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-> Hobbies, Crafts, and Collections
-> The Imamother Writing Club
amother
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 Tue, Aug 07 2012, 3:28 pm
Okay, here's a thought that makes me so nervous I'm posting it anonymously.
What about a play about intra-Jewish divisiveness, set in the present day, right at a BY "long long ago in a country far far away"? - say, a plot about a girl whose family is not as frum as some: the eyerolls...the avoidance...I once saw her mom in a split skirt...her older brother is completely off the derech!...my little sister says her little sister sings goyische songs...the snide sanctimonious "reminders" and other un-thought-through "kiruv" attempts based not at all on what the girl is actually like, but rather on what makes the attempter look good...she's actually INTERESTED in Science class, can you believe it? and the questions she asks in Historia --!...she's not sure she's going to seminary; I heard her talking about going to college someday...I saw her talking to a man the other day, a schwartze!!...I try to be nice, but when I smiled at her and said it was a beautiful day she just ducked her head and stared at her siddur...she has a goyische novel in her backpack....
And then of course a happy ending when they all learn to like and respect each other. -- I do NOT mean that at all sarcastically. It can and does happen in real life; there's certainly no reason it can't happen in a play. Nor do I think the finished play should be nearly as one-sided as my notes above. (Please reread that last sentence, especially if this post makes you indignant.)
Possible song/dance numbers:
- something resembling the first song from Beauty and the Beast: "it's a pity and a sin, she doesn't quite fit in; what a puzzle to the rest of us is she"
- something resembling Pick A Little Talk A Little from Music Man: excuses about why "this isn't really lashon hara"
- something resembling I Can't Say No from Oklahoma, about how she knows that her behavior gets her in trouble, but when the time comes she keeps doing it
- something between the girl and her mother (or both parents): But Don't You See, It Doesn't Work That Way, about how hard it is to be respectful to both parents and teachers, true to yourself, and frum all at the same time
- one on Dan L'Daf Z'chus, the kind of number that starts slow and solemn and ends up bouyant and rejoicing
- something resembling Try To Remember from Fantasticks: I wouldn't want to be you, but still I'm glad I know you -- may I always stay aware that there really are seventy ways to understand the Torah; Am Yisroel Chai
I don't know. The more I think about this, the more problems I see. But I suppose at worst I'll just get a bunch of people explaining in painful detail how I'm wrong and how wrong I am. So here goes. I'm going to click Submit.
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syrima
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 3:41 pm
wow I like this thread! When I was in the Sound of Music they changed it from a nunnery to a teacher's sem, which totally takes away the conflict of marrying her true love, but whatever.
When I was in Fiddler they just skipped the part where one daughter goes off the derech and another intermarries and use the songs. it is a real challenge to write something original that has a plot which songs and dances flow naturally out of...hmmmm.
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gp2.0
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 3:50 pm
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Believable dialogue. No long-winded monologues.
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Faigy86
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 3:51 pm
| amother wrote: | | I don't know. The more I think about this, the more problems I see. But I suppose at worst I'll just get a bunch of people explaining in painful detail how I'm wrong and how wrong I am. So here goes. I'm going to click Submit. |
I don't have any comments about the rest of your post - but I loved your last line 
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Faigy86
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 3:52 pm
| gp2.0 wrote: | | Believable dialogue. No long-winded monologues. |
But every good tragedy must have at least one or two soliloquies
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CatLady
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 3:55 pm
I like your idea, imamother. I'd take it a few steps farther and have the plot be a denominationally-mixed bag of Jewish girls who have been assigned as a summer school project to work together on a musical (Breakfast Club meets Glee). Their musical vocabulary is obviously influenced by their background, and after lots of hard work, etc., etc., they come together in a huge musical mash-up that incorporates influences ranging from hip-hop to punk to Broadway to Top 40 pop.
There would be messages of acceptance (size acceptance, being open to other expressions of Judaism, learning about how the need to fit in to one's milieu is universal for teenaged girls, etc.) There'd be also a lot of original music including one core song done in several different styles. (A ballad redone as a punk song is almost a convention. It was done with great success in "Bandslam"!)
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sneakermom
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 4:14 pm
Maybe a theme about a group of high school girls who on a whim volunteer to spend their summer helping a community rebuild after a tsunami. These girls are a bunch of middle class American kids used to eating sushi, going out to eat, and getting their nails done. They are way more spoiled than they ever imagined. And self centered. But this idea sounds great because it feels so adventerous.
Then they find themselves in this third world country, they are each pushed to the edge in different ways and find that they are much less giving or kind than they originally thought. They find themselves fighting, or feeling depressed because they are having trouble adjusting or managing.
They might even realize that they are being taken advantage of by the organization that brought them there. And they feel bad on both ends. They don't feel up to this challenge and they feel played.
In the end they decide that it isn't their job to take away all bad things such as their own limitations, the third world countries issues, or the way they are not being treated right. It is their job to try to make light to do good. They each grapple with their own limitations and barriers and make a decision to do something good for this place.
They decide to make a little nursery for the school kids and they teach them and nurture them. And by the time they are to leave and go back home they are changed in a way they never could have imagined before.
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Lastdime
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 4:20 pm
I was so frustrated with the plays I had seen that I started to write them , years ago!
I have time travel ... I have a play where a person is able to go back in time where she can change 1 scene in her life .She has to decide what scene she wants to undo . One called the robot that left me , about a woman who does too much hesed leaving her family with no robots as she gave them all away... another called I'll be ready for Pesach in Yovel.. also a time travel where bircas hahama sent 2 neighbors off and in the end they appreciate the Pesach they have. They are comedy's and , with dance and music and I wrote over 10 ( lost track) By the way I often take someones plays and revamp them and add comedy to them.. so you could send me some ideas and I could help , if interested.Lots of luck!
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Sherri
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 4:20 pm
I love the contemporary plots. Sneakermom, I like yours especially! (I don't wanna post something about amother's plot  but suffice it to say that I think it would work better as a great sub-plot than the full production)
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amother
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 5:10 pm
| Quote: | | I don't wanna post something about amother's plot but suffice it to say that I think it would work better as a great sub-plot than the full production |
That was me. I agree!
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bigsis144
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 7:46 pm
| Lastdime wrote: | I was so frustrated with the plays I had seen that I started to write them , years ago!
I have time travel ... I have a play where a person is able to go back in time where she can change 1 scene in her life .She has to decide what scene she wants to undo . One called the robot that left me , about a woman who does too much hesed leaving her family with no robots as she gave them all away... another called I'll be ready for Pesach in Yovel.. also a time travel where bircas hahama sent 2 neighbors off and in the end they appreciate the Pesach they have. They are comedy's and , with dance and music and I wrote over 10 ( lost track) By the way I often take someones plays and revamp them and add comedy to them.. so you could send me some ideas and I could help , if interested.Lots of luck! |
Sounds really neat -- could totally be played for both drama and laughs.
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bigsis144
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 7:51 pm
| CatLady wrote: | I like your idea, imamother. I'd take it a few steps farther and have the plot be a denominationally-mixed bag of Jewish girls who have been assigned as a summer school project to work together on a musical (Breakfast Club meets Glee). Their musical vocabulary is obviously influenced by their background, and after lots of hard work, etc., etc., they come together in a huge musical mash-up that incorporates influences ranging from hip-hop to punk to Broadway to Top 40 pop.
There would be messages of acceptance (size acceptance, being open to other expressions of Judaism, learning about how the need to fit in to one's milieu is universal for teenaged girls, etc.) There'd be also a lot of original music including one core song done in several different styles. (A ballad redone as a punk song is almost a convention. It was done with great success in "Bandslam"!) |
 Oh, I WISH!
But in most Bais Yaakovs, that would NEVER fly. Even girls who can pull off Broadway or pop-style singing are kept strictly within "tznius" lines -- no belting, no riffing...
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sky
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 7:56 pm
I love song dance. Where its part of the scenery, the tone, everything. In BY places you kind of have the choir and dance. But when it is combined with costumes, characters, and the main character is part of it - I love that.
[Edit  ]
What about an all Female Dr Middos Team? That could be a lot of fun.
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bigsis144
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 8:32 pm
| sky wrote: | | I love song dance. Where its part of the scenery, the tone, everything. In BY places you kind of have the choir and dance. But when it is combined with costumes, characters, and the main character is part of it - I love that. |
I love musical numbers that are incorporated into the plot and feature the characters!
A few problems, though:
You can't put the main character (or even a main-ish secondary character) into a large musical number because that would require her to be in two rehearsals at once. At best, you can give her a song to sing alone or with a few other characters, but most "song-dances" must be independent of the speaking roles, so they usually end up being used for crowd scenes, where all the dancers are a uniform mob of rich ladies/people in the airport/students/beggars
Plus the lack of talent (or the concentration of it in just a few super-talented individuals) means that most song-dances are populated by those who can neither sing nor dance. I hate to snark, but in most cases, the choreography is very limited, and there are no stand-out solos or character moments like in Broadway musical numbers, where every single member of the ensemble is a triple-threat.
| sky wrote: | | [Edit ] | thanks.
| sky wrote: | | What about an all Female Dr Middos Team? That could be a lot of fun. | Do you think a grown-up audience would go for something like that? It would probably have to be played mostly for laughs and not take itself too seriously.
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enneamom
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 8:55 pm
| bigsis144 wrote: | | sky wrote: | | IWhat about an all Female Dr Middos Team? That could be a lot of fun. | Do you think a grown-up audience would go for something like that? It would probably have to be played mostly for laughs and not take itself too seriously. |
I'm thinking aloud here...middos could actually be a pretty profound theme. Let's say you combine it with one of the above-mentioned achdus/acceptance plots. Or make it about one girl/woman's spiritual journey. You can include things like self-doubt, emunah, boundaries... It could be about one of the heavy-hitting hot-button topics of today, like eating disorders, family dysfunction, psychological illness. Middos are much deeper than just "middos alerts" and catchy tunes. Come to think of it, middos are really all about our inner dialogue...our mental and emotional health...the way we act  ...and how we think and feel... Dr. Middos really has room to get a lot more mature!
You could probably throw Dr. Middos together with ANY plot. The Middos Machine itself is a sideline to the plot in the tapes. Or you can reinterpret the existing Dr. Middos plots (Shnooky travelling back in time, mean Dr. Doomshtein taking over the satellite, being captured by cannibals in Africa) in a totally new way, milking them for maximum profundity, "finding" Deep Literary Themes, inventing new characters, conspiracy theories, adult angles...thinking "what if" and then "what if" again, turning them into soap operas...gosh, it could be fun! 
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SimchaSays
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 9:10 pm
wow! brings me back to high school when I planned on going into theatre after graduation.... never happened but its still a passion!
Anyway, some people mentioned the Drav Meir plays. I think one of the things that made at least one - im only remembering one off the top of my head right now- popular and so great was that it incorporated the then and now. It not only had a great theme and message, but it took something that we all learn about, made it reality on stage and then made it reality in our times today. and I think something like that - and there are loads of incidents in tanach to pull from - can mean more to the girls performing and therefore more to those that see them performing. different than heavy topics - obesity, anorexia, alcohol etc. - these topics can benefit us by helping understand the reprecussions of our actions (loshon hara...) or by seeing what something we learn about can be translated into our times (what would the Rus scenario of our times be? Or chana and Eli's encounter about teffilah?) things like that are jewish, are thought provoking and yet can have humor and have a message for us in our times.
just my thinking outloud.... definately willing to help with anything related! really miss productions....
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amother
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 9:57 pm
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I'm not sure if anyone remembers this, but when I was in HS, one of the BYs in the NY area did a play about a girl with anorexia. It was pretty well-received!
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crl
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 9:59 pm
Better than my high school, we had a whole song about turnips.
No joke.
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Sherri
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Tue, Aug 07 2012, 10:00 pm
| SimchaSays wrote: | | by seeing what something we learn about can be translated into our times (what would the Rus scenario of our times be? Or chana and Eli's encounter about teffilah?) things like that are jewish, are thought provoking and yet can have humor and have a message for us in our times. | Great thoughts!
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