Linda Li Collaborative Project Write Up Portfolio

Collaborative Process Portfolio

Jiaxin Li

Ms. Guarino

IB Theater HL

27 March 2019

1. Personal Context:

To introduce myself, I am a full IB student who is currently studying at Cheshire Academy in Connecticut. One of my major IB high level courses is IB Theater HL. I have been participating in the musical Marry Popins, the Music Man during 8th grade and 9th grade, the fall play Caucasian Chalk Circle at Cheshire academy in 2017, the fall play The Importance of Being Earnest at Cheshire Academy in 2018, and the musical Footloose at Cheshire Academy in 2019. Theater and performance are part of my life and my dreams I want to achieve in the future. To make sure myself doing well in theater, I also talk to my peers and teachers about my confusions of terms, ideas of creating a short story film, take notes in class and on production that create impressions or inspirations for me, practicing different characters’ tone and voice, reading other film and theater producers’ books and blogs, and trying my best to participate in any chances that are involved in theater. I am mostly interested in performance, corporation, creation, lighting, staging, plotting,  and portrait of the characters in a theater production. Initially I was attracted to theater because I think being an actress or character on stage is very cool, everyone would pay their attention on you and you can be anyone you want to be. Theater is not limited to daily reality, therefore, I also enjoy it because it gives unlimited space for me to imagine the world of theater and characters. Also, I especially value qualified corporation and communication with my team and partners. The flow of process and the effect of the result of a collaborative project largely depends on the interactions and agreements and communications of you and partners.

2. Research into company that creates original theater:

I have had a really great time on Sunday with a company that came from New York. We have experienced things they called Assembly Theater, which includes creating story from text and creating movement from ideas. Although we don’t know them and especially myself was really nervous, I enjoyed the time of making progress and having fun together. First of my favorite things about the event was that we always s together in a circle. By sitting together in a circle on the ground we were able to see each other; and it especially made me feel less stressed because we were all together on the same page talking and sitting informally. Second of my favorite things was watching everybody else coming up with their own movements because it was really funny and interesting. Thirdly, my favorite out of my favorites is the activity that we needed to come up with our own impossible stage direction and staged it. Our group chose my stage-direction idea and together we plotted the scenes together. Also, acting it out was really enjoyable for me. Overall, they are so nice and interesting and we are so fortunate to have them visit us. Many thanks to Ms. Guarino, Jack, and Steven.

3. Forming of the Collaborative Project Group:

Our Collaborative Project Group is composed of only four people due to the limitation of the size of our class. We are Linda Li, Olivia, Willjam, and Ray Dong. We are all Year 1 IB Theater students. In the beginning when we brought different objects to use as the stimuli of out collaborative project, it was obvious that we are really diverse. Olivia brought a story call a Tortoise and The Hare, I brought a picture of the forest in the back field at Cheshire Academy during fall season, and Ray brought a cool metallic and rocky  ring. We were not able to decide which one we were going to use. Later, we were brought to a art gallery in our school to find our stimulus in there. Surprisingly, we were all attracted by the same art piece that has a person who has a hole oh him or her on the painting is trying to reach a heart shaped balloon. The painting is called A Hole on The Wall.

I did not know whether it was due to our personal experiences or the sadness and heartbreaking in this painting was just being overly beautiful and attractive to us. Then, we gathered our information and ideas about the theme of the play by recalling what we see and what we think of the art work. And it was super fun and also difficult for us to decide the title and theme of our collaborative project. Since we have so many good themes, such as sadness, breakup, desperation, regret, losing, chasing, and shame maybe, we were not about to decide on which particular ones we were going to focus on. However, we made our ways through by creating the characters and basic plots and structure of the full project first and then making adjustments as we are moving our ways forward. The performance and script was what we argued the most, however, these arguments and confusions are worthy since the final piece we have is what we have all agreed and fittest for the scene. For example, for Sara’s monologue at the end of the project, Ray wanted it to be Sara going over her mental process and conflicts and the plots of the whole protect with the audience, and he wanted Sara to be really sad; however Olivia wanted Sara to still think about Marcus instead of Steve, her poor husband laying on the cold floor. She wants to highlight Sara’s personality of crazy in love that she cannot stop thinking about her crush Marcus even when her husband was beat up and hanging out with other women. We decided that we can corporate both Ray and Olivia’s ideas and make Sara going over her mental conflicts between Marcus and Steve and crying about her old love Marcus and her feeling of guilty and belonging to her husband Steve.

4. Exploration of Starting point:

The very first thing that we realized/noticed about the painting is the distinctive red balloon. Obviously the balloon used to belong to the human figure on the left side and now the balloon is gone, we can tell this by looking at how the hand of the “human” is trying to reach for the balloon. Also the balloon has a shape of a heart, which is possibly referring to love. Combining love and the sense of distance/abandon, we’ve decided our topic to be about the sad facts of love.

This piece has allowed the members of our group to explores themes of the following:

• The longing for love
• Heartbreak
• Unfaithfulness
• Betrayal
• Love is complicated
• Devotion
• Regret
• Desperation
• Sadness
• End
• Breakup
• Etc.

The play's made up of 4 characters and their roles are described as follows:

• Steve (Ray): Husband of Sara, Not home often, alcoholic.
• Sara (Linda): Wife of Steve, past lover to Marcus during high school time. She starts to have a new feeling for Marcus since she wants the relationship between Natalie and Marcus and her husband Steve is alcoholic and he doesn’t care about her that much like Marcus does to Natalie.
• Marcus (Willjam): Husband of Natalie. Marcus and Sara and coworkers. Marcus doesn’t not have the kind of feeling that Sara has for him, and he was trying to push Sara away as she was attempting him to betray Natalie.
• Natalie (Olivia): Wife of Marcus. Loves Marcus deeply. She works in a bar and is very busy of work.

5. Targeted audience and intentions:

Since we were only going to perform it project in front of the whole class, our audiences were just Ms. Guarino, our IB theater class director, Jenna, and Helen. This is really a small group, however, we want the audience to feeling the feeling of love, guilty, regret, lost, conflicts, internal struggles and other kinds of feelings.

6. Development of the piece from 1st draft:

For the first scene, where takes place in Steve and Sara’s house. We have used some techniques such as setting the scene in two different settings but in the same scene, the lighting should help reflect this idea. When Sara and Steve are talking in their house, Marcus and Natalie will be on the stage but under no lights in the dark to show that they are in a different setting. What is going to happen with Steve and Sara is happening at the same as Marcus and Natalie. Also the lines will overlap and intertwine with each other between the characters conversation. In this scene, Sara and Steve would be arguing about Sara’s affair with Marcus, and Natalie and Marcus would be under a weird and unpleasant atmosphere because Natalie found out that Marcus, her husband, is cheating on her.

For the second scene, it is about Sara frantically calls Marcus, and the setting is that they are both in their own homes. The stage direction is lights go first on Sara on one side of the stage and as she is calling Marcus, and when Marcus answers, lighting would appear on the other side of the stage indicating two people are in different places. This scene is mainly about Sara calling Marcus because she did not know what to do with her husband.

For the third scene, it is about Steve meeting Sara in the bar. For stage direction, Steve would go to the bar to have a drink and reflect on what has just recently happened, and Natalie coule realize that they were in the somehow similar situation. As they were talking and exchanging their feelings, they start acting more than just friends.

In the forth scene, Sara would be sitting home alone being concerned about her husband often coming home very late, and the lights on the stage are dim to show it is night and a lamp is more of the lighting in this scene. Then Sara would received a call from Marcus talking with her about her feelings. Marcus ends up suggesting that they would hang out at the bar tonight, and Sara agrees.

In the fifth scene, which is the last scene, Sara and Marcus and Steve and Natalie would confront each other in the bar. The highlight is the last part where Steve leaves Sara alone in the bar, and Sara would still be in the pose from the picture and says in a sorrowful tone “Love...is...Complicated.” Steve would responds in an exhaustive manner, “Let’s not love”.

Here is what we have done so far about plotting and acting of the play for the final draft. . This play is very important for us because it is another way for us to display reality of relationships through fictional acting and scenes. All of the feelings and thinking we have in the play could hardly be explicitly displayed in reality. Lighting, props, physical actions, sounds effects and so forth would cooperate with each other to highlight the themes of the play.

7. Specifically my role and what I have done.

My role is Sara in the project. She is a woman who has already married to Steve while she still wanted to hook up with her old high school crush Marcus. She is constantly unsatisfied with her own husband’s bad habits and carelessness about her feeling. I need to be very attempted to cheating, new love, and men. In our collaborative project group team, I need to be responsible and spontaneous for creating ideas and getting people pumped up for sharing thoughts and apply our imagination to what we will really perform on stage. I was like a team leader but also one of them who shares equal opinions. To assess myself and my teammates, here are the peer editing and self-assessment part:

8. Peer editing:
1. Sometimes the characters are partially under the light. Maybe work on the lighting more. The lighting could be used to highlight what important things are going to happen. But the light they alredubahev is nice too because it outlines and highlights the whole stage.
2. Characters could maybe focus on more what is in their head and what they really want to say.
3. The plots are very interesting. Maybe a little bit more connection between the scenes to make the whole show flow better?
4. Sometimes characters turn their back on the audience. Maybe find out where the audience should be to get the best look of the scenes.
5. Really lovely physical and facial expressions. Good job. And Nice story line! It is interesting and the audience would want to know what has actually happened and what is going to happen next.
6. Maybe incorporate some props to make the scenes’ content look richer and help the audience to understand the scenes better.

9. Self-assessment:
1. We did a good job at setting the theme of our play, creating the characters, making up plots, and connecting the end of the play with the thesis of the play, “Love Is Complicated”.
2. Our motif is quite explicitly explained and our first impression on the painting, which is our motif, is well explained as well.
3.We did a good job at imagining things that happens with adults, who are people we are not familiar with since we are teenagers. And it is difficult for us to come up with what is happening in the world of adults and what the adults think.
4. Although we do have goals and plans for lighting and stage arranging, some places are not specific and well planned out enough.
5. Some scenes and plots just do not work. For example the scene we have had which is when Marcus brought Sara, who is his mistress, into the bar where his wife Netali works.

10. Impact on audience and audience and artistic choices.

This story is important to both the audience and us because it is another way to perform our reality of relationships. Also, it is anyway to express our feelings about love, betrayal, sadness, and suspect. Telling  the stories of relationships from the third person point of view is very interesting too. Feelings and thoughts that we would not be able to understand in reality could be expressed and found theater.

Bibliography

Sunday Theater workshop at Cheshire Academy Black Box with a Theater Production company from NY

A Hole On The Wall art piece viewed at the school JJW art gallery from adneniranartstudio.com.

Peer editing and self assessment by Linda Li (Google Drive)

Collaborative project progress reflection by Linda Li (Google Drive)

A Peculiar State of Love document by Linda Li (Google Drive)