Laughing on the Outside: Politics and the Musical

A thought from a university essay "A musical is defined as a theatrical production in which songs and choruses, instrumental accompaniments and interludes, and often dance are integrated into a dramatic plot. Taken for its definition, you wouldn't think that musical theatre would have the ability to impact society, but it has in the past, and it still does today. Musical theatre has long been a method of expression, including political expression. But where did musicals come from, what kinds of issues do they address, and how do they actually impact society? Can they be a forum for political expression?"  They look at Les Miserables, Ragtime and Rent. Other suggestions are Caberet and  Hair, Spring awakening,That Bloody Woman. These musicals have been, and still are controversial.
Court Theatre is doing Hedwig and The Angry Inch next month. How could we use musical theatre to expose cruelty to animals and its links to cruelty to people?

Thinking about interpretations of Shakespeare

Thoughts on The Shrew

Aman acquires a rich but headstrong woman as his bride. At the wedding, he punches the priest and later refuses to attend the family party. He drags his bewildered wife through the mud to his country house, where he starves her, deprives her of sleep and contradicts every word she says. By the time they return to her father's home, the woman is meek and submissive.

When you strip The Taming of the Shrew of its comic sub-plot, in which a bevy of lovers in disguise woo a beauty, and focus on the bare bones of the story of wildcat Katherine and her "tamer" Petruchio, Shakespeare's early play looks like a nasty piece of work. Indeed, critics and academics have spent much of the past century denouncing it as barbarous, offensive and misogynistic. Yet Shrew is remarkably popular with audiences: ...https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/jan/17/taming-of-the-shrew-rsc

What is the play telling us about the role of women in society?

Sharing messages with Children

For homework class brought in and shared stories

• Children's stories eg:...
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Nathan's reading about Emmanual Kant led to a digression into political satire, with examples such as Tom Lehrer, Tim Minchin: Satire dates very quickly. like political cartoons but some universal situations like the bawdy, anti-war Greek play, Lysistrata, can be universal.
• Dr Seuss's The Lorax about stresses on the environmet.
• Anthropomorphism, the interpretation of nonhuman things or events in terms of human characteristics, as when one senses malice in a computer or hears human voices in the wind. Derived from the Greek anthropos (“human”) and morphe (“form”), the term was first used to refer to the attribution of human physical or mental features to deities. 

Drama CONVENTIONS

• song
• story- narrative
• Language- rhythm /rhyme/ repetition - maybe in SONG or poetic text
• Humor- scatological; slapstick, unexpected surprises

ROLES - small, cute animals that children can identify with

Developing our Animal Roles

Nadia - I am a cat. My name is Moxy, Cassandra, Clarissa, Elizabeth, Victoria, Anne, Anne- Marie, the third. And I live with the Royal family of England. My interests are sleeping, eating Caviar and being brushed. A big problem for me is the dog and the goat, they are so incompetent and I simply do not conspire with them. I am an uptight prune who cares about no one but myself.

Chloe- I am a dog. My name is Polly. Polly the dog. My interests are food, sheep and picking fights with the local goat, Cupid. He talks too much rubbish(and eats it too).  A big problem for me is the "royal" cat, Moxy. She is an uptight prune who cares about no one but herself.

Sam- Hello! I am a cat. My name is Coffee and my interests are being nice, making friends, and helping others. I don't have a lot of problems but the one I definitely have is people being mean to others.

Jessica- Hello. My name is Sir Cupid Duloc Arthur of Camelot The 31st. But, you  may address me as Cupid. My interests are food and arguing with the simpleton cat, Moxy. A big problem for me as a goat is the foul-mouthed, stupid cat, Moxy, and the idiotic dog, Polly. They are complete and utter fools.

Meagan- Hiiiiii :P. My name is Chip the Pip ( Chip), I am a Hedgehog. My personalty is Kind, love-able, Caring, and a nice person in general. Nothing really annoys me , i'm just a fun loving person.

Jakita- Hello, my name is Karen the Blob, my personalty  kind, loving and outgoing. I like eating chicken poop. I hate goats!!

Rumor and telephone conversation, interview.

Viewpointing with George and Holly

Viewpoints VOCAB

Viewpoints of Space

- Spatial Relationships - George likes to cuddle close or hide under blankets

- Architecture- he scuttles around edges of the space, when feeling nervous

- Floor Pattern -straight lines; seen obstacle course and tricks

Viewpoints of the Body

- Shape - oval, low to ground

- Gesture - neck stretch, facial- nose twitching

Viewpoints of Time - Kinaesthetic response - freezes or rubs

- Repetition - head bobbing

- Duration- quick changes

- Tempo - fast pace or stillness

Visiting animals

On Friday 10Drama observed animals and how they moved - we had a visiting rabbit, a small dog and we went to see Mr Mitchel's turtle. This is part of our project, creating a play promoting kindness to animals. Planning. This links with the physical theatre work we have been doing- looking at the world from different viewpoints.

Viewpointing with Animals

Mrs Grey and her daughter Sophia brought their rabbit - Lightning, a bitser bunny. We discussed how rabbits like to dig; their twitchy ose, nibbling eating; thumping when scared or warning/shaky back legs when too far off ground/ nose quiver.
Mrs Beer's dog Gizzy is 11 years old; very licky/ wagging tail.

Turtle- use of space; under deck; neck and head stretched up; leg stuck up by head' back legs stretching out.

Lollipops - Strangers in Space

Great work this week time -  with an hour outside working in open space. Here's some useful vocabulary.
On Friday you generated lots of ideas about our planned performance. Good idea to work with SPCA. We have a number of pets [rabbits/turtle/small dog] lined up for our "Viewpointing with Animals" session on Friday 22/2. In the meantime don't forget your HOMEWORK - looking at animal movement. Check out Kaiden's blog.

Welcome to the 10Drama of STARS 2019

For 2019 we have decided to share a video record, weekly, of out process.It has been great to have our first 2 lessons [Thursday/Friday - period1] This talented group has a love of animals, writing and performing and is keen to contribute to the community by creating performance work. We started the ritual of surrendering our cellphones/distractions and claiming our stage space with some physical theatre activities starting with Viewpoints [Anne Bogart]. We are working on skills so also did some improvisation with popup storybook. It was interesting to learn new things about each other in our "paperbag" talks.