Audience Experience!
I recently went to Orlando to see the new Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein with a friend and her boyfriend. From the start of the play, I could see and feel the expectations of the audience members. Everyone in the audience was excited to see what this new musical was all about. Unfortunately, not everyone was on time to the show and some people caused a distraction to not only myself but to the people around me coming in late. The audience conventions were to stay quiet until the end of the play, which I'm definitely fine with because I find in comedy plays I'm distracted by that one person that will not stop laughing at something and you end up missing something important. Anyways, my audience experience was pretty interesting from the start to finish. I had a seat on the side of the stage and had a different view point from everyone else, had a person answer his phone in the middle of the play, and my friends boyfriend fell asleep on her shoulder and starting snoring. These experiences did not let me enjoy the show how it was intended on being shown. The actors in Young Frankenstein were awesome and didn't let any distraction from the audience distraction their focus. I ended up understanding almost everything in the play and really enjoyed the whole experience, all though at some points I caught myself people watching instead of watching the play.
Monday, December 13, 2010
My Production of Ruined
In the play Ruined, I felt like the major conflict was between Mama Nadi and Sophie. I felt like the war and violence towards women was very powerful in Ruined and captured an essence in the book. Ruined to me was also about a lot of tragedy and sorrow for all of the main characters. For my production of Ruined, I'm going to change some things like the setting and time frame, but keep all the tragedies and sorrow for each character. I will follow my script analysis of Ruined and change the feel of the play through color, lighting, and sound design.
My director's unified artistic vision creates a world where war is going on between the American Soldiers and Iraq Soldiers after the event on September 11th, 2001. In this production the American Soldiers are the Government soldiers in Ruined and the Rebel soldiers are the Iraq soldiers. This change in setting and time frame puts a modern feel to it for my generation. I will use the colors red, white, and blue in the background for intensity. The idea of this production is that American soldiers are trying to take over and the Iraq soldiers like the way it use before the war, all the characters are in this production and the same conflicts and actions occur. This change in setting also shows a difference in culture and tradition. The sounds in the production are mainly screams from distant people (mainly women getting captured) and gunshots. The sound design creates a silent sence of fear in all the main women characters. My target audience would have to be women overcoming tradgey in today's world and that there is hope for romance, profit, and a life without fear. The location of my production would have to be like the play Ruined with the bar bring the main place and I would have above the bar be there home.
Scenic design: the bar with a stage for the girls to dance on and a small place for Sophie to sing. Small hotel looking rooms in the back of the bar and a bar area with peanuts out. It looks like an old run down bar with dust everywhere and broken mirrors in the bathroom. (Shows Mama's inside too, she feels lost and alone). The colors red, white, and blue are also in the bar; there are blue seats and the back rooms have red sheets.
Costume design: The American soldiers have red, white, and blue uniforms on. The Iraq soldiers have brown, dirty uniforms on. Sophie and Salima wear long skirts and showed nothing but their eyes when they showed up at mama's house (because the religion is muslim), but after working in the bar they wore sexy dresses and showed a lot of skin to bring in the men. Mama Nadi wears a all white dress and symbolizes the want and need to feel pure and empowered from the inside as well.
Lighting Design: The lighting design is a dim lighten bar with faint lights of gunfire through the doors of the bar. Everytime there is a conflict or problem the lights turn red to intensify the mood.
Sound Design: There are screams of women in the background and gunshots. Along with the red lighting when there is a conflict, the sound of raining also took place.
I'm going to give some examples of how my lighting, sound, and color will affect my production.
The first example was my turning point for Mama Nadi and Sophie (when Sophie stole money from mama). The lighting and sound design would benefit greatly to show the mood of the characters. The lights turned dark red to show Mama's angry within and the sound displayed the seriousness of the point. A huge rainstorm would start at the beginning of their conversation about the money as well. There are also faint screams of women and Sophie is reminded of what kind of violence is out side of the bar.
The climax of Mama and Sophie to me was when Mama Nadi gave the rare diamond to Mr. Harari to give Sophie a better life with an operation. The sound design is a major part in this scene, because the soldiers were coming and as soon as Sophie said Mr. Harari was gone the soldiers stormed in. The rainstorm began again and the gunfire was right on top of the bar. The lights turned dark red again as well. The screams of women were Sophie, Josephine, and Mama Nadi now.
The final actions of the play Ruined was with Christian and Mama dancing. In this scene there was no rainstorm or dark red lighting. There were no faint screams of women either, showing that the war was over for that area. It was a beautiful sunlight through the doors of the bar and a wonderful mood to the music (a smooth jazz maybe). Christian in my production also helps mama fix the broken mirrors in the bathroom and fixs her place of business and slowly starts fixing how mama feels about men.
this is a picture of how Sophie and Salima looked before Mama's place of business. 
this is a picture of how sophie and salima had to dress for Mama's place of business.
This is a picture of how the old run down bar looked with iraq soldiers groofying off.
This is how Mama's place looked after christian and her cleaned it up and the war was over.
tthis is a picture of how the dark red lighting looked during conflicts.
My director's unified artistic vision creates a world where war is going on between the American Soldiers and Iraq Soldiers after the event on September 11th, 2001. In this production the American Soldiers are the Government soldiers in Ruined and the Rebel soldiers are the Iraq soldiers. This change in setting and time frame puts a modern feel to it for my generation. I will use the colors red, white, and blue in the background for intensity. The idea of this production is that American soldiers are trying to take over and the Iraq soldiers like the way it use before the war, all the characters are in this production and the same conflicts and actions occur. This change in setting also shows a difference in culture and tradition. The sounds in the production are mainly screams from distant people (mainly women getting captured) and gunshots. The sound design creates a silent sence of fear in all the main women characters. My target audience would have to be women overcoming tradgey in today's world and that there is hope for romance, profit, and a life without fear. The location of my production would have to be like the play Ruined with the bar bring the main place and I would have above the bar be there home.
Scenic design: the bar with a stage for the girls to dance on and a small place for Sophie to sing. Small hotel looking rooms in the back of the bar and a bar area with peanuts out. It looks like an old run down bar with dust everywhere and broken mirrors in the bathroom. (Shows Mama's inside too, she feels lost and alone). The colors red, white, and blue are also in the bar; there are blue seats and the back rooms have red sheets.
Costume design: The American soldiers have red, white, and blue uniforms on. The Iraq soldiers have brown, dirty uniforms on. Sophie and Salima wear long skirts and showed nothing but their eyes when they showed up at mama's house (because the religion is muslim), but after working in the bar they wore sexy dresses and showed a lot of skin to bring in the men. Mama Nadi wears a all white dress and symbolizes the want and need to feel pure and empowered from the inside as well.
Lighting Design: The lighting design is a dim lighten bar with faint lights of gunfire through the doors of the bar. Everytime there is a conflict or problem the lights turn red to intensify the mood.
Sound Design: There are screams of women in the background and gunshots. Along with the red lighting when there is a conflict, the sound of raining also took place.
I'm going to give some examples of how my lighting, sound, and color will affect my production.
The first example was my turning point for Mama Nadi and Sophie (when Sophie stole money from mama). The lighting and sound design would benefit greatly to show the mood of the characters. The lights turned dark red to show Mama's angry within and the sound displayed the seriousness of the point. A huge rainstorm would start at the beginning of their conversation about the money as well. There are also faint screams of women and Sophie is reminded of what kind of violence is out side of the bar.
The climax of Mama and Sophie to me was when Mama Nadi gave the rare diamond to Mr. Harari to give Sophie a better life with an operation. The sound design is a major part in this scene, because the soldiers were coming and as soon as Sophie said Mr. Harari was gone the soldiers stormed in. The rainstorm began again and the gunfire was right on top of the bar. The lights turned dark red again as well. The screams of women were Sophie, Josephine, and Mama Nadi now.
The final actions of the play Ruined was with Christian and Mama dancing. In this scene there was no rainstorm or dark red lighting. There were no faint screams of women either, showing that the war was over for that area. It was a beautiful sunlight through the doors of the bar and a wonderful mood to the music (a smooth jazz maybe). Christian in my production also helps mama fix the broken mirrors in the bathroom and fixs her place of business and slowly starts fixing how mama feels about men.
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