Fringe Festival 2013

My goal for the Fringe this year, as an IB senior, was to move every single audience member; no matter their ethnicity or culture, my piece would get audience members thinking, and realizing the power of theatre as an art form that communicates universal truths. I have been a part in every Fringe Festival since 10th grade here in ISK; I have mostly acted, but last year I staged managed for a senior's devised piece. This year, as I am IB2 in HL Theatre Arts, it was my chance to direct, and in my case write, a play of my own. This was very intimidating, yet invigorating and empowering. I loved the idea that I could pick what I wanted to communicate to an audience, and that I had complete artist freedom with my piece. This was also very intimidating, as there was so much I could do, so much I could say, this wide range of options often gave my extreme writing block. My script was initially going to address racism, and how it is evident in modern society, but I finally concluded that racism was too specific, and not very many people could directly relate to race-related slander, and I really wanted to get every demographic in the audience thinking and relating my piece to personal experience and viewpoint. I ending up discussing relationships, and exploring how relationships often weaken us, even though we think that it is the key to finding the strength in being individuals against a society promoting conformity. I found this extremely interesting because relationships, pressure, fear and identity can be understood universally on different levels from different demographics; we all have a different understanding of these dilemmas, depending on age, background etc. I thought it would spark interesting discussion as we live in an international community. Personally, it made me question my own view point, and how my own experiences have and will continue to change this. My cast was very short, only consisting of two people (Nikita Chandaria and Marcus Sweeney), which was positive, and negative in many ways. We did extreme amounts of work on body movement, diction, and rhythm to prepare for this show, as I was exploring elements of Physical Theatre, Promenade Theatre and Poor Theatre. This was interesting as this was a different kind of acting for both of my actors, so we did a lot of character work to get them in that mind set. We also discussed as a cast our own feelings and experiences on the subject, which was really important in our bonding as a cast, and helped Nikita and Marcus figure out how to act and approach their characters. Once we solidified our script and scenario, we practiced and practiced, and I was happily surprised and how fast they absorbed the new material. I was extremely happy with the end result, as well as the Fringe Festival final performances, and as a whole. Audience members responded extremely well and I felt that my goal was met.