playbill vip

I believe that art can be a powerful tool for change. The goal of this course is to have students use their performance art for social change. This amazing group of artists collaborated to create ‘Madness’, which is essentially, a virtual protest against the prison industrial complex in this country. We started with a simple question, ' What is protest worthy in this moment?’ and then we went about creating a devised work.

You might be wondering what devised work is and how it differs from a traditional piece. In traditional pieces, there’s usually a playwright or screenwriter who has previously written the piece and then the actors and director go about interpreting that. Devised work gives the same end results, but it goes through a very different creative process.

I found a simple definition which states that devised theatre is, “a process in which the whole creative team develops a show collaboratively. From actors to technicians, everyone is involved in the creative process.” - The Theatre Times

We devised this piece in 4 stages:

1. PREPARATION - We prepared to jump into the work. There were few rules in this stage and the focus was on connecting with one another. We did exercises and played games to build the trust and energy of our ensemble.
   
   
2. GENERATION - We used the ideas from the 1^st stage to generate source material. We did outreach to people who might have been able to provide source material and then we went about collecting that material. In this stage: more material = better!
   
   
3. WRITING, REWRITING, PERFORMING and RECORDING – We used the source material from stage 2 to inspire improv prompts and other explorative exercises to build a framework for the overall piece. We oscillated between stages 2 and 3 to create each chapter.
   
   
4. PRESENTATION - The final stage where we edited down the content to create the final project.

This the foundation we worked from to create this piece. We made adjustments for covid, namely turning our piece into a video presentation instead of being on stage.

You’ll also see the progression of the changing Covid guidelines throughout the piece. For instance, Chapter 3 was built and recorded toward the beginning of the semester before vaccines were widespread, so we staged this entire chapter over zoom. On the other hand, we built and recorded chapter 1 toward the end of the semester so we were able to coordinate an in person, mostly outdoor shoot for this chapter.

Trying to build a piece like this from home on a zoom screen is VERY different than working together on a physical stage. I would like to acknowledge my class for their flexibility and rolling with the punches.

Dee Dee Stephens