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Right now I'm producing and directing a very, very short script I wrote about soldiers at war. It's set in a WW2 style war, but isn't restricted to a precise or specific historical period. This is also a collaboration with a music composition major, who is providing incidental music. How can I provide zero-budget effects like gunshots and explosions? What might be the best way to pantomime or represent rifles without actual rifle props? The music will provide the explosions. We'll be using a bass drum and giving it some powerful slams. I'm wary of using a snare drum for gunshots, because it simply doesn't sound close enough to a gunshot. Anybody have ideas or is there anyone who has dealt with a problem like this?
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Nov 3, 2010 19:55
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I wish I could help, at the moment I am sitting in a dress rehearsal for Noises Off! and trying very hard not to run up there, stop everything ,and ask them what the hell they are thinking...
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Nov 4, 2010 02:21
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Named Ashamed posted:Right now I'm producing and directing a very, very short script I wrote about soldiers at war. It's set in a WW2 style war, but isn't restricted to a precise or specific historical period. This is also a collaboration with a music composition major, who is providing incidental music. On the issue of the guns, it really all depends on the style of the play. If what you're going for is a very realistic style of storytelling, and everything is supposed to be as real as possible. Then you'll want guns that look as realistic as possible. However, since it seems that since you aren't restricting the show to one specific period, then you have some freedom to play around with. Might I recommend the rifles that colorguard teams use during their performances? They have the generic shape and look of rifles, but are basically carved out of a blocked of wood. I've seen those used a great deal in shows and it's always something that has worked for me. As for the sound effects, check out YouTube. You can find a ton of sound effects with pretty minimal searching. When you find something you like, you could use one of the many sites out there that will rip music from a YouTube video and turn it into a mp3 file, and boom, there you go. (I hope that doesn't count as  talk.)
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Nov 4, 2010 03:14
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El Tortuga posted:On the issue of the guns, it really all depends on the style of the play. If what you're going for is a very realistic style of storytelling, and everything is supposed to be as real as possible. Then you'll want guns that look as realistic as possible. Technically this is supposed to be the music composer's final project for his Music Comp 1 class. I'm freelancing this project because there weren't enough modern dance collaborators to go around for all the composers. Thus, I have some restrictions. I think we will probably be required to utilize sounds by the instruments as much as possible. We have Trumpet for the droning of planes and perhaps the whistling of a dropping bomb, violin, viola and cello for shrieking strings during the bombing, and whatever percussion we can carry across campus to the dance building. That's the sound palette we can use.
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Nov 4, 2010 03:27
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El Tortuga posted:Auditioning for directors is always tricky, and it gets even trickier when you have to use a reel. I can't say my experience is tremendously stage oriented at all. Since I got into college, I have mostly done film, standup, radio, a little TV, and sketch. But it definitely worked for me, and I have a play coming up next week in Boston. [url]Tinyurl.com/sidekickin]Watch it here. [/url] I also posted in the LAN thread, which means this is officially the last mention of it with a link. Regarding Emerson: It's a pretty big program, but the benefit is, you're going to be surrounded by actors, directors, editors, sound people, and writers. Apart from some Communication Disorders majors, everyone at Emerson is learning a technical skill which will make you look good. Of course, knowing my actor-roommate sophomore year, you'll see them very rarely. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 20:50 on May 1, 2011 |
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Nov 7, 2010 22:18
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I graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in theatre. My final project to graduate was directing/producing "The Tooth of Crime" by Sam Shepard at a local music venue. It was one of the most fun and stressful situations I've ever put myself through. I'm thinking about doing another production soon. I've received permission from "Jason" the author of the graphic novel "Why are you doing this?" to turn it into a stage production. One thing I'm going to try and do differently is have sponsors so that I can dedicate more time to the play and less time at work. edit: here's the youtube link to the trailer I had made to advertise my production of "The Tooth of Crime." It's very low quality but really did help get more people in the door. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=471ZijKBtQ4 beer_attack fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Nov 13, 2010 |
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Nov 8, 2010 16:17
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This semester I'm playing Iago in Othello, and directing Mamet's Oleanna at the same time (a brilliant idea). Othello goes up in four days, and Oleanna right after that. Someone save me.
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Nov 8, 2010 19:18
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beer_attack posted:I'm thinking about doing another production soon. I've received permission from "Jason" the author of the graphic novel "Why are you doing this?" to turn it into a stage production. One thing I'm going to try and do differently is have sponsors so that I can dedicate more time to the play and less time at work.
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Nov 8, 2010 23:37
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Named Ashamed posted:Well poo poo, I'm working on a short adaptation for stage of Emily Says Hello by Jason at the moment as well. How did you get in contact with him to get the rights? A year ago I contacted the american publishers, who gave me the email and phone number of the French publicist who then allowed me to send them an email in which they would forward to Jason. I kept my email very short and to the point, and Jason sent me a personal email back allowing me to adapt it. Honestly what's taking me longer to do it is the fear that I don't have enough free time to make it perfect, funding is a close second.
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Nov 9, 2010 08:03
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I haven't had a regular enough schedule to do theatre in years, between a couple night classes and two jobs. I tried to get into my school's theatre department after getting disenchanted with practical majors, and got my rejection letter very quickly after my audition. Now that I've graduated college (with an IT degree) and am working 8-5 I'm trying to get back community theatre around here. I just joined the cast of an upcoming performance of some old-time radio scripts for Christmas. After that, I'm hoping to try to audition for whatever stage shows I can find. Richmond has a pretty decent theatre scene, with a lot of enthusiastic people. So I'm pretty excited about starting to act again.
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Nov 9, 2010 18:55
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Leaf Coneybear posted:This semester I'm playing Iago in Othello, and directing Mamet's Oleanna at the same time (a brilliant idea). Othello goes up in four days, and Oleanna right after that. Someone save me. I loving hate Oleanna; I've now seen it 4 times and I'm absolutely convinced that there is no way to stage the play where the audience will give a poo poo about either one of the characters. It is Mamet at his most bitter and least creative. That said, good luck! Let us know how it goes.
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Nov 13, 2010 00:10
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OSheaman posted:That said, good luck! I believe you mean, "break a leg." 
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Nov 13, 2010 01:12
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beer_attack posted:I believe you mean, "break a leg." Telling your snooty cast "good luck" before opening night is one of the best things ever. Only if they're snooty, though. Here's something I've been noticing a lot recently: Why are "serious" actors generally better at comedy than improv/comedy actors? When I first started putting up shows in Chicago, four out of six cast members were improvisers. Now I try to avoid them as much as possible unless they're actors who just happen to enjoy improv. They're complacent, don't show up on time, and take forever to learn lines. They're also a lot more likely to make loving stupid calls on stage because they "just had to."* But why? Aren't they supposed to be the comedy experts? * In one instance, when some pretty cool people in the community were in the audience, a cast member decided to play his character retarded, which was mildly offensive and pretty much killed the audience reaction for most of the show.
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Nov 13, 2010 01:30
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antiloquax posted:Telling your snooty cast "good luck" before opening night is one of the best things ever. Only if they're snooty, though. I think it's because while "serious" actors read a script and think, "how can I bring this character to life?", improv/comedy actors tend to read a script and think, "How can I make this funny?" The serious actor lets the humor of the script and the character emerge naturally, while the improv actor tends to try to force humor onto the script. There's a element of "Look at me!"-ism that bad improvisers tend to exhibit, and when they're faced with a script that keeps them in the background, they get restless and try to get attention through cheap laughs.
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Nov 13, 2010 06:54
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beer_attack posted:I believe you mean, "break a leg." He said he's directing, so good luck is approriate. Break a Leg is only for actors 
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Nov 14, 2010 00:30
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antiloquax posted:Telling your snooty cast "good luck" before opening night is one of the best things ever. Only if they're snooty, though. It's because you were working with bad improv actors. Seriously. Good improv actors understand all the tools needed for good acting and are like smart, creative actors that are completely unafraid to take huge risks during the rehearsal process and even on stage. Unfortunately, Chicago has several schools (coughSecondCitycough) that are essentially diploma factories and will churn out "improv actors" regardless of skill or talent. The result? A lot of terrible actors calling themselves "improv actors". But don't let all the poo poo distract you from improv actors as a group. They're incredible people to work with if they know what they're doing.
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Nov 14, 2010 00:33
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OSheaman posted:But don't let all the poo poo distract you from improv actors as a group. They're incredible people to work with if they know what they're doing. Oh, I know. I've worked with some very good improv actors and I've been blown away by their performances and professionalism. I think I'm just venting. One too many good opportunities ruined by douchebags, or something like that. I think that the two groups that usually work the best are the people who are over twenty five and have kind of just gone "gently caress it" and don't care about impressing Del Close anymore (and people still want to impress him) and then there's the classically trained actors who think "Hey, this will really help my performing." Improv is a great tool for acting and generating material if used properly. It just isn't a lot of the time. The major problem is probably the echo-chamber environment that the two main schools create. You watch your friend's show, they watch yours, nobody in the audience is an actual member of the public, so the positive feedback you receive is skewed, and you're more confident than you should be. Maybe I should start a "Let's bitch about the Chicago improv scene" thread.
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Nov 14, 2010 02:59
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Speaking as an improviser in NYC, I have to agree with antiloquax. I've met a lot of great improvisers and I've acted alongside a bunch of lovely ones too. There's a tendency with a lot of students to "steamroll" your scene partners and fellow actors to become the center of attention. I blame the main theatres that are trying to sell classes rather than nurture good, considerate talent. That said, I'm consistently amazed by many serious actors that have impeccable comic timing.
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Nov 14, 2010 03:33
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I'm a part of the Chicago improv scene!  Really, though, there shouldn't be a distinction between a "serious" actor and an "improv/comedy" actor. In fact, you'll find that several "real" actors are better improvisors because (usually) they aren't trying to force jokes or be funny. It's exactly what CoolZidane said. In an improv scene, people who are doing improv for laughs or attention are thinking "What can I do to get a laugh?" whereas they SHOULD be thinking "What can I do to further they scene?" Preferably, they shouldn't be thinking at all and just be in the scene.
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Nov 14, 2010 16:22
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I have an improv actress along with three non-improvers as the leads in my show. Her physicality and choices are amazing - she probably had the least to work with, script wise - and her adaptability made the script a bit better than it was. It's a matter of getting it out of them during rehearsals - let your actors make enough bad choices that they eventually are tired and want to make the right ones. My director's thing to say is probably "keep it in".
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Nov 14, 2010 17:48
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This probably isn't as exciting for most of you as it is for me, but here's a nice big photograph of Boris Aronson's set for Company: And- oh my, now it's a nightclub!  And in color, too!  I'm so happy that this exists.
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Nov 17, 2010 20:12
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I think that's always a great set to look at, Company is an amazing show. I don't know if you do the Instant Netflix thing, but it has the live taping of the 2006 revival with Raul Esparza that was filmed for PBS.
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Nov 17, 2010 22:40
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I actually just finished watching that earlier, and I kinda warmed up to it (I hated it the first time), but it still feels too much like "Company In Concert", though maybe that's just my affinity for period atmosphere speaking. For a couple weeks I've been focused on Company and I'd never seen the whole set before, and it is nice to look at, though people are so much bigger nowadays (case in point, the slabs of meat starring in Mad Men) that it would probably look kind of spindly if re-used. At the very least, though, it would be an interesting thing to have on-stage. A lot of Company makes more sense when you look at that set, particularly The Little Things (Joanne walking above, looking down) and Poor Baby (the lifted "apartments"), and the sudden elevator movement during the long "looooooove" in the opening number (a long note held because that's how long it took everyone to get down to Bobby) must've been pretty marvelous.
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Nov 17, 2010 23:08
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My show opens tonight! It's a stage version of Around the World in 80 Days and it's a total blast. There are 12 of us juggling 93 characters (I have 13 of them myself) and I can't wait to see how the audience likes the silliness of the show. It's also, surprisingly, the first kid-friendly show I've done in forever, so we'll see how that goes 
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Nov 18, 2010 14:29
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That sounds pretty awesome, have fun with that. I think I've worked out the improv/acting thing. A lot of people come to an improv hub to study improv not to actually study improv but to use it to do what they want to do (be John Belushi), whereas actors are doing what they want to do, to an extent. Obviously I don't want to generalize too much, but if you're doing something you're only using as a stepping stone, you're not going to be an attentive performer. So yeah, the bad improviser comment from earlier was probably accurate. And completely unrelated again, but I've just started the audition process for a play I've written and while I hold good auditions, the lead up is always a little annoying: At least three people are going to want the whole script; five are going to ask when we're shooting the movie (I don't make movies); I usually get a couple of parents wanting me to use their five year olds. Oh, and quite a few questions about things that were in the fifty word casting call.
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Nov 18, 2010 15:22
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Just had the preview of my Music-Theatre scene today. It went off excellently, but I've been asked to make room so that there can be music during nearly all of the 5 min scene. This isn't quite so easy to do under dialog. I'm thinking of converting the majority of the lines to silent movements and semi-symbolic gestures. A mute Greek theatre if you will. Erm, maybe not that, but a mix of Greek, Modern Dance, and Pantomime. Anybody have any suggestions of how to convert lines to action and movements a la dance? Anybody know any authors to read who have done something like this very well? The only one I know of is The Hour.
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Nov 18, 2010 20:37
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antiloquax posted:At least three people are going to want the whole script While I definitely understand why this annoys you, having the whole script to see is a *huge* help when auditioning and a lot of teachers will tell their students to find the whole play by any means necessary before auditioning for a show. If I'm ever holding auditions where the whole script isn't avilable (because of rights issues or whatever) I make sure to put that in the notice; otherwise, people are going to want that leg up over their fellow auditionees. quote:Anybody have any suggestions of how to convert lines to action and movements a la dance? Anybody know any authors to read who have done something like this very well? The only one I know of is The Hour. In my mind great physical theatre starts with Commedia Dell'Arte. Stock characters are used in a variety of humorous physical situations and the majority of the action is entirely physical (you also work with masks, which is hugely liberating from a character and movement standpoint). I know you're doing music theatre and you're trying to do dance stuff but the *conventions* of Commedia are a useful starting point, and using masks (if that's a possibility for your scene) helps highlight physicality and body-emotional responses to events on stage. But I like your thinking; what you're doing sounds really ambitious, especially for a class.
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Nov 18, 2010 21:30
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OSheaman posted:people are going to want that leg up over their fellow auditionees. See, that's a reason I can get behind. I guess I've become cynical and jaded over the past couple of years (I'm guessing it shows).
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Nov 18, 2010 21:41
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antiloquax posted:See, that's a reason I can get behind. I guess I've become cynical and jaded over the past couple of years (I'm guessing it shows).
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Nov 18, 2010 22:23
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Anybody else directing Vagina Monologues for V-Month thingy? I am as a favour to the Women's Resource Centre at my University, and we haven't even started yet and I'm annoyed at all the requirements. Personally, I'd love to cast men in some of the parts, and yet I can't as per the stipulations. The actor either has to be a woman or be living as a woman. I wonder if I can convince somebody to live as a woman.
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Nov 19, 2010 05:27
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Just my opinion really, but if you would cast men in The Vagina Monologues, then you might as well not do the show at all because what's the point? Likewise, on the subject of the transgender monologue, having anyone else performing it other than a man who is now living as a woman would be both an insult to The Vagina Monologues and transgendered people.
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Nov 19, 2010 11:14
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El Tortuga posted:you might as well not do the show at all If wishing made it so!!
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Nov 19, 2010 16:22
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El Tortuga posted:Just my opinion really, but if you would cast men in The Vagina Monologues, then you might as well not do the show at all because what's the point? Likewise, on the subject of the transgender monologue, having anyone else performing it other than a man who is now living as a woman would be both an insult to The Vagina Monologues and transgendered people. I'm not saying I would cast, I haven't gotten the script yet. I just feel like the Vagina Monologues have been done so often, that they lack an umph factor to it. Depending on the monologue, I was thinking it could be interesting to bend gender roles, not as a parody but as a way to elevate the monologue (am I making sense?). I was just a little disappointed that no men are allowed on stage at all. Edit: This is why you don't agree to direct a play as a favour... The Pillowman fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Nov 19, 2010 |
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Nov 19, 2010 17:55
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Well, Othello was fantastic and Oleanna has gotten great reviews so far. I just made it past all 3 cuts for a callback for Biloxi Blues with our local SPT 1 equity theatre... SO excited!
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Nov 20, 2010 19:25
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3 cuts? What is this, a movie casting? drat. Congrats on your success, though
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Nov 22, 2010 17:40
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No, but I go to Oklahoma City University. They don't gently caress around. 3 levels of cuts is pretty standard around here.
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Nov 22, 2010 18:13
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I finshed my latest script (84 odd pages), sent it to a prospective director for a January pitch to a financing group. She made a lot of great points...which means I have to do a significant amount of rewriting. I probably wrote 40 pages last week alone (I've been rewriting since the last two weeks of production of my latest). I hope to rewrite the first act heavily, which will add mystery and spice to the second. I'm already at six pages and have done Act 1 Scene 1 to my satisfaction in around half an hour. I know the characters and everywhere they have to go, so it's a speedy process.
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Nov 23, 2010 07:16
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When you rewrite such a large project, do you edit every line, or do you start from scratch? Once when I wrote a lovely one act I decided that if I would ever revisit it in the future, I would start completely over with the same ideas and characters. However, maybe that's throwing too much of it out.
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Nov 23, 2010 18:27
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It's a mix. In the first draft, the murderer appears on stage and his first line is "I'm glad I did all that dead-lifting in college." That scene got entirely rewritten; now the detectives unearth the body in the dead of night. But for scenes that are similar, I go back and rewrite line by line. I'm rewriting for tone; since I want to still be funny, I reuse lines I found particularly good. But when rewriting for action/plot/characterization, you really have to shift things around. Sometimes, it's order; my original play took place after a kind of breakup, and now the breakup starts as Act 1 ends. You get to see the characters and form attachments, which brings out sympathy for both sides. It's better to show than tell, and that doesn't just apply to writing; it applies to what happens in front of the lens/on stage/on the air. Keeping the characters makes rewriting bearable. I know them really well, I think; their verbal patterns, what they're afraid of, and how they relate to eachother. I've dropped only one character I think; the rest are juts shuffled around. I can send you a copy if you want. I completed my rewrite of Act 1 and am one scene into Act 2. So I'm doing very well at keeping pace.
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Nov 27, 2010 07:03
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One of my pals who's working on his phd in theatre at the University of Kansas asked me if I wanted to be in True West with him and do a tour with the act. Small sets travel well, so I think this could totally work. Probably at coffee houses or bars. The question is, Would YOU come see it?
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Nov 28, 2010 02:24
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