August 2010
3 posts
Scenario
Scene one: timid side-liner steps into the center of the box. Someone comes up to her, asking if she’d like to be a part of an improvised performance. Startled out of her insecurities around improvisation, her general skepticism about anything she hasn’t had to work brutally hard for, and her overarching commitment-phobia, she accepts.
Scene two: protagonist attends yoga class focused...
The nature of performance...
Now that the show has come to a close and I am reflecting back on our run, I keep thinking about the idea of “performing.” The performances of Storybox were different from all of our rehearsals because they added a new element to our work: an audience. The audience is obviously an essential piece of performance art; without the spectators, the art is not a performance. However, Storybox is most...
Reflection
In talk-backs after all performances of THIS IS STORYBOX, when the spect-actors were asked what they would do differently given the opportunity to play again, most said they would start out playing situations more real. Their initial impulse was often to be slightly detached, to not commit real emotions to the given circumstances because they knew it was all “pretend.” They were...
July 2010
14 posts
What a wonderful start
Opening night last night, and what a great way to start the run.
It’s hard to avoid opening-night jitters, but the cast powered through and made strong choices and exciting stories:
A potential firefighter has to help raise is little cousin.
A disappointed dad would rather go on dates and build a catapult.
A wondering kid conflicted on whether to take off on the open road or take care of...
Parallels to Theatre of the Oppressed
A lot of people mention Boal and his Theatre of the Oppressed when I explain StoryBox to them. There are a lot of parallels, and as I am preparing for opening night tonight and thinking about the reasons why sharing this work is important, the words from the Theatre of the Oppressed website’s Declaration of Principles (http://www.theatreoftheoppressed.org/en/index.php?nodeID=23) completely...
Acid Pits, Jail, and Paris
Today I once again had the pleasure of going straight from babysitting a six-year-old to Storybox rehearsal— but this time I came armed with diet coke, and sometimes, that makes all the difference.
In six-year-old-land, we discussed his brother (he is an only child) who isn’t around much because he’s a spy. The kid I babysit is also a spy, of course, and has been training me in...
A Spect Speaks
Barton, who participated in StoryBox a couple weeks ago, just wrote this about his experience:
“Maybe it’s the game enthusiast in me, but I keep thinking of StoryBox as a chance to play a living, breathing First Person Drama. The spectator / participant finds themselves thrust into an unfamiliar world, unsure of the parameters, unsure of the rules. The contained universe is all ...
The Hero's Journey
“The hero’s journey refers to a basic pattern found in many narratives from around the world. The hero begins in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unknown world of strange powers and events. The hero who accepts the call to enter this strange world must face tasks and trials, either alone or with assistance. In the most intense versions of the narrative, the hero must...
“I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged”
- Peter Brook, The Empty Space
“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players, They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many...
Living a Hundred Lives
First of all— Tumbler, sad-face emoticon when I write the wrong log-in, really? I dunno.
But more to the point: I’m close to the end of an amazing book, The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, and came across a passage that made me think about Storybox:
“It was a night of dreams. I was playing roles, one after another, against Saul, who was playing roles. It was like being in a...
Stop I want to get off...
At rehearsal tonight we had a spect that wanted to pull out and stop in the middle of the story. Why?? Felt too real. To close to ‘real life’. But choose to continue and set the goal of ‘let’s see where this goes and this could be good practice for me for my real life situations”. Puts us to wonder though; don’t we always do that?? Try to pull out of the...
Characters everywhere...
I was in a park today working on another project, and we walked around through the crowd pushing the limits of our characters. We made our physical gestures more extreme and our interactions more specific. At first, it felt forced to live in a heightened state amidst reality. It felt like I would get “caught” for “acting.” But as I was playing the exaggerated part of a...
Inter-View! →
Antonio Miniño of The Happiest Medium arts & culture site interviews director Shea Elmore
Musings from last night (this morning)
It’s 2:58 in the morning on Independence Day. I’m waiting for the N at 8th St & Broadway, leaning against a support beam so I don’t stumble over my unstable feet. I’ve had 4 beers in the past 2 hours. In my current state, while distracted by rats on the track and a passing Q train, I don’t recall having a single beer in the past month. Maybe. This is all to the affect that this rambling may...
No Rules
It is no secret that life has conditioned humans to stifle their natural behavioral impulses in order to be socially accepted. It was interesting in rehearsal today to notice that even in play, people still don’t say or do what they really want because they are worried about breaking supposed rules of conduct. We never said anything about rules, never put any constraints on their actions....
June 2010
3 posts
What a cast!!!
We can Rock the Storybox and even salsa dance!! On one or 2. If not, well… we will make it up on the spot. Check it out.
So come play with us. Tight cast who will make you….experience. Dig?? :-)
Peace!!
-Julio
THIS IS STORYBOX
A powerful form of dramatic improvisation where the audience is the star.
You choose whether to watch the story onstage or experience it for yourself.
Become the protagonist of a new story and remember what it’s like to play.
Three unique stories will be played each unforgettable evening.
May not be appropriate for young audiences.
Directed by Shea Elmore Cast (Inter-actors): ...