From the Classroom: Irene

Showing posts with label Irene. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Inside Stage One

Listen to the 2013 Stage One students, as they give you the inside scoop on the program's first week.

For more about Stage One, check out the official site. Congrats to this year's students!

Sunday in the ARK with...

3:03 PM Signature Education No comments

For the next two weeks, Overtures student Alexandra, a graduate of Colby College, is taking over our blog. Check back for daily updates!

Dance instructor Karma Camp gives Overtures students
feedback following their morning dance class.

Sunday, June 16

Eleven hours ago, I sat groggily at one of the tall tables in the second floor lobby of Signature Theatre, glancing at unfamiliar faces, flipping through sheet music one last time, and anxious to step into the ARK theater for the first day of unknown challenges and explorations. Behind the glazed eyes indicative of not enough coffee for a Sunday morning, I caught the glimmers of excitement. Here was a group of sixteen budding artists that shared at least one thing in common – we love musical theater. And, because of that love, we are spending two weeks of our much-coveted summers (at least for those in undergrad and high school where those still exist) back in the classroom at Overtures: Signature Theatre’s Musical Theatre Institute.

Whether we came to Overtures hoping to find more technique and training than a school program could provide, to realize true potential that lay dormant after college careers ripe with extracurricular promise, or to explore ulterior motives (gasp) and make the jump to a professional career in Washington, the Overtures class of 2013 has set our individual bars high. And so have the instructors. Diving in first thing this morning with pre-prepared songs ala an audition (albeit in front of three instructors, our Education Director, two Education Interns, and the entire Overtures class), we certainly gave it our all.

Overtures students Nina (left) and Ines (right) review their music.

For anyone who has leapt back into a classroom setting after a long time, after day jobs, and after a couple of years nurturing bad habits and trying to look like you know what you’re doing, the smacking sensation of a full day’s work in a class (and, more specifically, critique) will certainly remind you of “the good old days”. “Make discoveries.” “Find focus.” “Be a sponge.” Ahh, the wise words of seasoned professional and teachers ready and eager to work every skill, every dance step, every high note, every riff, every conceived notion of dramatic interpretation. The dance warm-up alone might have been enough to scare away the faint of heart if not for the outgoing, sensitive, fun, and loving personalities in the program.

Today was only a glimpse of all that Overtures undoubtedly has in store for us over the next two weeks. Pleasantries aside, we are prepared for a difficult experience, an experience that might even make us cry (according to Tracy Lynn Olivera’s un-minced introduction), but an experience that ultimately will prove incredibly rewarding.

Don't miss the Overtures Showcase! Saturday, June 29 at 11 AM in the MAX Theatre. Admission is free and seating is on a first come, first serve basis.

Today in Theatre History: Re-Imagining the Past

5:37 PM Signature Education No comments

TODAY IN THEATRE HISTORY: June 12th

In the “Today in Theatre History” series, we take a specific event in theatre history and use it as a starting point for discussion about aspects of theatre – past, present, and future.

By Irene Casey, Education Intern

On June 12th, 1977 the original Broadway production of Pippin closed after 1,944 performances

http://dramaleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Pippin.jpg

The cast of the 1972 Broadway production of Pippin.Source: http://dramaleague.org/blog/2012/03/12/diane-paulus-to-stage-new-pippin-at-a-r-t-this-winter/

Broadway today is filled with "revivals." But what do people mean when they say that something is a revival? That the show has already been produced somewhere? Or that it has already been on Broadway? How different are revivals from the original production? Typically, a revival means a new production of an old show, which brings us to what happened today in theatre history: the original Broadway production of Pippin closing in 1977.

The original Broadway production of Pippin opened on October 13, 1972 (after a try out in D.C.). Pippin's book was written by Roger O. Hirson, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, and was originally directed by Bob Fosse. Fosse saw the musical, which follows a medieval prince as he becomes embroiled with a troupe of players on his quest to find his place in the word, as a surreal experience and wanted his production to disturb audiences.

Since its first production, Pippin has been performed all over the country and the world. This year, for the first time, Pippin returned to Broadway. The revival was developed at the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) and directed by Diane Paulus. Just this week, it won four Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Musical and Best Direction of a Musical. While the A.R.T. revival differed from the original production by trimming the first musical number and using an alternate ending, the biggest change was the way that Paulus envisioned the players. Instead of a troupe of actors, they became a troupe of circus performers, filling the musical with wild, bold spectacle.

Paulus's revival of Pippin departs from the original in several ways. Major re-imaginings of shows are not out of the ordinary today. Whenever directors approach scripts, they think about how they want the story to be told. Each production is different because each production has different directors, designers and actors developing it. It's true that some productions stick fairly closely to the interpretation of the original production, while others take the musical or play in an entirely different direction, choosing to highlight or introduce different elements in the show. More and more productions of classic musicals and plays are closer to being adaptations than simply revivals, with directors re-imagining them to bring them into the modern day.

Signature is know for taking big musicals and performing them in our black box theatres, creating intimate original stagings of shows that were often originally seen in giant proscenium theatres.

Signature's production of Les Miserables transformed the musical. Trevor Nunn's internationally acclaimed original production, relied heavily upon a turntable in its design. But director Eric Schaeffer used a 3/4 thrust stage that pushed the action into the middle of the audience, creating a grittier production happening just feet away from the audience. Chairs hung from the ceiling and set pieces moved on and off from the stage, entering as one thing only to re-enter a scene later as something completely different.

In 2006, the Washington Post described Signature's Assassins as a "startling new staging." Director Joe Calarco (a Signature regular) went beyond merely placing the piece in a black box and onto a way that had never been seen before. The set was a literal mirror image of the audience: rows and rows of chairs on risers, all identical to what the audience was sitting in. This brought the idea that these disenfranchised assassins and would-be assassins
are just like the rest of us home in frightening and unsettling ways.

What dramatic re-imaginings of blockbuster musicals will be seen on Signature's stages next season? First up, will be an environmental production of Miss Saigon, meaning the entire theatre will become part of the set. As soon as the audience enters the theatre, they will enter the broken world of 1970s Vietnam. Check it out here.