Year Two

             As I enter year two of the IB Theatre HL course, I reflect back to when I first started last August. My whole perception on theatre and this course have changed completely. It has definitely been a reality shock for me. I was under the impression that this course would come easily to me, and although I was aware of the workload, I didn't think it would be hard succeed. However, I was completely wrong.

            This course is in no way similar to what I had initially expected. The concept of being an ensemble seemed straightforward. However, it was an extremely difficult and lengthy task. In theatre I was very naïve in terms of what was going on underneath the surface of our ensemble. I was under the impression that we all liked each other, and that although we weren’t all best friends, we were able to work together and be friendly to one another. I was completely wrong about that. There was a lot of tension and underlying drama that I was unaware of. Therefore, when the big fights began, I was extremely surprised.

            Aside from learning what a true ensemble is, what I have learned so far in IB Theatre, is that what I originally thought was good isn’t good enough. I have always put in a good amount of effort into my work. However, in order to succeed in theatre, the amount of effort one must put in needs to be above the average. I would work hard on assignments and turn them in expecting to get a 6 or a 7 and I would get a 4. I have always struggled with depth and the ability to analyze something. This has been my biggest downfall so far. However, I am starting to get better.

            The thing I have enjoyed most so far is also what I consider to have been the most challenging. The IB Theatre Showcase, Lost Luggage, although an enjoyable and rewarding experience, was extremely stressful. The time constrains and pressure that we were all under made it very difficult to process by the end of the eight weeks. There were moments when we would become counter-productive and get very snappy with each other. We had to remind each other that getting snappy and having drama wasn’t going to get us anywhere, considering the whole point of the eight weeks was to become an ensemble, not to destroy all relationships within the ensemble.

            This year I am looking forward to the independent project. I probably won’t end up devising, but I am considering researching a style of theatre. I am excited to pick something that interests me and create something based on it. I have considered researching stage make up or costumes. I thought that it might be cool if I chose make up, to research traditional stage make up from different cultures, and then test them out on different members of the ensemble. I would then display them during the showcase.

            For the final year of IB Theatre, I am most apprehensive about all of the assessments. Last year coming into the course, I wasn’t as nervous because I thought I could easily get good grades because it’s work that I enjoy. However, I quickly learned that despite enjoying the work I was doing, good grades in theatre are difficult to come by. There are a lot of skills required, such as the ability to analyze and go in depth about something. This year, I am scared that what I think is good work won’t be good enough to get the grades that I aim for.           

           

            Over the past year in IB Theatre, our ensemble has covered many of the core component requirements. We have covered text-based and non text-based studies such as our unit on Commedia dell’Arte and the Theatre vs. Oppression work we did with Jennifer Hartley etc. We have also studied isms such as Feminism, Dadaism, Realism etc. Another key component we have covered has been taking on different production roles. A lot of emphasis has been put on the roles within a production, aside from the performers. I was a performer in “Beauty in the Beast” and I helped a bit with make up in “Alice in Wonderland”. This year I hope to be a performer in “Avenue Q”, and then assistant direct the Middle School Production of “Snow”.

            After completing the first year of IB Theatre, I think that the nature/purpose of theatre is not just for audience enjoyment, but also for oneself. Theatre gives you the chance to explore a different person and a different persons perspective. You dive into a different world for a few hours. It is relieving for those people who find that they might need an escape. The audience too can find a relief from watching theatre. If the actors do their job well, they should be creating an alternate world for the audience members to immerse themselves within. The purpose is to ultimately make it as beneficial of a experience for the audience members, as it is for the actors, and visa versa.

            Any student who aspires to do well would ultimately want the best possible grade. Therefore, ultimately, I would obviously want a 7 in theatre. However, I feel like that would be a bit over my head. I ended up with a 5 last year and I understand why that it is. Like I said previously, the standards for this course are above the average. Therefore, extra effort has to be put in in order to succeed. However, I don’t want to end up with a 5 in IB Theatre. Although a 5 is a good grade, I would be thrilled if I got a 6. I mean a 7 would be amazing, but I would be very happy receiving a 6.

            To conclude, I enter year two of IB Theatre finding myself more prepared in terms of what lies ahead. I understand that the average isn’t going to get me more than a 4, and I am extremely motivated to get a 6 by the end of the course. This is going to require a lot of practice in depth and analysis.

Are you not entertained?

Although Mr. Warren gets frustrated with us at times..he knows we're pretty funny :)

 http://howdoiputthisgently.tumblr.com/post/23759615392

This Year..

This year as an IB Theatre student has taught me that sucess isn't just an individual strength. I have gone through my entire life frequently doing this for myself (acedemically speaking). I mean I planned an entire prom by myself, I planned the junior side of powderpuff by myself, when put into group projects I often do most of the project myself. This is the way that it has always been and I wasn't familiar with anything different. I wasn't even comfortable with it to be completely honest. But theatre has shown me that I don't need to do everything by myself and that by doing everything myself, it not only affects me, but it also affects the ensemble. Everyone needs to be committed to the ensemble in order for it to work and it took our class the majority of the school year to figure that out. A lot of times when we would get in a fight or do something to hurt the ensemble, we were more concerned with what Mr. Warren thought of us, than our harm to eachother.

Mr. Warren used to see just the ensemble that was in his class. He didn't really see what happened on facebook. we didn't even really see us outside of the classroom. Since Jennifer came, we have been my together than ever. Mr. Warren can see everything that goes on in our group just by seeing how we interact with eachother..although i'm not sure he really wants to see/hear half of the things he does from us. However, the general jist - despite our capability of becoming easily distracted, and despite being obnoxiously loud - is that we have moved past the petty fights that we once had. Those fights seem almost insignificant due to how far we've come. We are an ensemble and this fact will make theatre next year a lot more enjoyable.

Choosing a Moment

For our TPP we had to choose a significant moment from our year in IB theatre. It had to be a moment that changed how we viewed ourselves and perhaps even the ensemble. Initially I wanted to talk about my monologue in the showcase. It was an interesting experience for me because when I wrote the monologue, I didn't know that it was going to be included in the showcase. I thought (for some reason) that Jennifer was just interested in getting to know the students she would be working with the for the next eight weeks (or however many weeks it was). Being able to talk about something so personal, not only to me but also to my family, was a significant step in my role as a theatre student. I had so many doubts about performing the monologue because it brings attention to a part of my life that not a lot of people know, and it would be uncomfortable for my mum and stepdad. I wanted to talk about the process of becoming comfortable performing this monologue and how it changed me as a theatre student. However, Mr. Warren said that it was too symbolic. I wasn't exactly sure what he meant by that but he said that I didn't make enough connections to what I had learned in theatre. He said it was more of a personal experience than one that theatre taught me. Therefore, I had to change my event. I decided to go with something more simple like "The Creation of an Ensemble". This monologue was more of a step-by-step process of becoming a theatre ensemble. More specifically, my role in and my take on the experience.

Depth has never been my strong suit academically. I had always struggled going above and beyond what is know as "superficial". Especially in my essay writing. I also struggled with this for this piece. My initial monologue about my monologue in the showcase was quite long and a lot more in depth than my one about becoming an ensemble. Perhaps this is because the first one was more of a personal fear that I had to overcome, while the latter was more general. I really want to work on my ability to go in depth. I am not exactly sure how to go about this. However, I have struggled being in depth in many of my classes and I have managed to fix the issue in all of them, with the exception of theatre. I suppose this is because theatre isn't an "acedemic" class. We aren't learning from textbooks or being assigned "busy work". The work we do in theatre is work that a lot of the time we - as students - "opt" to do. Success in theatre relies on the effort that one puts into it.

The uncomfortable Monologue.

When Jennifer first arrived, she asked us to write a journal entry titled "Who am I?". At the time, we were ignorant to the fact that details from these entries were going to be used for our showcase monologues. Therefore, I took the assignment seriously and wrote about a personal event in my life the shaped me. My dad. 


When I received the script and I realized that the story about my dad was in there, I had mixed feelings. Part of me wanted to go through with it because it really is a significant part of who I am and no one really knows about it. However, knowing that my stepdad would be in the audience made me really uncomfortable. My stepdad has raised me as his daughter since I was 5. He has financially supported me and welcomed me into his family. He is who I consider to be my father, despite the fact that we're not biologically related. I was worried that I would offend him by talking about my dad and how what happened with my dad affected me. 


What was in my monologue wasn't the whole story. There are other details that I chose not include because they didn't relate to the fact that the event shaped my fear of abandonment. If I had gone on to go into detail, I would have refused to perform the monologue.


In the end, I went through with it. I warned my mum and my stepdad beforehand about the monologue however, I don't think my stepdad fully understood what would be in it. As I was performing it he felt awkward because a lot of the audience members knew who he was. He and my mother sprinted out of the theatre after the performance.


Despite my stepdad, people who knew me were very touched by my monologue. Those audience members who didn't know me or personal details about me, were unaware that my monologue was a true story. However, those who knew me well (one of my friends and my best friends mother), were brought to tears because they knew that it was a true story.

Now that it's over..

Now that the I look on back on the process of creating the showcase, I understand why Jennifer had us do things a certain way. By putting responsibility on us and forcing us to work together to create a great show for the enjoyment of others, we were able to put any differences aside and cooperate. There were obvious hiccups throughout the journey. For example, the ensembles dismissal of anything I had to say or when I missed 2 dance rehearsals. However, as we got to tech week, all hiccups were sorted out and became irrelevant. They became something to move passed.


I have found all year that whenever I contribute to a discussion, my comments go unnoticed. It isn't until I actually say "Hey you guys are accusing me of not contributing and here are countless examples of when I have contributed and you are completely dismissing what I have to say!". At that point they realized that I did contribute, but my contributions were still dismissed. It seemed like nothing I had to say was good enough. I planned a flashmob to bring us closer together and to get us to work on something together outside of class. Although some members of the ensemble loved my idea, a lot of them didn't think there was a point to it. A lot of this dismissal built up during the year until it just reached the point where I was completely unmotivated to do anything. 


I am good at organizing things. I organize events and that's one of my biggest strengths. I planned this years prom by myself and also the junior side of this years powderpuff game. When I was assigned costumes I put a lot of work into organizing what everyone had to wear. I initiated skype calls with the two Julia's. However, as they are recognized for putting in my effort than I do, despite the fact that I did essentially everything, they got most of the credit. I ordered costumes that we couldn't get from school and paid for them myself. I also harassed everyone to bring in their costumes. I did have help looking for costumes from the costume department at school so I wasn't completely alone for that task but I did do a lot of the work myself and that is a responsibility that I took on because I enjoy organizing things. I am not complaining for having to do most of the work. I just felt disheartened by receiving little credit in comparison to my group members. 


One of the most important lessons that I learned throughout the showcase process was to work with other people and not do everything by myself. With the dancing, I felt almost superior to other members of the ensemble because I knew that I could learn the steps quickly. The first rehearsal was originally scheduled for 2:30 which was fine because I got out of my dance class at 2. However, the time of the rehearsal was changed to 2 while I was in my dance class and as a result, I was blamed for being late  (despite the fact that I had a prior commitment that originally didn't conflict). There were two rehearsals after that that I missed due to inability to get rides. I knew that that wasn't a valid excuse but I made irrational decisions in the spur of the moment. However, at the time I thought that I could catch up separately. I had to learn that my not being there affected other members of the ensemble.


The showcase was a wake up call for our ensemble. We recognized our weaknesses and were able to work on them. As a result we are all really close in and outside of class.

Showcase: Costumes

As we have yet to find out the actual story for our showcase, it is difficult to come up with any costume ideas. However, I have two ideas that we can use regardless of the story because they are flexible and can relate to anything that we do.

The first idea I had was for everyone to dress as their stereotype. As the purpose and I guess "theme" of the play is cultural stereotypes, we can't go wrong with having everyone dress as their stereotype. At the same time, stereotypes can be very entertaining. The good part about this idea is that a lot of costumes/cultural clothing that we may need, will most likely be available in either the costume department at school or in an ensemble members wardrobe at home. Therefore, we most likely wouldn't have to spend a lot of money. The only problem with this idea is that there will be a lot of dancing and it may not be easy to dance in all of the "stereotype costumes".

The second idea was actually suggested to me by Ivanna and together we developed it and finalized it to what it is now. The idea is to have each ensemble member in a different colour t shirt, black shorts, black converse and tye dye knee high socks that are the same colour as their t shirt. This idea is easy to move in and will therefore not cause any problems/restraints when it comes to the dancing. Another good thing about this idea is that it is so "open ended" that it can relate to any direction that the play goes. We made a list of all of the ensemble members and the colours that they would be. We chose the colours based on personality.

Ivanna - Green

Tegan - Aqua Blue

Emily C. - Orange

Julia H. - Purple

Julia S. - Lilac

Leah B. - Navy Blue

Connor - Gray

Tristan - Red

Aaron - White

Lorenzo - Yellow

Alejandro - undecided

Amazon has all of the t shirts and socks that we would need for this idea and they are all relatively cheap. The t shirts would be the one below. It comes in every colour that we would need it.

The socks would be the socks in the image below. These too come in every colour that we would need.

All together this would cost about $170.00 to get all of the t shirts and the socks. This is assuming that all girls and guys have a pair of black shorts. However, I am assuming that they do because it is a pretty standard thing to have and they should definitely get some if they don't just for personal/everyday use. I am also assuming that all girls and guys have a pair of black converse. I am pretty sure that all of the girls do. However, I also think that there are some in the costume department at AIS that we might be able to borrow.

In terms of the t shirts, they would most likely be fine for the guys. However, girls could spice them up a bit and maybe do a one shoulder thing or something like that. They are like the t shirts that we get for the musical every year. They are just standard/classic t shirts.

I have shared these two ideas with the other members of the costume committee (Julia Henry and Julia Schlicht) and they like them.