B4

I really enjoyed looking through these Broadway excerpts on the “Stage Door” blog. Every video looked extremely professional, but there were three specific ones that stuck out to me. The first one was the excerpt from Grease, performed as part of the ’94 Tony’s opening act. The performance started with everyone running on to stage with neon hula hoops, which was a great attention grabber. It was crazy to see how everybody on stage, about 30 performers, were perfectly in sync! I also noted the costumes that they wore, the females were fitted with highlights of pink, while the males tended to be in all black with a leather jacket. There was also a great use of “mise en scene” for this performance because it was made to look like a bar at a diner with retro bar stools, which I loved.

            The next excerpt that stuck out to me was the trailer for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, set to be performed in London in 2014. The first thing I noticed in this trailer was how the stage looked completely different from scene to scene. It almost looked as if some scenes took place in a different theatre. This was another great example of “mise en scene.” Secondly, the technology used for this performance was phenomenal. Of course, the lighting was spectacular and brought everything together with the use of strobe and spotlights. Also, they used little puppets in the place of the oompa loompa’s which I thought was very interesting. My favorite part was how they showed the elevator scene at the end where Charlie and Willy Wonka are flying above the city. They went into a makeshift glass box that was lit with neon blue lights. They were then hoisted into the sky and looked down on to a miniature city beneath them, it was amazing.

            My third favorite excerpt was the west coast cast of HAIR. The excerpt I watched was filmed in 1968 so it was a little dated, but the performance could still be considered up to date today with the way they setup the stage. The walls were covered with various street signs and junk such as tires to create more vivid scenery. The costumes were great; some were wearing long flowy shirts while other wore simply blankets to cover themselves. This piece stuck out to me because it seemed like a mix between opera and Broadway. Also, the choreography was impeccable, especially how they opened with a synchronized slow motion scene. Finally, I loved to see that the only use of microphones was with handheld, corded mics, and there were only two of them. This made the stars really stick out. Overall, I would say that the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory excerpt was my favorite because of the incredible technology they used in it.

Ángel. “Stage Door.” Stage Door, angel-stagedoor.blogspot.com/.

X1

Lime Explosion

For this exercise, I decided to start with a bowling scene where a bowling ball is knocking into bowling pins. However, instead of bowling pins, I drew beer bottles. I also replaced the bowling ball with a lime, to signify that limes go with beer. 

I created this image because I really think limes belong in beer. You could even say that when combined, there is an explosion of flavor. This is comparable to the way that a bowling ball explodes into the bowling pins at the end of the lane. 

The idea to merge these two separate scenes together cane to me while I was at work. I work at a bar downtown and my manager said that she was thinking of organizing a team bonding day. One of the servers suggested we all go bowling and that is when the idea clicked. The necessary relationship between a bowling ball and bowling pins is directly related to the relationship between beer and limes. In other words, they go well together, and would be very different when separated.

B2

During Raul Cuero’s interview, I learned many ways to stay creative. Cuero stressed multiple times how important it is to be observant. He said kids nowadays tend to have unintelligent conversations about superficial things. I reflected on this and realized that it would be a great idea to unplug for at least 20 minutes every day. The purpose of this break would be to observe everything that is around me, whether it’s what I see or what I hear. It could even be what I taste if I go to a restaurant. This semester I am going to try to keep my creativity up as much as possible with my music and write at least 4 bars of lyrics every day.

            Cuero also spoke on how important reading is, especially for growing children. This, however, is interesting because it sort of goes against the rest of his statements throughout the interview. Whenever he bounces from one response to another, he has the common theme of leaving behind technology and going outside to do nothing but observe and take mental notes. This note about how important reading is for learning and staying creative could be taken in a way where technology is the best route. Nowadays everything is accessible online. We watched the interview online didn’t we? Also, there are millions of articles written solely for online purposes, so how can he say we should leave behind technology?

I know things have changed a lot in the past couple of decades with technology, and Cuero also touched on that. He said, “You can’t plan creativity.” He went on to talk about how ideas come from nature, or rather inductive knowledge which is new knowledge. On the other hand, deductive knowledge is preexisting knowledge. Cuero said that you will only learn deductive knowledge from technology. This is what made me realize that being observant was his main advice. It was because he kept going back to it every other question he answered. He made a way to relate it to nearly every question that he was asked.

When talking about the problems with the American school system, Cuero said that there is a very solid foundation, however, he thinks that people in America go to school for the wrong reasons. In his eyes, the only reason someone would want to enroll in education would be to learn, but that isn’t the case today. Students today enroll in education because they want a job. Now, I don’t completely agree with what he was saying here because an end goal is key. If you don’t plan ahead for what job you want to do, then you will waste a ton of money going back to school after you realize that you should’ve been planning for a job. Yes, it is important to learn and enjoy the learning process, but planning ahead is essential. My favorite piece of advice given during this interview was to be committed and focused without the fear of failure. Just do what you want to do, it’s as simple as that.

HoustonPBS. “Microbiologist Raul Cuero PhD on Sparking Creativity on Living Smart with Patricia Gras.mpg.” YouTube, YouTube, 24 May 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZugtaO85T_Y.