Reaction to Reading Drama, Imagining Theater

The first time we read a play we must consider how  it is told and what kind performance it suggests.
-This is the exciting part for me. Understanding the context, the characters the tone. Every word from the playwright is an opportunity to tell a story.

Often varying in set descriptions, knowing something about the production conventions in use during specific periods can help you re-create how a play might have looked to its original audience...
This daunts me. It is the historic knowledge and understanding of theater that would perhaps cap or perhaps mis-inform my interpretation.

How would you light your production and what would be the effect of your decisions? Again, daunting. Requiring a technical knowledge I know I don't have. I have seen use of different colors spread throughout the stage. I'm not sure I could understand the subtly of such choices. A white stage, a red stage, a blue stage I understand the connotations implied. I'm not sure I understand why one would mix red and blue and green and what the effect therein would be.

Look for places where a role, a scene or a verbal exchange may be performed in different ways.
This is the fun part! What if Captin Hook had an Oedipus complex? What if Liza Doolittle really loved her father? What if she didn't? Putting a different spin, or a different perspective on a character or a scene allows us to renew its significance and re-invent the artistry.

History of Musical Theater Reactions

After all, culture and the arts were not "new" at any point in time. But it is clear to me now that drama with music is ever present in our history as humans. It is truly what makes us human, what refines us in civilized society.

War and Prosperity

In line with more recent history the turmoil of war and the comfort of prosperity contribute much to the development of musical drama. The first artifacts of "lyric theatre" originated from the height Athenian history. Not only a source of entertainment, but also a way to honor the gods dithyrambs were musical retellings mythology in honor of Dionysus. The era of Greek theatre was brought to a close by the Peloponnesian war in 430 B.C. It would be reborn in the splendor of Roman society. One surprising exception was during the French Revolution. A war of the cultured plebeians vs. royalty, theatre remained intact and in fact, theatre with music thrived in Paris during this time. After the Napoleonic wars, the arts in Paris renewed their strength and flourished under the renewed prosperity

Cultural Norms and Significance

In Greece these performances were available to the public for a small fee or sometimes free. As the theaters were large amphitheaters, actors wore full head masks to differentiate characters. Critics were common citizens and not necessarily "specialists."

In Roman society, rank and class being important, priority seating is introduced. On stage choruses were not used. Overt costuming was "coded" with colored wigs (black=young, white=old, red=slave), denotation of females with yellow robes and gods with tassels. The first version of "tap" shoes were used - metal chips (sabilla) were attached to footwear to make dance steps more audible. 

During the Middle Ages a divergence between Church and State resulted in musical dramas by the Catholic Church and traveling minstrels or roving troupes who performed for room and board. 

Under Napoleon III, the Exposition Universelle opened the doors for the beginning of a musical form closer to what we know today. Jacques Offenbach took full advantage of the swarm of people around Paris at this time and soon we would have the extravagant and opulent version of musical dramas accompanied by the Offenbach "bounce." 

The "Right" to Copy

With The Beggar's Opera no one thought twice of its widespread reproduction in Britain and the American colonies. A hundred years later Gilbert and Sullivan's business manager D'Oyly Carte would go to great lengths to assure G & S would recieve the proceeds from any production of Pirates of Penzance. Copyright law is truly a product of Western culture in the last hundred years related to America's entrepreneurial spirit. 

Tokens from the Past

 The genres of drama from Greek theater are woven throughout modes of entertainment musical and otherwise.
Tragedy - somber storytelling
Comedy - lighter in tone, with a happy ending, often eliminated the "fourth wall"
Satyr - reflecting raw, impetuous human behavior

Characters that started in Roman Theatre are present even in today's dramatic counterparts.
-Pseudolous: the clever slave who could outwit his Roman masters (Erin Brokovich)
-Senex: ridiculous, aging girl chaser (Married with Children - Al Bundi)
-Miles Gloriosus: vain, bragging soldier (Beauty & the Beast - Gaston)
-Mulier: respectable wife of a citizen
-Courtesan: unmarried woman without social status (My Fair Lady - Liza Doolittle)

Out of the commedia dell'arte of Italy in the 1400's we are given slapstick comedy. Simulated battles required the sound effect of a pair of hinged boards creating a loud "whack" without any actual harm to actors. This kind of special effect was reproduced until very recently and digital technology provides for the kind of staging unheard of for 500 years previously.

Black Face - During the 1790-1850s

This practice was both interesting and surprising. Its hard to imagine that while Beethoven was creating, this kind of performing was going on. Additionally, how it was viewed as completely appropriate and how much money was made off it. I can definitely see the influences it had resulting in Barbershop Quartets and it's impact on Stephen Foster's music. 

"Variety passed on two legacies to the earliest Broadway musicals: under dressed showgirls in tights and the concept of adjusting content to audience demand."

Henry Higgin's Galeatea

[HIGGINS] Eliza you're magnificent. Five minutes ago you were a mill-stone 'round my neck and now you're a tower of strength - a consort battleship. I like you this way.
[LIZA] Goodbye Professor Higgins

The myth of Pygmalion and Galatea is a simple one. Being disenfranchised by women at a local whorehouse, talented sculptor Pygmalion set out to create the perfect women through sculpture. After time the sculpture became so perfect in its details he fell in love with it. Beginning to treat it like a woman with gifts, kisses and caresses appropriate for a lover, he longed for it to be alive. Greek God, Aphrodite took pity on him and after the sacrifice of a bull, Pygmalion returned to find that Galatea had come to life. They were soon wed and blessed with offspring. Pygmalion had created his perfect match.

Shaw's Pygmalion and Lerner/Lowe's My Fair Lady make nods to the myth in its substance, but further explore the problems that can ensue from such a relationship. Higgin's obsession with his work causes him to always see Liza as an object instead of a woman. Feeling a disdain for women in general - "Women are irrational, that's all there is to that! There heads are full of cotton, hay, and rags! They're nothing but exasperating, irritating, vacillating, calculating, agitating, Maddening and infuriating hags!" Higgins ceases to see women as objects of personal care, rather more in the function they serve in his life. Mrs. Pearce, ever patient, obliging, yet strong is able to put up with his offensive behavior. His mother he sees only due to his long-term familial loyalty.

The short exchange above perfectly depicts the transformation in perspective of Higgins. Liza goes from being an object of his work - an opus or ouvre - to being a viable life partner. Higgins begins to "press at the flesh" and realize that she is a living being. It is not however, as a wife that he sees her, but of an amiable female to live with. "You and I and Pickering will be three old bachelors together instead of only two men and a silly girl." In time, perhaps he will come to see her as a more traditional spouse, but we have yet to see that kind of full admiration from Henry Higgins.

The Educational Impact of A Lifetime in Repertoire

As I read about the History of Musical Theater, early productions to which Musical Theater draws it's roots speak out to me. Works like A Beggar's Opera/Three Penny Opera and even the beginnings of Pygmalion show their educational value not only aesthetically, but also as a teaching tool for students to trace the foundations of Musical Theater and even the foundations of popular music today. 

I could see myself, as an educator, wanting to delve into a journey collectively with my students in a study of first Greek "Musical Theater" then Beggar's Opera, then the rarely performed Offenbach works including Orpheus and the Underworld, stepping to productions of Galatea to later works of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady. How much learning would go into such a journey!! Not only artistic skills such as singing, acting or movement, but also historic impacts of how these pieces related to their audiences. 

When I started this post, I thought that my question would be how to keep that kind of journey fresh to students. I can trace within my private teaching my growth as an educator through the repertoire that I teach. As my students grow, I grow with them in how I teach as well as what I teach. But in a general music situation, I see the same age/stage year after year, and I need to find a way to keep that fresh. But now I see it. That's the learning unit - to trace Musical Theater from Greek to present day. It could be made inderdiscplinary by asking students to recreate the context the type of performance space and the news events surrounding it.

Practicing "Good Audience Behavior"

Diane Paulus at New Victory Theater writes about her experience as a teaching artist. I am immediately reminded of a transformation that has gone on with me in the last year. In schools all over performance teaching staff are heard saying "Show Performer X how we here at School X demonstrate good audience behavior." Even in the classrooms teachers want perfectly still and quiet little children. For the young child - really for most humans - this is an unrealistic endeavor. What they really mean to say is "listen attentively." What they are really after in the classroom is "on task" behavior. Good audience behavior is predicated upon a good performance - good teaching. If what is before an audience is engaging, you will have their full attention. If it's not - you won't. Simple. Go to a NY Phil performance of a work a little under rehearsed or off, after intermission you won't see as many patrons in the audience. The expectation should be no different for students a.k.a. audience under 18 years. Audiences under 18 years are unapologetically clear about what they like and what they don't like. Perhaps what we should be teaching them is how to be excited and accepting of many arts. Perhaps what we should be teaching is tolerance of what they don't like and how to behave as not to "ruin it for the rest of us." Meanwhile, perhaps we should reconsider our own performances. If students are not responding with "on task" behavior, let's examine if the problem is with them or with us.

Observations in Educational Musical Theater - Peter Pan

I will admit that I have favorite families. Not that I don't love all my students, but with some families I'm able to have long fruitful conversations about education and life in general. When one of my favorite families told me their son (not my student) had the lead role in Peter Pan, I knew I had to go. It helps that Peter Pan happens to be a guilty pleasure. I remember days as an early adolescent wasting away Saturday mornings watching Mary Martin in her interpretation of the title role. Besides, this red-haired, freckled, lanky pre-adolescent visually represented the persona and my awareness of his musical talent made this a show not to be missed. Little did I realize everything I would learn from viewing this production.

Accommodation

The context is a small catholic school in a middle-class suburban area. The K-8 school has a total of approximately 100 students, with only 6 in some grades. With such a setting a dramatic educator must face a myriad of decisions with regard to accommodation.

Choice of RepertoireLooking at past years (listed in the program: Annie, Sound of Music, Wizard of Oz), the choices have always been child-oriented, yet one can not avoid that most dramatic productions are centered around adult issues. Therefore young actors far removed from adult understandings are called to examine, explore and represent adult concepts. In Peter Pan children play both children and adults. Roles like Mr. & Mrs. Darling call for the student's development as a citizen. Mrs. Darling and Wendy require the student to examine what it means to be a mother. It also calls to question, how as children we value our mothers. Mr. Darling - really a two-dimensional character - call the student to see how sometimes adults act like children. Consequentially, a student may consider what causes an adult to act like children. Additionally the exploration of the over-arching theme of "never growing up" compels actor and audience alike to weigh the joys and the fragile vulnerability of childhood. As a director/educator one must not only consider how to convey the message to the audience, but also how to teach the actor to convey it to the audience.  

Repertoire alterations When viewing "Junior" productions as an audience member, I expect more concert style production. But it seems that the alterations that were made were more directly related to talent available (not as many extended dance scenes) and music/text needed to move the story. This particular production presented Peter Pan close to its original form. Musical numbers such as "Wendy" and "Ugg-A-Wugg" were cut down by a verse or two, but iconic numbers such as "I Won't Grow Up" and "You Can Fly" were kept in their entirety and honored with full cast participation where applicable. When considering the choice of work for a targeted audience, one must consider whether it is possible to present the work, with needed alterations while maintaining the integrity of the show. 

DiversityAs with any school, this director had a very diverse pool from which to draw talent and resources. Of course, being biased to my own actor I felt that particular choice sound, but as I watched the show I found myself considering the rationale. 

Casting

In Peter Pan there are a many combinations in strengths to choose from. When interacting with theater folks, I always hear the term "Triple Threat." As in, they can sing, they can dance, they can act. That has never been so real to me than it was while watching this show. The title role must be able to sing, dance and act. On stage for approximately 50% of the time, Peter Pan has to be able to handle her (his) own in almost every way. Tiger Lily is a dancing character. Her first appearance in "Indians" is a demonstration in dancing agility. When she opens her mouth to sing we don't hear much musically, but really we don't need musicality for the show to be successful. Wendy is an acting character. She has to sing sometimes, but most of the time the role calls for her to be jealous, nurturing or generally naïve. Captain Hook has to be a comedic character with singing and acting skills. This particular production's Hook lacked much in the way of singing and acting. Gaps in the story were present because of his unclear diction and poor intonation. Generally though, seeing the effect of these students in their respective roles helped me to understand how the composition of a cast can be broken down. 

A role & a job for everyone In an inclusive setting there may be at the least, an implicit pressure to find a way to engage all students in this production. Seeing a diverse age population on stage, I felt admiration for the director. Without knowing the kinds of resources he had access to when putting sets and technical aspects together, I felt that he brought a reasonably professional eye to the production. By reasonably professional, I mean that the students wore mics and lighting design was evident. The sets were well developed. I could imagine that he was able to incorporate student work to produce the sets. In an ideal world, any production should have a place for all students regardless of talent or performing desire. 

Logistics and Planning/Community Engagement

Parent VolunteersRelated to inclusive educational environment, how the parent community is engaged and utilized is of paramount importance. No musical theater production can go off successfully without parent help. They can be your best friend or worst enemy. In either case, they are typically arranging for refreshments to be sold for fundraising, costumes, back stage chaperoning, printing programs, folding programs, printing tickets, selling tickets or a multitude of other odd jobs. Cultivation of positive relationships and expeditious diffusion the inevitable conflict becomes a skill often overlooked by some of the best educational directors.  Without this strong community, directors will be burned out quickly and with it, the potential for a healthy and flourishing program promises. Beyond that, the threat of cutting music or theater from the schools offerings becomes weak. 

Concluding Thoughts

Of course, the Peter Pan I came to see was amazing and stole the show. But I was grateful to him and his family for allowing me this unanticipated opportunity to consider the production of musical theater in a school environment.