seats around 2,000. They have to divide the shows up between this theatre and another one that seats about 1,000 so all kids can enjoy the plays. Tonight they did Making Magic, Defying Gravity twice so all kids could see it.

The show also featured introductions from members of the board from the Educational Theatre Association (EdTA), the organization that oversees the International Thespian Society. Two members of the EdTA were interviewed during the show on how they got into theatre and how they maintain success in an industry that is full of rejection. One member was a stage manager for a $14 million dollar show and the other had worked his way up to a leadership role at Disney where he worked alongside 2,000 Disney workers (he made sure NOT to say that his co-workers operated underneath him though it was clear he was the boss.) The gentleman who worked for disney started as someone who played tapes as filler music for a show in Epcot and the other gentleman who was a stage manager also started from meager beginnings.

It was a great introduction to the festival

Here are a few more sculptures from right next to the theatres.

Next I saw a one-act play by Davenport High School. This Iowa troupe #3994 presented I Never Saw Another Butterfly which was a dark, yet uplifting, story of hope in the hell that was the village of Terezin. This was a nazi ghetto occupied by Jews, many of whom would then be sent to Auschwitz never to return. The statistics in the program were staggering stating that 15,000 children were sent there and approximately 100 children survived. Some of these children were inspired by a teacher named Irena Synkova and as the play progressed a slide show was being featured above the actors' heads showing actual artwork from the Jewish children. One little girl kept saying, 'Today I missed my daddy' and having a daughter who has been saying that for 8 days now to my wife really struck a chord with me. The kids told of horrors they witnessed in the camp such as death, bed bugs, fleas, lice, starvation, the death of everyone they loved, and typhoid. However, there was a marriage in the play and new love by the main character of Raja. The other uplifting part was the effect Irena had on these young girls who found hope in singing, writing, drawing, dancing, playing games & laughing in a hellacious reality. The two actresses play Irena and Raja were super talented. Sometimes that makes a high school production more difficult to watch because certain parts stand out so much that the show as a whole might seem unbalanced, but the show was strong. All actors were doing their best, but it was clear that the most talented girls had two of the most pivotal roles. Great casting.

 

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Sunday, 6-23-13

It is with great sadness that my trip to Chicago has come to a close. On Sunday I saw my last show and it was pretty cool. At first I did not enjoy it and I wondered why I had sprinted around 1/2 a mile in the rain after hopping off the red line to Berwyn. This was the furthest north I had been during my entire trip in Chicago and the theatre was located a long way from the red line stop. I had about 13 or 14 minutes to make it before the show started at 7 PM. A thunderstorm was rolling in. The show was called Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind and was performed by a group of artists called the Neo-Futurists. This play has been running for years and over the course of all their shows they have produced over 8500 short plays.

When you walk into the space, you roll a dice to see how much you pay. I believe the format was $10 + the roll of a 6 sided dice. So the price is between $11-$16. However, I bought my ticket ahead of time and so I was given the dice to roll and they gave me some money back. I had paid $22 online and I got $4 back. When you go through a passageway to the theatre, someone yells at you REALLY LOUD asking you what your name is. I told them 'Clint' and then they wrote a name tag for me that said 'Spaghetti Legs'. The girl who yelled at me had headphones on and she said this is what I heard you say, when I began to spell it. I threw on my name tag and went to my seat.

The goal of the show is to perform 30 short plays within an hour. They put the clock on at the start of the show and rush from show to show trying to complete their objective. Strung over the stage is a thin rope with 30 sheets of paper on clothespins, each with the numbers 1-30, facing the audience. On the back of the number (facing upstage towards the actors) there is a title of the play. Audience members are given a 'menu' with the 30 show titles. We are given some practice on how the show works before it gets going. Every time a show ends, someone in the cast will call 'CURTAIN' and at that point you will refer to your 'menu' and call out the number of the show that you want to see. They pull down that number, scream out the title and shift immediately into the next short play. Once they are set up, an offstage actor will say _______________(the name of the show) and GO! The actors also talk about how they will be interacting with the audience, moving through the space, etc.

The first few scenes (or plays if you want to call them that) were not very interesting to me. I was disengaged and a little annoyed. I felt they were thrown together and not too interesting, funny or dramatic. However, after a while, I started to settle into what was happening and I started to enjoy it. Before the show the leader also spoke about how all of the scenes were about things that had happened to the cast, or were inspired by their actual lives. That is what made me eventually start understanding and enjoying the piece. There was a piece about a young man (it was all played with a voiceover of the actor performing) and he unraveled a lot of little objects and spread them out on a table. I still don't know the point of the story/play, but it was about his relationship and memories of his grandmother and a specific moment in time that he recalled with great detail. Another story was about an actress (her play number was #27 and I kept hollering it out) entitled Where Iwas and WhereIam now and it was the story of her brother who apparently committed suicide about a year ago and how when she found out the news she was sitting on the shore of Lake Michigan with salt in her skin and her eyes and the powerful realization that she was a part of something greater than herself. She went on to say something along the lines of 'the next time you are there, look for my footprints, there are hundreds of them' and soon thereafter the stage went to black.

There was another actor onstage and he had short hair, but some female-like features and I wasn't sure if they were male or female. My wonder would be directly addressed during Malik/Molly's scene. Malik stood down center with two actors just upstage of him, both with a hand on each of his shoulders. The story of Malik/Molly was told. He grew up with some internal physical characteristics that point to the fact that he is female. He had a battery of tests performed on him which proved to be inconclusive and he was deemed 'abnormal'. Though he had some of these characteristics, his body did not produce estrogen, so for a period of time he was given estrogen. Eventually he was classified as 'intersex' and that was explained as someone who is not necessarily female or male but someone 'in between'. A few years ago he shed the name Molly, stopped taking estrogen and took on the name Malik because he identified more as a man.

Another actor read from cards that had different stories from his past. Before reading from a card, an actor upstage would flip a coin to decide if he was pulling from the right stack or the left stack of cards. He talked about living in Cincinnati with his girlfriend and their apartment being infested with bed bugs. He also talked about the way they had to get rid of bed bugs from his girlfriend's beloved stuffed animals (putting them in the freezer for a few days). He also talked about a medical issue that his girlfriend had that endangered her life and how that took a toll on them. In the end he stated that many of the biggest decisions in his life had been decided through a coin flip (just like they were doing throughout the scene) and that when he and his girlfriend decided to return to Chicago it was from a coin flip.

The type of theatre the Neo-Futurists explore is called meta-theatre. It is not conventional in an manner but proved to be thought provoking. They did get through the 30 plays and it was pretty neat. One scene was where all the actors (males included) put on thick lipstick and crawled through the audience kissing audience members on the cheek, forehead, arm, etc. By the end of it everyone in the audience had big kiss marks on their neck, face, head, etc. It was pretty funny to see. Another seen lead to a weird build-up, all of the actors sported swimming goggles and were holding water guns, until finally they turned their water guns on us and sprayed us for about 10-15 seconds. One was about a talking ostrich that railed on about politics while talking into a microphoned-megaphone. They were truly across the board.

Although some of the shows were not entertaining to me, overall I enjoyed it conceptually and I really enjoyed the true stories from the actors. It built a bridge between the performers and I and it made me care.

Now I journey to Nebraska. From the big city and the mass transit and the floods of people every single day, to the open country that is Nebraska. Instead of professional theatres and professional actors I will be surrounded with thousands of high school actors and witnessing their shows. It will be quite a shift, but I am excited about all the workshops and learning I'll experience during this part of my fellowship.

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Saturday in Chicago (6-22-13)

I was pleasantly surprised when I awoke to find a full fledged street market 1/2 a block from my hotel where there is usually loads of traffic. The street of Division was shut down for a few blocks and local farmers, chefs and gardeners were out selling their wares. It was really neat.

The next thing I did was go to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I was incredibly let down by the MCA. The best part of this adventure was that I saw Tom Hanks and his wife rushing into a blacked out van with a bunch of other folks while walking to the museum. I was in Chicago about 15 years ago and the MCA blew me away with its exhibits. On Saturday, there were limited exhibits (one had ended earlier this week and two were slated to open on 6-29-13 and the museum was a complete letdown. Usually I am excited to see what types of weird installations a museum has and occasionally and I've been known to be inspired by that artwork and it has helped me create on my own. Not today. Here are two pictures of an artist's installation.

Wow, they're Christmas lights, really....................and you got paid to do this???????

A series of glasses glued to the wall. Maybe that means we are putting our glasses up against the wall because we are nosy (we want to hear through the wall of our neighbors) and we are a product of the 'Kardashians' TV reality show society. Who really knows what it means, but it means boring to me. There were also bits of confetti glued to the floor.

There was an interesting group dance (seen below) taking place in front of the museum, but as far as things inside the museum, the best things in there were in the museum store.

After the mundane stroll through the museum and a lunch I attended one of the funniest plays ever produced.

This play was outstanding. Although I've built my life around theatre, I've not always been a huge fan of musicals. However, the creators of South Park hit a homerun with this one. It is NOT for the faint of heart. There are enough curse words in this play to make someone have a minor stroke. This play was brilliant from top to bottom. The songs were hilarious, the actors were pitch perfect, the dancing was magnificent and it told a wonderful story. All I can tell you is that if you're not too uptight, go see this play at your first opportunity. If you are made uncomfortable by some strong language, you better go to something more predictable. If you notice the quote under the sign 'So good, it makes me angry', I wonder why it would make someone angry when I came out of the theatre nearly crying with joy. I guess someone could be angry because these two guys have never written a musical and have taken Broadway (and anywhere else it has played) by storm. It won 8 Tony Awards and will surely be touring soon to a theatre near you.

The night concluded with IO's presentation of Whirled News Tonight which turned out to be one of the greatest performances I saw in Chicago. You enter the space and there are loads of newspapers on a table on the stage, along with pairs of scissors. The house manager tells you to go cut out some articles and put them on the billboards on stage. The improv actors will build scenes from these articles. About 8 actors come onstage. One of them pulls an article down from the board and reads it to the audience. As soon as the article finishes, the group starts an improv about that article. It might be 2 actors onstage or 4-5. Anytime someone wants to step in, they come and wave their hand at the person they are replacing and continue on. They can start a new scene, or build on what is happening, but it still is focused on the article at hand. These guys (and one girl) were brilliant, fast-paced, relaxed, open, confident, intelligent comedic actors. They were just so fast, it was thrilling to watch. They did that for about an hour, took a small intermission and the second part of the show was also all improv and would based on a question from an audience member that they needed help answering. Examples were, "Should I get married?", "Should I get Lasik eye surgery?", "Should I let my 18 yr. old daughter go to beach week?" Once again the members of IO were tight and thorough and keep the audience rolling for another hour.

These were definitely the funniest shows I saw this week. One completely scripted and choreographed and sang and one flying without a net. The art of improv is young, but it is alive and well in Chicago.

 

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Final day at Second City

Friday was my last day of classes at Second City. The day was incredible, with both classes having nice conclusions to the week's learning. In the improv class we worked on partner scenes. The writing class was completed overflowing with information and we worked right up until the end. The instructor was nice enough to continue to give me other improv exercises after class and talk to me about the structure of improv and good exercises to teach to my students. When I left the building around 5:30 PM I felt like I was on top of the world because of all the great information I had gathered throughout the week. There is so much information that I have recorded in my iPad and in my notebook that I will have to wait until I return to Alabama in order to sort it all out and put it together in cohesive lesson plans for my students. Today (Saturday), I am excited to go so the smash Broadway hit The Book of Mormon. One of my classmates went this week and he was raving about how incredible it was. I will close the evening out tonight the iO's presentation of Whirled News Tonight. iO was formerly called Improv Olympics but was later sued by the 'real' Olympics for using the name. Evidently the only institutions in the world that can use the term 'Olympics' are the 'real' Olympics and the Special Olympics, so now they go by the name iO. iO comes strongly recommended from all the folks at Second City. I'll let you know how those shows go later on.

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4th day at Second City classes

Today was another great day in class. During the morning improvisation class I was becoming a little disengaged because some of the exercises seemed to be repeating themselves. However, I just allowed myself to enter into the exercises and make the most of them. I've really become engaged in the writing class in the afternoon and our teacher Jay (female) flies through the work at a breakneck speed. I love her energy and how quickly she attempts to cover as much material as possible. During class she asked how the improv class was going and I said 'well', but then I asked to speak to her about it. I told her that some of the exercises were not as challenging as I would like and I was hoping to go back to my high school ready to teach some basic improv work to students. She was nice enough to stay after class and give me some extra pointers on things I could bring back to my students in addition to what I am learning in the class. She said sometimes her students say she is going too fast while other say the improv teacher is going a little slow; so I was glad that she understood where I was coming from. Even though the activities in the improv class are helpful and useful, I have worked on many of them before and I was hoping for a little bit more advanced training, but anyone who comes in must start at the ground level. She was also advising me on what I might do if I try and come back in a future summer for additional classes. I wasn't sure if the second level class would be what I was looking for or not. I'm going to follow up with her some more tomorrow with recommendations. The writing class is going great and we had some great discoveries in the improv class as well. Each night in the writing class I have to complete homework which is truly one of my favorite parts of the class. It is specific and we are asked to complete it in a specific amount of time. In a moment I've got to get cranking on it.

Tonight I saw a production of Neil Labute's play In The Company of Men by Profiles Theatre. It is a horrifying look at people who do bad things just for sport. The play opens with two men in the company bathroom who have been jilted by their girls. There are 3 main characters: Chad, Howard and Christine. Chad instigates the plot by telling Howard it's time they find a victim and ruin her life. He says they must find a woman who is vulnerable and then both seek out her attention (separately) and then break her heart, just for the heck of it. Howard seems less eager to do this, but eventually agrees to assist Chad in this sick game. They find Christine, a temp at the office, who is deaf and Chad decides this is the perfect target. Chad first courts her and then Howard steps in soon after. Chad sleeps with her Howard really falls in love with her. When Howard tells Christine how he feels she says that she's in love with another man. Howard is so upset he tells her their entire plan. The Profiles Theatre is a small theatre in Northern Chicago and it is celebrating its 24th season. The playwright did a re-write of this play for the theatre and this was the World Premiere of the revised script. Here are pictures of the set before the play.

The character of Chad was truly a disgusting person. Christine helped close the play out with a monologue about something that happened to her when she was 15 yrs. old and how her first date had told a distasteful joke about deaf people on their date. She didn't acknowledge that the joke affected her in front of her date but went home and balled her eyes out. She made a point of saying that the first date had come back to her house with a box of chocolates and apologized (he was forced to by his mom). The point was made clearly that even when people like to say they are 'joking', if it is hurtful to someone else, it is not acceptable. The play was outstanding and you really wanted to slug Chad in the mouth by the end of it. However, we all know someone in our lives who is simply hateful, just because. Maybe they do it to your face, maybe they simply ignore you when you've tried on numerous occasions to reach out to them, or maybe it's all done in hushed whispers behind your back. Whatever the case may be, it hurts and it's human nature at its worst.

 

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Big Lake, Big City at the Lookingglass Theatre

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This was the show I saw tonight at the Lookingglass theatre. The theatre is celebrating its 25th season right now and it is located in the Chicago Water Works building. Here are some pics.

The picture above is of the Lookingglass Theatre's ensemble. David Schwimmer is near the middle in a white robe, along with an assortment of other Chicago actors. Our second city instructor today explained how Chicago theatre is all based upon ensemble work. If you are unfamiliar with that, it means that each theatre has a core group of actors that helps perform in shows and push the company forward. Below are pictures of the show's set. The show's set represented an amazing variety of location by flying in simple set pieces, rolling them onto the stage, or transitioning existing set pieces into a new formation. Unfortunately it is illegal to film any live theatre because of copyright laws, so you'll just have to take my word on all the scenes that took place in this space. Some of the locations used in this play were: a garden patio @ a restaurant, a host stand, a construction site (the rafters where theatrical lights hung is where one actor spoke from, while the other actor was on the floor), an apartment, a cheap hotel room, a police precinct, a dentist office, a travel agency, a bus stop, a morgue, a park bench, a function where there was a guest speaker + a few more.

Below, I was able to capture a few shots during intermission. You will see how the closet in the above picture transitioned to a bed in the picture below. The bed was the site of a love scene (in the first act and the second), but at the close of the first act a fire has killed two people and their badly burnt corpses are still in the bed below.

The acting was phenomenal. Tonight was the very first preview. A preview is when audiences are allowed in, but in reality the show is still in final rehearsals before the actual opening. It gives actors a chance to hear where audiences are laughing and also an opportunity to fix technical mistakes. The gentleman who did the introduction even stated that at some point an actor may call for line or if there is a mistake the stage manager may stop the show.

There were two really interesting technical elements. A Ferris wheel box dropped from the ceiling at the end and lifted 3 actors into the air during one of the last scenes. Another scene featured a 2 ft. by 5 ft. piece of wood that was lowered out of the ceiling and two actors rode that piece of wood about 10 feet in the air to perform a short scene. They did clip onto a safety harness before lifting into the air. The scene was re-creating a construction site.

The play was a dark comedy in which there were quite a few dead characters by the end. It had elements of film noir and began with a conflict between two brothers. One responsible brother was trying to help out the other because he was family, however the irresponsible brother kept wasting his opportunities to do better. At one point the irresponsible brother told his brother he was sleeping with his brother's wife. He was chased offstage. The next time we saw the irresponsible brother on stage, he had a screwdriver stuck in his head. It was stuck there for the rest of the play.

The play also dealt with a lead detective in the Chicago PD. This detective was married and soon his wife was cheating on him. The wife and her lover, another married man, pretended to be burned alive in a hotel room in order to cheat the married man's wife out of money. The plot is so difficult to follow it would be hard for me to sum it up, but it was very interesting and the actors handled the material well. This was a brand new play and I saw it on the first night audiences were let into the theatre.

It was quite an experience, once again.

 

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2nd City Day 3

Here is my morning improvisation class. We had an incredible class this AM.

Here is my instructor and I, his name is JJ and he is great.

I have so much to say, but I've got a show at 7:30 and so I've gotta run. I will update you with the day's activities tonight. I'll have to say I'm super excited about seeing the show Big Lake, Big City by David Schwimmer. I'm confident it is going to be hilarious and I've got to get down to the loop in order to be on time.

 

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