Summer 2012: Eeks! What play are we going to do next?!?!

When I'm up to my eyeballs in a play, there is always a moment of panic. Are there any more ideas out there?! I become so attached to the play we're doing, the idea of coming up with a new play for next year seems impossible. but somehow, once the adrenaline has died down and the performance is behind us..... a new idea always does pop up.

Obviously, you need a theme that will capture the interest of the kids taking part. So far we've done monsters (Where The Wild Things Are), dragons and pirates (Puff The Magic Dragon) and ghosts (The Blood-Chilling Curse of the Old House on the Hill). And this year..... it's going to be aliens!

This theme lends itself to a children's theatre workshop on lots of levels. It is instantly appealing (especially to rowdy boys) and it has great dramatic potential:

• you can have fun with the costumes and props (lots of potential for kitsch comedy)
• there is an abundance of sources for inspiration: Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr Who, Flash Gordon... to name but a few
• there is a lot of great (themed) music out there: films like Apollo 13, Star Wars, Star Trek, the Alien series
• and (our pet theme!) outer space is ideal for black light! All those glow-in-the-dark planets!

 
As soon as we fix on this theme, my mind is buzzing with ideas. We can do a parody of the 1969 moon landing (and get Armstrong's famous "smallstep/giant leap" phrase all mixed up perhaps?)... we can have hula-hooping kids as blacklight saturns (hula hooping being the lastest craze with my daughters)... what the heck, we can do an alien version of Romeo and Juliet!

As usual, one play is hardly behind us, there are eleven months to go before our next workshop and I'm already looking for inspiration!

Starting from Scratch VIII: choosing the music

The stage productions we develop on our workshops centre on music. It provides the dramatic backdrop to the action and helps establish the 'mood' - and indeed to some extent - the message of each scene. So making the right choice of music is a very important (and time consuming!) part of the process when it comes to developing our own material.

Any music we use, needs to:

• be a suitable length (is it long enough? can I shorten it easily?)
• have a structure kids will be able to easily recognise (obviously all music has structure, but is it structured in a way kids will be able to follow up on stage?)
• convey the essence, the mood, the atmosphere... of the scene

To kick off the selection process, I tend to look first at obvious choices like sound tracks to films of a similar theme (in the case of "The Ugle Bug Ball", I might first listen to the sound track to "A Bug's Life or "Bee Movie") or well-known, similarly themed classical music ("The Fight of the Bumblebee" by Rimsky-Korsakov is an obvious choice, for example).

Cover of Bee Movie (Full Screen Edition)

After a bit of googling, I can start to expand the list. For the "Ugly bug ball" I find a surprising number of possible sources of inspiration:

• 'Insect Symphony' by contemporary Finnish composer Kalevi Aho (this includes pieces for butterflies, dung beetles, grasshoppers, ants and dayflies so would be a good place to start)
• "The Spider's Feast" by Roussel 
• Overture to the Wasps by Vaughan Williams
• Scriabin's Tenth Sonata, also known as the "Insect" sonata due to its trills. 
• Bartok's "The Night's Music" from his piano suite "Out of Doors" mimics different creatures at night...birds, frogs, insects.....
• Mussorgsky's "Song of the Flea"
• Grieg's "Papillon"
• Schumann’s Les Papillons
• Schubert’s Der Einsame (The Lonely) about the melancholy of a cricket, sitting on a hearth, mourning the disappearance of the summer
• "The Ant and the Grasshopper" by Leon Rosselson
•  Josquin des Prez's "El grillo e buon cantore"  is a musical painting of a grasshopper

A search for more modern themes comes up with a long list of gems  like:

• Chet Atkins "Centipede Boogie"
• "Spiders" by System of a Down
• "Bug Eyes" by Dredg

  

  Image via Wikipedia

• "Butterflies and Hurricanes" by Muse
• Nina Simone's "Funkier than a Mosquitoes Tweeter"
  
• "Insects" by 10 Years
• "Butterfly Caught2 by Massive Attack
• "Ant Music" by Adam & the Ants
• "Hey there little insect!" by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers 
• "Black Butterfly" by Sounds Of Blackness

Not all these songs will be suitable (and many will not really even be about insects!) but the advantage of throwing the net as wide as possible is you might just find something perfect, something really inspiring. It takes a lot of listening on Youtube and Spotify (and a lot of crossing off the list) before you can really start to narrow it down. but the effort is worth it in the end because of what the right piece of music can bring to your play.

Image via Wikipedia

I like to also think about juxtaposition when I'm choosing music for a play. I like it to 'sit well' with what comes before and after it and to provide contrast. I also like using vintage (or simply, older!) songs and music, as they can sometimes be used in a way that is witty. A song like Adam Ant's "Ant Music" for example might be a witty choice for a scene about..... well, the ants, precisely because it is such a, well, obvious choice... and because it will make the adults in the audience chuckle. Vintage choices provide great beats and sometimes a more theatrical musical style. Songs that spring to mind that could be used in this way for this play are Chet Atkins "Centipede Boogie", "I Got Ants In My Pants" by James Brown,"La Cucaracha" by Los Lobos or "Mean Old Bedbug Blues" by Bessie Smith. Depending on how the play itself pans itself, on the direction it takes, there is sometimes room for something a little experimental if it might resonate with audience. An example of something that could be used with our theme would be Tom Waits' spoken 'song' "Army Ants". The moment would need to be there but it could work.

Starting from Scratch VI. The Set

For me, when I think about how you would go about creating a stage set for a production of “The Ugly Bug Ball”, the most important factor would have to be the scale. The play is set in the insect world, so we’re obviously looking at roots, foliage, undergrowth, flowers... and we obviously need to go big.

In fact, I think you could have a lot of fun with the stage design. So some ideas:

•  Painted backdrops (perhaps thin gauze, strung on taut wire, to make it easy to change scenes) showing large roots or foliage. Use colour/different images to reflect the mood of a given scene: brown (sad) roots at the beginning and an explosion of colourful flowers for the ball scene perhaps. Ideas for the kind of mural that could be used:

•   Use the kids themselves to: 

• Wear large flowers, garlands of leaves, twigs and branches round their neck
• Hold up silhouettes of rocks, bushes, branches etc to create instant, temporary atmosphere
• Wave real branches & foliage

• Create a sense of perspective by making rocks and bushes to ‘layer’ in front of the backdrop. Make out of card (propped up or held), papier mache (over chicken wire) or polystyrene. Use hinged cut outs at the front of the stage to pull up and down at will like a pop up card:
• Hang real (or plastic) foliage at the front of the stage to frame the scene and add detail or use throughout

• Cut out leaf and petal shapes from cheap household sponges and dip into paint to create quick but effective background foliage

• Alternatively, experiment with projections of foliage and flowers to create a mood instantly

Image from Akimbo

Starting from Scratch V. The Costumes: capes and masks

Image via Wikipedia

Here are some other ideas for costumes for a stage play about insects (in this case for an adaptation of the children's song "Ugly Bug Ball")... I would suggest basic costumes - leggings and a long-sleeved top in black, brown or green (depending on the bug) - with all creative energy poured into a couple of dramatic, colourful additional elements (like wings, antennas, extra legs or whatever feature is characteristc of any given bug ). These elements could be worn as hats (as discussed in my last post) or as masks, tunics or masks. Old tights can be stuffed and sewn to the back of the basic costume as extra (spider, grasshopper or centipede legs). Use wire to make flamboyant antennas. Use simple bin bag (or cloth) tunics with spots, stripes and patterns glued on. The possibilities are endless!

Some inspiration for moth/butterfly capes (which could be easily adapted to ladybirds, dragonflies, bees and wasps):

This theme is also perfect for masks. And masks are a simple solution:

Image via Wikipedia

• for limited budgets, 
• plays where actors need to double up and make quick costume changes 
• if you're into minimalism.

Starting from Scratch IV. The Costumes: hats

In recent weeks, I have been looking at the children's song "The Ugly Bug Ball" and showing how it might be turned into a children's play. One thing has become very clear as time has gone on - the variety of characters (bugs of all shapes and sizes) and the glamour of the setting (a ball!) means colour and flamboyance are paramount.  This is going to be particularly pertinent when thinking about the costumes.

When I think about the idea of insect costumes, immediately I think: hats, masks, capes. All three of these elements are relatively simple to make and easy for kids to wear. Let's look at hats first.

In order to come up with ideas, I first find an image of what I want to create. For example, the earthworm:

Then, I scour the internet, magazines, books, photos.... looking for ideas. These are some I came up with when i was thinking about making a worm hat:

The idea can come from anywhere (a straw basket?!) but you start to slowly get an idea. In this case, I'm leaning towards a tall, coiled hat (think Madge Simpson's hair, perhaps?). The black and red of the original photo would make a very striking worm hat or we could use earthy colours and weave in a few reds and greens.

Here are some ideas for hats for other creepy crawlies from the song which I got largely from looking at Ascot hats (what better place to look for flamboyance?). No offense to the original wearers!

Materials for making hats: netting, foam backed material, papier maché, felt, tubing, bubble wrap, bin bags... You don't always need a whole hat. Sometimes a headband will do and you can always think about adding elements to existing woolly, sun or base ball hats.

Some costume-making resources:

http://www.papiermache.co.uk/
http://www.alleycatscratch.com
http://sewing.about.com/od/halloween/a/costumetricks.htm
http://www.parenthacks.com/2006/10/nosew_modular_h.html
http://artswork.asu.edu/arts/students/tb/06_05_costumes.htm
http://blog.jugglingfrogs.com/2007/10/costumes.html

Starting from scratch III. From lyrics to plot

A song can be an excellent place to start when you're looking to write a theatre script for kids. Songs that tell stories (eg. ballads, traditional children's songs) are particularly good, as most of the work - at least in terms of the plot - has been done for you (!) and the structure of most songs - separated neatly into verses as they are - lends itself to breaking up the plot into scenes. We're in the process of looking at how we might turn "The Ugly Bug Ball" into a theatre production for kids, and  - using the song to give a rough, overall 'shape' to our script - is precisely what we need to do next.

The first step is to analyse our material, so we get the lyrics and we see what we've got. We need to focus on:

• its potential for characters (is it suitable for our group?)
• any clues or ideas we can glean  from the language to help us with mood/atmosphere/dramatisation
• the bare bones of the narrative (does the song give us the whole plot or is it just a starting point?) 

So what do the lyrics of "The Ugly Bug Ball" tell us?

Image via Wikipedia In terms of characters, it's clear that there's huge scope for any number of creepy crawlies of all shapes and sizes, over and above the named "characters" in the song (caterpillar, beetle, dragon fly, fleas, worms etc). This, for me, is a major point in its favour. The sheer range of characters makes it ideal for larger groups (but flexible for smaller ones) and means character choice can be easily tailored to children's taste (not everyone finds spiders appealing, after all). I love the possibilities for costumes that this gives rise to. It's immediately obvious that there's scope for vibrant, colourful and varied costumes. The sky is really the limit (sign of a good song choice!).

From the lyrics, we also get clues that can help us set the tone of the overall play - providing us with a kind of verbal moodboard, if you like. In this case, we have words like "glorious", "happy", "glad" (so we've already got a great feel-good vibe going). Also, phrases like "crickets clicked their tricky melodies" or "the ants were fancy-dancing with the fleas" can give us useful staging ideas. We might have a trio of crickets with castañetas perhaps? Or is this the perfect opportunity for any budding tap dancers in the group?? We may have the ants and the fleas dance in some kind if unusual way: a jig perhaps? Or a spontaneous street dance (depending on the talents and tastes of our group).


In terms of plot, we certainly get the 'bare bones' of a narrative: a lonely caterpillar gets taken to a ball by his sympathetic friends where he meets the love of his life and lives happily ever after. It would be perfectly possible to develop a script entirely around this narrative, but, in my opinion at least, I think it will make a more interesting play with a bit of tweaking. As such, for me it's a song that falls into the second category - it makes a great starting point for a script but doesn't provide us with an off-the-peg plot. (An example of a song in this category would be "Puff The Magic Dragon" where it is possible to base a scene on every verse and you've got a play).
Image by david anderson : da-photography via Flickr
In terms of how we would develop the storyline, off the top of my head, I would say it lends itself to an ugly duckling scenario (especially as caterpillars - as future butterflies - undergo a similar transformation as a baby swan). Perhaps we will have the caterpillar suffer a series of rejections as he tries to befriend various 'glamourous' bugs before getting invited to the ball? Or maybe we can dramatise his loneliness at the beginning in some way. A choreography or scene that shows his lonely lifestyle perhaps? Once we get to part about the ball, our story can slot neatly into the song's narrative (dancing, boy meets girl, happily ever after) but we can draw this out, enjoy the details, as it were: a lively dance scene is surely a must? And we might want some kind of presentation scene (perhaps the insects arriving at the ball?) to showcase all our gorgeous costumes? There is also scope for a feel good finale once we get safely to the happy ending.

There are obviously any number of other ways that the plot of this song could be developed into a storyline for a theatre production - I've just touched on one possibility - but for the time being at least, we know that if we use "The Ugly Bug Ball" as as starting point for a play, we're going to have plenty to get our theatrical teeth into!

Starting from scratch II. Getting into the mood

We're in the process of transforming the song "Ugly Bug Ball" into a children's stage play. Having already decided that the song might indeed be an interesting project for kids and that it has enough dramatic potential to inspire us, it's time to get a real feel for the possibilities it offers. We need to be really sure that this is the right project (as I said before, it's better, in the long run, to take the time to make the right decision, rather than embark on a play that runs out of steam further down the line).So now is the time to start defining the 'feel' of our future play

I do this with moodboards. I scour the internet, magazines, books... for images, colours, details that in some way represent something about the atmosphere that I'd like to achieve as a whole... or that give an idea of the feel of the costumes... or the staging.

In the case of  "The Ugly Bug Ball", I start by collecting all sorts of pictures of bugs in general as a starting point:

I choose the ones that 'talk' to me in some way - in this case, it soon becomes apparent that the vibrancy of the colours is going to be fundamental to my play - and I try to communicate this into a whole collage of other images that also show the same idea:

 

A moodboard is a very effective way to get the creative juices going and at the same time to pin down sensations, feelings and ideas that might otherwise be difficult to put into words. This makes them ideal if you're working in a team as it is a tangible way of communicating less than tangible concepts to other team members. They can also contribute to the process with their sensations and ideas. 
They're also a great way of expressing many concepts at once. My colour moodboard, for example, might represent the palate of colours I'd like to use across the production as a whole (in the set and costumes etc) but at the same time, it also manages to convey a sense of the 'explosion' of colour that I'd like to create and, in turn, communicates a sense of energy, vibrancy and dynamism that I'd like the play as a whole to present. It is starting to become clear that I'd like this play to be a 'carnival' of colours.

To help define the look of the costumes, again I turn first to nature:

And then try to represent the elements that have inspired me in a moodboard. In this case, I'm focusing on textures (silky sheens, fur, velvet) as well as the swirling, almost metallic patterns of petrol or tie dye:

Sites like www.shutterfly.com are a great way to develop mood boards - collect all your inspiring images together and share the link with anyone else you are working with. They can also add their own images, comment on photos, and it gives everyone a common focus.

Related articles

• Mood Board Mondays: Me in Pictures . . . (thelookbookphilosophy.wordpress.com)
• http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/archives/design_mood-boards.html
• http://www.design-skills.org/mood_boards.html
• http://inspiredology.com/inspiring-moodboards/

Starting from scratch. Turning a song into a play

All this thinking about inspiration and finding the right idea recently has got me thinking about the "Ugly Bug Ball". The more I think about this song, the more perfect I think it would be as a starting point for a children's play - and I thought I'd use it over the next few weeks to show how I would go about transforming the song into a theatre production.

The first thing we need to do is look hard at (or in our case, listen to) our material to make sure:

• it inspires us
• it has enough potential (we need enough 'room to manoeuvre': does it have scope to take themes further? does it have enough theatrical potential?)
• it has appeal (will the kids enjoy working on the project? will the audience relate to it?)

So, for anyone who needs a refresher, here's the song. Have a listen and see whether it fits the bill for you:

Lyrics | Summer Magic - The Ugly Bug Ball lyrics

At first glance, as a base for a play, it would seem to have a lot going for it:

•  the central theme is appealing to kids - all those creepy crawlies! (and there are always the butterflies to satisfy any would-be princesses in the group)
• there is an underlying theme that can be developed - think an insect world take on the age-old story of the ugly duckling - which should appeal to a wider audience and also gives you something to 'get your teeth into' educationally during the workshop
• it has loads of dramatic potential - vibrant costumes, dancing (it's a ball after all!)...

So far so good. But it's really important to choose the right idea - you're going to be living and breathing this song for the next goodness knows how long, so it's better to take a bit longer over choosing the central theme - and be 100% certain - than dive straight in and repent at your leisure.

So, just to make absolutely sure this song really does have enough potential, I always spend a few days on google, testing out various ideas and seeing how it stands the test.

The questions: does a play about creepy crawlies have enough dramatic - and visual - potential? Is there enough scope for costumes, for example?

The results:

As soon as I see these images, visions of insect masks, satin capes, bright colours, gigantic, larger-than-life flowers start racing through my mind and I know, deep down, I can do something with this song. First step done and dusted. We're on  our way!

What do you think? Is this song a good choice for a children's play? Does it inspire you?

Related articles

• View Lyrics While Playing Songs (idonzzy.wordpress.com)
• Top 10 Underrated Disney Songs (listverse.com)
• Featured Project: Urban Butterfly Blues (scifund.wordpress.com)

Getting Inspired... with photos

I spend a lot of my time browsing the internet looking at photos. It's a great way to trigger ideas for staging a scene or for finding inspiration for props and scenery (largely because someone else has done all the hard work for you - the framing, the colours, the details, the light are handed to you on a plate - you just have to come up with the idea). So, for anyone looking to be inspired or wanting to get creative, here are some of my favourite sources for photos:

• Google Images: just add a keyword or two and get looking... It's a great way to think outside the box - get creative with your search terms and see what you find
•  Steve McCurry

• The Photo Argus A resource for photographers, you can find really unusual collections of photos (like '25 images of coffee', for example) and you never know what you might find....

•  Your beautiful photography

 

• ffffound A collection of photos posted by users. Invite-only to post but anyone can browse.

• National Geographic  One of my personal favourites for really stunning photos

•  Links tother good collections of photos:

- http://dpshots.com
- http://pelfusion.com/inspiration/60-stunning-pictures-and-photos/
- http://www.youthedesigner.com/2010/08/05/photography-inspiration-a-collection-of-panning-photos/
- http://photooftheday.net/
- http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/04/28/really-stunning-pictures-and-photos/

Where do you go for inspiration? Let us know of any websites you think should be included!

    

Related articles

• National Geographic's Visions of Earth (mymodernmet.com)
• Autumn in the United States: Photos by National Geographic (lennymaysay.wordpress.com)