SHS: Stage Plays
One of the highlights of my Senior High School is spearheading Stage Plays.
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| Hardcopy Scripts |
In the duration of three years (2016, 2017, 2018), I managed to direct, to co-direct, to write, and to co-write (even to act) major stage play and school role plays. I was immersed in 6 wonderful crafts which truly enhanced my capability and exposed me to new experiences.
(I planned to blog each play individually and to share my experiences in each one but my time then failed me and now I'm doing this one collective blog!)
New Yorker in Tondo (August 30, 2016)
This is the first major role play that was given to us as I entered Grade 11. The class is divided into two groups with the same play and was basically judged who did it better.
As I remember it, New Yorker in Tondo is a story about a girl who went to New York and is now returning to her home in Tondo. In her baggage is her transformation that stunned her old friends both comically and sensibly.
I read the script as soon as it was given and normally, I began imagining how I and my group would execute it. I thought of my members and evaluated potential cast. As our script reading started, we tried different people try different roles and assessed who would play the character the best. It was my call who will play which until we had an official cast and job assignments. Normally, I'd take the position to direct which is synonymous to lead and my group just always trusts me. They know what I can do and on the other hand, I know how to utilize what they can do.
My cast exchanged dialogues during free time - memorizing their lines whenever the conditions are favorable. We practiced during weekends, planned the production, and by production means sounds, props, wardrobe, and even choreography.
I entrusted my members with their respective jobs: my cast characterizing their role, my choreographers thinking routines, my dancers and singers rehearsing their scenes, while I technically do my job to direct the play, to correct errors, to improve ideas, and to make sure my group is doing what it's supposed to do.
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| My choreographers: Jolina Barcita (Pink) and Paula Tandang (right - Black) as they teach a routine of New York New York by Frank Sinatra, to be danced for a certain scene in the play. (Chumba Dancers L-R: Claire Reboltan, Abigael Rendon, Mavek Gibas, Airah Caronan) |
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| Some of the main cast practicing and exchanging lines. (L-R: Dainelle Nunez [mother], Kenneth Granzore [Tony], Eugene Quiroga [Totoy]) |
We did our role play in our room, judged by our subject teacher along with two other teachers, watched by an invited lower grade level (Grade 10 I think). I don't have a picture of the event though. But it was clearly fulfilling as we managed ourselves beautifully. The two groups used the adjacent room for preparation. It was full of stuff, bags, and various items. We used almost the same set-up during the actual play; minor props were added by the respective groups, and creative add-ons from background music to subtle gimmicks were executed by both teams. However, the other group was admittedly unprepared, they even praised our performance particularly the acting skills of my cast.
I remember ours being imperfect as there were untimely execution and late entrance. I even got mad over some parts as I handle the sound system, thus knowing every cue. I remember showing them my mad face. LOL! 😁😆. But I realized that was normal for a live performance. Overall, we performed New Yorker in Tondo well!
SPECIAL MENTION: Kudos to Lyka Rola, who played the female lead Kikay, for her impressive performance! Thanks to my awesome team! You truly are amazing!
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3 Idiots (October 24, 2017)
The second play came in Grade 12 as a performance task in one of our core subjects. The idea was either to create our own play or to adapt a story from a resource, and we ended up doing the latter. The class had a brainstorming, shared ideas, rejecting and almost approving some, until we thought of 3 Idiots, a popular Bollywood film, as also recommended by our subject teacher.
The elements of the story are conducive for us to make a play adaptation of the movie: the school settings, student characters, and a profound message about friendship, family, love, and dreams.
We decided to create a literary adaptation for a stage play. We had first a film showing of the movie because apparently, not everyone in our class has watched it. The first challenge is how to obtain the script of the movie. Fortunately, we were able to get a copy used as the movie subtitle. It was obviously a poor version of the script, but anything is better than nothing. We are 30 in class; we divided the movie time and assigned parts which everyone should edit and correct.
Then we conduct a conference to decide which scenes are relevant to include, whether there are characters that can be removed and parts of stories that we can take out of the picture. It was difficult to choose whether to include this part and to remove that part. I basically worked on the parts that we can execute and improvise until I created a decent flow of the story we're going to act.
We only started to plan the production when we finished a 100-page script. It was indeed lengthy; that's what you extract from an almost 3-hr movie (let alone having removed numerous parts and didn't include parts of the stories even they were relevant to the movie). We encountered problems in playing some characters, but we resolved it by having dual roles and sacrificing one for another.
Scripts were printed, digitally shared, and read by the class. I have the director's copy, so do the assistant and technical people. We had people for wardrobe and props, for make-up and hair, for sounds and stage design, and choreographers and dancers. This time I decided to have recorded dialogues because we're going to play it on the school stage and I thought, memorized lines will only be wasted if it cannot be heard by the audience (We have limited mics in school). So aside from memorizing our lines, we recorded dialogues in each scene which we would dub during the actual play. (I realize this was a good excuse for not memorizing the script because it was too lengthy and time was not quite enough to have fully memorized it.)
I remember us staying late in school to rehearse the play. We also had difficulty in assembling a complete class that's why I required an attendance that would affect their grade. It was a huge challenge for us - to dwell that performance task with the other subjects'. We record in the day; we rehearse in the afternoon till night.
I have set good working schedules but we still had a hard time making everything smooth. As I was busy rehearsing my actors and cleaning scenes, my technical people were functioning. I was lucky to have reliable people working with me. In this case, I have told them to decide on their own without waiting for my approval because they used to consult everything to me and have my approval on almost everything (especially in doing group projects, exhibits, and various works). I thought I have to trust them to do their work without my full supervision and they did. Though they still consulted to me whenever they feel an important need to.
This was the time I wish I have clones to work simultaneously with me, but that ain't possible! HAHAHAHAHAHA! 😒😅
I remember that some days were called off and we were not allowed to go to school due to a weather advisory. It was such a great loss for us because we could have used the time to rehearse and complete all the scenes because we haven't had a run through of all the scenes.
Despite being behind the rehearsal schedule, our teacher had to move the performance day earlier than what was originally set because apparently, it would coincide with the annual Sportfest of the school. How crazy is that? Until now I couldn't imagine how we pulled it off. But I remember we stayed late at school, we've done our run through on the same day of the performance: final run through in the morning - performance in the afternoon. FOR REAL.
The elements of the story are conducive for us to make a play adaptation of the movie: the school settings, student characters, and a profound message about friendship, family, love, and dreams.
We decided to create a literary adaptation for a stage play. We had first a film showing of the movie because apparently, not everyone in our class has watched it. The first challenge is how to obtain the script of the movie. Fortunately, we were able to get a copy used as the movie subtitle. It was obviously a poor version of the script, but anything is better than nothing. We are 30 in class; we divided the movie time and assigned parts which everyone should edit and correct.
Then we conduct a conference to decide which scenes are relevant to include, whether there are characters that can be removed and parts of stories that we can take out of the picture. It was difficult to choose whether to include this part and to remove that part. I basically worked on the parts that we can execute and improvise until I created a decent flow of the story we're going to act.
We only started to plan the production when we finished a 100-page script. It was indeed lengthy; that's what you extract from an almost 3-hr movie (let alone having removed numerous parts and didn't include parts of the stories even they were relevant to the movie). We encountered problems in playing some characters, but we resolved it by having dual roles and sacrificing one for another.
Scripts were printed, digitally shared, and read by the class. I have the director's copy, so do the assistant and technical people. We had people for wardrobe and props, for make-up and hair, for sounds and stage design, and choreographers and dancers. This time I decided to have recorded dialogues because we're going to play it on the school stage and I thought, memorized lines will only be wasted if it cannot be heard by the audience (We have limited mics in school). So aside from memorizing our lines, we recorded dialogues in each scene which we would dub during the actual play. (I realize this was a good excuse for not memorizing the script because it was too lengthy and time was not quite enough to have fully memorized it.)
I remember us staying late in school to rehearse the play. We also had difficulty in assembling a complete class that's why I required an attendance that would affect their grade. It was a huge challenge for us - to dwell that performance task with the other subjects'. We record in the day; we rehearse in the afternoon till night.
I have set good working schedules but we still had a hard time making everything smooth. As I was busy rehearsing my actors and cleaning scenes, my technical people were functioning. I was lucky to have reliable people working with me. In this case, I have told them to decide on their own without waiting for my approval because they used to consult everything to me and have my approval on almost everything (especially in doing group projects, exhibits, and various works). I thought I have to trust them to do their work without my full supervision and they did. Though they still consulted to me whenever they feel an important need to.
This was the time I wish I have clones to work simultaneously with me, but that ain't possible! HAHAHAHAHAHA! 😒😅
I remember that some days were called off and we were not allowed to go to school due to a weather advisory. It was such a great loss for us because we could have used the time to rehearse and complete all the scenes because we haven't had a run through of all the scenes.
Despite being behind the rehearsal schedule, our teacher had to move the performance day earlier than what was originally set because apparently, it would coincide with the annual Sportfest of the school. How crazy is that? Until now I couldn't imagine how we pulled it off. But I remember we stayed late at school, we've done our run through on the same day of the performance: final run through in the morning - performance in the afternoon. FOR REAL.
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| THE GRADE 12 CLASS WITH THE JUDGES |
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| Left to Right: Rancho (played by Eugene Quiroga) and Professor Virus (play by Ryan Reyes) |
SPECIAL MENTION: To my class, we survived it! To Eugene Quiroga, you're a natural!
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Beauty & the Beast Jr. (November 24, 2017)
I have already blogged about this so you can just read about it on this link Direk! |
| L-R:Sir Mike Medina (Director), Eugene Quiroga (Musical Director), Me (Assistant/Technical Director) |
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| Me handling the Mic Traffic |
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Nativity Play (December 18, 2017)
Our school principal has personally expressed her wish for me to direct something on Family day/Christmas school celebration after our school annual stage play. I thought - our school is so supportive of me as I received these opportunities. Well not only to me but also to the potentials of its students since some of the major casts of Beauty and the Beast Jr. have also taken a part of the project with me. |
| First conference about the Project |
I also requested the assistance of Tr. Rizza again as we worked well together during B&B Jr.; the assistance of Tr. Marj as a voice coach as well.
I finally gathered the resources needed: a free script of Nativity play from the internet, talents, and logistics.
Script reading started as soon as I finished editing the official script. I had to remove some parts while maintaining the essence of the story. Another challenge for me was to incorporate appropriate songs to be sung in between scenes; this is also to grant Tr. Glo's wish to make it musical and so we did.
As this was a student production, I only managed and bothered to get a few people to personally help me. I had Moy again as my technical assistant, JD for props, and Faith for the wardrobe. I am my own personal production manager along with Tr. Riza. Hahahahaha. Gladly, the faculty and my talents were helpful as much as to make the play happen.
To produce a Nativity play might be simple and easy as we commonly know the story. However, personally, it's the only time I learned about it upon reading it for I am not that religious and haven't read about the birth of Jesus Christ. I must admit, accepting the job needed professionalism in order to deliver and I'd like to think I satisfied it. I hope yet I would have done things more and differently if I/we have more resources to utilize.
I had gathered my cast every after class to read lines. Eventually, we began rehearsing at the stage where it would be performed. To tell you, it was overwhelming. Yes, I have directed before in our group projects and class presentations, but working with a different set of people who are not your usual co-workers/ slash/ classmates truly challenged my capability as a leader and communicator.
Having already worked with my talents back in B&B Jr. actually helped me this time as I kind of knew their range as actors.
Since it's a student production, props and costumes would be provided by the casts themselves; though we managed to borrow some costumes from the school, courtesy of Faith and Tr. Glo. I was also able to provide some old wardrobes.
Family Day came and it's time to perform. I and Faith were on the backstage, Moy's ready in the sound, Tr. Rizza held the kids who would play as extras, Tr. Marj awaited her choir, JD helped in the props, and the actors waited for their cues.
And we did it! A solid 20-minute play, if I remember correctly, with the students and parents applauding.
Tr. Glo surely gave me a hug when she saw me after the play and I supposed she was happy with what we did, as I greatly hoped.
This Nativity play is another feat for me and one of my memorable firsts. I also realized and could claim that it's the first Nativity play ever performed in JILS, or at least in my 12 years of stay in the school if my memory serves me right! Hahahaha.
Acknowledgments:
To my talented actors and narrators, To Tr. Marj, Tr.Rizza, Moy, JD, Faith, Tr. Glo, Tr. Justine, Kenneth, Paula, Apple, Vincent, my classmates, Tr. Rachel, Sir. SJ, Sir Lester, Sir JL, Tr. Anna, my teachers, and school faculty.
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To produce a Nativity play might be simple and easy as we commonly know the story. However, personally, it's the only time I learned about it upon reading it for I am not that religious and haven't read about the birth of Jesus Christ. I must admit, accepting the job needed professionalism in order to deliver and I'd like to think I satisfied it. I hope yet I would have done things more and differently if I/we have more resources to utilize.
Having already worked with my talents back in B&B Jr. actually helped me this time as I kind of knew their range as actors.
Experience truly makes a difference.As Tr. Marj conducts sessions with my actors to practice their respective song numbers and the school choir for their piece as angels, I would work on planning the props and wardrobe of my cast. We searched for wood shavings/husks for the stable, created gifts to be presented by the three wise men/kings, produced animal headdresses to be worn by the kids and wings and halos for the angels among others.
Since it's a student production, props and costumes would be provided by the casts themselves; though we managed to borrow some costumes from the school, courtesy of Faith and Tr. Glo. I was also able to provide some old wardrobes.
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| From L - R: Fjord and Raffy (angels), Clarisse (innkeeper), Gadrian and Eize (shepherds), Enja (Mary), Anthony (Joseph), Sean, Arend, Ryan (three wise men) |
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| With my great prop assistant JD, and ME |
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| Final Song with all cast |
Tr. Glo surely gave me a hug when she saw me after the play and I supposed she was happy with what we did, as I greatly hoped.
This Nativity play is another feat for me and one of my memorable firsts. I also realized and could claim that it's the first Nativity play ever performed in JILS, or at least in my 12 years of stay in the school if my memory serves me right! Hahahaha.
Acknowledgments:
To my talented actors and narrators, To Tr. Marj, Tr.Rizza, Moy, JD, Faith, Tr. Glo, Tr. Justine, Kenneth, Paula, Apple, Vincent, my classmates, Tr. Rachel, Sir. SJ, Sir Lester, Sir JL, Tr. Anna, my teachers, and school faculty.
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The Blind Date (January 15, 2018)
The new year has arrived and as a performance task (PT) in Contemporary Philippine Arts, our class was divided into two: a movie and a play. I personally wished to be included in the movie team as I miss filming and obviously, I have done stage plays just a few months back so I'd want to do a movie this time. Unfortunately, the group where I belonged got STAGE PLAY as our PT. So be it, I thought. Hahahaha!
Both groups are tasked to create original work. That meant creating our own play and not an adaptation. That meant ideas had to come and we had to develop concepts. Being the creative mind of our team and having already done a brainstorm with my group, I thought of something simple and executable, short but interesting, easy to deliver yet engaging. Here comes the idea of one-act play, with almost one scene, and about two strangers who are set up by mutual friends to explore the possibility of perhaps finding love.
Having generally chosen old songs from the likes of Don't Give Up on Us, Don't Know What to Say, and Just Another Woman In Love, The Blind Date becomes more comedic not only in terms of the script but also due to the actors' portrayal of their characters.
We also decided to imitate and dub this popular scene from Status Single and play their characters:
We started our script readings as soon as I finished the official script and had the copies bound. We usually exchange lines in our school library during free time. A round table surely helps in doing so. Hahahaha. We would lower our voice as to not disturb the librarian who also happens to be the subject teacher of the said PT.
Despite my actors being talented in singing and memorizing, I still had them dub the whole play and lipsync their respective songs. This is due to space and time restrictions of the project. I still would like to think they performed well before a quite wide audience in the school grounds.
This project is surely fun. Yes, it was tiring but memories were made and skills and talents were exposed. *I can't remember the grade that was given to us; despite that, I hope my team enjoyed and learned from it as I always learn every time.
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| Incomplete group picture with my team Back L-R: Airah, Mariah, Lory, Syrel, Jasper, John Love, ME; Front L-R: Alieth, Jhez, Moy, Vincent |
Romeo, a socially awkward guy, is taken to a blind date by his friend Vincent. Juliet, a hopeless romantic gal, has had a few unpleasant experiences with blind dates but her friend Jane was able to convince her to try once more. Vincent and Jane, a lovely couple, thought of making their friends go into a blind date. Will it go nicely or worse?The Blind Date is a musical romantic comedy play written and directed by yours truly. Making it musical was not in the plan until I felt to make it one. I have never done a musical before, at least an original one. Although the songs are not original as I only searched them on YouTube, it was a challenge to think of a song lyric and a song applicable to the supposed story of the play; but what happened was - I remember the night I was browsing through a Youtube mix and the songs I discovered happen to shape the narrative and not the other way around.
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| Script Reading |
Having generally chosen old songs from the likes of Don't Give Up on Us, Don't Know What to Say, and Just Another Woman In Love, The Blind Date becomes more comedic not only in terms of the script but also due to the actors' portrayal of their characters.
We also decided to imitate and dub this popular scene from Status Single and play their characters:
We started our script readings as soon as I finished the official script and had the copies bound. We usually exchange lines in our school library during free time. A round table surely helps in doing so. Hahahaha. We would lower our voice as to not disturb the librarian who also happens to be the subject teacher of the said PT.
Despite my actors being talented in singing and memorizing, I still had them dub the whole play and lipsync their respective songs. This is due to space and time restrictions of the project. I still would like to think they performed well before a quite wide audience in the school grounds.
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| Technical Dress Rehearsal at the actual stage |
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| Group Picture after the TDR |
This project is surely fun. Yes, it was tiring but memories were made and skills and talents were exposed. *I can't remember the grade that was given to us; despite that, I hope my team enjoyed and learned from it as I always learn every time.
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Barkada (March 2, 2018)
I thought we're done with plays but as a final requirement in Malikhaing Pagsulat, everyone is tasked to submit an original play script and would later choose and vote one entry to be played on the stage.
After deliberation, Syrel Tandang's Barkada was voted and chosen by the class where I would work as the director and consultant of the script.
The one-act play is about, as the title explicitly gives it (Barkada means a clique or a group of friends), friendship and individuality of different students united by a warm yet heartbreaking event.
Barkada exhibits a romantic item Rob and Haycee (played by Ryan Reyes and Apple Besina), a couple Rio and Aly (played by yours truly and Faith Magallon), a confused teenager Colleen (played by Jolina Barcita), music enthusiasts Joed and Ejay (played by JD Trinidad and Sean Ramos), and supportive friends Reika and Yuko (played by Lyka Rola and Paula Tandang)
I can say that this play is relatively lengthy, having 13 scenes and multiple settings. It was a challenge for the set design and props, considering limited manpower as we were only 16 but we managed.
The greatest foe we ever encountered was TIME. Lines were not yet memorized and honestly, everyone was procrastinating as it's the time of the year - MARCH.
We planned to use mics available in our school but ended up recording again (as we somehow mastered dubbing with the previous class plays) to ensure we were able to conduct a final rehearsal and a run through of the play because we were already behind the schedule
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| TDR |
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| L-R: Moy, Vincent, Syrel, Abigael, ME, Paula, Apple, Ryan, Airah, Lyka, Jolina, Faith, JD, Sean |
3 Idiots is the longest yet Barkada could compete in the most exhausting play our class has ever done, I must say. We truly stayed late in school to have a final run through as time was killing us. Good thing that we were less troubled by the wardrobe as the story is set in a school.
For the record, I felt this is the first time I directed something that is not my own. Although I already had some adaptations (Newyorker in Tondo, B&B, 3 idiots, Nativity), I did not write Barkada. I wasn't as pleased as I want to be with our work and our teacher just proved that as she expected some things from the script that we failed to execute - that I failed to deliver as the director.
It's a lesson learned. Don't take shortcuts, risk more, and exceed expectations.
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| Technical Sound Team |
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| The Audience |
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| The Backstage with Tr. Krisha |
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It's already 2019 and I only finished writing this blog. Pictures clearly hold memories. I wish I could write more of my experience in every play but my memory can only hold as much as this.
I miss working with my classmates - the talented and natural actors, very reliable crew, and generous teachers. I miss my creative juices as well. Hahahaha!
This made me think that High School is very crucial in our personal development and individual formation. It's the activities like these that open us to possibilities, unlock our potential, and push us to do bigger things.
Thank you for reading!
It's already 2019 and I only finished writing this blog. Pictures clearly hold memories. I wish I could write more of my experience in every play but my memory can only hold as much as this.
I miss working with my classmates - the talented and natural actors, very reliable crew, and generous teachers. I miss my creative juices as well. Hahahaha!
This made me think that High School is very crucial in our personal development and individual formation. It's the activities like these that open us to possibilities, unlock our potential, and push us to do bigger things.
Thank you for reading!
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