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Portraying a Cartoon Character

9/20/2013

My little girls loved to watch Disney movies when they were very young. They loved to dress up in their "spin around dresses and click shoes" to dance to the wonderful music from those Disney shows. When they were older, I determined to put them into ballet and tap classes. The older daughter had the perfect shape for a dancer -- long legs and and thin torso. She could easily do all of the dance steps and keep up in the class. I couldn't wait for the next daughter to get old enough to start dance classes.

Daughter #2 was perfectly suited physically for doing the dance moves, but in class, she just did not follow very well. It turns out that her 4-year-old self thought she was doing everything as directed, but all we saw from the outside was a little girl standing there doing nothing, or coming in with actions and moves that were out of sync with the music and the rest of the class. We thought that she had no sense of rhythm and was uncoordinated or something. Little did we know that her little brain was working overtime. She was deep in her own world in her mind doing the most marvelous steps. I worried so much that she was not ready, or worse, had no talent, that I elected to take her out of dance classes until she showed some promise. We thought dance would just not be her "thing."

Years later, that daughter, developed many talents in singing, art, and drama, but especially in dance. She loved to choreograph. This is where her ability to imagine in her mind the movements of large numbers of people on the stage came in handy. She even decided to make human performance and dance her major in college.

One of the most interesting things she did during her college years was to work a season at Disney World "animating" or bringing the Disney cartoon characters to life. Because of her ability to choreograph and act, she was great at doing movements that were unique to the various characters she portrayed. Each cast member could portray several characters according to their height range and how they fit the costumes. They also had to be able to master signing the autographs of the characters they portrayed. This was a delightful adventure for her.

ANIMATING THROUGH MOVEMENT - On stage, actors need to be able to use their bodies to "animate," or take the identity and use appropriate movements for the characters they portray. During dance warm-ups, a fun activity is to have the children do movements representing ANIMALS or other FANTASY CREATURES. Have the accompanist play music that sets the mood for different movement such as "slow, lumbering" music for large cumbersome animals, "bouncy" music for monkeys, "slithering" music for snakes, "gliding" music for birds, "galloping" music for horses or unicorns, etc. Keep these snippets of music very short and changing after 8 bars or so. Help the children use their entire bodies to give shape and movement to the creatures. Let them make characteristic creature sounds, as well. Remember to also feature FANTASY CHARACTERS, too, such as Robots, or Monsters, or Unicorns, or Fairies.

Keep it fun and SHORT!

The Duck Family has a very animated dance in "The Tale of Chicken Licken."

They sing and do morning exercises to "Off to the Races." They exercise to be strong and ready to always beat the Goose Family down to the lake to look for worms.

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One Word Scenes

9/7/2013

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Learning to IMPROVISE with PANTOMIME and/or VOCAL INFLECTION is a skill young actors must practice in order to become proficient. ONE WORD SCENES are an important tool to use for this training in the arsenal of acting games and activities. These scenes are set up as SITUATIONS to be played by two actors. Usually one of the actors tries to convince the other about something, but they are only allowed to use one word, such as YES, NO or MAYBE. Through their use of pantomimed actions or use of simple props and their vocal inflections of the one word, all of the meaning in the scene should be conveyed to the audience.

SITUATIONS - The simplest situations are created from real-life scenarios, such as having one actor be the shopper the other the salesperson. The salesperson tries to convince the shopper to buy something. The shopper takes his time making the decision and needs to be shown many options before committing to the sale. Each situation should have a beginning, a middle (the business to transact), and a conclusion (does not need to end successfully for the salesperson). Each scene should conclude in less than one minute and the actors are allowed just the use of one word. They can say that word many different ways, though - as a question, as an answer, in showing they haven't made up their mind yet and need to be shown something else, and so forth.

The situations and words assignments can be drawn from a hat or made up on the spot and given by the teacher/director.

Male Shopper - 1. Hardware store shopping for power tools 2. Sports store buying golf clubs, fishing poles, baseball bats, football cleats, etc. (Stick to one specific genre per scene) 3. Car dealership buying a fancy sports car
4. Electronics store shopping for the latest hand-held gadget (smart phone, game player, tablet, etc.)

Female shopper - 1. Department store shopping for make-up or hair styling products 2. Jewelry store shopping for rings, earrings, bracelets or necklaces 3. Shoe store looking for the latest fashion high heels 4. Bridal shop buying the perfect wedding veil.

Situations with one simple prop

1. In a clothing store picking out a SCARF. The shopper may pretend the scarf is any type of clothing item she may like such as a shawl, or tie, or hood, or a scarf for warmth or just decoration. The salesperson may even show her some unique ways of tying or draping the scarf. They can only use the same one word in their exchanges.

2. In a hat shop picking out a HAT or CAP.  The shopper tries on the hat in many different ways and may even pretend that the one hat is actually many hats of different styles. The salesperson may resort to flattery in his gestures and referring to a pretend mirror, anything to make the sale. But each of them are allowed to speak just the one word.

3. In a fancy French restaurant ordering from a MENU (paper folded to resemble a menu) - definitely demonstrating a language barrier. The waiter resorts to all forms of body language and gestures trying to explain the choices on the menu. The customer tries to make a decision from the choices the waiter tries to explain. Neither of them can use more than the one word they are assigned. (May also use table and chair.)

4. Door to Door Sales using a HAND BRUSH or BROOM. The salesman knocks at the door and presents the person with offerings from his bag. He must demonstrate the use of the one prop in many different ways to try to get the sale. They are each allowed to say just the one word.

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Deceptively Simple - Folk Songs

9/4/2013

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Folk songs are important repertoire for a beginning vocal student. Most folk songs have poignant messages of love or loss or yearning or hope or just plain poking fun at the human condition. The tunes seem ageless, as if they always existed. Enhancements of beautiful settings by modern composers make these folk songs wonderful material for vocal students to learn and perform. The melodies almost sing themselves. Though not exactly predictable, the tunes seem to lead to the only possible next note and so on. In that way, they are easy to learn and leave the singer fulfilled.

What makes folk songs seem so timeless? The melodies and harmonies seem so simple as if anybody could have created them. Deceptively simple, as if the song always existed or was born from no particular skill at all. But if anybody could write a tune that could last through the ages, why doesn't every composer have a hit with each new song? Most composers never even see one of their songs have longevity. Why have the seemingly casually constructed folk songs endured through the ages? What is our connection to them and why are we drawn back to them over and over again? These are questions that may never be answered. Maybe, it is true that some music is timeless and has always existed and we are the ones who just uncover the wonderful gifts through song.

Just to illustrate this point, the first Children's Theater show I wrote was Stone Soup. The first cast had two 5 year old boys and seven girls under the age of 8. I basically wrote the show on the fly, tailoring it to the abilities and talents of that very young cast. The songs had to be very short, catchy and fall within an octave range. The main song "Stone Soup" needed to sound as if it had just come into being casually, and as if anyone could join in effortlessly.

Several years later, in another production of that show, my assistant director was explaining to her husband about the play. He wondered how hard it was to write a song for a little children's show. Without hearing any music from the score, he bragged that he could write a song and started singing "stone soup, I'm gonna make stone soup..." in the very same rhythm and nearly the same melody that I had created years earlier for that theme song for the show. That actually proved my point that folk songs really do spring from nowhere in particular ... or they have already existed and we just uncover them. I was actually delighted that what I called "my song" really felt like an authentic folk song. Hopefully, the other songs from the score have that flavor as well.

So, if you are hankering for some homespun yarns and yummy fixin's, check out Stone Soup - A Tale of Cooperation for your next School or Children's Theater production.

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Exploring Emotions

9/3/2013

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Several years ago, I worked at a school for students with learning differences. Children came to this school when they had reading difficulties such as Dyslexia or trouble with communication or social skills such as Autism or Asperger's Syndrome. There the children received teaching that matched their particular differences, and also helped them with socialization. Because many of them had been ostracized from associating with other children, this was an important step in helping them grow into maturity and be able to function later as adults.

I thought it was interesting that one of the main tools the teachers used for helping children read body language and understand facial expressions was to have them watch segments of Soap Operas and Situation Comedies. A clip was shown and played without sound, and the children were to watch the actors' body language and facial expressions. They were to explain the actions and emotions the actors portrayed and make predictions of what would happen next. Some of the situations were very basic such as predicting when people were HAPPY or SAD or ANGRY or PLEASED. Other situations were more difficult to predict such as when the actors were portraying CONFUSION in making a decision, or being IRRITATED when someone makes them feel uncomfortable, or being BRAVE in a tough situation, or trying to give COMFORT to someone. Many of these children had trouble understanding how one's own actions affect other people. Watching these video clips really helped the children learn to understand the cause and effect of human EMOTIONS and body language.

In Children's Theater, we work with the kids to help them explore EMOTIONS and how to portray them on stage. Because in live theater, the audience is usually quite far from the stage, the actors need to "play it big." Any facial expression also needs to be accompanied by a large body attitude or gesture to help it "read" better. On film this would look ridiculous, but for stage work, large facial expressions and movements are a must. To be successful on stage, the actor must use his entire body to make EMOTIONS readable for the audience.

EMOTIONS ACTING GAME: The basic human emotions are all forms of LOVE, RAGE or FEAR, but beyond these are many sub categories. Write a selection of emotions or human attitudes onto notecards and have each child take a turn interpreting that emotion or attitude. Possible choices: HAPPY, ANGRY, SAD, CONFUSED, IRRITATED, EXCITED, LONGING, SATISFIED, WORRIED, HUNGRY, FLIRTY, GRUMPY, INTENSE CONCENTRATION, HAUGHTY, KIND, FLAMBOYANT, STRONG, WEAK, NERVOUS, BRAVE, CHEERFUL, EXUBERANT, SICK, GOOFY, NERDY, and the list could go on. In my experience you do not want to give license for kids to be BORED or TIRED or AMBIVALENT, so do not give those as options under any circumstance! If you do, you will be SORRY!

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Portraying a Cartoon Character

One Word Scenes

Deceptively Simple - Folk Songs

Exploring Emotions

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