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(it is important to note that these proposals are not in their original format. each proposal also has a distinctive visual style, and if i were a better coder you'd be able to see it here. sorry.)

Please Forgive My Dear Education Discourse

In the first grade, we were all artists and dancers and singers and writers and actors and musicians and comedians. Not only that, but we were the best in the universe at anything we attempted to do. Then we started school, and all of a sudden, stories had to follow a plot, songs had to have a melody, dances had to have a beat, plays had to have a script, and paintings had to be real. We discovered technique, and many of us discovered that we lacked it. Many kids grow up without arts in their lives at all, and the schools, unfortunately, do very little to change this. Providence schools have recently come under the gun to concentrate more on standards in order to bring test scores up, and our dear friend Art has suffered because of this. What few arts programs they have are poorly funded and insufficient to really convince children that they're artists.

I came into Asa Messer Elementary School last year with an after school drama program (aptly named Asa Messer Drama Program) to meet a demand that was being completely overlooked. Since then, the program has striven to introduce theatre to kids in a safe, fun, non-threatening way and help them discover new ways of using theatre as an outlet, as an amplifier for their voices. These kids had absolutely no exposure to theatre at all. No classes, no fieldtrips, and the closest thing they have to a stage is an alcove in the cafeteria. Most of these kids had never been onstage before. Some of them had seen plays, but seemed fairly unaffected by their experiences. Their ideas of actors were glamorous movie stars with limousines and mansions with pools in the Hollywood Hills. They didn't fit this lifestyle, and therefore, they were not actors. I still, after a year and a half of Drama Club, argue daily with some students who claim that they "stink" at theatre. So my volunteers and I come in two days a week and try to help kids discover the acting bug by letting them create their own theatre, working week after week to prove to them that theatre is not something that someone else does.

But we have little help in our endeavor. Without theatre programs in the schools, there is no constant reminder that theatre is not an elite club. If the students go to plays at all (and most of them don't) they are presented with a work that someone else wrote, that someone else is acting in, and the most they can do is just sit and watch as someone else gets to be the artist. Imagine: An incredibly lucky fifth grade class takes an almost unheard of field trip to see a play at a local theatre. The teacher reminds them on the bus ride over that a good audience member sits quietly, doesn't distract or disturb, and then claps for the performers at the end. And they follow the directions. And theatre is yet another experience fraught with rules and limitations, yet another aspect of life over which they have no control. One terribly cosmopolitan student makes an insightful connection between going to the play and going to a museum: Look, but don't touch. At Asa Messer, we give the students no choice but to touch. They take theatre, knead it, mold it, fashion a hat from it, smash it, and form something that is totally their own. They own their theatre, and there is no doubt about their freedom with it. Hopefully by the end of the year, I'll have everyone saying, "Hello, my name is So And So, and I am an artist."

But we are only in one school; one in 25 elementary schools and 9 middle schools. That ratio is unacceptable to me. Since we've started, three other schools have asked us to bring our program to them because they also are utterly lacking in theatre opportunities and simply don't have the money to provide their own. But we are stretched thin as it is, and one school is all we can tackle. There are other programs, and there are schools that are self sufficient with the arts. But by and large, there is a definite lack of theatre in Providence Schools. And therefore, there is a definitely lack of students who feel that indescribable feeling of ownership and connection with theatre.

But what if students saw proof that they are just as qualified to create theatre as anyone living in the Hills? What if they themselves were celebrated as playwrights, as revered creative forces? What if it were their words being spoken on stage? If they were in charge of what happened in a play? What if they were able to see the present tense of theatre alive in front of them instead of something created long ago? That's what this proposal is all about. That's what I want to accomplish through this production.

The distance between an audience member and a production doesn't end once we get out of grade school. This "I'm Not An Artist"-itis is not automatically cured when we graduate high school and enter the world. After twelve years of schooling, many of us have been indoctrinated, and we are timid to create. Even at Brown, there are entire populations of people who are not connected to theatre because they were introduced to it at a distance. Many of them react by not attending theatre productions. This leaves theatre at Brown with a very self-selected audience, an audience limited in scope due to inhibitions a dozen years in the making. This production would be very different from what Brown theatre has done in the past, and PW is precisely the place where this change should happen. Not only does it reach out into the community of Providence, it depends on Providence reaching back. A symbiotic relationship that the production itself will strive to replicate. It also reaches farther into the Brown community, involving the Swearer Center for Public Service and the Education Department, especially in interactions with the schools and getting additional support for community involvement. Peter Hocking, the director of the Swearer Center, is behind this project one hundred per cent and has offered his help in any way shape or form. This connection will bring in new audience members from the Brown community through the Swearer Center, and also from various arts programs around the state with which Pete has contact. This production, I have no doubt, would diversify the group of students in the audience and mix them with fourth grade teachers, first graders, middle school principals, arts council chairmen, and families of six. Talk about branching.

With fourth graders and college juniors, something must be done to re-establish the connection between the audience and a performance. I think this is it.

The Scripts are Coming. Trust Me.

On Monday, 25 elementary schools and nine middle schools received a fax announcing the First Annual Providence Youth Playwriting Contest. The students are presently working on their masterpieces for submission. The winning plays from each age group will be performed by a core cast of about ten Brown students, as opposed to their peers. This gives the sense that it's more than just a class assignment; the writers' work has broken out beyond the walls of the school, and is now in the public. It's professional. Throughout the performance process, the winning playwrights will be invited to rehearsals intermittently to see if we are doing justice to their work. I want them to be there at the beginning, the middle and toward the end (and Of Course for the final production!!) so that they can see the process of evolution of theatre, of their theatre specifically. They'll watch their words transform through lights, costumes, set, and actors into a performance. They'll offer up their opinions, suggestions, questions, and work with us if there need to be any tweaks in the scripts. I never want a writer to feel that his work has been taken away from him, but these are still working scripts and may need adjustments, and this allows the writers to be involved even more in the present tense creation of theatre.

My proposal is for a show consisting of about and hour's worth of youth-written plays followed by a twenty minute improvised children's play, determined entirely by audience input.

The Royal Audience

So we've held this contest, we've gotten these plays, and now approximately five members of the audience feel connected to the performance through ownership. Five is not enough. (I'm eternally insatiable, aren't I?) The rest of the audience needs to feel invested as well, needs to know that without them, the show would have been completely different, or wouldn't have happened at all. So how do we do this? What is the secret behind making this connection real? The plays written by the young playwrights must retain the artistic integrity of the writers, but to allow the audience an opportunity to participate in the production of pieces of the play would give them that sense of ownership and investment that the performance seeks to accomplish. This participation would begin immediately upon arrival to the show. While the audience waits to be seated (say an hour before the start of the show), they will help us construct certain set pieces in a "craft studio." We will provide smocks, paints (finger and non-), cardboard, fabric, feathers, whatever we can get our hands on and will make for an interesting set. One group might be in charge of making a sun, another might be in charge of making a crown for the king, another for a life-sized cardboard figure of Elvis Presley (or something). Then a few volunteers will help us set the creations right before the performance. The audience will warm up with the actors to get into the groove of performing, to let them know that they are expected to be a part of this. They'll stretch and shake and big face and little face and high to low. So everyone sits down and sees their work as an intricate part of the workings of the play. But audiences don't come to the theatre to look at the set (as brilliant as it may be and Will be!); they come for the show, and so that sense of investment and ownership must carry over into the actual performance. Audience volunteers will help us create the plays by acting as sound effects, as a Greek Chorus, as an ocean, whatever the play calls for and however we feel the audience can play a role. I don't necessarily expect people to emerge from the theatre and say right off the bat, "Gracious. That certainly was an empowering piece of theatre. The symbiosis between audience and performance was enough to make me feel like an artist." Hopefully those feelings will come, but may not be expressed as such. I want people to come away from this show feeling as though they've truly experienced something. I want them to not feel an ounce of passivity. I want them to refer to it as their play, because the next night, it might be completely different. I want them to take a bow at the end, to give themselves a hand. Mainly, I want them to have a good time.

Can I Get a Non-Geographical Location?

As for the second part of the production, the core cast will perform a completely improvised play based on audience suggestions and desires. During the "Craft Time" before the show, some people will be working on a mural of a universe on a canvas curatin, a world in which they would like to see a story take place. Based on this mural, suggested characters or plot lines, and maybe even props and costume pieces provided and selected by the audience, the cast will piece together a play that they make up on the spot. This improvisation will be the ultimate culmination of everything that this production strives to embody: ownership by the audience and also the performers, proof of present tense in art, taking risks, and having huge blast. The last element may be less noble than the others, may do less for the good of the universe, but I think is just as important in drawing people to theatre and truly having them be affected by it.

Play On, Playahs. Play On

The success of this performance depends greatly on the cast-its adaptability, its willingness to take risks, its sense of humor, its collaborative trust. No one can be cool in this show; it just won't work. There in no room for smoothness, no room for the Fonz; there is an inherent necessity for silliness. I'll have to cast the play before I have the scripts nailed down, so I plan on just putting together a group of about ten actors who are versatile, fun, and excited about the show. During auditions, I want to play tag with people, I want them to draw self portraits while they wait, I want them to sing a capella Whitney Houston Power Ballads. I want to see people with their inhibitions stripped away so I can get an idea of what they are willing to do.

This show will be fun, but it won't be unchallenging. I see it as a fabulous opportunity for actors of all levels and styles to grow as performers. People who haven't auditioned for a show at Brown yet might see this as a really fun, safe show to use to ease themselves into the theatre community. Hopefully it will lure a more diverse crowd to auditions. More experienced actors can get back to the roots of Play, rediscover letting go and making their inner critics shut the hell up. This production offers endless freedom for a performer. Many young playwrights may not think through in-depth characterizations for their pieces, and so the actors can explore a full spectrum of ways to play with characters. Also, many performers will have to abandon their imbedded characteristic acting styles, and try on totally different personas. I'm really excited to see people discover different ways of performing and expand their repertoires.

For the improvised play, there are even more challenges that are going to be a blast to overcome. Improvisation is one of the hardest things a performer can do, but also one of the most rewarding. To have nothing to rely on but one's own imagination is a frightening thing at times, but also exhilarating. I've been in Improvidence (improv comedy-crazy times, man) for the past two and a half years, and I look back and see how much I've grown in that time as a comedian, but mostly as an actor. Improv in general has been a learning process for me, an arduous one at times, but one that is valuable for any actor. I think that it is one of those things that we do naturally. Children Play Pretend for hours and never tire. This is because if a story starts to go in a direction they don't like, they can change it to fit their desires. A lot of what I've learned from Improvidence, but mostly what I've learned from watching my Asa Messer students, is just to let go of the inhibitions, that voice that tells you not to say something, any fiber of self-consciousness. It sounds odd, but improv has re-taught me how to play like I did when I was six-unconcerned with anything but being true and having fun. How appropriate that improv be a part of this production!

How Do You Get To Carnegie Hall?

As excited as I am about the actual performance, I may actually possibly be more excited about the rehearsal process. I don't ever want any of my actors to feel like they show up, read lines, and go home (what director does?). Part of what is going to make this production such a blast is the "Kid Factor" of it. The cast will be performing the work of young playwrights (Very young playwrights in some cases), and part of what makes their work unique is the Essence of Kid (Eau De Kid?) that is no doubt infused in every word of their work. At the very beginning of rehearsals especially, but continuing throughout, I want to concentrate on "letting go." I want the actors to really connect with the kid-ness of the production and the kid-ness of themselves. We'll volunteer for Story Time at the Providence Public Library and act out the stories for kids who come. We'll play tag. We'll go to Chuck E. Cheese. We'll relive painful memories of adolescence by bringing in pictures of us when we were thirteen with a bad perm and braces and a MathCounts! tshirt holding my debate trophy. So we'll relive my painful memories of adolescence. I've done a great exercise where everyone stands in a circle, and one person at a time spends about three minutes just running with his eyes closed while everyone else watches and runs to the rescue if something goes horribly wrong. It's great to watch the runners though, because one gets a fascinating image of them as a child, not caring about stride or rhythm or falling. They just want to run. I also want to explore clowning with the actors, really delving deep into physicality and the bare bones of comedy. I want to take the campus by storm with a few guerilla theatre sessions on main green. These exercises will not only cause for more aware actors, but actors who have made asses of themselves in front of each other and now are bonded for life (and you cannot break that, not with a thousand swords).

Much of rehearsal is going to concentrate on improv, not only in preparation for the improvised section of the performance, but for the whole thing-getting used to thinking on one's feet, dealing with the idiosyncrasies of the audience, more letting go, breaking beyond technique, having a good time. Rehearsals for improv are phenomenal. It isn't about perfection. It isn't about nailing down the best way of doing a scene, saying a line, portraying a character. It's about discovering different avenues of performance that you never knew existed before. (Then follow those avenues, then hang a right, then a sharp left, go through three-no four-stop signs, thenÖ) It's about trying something totally new every time, never relying on what's been done before.

I Am The Greatest Director In The Universe

I've never directed in downstairs PW; I've never directed in upstairs PW; this whole experience will be somewhat new for me. I think this is a great project for a somewhat new director because it allows for a lot of freedom-in terms of casting, in terms of staging, in terms of figuring out fun ways of doing the mundane. It offers a certain sense of confidence in that no one can say, "I saw it done better on Broadway." This will be the best production of these plays ever done in the history of time. True I've never directed in this space before, but I've directed in contexts very similar to this.

I've directed in the gym of Asa Messer Elementary School-a brilliant up-and-coming cast of forty 4th a 5th graders. This has been my greatest challenge as a director, I can honestly say-to wrangle this many personalities and agendas, this many "She called me stupid"s, this many "I can't act"s has been enough to make my head spin at times. But at the end of last year, when I watched each of these students perform pieces that they'd memorized, written, improvised, choreographed, practicepracticepracticed, I was blown away by what I saw, and all the head-spinning was worth it.

And I've directed in Wilson 309. I've been working with a small group of women to form a female comedy troupe (2 C's in a K). A few of them have never done comedy before, a couple have never even been onstage before, and it's truly amazing to watch novices interact with veterans in this format of theatre that so many people find so intimidating. The less experienced women have a certain freshness to them that is so delightful to watch, because they're not thinking about technique, they're just having fun playing. My job as director is to meld the two styles: trained and untrained, because each has much to learn from the other. A few of them retain their inhibitions, but there is an atmosphere of increasing trust, and every week, I am able to get them to do something harder than what they did the week before.

And I have directed in Faunce House, Room 341. Improvidence is going through a transformation of sorts. We've done short form, three to five minute games for the past twenty years, and we have decided that it's not enough anymore, so we're branching out, discovering new territory in terms of different formats and styles. It's an exciting time to be alive, let me tell ya. This is a particularly exciting transition for me, because I'm preparing to take over as co-leader/director for next year as the first "Big Mama" of a former boys club. I've worked my way up the ladder, so to speak, learning the subtle intricacies of every rung, and now I'm ready to support others on their climbs.

As a director, my most important job will be to give my actors as much freedom as I can give to allow them to discover the theatre they want to create.

My Baby Wants PW

The freedom of a performer, of a designer, and as a director seems to have been born in PW. This production offers nothing but this freedom, which is why PW is such a perfect fit. It's a new idea, and PW seems to be founded on new ideas. The reason that I am so passionate about this project is that it gives children the feeling of being professionals, of being taken seriously as artists. As I've mentioned, a huge population of kids in Providence don't have access to theatre spaces. They don't know what a gel is or a sound board or a proscenium stage. If anything, they know what an auditorium is. I could feasibly do this project in another space, but what PW offers is a real theatre. It is impressive and professional, yet adaptable and intimate, and certainly not traditional (and upstairs space is perfect for a Craft Studio!). It is a space that kids will walk into and say, "Wow, my play is going to be performed here?!"

These students are used to not being taken seriously. They're used to being treated as children. This production would be possible elsewhere-in a lounge or in a classroom. But it would lose all credibility, and the students would not get the respect they deserve. Why is some famous dead guy's work more important than theirs? It's not, but their work has never been celebrated, and the famous dead guy's work has been. I need PW to help me truly celebrate the work of these kids, to let them know that their words are valuable and they are indeed artists.

Production Crew

Director		Liz Parrott	
Stage Manager		Zara Findlay-Shirras (S.M. Mentor- Adam Immerwahr)
Production Manager	Alden Eagle
Technical Director	Adam Immerwahr
Set Designer		Naomi Kenner
Lighting Designer	Garland McQuinn
Sound Designer		Alden Eagle
Master Electrician	Maya Bruhns
Props			Jamieson Bunn

Budget

$125	Costumes
$100	Copying (Scripts and Publicity)
$125	Set
$100 	Props

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