This past week I was lucky enough to attend not one, but two plays. One play was at my old alma mater, Cambria Heights High School, the one other at Bishop Carroll High School.
CH performed The Wiz, the 1975 Broadway musical adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. The play features music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls. I remember watching The Wiz as a kid back in 1978 when it was released as a motion picture by Motown Productions and Universal Pictures … Diana Ross was Dorothy and Michael Jackson was the Scarecrow. In CH’s production, my niece was Evilene and several former students had leading roles. It was exciting to see them perform; they all did a fantastic job.
BC performed Smile, The Musical. I’m not as familiar with Smile as I am with The Wiz. In fact, I’ve never heard of Smile before the school started advertising its performance several weeks ago. Anyway, from the program I learned that, “Smile is a play about a contemporary beauty pageant (taking place in 1985) written by Howard Ashman with music by Marvin Hamlisch. Each contestant is an individual with something to add to the spectacular that is the Young American Miss Pageant.” Basically, Smile chronicles the backstage troubles of the fictional 1985 California Young American Miss beauty pageant held in Santa Rosa, California … it has some really funny scenes in it. I’m glad I went. Truthfully I probably would not have gone to see Smile if it wasn’t for my daughter’s drama club field trip. I was a semi-chaperon/driver. As a playwright you can never attend too many plays, they’re all different and you learn something new each time.
Last night I got to attend a backstage tour with the drama club and learned about “upstaging.” I have an academic understanding of the term, but I’ve never really grasped its full meaning until the tour. The director, Bruce Stanley, was explaining that, in Shakespeare’s time, since audiences were on level ground, the stages were slanted towards the audience so that everyone could see what was happening on the entire stage – the back of the stage, the upstage, was higher than the front. I asked, “Is that where we get the expression to be upstaged?” And it is. Apparently, when an actor moved upstage of another actor, it forced the other actor to act with his back to the audience and thereby overshadowed his performance. Interesting! Today the more common meaning is to outdo someone either professionally or socially.
What’s the lesson in this? Attend and get involved with your local theater as much as possible. You’ll learn a lot and that will help you as you write and sell your play.
Until next time …
Break a leg!
Technorait Tags: The Wiz, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L Frank Baum, Charlie Smalls, Motown Productions, Universal Pictures, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Smile – The Musical, Marvin Hamlisch, Howard Ashman, drama club, upstaging, stage direction
