Collaborative Research and Progress

Before starting on the actual collaborative project, we had to figure out each other’s interests and visions for what the final product was going to be like and how we envisioned this process going. I had expressed an interest in creating a piece with both text and abstract movement, as well as maybe learning about directing and tech designing. Basically, I wanted to be able to have some sort of a part in each element required to put on a theatrical performance. This way, I would be able to keep working on my acting and onstage skills, but still be able to learn about something I didn't really know much about before. Maddie had expressed similar interests to me in terms of wanting to have script and incorporate some form of movement. So, we decided that we should work together, as our visions sounded pretty similar. Both Maddie and I had wanted some sort of role in tech, but we wanted a person who could oversee it and have a final say in our performance. So, we turned to Helena, who wanted to work more so on the “behind the scenes” aspects of theatre, such as directing and tech. Based on all of our interests, visions, and who we knew we needed, that is how we formed our group and were then able to begin the research process.

Once we established our group and outlined who was going to do what, we then began brainstorming and researching. First, we began thinking about what kind of performance we wanted to put on. We tossed out ideas about doing comedy, drama, and other different types of theatre. Collectively as a group, we wanted to perform something more serious and emotional, as we felt that by doing something of this nature, we could evoke a lot of emotion from the audience. We all agreed that we could really be creative and excel in this area of theatre. Once we knew we were going to be doing something serious, we started thinking about what our stimulus was going to be. Surprisingly, all of us were actually taking a historical event and making it our stimulus and inspiration for the project. This idea developed into thinking about soldiers and military families and loving relationships. We wanted to combine all of these into one plot. I thought it would be a good idea to look at some songs, their lyrics, and the emotions that the music brings out in us. I felt like we could take songs and build our own plot around the lyrics to create a story. As soon as we started thinking  military, Carrie Underwood’s song “Just a Dream” came right into mind. My group members and simply listened to the lyrics and got really excited and felt like there could be a really good plot we can make. We listened to a few others, but really like this song for our vision, and thought we could stage a military family (husband and wife probably), and one of them is about to be sent off to war, and the other goes to bed and has a dream of all the things he/she wish they had said. The main portion of our performance would focus around this dream. We talked about using different lighting affects as well to portray that a dream was occuring. Overall, I was surprised at all the progress we made in our research and brainstorming ideas, and am really excited to keep refining our ideas and start creating theatre.