Amazing Character Development & Storytelling

Often in our business we get to create what the audience views as magical.  This video I believe is an example of that.  The character development and artistic creation come together to draw us into caring about this creature/character.  I really enjoyed this TED talk and I hope you will like it as well.

 

 

You may also watch it here: Handspring Puppet Company: The genius puppetry behind War Horse

Archive Needs Your Help

I hope you have enjoyed the last month of pictures and I hope they spawned many happy memories regarding your time at Belhaven and in the theatre Dept.  Now it  is our turn to ask you for help.  I am posting the beginning of 3 frames that are sorely in need of some good pictures that I can scan or copy in order to place them in the layout and eventually onto our ‘Wall’. ……

Enemy of the People

Enemy of the People

……….so please let us know if you can help by leaving a comment of emailing or facebooking us.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream

…. and again if any other production’s materials that you were a part of has crept along with you in your travels we would love to scan and add that stuff to our archive and maybe even the wall.

Schertzo Mortale and Christ in the Concrete City

Schertzo Mortale and Christ in the Concrete City

Thanks.

Better Prepared the Second Time Around

This was the second year I was able to attend SETC and participate in the Professional Auditions. Because I can’t do anything easily, I also decided to indulge my masochistic side and participate in the Graduate School auditions in lieu of my upcoming graduation from Belhaven. Thankfully, I was scheduled to do my Professional Audition the day before the Grad Auditions (how some people did them both on the same day, I don’t know). All in all, this year was vastly different from last year. Because I was able to participate in the professional auditions the year before, I knew what was to be expected and was therefore able to prepare a little bit better (knowing to project more, picking a better audition piece, mentally preparing for any callbacks etc.) I was, however, surprised by the difference between the professional auditions and the grad school auditions. The grad auditions were set in a lot smaller setting, a little bit more relaxed–overall not as “intense” as the professional auditions, you were allowed two and a half minutes to perform two pieces (a classical and contemporary), the stage was smaller, and there were definitely fewer auditioners and auditionees. After all the auditioning was done, I had been given four callbacks from the Professional Auditions, and nine from the Grad School auditions. Thanks to last year’s experience and knowing what to expect, I feel I was able to enjoy the callback/interview experience a lot more. As of now, I’ve applied for  the University of Arkansas’ MFA acting program and should hear back from them next week, as well as several internships in Sacramento, CA (with the B Street Theatre Co.) and Norfolk, VA (with the Virginia Stage Co.)

Art Factory

I just wanted to do a quick post and shout out to a place of healing and art.
…. and has a cool Belhaven connection as some of the founders of this place are the parents one of our theatre students here at Belhaven…. 🙂

The Art Factory Revealed from Rick & Mary Beth Holladay on Vimeo.

Opportunities for visual artists and those supporting the visual arts in Europe. The Art Factory is a faith-based initiative to rediscover the possibility of a creative and restorative relationship with God and encourage and enjoy the making of art.

Juliet and Her Romeo – Director’s Note

Marie Warner and Scott Gaines perform the final scene in Juliet and Her Romeo

Marie Warner and Scott Gaines perform the final scene in Juliet and Her Romeo

I’m not usually one who likes to write director’s notes, but given the nature of our production’s experiment, it was necessary to give the audience a bit of a glimpse into our reason’s for the style of our presentation…

Romeo and Juliet is quite simply one of the most popular plays of the English language.  It has been a crowd-pleaser since its initial presentation by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men in the late 1590s, and has been performed countless times all over the globe.  The story, drawn from elements of the Pyramus and Thisbe story in Ovid’s Metamorphosis and the feud between the Montechi and Cappaletti families mentioned in Dante’s Divine Comedy, has inspired innumerous artworks, musical pieces, ballets, operas, plays, films, anime, and even a recent version of the tale created via Twitter feed.  The tragedy of the star-crossed lovers has become so ingrained in the global culture that the image of the balcony scene and even the names of the characters are synonymous with young romantic love.

We have called our production of the play Juliet and Her Romeo for several reasons; to separate this production from a traditional staging of the play, because those are the last four words of the text, and the re-arrangement of the original title provided an opportunity to re-examine the relationship of the title characters.  It is in the spirit of this third reason that we formulated the ‘experiment’ of this production.

The experiment was to take a play as iconic as Romeo and Juliet, and discover a way to break it down into its individual parts, to allow an audience the opportunity of examining those parts (the scenes) in a unique way, by attempting to treat each scene individually.  This led to the decision to cast each of the scenes of the play individually, to have our eight actors constantly switching roles from scene to scene – someone playing Juliet may be the Nurse next, followed by Lord Capulet.  Since each scene was to be treated individually, through rehearsal, we discovered that there were some scenes where a sense of pluralism, through having multiple actors play a single part at once, provided another layer to the scene.  Creating a unique experience and view for each scene also led to our decision to alter the seating arrangement several times during the show, to physically change the point of view during the course of the performance.

This production would not be possible but through the brave and gracious efforts of the cast, crew, designers, technicians, artists and servants listed in the program.  It is our sincere hope that our hard work will be a blessing to you, and bring glory to our God.

Joseph Frost

Chair of Theatre

Director, Juliet and Her Romeo