DN two specific scenes

The first scene I will explore further is the scene when the second couple in the play arrive (the black couple) I want this scene to have an intense vibe. I want the emotion in the air to be clear that things are going to happen in this house. The actors on stage will not give off this vibe or emotion but the house, sound and stage design itself will. I will have pleasant but still unsettling piano music playing when they arrive. Hopeless by: Myuu would be perfect, at least the first 1:30 minutes of it.

The second scene is when Russ says that he won't protect or support a community that didn't try to save his son. This scene must be in my eyes a powerful moment. I want Russ to scream it in pure anger. As if Karl should have known that from the. start before he even asked Russ to not sell the house. Russ should be deeply disrespected by Karl for even asking him to do anything for him. So the scene will show Russ's deep deep pain from losing his son. As mentioned before I want Russ's son to be the most likable character on stage. He saw war and does not bother with racism and other pointless fights and pickles like it. And he takes his own life which I want the audience to be extremely affected by. I want the audience to see it coming but still, be affected by it. Back to Russ's scene, when he says 'I WON'T SUPPORT A COMMUNITY THAT DIDN'T TRY TO SAVE MY SON' I want everyone to feel it, it has to come from a deep place of hatred for the community. Karl will pause, and simply walk out of the house leaving Russ all fired up and ready to fight anything that comes in his way.

Collaborative debriefing

For our collaborative Me and Olivia have come up with some great ideas and concepts! After about a week of ideas back and forth, discussions, agreements, and disagreements, we have come to a final standing. For the collaborative piece, we will focus on the conceptual theory of nihilism and existentialism. We will set up small and big scenarios to show how each side takes on life and how they behave. (These are going to be to fictional characters representing the two sides soo nothing that the characters do is set in stone, it is merely going to be our interpretation of how a nihilist and an existentialist could react and behave on a magnified scale)  We will have them set up on a very small stage, we want to make the experience to be very intimate and intense for the audience. Something that would be very hard and difficult to set up if we have a piece play out on a larger stage. The reasoning for having a small stage is also due to how the movements are going to be very small. The props are also going to be small. So the Audience has to be right there with us to be able to see what we want them to see. What we know for sure is that we are going to have a Newton Crattle as a ground zero for the moment. It will be placed center stage and the true meaning of it we are still discussing.  

Overall pitch, Directors notebook

For this project I have chosen to work with the play Clybourne park (2009) by Bruce Norris.

The play takes place in the same house and the 2 acts are split up with the first act taking place in 1959 and the second act in 2009. The first act very much focused on how biased many in the white community at the time were against the black community. What interests me is Russ and Bevs son Kenneth who takes his own life after coming back from the Korean war, he is such an interesting character I feel and I really want to showcase him as being “better” than his parents in those few scenes that he has. And when we get any flashbacks of Kenneth I want him to be the most likeable person of all the characters. The Reason for this is because I want to throw in a little more connection between the audience and Russ & Bev. When Karl tries to convince Russ of not selling the house to a family just because they are black I want Russ to have multiple motives as to why he won't do what Karl says. And when he says that he won't “protect” a community that didn’t try to save his son I want it to be a really powerful moment. Then there is the racist aspects of the play, I want all of these to be highlighted but not as hate, as fear. Racism is just people being scared, and I want it to show. Characters that show themself to be very openly racist, the audience must be able to see through their “confident-hate” and see them for what they really are, scared. The second act is going to follow along with the same themes as the first act, I might still add a few more focal points after I have studied the script further and in more detail.