Heaven in Oakland- a half-way point

[Emily Morrison]

Hello my fellow artists and educators. I wanted to take a moment and let people in to my current teaching sphere. I welcome ideas, insights, and encouragement, so welcome to my journey.

I am working with 2 classes of 8th graders at an Oakland charter school called E.C. Reems. The residency is a partnership between my employer, California Shakespeare Theater, and 2 awesome classroom teachers. We are focusing our unit of study around John Steinbeck's "The Pastures of Heaven", a collection of short stories which center on life near Salinas in California's Central Valley. In the second chapter, the Battle Farm is depicted as a place with a history of curses. I selected one segment from this chapter which is the tale of the Mustrovic family, an immigrant family who for a brief time inhabit the farm and then mysteriously disappear with no trace.

We began in my class with an overview of the chapter as a whole. I had students act out key moments from the chapter using tableaux. Each session we read the Mustrovic text, but in a different style each time. Once we read passing between students sentence to sentence, then paragraph to paragraph. This past class I had each student follow along with their finger. As soon as the person to their left began speaking, they could "steal" the text and the first speaker would fade out.

We are going to use the text in performance, but in the end there will be two styles presented.

The first is based on a page-to-stage model. Cal Shakes is currently partnering with another local theater company called Word For Word to develop Steinbeck's novel into a play to open our 2010 season. They use the whole text, including the "he said"'s, when performing. This past week, I showed my students an example of W4W work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS3lpkaLvwQ and had them follow along with a guide which showed the story turned into a script format. There are techniques like "shared lines", "echo", as well as adding in music that really set the tone and emphasize important moments.

The second style will be an adaptation to script format. In fact, the kids will get to debut the work of the talented and vibrant playwright, Octavio Solis before it hits the boards in Orinda.

In talking about the house on the Battle Farm, and how the townspeople in the Pastures of Heaven view it, I asked kids if they knew of places like this in their own lives. One student said there were ghost stories about a house he knew of where a person had died in the basement. Others said they knew of places that were really worn down. I said, "Yeah, they may be abandoned, like how the Mustrovics had to suddenly up and leave". Another student chimed in, "We call those 'bando's''. I thought about our current economy and how it might be more timely than I thought to have empty, worn-down houses in their very midst due to foreclosures.

At the end of the last class, we did casting. For the most part it went well, but the most popular part, T.B. Allen - the storekeeper, had more than a couple of kids' interest piqued. I worry that even with double casting, I may have disappointed this one really eager girl by assigning her another role. In one class I have 3 groups and 2 in the other. When we get back to it, I will be doing blocking. Besides character bios, do any of you have thoughts on activities or assignments I can give to the groups who are not up and working? Or a specific way to tell the classroom teacher to rehearse a group?

Ok...that's an eyeful for now.

Til next time...artfully yours,

Emily

[Katy Hickman]

Great project! I know W4W! They're my peeps! I used to perform with them when I was in SF ! Mention my name to these venerable ladies and they MIGHT remember me...

In terms of making good use of rehearsal time, I might deputize them as design teams; sound, lights, costumes, etc. - even dramaturgy? Maps? Timelines? It could get them immersed in the world a bit more.
Is the classroom teacher versed in gesture? In addition to physical/vocal warm-ups and line-running (after you've set lines) maybe explore moments of movement/stillness and gestures?
Good on ye!