Critical Viewing Graphic Organizer. Introduction (5-7 sentences) What play did you see? (Italicize the title!) Who wrote it? (Include them all.

Transcription

1 Critical Viewing Graphic Organizer Introduction (5-7 sentences) What play did you see? (Italicize the title!) Who wrote it? (Include them all.) When did you see it? Where did you see it? Who directed it? What was it about? (Write 3-5 sentences to summarize the play.) What did you think of the play? (But don t write I think ) Circle one: It was EASY / DIFFICULT to determine the choices that the director, actors, and crew made to make this show. Choose one (based on what you circled above): These decisions all added to the success of the production. This made the show less of a success than it could have been.

2 Body paragraphs (5-7 sentences each) Acting Detailed choice 1: What did you observe about choices that the actor made with voice, gesture, facial expression, or character research? (This should NOT be an opinionated statement! It should be a DETAILED one that describes the choice. Use the actor s name not the character s.) Example sentence: Maddy Paxson slowly tied her shoe laces and walked away with her head down. Why was this choice made? What did it show the audience or other characters? What effect did it have? (Don t use I think. ) Example sentence: This showed that she was reluctantly giving up on the relationship and made it clear that their relationship might finally be over. sense? (THIS SENTENCE WILL END UP AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PARAGRAPH!!!!) Example sentence(s): In the scene Where It Went, Marci (Maddy Paxson) and Phil (TJ Peoples) are on a date. They are a married couple who are struggling to rebuild their relationship. Phil doesn t pay attention to Marci or that it is their anniversary. Marci lies about the way she really feels so Phil never knows where he stands in the relationship. Detailed choice 2 (Don t use I think. ) sense? What do these two choices have in common?

3 Costumes and Props Detailed choice 1: Pick a costume or a character and discuss what you observed about his/her costume. Example sentence: Alice was in a blue dress with a white apron, white tights, and black shoes. Example sentence: By dressing Alice in a blue dress similar to the Disney cartoon, the audience easily recognized this character. The costume met the audience s expectations and also made Lily Somers look like a seven-year-old girl. Example sentence: Lily Somers, an eighth grade student, looked a lot like Alice from the Disney movie even though she has red hair. Example sentence: The Lory was dressed in a red flapper dress with a rainbow colored flowing bustle, a matching feather collar and mask, yellow tights, and red wings. Example sentence: The Lory looked enough like a bird to be recognized as such but without looking like a football mascot. The costume also allowed for more fluid movement and matched the animal-human hybrid costumes of the other animal characters. Example sentence: The Lory (Binah Abby) is a very colorful bird that appears in the caucus race scene in Wonderland.

4 Set and Set Props Detailed choice 1: Pick a set piece or a prop and discuss what you observed about it s use. Example sentence: The exterior of the Duchess s house looked like a drawing in a book and when the scene switched to the interior, the page was simply turned to reveal a kitchen. How did it fit into the world of the play? Example sentence: The Illustrated look of the cottage emphasized that the play was paying tribute to the literary versions of the characters more than the film or cartoon versions. Turning the page for the interior was not only clever, but practical. Example sentence: When Alice goes to visit the Duchess, she first encounters the Frog Footman at the exterior of the house where she is attempting to get in. After a blackout we find Alice inside the kitchen with the Cook and the Duchess. Example sentence: The loft of the barn was at least seven feet tall and sixteen feet long with a ladder in the front to the stage left side of the loft. There was hay scattered about beneath the loft as well as a couple of bales on the loft itself. Example sentence: The height and length of the loft made the barn scene very believable and gave the actors, particularly Miss Jacobs, plenty of room to move about safely. The hay scattered about was useful for Templeton to dig and bury and the bales gave actors places to hide when the humans came about. Example sentence: The main set piece for both the farm and the fair was a large loft painted to look like an old barn.

5 Lights and Sound Detailed choice 1: What choices in the intensity of lighting or colors or special lighting effects did you notice? Example sentence: During the fireworks, red and blue lights were flashed onto the cyclorama. Example sentence: The choice of red and blue lights was very patriotic and flashing them gave the effect of fireworks going off above the characters. They were timed with the sound effect of fireworks. Example sentence: At the fair, Charlotte and Wilbur watch fireworks from the barn. Example sentence: The music between scenes was a folk tune that had both a melancholy tone but also a lovely, uplifting one. Example sentence: By playing the same music between each scene, it connected each scene to the others, emphasizing that they happen simultaneously. Also, the music chosen emphasized the sadness of the serious scenes but also the joy of the romantic scenes. Example sentence: At the end of each scene, sometimes at the same time as the northern lights, the same song was played.

6 Directing Detailed choice 1: What choices did the director make in casting, script, setting, acting choices, blocking, choreography, or any other choice you believe is primarily the responsibility of the director. This choice might easily fit under any of the previous categories but it fits best here because it is an obvious choice made by the director. Example sentence: The director chose to hang large paintings of popular music celebrities from the 1980s including Madonna, Michael Jackson, David Bowie, and the album cover to the Footloose soundtrack. These paintings were created in a pop style with bright 80s colors. Example sentence: The choice to hang these enormous albums captured the 80s theme of the musical and also made it practical to have different scenes occur on the same set by bringing in set props. Example sentence: Footloose the Musical is set in 1984 and is based upon the movie in which 80s pop music is central. Example sentence: Mr. Applegate cast a young African American boy and a young Caucasian girl as brother and sister. Example sentence: While it may not make sense realistically to have actors of different races play a brother and sister, it seems he made this choice because these actors fit their characters. Both their abilities as actors and their size were likely taken into consideration and these trumped the need for these characters to be the same race. Example sentence: Fern is Avery s older sister. She is around eleven-years-old and Avery is approximately seven.

7 Conclusion restate information from the introduction and wrap it up. What play did you see? (Italicize the title!) Who wrote it? (Include them all.) When did you see it? Where did you see it? Who directed it? What was it about? (Write 3-5 sentences to summarize the play.) What did you think of the play? (But don t write I think ) Circle one: It was EASY / DIFFICULT to determine the choices that the director, actors, and crew made to make this show. Choose one (based on what you circled above): These decisions all added to the success of the production. This made the show less of a success than it could have been. Wrap it up with one of the following: This show is a good example of how each decision made by actor, director, and crew lead to a successful show. This show is a good example of how each person involved in the show, actors, crew, and directors, affects the outcome.