Alright, so I love musicals and any time I get to put on my director hat and choose a production that I'd love to see come to life, it will most assuredly be a musical. For this one, I chose the musical Godspell. I would want it to take place in a busy outdoor environment such as the quad or a popular park. The characters would be dressed as ordinary people (including the part of Jesus) and would interact with audience members as if they were audience members themselves. All of the music would be sung acapella. Obviously, this production would take place in a found space. There would be no set brought in and props would be minimal. Focus would be multi-focus most of the time. And as for the text, it wouldn't be the entire show that we'd be doing. Only the parts that would be relevant to Jesus interacting with his disciples (which would be the actors as well as the audience.)
The reason I chose this show and this sort of environment is because I would like to mimic what it was like when Jesus was actually on earth interacting with his followers. When he would speak, a crowd would gradually form around Him and His disciples. My hopes would be that a similar thing would happen with this production. I think it would greatly enhance the show to have it set in a modern day version of history.
As for Kantor's quote, I would have to say that I disagree. I believe that when we are expecting things to happen, they are always much more likely to happen. If I attend class expecting it to be boring, it almost always is. If I attend a movie expecting to hate it, I usually will. If I go to church expecting to encounter God, I usually find myself more likely to than when I don't expect anything. I believe the same is true with theatre. Most of the time, when I attend a theatrical production that I expect to be good, I am impressed. On the other hand, if I expect the opposite, I'm usually not surprised. I believe that expectations have quite a lot to do with the results.
I think this would be a really unique piece of theatre and it is definitely something I would be interested in singing. It would be interesting to see how the space was used. Would people be expected to only gather around Jesus, or would the actor playing Jesus seek out people within the space as well? Also I like the idea of a musical being performed acapella and outdoors. It would require a lot of effort from the cast to stay on pitch with one another while also projecting enough to create a unified sound. I am also curious to know how the actors would deal with unexpected scenarios (speaking of expectations) would they invite those disruptions into the space as part of the play, or would there be an effort to work around those types of interactions. If the former of these options is ideal, how much leeway are the actors given to incorporate that into the production? I agree that when you expect something specific that expectation tends to become a reality. However, I always believe that the best approach is to have as little expectation as possible. Because the way our expectations shape our experience, I believe it is better to let this experience occur without any preconceived notions.
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