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Just found another great blog for all of you out there who might be beginners, or just looking for an excuse to incorporate drama into one of your church's ministries. He has some great insights into production as well as how you can use drama in your church. Check out the Preaching Thespian at
thepreachingthespian.wordpress.com
When I was director of the Dramamaniacs, we did a skit show at Scenic Hills camp based on a series of questions. What makes you worry? Who can you trust? And the question in this scene, What are you afraid of? We used one of the actors' real life phobias to create an improvised scene that killed. There's no script for this but... eh, you really don't need a script. Just some grease paint. And a chair.
A church puts on a drama workshop with the goal of improving its Sunday morning drama productions. Most of the folks utilized on Sunday mornings are adults. But when the workshop is held, only the teenagers show up. Why is that?
Do the adults see no room for improvement in what they do? Are they too busy to attend? Are the intimidated? Are they afraid to mingle with the teens? Do they not care about giving the Lord their best in everything?
I honestly don't think it's a lack of caring. I think intimidation and a fear of the unknown (Is he going to make me improv? I can't do that!) are definitely factors. For students it's still easy to let that kid part out of you to "play." But for many adults, it's hard to be that vulnerable, even if it would benefit a ministry you serve.
I'm reminded of Jesus when he said we should all become like little children. Kids are teachable, less afraid of being proven wrong, less afraid to fail, even though failure is sometimes the best teacher.
As drama leaders, I think we need to do a good job communicating up front what our goals are, why we need to have such goals, and how we plan to get there. Give them the bad news (there will be improv), but also some good news (we promise not to video tape it and show it at the church picnic). Give them as much assurance as you can that you're not going to take all their time, make them look like a fool, and set them up to fail. Let them know the end game is to help them be a better servant to the Lord by developing the skills they have so graciously offered up.
tween Church musicals and the musical theatre you see on Broadway?
Traditionally, church musicals are dramas with songs stuck in them. The songs may be pop tunes, Christmas carols, hymns, or themed songs written to compliment the drama. They are stand alone pieces that stop the action of the drama for a musical interlude.
Musical Theatre is completely integrated. Songs are not stuck in there because you're using a certain artist's last album in a show for kids. Songs move the story forward. Characters sing when words are not enough to express how they feel. The action doesn't stop when the characters begin to sing. In fact, many times the action intensifies, and major plot points take place.
There's been a gradual awakening to this difference, and many Christians are starting to write more traditional Broadway type shows. Churchmusicals.com is a great resource to start with if you want to bring this kind of show to your church.
I've worked on three such shows with composer/song writer Bernadette Negus. Sidekick: The Musical is the first one to become available through the RI website. Check it out at www.righteousinsanity.com/musicals.html
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"Never Cheat on a Super Hero" placed 14 out of 71 in the ChristianFilmmakers.org 24 Hour Film Contest. I didn't expect to win, but I am very pleased with the results.
Over the years, I've managed to do well in finding an audience for my drama material. A lot of you out there love RI scripts, and I am thankful you've been able to use them. As a film maker, however, I think I am still seeking my audience. I don't write like most Christian writers, and I don't appeal to the standard Christian comedy (i.e. Chonda Pierce and Mark Lowry) audience. My humor tends to be darker, even meaner at times And this movie had a definite anti-climactic ending a lot of folks didn't like.
Nevertheless, I am proud of what we did, and very proud of those who helped make it. Denny Grinar (Freezy Boy) was just a band geek when I met him. He started hanging out at improv parties, and the theater bug bit him. He works extremely hard at his craft, and Denny is always looking for that one twist that will get a bigger laugh, even sacrificing himself to make it happen.
Jeff Williams is not an actor, but he married a long time friend, Addie, who has acted with me for years. Jeff worked very hard on his role, and when shooting began, he didn't need a lot of direction. His hard work paid off, and he gave a tremendous debut performance as Heatstroke.
Rounding out the cast is another former band geek turned professional wrestler, Jason Alexander. Jason is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, and immensely talented. He was extremely nervous, but with more than a decade in the squared circle (much of it as a heel), he had the skills to make the leap to film. He was a natural for Victor Von Spew, and we are already making plans for him to take on more demanding roles in future film projects.
I'd be remiss not to mention the ladies behind the camera. My wife Jessica filled in as Freezy Boy's nagging mom with great gusto. And Addie Williams' costume designs for Freezy Boy and Heatstroke were inspired.
The music score came from Kevin MacLeod, a composer who generously offers a wide range of royalty-free music on his website, www.incompetech.com. I urge all you indy film makers looking for good music to give Kevin's site a look. He has set the mood beautifully in many of my own works.
And last but not least, thanks to Natalie Nicole Gilbert for the use of her song "The Rest of Our Lives" in the car sequence. That definitely seems to be the favorite gag of the film's fans.
But enough of that. If you haven't seen the movie, check it out for yourself below. The web-based video is free to use if you can incorporate it in your ministry. Anyone who wants a full-quality copy can email me and we'll work something out.
A follow up to a recent post about auditions. After the auditions, the hard part begins. Here's how I approach it.
Every student who auditions for me fills out the same form. I ask for name, contact phone number, parents’ names, email, and what activities they are doing that may conflict with rehearsals. Knowing ahead of time which actors will be all but unavailable during your scheduled rehearsal times will save you headaches and sleepless nights down the road.
Take good, solid notes during auditions. Write down something to help you remember them (red hoodie, green pants, glasses, etc). Better yet, video tape the auditions so you can review them later. Make sure you examine how well they read, project their voice, and get into character. Also note their body posture and level of confidence. Look over the character list, and write a few options down as to what role they might fit. If possible, bring in an extra parent or theater enthusiast to take notes and give you a second set of eyes. They might very well pick up on a potential talent that you’ll miss.
When you sit down to start making the tough decisions, take a list of characters, go through the audition sheets, and write each actor’s name down beside every key role you think they could play. The idea here is to get a list of potential actors who could tackle each role. In doing so, you should be able to give yourself two or three options for every key role.
Sometime before auditions, make a list and rank the characters in order of importance to you as a director (not necessarily biggest part to smallest). Start with the number one role you deem most important and cast the best possible choice. Then work your way down the list. If there are certain roles on your list that only have one name beside them, make sure you don’t need that actor in a bigger part, then go ahead and make the call.
When I cast Midsummer recently, I had it easy. Puck was the priority role for me, and only one name ended up next to Puck’s on my cast list. (By necessity, Puck was a girl; we only had six guys audition, so I had to make a lot of traditional male roles female.) That same actress was in contention for Helena and Titania. Having eliminated her in those roles, I went to my next priority (Helena), and picked the best choice. I scratched that actress off the other roles I had considered for her and went to Hermia, then Titania, and so on.
Is it that cut and dry? Of course not! You’ll inevitably have one or two actors who will bother you and make you flip flop their roles four or five times. But eventually, you have to make a choice and stick with it. Helena was my number two priority for girls, but I went back and forth between two actresses for an hour after I cast the rest. The truth is, either girl would have been great, and both girls are excelling in the roles they did receive. I went with the one I felt could be the funniest, and I haven’t regretted it since.
The HARDEST thing you will have to do is cut people. If you have a play for eight characters and twenty audition, guess what? YOU get to break 12 hearts.
There's no easy way to do this, but there are strategies to soften the blow. When the actors come in to auditions, make it clear that there are only a certain number of roles. Tell them that not getting cast is not necessarily a reflection on whether or not they have talent. Your job is not to decide who has it and who doesn't, but determining the best people available for each and every part. Do everything you can up front to express this and prepare those who will be disappointed.
No matter what you do, feelings will be hurt, people will be disappointed. But there will be other shows, other auditions. Life goes on, and your actors will learn that in time.
It’s so easy to do. It’s so tempting to go there because it will solve your problem 98 times out of 100 and let you move on. But if you truly want to train an actor in the way he should go, it’s the last thing you should ever do.
What am I referring to? Directors who use those fatal words, “Say it like this…”
Whether you’re playing back a scene from a movie or speaking the line “correctly” on your own, you are crippling your actor. Yes, he will probably do it exactly the way you tell him. The trouble is, the serious young actor needs to learn how to find that right inflection on his own. To borrow the old cliché, our job as drama teachers is to teach the actor how to fish, not to simply hand him a fish sandwich. Tempting as it may be to short-cut the process and give your actor that line, don’t be afraid to take the time and let the actor find his own way.
A good case in my own experience came when I directed the play Harvey . The young actor who played Elwood P. Dowd refused to watch the movie before the play because he didn’t want to spoil his own performance. Had he seen the movie, the temptation to mimic James Stewart, whose performance is a film classic, would have been overwhelming. He would have become a shadow of someone else, rather than developing his own version of Dowd. As different as this student is from James Stewart as a person and a performer, it was the right choice for him.
Having said all that… not all of us are working with “serious” actors, especially in church drama. Often times you have actors helping out just because there's a need, and not for any serious attempt to become actors. What's more, church drama directors are often playing catch up because we don't get our scripts until the week before performance day. In these cases, coaching lines by demonstrating can be a beneficial strategy. Yes, I said you would be “crippling” them as actors, and I believe that. But if they’re not serious actors, there's no harm done, right?
The important thing is to present the best possible performance that coming Sunday. Know your actors, know their talent levels, and give all the chance to prepare to the best of their abilities.
The film featured in the blog today was entered in the christianfilmmakers.org 24 hour film contest today. The version you will see here is an extended cut. (The contest video had to be 3 minutes.) Enjoy!
