- Ideal Stage Placements .

Meaning:

Stage Right is familiar

Stage Left is alien

Upstage is distant, downstage is intimate

Downstage right best for intimacy

Down centre best for confrontation

Downstage left best for unfamiliar alien

Upstage left is distant unfamiliar

Upstage right is distant and familiar. From this position it is the easiest to remain unnoticed.

Movement:

Moving from stage right to stage left is easiest and most natural. 

Moving from left to right is most easily noticed. 

- Agusto Boal .

·         Theatre of the Oppressed

o   Forum theatre: an interactive theatre that allows for the audience to participate in the event itself

o   Spectactors are the audience that end up participating in the theatre of the oppressed through spectating and involvement

o   Not just a source of entertainment

§ Aims to evoke social change if used effectively

o   Invisible theatre (What would you do)

§  NY all actors and they set up a scene where they were oppressing a woman for her race. The surrounding people reacting to the scenario became the spectactors.

·         Once scene was over, they would ask people why they reacted that way

- Konstantin Stanislavski .

Konstantin Stanislavski (Vladimir Nemirovich Danchenko)

·         Upper class

·         Developed the MAT (Moscow art theatre) which turned well known for realistic interpretations of plays that were famous by Russian playwrights

·         Protected by Lenin

·         In fear of government, deleted many of his own works

·         Stage Directions were turned from simple into ways of evoking certain emotions, showing subtle details

·         “As if for the first time”, everything is new truthful sincere and joyous

·         Meyerhold

a.       Method acting: Stanislavski taught his actors to “be” rather than to “act”. For example, if character is experiencing a loss, the actor was to pull from himself the emotions that he himself would have felt in the past, for example the death of a family member, and channel it through his character to evoke the same emotion.

b.      The circle: when actors were nervous on stage, he taught them to focus on a small circle, usually consisting of one prop and one other character. Once the actor became comfortable with the small section on the stage, he could expand to other characters and props, always being able to resort back to the initial two items within the small circle if the nerves were to return.

c.       The magic “if”: Rather than simply having his actors learn their lines and memorize the expected emotions and reactions expected to go with them, Stanislavski used the magic “if” to expand the actors understanding of their characters. He would take the characters out of their scenes and allow the actors to react as their characters in different situations through using “if”. For example, how would your character respond if it was pushed while walking down the street? It allowed them to find the differences between their characters and themselves.

- Odds and Ends

Intrinsic: belonging to a thing by it's very nature
Extrinsic: not essential or inherent, not a basic part or quality, extraneous

"It's good because it's hard, and it's hard because its good."

- Quotes , and more Quotes .

" Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. "

- Steve Jobs

" If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair. "

- C.S. Lewis

" Meditation is the dissolution of thoughts in Eternal awareness or Pure consciousness without objectification, knowing without thinking, merging finitude in infinity."

- Voltaire 

- Remembrance Day Blocking .

• Maverick in center and girl on left, boy on right/ playing video games
• Roll call begins as they play/ Maverick is called last, boy called second last, girlfriend says goodbye and best friend brings maverick to front of formation
• March into opposing triangles, line of 4, 3, 2, and as mavericks name is called, the opposing team marches in already in formation, and meets the two triangles with maverick in the middle. 
• Turn flashlights all off/ screen goes black,
• Have war noises playing,
• Stop for a moment,
• Every other light turn back on, fog present (Best friend alive, maverick dead) / game over flashes across the screen.  
• Roll call man comes to mavericks body, drapes a flag over him.
• Best friend takes the flag back to girlfriend on the couch; girlfriend holds it and turns off the lamp beside the couch
• Blackout

- Objective Day .

Don’t speak unless spoken to, Don’t have an opinion, Don’t research anything

October 31^st, 2011

Morning (Drive in):

It turned into more of a “reflective period” for Emma to virtually talk to herself unless I was addressed. It was different than a normal drive in because it turned into more of a monologue than a dialogue with the absence of singing or extreme laughing. I didn’t find myself eager to talk though; it was just different than I’m used to.

Bio (P1)

Bio was not difficult in the slightest. I rather wrote down my answers instead of answering his questions aloud. Socializing isn’t a huge part of bio, so I wasn’t longing to talk at all. The biggest challenge was knowing the answer and not being able to say it when no one else in the class knew it, so it resulted in a “you guys should know this” lecture from Mr. Hertz. Even though that got frustrating after the 2^nd or 3^rd time, it was better to know than not know it. I found myself often laughing to myself, which made me seem insane I’m guessing.

Theatre (P2)

It got frustrating because no one was staying on task or keeping anyone on task, so I found myself making plans on my own and showing them to people. Only 4 of the 6 people contributed to it, and it was extremely frustrating to have to sit there while no work was getting done, so in return, I formatted all the blocking necessary.

Lunch (Improv)

For improve at lunch, my objective was put on hold while the improv team itself was working. As soon as it ended, I went back to the silent, unresearched life.

Social (P3)

Social was possibly the hardest of all the classes, strictly from the opinion aspect. Many questions that Gillespie had asked I was the only one that knew the answer and it was frustrating to sit there and need to listen to him lecture us on how uneducated our generation can be.  In social I found myself able to be increasingly observant to more than just the general discussion, but rather people’s body language concerning certain ideas. Taking more of an outside view on the discussions today allowed for viewing from a different perspective.  There were many things that throughout the course of the class I had wanted to look up or research, though it didn’t bother me as much once I realized I had to hold back.

Chemistry (P4)

Chemistry, much like most of the other classes wasn’t a big hindrance. Mrs. Walsh was awfully confused when she would expect me to talk and id sit there silent, or id raise my hand instead of just flat out asking, it was almost funny to watch her respond to the change in my habits. The social aspect of it was a bit more difficult just because the classroom setup is to be sitting at a table with 4 of my friends. By that point, Hayley had made it clear that you had to address me in order to have me speak, so most of them understood quite quickly. Not surprisingly, it was easier to focus knowing that I was unable to talk.

Overall:

One of the main reasons I think I talk so much is to avoid thinking to myself.  I seemed to be a lot more aware of my pain when I was being more observant rather than participatory. A big aspect of the idea of the objective for a day is to increase self-awareness, in which i found the objective to be quite appropriate. Rather than coasting through the day as a matter of habit, i found myself being attentive of my surroundings and current situation and adjusting accordingly. This was effective in relation to the directors concept, because it set a clear picture of how a character must compose them self according to their current objective, even if it makes sense to defy it for some reason or another. Applying the directors concept to our everyday lives was beneficial overall.