Notes from 2.20 meeting

Here are some items that we talked about and their corresponding decisions and/or tangents that would effect the script and direction of the project:

1) We talked a lot about the importance of having a concept and then using that concept to go back to (a beacon if you will....and I will...bad joke) when making decisions in the direction of the piece. The following are ideas, words about how people saw this script and where it should go.


-structure,creativity,security

-we have to pick between history and storytelling and we have to narrow down which one and when at different points in the script

-poking fun of history. Are we using history as backdrop to tell our story?

-confusion: we’re setting it up under the guise as a historical tour, so when does it start to begin to come alive? and how does Marion react to that? This could be a directors choice

-not pure history, satire history? fun history? and then it becomes something else....and the tension between the security and the creativity parallels this.

-What is Marion’s reaction to the William/mother/dad scene when she can’t control the “history” or her tour.

-movement between the Ford and memory scene. -Ashley is writing this.

-what is the level of surprise for Marion when these uncontrollable things happen and how much of this is fake surprise and how much is serious.

-Is the concept about more the difference btwn-real and not real vs. control and not control? There is a fine distinction, some of it is manifestation of real stories but starts to turn into something else.

-Has Marion done this before? Is this the tour day that went wrong?

-themes: ridiculousness of the building, no practicing, no art on the walls, locks, security codes. To Marion: this is what it’s supposed to be. it’s shocking and unacceptable.

-What happens to Marion in her transformation? The question becomes...How does this piece end? When and how does the student begin to lead and what will aid in a believable, sympathetic jump when he is kind of a jerk.

-If we’re having Marion be the rules and the regulations, then is the student representing the creativity and the altered perception of history? How can we use these and what stage images do we use to convey this

-is the student a modern kid of UWM?

-If there is this competition between Marion and Student, who wins? Is it important to keep it ambiguous or do we need a clearly defined ideology.

-What are we asking the audience to do with the surrealness of the scenes (with happy days and the fire). We agree that the “climax” of the play is in this scene.


We then began our conversation of step by step writing/directing decisions from when Marion and the tour gets into the elevator:

-idea was brought up for vignettes on different floors. The ideas is that they would on their travels go to the wrong floor...and there would be a vignette and then it would go away and they would continue on their travels. Perhaps this is a place for images/themes/ideas to come through that do not in the script, or perhaps this is a place to insert something that will reappear later in the play (woman with shawl, radical news paper people)....Ideas: picture boxes of the woman in the shawl on the floor? Are they just images? Once we spell out the movement for the last scene, we can plug this into these vignettes. Research side note on sound for machinery: Millfire...Loren Watson - steel mill noise? What then happens with Marion in relationship to these vignettes? If we do this how do we use them and how "involved" do they need to be tech/movement/speech?, people in lab coats?

We had a lengthy discussion on the transformation of the student because we're more solid on the fact that he needs to be either sympathetic in dialogue, needs to know something Marion doesn't, or something needs to happen for the audience to buy into him and follow him: how does this happen, maybe he is learning as she is falling off the wagon. "How does this manifest itself in a Playable moment?"(Anne)
What action would the student take that would change him - to realize that Marion is breaking down. How do we soften him?

options discussed: move the cellphone earlier, he can know someone in the cast? character? What could redeem him? - the disturbing part of his conversation is that he is disregarding what happened in the reading of the names. What act of justice needs to happen? Does the student have a special talent - he has to make himself vulnerable - instrument, sing, you would see him in a different light. Maybe he knows someone in the happy days cast?

Discussion was made on the move between the faculty member and the Ford/Bading scene: Right now there is a conversation/argument/discussion that Bading and Ford are having, it is loud and this is what initially shifts audience focus.

-Leading up to the bading ford scene there may be the possibility of people having to wait on the 5th floor elevators for other groups to arrive: What do we do in this time before the others arrive?

-then the Ford tour....audience movement piece of factory work (they will be lead with the passing of a piece of machinery hand to hand as they walk around the hallway to the William/mother scene - concept is that they become the mechanization through experience - the machine tool/piece will then change to a handing out out of pink slips (Research: historically accurate pink slips?)Is Ford doing this? Does he begin our scene with a tour and then fire us at the end?

-how do transition to William after the "firing" ends?

-Childhood sounds: Running, water, bubbles of bubbles, maybe these can transform to dish soap bubbles easily?

-folks expressed the want to put in the movement a sense or honor the the difficulty of the work that they are doing at that time in the factories (munitions).

-Ideas were put forth that mom/dad need to be seen together in order to define them as a couple before William starts in.

-how does William enter? slow? loud or soft? How do we capitalize on the anticipation in his parents of his homecoming? -this may be a directors decision


Name scene/commissioning scene talk:

-William trailing off...is where it ended now. These are men in his neighborhood, or We’re in the atrium by the tile and door/balcony. Having other actors hand out something - blue stars and gold stars...symbolizing death of all the soldiers.

-how then do we introduce the student in a more sensitive light when he has such a biting transition?

-as these names are being read, what role do we want the audience to play? zig - zag? do we let them purge of this because it's such an intense scene or do we wait until the happy days?

-images people brought up -domino.

-We have to respect or use this emotion wisely.

-Birthday candle, birth and loss? blue and gold star?


Research ideas:

-What did people who “had dignity” when they didn’t have a job at this time - during the depression or around that time. How can we symbolize the looking for work? Will work for food signs, advertise themselves

-what if we had the father fired and when we see him again, he is in disarray, maybe a link to current economic times (small part of the father's imagery embodies our current economy)

-WUWM featured experiences of people surviving the depression, is there a possibility in getting those transcriptions and have an actor read parts of them?

-Julie has a book of factory poetry that can be put into the scenes as filler or layering if need be.

-Wildspace did a piece on "work" using interviews. Could we use some of these?


Thanks for making it through the post...it was a long one. If you noticed I missed something or you would like to add, please comment.