Notes from 3.6.09

Here is a recap of items discussed, ideas brought forward, decisions made, and tasks at hand:

Transition out of Chaos and down to the basement and then out of the basement:

Thoughts from Sara: wants to use sanctions and the eyewash lab.
-double doors to get audience out?
-think of something when the elevator is coming to get people to take them down
-what to do with that down time

What can we do to underscore the meaning of the moment when there is chaos:
-will there be someone on the elevator with a gunshot wound?
-will we split people up half go down the stairs or half in the elevator. Sound
uses with this?
-cautions: if we split up, how will we keep the through line of the student. Will
he assign power to someone in the second group?
-vignettes on the way down?

What is happening during this passage from Happy Days to Basement Story:
-security and control isn’t all bad, now we want it, or are we calling it out?
-Will the student comment on “where is authority when you need it?”
-Mood shift is happening.....it’s going to a place that the play hasn’t gone before
thematically and structurally
-Mood of the vignettes might be different now then when we saw them before.
-Is there a way that we can parallel the journey downstairs and the story in the
basement. Yes!

The fantastical "descent" in the elevator/stairs by the student live in elevator and
taped audio playing in the stairwell on the way down - audience is lead by old
woman using no words.
-our discussion:

Is there an existing piece of art that the student can speak or say or go off on in
the elevator. Orpheus descending - or even intercuting of other descending pieces.
As classical text is interwoven, small bits of text from the story will also go in,
and be repeated, so when it is introduced in the basement, audiences will have
prior context from when they heard it in the elevator/stairwell.

Themes brought out: Freedom, rebirth.

How do the two groups see the student differently or the same now?

Will the happy days characters be going downstairs?

Question: We’re transforming the student, we should also figure out how we want the
audience to transform and what we want them to do. Do they become a part of the
play?

Recap:

The student starts as doubting, into it but rude, then buys in during happy, takes
on the responsibility, and then merges with the fantasy.

Marion starts out in control, sustains it, can’t sustain it, breaks down,
how do we see her now? She comes down the other stairwell, maybe she comes through
the story and released by the shackles? Do we need to see her again? Yes.

Questions for the writers about the script so far: Magdeline references the boat, as
is now seems confusing. Sara doesn't mind if the script changes to meet the needs
of directing

Ending:
-anything is possible in this space

-Image: someone moving big pieces in and out of the loading dock. Maybe the
audience sees them while Marion preps for another show. Re-visitation theme.
is key

-maybe a guitar playing happening at the top of the stairs and then they disappear.

-Is she drenched? She has been put out? Baptism? Has she gotten a new pet in a pet
carrier.

-How does Marion leave the story? Ascention of Marion in the elevator or in the
stairs with dog carrier in hand. Barking sounds from the cage.

-as the ascent ends, Marion leaves from the lobby where a group of guitar students
play, the student knows them and begins to chat. Audience is given the opportunity
now to exercise their decision making skills, will they leave right away? How long
will it take them to leave?

-do the audience members have id’s that they will have to give it back?

-Is Marion going to have a specific reason to leave?

Blog:
-doing a blog or something that interacts with the audience before the show?
building a mystery?

Poem talk:
-ideas about this from anne: After work- used to layer william and father together
before/during the names.

Production support: nothing.

Ryan: will look into Maier audio recordings of him in interviews and see if there
are transcriptions available.

People expressed a need for a Production list. Where, who, and when this will post
is unknown.