Olivia HL Theater Blog

Blog post -- reflect on what you learned in this unit (Director's Vision for Yr 1/Director's Notebook for Yr 2) Overview: In this unit of IB HL Theater, the focus was mainly on Director's Vision. The Director's Vision encompasses aspects of the theater that gets the Director's message across. In a Director's Vision, topics such as theme, setting, historical context, general understanding of plot, etc. should be addressed. The Director's Vision can be a great way of organizing what the Director wants to get out of the performance. The message of the performance could either effect audience, actors themselves, the director, etc. The point of having the goals addressed in the Vision being so open ended is because Director's Vision should reflect the Director's own personal goals and wanting.

Blog post due -- reflect on your experience at the devising workshop The devising workshop was super cool! Something I'd like to say is that used to feel very nervous when going to workshops and interacting with people, but today I was very comfortable and overall happily excited. The workshop included a lot of different activities including; warmups, reading comprehensions, writing, and acting.  The warm ups at first seemed pretty silly, but I realized that it allowed me to be more aware of my surroundings. By laying on the floor, I found my self on a new level of the black box, one that I had not really been at yet. We also jogged around places of the black box which helped me to understand that I should be able to flow anywhere around the stage. By yelling, "Hey!" I was able to use my voice! It was less of a whisper and I was able to speak a bit more throughout the following activities. The workshop provided us with readings as well as writing that we woul...

Visit from Alumnus Jack Cheng today -- take some notes on his presentation and post them on your blog. Notes from Jacks' visit: Lighting Grids Lights are on them and can be moved around, but when placed need to have a safety chord on them. For Specific Lighting Place lights to balance out shadows if wanted Lights can do a great job at setting the mood for a scene ex. Jack showing us a good monologue scene set- up. Cool tip! Blue can look super cool as a contrasting color to separate the actor(s) from the background. Note Light blue can signify day time with white light or just blue light usually indicates scene change.

Time and place: take into account whether or not it is important to recognize the time and place to the actions as well as whether or not a everyday modern audience will understand Shakespearean work. Approach to directing can be active or recessive. Director’s intuition is VERY important It could be fun to focus on visual aspects of the play when directing It is alright to have things be your inspiration. Does breaking the 4th wall make things more complex?

Top 10 takeaways Some Directors research during pre- production. Others do not. Research may hold back the Director’s creativity. 25 Terminology is a practical way to staying organized when directing. (ex. Character x and Character y) “What are the circumstances that compel the characters to preform their actions?”. 43 Director should create a list of concerns that might arise when working on the play. 65 It’s important to not get caught up in expressing a certain opinion so what as to where the true essence of the play is gone or lacking. Be creative, inventive, intuitive, and have energy!! Point of view showed be communicated because the need or wanting to say something is the basis of why a Director directs. The first read of the play is possibly the most important read. It shows true first reaction and if drawn to it, there must be something special there. Harold Clurman said, “Let the play work on you before you work on it”. Stay Committed. Questions and What t...

My initial impression of Death of a Salesman from reading the synopsis was that it would be a very gloomy play filled with sad emotion. Just as assumed after reading the play, it was indeed gloomy and sad. These two feelings, I later discovered, were due to the overall sense of exhaustion amongst the characters. The audience felt this exhaustion through the storyline of “Willy”, whose desperation for success of the American Dream and lack of it stirs your heart and most importantly, your mind. This being, “Is the American Dream truly attainable?”. When viewing a show, I tend to be drawn to the effect the performance has on the audience. Ideally, the audience should leave the show with new perspectives or generally some deep thoughts. Rather than a show that just makes someone laugh or cry, the audience should be able to think about why they would react like that. In Death of a Salesman, the audience will leave the show with different emotions, but forced to leave thinking deeply abo...

Play: Death of a Salesman Scene Choice: Final scene ; funeral scene Characters apparent: Lina (wife) and Biff (son) Director’s Vision: The director’s vision is to create a stage that makes people feel comforted by darkness. Drawing from the ideas of Brecht and Artaud, the Director wants the scene to make people feel concerned for the situation at hand. Some humor can be shown by Biff picking up the money. Mourning and sadness can be shown by Linda over Willy’s grave. Setting: The setting is at a cemetary. The stage will depict open land. Willy’s gravestone has a large lump or hill of dirt. Everything else is plain. Set design: Pile of dirt in one place on any place on stage. For this, the direction cabe Stage Center Left. Biff will be Upper Left Stage. This is while Linda is focused on her thing, Biff will be focused on his thing at dufferin parts of the stage than Linda. Lighting: The lighting used will be Red light Orange light White light The lighting...