N is for Nativity Plays - drama in a nutshell

N

I don't know how it works elsewhere in the world, but for virtually every British child, the nativity play is the standard introduction to live performance.  Every nativity play contains a microcosm of every play ever produced.   All illustrations by Giotto.

Mary
There will have been ferocious competition for the female lead.  Reactions to the ultimate choice will vary from shoulder-shrugging "meh, it's not a very good part anyway" to "I know it should have been me, but I was just too good to play opposite Joseph".  These opinions will be expressed in audible whispers at every rehearsal.  If Mary is ever absent, there will be a flurry of eager readers-in, eyeing the director and hoping that the miracle will happen and someone will say "we've made a terrible mistake, you are clearly much, much better and shall replace her right now".

Joseph
It will have been very easy to cast Joseph as only two boys will have been eligble to play the role at all and one of them will have been absent on audition day.  The performer will take one of two forms.  He will either be sublimely confident or a gibbering inaudible wreck.  In either case, he will be mollified by being allowed to wear a beard.  Joseph and Mary will behave as though they are plague-ridden and refuse to hold hands.  Both will repeatedly say "we'll do it on the night".

The Magi
These three will be clowns.  They will probably be the most experienced performers and know that the best parts do not necessarily have the most lines.  They will make the whole cast laugh and everyone will adore them.  The director will not adore them.  At least one of them will have already played the role before and will know how to do it better.  They will not learn their lines as they will assume that the other two will.  During the performances, they will suffer collective memory loss and go through their scene three times in different iterations.  On leaving the stage they will have a massive and highly audible argument about whose fault it was.

Gabriel
Gabriel will either be a reject Mary (see above), or taking their first important part.  In either case the role will be taken extremely seriously and the performer will shoot resentful glances at unruly cast members.  The director will learn to dread those faintly pursed lips and the whispered "can I just ask you something?" 

Angels
Angels are obsessed with their costumes.  Furtive arguments will break out over length of dress and amount of tinsel.  They will always have a solo spot of some kind which will be impossible to rehearse as the whole team will only be available at the dress rehearsal.

Shepherds
This is the ultimate home for the too young, too shy and too grumpy.  They will want to be part of the play, but will feel that the whole project is an excuse to chat to their mates.  Some will find relative anonimity a relief, but there will always be a contingent hunting for ways to make themselves noticeable.  In a year's time, such performers will be playing Magi (see above).  Shepherds become obsessed with props.  "Can I have a stuffed sheep?"  If there is a Head Shepherd, he will be the other potential Joseph (see above).  He will need a special prop and woe betide anyone who tries to move or use it.  "That's my crook!" followed by a solid thump and tears is standard at this point.

If you think the above is cynical, all I can say is visit your local Operatic or Dramatic Society and look for yourself.  The person waving their arms, looking despairing and trying not to have a breakdown is the director.

Source of much inspiration

Bolton Castle in Castle Bolton

Ah, Yorkshire Dales, how do I love thee.

We've lived here nearly ten years now, and I'm still stunned everytime I drive up into the Dales.  Yesterday, Castle Bolton was my destination.  I narrowly avoided being late for lunch with the Swaledale Festival team due to taking the wrong road out of Richmond and ending up going to Castle Bolton via Marske and Marrick rather than over the Bellerby tank road.

As it happened, that turned out to be a good wrong choice.  Coming down off the tops, there was just enough mist left over for the whole of Swaledale to be semi-hidden behind a kind of ethereal cloud.  This sounds (and is) fanciful, but it reminded me of exactly where the notion of Mikelmerck as a border country came from. 

Purpose of visit - to scout the place out as a possible venue for some kind of awesome community drama project for 2013.  Said project is the combined brainchild of me, old mate Chris and the artistic director of the Swaledale Festival. 

Bolton Castle (confusingly situated in the hamlet of Castle Bolton, which mostly consists of one small church and the castle), has a ton of potential.  Most conveniently, a lot of it is still intact.  Even more conveniently, the intact bits include some large rooms linked by corridors.  There is potential here for a wonderful promenade performance of something.

Swaledale's event organiser and I hopped from room to room squeaking with delight as we discovered plentiful power sockets and handy niches suitable for suspending lights, hiding cast members and generally setting up some blissfully immersive scenes.

Before long, we'd conjured the mental image of the audience walking through a ship wreck as drowned sailors and ship rigging whirled around them to the accompaniment of a sung lament.  To be followed by arrival on a sandy beach where they would be greeted by rambuctious fisherfolk salvaging the wreck.  To be followed by them being met by the king of the island and welcomed to a feast and a tourney.

We must looked have a right pair of idiots.

Now to get to work on some serious plans.

I want it to happen.

Odysseus goes home

Been working on the play I need to have semi-sorted by Friday.  It's for the after-school Drama Club I run for Bowes School and will be their end of summer term production.

Thinking small gets me nowhere, so I've gone to the other extreme with this.  The cast will about twelve in number (currently twelve, but we often pick up a couple more once the show starts rehearsing).  Age range 7-11.  Ability varied.  One boy.

It needs to tie in vaguely with the school's Olympic theme.  It needs songs (I have some good singers this year).  It needs movement (I have some good dancers this year).  It needs enough parts for everyone to have some keynote scene where what they say matters.  Run time around 30 minutes.

I think the Odyssey is a natural choice, myself.

Olympics - well, it's ancient Greece.
Songs - check.  Sirens sing.  Sailors sing.
Movement - check.  Ships, pigs, harpies, Scylla and Charybdis, sirens, sheep, winds.
Parts - check.  See above and add Penelope, Odysseus and random gods to that list.

Outline done.  Know how to deal with Cyclops.  Know how to deal with ship-stuff.

Need to find suitable siren songs and sea shanties, plus plaintive song for Penelope.

Then I have to do is write enough of it for them to audition with. 

By Friday.

I'm an idiot.

Last classes of 2011

Got my last set of classes today.

I always do a mental tally of what's been achieved over a term - nothing formal, just a kind of balance sheet to help me focus on what needs to be done next.  A priority roadmap, I suppose.

We have dates for all our productions and some of them are coming up very soon indeed.  Antigone needs to be ready in the first week of March - which essentially gives us 6 rehearsals (12 hours) plus a dress/tech to get it right.  Planning is on course for that.

The cast have the bones in the right place, but some are behind on the lines.  Among the principals, nice performances are emerging, but they need to find more variety.  With these heavy roles it's a great temptation to give each line the same weight in an attempt to convey all the ideas.  That leads to shouty, dull performances, so we'll be looking at finding ways to give some light and shade to the scenes.  Most of the story is basically a monster family row played out in public, but I think there needs to be a greater contrast in the rare moments when Chorus and principals are not on stage together.

Malfi is now fully blocked at last.  Spent Thursday working through the small bits we never managed to do before, worked through the fights and sent the cast home with instructions that lines must be learned for progress to be made.  Costuming on that is moving ahead as it's complex and a pain.  We can't do a "proper" period, so we'll be concocting a house-style.  If it is internally consistent with the world we're building, it will both work and look good.  Fabric and colour are the keys here.

Faustus has the longest rehearsal period.  It also has the widest spread of cast experience and the big issue here is to help them blend.  Everyone is talented and some are very promising, but for a lot of this large cast, this will be their first attempt at a major piece of classic storytelling.  I'm lucky enough to have been able to seed it through with some very good, very experienced senior members who are acting as mentors (whether they know it or not).  I am much further behind with costuming ideas on this one, but that isn't the priority here.  Not yet anyway.

As far as Bowes goes ... well now.  The nativity went well (I didn't see it, but my spies are everywhere).  We are now therefore back to Drama Club only.  What normally happens is that we get a lot of new members off the back of the nativity (which is partly the idea, after all).  They start again in January and by the end of the Spring term we should be working on whatever their summer show will be.  I'll write something for them.  The theme pretty much has to be the Olympics (2012, unavoidable).  Some kind of Greek myth I think. 

Cast will range in age from 6-11.  I will probably only have one or two boys at most.  Ability will also be varied.  Suggestions? 

Plays for kids - where the hell are they all?

I've spent a large amount of time lately trying to hunt down a suitable play for a summer school next year.  This is pre-emptive.  A friend and I have started up an embryonic thing (so technical) intended to bring drama to people - and the summer school we just ran was our first venture.  It was a howling success by any standards, which is great as we've been asked to do the same thing next year.  Except that we cannot do the same thing next year.  We have to find a different play.  Something that isn't Ernie's Incredible Illucinations.  Ernie was tailor made for the job.  Funny, short, loads of parts, nothing that demanded too much in terms of lines.  Ideal.  Can't use it again.

At no point did this look like being an easy task.  Finding a one act play suitable for children aged between 9-14 is tricky anyway.  When you're looking for a cast of at least 25 it all gets a lot more problematic.  Then add in the fact that this play must be cast, rehearsed, costumed, lit and staged in four and a half days and the problem only gets bigger.  You know what, it's just as difficult as we thought it was going to be.  Agggh.