"You As A Writer - You Have To Be Better Than What We Imagine."

A scene from Sophia's story (written by Thomas and directed by Steph) was shown. "Many ideas but no games." Philippe then worked to simplify the scene.

~

Amy (Melbourne) led some improvisations of her version of Christine's story. Amy offered some different ways to start her story, but was unsure of which option would be best. "We will see. We start and we will see." Amy's ideas were rather abstract, and Philippe kind of steered her away from things that weren't essential to telling the story.

~

I took the opportunity to work some more scenes from Steph: The Musical which have been floating in my head since I got feedback on Friday. So I tried a few scenes between Steph and the love interest 'Tama' - a local Mãori boy - who I have created for the purposes of good story telling! The new scenes included the first meeting: 

1. Steph being picked up by Tama on his motorbike as a hitchhiker. 
2. Steph being cared for at Tama's place, calling her mother in Canada, and staying the night as she has nowhere else to go.
3. A love scene in which Steph and Tama sneak into the Waitomo Caves on New Years Eve, and share their first kiss. 

Philippe said as soon as we see Steph get saved by a guy on a motorbike we think they are going to fall in love. My job as a writer then is to surprise the audience by how they fall in love. Or if in my story they in fact do not fall in love (which isn't actually the case) then as a writer I have to offer something extraordinary instead of a love story. Maybe he's an alien?...Or an elf?...

I had Katy and Ric play Steph and Tama. Katy - because she's a strong singer. And Ric, because I think he looks the most Mãori in the class. But Ric was actually a pop star back in Singapore. 

Ric is the one in a blue shirt (0:18)!!!

So perfect choice! They were really good together too. They both play well in the musical theatre 'bigger' style. And I definitely want to cast them for the performance of this beast!

~

"It's important we imagine."

"You as a writer - you have to be better than what we imagine." ...If you are not the audience will undoubtedly ask for their money back.

~

Mike led an improvisation of a scene from Mia's story. Philippe told the actors that if they feel loved by the audience they can stay on stage, and whenever they feel that they were not loved, they should leave the stage (and then return later, with something new). This gave an extra energy to the improvisation! One great moment was when Andre had just yelled at his children for mucking around when they were packing frantically trying to make a quick escape: "What are you doing?!?" And then he turned to look at his wife (Claire - who was a bit lost on stage at the time), and yelled "What are YOU doing?!?"

~

I spoke to Philippe briefly at the end of class, and mentioned I may direct my writing too, and he advised me to give the actors a good impulse and to avoid naturalism. He talked about how 'natural' is boring, and actually doesn't exist (what is 'natural?'). It's better to give something alive - that helps us dream.