performance exercise #1

We now have a final script for the show and we are working dilligently to rehearse it. I'm also happy to report that our intrepid Sales Director Gail Peck and her team have done a great job spreading the word about the show, especially to schools.

With school groups (and others) in mind, I thought it might be interesting to post some "Performance Exercises" based on the kinds of things we did in rehearsal. That way, other groups of people can have their own conversations about/with America. Enjoy!

PERFORMANCE EXERCISE #1
- Read our two poems*: "Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes and "America" by Allen Ginsberg and discuss them with your group.
- Have every member of the group pick one line that they really like, even if they don't understand it.
- Divide everyone into groups of three or four and have each group come up with a performance that somehow incoporates all of the members' favorite lines (try to make sure the groups have some Hughes lines and some Ginsberg lines).
- The lines might be used as dialogue or they might be used in a different way (for example, one of the kids in our cast liked the line "I am the young man, tangled in that ancient endless chain," so he performed a scene where he was dragging a big chain along with him).
- You'll be surprised at some of the weird, funny, interesting scenes that people come up with.

*You don't have to use the Hughes and Ginsberg poems. Pick anything that you think is interesting! (I do think those poems are good ones for a "conversation," though, because they are written as addresses to America. They give some strong, forceful dialogue.)