I have spent this afternoon with the Riverside Youth Theatre in Sunbury. They will be performing Sondheim’s Into The Woods in May and today was their introduction to the work.

I had been asked if I could run a workshop for an hour after we had watched the DVD of the original Broadway production and had done some singing with the MD.

Following some research, I discovered that the show actually began as a workshop in the summer of 1986. It was produced without costumes or sets. The performers wore baseball caps with signs on them indicating their character names. When they changed roles, they changed caps. The cast was grouped around a piano bench which became a variety of locations and props.

After some warm-up exercises, some discussion on the origins and history of fairy tales and then some characterization work, I split the group into two and each choose four different envelopes in which were sealed different fairy tales.

Cinderella
Beauty and the Beast
Little Red Riding Hood
The Three Little Pigs
Rumplestiltskin
Rapunzel
Jack and the Beanstalk
Sleeping Beauty

My idea was for them to choose some characters and plot lines from the fairy tales, mix them up and create and perform a completely new story. The character names were written on card and taped to baseball caps and the only set I allowed them was one chair. To help them (though to be honest they didn’t need any) I also gave each group a ruby ring to incorporate in the story.

I designated two of the older members as Director/Narrator for their group and flitted back and forth shouting out time checks as they were only given 20 minutes to work it all out.

The hilarious results (the three pigs were changed into horses to pull a carriage for cinderella, then changed back into pigs and eaten; there was a Fairy Goth-mother, and a Prince Chav) were then performed to everybody in the Studio and I was really pleased with what they had achieved.

A talented bunch, I can assure you.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 8:05 pm and is filed under Riverside Youth Theatre. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.