Melt their faces off
Posted by Rachel on May 6, 2008
School Shows School Residencies
The Chalmers teaching team consisted of Educational Program Director Dixie, Joe, Alex, Monkey apprentice (and every child’s idol) Stephen, and myself. For one class we even had former Ed. Director, Kristie. After assembling such a team for a class of only 13 students, Dixie expressed concern that “their faces will be melted off by our love and individual attention.”
Joe took this picture of one third of our rockstar team fortifying at the White Palace Grill before class.
We had our first Chalmers rehearsal Saturday. In an initial rehearsal for a school show, we go through all the notebooks from the residency, and it’s always fun as a teacher to see the rest of the cast experience the kids’ writing for the first time. For those unfamiliar with our rehearsal process, we put a show together in only six short rehearsals, relying on the innate merit of the stories, our own silly abandon as performers and adapters, and chaos theory.
In choosing stories for a particular show, we seek a balance in tone, subject matter, and genre. A school show will almost always include some dialogues and some arguments because we devote entire days to teaching those subjects. Musicians grab stories to adapt into songs. Sometimes a member of the ensemble will have a great idea for a way to approach a story, or be drawn to playing a particular character. He or she will often take the lead in adapting that story.
Other times, no one takes the lead. We improvise; we throw out ideas; we play. Sometimes we sit round a notebook and write out a script. Sometimes we work physically first, adding text later if it’s needed. And sometimes, we stand in a circle and stare at each other, saying, “Wow, this is such a great story! But how do we put it on stage?”
That happened with the story my group worked on at Saturday’s rehearsal. We read the story out loud. We laughed at the funny parts. We noted the heightened language that gave it the feel of a folk tale or legend. We squirmed as other groups around us started working out their ideas, started being brilliant and funny and all the things those other groups will be when you’re feeling stuck. We talked about what a great story it was. And we stared at each other.
Until Tai said, “What if we did it like Bollywood?”
Dixie’s revising the script. Mastro’s working on a mini-movie-musical score. Donnell’s renting movies from video shops on Devon to work out choreography. I am eating lots of Indian food for inspiration. Thank you, Monkeys, for trusting in the collaborative process. Thank you, Tai, for having that idea. Thank you, Chalmers child, for giving me the opportunity to pretend I’m Thora Birch in the opening of Ghost World.