Olivia HL Theater Blog

Overall pitch for director's vision due on blogs by this date The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh  Martin McDonagh's work contains characters who take part in cruel and violent actions that appear to be apart of they're usual lives. The Pillowman is a dark comedy about a children's author named Katurian and his impressionable brother, Michal. Michal, influenced by Katurians' children books revolving around child murder leads him to commit murders of his own. Martin McDonagh uses Katruian as a way to voice the seriousness of the matter, but erases that thought with the abrupt action of killing Michal. What this shows is the voice of rational that is quieted by the violent nature found in societies of our world today.  Pitch: Sitcom feel, help to normalize the violence even more. Confuse the audience, alienation affect. Make them question if they should listen to the voice of rational or fit in with the crowd who seems to be pleasantly entertai...

Link to Revised Solo Performance Paper: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RsDEyC2AVVv2gDlEPlkV5_dcqhReNK0HcHcWpag-oZY/edit?usp=sharing

Sources Digital Theater Plus+: Commedia dell'Arte History Commedia dell'Arte an Actor's Handbook by John Rudlin Commedia dell'Arte a Scene Study book by Bari Rolfe Exploring Modern Commedia dell'Arte by Ale Lavendvatter

Context of the Theatre Theorist. Theorist: Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud Dramatist, poet, essayist, actor, theater director Type of theater: Theater of Cruelty Avant-garde theater  A skeptic of old traditions and standards Author of: “Theater and its double” ORGANIZED ANARCHY Goal was to draw audience in and wake up their nerves and heart Irrational, feeling that life is meaningless or a man that's a puppet control by invisible outside forces Aspect of the Theory. What I will be pulling from Artaud Throughout my creative process, I kept in mind some of the philosophies of Artaud: The Plague: Artaud believed that theater should be like a plague that takes over the actor(s) and spreads to the entire audience. There is no way of escaping the plague. This idea was explored in the workshop I led for my IB theater class. Cruelty: “Without an element of cruelty at the root of ever spectacle, the theater is not possible. In our present state of degradation ...

Edits, Reflection, and Audience viewpoints: I ended up changing a lot of aspects of my performance. The things that I have changed are the following: Costume for Laura Lighting Audio track Glass prop Costuming for Laura: For Laura, I originally that that she should be wearing a plain cream dress, as it is seen as more “ritualistic” which was another philosophy of Artaud. I decided to change this because I realized I don't have to focus on every aspect of Artaud. To make it more authentic to what I believed Laura would be like, I put her in a light blue ruffled dress. The light blue color was pastel enough to not take away from the lighting, but also show that Laura could be in modern times. Audience viewpoints: The audience was able to feel for Laura more as she seemed more like a realistic person in everyday life.  Lighting: The lighting was originally very simplistic. I did not want much light on Laura. This was to emphasize that Laura really di...

The Tectonic Theater Project created Moment Work which is the “I begin…. I end” structure that our class explored a little the other day. Instead of just focusing on text, the actors, directors, etc. focus on creating moments where the audience and everyone can feel the impact.  These moments are the new that will be remembered the most after the performance. Moment work is extremly cringey and unbenifical. It reduces the amount of emtion and mental inetsity acting SHOULD have. It skips the steps of understandig why we act the way we act. In my opinion, these skipped steps cannot be skipped if anyone in the prodcution team wants a good and impactful performance.  I personally am not fond of Moment Work. I don’t find the activity for Moment Work natural in the slightest nor helpful. As I was reading about the Tectonic Theater Project’s opinions on realism in theater, I collected that the idea of it was not seen very fondly. I don’t understand why. There is something about r...

This week in theater I focused on figuring out where I should place my audience in order to allow the audience the full effect of the audio track. I first had my audience sit in the section originally made for the audience and listen to the audio track. Then I had the audience move to the stage and let them hear the audio track there. The consensus was that the audience should not be on stage with me, instead the audience should remain in the section originally made for the audience. This is because the speakers of the blac box are facing outwards from the stage, so the sound projects more. On stage, the sound sounds too muffled because the speakers are not facing the stage.  The downside about this is that it I believe will be harder to overwhelm the audience in regards to the light sensory. My next step is to figure out which lights should face towards the audience and what other lighting effects I can do in order to overwhelm my audience and keep that sensory overload that t...