Hanna's Vignette #1

So, I thought I'd explore the shorty cruise performer angle because it got me all fired up and I think it's kinda funny. So here is a first draft vignetter. Wooohooo.

                                                                        SCENE

(A young women dressed in a vintage pink dress   stands center stage on the

deck of a ship. Passengers and crew are bustling around about her. She reads a letter allowed.)

                                                LILY

            “Dear Miss Samson, we thank you for auditioning for the Sparkle Cruise Musical Theatre Spectacular, but unfortunately we do not have a spot for you at this time.  Due to strict height requirements and a need for tall stalwart dancers, we may never have a spot for you on our line, unless you decide to grow six inches or choose to wear stilts for the rest of your life. And please, if you are to audition for us again, please don’t wear that god-awful pink dress. It’s hideous, even if it’s retro or retro or whatever you “hip” kids call it this days.

            We wish you the best of luck.

           

            Sincerely,

            The Sparkle Cruise Artistic Team”.

The nerve! It gets worse every time I read it! I’ll show them! I’ll show them this little hoofer can steal any show!

            (To a porter.)

Excuse me, sir. I’m a little bit lost. Could you show me to my room. And then to the rehearsal studio?         

                                                                        PORTER

The name’s James, Miss. And certainly. By the way, your pink dress is quite striking.

                                                                        LILY

Thanks!

(She gives the audience a snarky knowing look. And they exit.)

Lead the way my good sir!

(They exit.)

END OF LILY’S FIRST VIGNETTE

Hanna's Ideas

One of our little vignettes could be :
-Petite musical theater lady can't get seen at auditions for cruise lines because she's to0 effing short. So she sneaks on to the cruise and infiltrates rehearsals and becomes a performer there by sheer force. (she has to wear heels the WHOLE TIME.)
 -Maybe that could connect with the dog/sailor scenario.

- I feel very influenced by Anything Goes right now..probable because I did the show over the summer..

Some stuff I wrote down from our last meeting :

-Astrologers, tarot card readers, palm readers on ship

-Titanic Sequel!

-Crew members who are terrified of water

- a crew confessional
-A nude cruise, where snobby conservative people end up on the wrong cruise! Oh noooo
-a space cruise in the sky!

Topics to explore/ touch on:
-classism
-racism
-immigration
- running out of food

-Hanna

Project One ideas 

Matt Braaten

MORE IDEAS AS OF JAN. 2014:  

• Research and re-watch disaster and non-disaster ship movies (to glean ideas) like The Poseidon Adventure, Das Boat, The Hunt for Red October, Titanic, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, Blue Lagoon, Black Stallion, Life of Pi, Castaway, Captain Phillips, Horatio Hornblower (great British series), Master and Commander, etc.
• A witch coven goes on a cruise the same week as a right-wing Christian fellowship and sparks literally fly.  A little magic anyone?
• This all could work with a leader or person who weaves in and out or without any real thread connecting the scenes.
• Musicians on a ship.  They can only sing their dialogue.  It begins to annoy the passengers.  E.g. "Give me a Coke, please?"  "I have to use the bathroom!"  Etc.
• Make fun of Kate and Leo Titanic scene.
• Old man fishes off the deck of a boat and philosophizes about the sea and the earth and could be eco message.

• Pirates: 
In the Bermuda Triangle, pirates from the 18th century try to board a cruise ship and finally are welcomed aboard as it seems that their old ship couldn’t possibly be sea worthy.  Drama ensues as the pirates with their swords try to take the ship and then realize their old ship has been crushed.  Is it a Christian cruise?  It could be Jean Laffite, famous New Orleans-based pirate.  Maybe they meet a group of seniors and one old woman thinks the pirates a roving theatrical group, thus she refuses to see that they are real.  Perhaps they could be present-day pirates, a la Somalia or Philippines.

• The Devil Made Me Do It:
 A planning error causes a Christian or virginal meet-up cruise to be combined with a druid or satanic cult or “swingers” cruise

• An elephant, a donkey and a marxist walked into a bar: A planning error causes democrats, republicans and marxists to end up on the same cruise.  Debate ensues.  Who will be right?  How will the ship's crew continue to provide great service.

December Meeting notes: The Cruise Ship

- Musical:

A love affair by a worker and rich lady, to find her lost dog.

Make it a dark comedy.

- Space Cruise

- “Hostile on a Boat”

- Cross periods and genres, combine

- Garbage and waste on the ship.  Isaac’s idea of the shit on the ship.  Starts at the top in the First Class cabin and trickles down.  

- Aria’s dark idea of the people on the boat.

Character treatment & action

Here is a character treatment and an action/tagline. As a potential story, I'm offering this only as a character who would be a kind of "test particle" to drop into different situations to see what happens. I'm not suggesting any particular genre. I think it's flexible; open to interpretation for its structure. I'm using the "Labels" feature to tag this post with "story" and "character"... we can add others, but should soon decide on a list of tags to limit the tagging so the search function is useful.

Character

            The Hipster: Mid-to-late twenties; white male; master’s degree in media studies from the London School of Economics; unemployed; living at home with insufferable parents in a 55+ suburban community in the Inland Empire; $50,000+ in student loans to pay off.

            His mother is selfish and demanding. His father is a used car salesman doormat.

            In public he is always immaculately dressed and has his hair coiffed. Dress: leather shoes with buckles, tight jeans, collared shirts, has been known to wear bow ties. He always looks forward to what he calls “cardigan weather,” once the highs dip below the mid-60s in the LA Basin.

            He wants to be journalist or cultural commentator. His dream job would be to replace Joel McHale on The Soup, but he doesn’t always admit that he’s really more intellectual than he lets on. He seeks mental and aesthetic stimulation, which pop culture sometimes provides for him as an object of criticism, but more often than not it reinforces his contempt for the world. He often uses bitterness to conceal his otherwise strong emotions about the world, but he’s by no means a saint (ableism is one of his prejudices).

            He is our lens/protagonist/narrator.

Action

            The Hipster takes a cruise to Hawaii with his parents for a family vacation and, trying to escape his parents while on board, explores the ship only to encounter all the different kinds of guests and crew members dealing with problems that keep mounting until everything on board ends up going wrong. Woo is the Captain.

--James

Categorizing our Brainstorming

I was thinking we could make multiple posts for the Comedic and Tragic acts based on topics such as: story/concept, stage ops, performers;  and perpetually comment on both?

Let me know if you have any ideas or better suggestions.

-Isaac