ida-2016-blog

[ida-2016-blog]

All of a sudden some one a man of course jumped out from behind the trees and there was another with him. Ida said to the aunts go on go on quickly I will walk back of you to protect you, the aunts hurried on, Ida hurried a little less quickly, she turned toward the men but they were gone.

[ida-2016-blog]

Rehearsal 9/29:

On Thursday, we mostly worked on some of the dialogue piece while incorporating some of the movement we’ve worked on into the text. Matt worked a lot with Dorothy, a performer in the show who mostly has monologues. He had a realization while working with her: that we work in the opposite of what normal society portrays women in terms of power. “Let’s make Jimmy your bitch” was what he said that caused the epiphany. He had somebody fill in for Jimmy, since he was working on a wrestling piece (that’s right, we have wrestling in the show). The blocking is that Dorothy speaks sone monologue to the audience while dragging Jimmy on her arm. Dorothy said the monologues were difficult to grasp at first due to the language. After a long time with Matt, however, she gained clarity and a great sense of direction for almost all of the pieces.

A student from SCC sat in on the rehearsal and enjoyed watching the process. “It’s similar to the process of collaboratively writing a piece, it just seems very visual instead of verbal. I was very surprised at how quickly everyone analyzed the text.” I was as well since they only spent about fifteen to twenty minutes on each monologue, seeing how it was their first time working on these pieces and how far they got.

- Zachariah

Scottsdale Community College School of Film + Theatre and Orange Theatre present “Ida."

Ida–a woman who is well known for being well known–is the figure at the center of this new work of contemporary theatre based on the novel by Gertrude Stein. Featuring a live band led by Mario Yniguez, the show combines original music, movement, video, and text from Stein’s novel.

This production is the result of a collaboration between professional ensemble Orange Theatre and Scottsdale Community College theatre students.

Tickets available here.

[ida-2016-blog]

Oh said he excitedly, and where are you. I am not here, she said, I am very careful about that. No I am not here, she said, it is very pleasant, she added and she turned slightly away, very pleasant indeed not to be here.

[ida-2016-blog]

Rehearsal 9/27/2016

Joya and Matt had a meeting on Sunday to figure out where all of the material that he and the cast generated should go. Because of this, the entire structure of the show is different. Instead of running on a two-act structure with each act containing roughly eight short scenes (in accordance with the structure of the book) the play is now in a three-act structure with each act containing about two scenes. We spent almost all night figuring out exactly how we are going to start off the piece. The director had each performer act out 5 masculine or feminine gestures, depending on their gender. With one performer in front repeating their gestures, the rest of the cast interacted with each other silently upstage while keeping a very “sophisticated” demeanor.

Of course when the director comes in half way through the rehearsal process to propose  whole new organization, the actors (and technicians) all tend to panic. But seeing as this structure shift wasn’t totally major and how this is a scriptless show, there was no panic. We all just took this as a new perspective, and the actors kept their minds open in order to create the best material they could. Watching everybody form individual and unique ideas is always something that gets me genuinely excited. Of course, getting to photograph and record the performers during the generation of content is a definite bonus. This allows me to capture the small moments in the production that truly make it unique.

- Zachariah

Scottsdale Community College School of Film + Theatre and Orange Theatre present “Ida.“Ida–a woman who is well known for being well known–is the figure at the center of this new work of contemporary theatre based on the novel by Gertrude Stein. Featuring a live band led by Mario Yniguez, the show combines original music, movement, video, and text from Stein’s novel.

This production is the result of a collaboration between professional ensemble Orange Theatre and Scottsdale Community College theatre students.

Tickets available here.

For interesting visuals and sneak-peaks into our process, follow us on Instagram: Ida_orange_scc And our Snapchat: Ida2016

[ida-2016-blog]

Week One: 8/27 - 9/3

To officially start off the rehearsal  process, the director gave the actors a set of exercises to create a skeleton for the movement in the piece. He mapped off a section of the stage into 9 boxes. Essentially, the idea of this exercise is to set a base emotion for each box which the actor has to jump into, and immediately assume the emotion corresponding with the box. The actor must take up an original pose, then let the emotion carry them into a breath. After that they add a sound and then a fluid, repetitive motion, all while keeping in mind what the tempo, duration and topography is that influences the actor’s choices in the box. This exercise is a variation of what is known as Rasaboxes (If you desire more education on this subject, please visit this link).

The set designer created a rough sketch of a floor plan in a design challenge made to get the creative juices flowing. The challenges all gave the designer a limited amount of stageable objects and a few artists for her to draw inspiration off of. For instance: “Hell has frozen over and time is running backwards because Robert Wilson has decided to let somebody other than himself design his production of Ida. Please choose one of the ‘Places Where Ida Can Be Found’ and create 5-7 concept sketches for this production, setting it at one of those places in the style of Robert Wilson”. One of the locations was a movie premiere. Of course, it was not a replica of one of Robert Wilson’s sets, but simply what the designer thought a red carpet premiere would look like if it were influenced by Robert Wilson. We mapped this floor plan out onstage and incorporated the boxes over it. This way, the performers could get a feel for what mood or emotion would take place in a certain spot of the set for the character. We decided that this set-while being an amazing set- would not work for the production. However, we saw many ideas that came from this rough outline that could be (and have been) used in the creation of our set.

Later in the week, the actors worked on an exercise where they paired up, and each person in the pair would run at each other then collide. The collision started a very close embrace between the actors, which would be ended by one member of the pair attempting to slowly back away. While this happened the other performer would continue holding the one backing away while not moving, and would slide down until their hands smacked against the floor. They slowly rolled onto their backs, then pushed themselves offstage using their legs. 

That Saturday the actors choreographed a robbery scene. To spare the details in order to keep this specific part a surprise (if we do indeed keep it) I will just say that it was a very intricately choreographed scene that involved the robber chasing the other actors around the stage while the actors tried to find ways to hide behind each other, and eventually break off from the clumps they made.

Throughout the process, the actors would start rehearsals with warm ups, then went back to Rasaoxes to keep in mind what emotions, gestures, shapes, tempos and topographies are present in the piece.

This is the first time I have ever worked as a dramaturg, as well as my first experience in the devising process. it is very interesting to watch as the piece progresses. Instead of following the “traditional theatrical process” of making a play, we are starting with the movement. This isn’t necessarily the finite “blocking” of the production, but merely a way for characters and possibly dialogue to organically develop in the piece. It is also different not having one direct influence in the making of the production. The director stated that for this production he would like influences to be drawn from three aspects: The novel we are using to devise a script, any possible outside artists or artistic pieces we can derive influences from, and our own life experiences. Due this particular process, the production is becoming a very unique piece of art that both challenges peoples’ perception on what “theatre” is or could be. This piece is very entertaining,  as well as a way to make people think about themes that are being represented. It is very intriguing to watch this piece as it is being created by every single cast member and technician.

- Zachariah

Scottsdale Community College School of Film + Theatre and Orange Theatre present “Ida."Ida–a woman who is well known for being well known–is the figure at the center of this new work of contemporary theatre based on the novel by Gertrude Stein. Featuring a live band led by Mario Yniguez, the show combines original music, movement, video, and text from Stein’s novel.

This production is the result of a collaboration between professional ensemble Orange Theatre and Scottsdale Community College theatre students.

Tickets available here.

For interesting visuals and sneak-peaks into our process, follow us on Instagram: Ida_orange_scc And our Snapchat: Ida2016

[ida-2016-blog]

Ida was never discouraged and she was always going out walking.

[ida-2016-blog]

The Workshop Process, Part 2: Designing the Devised Process

After an hour break, the company returned and was divided into performers and designers. As the performers warmed up and began their exercises, the designers (in practice only our set designer Sabrina Reed and myself) were given specific design challenges throughout the week that both acclimated us to the devised way of working, and pushed a more spontaneous and evolving form of creativity.

On the first night of the workshop, we watched Lars Von Trier’s The Five Obstructions, a documentary in which Trier has his idol, Jørgen Leth, remake his groundbreaking short film The Perfect Human five times using various different challenges and obstructions provided by Trier (for instance, that no edit in the film could be longer than 12 frames). It’s a remarkable study on the process of creation, and the ways in which the harshest restrictions can yield the most prosperous results.

Once we finished the film, our scenic designer Sabrina Reed was presented with the challenge of taking a previous design (Reeling, presented during the summer conservatory) and redesigning it using only one scenic element. I was paired with Sabrina for this process for two reasons: first to provide a sort of sounding board to work off as she tackled the design challenges (as she was the only designer available for the workshop), and also (and more importantly) to highlight the ways in which dramaturgy is involved in the design process. The rest of the week functioned in the same way: Every night, Sabrina was given a design challenge to create a set for a particular show in the style of a particular director or set designer (for example: Little Red Riding Hood in the style of Rolf Borzik; 1984 in the style of Jay Scheib). 

Sabrina Reed - Little Red Riding Hood in the style of Rolf Borzik, concept sketches

From my perspective, it was a remarkable glimpse into the creative mind of an artist. Sabrina is, like almost every artist, blessed/cursed with what Martha Graham termed “divine dissatisfaction”--a drive to produce the best work she possibly can, never allowing herself to be truly satisfied with a piece. On some days she would be completely in her own head, turning out dozens of sketches. Other days she was in active conversation with me, frustrated with a mental block (naturally, still turning out sketch after sketch of ideas). Towards the end of the week, she was also asked to provide a ground plan and isometric for her design, and the set was taped out on the mainstage for the actors to work with for the evening.

Sabrina Reed - 1984 in the style of Jay Scheib, concept sketch, ground plan, and isometric.

Ultimately, the goal of these design challenges was to acclimate the student designers to the devised process. Whereas in traditional theatre (what Sabrina was previously accustomed to), the set design is usually determined by the beginning of rehearsals, in devised works the set will often morph throughout rehearsal to suit the needs of the ever-evolving show. The challenges helped to instill a quickfire style of working and creating, and the further implementation of them in the actors’ rehearsals helped the designers learn how sets could facilitate or hinder the actors in process. From my perspective, it was fascinating to watch Sabrina’s growth throughout the workshop as she initially struggled with grasping the new styles of working, but came to appreciate the unique opportunities provided by the devised process.

From there, it would then come time to observe the actors moving through a similar period of growth as they learned how to rehearse within the devised process.

- Thomas

Scottsdale Community College School of Film + Theatre and Orange Theatre present “Ida."

Ida–a woman who is well known for being well known–is the figure at the center of this new work of contemporary theatre based on the novel by Gertrude Stein. Featuring a live band led by Mario Yniguez, the show combines original music, movement, video, and text from Stein’s novel.

This production is the result of a collaboration between professional ensemble Orange Theatre and Scottsdale Community College theatre students.

Tickets available here.

[ida-2016-blog]

She saw seven, or eight of them and she saw them one or perhaps two and each time it was a very long time. She never went away she always did stay.

[ida-2016-blog]

The Workshop Process, Part 1: Learning About Devised Theatre

Hi! This is Thomas Hartwell, one of two co-dramaturgs for Ida along with Zachariah Fallon. I’ll be talking about the pre-rehearsal workshop process over the next couple posts to give a context for the work we would develop in rehearsals.

The nature of a collaboration between SCC’s School of Film + Theatre and an experimental group like Orange Theatre means that SCC students (performers and designers alike) might find themselves unaccustomed to the different styles of rehearsing and creating that Orange provides. Though SCC’s program has traditionally performed a wide variety of shows (in the last two seasons alone we’ve done a children’s play, a modern black-box show, and a Brecht piece), devised theatre is something totally new to the program.

With this in mind, a week-long workshop was held prior to rehearsals to acclimate the SCC students with Orange Theatre’s process and goals. The workshop was held August 15th to August 19th from 2PM to 9:40PM, and was divided into two sections. The first (from 2 to 5:30) was essentially a series of lectures discussing devised theatre and introducing the students to related works of theatre that would help clarify a shared vision of Ida. The second section (from 6:30 to 9:40) acted as a performance component, allowing actors to learn exercises and disciplines used by Orange Theatre, and designers to hone ideas and learn how to work in the devised process.

One of the first things we discussed in the lecture portion of the class was answering a very basic question: what is devised theatre? As director Matthew Watkins imparted to us, it’s essentially theatre that is created in rehearsal, as opposed to a definitive text that is later interpreted by the production team and actors. It’s improvisatory in nature, though different from improv in that a script is eventually set, it just originates as a collaborative effort between the production team, designers, and performers throughout the rehearsal process.

With that in place, then, much of the rest of the week was spent watching recordings of theatre and dance performances that highlighted various styles and techniques we would begin working with in Ida. We started with Pina Bausch’s Kontakthof Mit Damen und Herren ab ´65 (a reworking of Bausch’s earlier Kontakthof, a dance-theatre work about teenagers awkwardly flirting, teasing, and dancing with each other, cast with men and women over 65), focusing on elements such as repetition, use of music and text, the use of gesture as part of choreography, etc.

The next day saw a lecture on visual composition, discussing elements like the 1.5 armature as it related to photography (specifically the works of Henri-Cartier Bresson), and then talking about how those same principles of composition might be applied on stage. To demonstrate this, we watched clips from Robert Wilson’s experimental staging Shakespeare’s Sonnets, performed by the Berliner Ensemble with music by Rufus Wainwright.

Sonnet 66: “Tired with all these, for restful death I cry”

Over the next two days we watched the Wooster Group’s House/Lights (a devised piece interpolating Gertrude Stein’s Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights with 60s exploitation film Olga's House of Shame) and Tadeusz Kantor’s Wielopole, Wielopole (an experimental Polish play culled from Kantor’s memories of growing up in Wielopole and its subsequent Nazi occupation), both of which helped to solidify an idea of the kind of show Ida would become through rehearsals.

The value of this lecture portion of the workshop was twofold: first, it helped elucidate a shared vision of what was to come by showing us related works and giving a broader context for what exactly it is we’re producing. From a personal perspective, as someone who was pretty much totally unfamiliar with devised theatre before the workshop, the videos we watched were invaluable--suddenly I had a clear idea of the kind of show Ida might become because I had an idea of the larger framework it would be a part of (House/Lights in particular was helpful since it provided a clear example of how Stein’s text might work effectively both on stage and in a devised context).

The other important takeaway from the lecture was that it gave us a chance to talk about some fairly heady concepts as an ensemble, actors and designers alike, and be able to get everyone’s individual perspectives and ideas about the content we were watching. Though not every member of the production could make it to the workshop, it still provided a key opportunity to provide a shared base of knowledge and ideas that we could refer back to throughout the production. Over the course of the next few weeks, this shared base would prove absolutely indispensable.

Scottsdale Community College School of Film + Theatre and Orange Theatre present “Ida."

Ida–a woman who is well known for being well known–is the figure at the center of this new work of contemporary theatre based on the novel by Gertrude Stein. Featuring a live band led by Mario Yniguez, the show combines original music, movement, video, and text from Stein’s novel.

This production is the result of a collaboration between professional ensemble Orange Theatre and Scottsdale Community College theatre students.

Tickets available here.

[ida-2016-blog]

She always had a dog, at every address she had a dog and the dog always had a name.

[ida-2016-blog]

Yes.

This is a document of the Fall 2016 collaboration between Scottsdale Community College and Orange Theatre: a theatrical adaptation of Gertrude Stein’s Ida.

What follows will be a dramaturgical journal of the show’s ever-evolving process, including pictures, videos, and retrospectives on the rehearsal process from the perspective of its two student dramaturgs.

Ida–a woman who is well known for being well known–is the figure at the center of this new work of contemporary theatre based on the novel by Gertrude Stein. Featuring a live band led by Mario Yniguez, the show combines original music, movement, video, and text from Stein's novel.

This production is the result of a collaboration between professional ensemble Orange Theatre and Scottsdale Community College theatre students.

Tickets available here.