Paper Assignment
1. What is the issue you want to address
• Explain what the issue is and why it is important to you.
• Why is it not being adequately addressed?
• Why is it not being solved?
2. How is your theater company going to address this issue?
• What is your theater company name and why?
• Give a brief description of how theater can address this issue
• Where is your theater? (On stage? In parks? In a police station, etc.) & why?
• Who is in your audience? Why?
• Who is on stage? Why?
3. What play is your theater company going to do?
• Pick a play that speaks to your company's purpose and the issue you want to address. Give brief synopsis of the play
• If you are picking a piece that you will theoretically write yourself, give brief synopsis of the imagined piece.
4. Text Analysis
• What is the main suspense question of the play?
• Who is the protagonist?
• What is the central conflict?
• What moment is the point of attack and climax?
• Why did the playwright write the play?
• What is the super-objective of the main characters?
• What are the imaginary given circumstances for the protagonist?
5. Directorial Vision
• What is the world of your play--what do you want your audience to see, taste, feel, small and hear both literally and
figuratively?
• What is your organizing metaphor for the production? How do you plan to render this on stage?
• As a director provide answers to WHEN you are setting it, WHERE you are setting it
6. Set Design
• Provide three images of what your set design will be (Remember that theater is a metaphorical space, not a literal space...be theatrical!)
• Give an example of how your set helps to communicate what you want to say with the play
• How does the set go on its own journey throughout the play? Does the set change? Why, why not?
• What's the relationship of the set to the actors in the play?
• If you had to give adjectives to this set, "I want the audience to feel that the set is..." what would they be?
7. Casting
• Cast the main characters in your play
• Give a brief description why you have cast this actor for a specific role and what this actor offers in relation to another actor you have cast
8. Costume Design
• Provide three images representing your costume design
• Give a brief description why you have this aesthetic for your costume design
9. Lighting Design
• How do you want the lighting in your world to feel?
• Give two examples of lighting from either photographs or drawings that exemplify what you're talking about
10. Sound Design
• What sounds are we hearing in this world throughout the play?
• How do you want the sound to make the audience feel?
• Is there a contrast of different sound? For example, if it is a musical there is the singing and possibly the sounds of the world that are in tension with one another
11. Your Audience
• What do you want your audience feeling immediately once the play is over, still sitting in their seats?
• What do you want your audience feeling as they are walking to their car?
• What do you want your audience feeling a week later?
• What do you want your audience thinking once the play is over?
• What do you want your audience say[ing to friends or strangers after the show?
• What do you want your audience to do because they have seen your play?