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  • 1.  Pride and Prejudice?.... or ???? - need advice/suggestions

    Posted 01-25-2017 15:23

    Hello!

    I, like many others, am looking for show suggestions. I have looked through a lot of the old postings and made a list of play suggestions to research (which are awesome!) but I just want to throw my situation out there to see if it helps unearth anything else.

    We just closed our musical, Footloose last weekend. It was the first musical our school has produced in 10 years, and my first time directing a musical. It went very well (thank goodness!), but it was so … much… work….! I know I don’t need to tell you all. I feel like the stress nearly killed me, and, needless to say, I’m feeling a bit burned out.

    But… I need to do another show this year and it’s a LONG story, but the musical ended up having to get pushed back on the schedule. One thing led to another and here we are at the end of January and I have no idea what (or precisely when) that 2nd show is going to be.

    So far we’ve done Twelve Angry Jurors, The Crucible, The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940, and Footloose since I’ve been here.

    My original thought was to do some kind of dramatic mystery, perhaps an Agatha Christie.  Now, because of the auditorium schedule and my level of burn out, I know I need to simplify, especially when it comes to the tech elements. I am a one-woman department with very few technical skills, so tech is the biggest challenge for me.

    I had been looking a bit at Pride and Prejudice (the Jon Jory adaptation).

    I like the idea of Pride and Prejudice because…

    - It’s very different than anything we’ve done before both in genre and style and therefore will be an interesting challenge to both me and my actors.

    - It’s lighthearted and fun.

    - I feel like it might act as a bit of a “gateway” to things like Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare which we’re definitely not ready for but would love to do eventually.

    - It has minimal tech requirements. NO SET!! (Hallelujah!) If any of the technical elements are going to be challenging, I would prefer it be costumes, and so I think this fits that bill.

    - I am a huge Jane Austen fan, so it’s one that I will find enjoyable (hopefully) and I’m fairly certain that this will be my final year here so it could be a fun sort of “swan song.”

     

    I am hesitant because:

    - I’ll be lucky if I have two students who have even heard of either Pride and Prejudice or Jane Austen.

    - It likely will not sell well in our community.

    - Everything is a tough sell to my kids. EVERYTHING. So I can already hear the protestations ringing in my ear. But… I’ll probably get that no matter what.

    - I’m unsure if we will be able to pull off the accents and the idea of Jane Austen without the accent seems… bad.  

    - I’m just unsure that we’ll be able to pull it off in general. Don’t get me wrong, my kids are great and I love them, but we’re all pretty inexperienced (the students as actors and me as a director). This seems like the kind of show that would be really great unless it’s not and then it’s not just bad but REALLY bad.

     

    Anyway, please pardon the rambling thoughts of a young woman still feeling a bit shell shocked after closing last weekend. I welcome any and all thoughts and advice whether it’s about Pride and Prejudice or any other plays.

    Thank you!  



    ------------------------------
    Emily Olson
    Theatre Arts Teacher and Director
    Port St. Lucie, FL
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  • 2.  RE: Pride and Prejudice?.... or ???? - need advice/suggestions

    Posted 01-26-2017 08:04
    Read '30 reasons NOT to be in a Play' from Playscripts. It's all acting. No set, no costumes, no props - unless you want to build those in. 

    Survey the kids to see how they feel about P &P before you decide. Or ask them what they want to do. Even if you don't choose what they want to do, just having their opinion considered shows that they are part of this process.

    --
    Hillary Bogers
    Theatre Director
    Jack Britt High School
    910-429-2800

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  • 3.  RE: Pride and Prejudice?.... or ???? - need advice/suggestions

    Posted 01-26-2017 09:14
    I would echo the other posting--go for something contemporary and accessible to the students.  Playscripts has some wonderful options.  That said, I wouldn't rule out Pride and Prejudice if you and your students are passionate about it--I produced it several years ago and it was one of my favorite shows that I've done here.  BUT--it was not easy--I would venture to say the text was very challenging, even more so than Shakespeare.  There is a lot of dance woven into speaking scenes, which was tricky.  I called the furniture movement the "furniture ballet" and it called for some very astute students to be listening carefully  to the intricate dialogue cues to be able to complete the scene changes correctly.  My Elizabeth was wonderful-- she was in every scene with tons of dialogue--you need students who are up to the challenge of speaking and understanding the time, manners, and customs of the period. It is foreign to modern students. And--the costuming is very specific and not cheap!  So--don't see it as necessarily easier than a musical--it was a big challenge.  But the rewards are worth it if this is what you and your students want to do.  

    ------------------------------
    Ruthie Tutterow
    Director of Fine and Performing Arts
    Greensboro Day School
    Greensboro NC
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  • 4.  RE: Pride and Prejudice?.... or ???? - need advice/suggestions

    Posted 01-26-2017 09:40
    I agree with the suggestion to engage your students in the selection process. If you can get them invested, they might want to step up on the technical side as well, easing your load and expanding your options.

    A good, no-set contemporary play is "Here and Now" by David Rogers, about a high school group putting up a play. It's an 'issues' play rather than a comedy, but it's well written and gives primary stage time to every actor in the cast for at least a portion of the play. No bit players.

    ------------------------------
    Josh Kauffman
    Teacher
    Winfield AL
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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Pride and Prejudice?.... or ???? - need advice/suggestions

    Posted 01-26-2017 10:36
    First of all, congratulations Emily! If you can do Footloose, you can do anything. I teach 6-12 drama in public school and run an independent after-school theatre program (Community Shakespeare. My students can do a lot of different stuff, so I've seriously considered Pride & Prejudice. (I like the Jory adaptation). But like you, I don't think it would sell in my area, and even though I teach accents, I think having kids consistently, convincingly carry off the oh-so-English characters would be very tough, because they ALL have to do it and do it well. I also think the audience for it would be very limited here.

    So how, you may ask, do we pull off Shakespeare? We start in adaptation (mostly my original verse adaptations), which is extremely user-friendly and easy for them to get into. There is nothing "English" about it, only some "thees" and "thous" they have to get used to. I recommend it for large groups and for students who have never done Shakespeare before. My students - regardless of grade or background - are very enthusiastic about doing this in my school classes.

    All that being said, have you thought about doing something like The Laramie Project, which I did with my Shakespeare company and they took to it like ducks to you-know-what.  They loved the relevance to their lives, and it completely turned around the social atmosphere in our school (even though an out-of-school production).

    Food for thought! Get some rest. You are obviously a champion at what you do!
    Communityshakespeare remove preview
    Community Shakespeare
    Across the country and around the world, CSC scripts are being used by educators to introduce their students to Shakespeare, and even to the English language! Read what others have to say about the most user-friendly adaptations on the market, for students from elementary to high school.
    View this on Communityshakespeare >
    ). 

    ------------------------------
    Richard Carter
    Author/Director: Community Shakespeare Company;
    MS/HS Teacher, Lopez Schools
    Lopez Island, WA
    ------------------------------

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  • 6.  RE: Pride and Prejudice?.... or ???? - need advice/suggestions

    Posted 01-26-2017 13:35
    Jon Jory also has an excellent adaptation of "Anne of Green Gables" which might be more approachable to your audience. It has low tech requirements scenic wise. You can focus on costumes and props and using lights for isolation. An added bonus is that Jory devised the Anne character to be played by five different actors. It works brilliantly.

    Our school did the world premiere about 7 or 8 years ago - it was a wonderfully rewarding success for all. We had only three weeks of rehearsal (12 days) before we performed.



    Sent from my iPhone


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  • 7.  RE: Pride and Prejudice?.... or ???? - need advice/suggestions

    Posted 01-27-2017 09:03
    I directed Jon Jory's Pride and Prejudice in the Fall, and it was so much fun! I chose it because I have very strong group of junior and senior girls and a few boys, and I wanted to feature them in strong roles.

    We were fortunate to be able to borrow and rent most of the costumes.  Our biggest challenges were the dialogue and the "ballet of furniture" as a previous post mentioned.  Even though the set is minimal, the crew really has to be on their toes ready to hand chairs and tables to the cast so that the scene changes happened smoothly.  It worked really well after LOTS of practice.  It was a big shift for my stage crew to be doing so much during each performance especially when they had relatively little to build and paint before the show as compared to previous productions.

    Regarding dialogue, I made the decision not to do regency period English accents.  The cast delivered their lines with more or less their usual accents, but I did have them alter their pronunciation of a few words and the cadence of speech especially in the "mini-monologues" as we called them.  It wasn't truly to the period's style, but it didn't distract from the story either.  We spent much more time that usual analyzing what specific lines and conversations meant.  I would build that time into rehearsal and have students paraphrase their lines so that they really understood the complexities of each scene and interaction between characters.

    It was a lot of work and very artistically challenging, but my students and I both loved it.  I think it is a great show for a more mature group.  I had almost all juniors and seniors as leads, and the freshman and sophomores played the smaller roles.

    Good luck with your decision!

    ------------------------------
    Theresa Velazquez
    Play Director and Speech Team Coach
    St Charles MO
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  • 8.  RE: Pride and Prejudice?.... or ???? - need advice/suggestions

    Posted 01-28-2017 20:35
    I directed Jon Jory's Sense and Sensibility last year.  It was a rewarding show and the students did well.  The set was to be minimal but there were LOTS of scene shifts.  This was a heavy crew show with all of the scene/furniture shifts.  I rented and made regency period costumes. 

    ------------------------------
    Tracey Buot
    Drama Director
    Cambridge High School
    Milton, Georgia
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    Original Message


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