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They Couldn't Help Themselves

6/29/2025

The premiere performance of my new children's theater musical "No Time for Monkey Business" happened yesterday. I count it a success when the audience goes home singing the songs. As well-wishers came up to me after the performance, that was practically all they would say, or sing rather. "What a beautiful day...the sun is shining..." or they'd say, "Those songs were so catchy!" Many literally said that they couldn't help themselves, they just kept singing the songs. They were stuck in their heads.

We tried to construct a jungle set with craft paper vines and tissue paper flowers made by the kids.

We were lucky. We only had one minor disaster during the show. Partway through the first big number a blast of wind came up and blew down the drapes in the back. They didn't fall far, fortunately, and my daughter jumped into action along with another tall friend to fix the problem. Apparently, they were so discreet that many in the audience were unaware of the situation. Another of my daughters who was the Stage Manager on that side of the stage found herself too busy calling cues and handing out props to do anything about the set problem. She was thankful that other people swiftly acted. So was I!

The flats were painted by Tiffany Lee and her two daughters Indie and London.

When you consider that the set was held together mainly by masking tape, cotton string, and safety pins, it is amazing that it held together at all. To think that a set built of styrofoam, bed sheets and construction paper had the hope of lasting through a day of wind, heat, and sun on an outdoor patio is actually pretty presumptuous, I admit. We knew we couldn't risk setting anything up the day before and leaving it over night, so we got up at the crack of dawn to build the stage with great hope that it could last until noon when the show would be over. And most of it did just fine.

These are the drapes that blew off the pipe that was holding them up.

With the real possibility that many things could go wrong, I am just glad that so many things went right and that the audience seemed to enjoy the show. They told me that the show was delightful and the songs were so catchy. They said that they appreciated how it had such a great message of learning to take responsibility. They were happy that the children would have such a wonderful memory to take with them through their lives.

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Wearing Costumes Convincingly

6/11/2025

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As I have been making the Jungle Animal costumes for my new show "No Time for Monkey Business," I have been pondering how costumes are important to the look of a show and for how the actors get into character. Having costumes also helps the audience keep track of what's going on during the show and helps them follow individual characters

Hippo - without stuffing

For this show, I have chosen to use a variety of animal characters --- some that do not necessarily belong in any jungle we are aware of, but are beloved animals for children. So we will have a Lion, a Hyena, a Leopard, a Flamingo, a Hippo, a Giraffe, a Cheetah, a Rhino, and several other very easy to recognize animals. That is important since we have a very limited budget and cannot afford to buy amazing premade artistically beautiful costumes. At best, these costumes are going to be taken from good ideas scrounged from thrift shops, YouTube, and Etsy.

Sometimes I watch movies while I do so much hand sewing. One day I turned on a movie that I had not seen before but had an interesting title and premise. It was a period drama where the actors were supposedly dressed according to styles of the early 1800's in England. (However, the costumes did not actually match what would have been worn in that era. The costumers unfortunately were off by about 20-30 years at least.)

After watching for a time, I began to wonder why I felt so unable to get into the movie. Soon it became clear that part of the problem was that the actors were not comfortable in their costumes and hairstyles. Sure, they were put into costumes, hats, hairdo's and some wigs, but they had not been instructed on how to hold themselves, walk, and gesture in ways that would work with those clothes and hairstyles. Those poor actors used very casual modern movements and poor posture that were dead give-aways for not portraying the ways of that more reserved, formal "age" convincingly.

Little purple bird

Kids naturally like to pretend. I have three little grandkids who have no trouble pretending to be kitties or puppies or even dinosaurs for long periods of time. Let's hope the slightly older children in my summer theater camp will be able to stay in character for the duration of the the play at least. Hopefully costumes, despite their simplicity, will help.

We will work with each child to help them figure out movements that will interpret their characters. The Rhino and Hippo will need to use heavy, forceful motions. The birds will need to use light, fluid movements. The jungle cats can be slinky. And so forth. We want them to have mastered acting like their animal character well before they put on their costumes. However, we will endeavor to give them ample practice time in their costumes so they can feel comfortable.

The goal is to have them convincingly portray their characters!

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Stage Pictures

6/3/2025

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One of the acting games I use with my Summer Camp kids is making "stage pictures." Obviously making stage pictures can mean many things. It can be managing how the sets are designed and used. It can have to do with color schemes of scenic painting as well as the color coordination of costumes. It can be the placement of set pieces and props. But every director needs to teach building stage pictures with the children by how their bodies are placed in scenes

Focusing towards certain actor

We use this game I call "Freeze, Frame, and Focus." We work on making pleasing Stage Pictures by learning these concepts.

Planes and Levels in a dance

PLANES - Imagine grid lines on the floor of the stage. They are the imaginary horizontal or vertical lines you may direct the actors to position themselves on.

Being aware of Proximities during dance

PROXIMITY - is the distance between the individual actors. They must always try to maintain some "daylight" between characters and not get too bunched up.

LEVELS - the heights either of individual actors or the heights when they are positioned on set pieces or risers. The actors may also modify their heights by kneeling, bending, lunging, or kneeling, holding their arms up, etc.

Game Play - Begin music and ask the children to dance or move like an animal around the stage. (You choose the animal for each round such as dinosaur, bird, horse, kitten, butterfly, etc. Having evocative music helps...) After a few measures, stop the music. The children FREEZE, and look around and try adjust themselves or FRAME themselves to make a good stage picture.

If they are a tall person in front, they must make themselves shorter. If they are short and in back, they must make themselves look as tall as possible. And so forth. They should never block the people behind them and they should adjust positions as needed to provide "daylight" between actors. Repeat as many times as desired. Caution - Don't overdo it!

Another layer of this game is to have the children FOCUS on a particular actor. at the FREEZE, the director will call out a child's name that the others will turn towards, present with their hands, make sure no one is blocking someone else. Incidentally, this helps everybody learn each others' names. They do the best they can, but they can't fix everyone's view.

Once again, working with the children using Acting Games can teach real useful SKILLS. It makes blocking a stage production go smoother.

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They Couldn't Help Themselves

Wearing Costumes Convincingly

Stage Pictures

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