Category: drama
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A Look at a Director’s/Producer’s Show Week
Did you ever wonder what a director or producer does during show week? I’m not sure what other directors do, but here’s what my week looks like. Saturday Printing all promotional display items which will be displayed outside the theatre. Sunday Put up all the display items on the display boards outside the theatre. Monday…
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A Vigil for a Starry Night
On a night when the clouds cover the stars like an impenetrable mountain cliff, I wait for a sign. A small tinge up my spine. A desperate plea for the ancient ways to speak once again. I wait for the light, hoping it will come, hoping it will be enough. . The stars, spread brightly…
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Take a Few Days Off to Settle Your Brain (or not)
I have absolutely no scientific data to back up the following claim. But for me, it seems to work this way. Sometimes, when you take a little time away from something, it (whatever it is) seems to gel better in one’s brain. My tangible example is when I lived in Vietnam, and I spent month…
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Sketch #5: The Christmas Banquet
Here’s my next in a series of vignettes about the dramatic sketches I wrote for our show “Tales of Wonder” which opens next week. “The Christmas Banquet” is a poignant piece, an allegory of sorts, about a person who shows up at the Christmas banquet and gets asked to hand out invitations. It’s unclear who…
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This is not a high school show. This is a show.
For better or worse, there’s a stigma on high school drama. There’s an expectation that it’s all about inexperienced actors getting their time on the stage. There will be awkward pauses, missed lines, prompted lines, and generally a story line which the audience won’t think about in the morning. I produce high school drama, but…
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Sketch #4: Season’s Greetings
I’ll admit it. “Season’s Greetings” is a blatant attempt to pull on the emotional heartstrings of the audience, especially the female audience. Call me manipulative if you like, but it’s a simple concept that I thought of early on as I was starting to write the Christmas show. It’s all about unmet expectations and what…
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Does liking serious content make you more vulnerable?
My new show coming up in two weeks is a combination of comedy and serious drama. Invariably, when I ask the actors (or even audience members) what was their favorite part of one of my shows, the answer is typically one of the comedies. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. I enjoy a well-crafted comedy…
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Previewing (Actually)Tales of Wonder
My new show is called “Tales of Wonder,” but there is a drama medley in the show also called “Tales of Wonder.” Yes, I get the show name from that. What’s a drama medley? I don’t know. I just made it up. It’s three dramatic sketches wrapped around an original song which holds them all…
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#2 & #3 – Previewing “Tales of Wonder”
I’d like to take a closer look at my upcoming show I’m real excited about. It’s the first Christmas show I’ve ever written, so I naturally think it’s going to be awesome. It consists of 10 separate dramatic pieces all centered around the most wonderful time of the year. Here’s two of the pieces: This…
Author Mark W Sasse 