Week Ten - What A Riot!

Reading Many Schutzman’s commentary about her performance that she directed at REDCAT with the CAP program was actually kinda fun, it was like reading the Dr. Seuss book Oh The Places You’ll Go but about CalArts haha. As I started to read more into the process, it became apparent as to how pinnacle these students were in the play. She spoke as to how the show was going to be a ‘Joke System’ style play but even in the process beforehand all of the characters were selected by the students and discussed amongst all of them. I loved it when she said, “As each of their stories unfold, we learn…” we, they are all involved in this engaged process that allowed everyone to bring something to the table. She even went on and said that she encouraged them to ask questions about their characters historically to see if thats what would have actually happened in that period of time; that level of engaged collaboration is something that I love love love to see in productions. Schutzman also says that there were some challenges and bumps in the road as this process went on and the two key things I saw was that one, this Joker System play was something that had not been done for +40 years and reviving such a thing could have taken well or could have taken very poorly. Another thing that I would think was a natural challenge was the age of the actors and actresses, at such a young age people plays such vibrant roles is a double edged sword, it can be done so well that seeing someone of that age speak to a level of higher intelligence, not to sound ageist here, but it just smacks you in the face and provides this wow…look at this 15 year old just shred reality to pieces. It is something that she even says she faced, but pulled off with diligent execution.