Vampire Lesbians of Sodom: Day 2

Today we will conclude our reading of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. After reading, please work on your play projects. These drafts will be due next week. Please use the time given to you during class to write your drafts.

Theatrical Conventions and Some Advice for Your Play Projects:

• Give characters irreconcilable needs. Place obstacles. Make sure characters fight to the finish.
• Use the "locked cage" (keep characters on stage where they belong!)
• Use the ticking clock (time lock); give your characters a time limit/deadline.
• Use the vise; increase the stakes for your characters.
• Use personal traits, qualities, state or conditions as reasons for confrontation.
• or allow characters to break societal, religious, or moral laws as reasons for confrontation.

Theatrical Conventions:

• Masks
• Cross-gender (costume/casting)
• Asides
• Soliloquy
• Stillness/silence/pauses
• Use of a narrator (seen in "memory plays" like The Glass Menagerie or Brighton Beach Memoirs)
• Synecdoche (part represents the whole); a prop might suggest a character type, etc.
• Suggested scenery (consider the set in Driving Miss Daisy, for example)
• Costumes & props
• Multiple casting (one actor plays several roles)
• Lights or lighting changes
• Soundscapes/sound effects
• The fourth wall; Breaking the fourth wall (addressing the audience)
• Flash forward, flashback, slow motion, freeze
• Tableau
• Montage
• On-stage deaths; stage fights
• Physical theater; mime & dance to communicate or narrate the story
• Unities of time, place, or action
• Transformation of time, character, place, or through props
• Songs
• Choruses
• Heightened language; unrealistic speaking patterns
• Placards, signs, and multimedia

Look for some of these conventions in the following short play: The Play That Goes Wrong. After watching the play, please answer the 3 questions from your Google Classroom assignment. This will count as a quiz. Notice the theatrical conventions that went wrong in the play.

If you're not into writing this morning, please work on your homework. Stay on task. The end of the marking period is looming!

HOMEWORK: Choose 1 of the OTHER plays in the collection The Tale of the Allergist's Wife & Other Plays and read it. Write a play analysis of your chosen play. Choose from: The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, Psycho Beach Party, Red Scare on Sunset, or The Lady in Question.

This analysis is due Friday, Nov. 1.

EXTRA CREDIT: You might like to see Putnam County Spelling Bee. If you go see it and write a critique of the show, you can gain extra credit.