Jayne, Kathy, 

I, too, love LOVE your concept.  


Just doing a play kind of bores me.  It's too expected, too Winedale as usual.  

What you are proposing would be our homage to everything that has been done in that barn over all these long, wonderful years.   Just reading the sentence about Lear and Falstaff sharing a stage, however briefly, made me shiver.   I think it's brilliant.

 And it gives us another way into the scenes -- each one of us  picking g a character we most love or hate or are comically thrilled by and then,  following our rough guidelines about love put asunder/love by reunion regained,  choose the scene that best represents them in that arc of circumstance .  I bet you those characters and those scenes could be easily shaped around our themes. 

And guys,  I am deeply thrilled by the idea of sharing the stage in that manner with all of you.  It makes it less about the individual performances and more about the group that is up there together being both audience and performers.  


Love, Terry 



-----Original Message-----
From: Alice Gordon <alicegordon@earthlink.net>
To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Fri, May 21, 2010 12:53 am
Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] For Your Consideration

Actually, Jayne and Kathy,

I think the concept you put forth is so flexible and rich that almost any
scene could flow from any other. Having everyone on stage, or a large group
at any given time, makes for the possibility of built-in transitions
wherever they are called for. It makes me think of Peter Brook's Majahbarata
(spelling); Theatre du Complicite at its most imaginative and physical.
Throw in the duty of performers onstage but not integral to the main action
to toss this king a crown or that princess a cape or that thug a
knife‹reunion history shows that when we put out the black and white outfit
idea and all agree it's great we immediately succumb completely to
plundering the costume/prop treasure heap when we get to Winedale‹and you
have a complete support system:

You have always at hand, 1) the main characters in the scene, 2) the
secondary and tertiary characters, 3) the emergers from the crowd or the
shadows to take over as a scene changes, 4) all the help you need with
[minimal] costumes, props, and sound effects, crowd effects, and PEOPLE
effects--people forming themselves into a wall, a bridge, a boat, a
forest.... Talk about ensemble! Talk about reunion!

To do this would require incredible discipline, intuitive listening, sharing
of the stage both metaphorically and really, and lots of Gatorade. It would
limit the amount of time we could go off by ourselves to work on things but
would instead provide us with a sympathetic, demanding, understanding
audience (ourselves!) to bolster each and every one of us during our entire
creative process. It also likely could draw on many if not all of the
conceptual suggestions laid out thus far.

I love it.

All that said, I also love that the notion of one whole play has come up.
Past reunions have presented The Comedy of Errors, Midsummer, and The Merry
Wives of Windsor. Mary and I confided to one another a couple of weeks ago
that thinking about the scenes in Pericles that had to do with mystery and
magic, reunion and reconciliation, lost and found, comedy and bawdiness, had
us seeing that this play has it all--and in the bargain plentiful
opportunities for a whole class to engage and delve and shine. So were we to
do one play, I would vote for that one.

But the consensus seems to be scenes. And that Winedale tradition is
honorable and exciting and deep and fun in equal measure.

There you have my excited late-night thoughts about your wine-inspired
approach.

A sip of whisky to you all,
Alice

> From: "Suhler, Jayne" <jsuhler@mail.smu.edu>
> Reply-To: <weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 21:58:23 -0500
> To: "weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org" <weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Conversation: For Your Consideration
> Subject: [Weeklong-l] For Your Consideration
> 
> Kathy and I are sitting in my backyard drinking wine. Sound good? It is. We
> are talking about what we remember most from Winedale: laughter, wonderment,
> discovery. Here are some of our thoughts, halfway through our first bottle.
> 
> Picture if you will: A series of scenes from different plays,
> flowing/melding/morphing directly from one to the next, without break. The
> people already on stage become part of the next scene and so on. Accessories
> and props can help in the transformation. (The rubber chicken, as always, will
> be in Kathy's pants.)
> 
> Imagine, if you will, Lear and Falstaff on stage together, if only for a
> moment. Wonderment.
> 
> In some ways - follow us here - this allows us to consider scenes in a
> different way. It raises new possibilities, new revelations. As Lear and his
> Fool finish, a man from the back table rises and sees a dagger. He becomes
> Macbeth. Or maybe a woman on a bench rises and goes into "What a rogue and
> peasant slave am I..." She is Hamlet.
> 
> Someone yells out from the side aisle, and Petruchio enters and all left on
> stage become servants, including Hamlet. Laughter.
> 
> This would take some serious thinking to put together scenes that could
> reasonably follow one another. But we think it's possible. We wanted to throw
> our idea out here in the spirit of brainstorming and exploration. Discovery.
> 
> Minimal, simple costumes. Black pants/skirts, white shirts? This would allow
> everyone to turn around and become someone else immediately, on stage, before
> the audience. Sometimes people would leave and come back, maybe the stage
> would be empty for a moment, or one person might be left standing to perform a
> sonnet or a song. He is joined by Kate and it is Petruchio and Kate, and they
> are joined by the weird sisters around their cauldron, and that becomes
> Bohemia, which turns into fairies and so on until finally, at the end,
> Prospero is left standing. "Our revels now have ended. These our actors, as I
> foretold you, are all spirits and have melted into air. Into thin air..."
> 
> Obviously, it doesn't have to be ANY of these scenes we've mentioned. It can
> be all of those wonderful scenes everyone else has thrown out for
> consideration. We can have partial scenes, soliloquies, songs. And a little
> bear baiting and a back trick or two.
> 
> Again, we're just writing out loud, submitting our thoughts into the
> conversation. Maybe it sounds like we're talking more process than substance,
> but we're not. We really believe that we can find connections and discover
> themes that we never knew before. Unless that's the wine talking. Let us know.
> 
> Kathy & Jayne
> 
> ____________________________________
> From: weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
> [weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Maggie Megaw
> [maggie@bizaffairs.com]
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 12:58 PM
> To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] thoughts from an old brain
> 
> This is fun! and such a change from the usual contents of my in box on an
> average morning.  Given, say, two weeks I¹d love to do two plays, but I think
> we will mix it up more and have more opportunity to play if we go with a
> variety of scenes.  So here¹s my vote for suites of scenes from a (small)
> handful of plays.  The problem I kept butting up against in trying to find one
> scene each from a number of different plays organized around‹for instance‹the
> theme of reunion/ reconciliation is that it seemed heavy on the dessert table,
> leaving the savory dishes aside.  Both for the players and for the audience,
> that seemed a less satisfying prospect than this does.  Lots of endings with
> no beginnings.  Mary and Gail seemed to be heading in this direction a few
> days ago, and now Bruce and Matt and Jackson have made the point that taking
> several scenes from 3-4-5 plays would allow for a range of scenes that would
> make better sense together, add up to more to sink our teeth into, more fun,
> more texture, more meaning.  That and the fact that this structure would allow
> us to take off from very different starting points‹AYL v. Lear v. Comedy v.
> Winter¹s Tale v. iHIV (Gail¹s failed reunion idea, which I love) v. Taming v.
> MSN, for instance‹to arrive at their final but very different expressions of
> reconciliation (and in some cases magic).  I think once we have the plays, the
> choice of scenes will almost take care of itselfŠ
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:weeklong-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Robert Jackson
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 8:21 AM
> To: weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Weeklong-l] thoughts from an old brain
> 
> 
> 
> I was looking forward to working on scenes from a number of plays, even it
> 
> meant two scenes each from, say, ten plays (however, the time works out),
> 
> i.e. Gail's idea of the storm and the reconciliation, and I, and I thought
> 
> others, going back to the beginning of the discussion, were hoping to study
> 
> a wide range of plays, juxtaposing Shakespeare's different approaches to two
> 
> or three themes.  And making each scene as rich as possible; the iceberg
> 
> where 7/8's of the mass is below.  That's a lot of work!!  But it's a lot of
> 
> putting word to the action, action to the word, and much good thinking about
> 
> both.
> 
> 
> 
> On the other hand, doing two full plays in a week will mean we spend all our
> 
> time running lines!  Is this Winedale?  Or an anxiety dream of regional
> 
> theater?  Perhaps I'm too blunt, and possibly need to take a nap.  I'm
> 
> terrible at this email conference.  And keep swearing to keep my mouth shut.
> 
> I'll say no more.  And be a hermit.  Mum.
> 
> 
> 
> -Jackson
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> 
> From: "Bruce Meyer" <Bruce.Meyer@UTSouthwestern.edu>
> 
> To: <weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org>; <kozusko@mac.com>
> 
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 10:48 AM
> 
> Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] thoughts from a brain that is spendingtoo muchtime
> 
> in the
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> Actually, i AM serious about the two play suggestion - massive
> 
>> undertaking, so just the kind of impossible task that we are best suited
> 
>> for....
> 
>> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
> 
>> From: Matt Kozusko <kozusko@mac.com>
> 
>> To:  <weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> 
>> 
> 
>> Sent: 5/20/2010 8:20:53 AM
> 
>> Subject: Re: [Weeklong-l] thoughts from a brain that is spending too
> 
>> muchtime in the real world....
> 
>> 
> 
>> 
> 
>> Dear All,
> 
>> 
> 
>> A grinning and excited second for Bruce's suggestion that we consider
> 
>> longer chunks of fewer plays so that we can get some of the playlong
> 
>> arcs into our storytelling.  And two full plays is a great idea, I
> 
>> think, if you're serious.
> 
>> 
> 
>> Matt
> 
>> 
> 
>> 
> 
>> _______________________________________________
> 
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> 
>> Weeklong-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> 
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/weeklong-l
> 
>> 
> 
>> 
> 
>> _______________________________________________
> 
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> 
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> 
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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