Archival Footage
In preparation for the upcoming TPPPs, here are some long lost videos from our 2010 unit on Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Some photos are also available, buried over here somewhere.
12/13: Annotated Citation Page
During today’s puppetry presentations, the subject turned to annotated source lists. First a reminder: your annotated bibliographies are due by Friday in class. For those of you who still have questions about what that document should look like, check out this example (you’ll need to be logged into your webmail to view it). Be warned ...
Puppets Are Back, says Huffington Post
Are puppets making a come-back? The Huffington Post is running an article on the reappearance of puppetry in popular culture, citing the new Muppets movie, Broadway shows like War Horse and Hand to God, and—because it’s Huffpo—the recent Fox News blithering over Communist Muppets. In the midst of all this, they threw in a few brief ...
11/23: Puppet Olympics
As the culmination of our intro to puppetry, our intrepid mannequins performed an acrobatic routine. The original requirement was jumping jacks, a cartwheel, a sprint, and a bow. Our second puppet had the handicap of being short one puppeteer, but still managed a pretty strong showing. And now a reflection opportunity. Looking at the movement ...
11/15: Puppet Making
And now, onto puppets. Those of you who followed my travels over the summer will be completely unsurprised to find Matt Acheson’s collaborative puppet workshop xeroxed into my own course. I’m also lifting liberally from materials graciously provided by Mary Robinette Kowal, whose Twitter feed becomes positively hair-raising when she is constructing puppets. In Wednesday’s ...
4/28: First rounds of Commedia
Here are the videos from the first two days of improv work. Lotto [video src="http://mr.welbes.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/lotto.m4v"] The Book [video src="http://mr.welbes.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/The_Book.m4v"] The Grocery List [video src="http://mr.welbes.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/IMG_0386.m4v"] Disneyland [video src="http://mr.welbes.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/IMG_0387.m4v"] Take a moment to watch the videos and evaluate our work so far. Consider how well we are addressing the following problems: Communicating with the audience physically. Communicating ...
3/28: Mask Workshop
Here’s the run-down from today’s introduction to neutral masks. Students can jump down to the bottom for the reflection instructions. So, we began by passing out masks and hoods to everyone. After securing the hoods, we took a few moments to get acquainted with the masks themselves, first by looking at them, and next through ...
2/1: Start of Script Analysis
2/1/11 List of Activities · Told to start script analysis on Pinter. · Given Jobs o Terence – Where/Stella o George – When/Harry o Monica – What2/James? o Seamus – What1/Bill · Due February 6th/9th, 2011 We discussed how to do script analysis. MAJOR KEY POINT · Do not do any other job but your ...
9/30: Devising Underway
Talking in circles for a week seems to have finally paid off! I am increasingly impressed with the way the conversation has developed in the last few days. Once the group began to settle on the idea of a student coming to understand a teacher’s Sisyphean routine, things became much more concrete. Initially, the group ...
9/14: Pitches are pitched…
…and now we start working. First of all, I want to congratulate all the second-year students on their excellent pitches. I’ll have more specific feedback as I assess the materials, but in general over the last week, we have heard some wonderful ideas for original pieces of theatre. Additionally, this served as a better preparation ...