Gilman Shakespeare Festival 2014

Festival Date: Friday, December 12^th 2014

Centennial Hall during 5^th Period

Obvious Rules That Need to be Repeated Every Year

The First Rule of Theatre:

HAVE FUN!

The first rule, however, is quickly followed by

The Second Rule of Theatre:

NOBODY GETS HURT!

 and The Third Rule of Theatre:

THE THEATRE AND ITS EQUIPMENT MAY NOT BE DESTROYED!

All this might sound pretty obvious, but you would be surprised.

Let’s talk seriously about Rule #2:

NOBODY GETS HURT!

Many of Shakespeare’s plays, including Hamlet, Macbeth and The Tempest have lots of fighting in them: fencin’, wrasslin’, stabbin’, beheadin’, suffocatin’, poisonin’, etc. However, none of this violence is real! No one really gets killed! (That kind of thing went out long ago with human sacrifice, a very early form of performance art.)

COROLLARY A TO RULE #2:
All stage combat must be carefully choreographed by a professionally trained fight director. The only professionally trained fight choreographer at Gilman School is Mr. Larry Malkus. Therefore, no stage combat may take place in any scene that has not been choreographed personally by Mr. Malkus.

In performance every actor in every fight knows exactly what is going to happen. There are no surprises. There is no improvisation. The fighters know literally every move that they will make and every move that their opponent will make in a fight. In the professional theatre union rules insist that actors involved in a stage fight must rehearse their fight before each and every performance. It’s the law! Unless these precautions are taken, people get hurt,  and Rule #2 says: NOBODY GETS HURT!

COROLLARY B TO RULE #2:
If you wish, you may choreograph your own fights, but under these conditions only:
THE FIGHT MUST TAKE PLACE IN SUPER SLOW MOTION!
(Kung Fu sounds, of course, are optional.)

NO REAL WEAPONS OF ANY SORT ALLOWED!

(I am tempted to outlaw plastic bats because I saw Mark McTamney catch a plastic bat in the schnozolla many years ago, and he had to go to the hospital.)

Serious talk about RULE #3:

THE THEATRE AND ITS EQUIPMENT MAY NOT BE DESTROYED!

Special effects are cool in theatre. Bubbling caldrons, disgusting blood, wild pyrotechnics, pouring rain: they are all incredibly cool, and you may include cool special effects in your scene.

HOWEVER, you may not mess up the theatre, its curtains, the stage floor, its costumes, or its props.

THAT MEANS:

· NO MESSY EFFECTS! (No buckets of blood all over the stage, no explosions of flour, sand, or confetti, no whip cream pies in the face which explode all over the stage and its curtains, no spraying other actors or the audience with paint, food colored dye, silly string, or the like, and NO WATER BALLOONS!.)

· NO EXPLOSIONS! (No stanky smoke bombs, no ear deafening explosions, no real gun powder, no real guns (See rule #1), no firecrackers, no cap guns, no super soakers, no nail guns, no FIRE OF ANY SORT, and no ping-pong guns (well, maybe ping-pong guns))

· NO DESTRUCTION OF GILMAN PROPERTY! (That means no destruction of Gilman Costumes, Gilman Stage Floors, Gilman Props, and, of course, Gilman Students, Faculty and Staff.)

· And finally. HANG UP YOUR COSTUMES!