Subject: PUPT: Staging in the semi round
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 15:37:39 -0500


We have run into a conundrum that is holding up script and puppet
development.  For a local historic pagent program, we are doing a "main
stage" (inside the big top tent) production.  This will be an original work
which, briefly, encompasses the Dakota-white interaction in the 1800s
through the lens of a couple of key figures.  Having done the research,
decided on a staging and type of puppetry (masks and modified bunraku, with
some rod style in a complementary design) and beginning the outline of the
script, we have been informed that we need to work from an essentially
thrust stage (seating on 3 of 4 sides of the stage).

We are trying to figure out a way to stage this and still keep the story we
want to tell.  The plan was for one central character (originally off to one
side of the stage) who handles narration or prompt to action as
necessary--story telling, reminiscences, etc.which ties things together--as
the actual story action happens in the set pieces behind him, running across
the stage at various heights.

We have shifted action around, thought inverted "v's", 180 arcs, etc.  My
basic question is how others have handled staging for seating on three
sides.  We won't be operating behind opera pit curtains, but more or less
out in the open, with important set pieces which we can't parade around the
stage (such as a tombstone).

Ideas?  Thanks,

Wayne Krefting



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