Fiddler Forum, Play Option, & Ibsen

HOMEWORK: Please post a forum comment on the play Fiddler on the Roof. It is due by the end of the day today (11:59 p.m.).

As your final project in playwriting, you will have a variety of options. Here are a few of them:

1. Collaborate with up to two people (2 works best) to create a musical. You may find it helpful to base your musical as an adaptation (remember those adaptation scripts?) of a well known book (examples might include: Harry Potter! or Tale of Two Cities! or The Eyre Affair!, a well known film: Kane! King Kong, the musical!, or Whatever Happened to Rosemary's Baby!, a well known event: Wallstreet, the musical!, or Evron, the musical!, or a even a religion (The Book of Mormon is playing on Broadway right now, but there have been tons of religious musicals: Godspell! Jesus Christ Superstar!, and others.) The possibilities are endless.

2. Write a realistic social play a la Ibsen. More details on this very soon--see below. Use the techniques of naturalism to write a dramatic script.

3. Write an absurdist play (more details will follow next week).

IBSEN:

A major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theater director, and poet, Henrik Ibsen is often referred to as "the godfather" of modern drama and is one of the founders of Modernism in theatre. His works are what we call naturalistic.

Naturalism (1865-1900) attempts to go further from realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment affects human behavior. Plots often revolve around social problems, characters are often drawn from lower classes and the poor, perhaps in an attempt to explain their behavior.

In Hedda Gabler Ibsen explores infidelity and betrayal. His use of the "secret" as a conventional plot device is excellent. Hedda remains one of the most interesting dramatic characters of the 19th (and 20th) centuries--a juicy role for an actress!

Fiddler on the Roof - Songs

Act One:
Opening sequence (from the film Fiddler on the Roof): Tradition
Matchmaker (college stage production)
If I Were a Rich Man (with Zero Mostel)
Sabbath Prayer (1971 film with Topol)
Lechaim (1971 film)
Fiddler Tradition (Reprise) Stage production
Miracle of Miracles (stage)
The Dream
Sunrise Sunset

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a Stephen Sondheim musical, with book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. It is inspired by the farces of Plautus (251–183 BC), a Roman comedic playwright. The musical is specifically taken from Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus and Mostellaria, and centers around a Roman slave named Pseudolus as he attempts to win his freedom by helping his young master woo the girl next door. The plot displays many classic elements of farce, including puns, the slamming of doors, cases of mistaken identity (frequently involving characters disguising themselves as one another), and satirical comments on social class.

Fiddler on the Roof & A Funny Thing Happened...

Sholom Aleichem was the pseudonym for Yiddish writer Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich. His collection of short stories Tevye the Milkman and Other Tales inspired the musical Fiddler on the Roof. In 1905 he escaped Russia's Pogroms (more history here folks) to settle in New York, but moved to be with his family to Geneva, Switzerland. His family eventually moved to Manhattan in 1914, but Aleichem died the next year in Geneva. His work was influential as a Jewish writer.

Fiddler on the Roof is based on Aleichem's characters and stories and was written by Joseph Stein (book) and Jerry Bock (music). Lyrics were written by Sheldon Harnick. The play takes place in Russia and is about Tevye (a milkman) who is the father of five daughters. He attempts to maintain Jewish traditions during the Russia diaspora.  Since many of you are a little cloudy about history, please look here for information about the Diaspora (full film documentary). And a lecture by Dr. David Neiman on the Diaspora.

The original Broadway production of Fiddler opened in 1964 and surpassed 3,000 performances. Fiddler held the record for the longest-running Broadway musical for almost 10 years until Grease took that title. It remains one of Broadway's Top 20 productions in all history. The production was extraordinarily profitable and highly acclaimed.winning nine Tony Awards, including best Musical, score, book, direction, and choreography. So There's a lot to learn by reading it.

HOMEWORK: Please read Fiddler on the Roof (listen to the music on our next blog entry) and post a response to the forum (remember that thing?) by Friday, Dec. 16.

Man of La Mancha

We're continuing the reading of this musical.

Background information on the Inquisition:

Images of the Inquisition
Jewish Perspective of the Inquisition
Catholic Perspective of the Inquisition
Atheist Critical Perspective of the Inquisition
The Inquisition sequence from Mel Brooks' The History of the World - Part One (note rude language alert!)
Video Documentary (entire show over 1 hour)
The Spanish Inquisition (Monty Python)

Broadway Stage Play clip from the musical
The Tony Awards celebrates Man of La Mancha
Man of La Mancha Movie (Dulcinea) with Peter O'Toole (1972)

Man of La Mancha: Musical

 
Man of La Mancha is based on Miguel de Cervantes' masterpiece Don Quixote. You can read the novel on line.

Production history and background info is here.

One Act Play Project

You are working to complete your One Act plays. Your one act play script should be a minimum of 15 pages (and probably no longer than 30). One acts are longer (obviously) than 10-minute plays. You may include more than one scene in a one-act play, but you still want to think about following the unities. The shorter the play, the more this matters (or you can use a suggested set).

Before you hand in your play, please proofread your work (grammar, syntax, and spelling count), check your play script format, and examine your sentence structure. Dialogue should not be long, twisty-turning-labyrinthine sentences that go on and on and on with many conjunctions like and, or, but--also get rid of those stupid non-words like: um, well, so, etc.