"Theatre Is Beautiful, But It Has To Be Absolutely Clear."

Mia presented a scene from Sophia's story she had written and directed. At first he said the rhythm of the actors is bad and the style of acting (naturalistic) is bad. But after a few adjustments and discussion he said "not extremely bad - but a director has to put a bit his balls in this story - it's a bit slow."

When asked about getting older actors to play children - which is always horrible - Philippe said he wouldn't do it. Instead he would go to a young person's drama school and pick 2 or 3 (because they can't play every night) of the most intelligent little actors - and the ones happiest to be onstage. But not too happy! He said whenever a child or dog is onstage everybody looks at them. And this is shitty for actors.

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I got up and lead some improvisations of an action sequence I want to put in my show in which Steph nearly gets molested by this creepy WWOOF man - but she escapes in a frantic hurry. At first I had lots of little scenes - before the event (Steph and friends walking together and then Steph being confronted to go with the creepy man.), the event (the molest attempt and chase), and after the event (Steph running into her friends' room - grabbing her bags and saying goodbye and then exiting quickly)...but I learned today that it's better to condense the action. 

"When she is scared and starts to run, I run in my head." Me putting a little scene with Steph talking to her friends as she grabs her bags gets in the way of the audience running in their heads.

I got Thomas to play the role of the creepy molester man, and later I got Mia to play his freaky wife (I replaced her with Steph's friends so that when Steph runs in to get her bag we get one more fright - it was great!!). Philippe got them both to dress scary like a Bouffon, with the make up and all.

They looked really scary, and were really great! We loved them. And Philippe got them to do a little scene together after Steph runs away (he suggested they can be racist against Mãori's here). "Two characters like this could kill all the other characters...If they do too much and we love them, it's a catastrophe for the show." Because then we wouldn't give a shit about Steph and her story. We just want to see the nasty's again.

I told Philippe I was writing this musical with the resources of a big budget Broadway theatre production in mind. That's how I see it being realised. So I asked how I could stage it in the space we have at school. And he said "Every place you can do something" and that it's the job of the director to find a way to stage it. 

Feeling more and more confident as a writer. And as a director - although I haven't done too much of that yet. But my ideas seem to work well theatrically, and I'm good at being clear about what I want. Though I need to work on communicating it in far less words than what I'm jabbering out now.

Although I do find myself being protective of my ideas and what I've written...

"When you speak to a writer you have to put on white gloves...they don't like to change one word of the text."

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Mike lead an improvisation from Mia's story about her family fleeing Chile to Australia to escape Pinochet.

Mike was using the opportunity to work with actors in front of an audience to test out ideas - not just to see how a scene works or what dialogue might be - and I thought this was a good method. What a luxury to be able to test risk-free in front of a live audience!

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After class Philippe was asked what he thinks the differences are between theatre and film. 

"If you do a movie you can be more subtle...With close-ups we understand...dialogue can be subtle...But theatre is more in the whole body...rhythm..."

"In a movie we can understand with of the movement of the camera...In theatre we have to understand with the movement of the actors."

Plus movies have music to let us know something is coming...

...An actor's rhythm does this job in theatre.

"If you are a good actor for theatre you could be good for film. But not always."

"You can be a wonderful actor for theatre but you don't exist for movies." He said for film you need to be attractive for the light. And in theatre you need to be fantastic: have fun with a game, complicité, humour..."a lot of qualities." He also spoke about the importance of 'the face' in determining whether an actor is better for theatre or film.

"Theatre is beautiful, but it has to be absolutely clear."

"For me, theatre is the best job in the world. You are always with people having fun with something."

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Whilst having dinner I watched this TED Talk by Shea Hembrey.

What he's done is super clever and really fun! I especially liked how he talked about art and the 3 H's: Head, Heart and Hand. 

1. Head: Interesting intellectual ideas and concepts. 
2. Heart: Passion and soul. 
3. Hand: Greatly crafted.

Sounds like a good mix to me!