Through the Looking Glass: Aishlinn Parrinello Theater Notes/Reflections

 110 Context of the Play  - aim is to understand the context of the play from which you have chosen your monologue  - thinking about your character and what your character is like  - jot down first impressions of the play, what you think the playwright wanted to tell the audience through the play  - the knowledge you gain from reading the play will help you start to create your character  - a character that is out of context of the play will stand out straight away  - understand the play as a whole before looking at your character in detail  - think about what your character wants and is doing  111 The Facts of the Play  - list all the major facts you know about your character from the play  - work through the play, writing down all the facts you know about your character  - look for the characters age, family details, where the character grew up, main childhood events, main influence on your character from people, places, and ...

           For our final version of our spare scenes project, we added lighting, sound, and camera angles to our Artaud interpretation of scene 5. For the lighting, we decided to start off the scene with dark red lights that are cast across the whole stage. The scene starts off with the camera close up on Millie, getting closer and closer. This camera angle is meant to make the audience uncomfortable with the closeness and Millie’s obvious distress: she is breathing heavily and shaking. The red light is meant to signify the murder that she just committed, as it represents blood. The beginning of the scene ends with the camera very close to Millie’s face. Throughout the beginning of the scene we have the sound of crickets chirping in the background, and as the camera gets closer the sound gets louder and louder until it is piercing and no longer distinguishable as crickets. I think that some of the increase in sound was lost in the recording, but it was stil...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hiMHqfk1RU 

 In class today, Millie, Jackson and I worked on an interpretation of scene 5 using the Artaud Method. We decided to interpret the scene as a police interrogation with a murder in the beginning of the scene. We had Jackson be the interrogator and Millie be the criminal; I was the murdered person. We decided to include some levels and physicality in the scene to embody Artaud. In the beginning of the scene, I stood emotionless and Millie stabbed me in the stomach, then I fell backwards with my body limp on the floor. Then Millie took off her watch and placed it in my hand and then sat at the desk. At this point the scene was quiet, then Jackson walked onto stage, stomping. This sound filled up the room. When he started speaking, he put his face right up next to Millie's to make the audience uncomfortable with his closeness. Jackson continued to interrogate Millie until he asked her if she had a watch, then took my leg and dragged me over to the desk and then flung my arm up so that ...

      As an audience member, I really enjoyed watching the performance of "She Kills Monsters." I think all of the actors did really well and the show was well executed. I was surprised at how much comedy there was in the show - I wasn't expecting to laugh so much. I was confused for a good part of the show because I did not understand what dungeons and dragons was (I thought it was a video game, I didn't know that you wrote your own story in the game) but I understood the overall storyline of the show. My favorite part of the show was fight scene between Chuck and Miles and the scene where Tilly introduces her party. I think both of these scenes were really well executed and I think that the music, lighting, costumes, and props contributed to the comedic affect in the first and the overall cool vibes in the second.        In my opinion, I am not a huge fan of fight scenes in theater because they seem cheesy and out of place to me, but I understand tha...