Comedy of Errors



Theater, Set, and Costumes

Both the costumes and the set where very elaborate and over the top. They where almost whimisical kind of Dr. Suess like. The costumes emphasised the commical factor of the play, as well as emphasised the characters traits and personality. The costumes where bright neon colors, hair colors ranged from bright neon green, to blue, to orange and yellow. The costumes always matched the actors hair color. The twins had on identical colors to identify who they where as well as they had a flower in thier pocket to match the mates.
The set seemed to be a street metropalitian setting, with a bar, a restuarant and the housing. I do not think the forth wall was that present during this show. As a dancer it was strange to see the stage dressed with a stage. So often we are used to a bare stage, or a stage with limited setting. They also used the side lights kind of located in the audience, which is strange to me because after performing in drayton hall so many times we have never used thoughs lights.

Time period, Author

William Shakespeare is the author of the Comedy of Errors. This is one of his most earlist plays. It was written during the latter part of 1594. The play is actually set during It was not actually published until 1623. Shakespeare lived during the late 14th into the mid 15th century. The setting for The Comedy of Errors is Ephesus, in Turkey during the 15th century. Turker was the leadign trade centre in acient times. There are also ideas the the time period could fit during the dates of 1589 t0 1595 in France during the wars of succession in France. Although the version that USC did I would put it in a Modern day time because of the mannerism as well as the music used during the play.
 

Plot

The Comedy of Errors tells the story of two sets of identical twins that were accidentally separated at birth.

Due to a law forbidding the presence of Syracusian merchants in Ephesus, elderly Syracusian trader Egeon faces execution when he is discovered in the city. He can only escape by paying a fine of a thousand marks. He tells his sad story to the Duke. In his youth, he married and had twin sons. On the same day, a poor woman also gave birth to twin boys, and he purchased these as slaves to his sons. Soon afterwards, the family made a sea voyage, and was hit by a tempest. Egeon lashed himself to the main-mast with one son and one slave, while his wife was rescued by one boat, Egeon by another. Egeon never again saw his wife, or the children with her. Recently, his son Antipholus of Syracuse, now grown, and his son’s slave Dromio of Syracuse, left Syracuse on a quest to find their brothers. When Antipholus of Syracuse did not return, Egeon set out in search of him.

Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant, Dromio of Syracuse, arrive in Ephesus, which turns out to be the home of their twin brothers, Antipholus of Ephesus and his servant, Dromio of Ephesus. When the Syracusans encounter the friends and families of their twins, a series of wild mishaps based on mistaken identities lead to wrongful beatings, a near-seduction, the arrest of Antipholus of Ephesus, and accusations of infidelity, theft, madness, and demonic possession.

Phantom of The Opera

                                    Description

Phantom of the Opera is a romantic love story of a woman, Christine Daae, and her love for singing, which brings about a love triangle between her true love and the Phatom of the Opera. 

Christine first moved to the opera house when her father who a violinist, passes away. Madame Giry brings her to the opera hourse as a dancer at the opera house.

Christine grows up and hears voices talking to her but no person. Eventually those voices ask her to sing and it sings as well. It calls her Little Lotte and she calls the ghost the Angel of Music. She believes her father sent the Angel of Music to care for her. The love she has for singing brings about the known Phantom of the Opera 'ghost.' Eventually, the lead opera singer quits the show after Christine sings for her once because the Phantom requests it. Christine becomes the lead

The Phantom grew up in a freak show as his face was deformed and was finally found and released by Madame Giry. All the Phantom had was a musical monkey box that he played all of the time. The Phantom and Christine become closer but after the show.

 Christine finds out that her friends Raoul is the new Viscount de Chagny and they fall in love with each other. This is bad for the Phantom because he loves Christine and her voice and does everything to get her back to being his. The Phantom sings to Christine and gets her to follow him down to his dungeon where he has a figure of her dressed in a wedding dress. She passes out after seeing that and when she awakens she realizes what he wants; her. However, she is going to marry Raoul and continues to sing opera for the Opera Populaire. Eventually, the Phantom gets tired of playing games with the two of them and steals Christine. Raoul runs down to the dungeons to save her and gets caught in the Phantom's trap. As the Phantom is close to murdering Raoul, Christine gives the Phantom a kiss and expresses how much she loves him. The Phantom then realizes how much he loves her but that he wants her to be happy. He lets Raoul go and then him and Christine sail away and get married. The Phantom was once again left alone with his monkey music box.

 The end of the movie expresses how Christine died, but as her husband goes to her grave to place flowers down, he notices that one single rose is left there already, which is assumed was from the Phantom of the Opera.

Analyze

The Phantom of the Opera is a gorgeous musical version of one of the most popular plays of all time. Most of the plot takes place in an ornate opera house in Paris around 1870. The set of the opera house has two parts: (a) the oppulent, gilded front where the patrons and actors interact, and (b) the shadowy, backstage areas combined with a mysterious underbelly of secret passages, tunnels, and an underground lake, the Phantom’s domain. Which  is a terrifically cool-looking place that helped to define him as this spooky recluse.

The Music was the driving force behind the movie, it set the mood and told the story. The lyrics the melody played such an important role, it defined each character.

Interpret

There is definatly an underlying story of the difficulty Christin has in choosing between two men in her life. The can choose the  aristocratic, handsome kindhearted Raoul or the dark, unpredictable scarred man.

While I do not think that this is suppose to go for some deep life lesson, parrelleling the story with the difficulties that we facein our everyday lives. I think the authors simply want to tell a beautiful love story through wonderful artistic music. The whole puropse of the Opera is emphasis on the music. Perhaps this is even why the setting is in the Opera house with actors acting out scences of an Opera. This reminds the audience to not forget the importance of the music.

Evaluate

This is an amazing piece of artwork. By far it stands up to many musicals that are movies. The sheer musical gensis is what makes this movie great. The beauty of the music is what is significant about this work.

Not to mention the costuming and sets are amazing. Casting was great. This movie definatly holds weight against others in its field. The attention to detail and the artistic creativity is amazing.

Opera Assignment 8

Opera

 Is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work that combines text known as libretto and  a musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition.Opera also incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes as well as sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble.
Opera started in Italy at the end of the 16th century with Jacopo Peri's lost Dafne, produced in Florence around 1597. It soon spread through the rest of Europe: Schütz in Germany, Lully in France, and Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century. However, in the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe, except France, attracting foreign composers such as Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. Today the most renowned figure of late 18th century opera is Mozart, who began with opera seria but is most famous for his Italian comic operas, especially The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte, as well as The Magic Flute, a landmark in the German tradition.

Light Opera



  as known as comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending. Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria. It quickly made its way to France, where it became opéra bouffon, and eventually, in the following century, French operetta, with Jacques Offenbach as its most accomplished practitioner.
The influence of the Italian and French forms spread to other parts of Europe. Many countries developed their own genres of comic opera, incorporating the Italian and French models along with their own musical traditions. Examples include Viennese operetta, German singspiel, Spanish zarzuela, Russian comic opera, English ballad opera, and Savoy Opera.

Musical



Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms such as opera, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements of the works. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, "musicals

For someone to acquire a truly operatic voice

Well, how long does it take different people to read a book? How long does it take different people to become fit for a race? It varies. The speed of the progress a person makes, depends on the condition of your vocal organ, and the diligence and dedication with which you approach.

This depends upon the individual, as some people progress faster than others. It also depends on how frequently you have lessons, your age, condition, physiology and whether you have bad vocal habits that need to be corrected.

Opera by Puccini

Madama Butterfly (Madame Butterfly) is an opera in three acts (originally two acts) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco. Puccini also based it on the novel Madame Chrysanthème (1887) by Pierre Loti.
 According to one scholar, the opera was based on events that actually occurred in Nagasaki in the early 1890s.
Madame Butterfly originated in a story by John Luther Long and was adapted for the stage by David Belasco. The play premiered with great success in New York in 1900, then quickly crossed the Atlantic for a London production where it was seen by Giacomo Puccini. Puccini's first version of the opera failed at La Scala in 1904, but a revised version was successful the same year, the version that we hear today, one of the most frequently produced operas in the entire repertory.

Butterfly is different from many operas. It is intimate, devoid of spectacle, taking place completely within a house in Nagasaki. There is one straight plot line, without subplots. Girl wins boy, girl loses boy, girl commits hara kiri. What makes the piece work are the characterizations of Butterfly and her Captain Pinkerton, both in the drama and in the rich and luscious Puccini score.

From when we first meet Pinkerton, a dashing officer in the United States Navy, it is clear that the man is a philandering heel, infatuated with the fifteen year old Butterfly, cognizant of her fragility, but "not content with life unless he makes his treasure the flowers on every shore." He says as he compares her to a butterfly, "I must pursue her even though I damage her wings."

The stage for the tragedy is set. We meet the beauteous Cio-Cio San, not a complete innocent - she has been a geisha, after all - but nonetheless fragile, unworldly, and in love with the handsome sailor. She deceives herself, despite abundant warnings, as to Pinkerton's motives.

The tale unfolds with well written dialogue, sung to music which captures the feelings of love and yearning and pain, raising the entire experience into the realm of great art, transcendently moving. This simple plot provides the vehicle for the arias of love and loss and hope and despair, the stuff of which the very best operatic music is made. 

Theater Assigment 7

A Thrust Stage ...

Is one that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the backstage area by its up stage end. A thrust stage is also known as a platform stage or open stage. A thrust stage allows for greater intimacy between the performers and the audience members, but it still retains the uiltiy of a backstage area. Entrances onto a thrust stage are availabe through the backstage, but some theaters also provide performers the option to enter through the audience using vomitory entraces.

Many of the works of Shakespeare were first performed on the thrust stage of the Globe Theatre. The Thrust stage concept was generally out of use for centureis and was resurrected in 1953 by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival of Canda.

While

A

Proscenium stage is....

  is a stage space whose primary feature is a large frame or arch called the proscenium arch even though it is frequently not a rounded archway at all. It is located at or near the front of the stage. The use of the term "proscenium arch" is explained by the fact that in Latin, the stage is known as the "proscenium", meaning "in front of the scenery."

In a proscenium theatre, the audience directly faces the stage, which is typically raised several feet above front row audience level, and views the performance through the proscenium "arch". The space that holds the audience is called the "house". The main stage is the space behind the proscenium arch; it is often delimited by a front curtain that can be lowered or drawn closed. The space in front of the curtain is called the "apron". The stage-level areas obscured by the proscenium arch and any curtains serving the same purpose (often called legs or tormentors) are called the wings, while the space above the stage that is concealed by the top of the proscenium arch is called the flyspace. Any space not viewable to the audiences is collectively referred to as offstage.

Proscenium stages range in size from small enclosures to several stories tall.

In general practice, a theatre space is referred to as a "proscenium" any time the audience directly faces the stage, with no audience on any other side, even if there is not a formal proscenium arch over the stage. Because it seems somewhat incongruous to refer to a proscenium theatre when no proscenium arch is present, these theatres are sometimes referred to as "end-on" theatre spaces.

The Fly gallery

A fly gallery is a narrow elevated platform at the side of the stage in a theater, from which a stagehand works the ropes controlling equipment in the flies. The first known use is in 1988

A Scrim

 

The scrim blocks everything behind it when the light shines from the front. If the light is behind the scrim, you can see everything clearly.

On stage, a scrim is hardly noticed. A thin, lightweight mesh curtain, a scrim stands in for a wall, a pastoral backdrop and other illusions. Scrims are widely used in theater productions to create depth, special effects or other illusions. Because a scrim can be made out of eclectic materials, scrims are often manipulated for intriguing onstage effects that can be quickly changed when changing scenes or acts.

Big Apple- Art Event

Even though the shag is danced in 4/4 time, the dancer counts in 8s when they are dancing. So the dancer will count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and then start over.

Example of dancers dancing the Shag in an 8 count!

The Big Apple building is two-story, wooden building with a metal gabled roof. The orginal purpose of the building served as a synongoue for mostly Polish and Russian immigrants, because of this it is an example of Easten Jewish artchitecture.

The entrance to the building is in a projecting central bay, the door is flanked by wooden pilasters and sidelights under a large arch with stained glass windows. On each side of the arch is a pair of tall narrow, stained glass windows with horseshoe arches. The sides of buildings have five windows with horseshoe arches. The sides have pedimented gables with a rondelle.

The interior has central recessed dome.

When it was the Big Apple Club, the dome had neon lights shaped like the crescent moon and shooting stars. There is a balcony on the front side of the building. This was the spectator's gallery during operation as the night club.

The first name of the Big Apple was House of Peace Synagogue

  In 1907, the Orthodox minyan met at a house at Park and Lady Streets that served as their first synagogue.  This first synagogue was destroyed in a fire in 1915. The new synagogue was built at the site. By the late 1920s, they had outgrown this facility and moved to their third synagogue on 1719 Marion Street in early 1935

The location on Park Street was then used for the African-American night club called the Big Apple Club. At the club, a dance craze, which was named the Big Apple, was popularized.Students from the University of South Carolina, would pay to watch from a balcony, learned the dance steps. Some of these students took the dance to the Roxy Club in New York in 1937. From there, the dance was briefly popular across the country.

In the early 1980s, it was moved nearly two blocks to the corner of Hampton and Park Streets. In 1993, it was purchased by the Historic Columbia Foundation. It has been restored and is available for rental for special occasions.

Carolina Shag can trace its origins to the southern United States during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 40s. Some historians claim that Carolina Shag is a descendant of Carolina Jitterbug, and its predecessor, Little Apple which originated from USC studnets interpretation of the Big Apple, which has started by African Americans.Those origins can supposedly be traced to Columbia, S.C. in 1937.

Historians claim that a slower six-count variation of Carolina Jitterbug  was what gave rise to contemporary Carolina Shag. Soldiers from the north are said to have influenced its six-count rhythm.