Postscript: Discomfort Zone
Poster design by Angeline Destacamento
Time to do a flashback of what the Lord did in and through "Discomfort Zone." This is my testimony of the Lord's amazing work throughout our preparations for the theater class recital. I am also dedicating this to my beloved students, their parents, my family, my Life Circle ladies and to AFCS. As I have always reminded my students, we were doing it for the glory of our Source of wisdom, strength - and everything else in between - our Almighty God!
*** CONCEPT ***
***DICE: SIX SIDES, SIX STORIES ***
This was the dice design unanimously chosen by my students. It was one among the three peculiar designs I showed them.
For aesthetic and theatrical purposes, we have decided to replicate this design on a larger scale - one that could fit a person (The Dice Kid) inside.
If the concept was birthed randomly, the story elements struck me at an even more unconventional way. Have you heard that the best ideas are generated in the shower? Haha! I can't remember anymore how it began but when the image of a dice popped into my mind, the next thing I thought of was featuring six social issues in our performance. Six social issues that are too relevant, people just won't stop talking about them. The transition from one scene to another will take place by the throw of a dice - there goes the light-bulb moment! Story-wise, it also adds thrill and cohesion.
When I shared this concept to my students, I divided them into three groups and asked them to list down as much of what they thought was relevant to them. I already had a few in my mind but I prayed for the Lord's wisdom and ended up asking my students to see what a "social issue" looks like in their perspective. To my surprise what we, adults, think are "controversial" are nothing new to this younger generation. There were almost ten societal concerns on the list and we chose four that appeared on the paper of all three groups namely traffic, early pregnancy, drugs and depression. The remaining two (atheism and LGBT, both not included in the list of my students) were what I've been praying to include in the exposition because these always spark the most colorful and heightened discussions across generations at any given time. It was quite appalling to hear it straight from high school students that they are growing up under these circumstances. However, the most important part of the play was the finale where all the demised characters would find hope and love in the One who created and is Love Himself.
*** SCRIPT WRITING ***
Right after pinpointing the six major scenes, the students began drafting the stories for each story. At this point, I have put my full confidence in the Lord's work in my students and trusted that they will come up with storylines that would glue well from introduction to finale. True enough, when they turned in their drafts (written on whatever paper they had during that session), I immediately read them at home and found myself dumbfounded by the talent of the class playwrights. There was one particular story that made my jaw drop. I was so thankful to God for the talent of that student who, I believe, was gifted with writing prowess. Initially, all the scenes had foundations for a developing story. Scenes about traffic (8 hours of love), early pregnancy and LGBT (lesbian) were authored by high school students; drugs, depression and atheism, by elementary students.
One week after receiving the drafts, I was scheduled to go out on a mission trip to Indochina. I planned on completing the script by the end of our trip but it never materialized because I slept through the scheduled long land travels where I thought I could write. Nonetheless, God still blessed me with writing inspiration from that trip. It was the atmosphere in Thailand (take note that we went there October 2016 while the country was mourning the passing of their King) that led me to have more compassion for the broken and grieving people, almost resonating to the characters of our play. When I got back, even without a complete script yet - only a list of characters - we began the casting and auditions (see next section).
The individual stories were worthy of applause by themselves. The challenging part was sewing them together to form a single, lucid recital piece. It was only by prayer and several episodes of reclusion, i.e. days of not going out my room, with God's Word and His presence that I was able to tie them into one cord and create a masterpiece. Yes, I am proud to say "masterpiece" because the students' drafts amazingly fit into a continuous story of one desolation after another which became the perfect precursor to a saving-grace finale. I only did a little fine-tuning in terms of wording, sentence construction, and some dramatic elements to make it "stageable". This, in my amusement, was a perfect showcase of God's intervention. As someone who's in love with the idea of teamwork, I was overly thankful to the Lord for the privilege of penning our script to a good close. It was a dream come true. I took it as a writing collaboration with the Greatest Author. The final script was completed on December 2016, just before the Christmas break. The selected cast had enough time to study their characters before the rehearsals began last January.
TRIVIA #1: One major struggle in writing the early pregnancy scene was the presentation of a sex scene because obviously, we will not resort to being graphic on that one for all the sensible reasons. Thank God for the gift of music, we inserted several stanzas of songs with a relevant message; the pre-chorus and chorus of "Call Me Maybe" being the commencing scene for the "act" (never saw it that way before, though!)
TRIVIA #2: The Atheist-turned-Christian reverse poem wasn't an original. Its entitled "Reverse Thinking" written by an unknown author (credits to Deo Volente Media)
TRIVIA #3: During the Christmas break, while I was Pinterest-ing sample set designs, I came across an image that blew me away (see below). As you can see, it's a cross-shaped stage. Of course, it wasn't feasible on our stage. BUT... I saw something else. It wasn't stage design - if you'd fold the sides of a cross, what shape do you have? A CUBE. A DICE. YES! Another light-bulb moment but this time, with goosebumps! This was the game changer. Remember, our script was already finalized and distributed. But I knew God directed me towards this because the Cross will bring much clarity to the finale that I've been struggling to present artistically (link: Discomfort Zone Finale). IT WAS THE LORD'S WORK.
*** PRODUCTION TITLE ***
The title selection for this piece was also purely divine intervention. Since the story was completed without a title, I challenged my students to think of a catchy title that would match the overall theme of our play. But then, again, as we covered this process in prayer, the Lord had spoken to me again through another light-bulb moment. These were the most precious details of the whole process because I could testify that without those ideas that came out of nowhere, I would have put in too much pressure in squeezing every drop of creative juice I and my students can squeeze - that would have been stressful! God was so gracious to us for giving us instant output. "Discomfort Zone" actually has a compound meaning. First is Discomfort, as in the discomfort that the characters in each of the six scenes have been facing due to their circumstances: the ire of traffic and the heartbreak of meeting someone in a bliss but being separated after a short while; the indignation of early pregnancy; the helplessness of a depressed child; the frustrations of a drug addict; the emptiness of a person without God; the longing for love of a homosexual. All of which are in the best position to seek and depend on God for salvation. In parallel with this, it has been common knowledge that real growth begins out of our comfort zone, hence the Discomfort Zone. It is something that many people often tend to forget - that in our utmost weakness, our hope is in Christ who has already gone through all and even worse than what we could ever go through. When we miss out on that chance to call unto Him, we also miss the lesson He has planted behind each breaking point. And when we miss the lesson, the cycle goes on until we finally choose to break free from the bondage of the "easy way out." Again, the story intends to expose the brokenness of our present age and to encourage one and all to turn to Jesus.
*** CASTING AND AUDITIONS ***
The 8 hours of love in traffic scene was the lightest scene, however, the roles of the budding couple were assigned to high school students with the participation of an elementary student whose role was the younger brother of the leading man.
The early pregnancy scene's casting was purely high school. In all honesty, choosing the characters for this scene was so challenging. We had to import male characters because there was only one male student in my high school class and he was given the role Dice Kid. If I can remember it clearly, we had to replace the male character thrice for different reasons and we were so thankful to the Lord for leading us to the male student who finally was able to put the color we were looking for in that scene.
The depression scene whose main cast was an elementary student was actually the fruit of the early pregnancy scene. The audition for this scene was also tough. I was surprised by the number of students who wanted to take the role of the depressed child (I was thinking, does this imply something about these students' psychological states at that moment? TRIVIA #4: There were three story submissions for this scene alone, all written by elementary students. Expressions of what? Hmmm...)
Moving on to the next scene about drugs, the selected actors were all elementary students. Casting for this scene was also tricky due to the pertinence of drug issues in our country and having a very young cast to do this scene was one of my greatest hesitations. But then again, complete trust in God's hand was my sole source of confidence.
For the atheist and Christian characters, selection wasn't hard because we were blessed with students who were "tried and tested" good in monologues.
The sixth scene was the hardest pick for me. At the beginning of our script writing, I already told them that we were going to put on spotlight the not-so-exposed face of LGBT: lesbians. It was also the sensible choice given that 24 out of 25 of my high school students were females. Of all the auditions, this was where extra sensitivity and carefulness had been applied. Definitely, we do not want to offend anyone and most of all we want to make sure that we were presenting it on a Biblically correct approach. (Thank God for the author of this scene! It was a seriously heart-warming and realistic scene.)
Choosing The Dice Kid was not a piece of cake. Every student who auditioned brought their best foot forward but as in every contest, only one will get the role. To be fair, here is what made the chosen Dice Kid stand out: quirky voice manipulation and the quick grasp of the character as it was written in the script given to them before the auditions.
*** PRODUCTION STAFF SELECTION ***
It was quite unintentional but after completing the roster of actors, we found out that almost 80% who were assigned to the production staff were elementary students. They were only supervised by one or two of their high school counterparts but the leg work were to be accomplished by the younger ones. At first I got nervous about the idea but after talking to them and reminding them that the recital-day-hustle would be under their control, they took the challenge. Most of the production staff were former actors our past productions and this, I told them, would be their chance to experience the other side of a play - the backstage madness. They were given the opportunity to choose the department where they thought they could maximize their talents. Some were assigned accordingly as they were not sure where to focus their efforts. From the stage managers, technical directors, the designers and marketing managers, the students were able to perform their tasks seamlessly.
*** RECITAL PREPARATIONS ***
Workshops
The workshops were my most favorite and probably the most enjoyable episodes of our preparations. We had two sessions - one for voice projection and the other for characterization. Everybody, including the production staff and imported students participated in the workshops. It was a blessing that I got to enroll in online courses at the Drama Teacher Academy prior to these preparations. New concepts had been injected into our performance, hence the level-up in acting and production quality (according to some post-prod feedback). It was also during the workshops that I got to know my students better - their points of improvement and how to encourage them to rise to their potentials.
P.S. I also want to thank God for my friends Mark Dela Cruz and Bianca Santos for gracing our workshops! You don't know how much your presence helped me and my students! Grazie mille miei amici! ♥
Props-making
I must say, this was the most tiring and challenging part of the preparations. As far as I can remember, this was the only production I've handled where I spent sleepless nights (yes, night with an "s") and extended (and I mean extra-extra-mile) working hours just to ensure that the props would look as visually attractive as possible. I also thank the Lord for my dedicated, talented and creative students who caught the vision of what our production was going to look like once the props and set design were completed. All our efforts paid off! This part of the preps was surely an output of one working unit.
TRIVIA #5: One week before the recital day, just after our final rehearsal, a number of props have gone missing. Imagine the stress of learning that the hours of hard-work were nowhere to be found! We looked for them everywhere to no avail. Then on the recital day eve, I got a pleasant surprise that one my stage managers just took them home and hid some in her locker.
Rehearsals
Our rehearsal schedule caused another stretching for me and my students. Aside from our regular special class schedule which lasted for 3 hours if combined, we had to push for extra hours after their classes and a few whole days dedicated to props-making. The individual scene rehearsals were crucial. As how I saw it, the actors got hold of their characters during those rehearsals because it was where I asked them how they understood their characters. Knowing where their characters were coming from was the key in the effective portrayal of their sensitive roles. It was also during the rehearsals where we have dealt with their initial reactions to the scenes when they were already acting on it. Some were shocked, some got really shy, some got over the board, and some of the students - including the production staff - really had inappropriate reactions to the delicate scenes - all of which have been processed accordingly to avoid developing a crooked perspective on the true objective of the production.
Music
Music production for Discomfort Zone was honestly given the least preparation on our end. At the completion of the script, music and sound effects had already been defined. The only thing needed was the person to take over the preparation of the audio files. I am no expert in music but I know that it also requires a lot of time to produce and compile sounds for a theatrical presentation. And with the amount of time we have, it was humanly impossible to do it on our own. So, I would like to give credit to my dear friend Bianca Santos, a graduating student at the time of writing, who really took the time and effort to help us with our music and sound effects. God has immensely blessed this production with everything we needed!
Spiritual Preparation
Throughout the preparations, since Discomfort Zone possesses the nature of a "dangerous production", it had been our practice to pray before we began ANY activity. It was crystal clear that our production has the ability to influence my students and the audience alike in ways we have no control of, that is why I also have shared with my accountability partners my nervousness and excitement about Discomfort Zone. I have anticipated the success of our performance from the inception of the concept, but more than a flawless performance, my main concern was my students' take on the objective of our recital. A day wouldn't end without reminding them for Whom we were doing all of those things and why we want it to be as good as it can be. Clarity of message over aesthetics: this has been my challenge to my students. Discomfort Zone's message of hope in the Light will only be clear to the audience as much as it was clear to them. I am very privileged to witness my students' expressions faith in Christ throughout all these groundwork and my continuing prayer is that they would live it out by heart as they grow in faith.
*** RECITAL DAY ***
Call time. When 2:00PM hit the clock, everyone was hustling and bustling all around. Costume - check! Make-up - check! Props - check! Stage design - check! Sounds, lights and whatnot. I was, as usual, roaming around the dressing room/backstage, tech room, and the stage checking on the needed touch-ups. Around 3:30, when all is set and the stage was ready for the first recitalists (guitar class), I gathered my students for a final pep-talk. Reminders. Cautions. Final instructions. Encouragement after encouragement. I just left them with these words: "You will do great." We ended the huddle-up with prayers for one another and for the whole performance to be centered on God and not ourselves.
After the thank yous from the guitar class, my students were ready to hit the stage! We began with an introduction about Discomfort Zone followed by five of my students sharing their experiences from end to end of the production. (Hearing them was so heartwarming because I intentionally didn't check their speeches. I told them to just write from their memory and heart. They were allowed to say whatever they wanted because it was their OWN experience. So, if you watched us and you heard what they said, it was all raw.)
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and! Heartbeat SFX... We're on a roll!
I stayed with the sound directors for a few minutes then moved to the light directors (particularly the follow spot) shortly after the opening scene. From that point on, I didn't have to move from my position. We only had a pair of radio comm - one was with me, the other was with the technical director who stayed at the lights controller. Basically, the sound directors and stage managers were on their own. Remember, these are elementary students. I am so proud of my production team who barely had a technical rehearsal. They delivered way more than my expectations. Everything flowed smoothly that I can't remember sticking my eyes on my copy of the technical script - a huge jump from past productions where I never missed a line from the tech script. This time, I was a mere spectator of the fruit of prayers. Perfect transition from one scene to another. Perfect timing on the sounds. Awesome light effects. Exceptional on-stage live acting. In the eyes of a theater teacher, it was a supremely delightful sight! Except for a few forgivable technical problems, I can say that the theater class nailed it!
MY HEARTFELT CONGRATULATIONS,
BELOVED THEATER STUDENTS!!!
RECITAL DAY PHOTOS: CLICK HERE!!!
*** POST-PRODUCTION REALIZATIONS ***
Trust gives this young generation the confidence that they can accomplish great things.
Encouragement enables. Plain criticism cripples.
There is so much untapped potential that's waiting to be unearthed.
Age isn't a measure of maturity and open-mindedness.
The struggles we face aren't there to destroy us but to teach us to depend on Christ.
Young people might miss the lesson of a failure if we focus on calling out their offense and not in fixing their perspective on the downfall.
Knowing the consequence is not enough to stop an untoward behavior. Knowing where the person is coming from does.
A person who understands God's encompassing love for him/her will not look for it in other places.
Expressions of love and concern works better than downright correction.
Producing an outstanding performance doesn't have to be a dull process. It can be as fun as it can be!
A "dangerous" but wholesome theatre production is possible!
Setting expectations and boundaries matter.
No effort is wasted when done for God's glory.
God provides.
If a vision scares you, do it anyway. Nobody else might have the guts to do it. Callings are confirmed outside of comfort zones.
When you give it your all and give it to Christ, He multiplies the blessing.
God's love transcends all other kinds of love.
Comments
Post a Comment