Simplicio, Ashley Risdana Intro to Theatre (M/W 11:30) April 8th, 2015 The Stage Manager A play consists of many people. Each and every person serves a purpose to create a production. It is important that each individual has the same idea and if not, to express and contribute those ideas to the cast and crew. Each play is unique. A stage manager is a key aspect to a play. In Thorton Wilder’s Our Town, he is a man of many roles whom is far from the traditional, whether it be his purpose as a role, his manner of narrating or even how he includes the audience, he goes above and beyond his usual functions. What was the purpose of the stage manager? Generally speaking a stage manager provides support to the directors, actors and anyone who is involved …show more content…
In this play, he shows casualness. This casualness creates a connection with the audience. For example, he presents himself in a very informal manner and is shown by smoking a pipe, wearing a hat and leaning against a pillar in the beginning of the play. He is very involved with the audience, he greets and dismisses, yet also interrupts conversation amongst the characters as the play continues. He goes back and fourth between his roles. Some distinguishable and others at random. He makes himself part of the community. What makes him different than other stage managers is that, as the audience, at any given moment, he could be apart of the audience or part of the cast. In Act I, he acts as a woman that George accidentally bumped into while running after a baseball. He plays Mrs. Forest in this scene and continues to say ""Go out and play in the fields, young man... You got no business playing baseball on Main Street". This is an example as to how he goes in and out of playing a character. As a stage manager, it isn't necessary to acknowledge the audience. In this play, he does just that. The audience is constantly witnessing asides from the stage manager. An aside is commentary made to the audience without the other characters being aware. I personally liked the fact that he talked to the audience. It makes me feel significant to the play, as if I, myself, am apart of the production. It makes it just a tad more personable as well as
When he states that a successful conductor can be an incomplete musician and that he relies on and is encouraged to engage the audience to set a fake sense of leadership, this shows how much
Most people that work in theatre have a pretty good idea of what a stage manager does during rehearsals - at least, the things that can be seen. We take blocking notes, cue lines, keep track of the time, coordinate presets and scene changes, answer the questions, and solve the problems. Yet, there are so many things a stage manager does, so many balls constantly being juggled, that many elements of the stage manager’s job go unnoticed. So, in honor of the unseen, here is a sampling of some tasks a stage manager completes before rehearsal. Early in our morning, we check our phone.
When Mary Zimmerman adapts a play from an ancient text her directing process and the way she engages with text are woven together, both dependent on the other. She writes these adaptations from nondramatic text, writing each evening while working through the pre-production rehearsals and improvisations during the day with the cast. The rehearsal process influences the text, and the text enriches the rehearsal process, so that one cannot exist without the other. Every rehearsal is structured the same but each production is unique because as Zimmerman states in “The Archaeology of Performance”, she is always “open to the possibilities”. The piece is open to everything happening in the world and to the people involved, so the possibilities are honest and endless.
Throughout the piece, we see the use of audience as active participants to amplify the didactic message of the play. In the literature we see many instances where the author uses this cognitive distancing as a way to disrupt the stage illusion and make the audience active members of the play. Forcing the audience into an analytical standpoint as opposed to passively accepting whats happening in their conscious minds. This occurs time and time again in the fourth act of the play. The characters repeatedly break down the fourth wall and engage the audience with open participation. We see this in the quotation from the end of the fourth Act of the play:
The stage direction gives a better explanation to a play because it shows how the characters
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a comedy that has been interpreted in different ways, enabling one to receive multiple experiences of the same story. Due to the content and themes of the play, it can be creatively challenging to producers and their casting strategies. Instead of being a hindrance, I find the ability for one to experiment exciting as people try to discover strategies that best represent entertainment for the audience, as well as the best ways to interpret Shakespeare’s work.
The Stage Manager is a man of many roles. Usually a stage manager is part of the non-acting staff and in complete charge of the bodily aspects of the production. In Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, the Stage Manager goes well beyond his usual function in a play and undertakes a large role as a performer. In Our Town the Stage Manager is a narrator, moderator, philosopher, and an actor. Through these roles the Stage Manager is able to communicate the theme of universality in the play. The main role of the Stage Manager is that of narrator and moderator. He keeps the play moving by capsule summations and subtle hints about the future. "I’ve married over two-hundred couples in my day. Do I believe in it? I don’t know? M….marries N….millions of them. The cottage, the go-cart, the Sunday-afternoon drives in the Ford, the first rheumatism, the grandchildren, the second rheumatism, the deathbed, the reading of the will-once in a thousand times it’s interesting"(699). Here the Stage Manager is giving insight about George and Emily’s future. He is hinting about their life and fate to come. "Goin’ to be a great engineer, Joe was. But the war broke out and he died in France. All that education for nothing" (673). The incidents discussed about are great events in George, Emily, and Joe’s lives. The Stage Manage emphasizes that the short things in these people’s lives are overlooked. There isn’t realization that it is the small parts of their lives that make a difference. His role as narrator differs from most narration. The Stage Manager’s narration shows casualness. The casualness connects the Stage Manager to the audience. "Presently the STAGE MANAGER, hat on and pipe in mouth…he has finished setting the stage and leaning against the right proscenium pillar watches the late arrivals in the audience."(671) The informality is evident since he smokes a pipe, wears a hat, and leans formally against the proscenium pillar. He also greets and dismisses the audience at the beginning and end of each act. The stage manager interrupts daily conversation on the street. The Stage Manager enters and leaves the dialog at will. He is also giving the foresight of death in the play. His informality in dress, manners, and speech, connects the theme, universality, of the production to the audience.
To realize the vision of the play, the script, set-up, costumes, stagecraft, sound design, and acting have to communicate a unified message with which the audience will relate. The script will be tailored to ensure that the audience can understand the play as it proceeds. This is in terms of the language and terms used. Though the language will not be modern, it will be English that can be understood by the audience. This will be English of antique England as it will give the play a feeling of ancient times. The scriptwriter will carry out research on the level of understanding the local people will have of ancient English so as to ascertain that the script matches this level. Although many plays of that era were sung and accompanied by dance, this play will be acted out with spoken word rather than songs. This is because speaking will ensure the audience hears the conversations as they go on and that they understand. This is ...
Have you ever stopped to realize life for what it truly means? Every day we go about our lives taking things for granted without even realizing the value in every moment we are given. Playwright Thornton Wilder portrays this message in the play Our Town and he does it using unorthodox theatrical approaches. By using the Stage Manager to break the “fourth-wall”, Wilder is able to have a stronger impact on those who are listening. Wilder also creates not only a seemingly boring town, but also extremely bland lives of flat characters. By doing this, he is able to emphasize events such as marriage, birth, and death with characters Emily Webb and George Gibbs. Through them, Wilder intentionally shows how beautiful life itself is, especially the seemingly insignificant moments. He uses the technique of manipulating time by rushing through each act as well as including
Novels and plays are essentially the same in the sense that they assemble the means necessary to showcase a variety of stories ranging in diversity. The quintessential underlying difference between the two is the format in which the stories are displayed. Plays, like Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun use literary techniques such as dialogue, acts and scenes, and stage directions contrary to novels to guide the audience’s response and interpretation of the characters and actions in the
Our Town by Thornton Wilder begins May 7, 1901 in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. In the first Act, Wilder shows the daily life of the town’s people, starting with the characters morning routine. During this portion of the play, Wilder introduces all of the main characters. The characters mainly consist of the Gibbs and Webb families. He then goes on to narrate the daily activities of the characters, more specifically Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb. During the first Act, Wilder makes a relationship between George Gibbs and Emily Webb known. Which leads into the second Act of the play, “Love and Marriage.” Within Act II George and Emily get married. Wilder demonstrates the typical nerves that every couple gets on their wedding day. Soon the conflict is resolved and the wedding ceremony commences. The second Act ends with George and Emily coming down the aisle, then Act III begins. Throughout the play there has been daily life, love and marriage, and now for the final act there is death. Many years have passed and there is
The stage was a small circle and the audience was circling around the stage. On the stage was a single small bench. I was surprised because I am used to being in a theater that has a stage with numerous props. Once the production started, I immediately realized that the play was character based. It relied on only the characters to tell the story, since there was no props or scenery on the stage besides the bench .This complemented the play because it made the audience pay more attention the dialogue, and it gave the characters meaning. For example, usually the props are what carry the play, but this time since there was hardly any props or scenery, the characters are the ones who gave the play life and meaning. It made the play appear more real and full of life. In my personal experience, I felt a connection the characters and found myself feelings emotions for them, whether it was being angry at them, sad for them, etc. Additionally, the lighting and sound design where done extremely well. There wasn’t too much music in the play, but the small amount there was gave the scene that the music was playing in more emotion. For example, when Proteus starts singing about loving Sylvia, it made the audience feel more heartbreak for Julia, since she was able to hear what Proteus was singing about. I wasn’t familiar with John Kander when I went into the theater, so I could not tell which songs where is. However, I did enjoy the music and the sounds, for example crickets in the background, boats departing, etc. The sounds gave the scenes more life, since there was hardly any props used in the stage. Additionally, the lightning helped create different scenes. For example, when it was night, the lights turned a darkish purple/blue color. When it was morning, the lights where bright, and even sometimes orange. This made the scenes more dramatic, since the audience can see and hear what is going on
Miller, D. A. Place for Us: Essay on the Broadway Musical. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998. Print.
At the beginning of the musical, it was only the story being shown, but after the intermission, an unexpected thing happened, at least for me. Harry Wormwood asked the audience, “who here has read a book”. After watching “The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged” in class, we talked about how the actors interacted with the audience. It was interesting seeing this done in Matilda because it strived away from the story of the play. The play was believable for me up until that point, but to my surprise, he remained in character the entire time he was talking to us. This was shown with the hat that he continued to wear as if it still had glue in
“Theatre makes us think about power and the way our society works and it does this with a clear purpose, to make a change.”