8th Grade Performing Arts

Sunday, June 7, 2009

See Tuck Everlasting video -recorded at PHA May 19th

Please check out performance of Tuck Everlasting by fellow PHA students by clicking on links below:

Festival Cast
and
School Cast

Friday, May 29, 2009

8TH reads 12 Angry Men

All 8th grades costumed their characters for staged readings of the play " 12 Angry Men".

Friday, May 15, 2009

middle school

pha middle school 7/8 poetry slam is MAY 22nd

Friday, May 8, 2009

Tuck Everlasting is the story of a girl named Winnie and a family who she meets, the Tucks. The Tucks have a secret, they're immortal.They drank water from a spring that was actually a fountain of youth. Till the end of time, they will stay that way. Winnie must choose between being immortal and being with Jesse or following the circle of life and dying someday. The Tucks try to teach her how she shouldn't fear death, how they would give anything to die. It teaches the importance and understanding of life and death.It shows that you should not fear death, but to fear an unlived life.

Festival Cast

Tuck Everlasting goes to festival!

We are almost ready to get on the bus and go to the Festival. We have a great script, wonderful costumes an almost portable and detailed set and wonderful actors and amazing stage crew ( yay Jackson!) We will perform for family meeeting 5/6 on FRI MAY 15th and evening performance on MAY 19th 2009 at 6PM.

Prospect Hill Academy Charter School - Drama Club, presents “Tuck Everlasting” a novel by Natalie Babbitt
Original adaptation for stage by Mark Frattaroli and excerpted and adapted for Drama Festival 2009 by Branigan LaCount.

The cast and crew will meet at PHA at 6:45 AM on MAY 9th to take our play to the the 15th Annual Middle School Drama Festival. We will pack up all costumes,props, and sets and travel by bus to Walsh Junior High School www.framingham.k12.ma.us 301 Brook St Framingham, MA 01701 (508) 626-9180

We will not get home until the evening sometime after 7 pm. We are most grateful for the extraordinary generosity and genius of Natalie Babbitt. She gave us her script, her permission to mold her play to fit drama fest rules and her blessing. All this free of charge in appreciation of the work we do at PHA.

And we are most appreciative of the support of Trevor Wrankmore, the amazing kindness and flexibility of PHA parent and professional costumer, Liz Perlman of Costumeworks and Sheila Leavitt, cardboard wizard. Also a shout out and big thanks to Luis Rivera and Joe Harris who have gone over and above to help us.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

12 Angry Men - look at some video

Immigrant speaks:

#10 rants

end scene

12 a remake from Russia...Chechen boy accused of killing Russian step father. Russian men decide his fate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcmWd74eg8k

Brighton Beach Memoirs

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Drama Fest and Spring Play Cast

Tuck Everlasting Casts
Thank you all for your great work at the open casting calls this week! Ms. Dooley and I appreciated seeing your wonderful talent and the time you took to share it with us. We are planning to perform this play in two ways, so we have two casts: the Festival Cast will perform at the drama festival in May and the School Cast will perform at PHA soon after the festival. We are also doing some neat movement and vocal work with the Voices, but you will hear more about that during rehearsals. We are excited to give everyone the chance to work on different parts and hope that each student will enjoy working on the play!

It is important that each cast member is able to commit to being at rehearsals, so we ask that you take February Vacation to have a great time, but also to really make sure you will be able to do your best with rehearsals and the performances. IF YOU WANT TO BE PART OF THE PLAY YOU MUST RETURN YOUR PERMISSION SLIP, SIGNED BY A PARENT TO MS. DOOLEY OR MS. LACOUNT BY TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24 (RIGHT AFTER VACATION). We need to get started as soon as possible, and we need to know who we are going to be working with.

Congratulations to you all and have a fun and safe February vacation! If you have any questions, please ask Ms. Dooley or Ms. LaCount.

Festival Cast
Tuck: Catello Batinelli
Mae: Garlyn Colas
Jesse: Justin von Bosau
Miles: Elizabeth Pierre
Winnie: Rebecca DiTucci
Grandma: Illyana DePierro
Stranger: Alyssa Wong
Constable: Olivia Porte
Voices: (Captain) Lyndsay, (Captain) Crystal, Hannah, Joelle, Lorena, Jackson Manz-seik, Rebecca, Emily, Imani, Grace

School Cast
Tuck: Hannah Eyoub
Mae: Joelle Bueno
Jesse: Lorena Cruz
Miles: Jackson Manz-seik
Winnie: Gabby Ferriera
Grandma: Emily Goldstein -McGowan
Stranger: Imani Abraham
Constable: Grace Montiero
Voices: (Captain) Lyndsay, (Captain) Crystal, Catello, Garlyn, Justin, Elizabeth, Gabby, Illyana, Alyssa, Olivia

Bio for Branigan LaCount

My name is Branigan LaCount and I am the performing arts student intern at the PHA middle school. I am very excited to be back at PHA after graduating from the school in 2005.
I am currently in my senior year at Emerson College in Boston. I am a BA Theatre Education major with a performance emphasis and upon graduation will receive my MA teaching license. I have been involved in theatre for as long as I can remember and have been teaching drama related classes since my sophomore year of high school. I've acted in over 40 different productions, both musicals and straight plays, and have performed in three different countries. Theatre and education are very important to me so I am very excited to be able to combine them in my work as a student teacher at PHA!
Outside of PHA, I am involved in several other areas: Currently, am working toward my goal of founding a children's theatre organization that specializes in working with mentally and/or physically challenged children, by developing a program that meets these goals. My aim is to have the program up and running within the next two years. I am also a drama teacher with the Boston Children's Theatre, working with 4-11 year age group, and I am manager at Coldstone Creamery, where I train new employees, make ice cream, and decorate cakes.

I look forward to a great semester at PHA!

UNIT 3 Dramatic Reading

8th graders are using skills from improv to create characters and endow them with specific emotional states and personality traits.
We are using the play, 12 Angry Jurors, which has 12 distinctly different characters to use to explore and practice these skills as well expanding the work we did with vocal technique.
"12 Angry Men" focuses on a jury's deliberations in a capital murder case. A 12-man jury is sent to begin deliberations in the first-degree murder trial of an 18-year-old Latino accused in the stabbing death of his father, where a guilty verdict means an automatic death sentence. The case appears to be open-and-shut: The defendant has a weak alibi; a knife he claimed to have lost is found at the murder scene; and several witnesses either heard screaming, saw the killing or the boy fleeing the scene. Eleven of the jurors immediately vote guilty; only Juror No. 8, casts a not guilty vote. A staged and costumed reading wil be the culminating project.

Improv - vocabulary

Accepting - Improvisors need to create a reality that is not really there, without knowing what other reality the other players have in mind. In order to clearly show one united reality, improvisors should be accepting. That is they must listen carefully, play, react, and build every idea they hear or see from each other.
Blocking - not accepting other players` offers - contradicting and destroying what fellow players do or say.
Canceling - destroying what has been established. Try to use all elements that have been introduced by fellow players and realize that contradiction isn't interesting.
Offers – any action or dialog that gives an idea to fellow impoviser and will advance a scene. Usually a good thing. Offers are supposed to be accepted. A strong offer is an offer that clearly gives a direction into which a scene might evolve. An Open Offer is an offer that leaves a lot of possible directions for the scene to evolve in.
Players - students, actors, and people who are engaged in improvising. Schools, groups, actors,theater companies and even companies form "teams" and play together using improv to create scenes, theater pieces and play games.
Scene - a scene is a short-short “story” or exploration about one idea or theme through action and words made up by the players with suggestions from the audience or using an existing story or idea. A scene has a beginning ,middle and end and a who, what, when, where and how.
Wimping – wimping is accepting offers but not doing anything with them. Typical wimping is asking an open Question and leaving the action to be decided by the other player. Another common form of wimping is babbling without making any offer.

Unit 2 Improv

Improvisational theater or "improv" is a form of theater in which the actors use simple games and prompts to perform spontaneously. Improvisers use audience suggestions to guide the performance as they create dialogue, setting, and plot on the spot. These days "improv" techniques are taught in standard acting classes but also are used in corporate settings, college and any place where creative thinking is valued. The basic skills of listening, being clear in thought and speech and confidently intuitive are part of improv study.

Intuition and creativity can be developed. The best way to improve one's improv skills is to practice. Improv is a skill for all walks and ages of life! In the US impov is best known for its comic possibilities. But there is a serious side to improv as well. People who are interested in social change have used improv and theater to help people think and act in ways to change the world. Agosto Boal is perhaps the most famous and his work is carried on here or www.theatreoftheoppressed.org.? Theatre of the Oppressed is a form of public theatre developed by Brazilian director, Augusto Boal, in the early 1970s. This participatory approach to performance provides a platform for dialogue, critical inquiry, and provides tools for individuals and communities to transform their social realities through direct action.
In a forum theatre model, a short skit is presented for a community that addresses a specific oppression faced by members of that community. Audience members are asked to offer alternative solutions and are invited to directly assume the role of the characters, modifying the outcome of the plot by switching roles with the actors. This process is repeated until the actors and the audience come to a consensus over a solution presented.
We will study improv to exercise our positive thinking and to improve our public speaking and acting skills. We will use games and scenes - comedy and drama and we will create it all. Improv is fun, deep and a skill for life!

Story Water by Rumi 13th century Persian poet

A story is like water
that you heat for your bath.
It takes messages between the fire
and your skin.

It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!

Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.

We need intermediaries.
A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread to bring it.

Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.

The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
the light that's blazing inside your presence.

Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what's hidden.

Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,

and then not.

8th Grade Performing Arts

Sunday, June 7, 2009

See Tuck Everlasting video -recorded at PHA May 19th

Friday, May 29, 2009

8TH reads 12 Angry Men

Friday, May 15, 2009

middle school

Friday, May 8, 2009

More Tuck Pics

Tuck Everlasting goes to festival!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

12 Angry Men - look at some video

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Drama Fest and Spring Play Cast

Blog Archive

PHA performing arts blogs

Branigan LaCount

Bio for Branigan LaCount

Unit 4 Shakespeare and Theater of the Oppressed

UNIT 3 Dramatic Reading

Improv - vocabulary

Unit 2 Improv

Contact us ?

Children's theater

PHA grad, Branigan LaCount teaches acting to children at Boston Children's Theater

LISTEN

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” - Epictetus (Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, AD 55-c.135)

Unit 1 Storytelling

Story Water by Rumi 13th century Persian poet

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