Week 1

  Our Lives Become The Stories That We Weave

 ‘Our lives become the stories that we weave’ (Once On This Island) From the beginning of time stories and lore have captivated the mind and spirit of humanity…Why?..You could say it is the very fabric of what makes humans unique on earth and possibly in the material cosmos. Stories have served as an escape and as a respite to the mundane or even worse, the tortures in life. But it has never been only about the pleasure in entertainment…stories and lore have been passed down to shape the generations to come. They explain a culture and what a culture holds dear, they help us relate to others, give us history and therefore a future. Stories inspire, make us understand ourselves, give us context for our pain, tell us what we think is important and what we think is worth becoming invested in. Our stories show us which lives we prop up to emulate, they challenge, prod, condemn, reveal, and make us believe.  To think that what we emotionally invest in when we experience art has no effect on us is naive. For art has power, and therefore must be respected. The effect it will have must be recognized, for whether we like it or not our stories will ALWAYS influence for better or for worse.

Any piece of entertainment you consume (watch, listen to, read, or perform)will affect you and everyone else touched by it, so sometimes take a step back and ask yourself these questions… Create a palette for the incredible to become illimitable.

What were the most important parts of the plot?
What did each of those parts make you feel?
What was the main moral of the story, supporting themes?
Was some truth revealed in the art greater than that of just words (logic)?
What were the dilemmas of the characters?
Were the cause and effect on the well being of the character based upon his choices in line with reality?

 Important Shows and Composers that built American Musical Theatre into the juggernaut of today: Fill in dates and composers

 Pirates Of Penzance, HMS Pinafore, Oklahoma,  Annie Get Your Gun, Sound Of Music, West Side Story, Fiddler On The Roof, Showboat

 Composers- List at least 1 additional famous work

Irving Berlin: born in Imperial Russia, greatest songwriter in American history, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” …captured the best of who we are and the dreams that shape our lives…’White Christmas, wrote “God Bless America”  Singers from Louis Armstrong to Lady Gaga have sung his songs

Cole Porter: Kiss Me Kate, Anything Goes, Born To Dance, High Society

Gilbert and Sullivan: 14 comic operas between 1871-1896…HMS Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado

Rodgers and Hart: 1919-1943 Pal Joey and many other musicals…over 500 songs

 Week 1

Be The Hero Of Your Story

    Home is your story, it’s not something you get to choose. Sure, you can move but home is what made you, is making you, who you are. To believe we are where we are for a reason and believe only we can play the role we are called to..in other words, to be the hero of our story is a challenge! Sometimes that feeling of ‘the grass is always greener’ is really because we have a calling we are afraid to fulfill where we are. We have a gift and calling so great it scares us to have to face it, and running is one way not to. Whether it’s running from a nightmare or to something that is a fantasy. Sometimes the problem isn’t where we are, but who we are being…..our response to the environment, to people, to challenges. Often times when we leave (a place or a challenge/calling)  we don’t only run from our calling but we hurt everything, everyone we leave. We hurt them by saying ‘this is not something I value or that I believe is worth my time.

    Home is where we belong, but we will never belong if we don’t find who we are meant to be, the absolute best version of ourselves.. You cannot belong if you don’t find home in your purpose, as every hero does from Harry Potter to Mulan does. That’s not easy, it means fighting and through that and becoming the best version of ourselves. We can’t hate those things that make our home because they each have a place in our story and the fact that they are there is a miracle in the first place. Gratitude for home and what made it….the streets, the stores, the schools, the neighbors, the hard times, the smiles, the tears, the people, those who sharpened you as they tried to break you, and those who built you. Grandparents who made us dream of days past and inspired us to want a legacy, wonderful parents, or absent family members. When you believe you are the hero of your story challenges become lighter, victories sweeter, friends closer, and even acquaintances more important to us.  

Week 2

    Art is: to express Truth beyond logic, Beauty transcendent of reason, Light where we cannot see.

  Stories are powerful and transformative. They literally change the heart of the watcher for better or worse without the watcher even knowing. After the heart is changed the mind follows. Your favorite character, the characters you hate, the plot line you watch play out…these all line your desires up with the story. You start to identify with that story and its characters.

In life there is a real effect for every cause and every cause has an effect. Something so simple as holding that door open for someone affects you and the person you hold it for. Can anyone tell me the struggle that exists then to tell the truth when writing dramatic art?

We as artists create causes and effects and we are just human and can be wrong, but even worse much is ‘wrong’ on purpose because people want to change the truth to their truth and get you to be subject to their ideas.

Propaganda vs. Art

   Plato said that the best way to for drama to be effective is to show heroes. Aristotle said instead we must show ‘regular people’  with all their failings. Now this was thousands of years ago but truth doesn’t change although circumstance do. Can they both be right? I say yes. In the concept of the hero we tell stories that show all that we can desire to be, the love, the most of who and what we are, testing our metal and challenging every fiber of our will, but this doesn’t mean we always watch a happy hero story.

    Can anyone tell me how some actions or storylines that then seem to not fit in? Any guessing how it does fit? It fits if we take responsibility for the effect we create for the causes of our characters. If we tell a failing hero story of a hero that decides to be selfish what can we also not show? – fulfillment, peace etc. When we show things that are not what we desire to be then the story must reveal some truth about this. So we see greed, we have to see what this greed can really do to the greedy and the people around them. If we show a person who uses meth and we show their wonderful happy family and how great their life is are we revealing truth? Now every genre deals differently as art is not so literal all the time. But whether satire, farce, drama, thriller everything is going to tell you something about truth in the universe the artist creates.

  The interesting thing currently is that the art community ignores this concept and says ‘NO! art is beyond all of this and art cannot be explained’ (at the same time everything they do is put on to further their agenda) yet, they can put exactly into words what their arts means and why it means it. Art made to institute the thoughts of the creator, without making the audience aware, and NOT existing in truth (as we have discussed) is not art but propaganda. Art must express Truth beyond logic, Beauty transcendent of reason, Light where we cannot see. If it doesn’t pass this test it is not art.

Week 2- Plot Analysis Questions

 What is the Theme? Themes? The core Truth revealed? ( not what happens in the plot but what it MEANS)

Who is your favorite character, what is their ‘why?’ in the plot? ( personal motivation)

Describe the most important moments of ‘spectacle’?

Why is it necessary for the language to be heightened? (not exactly everyday talk)

What do you notice about the ‘rhythm’ of the show or characters?
Why do so many people love The Music Man?

Why could this be seen as objectively good art?

Aristotle’s 6 Elements Of A Plot

(BYU Theatre)

Exposition: Setting the scene and introducing the characters

Inciting Incident: The moment where the action begins—without it the story would not happen

Rising Action: Action during which the conflict becomes more and more complicated as the antagonist (villain) and protagonist (hero) struggle against one another

Climax: When the action reaches highest peak and there is a turning point (for good or bad)

Falling Action: Action during which the conflict unravels.

Resolution: The action reaches the final outcome and the story concludes

SIX ARISTOTELIAN ELEMENTS OF A PLAY

(Bellevue College)

1.         PLOT                  The arrangement of events or incidents on the stage. The plot  is composed of “clearly defined problems for characters to solve.”   (Kernodle, et al 6) Plot is to be differentiated from Story which is a chronological detailing of events that happened on and off stage.  Events happening off stage are introduced through exposition (narrative dialogue). The playwright must create a plot that is both credible and astonishing.
2.         CHARACTER        The agents of the plot. Characters provide the  motivations (reasons) for the events of the plot. “Vivid characters”  (6) face and overcome “obstacles that we can recognize.” (6) They provide the vehicle for conflict.
3.         THEME                The reason the playwright wrote the play.  The examination of “patterns of life” (6) can be didactic or just a slice of life.
4.         LANGUAGE          “Vivid characters” (6) facing and overcoming  recognizable obstacles need to express themselves in “heightened language.”  (6) Dramatic dialogue consists of two parts: narrative and dramatic.
5.         RHYTHM              The heart of the play. Plot, character, language, and spectacle all have their individual rhythms in time.The combination of all these rhythms create the impelling force of the play leading to a final climax and Denouement.  Rhythm creates mood.
6.         SPECTACLE         Everything that is seen or heard on stage.  Actors, sets, costumes, lights and sound. NOTE:  All plays have spectacle—some emphasize spectacle more than others.