Olivia HL Theater Blog

The final recording of A Peculiar Type of Love was filmed this past Wednesday. The performance had been been anticipated for weeks and a lot of revising was put into obtaining the “final”. Though this was the final filming for the project, there still could have been a lot of alterations in order to make the performance even better. With less regards to the acting from the actors, the scene changes, filming of the performance, and lighting/music cues could have been better in many ways. The acting itself was something I was fairly impressed with amongst my peers. Thankfully, the level at which our acting is at is fairly equal and leveled in regards to how we take up the stage with our voice, body, and overall expression of character. Though the lines that had been written specifically in the play were not recited word for word, it allowed each actor to have a general understanding of where the performance was going or needed to go (meaning the scenes were able to still flow smoothl...

Our devising group has recently been trying to run through all of the scenes from top to bottom and figure out if our plot really makes sense. We found our script pretty solid, but thought that other than our choice of wording and lighting, there was something big missing. When doing this, we realized that our play didn’t give the audience something to follow, it was merely a performance that could only really be watched and most likely lead the audience to be confused in regards to the plays purpose. Our resolution to this problem was to figure out what character this play revolved around. By analyzing our script, we decided it revolved around the character Sara. Sara’s character originally was addressed as a women who had been “cheating” on her husband, and recently got caught. This was a well structured character description, but it lacked substance. Why did Sara “cheat” on her husband? This is the question we sought to answer through description of Sara and her relationships ...

Group has added more stage directions and lighting, needs to finish stage props/ furniture list Revolve the story around Sara Understand that Sara is never really sad, but rather confused, scared, worried, angry, disgusted with herself Emphasize Sara’s feelings about Marcus - Scene 2 after phone call, Sara will have a monologue where she ponders why she has found a new love for Marcus Make Marcus’s feelings, thoughts, and opinions clear regarding how he sees his relationship with Sara *                               - New thought to ask group tomorrow: maybe while Marcus and Sara are on the phone in scene two, Marcus can drift off and Sara can be like, “are you thinking about her?” Or maybe later on in another scene? Scene 1 with lights up on Natalie and Marcus: this scene needs to have a different feel than the original one  Last Scene (6) needs revision. Scripted dialogue for the beginning of the sc...

Script analysis write-up: What strategies did you use to analyze your script last week and what did you find from that technique? Also, how did you revise your piece based on the findings. 300 words. Post on blog. Last week the devising group and I worked n analyzing our script and figuring out what we needed to revise in our work so far. The strategies included: Understanding the physicals levels in our scenes Finding where to build up and break down emotion Feeling Tempo and Rythm Fluency Plot holes In order to understand the levels in our scenes, we needed to physically act out the scenes. It was not until we went through the scenes, were we able to see what was awkward or seemed too boring. Our group decided to show levels by having people walking around, standing, sitting, and movement of body such as arms and legs n order to show more energy on stage as well as a a picture with various dimensions. By picking apart our scene’s script, we were able to (and ar...

The first devising company I researched was Reckless Sleepers. They decided to do this performance where about 15 women sawed wooden chairs that they were sitting on. The video I watched of this was about 10 minutes long and showed them doing this performance in various locations. For some reason, even though the idea was explained in words seems so simple, this performance was undeniably intriguing. The women kept a center of gravity revolving around the chair even though they were falling all over the place. There was some type of emotional outburst from the women even though their faces showed no emotion. I think they were alienated from the audience, but still managed to send a strong and bold message. I find this very impressive.  http://www.reckless-sleepers.eu/a-string-section-images?fbclid=IwAR0U_iHHqdYeDyFiNDiMNs_GAJ5qJ3Rwbv9wt29O89RE1Y61Q7VsWbNa9to&lightbox=image_1prv Another devising company I researched was Potato Room Productions. This company revolves arou...

Love Is Complicated Ideas based on stimulus The inspiration for our devising group project titled, Love is Complicated is derived from the stimulus, the painting the hole on the wall. We gathered our information and ideas about the theme of the play by recalling what we see and what we think of the art work. The very first thing that we realized/noticed about the painting is the distinctive red balloon. Obviously the balloon used to belong to the human figure on the left side and now the balloon is gone, we can tell this by looking at how the hand of the “human” is trying to reach for the balloon. Also the balloon has a shape of a heart, which is possibly referring to love. Combining love and the sense of distance/abandon, we’ve decided our topic to be about the sad facts of love. This piece has allowed the members of our group to explores themes of the following: The longing for love Heartbreak Unfaithfulness Betrayal Love is complicated Devotion Etc...

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.