A thread for George

[2000Cadet]

Notice how my entire post was dealing with "this year", which drill-wise is one of the easier programs when compared to other corps. And yes, BD is usually in this boat too. Not this year however. And this thread wasn't about BD, it was about The Cadets.

Don't get me wrong. In my opinion The Cadets' hornline has been UNMATCHED since 2005. I do not hate The Cadets, and in spite of the narration their 2007 show is the one I watch the most from last year (their Blue Shades was just the deal). However, this "new" (and it's only new to drum corps mind you, bands been doing it for years) show design direction is allowing them to march less impressive drill and still hang with the big boys. Not saying other corps don't do it in their own ways as well (looking at you, BD), but that's not what this thread is about.

But with all due respect, it seems that you opened the door (and pardon the pun, not trying to make any jokes). When you suggest that Cadets show design is allowing them to march less impressive drill and still hang with the big boys, you should probably expect the comment that the previous poster made. Let's face it. They usually have hard drill. I am sure they can afford to take it down a notch sometimes. But as always with The Cadets, I see changes coming, which is a good thing.

I've seen some pretty good ideas lately on what The Cadets could do to improve their show. I wouldn't be surprised at all if GH saw them as well and chose to incorporate those into their show. Let's see what happens.

[bawker]

The single biggest thing that can be done to legitimize and find a definitive usage for narration and spoken word is to treat it just like the rest of the corps: that is, to make it "World Class".

1) That means going out and selling drum corps to actors who qualify age-wise. Not your average community theater actor/actress that thought they were hot stuff in their high schools production of "Camelot". Not second rate drama majors in college.

This means you go into NYC, and you audition people . . .just like you do your horn line and drum line. Maybe you have to sweeten the deal and pay some of their way the first few times you do so, since putting "Performed with Cadets Music Ensemble 2012-2014" on your resume might not impress casting directors.

However, if you look for the best brass and percussion players in the world, then you need to commit to do the same with your actors. Have alternates that can go on. Use eight or ten spaces in your 150 kids for these actors, and don't multi-task them with having to learn an instrument or whatever. During the corps everydays, bring in your wordsmith and work just as hard as the kids outside will be at making the words come alive, which leads to #2 . . .

2) Before you even attempt that step, in the off-season . . .you make a commitment to finding the best wordsmith you can. No using your own words as director, no letting other design staff try to take a hack at it. If that means you go for broke, and go up to road a little bit to NYC and try to get a big name . . .so be it.

Make that person a part of the design process . . .a big, big part if you plan on using narrative as your thematic construction. This person knows best. . . better than you, better than your other staff, how to set a tone and use language for effect. If it ends up too verbose, then challenge them, but give them freedom to approach things in several different ways and rewrites.

If you use narration as your tie-together, then realize that your wordsmith is just as (if not more) important than Jay Bocook.

The single worst thing that can be done with narration is to assume that it's easy to do, and write your own script. If it was that easy, then maybe you should be writing your brass and percussion books, too.

That's a start, and a step in the right direction, IMO.

Once those things happen on some scale, we will see some growth in that portion of show design.

That growth will allow you to be confident in doing things like playing with numbers (maybe more guard than horns one year, maybe having 20+ actors in a season that perform a play, with the brass/percussion only acting as a background, with the guard acting as the Greek chorus visually, etc.).

. . .maybe I'm way off base here with these, since I'm as far removed from drum corps design as I am changing the price of tea in China.

Maybe not, though.

[CreativeType]

I am a theatre director and while I agree wholeheartedly that the actors are doing their best with these IMO insurmountable circumstances, and as others have pointed out the writing (or rather, editing) is lacking.

1.) I think the simplest, cheapest, and fastest step they could take right now would be to eliminate the hockey puck "set". It physically removes the players from the action of the corps which is obviously designed to tell the story. The problem here is one of character - what or who is the corps in relation to the players? As far as I can tell, they exist in a dimension completely separate from Sarah and her story. Is the corps supposed to be Sarah's memory swirling about her as she speaks? Is the corps what the interviewer is daydreaming about while she's talking (and that's why we can no longer hear her)? While many people may not be able to put a finger on it, I think this is part of the very emotional reaction that people are having with it. Use the set at the very beginning if you must but then get rid of the it, letting the players have their relationship to the corps made clearer.

2.) Sarah needs to have an actual story, with a beginning, middle, and end of her PERSONAL journey. We don't give a crap about how she lived a priviliged, white girl life (as do the majority of participants and fans of this activity) and how it took her from college to marriage to a job to kids and then to breast cancer. "This American Life" is the show I think it is meant to emulate and they are very good at getting this right - the play by play is offered as a ramp-up to the point of the story, which is their personal revelation and how that changed them. It should look like this:

"Blah, blah, ordinary circumstances, blah, blah, life-changing situation and/or revelation, blah, blah, what the revelation means, blah."

As it stands now, the story looks like this: "Blah, BREAST CANCER, blah, blah, ordinary, ordinary, blah, blah, blah, blah, revelation."

[Peel Paint]

My main suggestion is to look at the narration as drama, and to try to evaluate whether it's succeeding as, effectively, a 3.5 minute one-act play about the life of Sarah Jones. If it doesn't work as drama, it's unlikely that the audience will experience the emotions you want them to experience, and it's unlikely that they'll find the overall Cadets show compelling no matter how well they play and march.

Specific issues that I see are:

- Age and skill level of actors. Sarah sounds like a college student, not like a 50 yr old woman who has experienced love, marriage, childbirth, professional success and a life-threatening illness. She speaks about these weighty subjects in a rushed and artificial tone. The listener should be able to suspend his or her disbelief and imagine that they are hearing a real woman tell her story.

- Script. A closely related issue is that the script doesn't develop Sarah as a credible adult character. If you met a 50 year old woman who kept going on about about her youthful love affairs and her corporate career, but barely mentioned her husband or children, you'd probably think her shallow and self-centered, not wise.

- Rapport between "Ira" and Sarah. There is very little. The "play" never creates the ambience of a radio interview, or makes me think that the interviewer is really trying to understand his subject or to get her to say things which enlighten the listener. Perhaps the two actors should spend some time improvising in character? Perhaps they should have some pre-show dialog to better establish their characters and their relationship?

- Lesson? The overall tone of the script suggests that Sarah has learned something important and wants to share it with the listener, but she doesn't actually do so. From the standpoint of Ira's character, why is he doing this interview? What does he hope to communicate to his listeners? Does he succeed?

Best wishes for the rest of the season, George. It's to your credit that you participate in forums like DCP, even when they are heavily critical of you and the corps. Hopefully this thread produces some useful suggestions for you and your team.

George has gotten (not that he asked for it) good advice on the acting from several people here. This post in particular made me think... I agree that the rapport and connection between the two actors, and between the actors and the audience, is lacking. Assuming they're in those two black boxes, I wonder if that's part of the problem. The actors are isolated with a wall between them and not making eye contact with anybody. And it sounds it. It might work better if they were behind one curtain making eye contact with each other. Hell, hold hands. They have to sell the rapport better. I like the idea of having them hang out and interact in character, and improvise off the field. That could help, too.

Edited July 10, 2008 by Peel Paint

[ecamburn]

nice thread. seriously.

a couple thoughts...

*IMO, it's a real challenge to effectively convey a complex drum corps show and a relatively complex narrative in 11 minutes. The Cadets really have their work cut out for them.

*Happiness is a touchy subject, especially in a society where there's a prevailing belief that everybody has their own custom path to happiness. Suggesting to an audience what happiness is can come off as preachy. I'm not suggesting that preaching was the intention of the designers, just offering a thought about how the show might be perceived by the audience.

*Many objectors (myself included) are dissatisfied because of a perceived imbalance between the quality of the traditional drum corps elements of the show (brass, percussion, color guard), and the narrative element of the show. Specifically, I think quite a few folks feel the quality of the narrative element falls considerably below the quality of the traditional drum corps elements. My guess is that there wouldn't be as much controversy this year if the narrative element were designed better.

Perhaps what we're seeing is growing pains with this new approach. Hoppy and the Cadets appear to be reacting to some sort of feedback, whether it's judges, audiences or both. And my sense from reading show reviews here is that folks think the changes are making the show more effective. So my suggestion, FWIW, would be for the Cadets to continue to work to figure how narrative story lines can be effectively integrated into a world class drum corps show. IMO, they're not quite there yet.

[Peel Paint]

I am a theatre director and while I agree wholeheartedly that the actors are doing their best with these IMO insurmountable circumstances, and as others have pointed out the writing (or rather, editing) is lacking.

1.) I think the simplest, cheapest, and fastest step they could take right now would be to eliminate the hockey puck "set". It physically removes the players from the action of the corps which is obviously designed to tell the story. The problem here is one of character - what or who is the corps in relation to the players? As far as I can tell, they exist in a dimension completely separate from Sarah and her story. Is the corps supposed to be Sarah's memory swirling about her as she speaks? Is the corps what the interviewer is daydreaming about while she's talking (and that's why we can no longer hear her)? While many people may not be able to put a finger on it, I think this is part of the very emotional reaction that people are having with it. Use the set at the very beginning if you must but then get rid of the it, letting the players have their relationship to the corps made clearer.

I agree with your analysis about the set, but taking the set out, especially mid-show, may pose more problems than you realize. There are only four weeks left in the season and the drill revolves around the set. If you take it out, you leave a negative-space situation. Major drill rewrites are time-consuming, expensive, and the corps has to learn them... while touring and continuing to perform the earlier version of the show until the new one is learned. It just may not be practical at this point in the season.

Edited July 10, 2008 by Peel Paint

[Fan of the Arts]

George has gotten (not that he asked for it) good advice on the acting from several people here. This post in particular made me think... I agree that the rapport and connection between the two actors, and between the actors and the audience, is lacking. Assuming they're in those two black boxes, I wonder if that's part of the problem. The actors are isolated with a wall between them and not making eye contact with anybody. And it sounds it. It might work better if they were behind one curtain making eye contact with each other. Hell, hold hands. They have to sell the rapport better. I like the idea of having them hang out and interact in character, and improvise off the field. That could help, too.

I was doing well just reading along at some of these very positive insightful comments. Maybe this will help with the connection of the actors. First, they are not black boxes they are simply dividers between the actors and the audience (a curtain of some type). The actors do have visual contact with each other. The purpose of the partition, if you will, is so the audience doesn't focus on the actors and completely miss what's happening on the field. I don't know why but that hockey puck, as it is called, is not a distraction for me even though it sits right in the middle of the field. I watch the corps and what they are doing. What is happening and continues to happen since the Cadet left spring training is with each performance the Cadets have made adjustments with the narration and I'm sure it is not finished. The narration coming out the gate is completely different from what people are seeing now-- many for the first time. And those viewing the show for the first time are fed with all the noise they hear about the narration from most threads on DCP instead of approaching the show with an open mind. It really is hard to try to get it when you already have a wall up. The direction of this thread is the best I've seen because you really have tried to give George (and staff) some good feed back on the narration. I guess a thank you is in order for that. As for the story the Cadets are telling -- Why do I seem to get it? And I'm not alone. Sometimes I wish I could say I don't like it just so I can understand those who don't.

Irving

Fan of the Arts

[Meaghatron]

The narration coming out the gate is completely different from what people are seeing now-- many for the first time. And those viewing the show for the first time are fed with all the noise they hear about the narration from most threads on DCP instead of approaching the show with an open mind. It really is hard to try to get it when you already have a wall up.

I could argue that for many of them, a wall was already up from seeing previous Cadet shows with narration and not liking them. Several people on DCP have posted that they don't like the narration from previous shows, so why should they like it now. That's a wall the design team put up themselves, IMO. Repeatedly not putting out a good product in people's minds will keep them from believing that the next time will be any different.

[JimF-LowBari]

And those viewing the show for the first time are fed with all the noise they hear about the narration from most threads on DCP instead of approaching the show with an open mind. It really is hard to try to get it when you already have a wall up.

Two things I have to pick at here as it sounds like you're trying to blame DCP for some people in the stands not liking narration.

1) Willing to bet a very small percentage of fans in the stands have even heard about DCP, let alone read it.

2) Do you honestly think DCP posters opinions are swayed against narration by what they read here? IMO, I think posters are intelligent enough to make up their own mind.

Oh yeah... most threads???

PS - Personally I just didn't like narration in DC period, but saw some shows just to see if my opinion would change. My opinion didn't change but DCP (or even RAMD ) posts had nothing to do with it.

Edited July 10, 2008 by JimF-3rdBari

[Peel Paint]

Maybe this will help with the connection of the actors. First, they are not black boxes they are simply dividers between the actors and the audience (a curtain of some type). The actors do have visual contact with each other. The purpose of the partition, if you will, is so the audience doesn't focus on the actors and completely miss what's happening on the field.

OK, Irving, thank you, that is helpful. I truly thought they were boxes and the actors had no eye contact. And the purpose of the screens makes sense, because the designers are right, many audience members would watch the actors.