Acting II Final

Scoring your Script

to mark your script in order to make specific informed choices about how you plan to portray a character

beat/unit

change of subject, objective, tactic, obstacle

Devising theatre

“The process of collaboratively creating new work without a pre-existing script wherein the collaborators are also the performers.”

Standard theatre

a playwright writes the text, a director then casts actors and designers to interpret that text

What are possible sources of inspiration?

A devised piece can start with anything: a painting, music, an image, a prompt, a real-life event, movement, etc.

The 5 stages in the devising process (Kennedy Center)

1) research 2) creation 3) development 4) rehearsal 5) performance

Avant-garde

literally translates to “advanced guard” which more or less means whatever is the newest, most experimental, pushing the cutting edge. Possibly anti-establishment/counter establishment, reformist, and often a deliberate provocation to established systems.

Avant-garde theatre

a type of experimental and innovative theatre that seeks to challenge traditional or historical norms and conventions.

1) unconventional storytelling techniques 2)non-linear narratives 3) abstract or symbolic representations. Avant-garde theatrecan incorporate various art forms, such as music, dance, and visual arts, and it often aims to provoke thought and emotion in the audience. This form of theatre emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and continues to influence contemporary theatre practices.

Avant Garde

Experimentation

Avant-garde theatre experiments with different aspects of theatre, such as the use of space, time, language, sound, lighting, costumes, props, and technology. Avant-garde theatre also experiments with different modes of performance, such as improvisation, collaboration, participation, interaction, and multimedia. Avant-garde theatre often breaks the fourth wall, the imaginary barrier between the actors and the audience, and invites the audience to become part of the performance.

Innovation

Avant-garde theatre introduces new and original ideas, techniques, and styles to theatre, and creates new genres and forms of theatre. Avant-garde theatre also adapts and transforms existing genres and forms of theatre, and gives them new meanings and interpretations. Avant-garde theatre often challenges the conventional notions of plot, character, dialogue, and action, and creates non-linear, fragmented, and abstract narratives.

Provocation

Avant-garde theatre provokes the audience to think, feel, and react in new and unexpected ways. Avant-garde theatre often confronts the audience with controversial, shocking, or disturbing themes, images, and situations, and makes them question their assumptions, beliefs, and values. Avant-garde theatre also challenges the audience to take a stance, to make a choice, or to take action.

Augusto Boal

Theatre of the Oppressed

Antonin Artaud

Theatre of Cruelty

Brecht

Epic theatre

Theatre of the Absurd

taught to adapt Albert Camus’s Theory of the Absurd for the stage- which examines the inherent futility of trying to live a meaningful life in a meaningless universe...(Beckett, Ionesco, Havel, Pinter, Albee)

How might Avant Garde address Form, Structure, Content, and Audience?

1)Break the 4th wall

2)Non-linear or fragmented narratives

3)Symbolism and abstraction (rather than realism or naturalistic elements)-symbols, metaphors, colors, images, sounds, movements to convey message/aesthetic

Acting/Action verbs

Persuade, convince, caress, beg, bully, wound, threaten, intimidate, bribe, seduce, appeal/appease, educate, explain, clarify, confront