Pumpkin Rising!

     So! Haunted House Update! The design for the haunted house has been through about a hundred re-drafts, but we've settled on a design, and I've gotten started on a few Props. Included In those props, in case you hadn't noticed, is a giant pumpkin, which I managed to make for the cost of glue. It's hard to get scale out of that picture, but it's about five feet tall, and made entirely out of cardboard from a dumpster next door. Anyway, I've gotten sidetracked, I decided that now that all the design is done, I'd talk with you lot about the challenges specific to this haunt, and how I'm working to handle them.

     First of all, a lot of haunted houses depend on gore to scare people. It's hit or miss, usually, since some people are completely grossed out by the blood, but a lot of people are desensitized to gore. Either way, it's not applicable here, because my haunted house is taking place on an elementary school campus. I'd never do blood with elementary kids, that's just wrong, and the principal of the school asked for us to avoid it anyway. I took that, and added a few more rules for myself:
1: No blood
2: Don't show any scenes of violence, that is, nothing in the haunt should involve humans hurting humans.
3: Spooky, not Scary

Those are the rules. As it turns out, those nix a LOT of classic haunted house gags. the problem I face is that I have an audience ranging in ages from five to ten. Anything I could do that would be genuinely scary to the fifth graders could permanently scar the kindergartners. Trust me, I had that happen to me at a fair. I still don't like using chainsaws... TANGENT! sorry. Because I'm aimed at a young group I had to go for spooky, in the style of Disney's Haunted Mansion ride. There will still be scares, but i'm making sure that none of the scares are outside of human judgement. Any time a big scare will happen, it'll be a classic jump out and yell "BOO!" That way, we can make sure not to scare any first-graders so bad that they wet themselves.

     So, with those rules In mind, I'm going to drop a room list on you all, and I'll go into greater depth on them over the next few days.

First, a seance, where a gypsy will greet our guests, and forsee a dangerous adventure in their future!

Secondly, a Warning from a mysterious ghost, the classic "Turn Back!"

Third, a swirling vortex, as visitors are thrown into a dangerous otherworld

fourth, a mysterious cave, where they will face haunted mirrors, and a Giant Black Widow

Fifth, a Haunted forest, with skeletal trees, talking crows, and something lurking in the distance...

sixth, a spooky pumpkin patch, complete with gravestones, and a scarecrow handing out candy.

then they are cast back into the seance room, where the gypsy congratulates them on their survival, and gives them the boot.

That's the narrative for the haunted house, nothing too scary, but there's more depth to it than there seems, and I'll be getting into that in a few upcoming posts.

     I've been thinking about playwrighting a lot lately, thanks to the 24-hour play project, as well as all of the analyzing I have been doing of the play I am directing. It's gotten me thinking about what's important in a play, and I've been batting around the idea of a small-cast musical in my head. So, in a shocking first, I have decided to do a poll of my readers, and find out what YOU think is important in a musical!
The Poll is over on the sidebar, probably about..... ----------------------------------------------->
There!
If you decide to select "Other" please post your answer in the comments section of this post. And even if you choose one of the other answers, I'd love to hear your thoughts on musicals!
Thanks, readers!

24 hour play project, Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the stress!

     This weekend, my theater company posed a challenge to it's members: Starting at seven PM on Friday night, and finishing at seven PM Saturday night, members were asked to write, cast rehearse, memorize, and finally perform three different plays. I'm proud to say, everyone rose to the challenge, and had an amazing mount of fun doing so!
     Here's how it went: at Six Pm Friday night, everyone met, then signed up for, and were assigned jobs. three people were given the job of writer, three directors, about 18 actors and about half a dozen technitions. At seven o'clock, the writers were given three parameters that each script had to include, that way, writiers couldn't bring in anything they had been working on. Our three parameters were:

1. The line "that's what she said"
2. A small wooden box (which was pulled from the props area)
3. The sounds of an alarm going off (which was also provided to them.

     From that moment until 4 am (9 hours), the writers were in a flurry, locked in a room with a 48-cup pot of coffee (which lasted us the 24-hours). Meanwhile, on the stage, the techies had begun their work. They faced two challenges, one of which are inherent to the 24-hour play project, and one that comes from our regular season. The challenge from the play-project was that they needed to prepare sets and hang lights for all of the shows, but they didn't know what the shows would be! So, they had to do lighting and scenery designed to be as open and versatile as possible, with only a few mumbled hints from the writers (who you just didn't talk to, don't you know how busy they are?!?!)
     What that really meant was developing brilliant repertory plots (that is, designs equipped to be adapted to multiple shows). We had a guy named Topher from way out of town, from about an hour away to do lights with us. It was really interesting for everyone to see how Topher handled lighting in a new space, and I'm sure other people learned a fair bit about design from him. (I had honestly never considered footlights in this space, but they were Fantastic!)
     Meanwhile the set team was trying to mask everything off, to keep the audience from seeing all of the backstage business. The set crew had to deal with all sorts of hassles like that, but they had another challenge, presented to them by our regular season. See, we're also putting up two shows this year, and both of those shows have their own sets. So, not only did they have some flats screwed to the stage, bolted in place and immobile, but they also had almost all of the other stock materials attached to each other and in storage as the other set. Basically, they had about four flats and a big bunch of curtains to make the theater into a useful space. They did. In fact, they (okay, I started it while nobody was looking) took a door frame off of one of the sets and clamped it into the set. (Don't worry, I put it back when we were done!)
     Eventually, at four AM, the directors arrived at the theatre. The writers handed over three brand-new scripts to the directors, who had about an hour and a half to read the scripts and cast them from the collection of actors we had. There were a lot of debates between the directors, bickering over who got who, and so forth. They decided their casts and sent emails to every cast member, with a copy of their script attached. The actors then printed out their scripts, and arrived at 6:45 Am to start rehearsals.
     Then for the next twelve hours, the shows were on a rotating rehearsal schedule, sharing the stage, cramming lines, studying, studying, studying, and rehearsing for hours on end. Oh my goodness, I didn't mention the countdown! Over our heads, all day, starting at seven PM, a gigantic countdown loomed over our heads, ticking down the time until the curtain opened.
     At seven Pm, the audience had all arrived, the countdown reached zero, and the curtain opened. Three shows performed, and did an amazing job. (okay, again, I totally flopped, after 24 hours without sleep, I completely forgot EVERY line I had. EMBARRASSING!) Anyway, Everyone (but me) did an amazing job, and the audiences loved it. Then, we struck the shows in a half an hour, and everyone ran home as fast as possible to immediately crash into bed and fall asleep.
     The next day, a few people met up, and there was not a single person who had anything else to talk about. There was even a movement to start another 24 hour play project that night. All in all, it was a huge success, everyone learned something, the world received three new plays, and everyone went home happy and tired. It was a huge success, and everyone really enjoyed it. Topher also brought in a very nice camera with a timer, and recorded a timelapse of the entire process. Hopefully, sometime in the next couple weeks, I'll be able to get my hands on the timelapse video, and I will post it here for you all to see!
     So, dear readers, what do you think of this project? Excited? Curious? Tell me in the comments section!