Production Meeting 3/1

We had another production meeting today. We all wore black to take our lovely cast picture that will be in the program. We wrapped up mostly everything with the costume situation. I also need to send Frida the program template I used for Rhinoceros. We also talked about having spotlights at certain moments.

Production Meeting 4/23

On April 23, 2013, we had a production meeting about what each person could bring for Hansel and Gretel. We had decided what acting and technical roles we would play. I am the step-mother and evil homeless woman, Courtney. For design, I am in charge of costumes and sound in conjunction with Aishwarya. We made a list of costumes we will need:

Costume Ideas:

Father: Jeans and Plaid Shirt- Gwen can bring in a plaid shirt / Sam has jeans and will look into suspenders, black boots

Stepmother: power suit and pumps--looks expensive- Gwen can bring in pumps and jacket; fur coat in the costume room; Hali has a black jacket / jewelry / hair up

Hansel and Gretel: Overalls / plaid shirt / Hali has boots possibly overalls; Aishwarya has NYU sweatshirt; Gwen has a NY Yankees hat and red plaid shirt -

Clara: ratty white sweatshirt and jeans- Gwen has jeans and a white sweatshirt / white shirt - says “Etown” on it, tattered Converse; Sam has a white sweatshirt ; Gwen to find white undershirt / camisole;

Courtney: brown tattered clothing and big coat - Hali has the coat, black sweatpants; Mrs. Burke to bring in ratty shoes; Gwen to bring in ratty shoes ; Mrs. Burke to bring in ratty black / brown / something pink?

Narrator: Jeans and black t-shirt - Frida to bring Jeans and a black T-shirt; black shoes

 

For sounds, we also plan to use city noises and the Skype ringtone.

 

I agreed I could bring in monopoly money and a NYC map for props, as well as the costume items above.

We also agreed to take a class picture for the program on May 1, 2013.

Writing the Hansel and Gretel Script

On April 17, 2013 we planned out the script for Hansel and Gretel.
Part 1: Frida--the discussion between the father and step-mother to Hansel and Gretel's departure to the city
Part 2: Gwen--Arrival in the city to meeting the innocent
Part 3: Aishwarya--the interactions with the homeless woman
Part 4: Sam--Hansel and Gretel's discussion about what to do to the innocent coming back
Part 5: Katherine--Innocent has change of heart and helps them to being back in the dorm room
Part 6: Me--video chat with Father to him agreeing to help them pay for college.
Each person is supposed to write about 2 pages for their section, and Mrs. Burke gave us this website for help with script-writing: http://www.playwriting101.com/chapter12. Using this, we could all have the same format for script so it would be easier when we put it all together to edit it.
I actually really enjoyed writing my portion! It was pretty easy since it was modern day, and I kind of just let it flow like how I would imagine a normal conversation going. Then, it was great to see everyone's put together. It ended up actually turning out pretty well for having the whole thing to flow together. The next class, we all sat down and edited the script together to make sure that everything made sense. Obviously, changes had to be made, but there really weren't any major problems. I also created a Google doc that everyone could access so we could all make edits to the same document so that everyone could see the changes as soon as they were made. That was helpful for us so we all had a uniform script and knew what changes other people were making. In fact, when we finished the whole script, my mom was reading it over and was really impressed. She is a writer and a college professor, so to have her tell me that something that high school students wrote was really good was an honor! I think it was also easy and fun because we each only wrote a small portion, so put together it worked really well without someone being swamped with having to write an entire script.

H&G Decision

On April 15, 2013, we discussed in class about finalizing our decision for District Arts Festival. The general consensus was that Hansel and Gretel would be the story we would adapt. Then, we read through it as a class. I jotted down my notes about my observations of the story:

• 4 characters: mom, dad, Hansel and Gretel
• poor family-starving
• background story is important: narrator in our play?
• flint vs. pebbles for leaving trail
• can't share food of parents with children
• setting: woods, house of bread, cake, sugar
• white bird-5th character?
• wicked witch-6th character?
• white duck-7th character?--could combine with duck
• witch and mother characters are similar--could use same actor?

Then, we discussed how we would adapt it to be modern-day. It could be a poor family where the twins were accepted to NYU or Columbia and get lost in NYC or Central Park. The witch could be a possibility of people--scam artist, a business/institution, a worker or leader at a business, a mob member, a homeless person, or a college student trying to divert Hansel and Gretel from their studies. We decided that the witch would be a homeless person, so we came up with the following character list:

• Hansel
• Gretel
• Father
• Stepmother
• Homless Person
• Naarator
• White Bird/White Duck-could be water taxi/swan paddle boat, subway, young child/innocent--we decided on innocent

We also decided we needed the script to be written by the end of the week.

District Arts Festival Discussion

On April 11, 2013 we discussed the possibility of a performance in conjunction with our high school's District Arts Festival.

• performance would be first and second period--possibly May 14th and May 16th
• Ideas for possibilities:
• could do scenes and/or monologues
• songs from musicals that CV performed over last 4 years-tribute to seniors
• adaptaitions of inspirational works (PPP?)
• Disney-Grimm Fairy Tales (don't need permission for rights to those)

We decided on an adaptation of a Grimm Fairy tale because they are public domain so we have a lot of freedom with that. Our homework is to research the Grimm Fairy Tales and pick our top three, so we can talk about it next class and everyone can vote on which one to do.

Production Meeting 3/7

On March 7, 2013 We had another production meeting for Rhinoceros.
SET (Gwen):

• corkboard material worked out with Mr. Bomboy
• going to cover it with canvas from art and use acrylics to decorate it

SOUND (Katherine):

• want music that the audience knows
• doesn't actually musically match the show--maybe DISNEY?!?!
• adds to absurd with contrast but helps audience understand it better because they know the connotations of Disney music
• 3 songs and rhinoceros sounds (orchestral)
• Ideas?! "Kiss the Girl" from Little Mermaid or "Beauty and the Beast"

PR (Me):

• contact IB, Humanities, administration--CC Mrs. Burke--students will need passes to attend
• need a proof of the program for 3/13
• bring in red dress, shoes, plastic wine glass, stuffed animal cat

Annoyed

I am currently quite annoyed with Blogger because apparently if you try to update a post from earlier, it changes the date. Ugh. I just wanted to add some stuff to previous entries and now it's not in the correct month and this is really going to bug me...