Don’t Miss our November LUNADAS Reading Series Sunday Nov. 1 2009

PlayLab October-Three Sisters, Music as inspiration, 10-minute play festival!

So the PlayLabs 1 and 2 have been up and running since June, but we figured it would great to keep all updated on our progress with both!  So a short synopsis on both of the October PlayLab workshops:

PLAYLAB 1-OCTOBER 3RD

It was a small yet mighty group for this PlayLab–our reading assignment was Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, and we had a lively discussion about how the play relates to us today.  We were all able to draw parallels between the three sisters and points in our own lives where we’ve been “stuck” or “living in the past”, and we talked about how that universality makes this play relevant even today.

We also discussed the challenges in reading the play with the amount of characters, the loooong names, and the fact that it was a five-act play as opposed to the two or three act plays we are used to in modern times.  We all agreed that we would like to see a live version to see the work fleshed out–it was a reminder that in our own writing we need to be sure to give our characters distinct voices so they are not lost within the play, and how we are writing within our times of shortened attention spans so it would be a challenge to mount a 5 act play like Chekhov’s in today’s world (not impossible, just challenging).

The women of PlayLab 1 are doing a great job with their writing assignments–I can definitely see the improvements over time in each of their work just by the quality of writing in their exercises.  This month’s exercise was:

One character is high status, one character is low status–the high-status character asks for something from the low-status character, which the low-status character does not want to give.

Our lovely participants came up with some great scenes–from sorority sisters to city officials to old neighborhood “friends”, they were very fun to read and entertaining.  Keep up the good work, ladies!

PLAYLAB 2- October 13th

Our assignment for this lab was:

Write a scene inspired by music

It’s always interesting to see what songs inspire writers in their scenes–we had songs like the Glee show’s cover of “Don’t Stop Believing” set up a scene about alien invasion, or drumbeats inspiring a scene about oppression and revolution…Nina Simone inspired a father/daughter scene that was heartbreakingly honest, while Adele’s “Daydreamer” and “Ghosts in the Water” by Julian Velard colored a scene about a woman’s recollection of a Halloween party.  Last, Portishead was the inspiration behind a continuation of a play where the dead feed off feelings like vultures and patterns are sustained, broken and remade.

The most exciting news to come from October is the confirmation that Teatro Luna will be producing a night of 10-minute plays to coincide with the Latino Theatre Festival as well as TL’s 10 year anniversary.  We will have our PlayLab participants submit their 10-minute plays, and we will choose 10 10-minute plays to produce for the evening.  They will be directed by our Directors Lab participants as well.   We are working on a theme that the 10-minute plays will be set agains–any ideas??  Let us know!

Well, until November…feel free to post any comments, questions, etc for this blog!

Until next month,

Diane

‘The Event’, “All My Sons” and squirrels at this month’s Directors Lab

What is an event?

Something big?  Something life changing?  Sometimes.

It’s something that has an impact on your daily life.  To use the example from our lab you are walking your dog.  You see a squirrel stop ahead of you.  It looks odd. Frozen for too long.  It darts under a car. You glance under the car and see the squirrel having a seizure.  It looks pretty intense.  You watch for a moment.

And just like that.

The squirrel is dead.

It died right in front of you as you were watching.

Not hit by a car, no discernible reason just dead and stiff.  You move on with your day but you can’t quite seem to shake it.  You even get a little teary over it when  you think of that squirrel there in the street.  The image of the squirrel is with you as you head to work, sit at your computer and ride the train.

The next day you see another squirrel.

Approach it cautiously.

Could it happen again?  Are you somehow linked to the fate of squirrels everywhere?

No!

It sees you and runs the other direction.  It’s just a normal squirrel that didn’t eat a poison plant or drink anti-freeze or anything like that.  But witnessing the final moments of the first squirrel was an event for you.

Plays are a series of events, some big and some small, that answer the dramatic question of the play.  As a director part of your job is to manage and focus those individual events.

Keira Fromm led us through this discussion and gave us tools/guidelines to discover the dramatic question of the play.

She used “Hamlet” as an example.  The dramatic question in “Hamlet”: Will Hamlet kill Claudius?   The ‘events’ in the play contribute to answering that question.

Hamlet finds Claudius praying in Act 3 and contemplates his death saying “Now might I do it!”.  This is one of the events that makes up the spine of the play.

What is the moment of the event?  By shifting a few lines forward or back how does that change the focus and energy of the scene.  Is the moment Hamlet discovers Claudius ‘the event’ or is it when he thinks to kill him or when he changes his mind?  How does your choice of that moment, affect the tone and pace of the scene? Of the play?

As directors we are highlighting or framing specific events to answer the dramatic question of the play.

In “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller the dramatic question seemed linked to the directors choice of the protagonist in the play.  Keira suggested we identify what character undergoes the biggest change.   There were arguments made for a number of different protagonists: the son Chris, the father Joe or the mother Kate. We were hoping as a group to get to see Timeline’s production (which just closed) to see Kimberly Senior’s choice.  Anyone see it and want to tell us about it?  Comment.

How do we choose a dramatic question? We identify the events that really resonate with us. We look at the sum of those events and try to identify what question is being answered.

How much latitude do you have as a director to make choices that resonate with you?

What is the difference in choosing your dramatic question or protagonist when using a well-made play (The Importance of Being Earnest) versus metatheatre (Our Town)?

Which brings us back to our discussion of last month.

What is the function of the director?

Keira felt that a director has to have a point of view when tackling a piece.  She cited Harold Clurman’s book “On Directing”: “The director is the author of the staged play”.

Does the director have their own point of view or spin? Or is their job strictly to communicate the playwrights vision?  Does it really only matter if the playwright is living?  How does that apply to the classics?

We left with a lot of great questions so now let’s hear some of your thoughts and get this dialogue going!

TAKE THIS MASTER CLASS WITH MIGDALIA CRUZ @ CHICAGO DRAMATISTS!

We really encourage you to enroll for the upcoming Chicago Dramatists 2 day workshop with the one and only Migdalia Cruz!

All the details below.

DOWNLOAD A PDF WITH ALL THE DETAILS AT: www.teatroluna.org/upload/mcworkshop.zip

HALF Writing & Development Process Kick-Off Community Workshop with ABOUT FACE THEATRE!

Help Us Pick the Colors for our LUNATIC(A)S POSTCARD!

Hey Everyone! Check it out, we wanted to include all of you in our design/selection process for our next postcard! Which do you like better? The Purple? Or Red? Thanks to VIC SANCHEZ of www.method606.com for his amazing design work! Give him a shout out on facebook and tell him how awesome he really is!

This is the Purple Version

This is the Red Version

Post a comment or email info@teatroluna.org with your thoughts!

Luna Director’s Lab Takes Off!

Last Sunday night was the first night of Teatro Luna’s Director’s Lab and it was really exciting.  Almost 20 Latina artists from Chicago came together to discuss the need for a presence of Latina Directors in Chicago Theater.

I wasn’t sure initially how our discussion would go over.  We were a group of really seasoned theater professionals trying to create a discussion around the function of a director in theater, what inspires the artist to create, who are the artists and what are the shows that inspire you.  Things I’m sure they have discussed before.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how invigorating the conversation was and how humble and how ready to jump in everyone was. It was also awesome to find out about all of these other artists I should be checking into for inspiration: Marta Carrasco, Anna Shapiro, Mary Zimmerman.  Wonderful visual voices in the field of directing that if I didn’t know before I’m glad to know now.  And all women!!

After our initial conversation we read aloud Chekhov’s ten-minute play “The Proposal” and then began learning a basic technique for script analysis to use on the piece.  That was also pleasantly exciting.

I thought “The Proposal” was pretty straight-forward to begin with, but I was really blow away by how much information we could actually gather by really paying attention to detail and focusing on THE WORDS which were provided for us.  To me the words became the key to the map.  It was wonderful.  For our next meeting, we are reading a classic “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder because it is the ‘most produced play’ in American history and also because there were two really varied successful productions of it produced in Chicago in the past year – the first by The Hypocrites and the second by Lookinglass.  The assignment is to attempt a script analysis and come up with a proposal to produce the show.

On a side note, I have heard the question, why are you studying “Our Town”, why Chekhov, why dead white men.  And the answer that comes to mind is you have to understand the system in order to change it.  It’s all well and good to be interested in producing theater that speaks to a Latino population or that speaks to a female population but to really instigate lasting change don’t we have to have an understanding of what came before to move forward?  Shouldn’t we understand the system before we turn it on it’s head especially when living in an educational system that speaks the language of those dead white men.

And why couldn’t one of our Latina directors decide they want to work on Chekhov or “Our Town”?  Do we need to restrict our thoughts to works by and from an ethnic perspective?

We are also looking into scheduling an outing together to experience some theater. Possibilities include: Stoop Stories, Lorca in a Green Dress, Fake and Mistakes Were Made.  Any thoughts or opinions on what would be a good show?  Something I haven’t thought of yet?? Recommendations???

Photos from Rehearsal for LLoronas, dont miss the reading tomorrow aug. 25!

Check out some of the photos from the rehearsal ( stil going on right now ).

Lunada #6: Lloronas by Carlos Manuel

Carlos Manuel was born and raised in Mexico City until his early teenage years. In the mid 1980s Carlos’ family migrated to the California’s Central Valley where Carlos grew up as a very confused teenager. Finally, after learning English and accepting the culture shocks as part of his life, Carlos took off to study theatre at Santa Clara University, later he obtained a M.A. in directing from the University of New Mexico and in 2007 a M.F.A. in playwriting from Arizona State where he studied under the mentorship of playwright Guillermo Reyes. Carlos’ plays have been produced at universities and community theatres. His one-man show, “La Vida Loca,” has given Carlos the opportunity to travel all over the United States, Mexico and Canada where he has presented the show at Latino events, conferences, and festivals. He’s currently the Theatre Program Director at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY and the creator of the podcast “Teatro Latino Conversations” where he presents interviews with and about Latino Theatre artists.

Lloronas is the story of Marisela who suffers from depression due to her daughter’s disappearance. Marisela constantly has visions and nightmares about “La Llorona,” believing “La Llorona” wants to cause her harm. In the meantime, Víctor, Marisela’s younger brother, is writing an essay about the legend of “La Llorona.” Through it we are transported to the past and witness how the legend of “La Llorona” came to be, as well as how the Aztec Goddess Cihuatcóalt, as the seventh sign about the destruction of the Aztec Empire is first ignored by Moctezuma and then misinterpreted by the Spanish priests, thus turning the Aztec Prophecy into a legend. By play’s end, Marisela regains her strength and finds a purpose in life through her personal connection with “La Llorona,” as we learn the true story surrounding the Mexican folktale.

The staged reading is free and will take place in St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan Square, 2649 N Francisco Ave, on August 25th (NOTE: IT IS A TUESDAY!) at 7:30 pm. Dessert and wine will be served.

Lunada #5: Lima Beans by Alex Beech

Tomorrow, Tuesday, at 7:30 pm join us for the staged reading of Alex Beech’s play LIMA BEANS. As usual, desserts and vinito. And as a special treat, the playwright is here to eager for your feedback!

It is free!

2649 N Francisco at Saint Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan Square