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MLP: Moments of Living Potential

A Devised Work Written and Created by Centenary's Theatre Department 2015
Guided Collaboratively by Abigail Dillard

Photo Creds: Jordan Pope

MLP: Moments of Living Potential

Each of us are living moments of potential. We as a department individually have a story to tell on how Marjorie Lyons Playhouse has impacted us. In a devised work, we explore through movement exercises the stories of our department.

Joe

Stage picture of developing levels. Copy cat formation, once one actor moves the next moves and adds an element, then the next does the same moves and adds another element.

Mack

Body confidence, what if an individual person stood in for your hands and feet. How can an actor showcase the physicality of just a hand? Or just a foot?

LeRoy

Soundscape. The ensemble sits in a horse shoe around the focused actor and adds a sound element individually using vocal noises or physically made sound effects.

Billie

Circle around the actor, moving only on the key word of "I"

John

Topography. Each actor must cross the stage without interrupting John as he crosses forward. They must be cognizant of the footprints they leave as they cross the stage. Every cross must be physically different from the actor before them.

Aiden

All men were called for this scene. They were given the suggestion to work with that they were preparing for an audition. It was a comparison to be looked at.

Christian

Catwalks. This is a facing your fears scene. We built up the ensemble as a structure rather than fellow actors to raise Christian as high as we could. There were no props or set pieces used in this show besides mats and a slightly raised stage built into the space we were performing in.

Steven

Gesture. The importance of gesture in telling a story. We had two teams of three come up separately with three emotions they felt while listening to Steven's story. Using the emotions the teams created stock gestures to use at will during the monologue.

Marv

Soundscape and an enclosed space. With Marv's monologue we looked at how to put Marv alone but with everyone. We chose to face everyone away from Marv giving him a long corridor to walk down with a soundscape created by the ensemble where the only word they could use is 'Gone'

Taylor

Buzzby Berkley to Movement to Music. Paired but in a line we started with a Buzzby Berkley, which is an improv game where you respond to music but copy your partner by looking at them with your peripheral vision. Then on a cue from the focused actor we expanded our pairs to separate into different corners of the space and dance freely in response to the music with Movement to Music.

Brett

Brett's monologue was different from the others, she is a dance focus and her space was individualized to give her time and space to present an original dance piece based from her story. Other actors were frozen in dance positions around the space.

Uriel

Break Out. At the beginning of the piece the focused actor was circled around by the ensemble and the actor's goal was to break out of the circle by the end of his monologue. Symbolizes overcoming a hardship.

Montel

Sun Salutations. With a change of professors in our department our upperclassmen took a different type of movement class than our underclassmen. With these two classes, each came with their own style of sun salutations. In Montel's monologue their was a focus on taking a deep breath and learning something new. Here on two levels the department showcases the old and the new.

Malachi

Push the Wall. Malachi felt in his monologue that he had a lot to push through. With this movement piece the ensemble assembled to showcase a wall they tried to push across the space. the final key to getting it across was Malachi himself.

Julia

Building an Environment. Julia woks primarily in the costume shop. For her piece the ensemble set the scene by building the costume shop using pantomime.

Arni

Facets of Life. For this piece each member of the chosen ensemble took an aspect of Arni's life and acted out that character choice.

Jordan

Thank you. Jordan was our final piece. For this the entire ensemble came together to thank our viewers, thank our professors for teaching us, and thanking each other by standing together to realize that our stories would never be the same if we weren't all there to be a part of them.

Final Picture
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