Subject: RE: PUPT: Staging in the semi round
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 00:51:10 +0100


Don't tie your narrator figure (if you feel you need one) to one position on
the stage - use them to engage the audience on all sides, keep him/her
mobile.
Similarly with your scenes - keep them away from the back wall unless they
need to be there for some effect - if they're shadows or they need to use
something that cannot be positioned on the forestage.
Your narrator can set your tombstone (for example) at the very front, or a
front corner, of the thrust as part of an introduction/scene-setting - no
problem.. As regards working with visible puppeteers I think in a thrust
configuration you will need to find a way. I'd be surprised if anyone
questioned it, and the enforced openness of the stage may release you to
work in more stylised and free ways in any case - working the bunraku
puppets overhead or using aerial puppetry or something specially designed.
Otherwise you will have to design in some reason why you are not using the
main front stage area and your show will be disappointingly two-dimensional.
If you can get your puppets out onto the forestage, broadly the same
suggestions are useful as with actors: use the diagonals, emphasise with
strong clear moves and keep it dynamic. Don't get self-conscious about the
puppeteers, it will only make the audience try to apologise for you.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-puptcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> [mailto:owner-puptcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu]On Behalf Of Krefting
> family
> Sent: 10 April 2002 21:38
> To: puptcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: PUPT: Staging in the semi round
>
>
> 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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