Perpich Arts Theater Performance Stream

04/27/2023

03/10/2023

On a cold night, there’s nothing better than snuggling up under a big quilt. But beyond the seams and color patches, the fabric tells a story.

03/26/2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui3k1wT2yeM

Verbatim theatre is a type of theatre-making where the text is generated from interviews with 'real life' people. There are various methods of using and prac...

03/26/2021

https://www.americantheatre.org/2017/08/22/a-history-of-u-s-documentary-theatre-in-three-stages/

Both in content and form, documentary theatre in the U.S. has always been at theatre’s cutting edge.

12/17/2020

This "Three Sisters" theater production is a summative evaluation of the theater students semester long study of Anton Chekhov and the naturalistic acting style often called the Stanislavsky System. The semester focuses on four major class outcomes:

Perform - The student’s work, in its final form, shows confident and consistent attention to style and genre.

Create - The student engages in the process of making theater.

Respond/Reflect - demonstrates command of the basic theatrical concepts, history, process, and vocabulary.

Connect - demonstrates connections to real world experiences & connects classrooms themes to current events.

The semester consisted of a variety experiential projects and tasks such as: adapting Chekhov short stories for the radio, performing radio plays, open scene work, scene work, Stanislavsky methods of playing action, and stasis.

12/17/2020

A little history lesson on Chekhov and the Moscow Art Theatre:

Get ready for Russian modernism. Mike is teaching you about the playwrighting of Catherine the Great, Anton Chekhov's plays, the Moscow Art Theater, and the ...

12/16/2020

"Three Sisters" by Anton Chekhov

ACT ONE
Inside the chatrooms of various characters from a provincial Russian town. It is midday; outside it is bright and sunny. In Irina’s room we see gifts and presents. Olga in the school dress for a teacher, is continually correcting exercise books. Masha sits with her hat on her knees and reads a book. Irina in a white dress is dancing and singing.

ACT TWO
The scene is the same as in the first act. It is a year later, Andrey and Natasha are married with a child. It is eight in the evening. Outside in the street, barely audibly, someone is playing an accordion.

ACT THREE
A year later, a fire breaks out in the town, it is between two and three in the morning. Sirens are sounding, power outages. It is evident that no one has been to bed so far tonight. The sisters and friends convene on cell phones during a night of trying to help the victims.

ACT FOUR
A little more than a year later, various members of the Prozorov household and their friends are in the chatroom. It is eleven in the morning. They are saying their farewells to friends who are leaving for sites unknown.

12/15/2020

"Three Sisters" (Russian: Три сeстры́, romanized: Tri sestry) is a play by the Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov. It was written in 1900 and first performed in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theatre. The play is often included on the short list of outstanding plays in modern theater and is seen as the catalyst for modern and contemporary western theater structures and acting styles.

painting by Konstantin Gorbatov

12/14/2020

Note from the Director:

Putting on a play during the COVID-19 pandemic takes lots of creativity and flexibility, and the challenges were those that we’ve never had to confront before. However, we did find ways to overcome the struggles by devising and reworking aspects of Anton Chekhov’s script by placing all characters in a chatroom for isolation during an influenza (covid) outbreak. The claustrophobic feel reflects Chekhov’s use of space in the original with many characters in small rooms of a large Russian estate.

Figuring out how to stage "Three Sisters" and tell the story while the entire cast was distant rehearsing was one of the biggest challenges. Trying to figure out how to tell the story under all of the conditions becomes a problem-solving nightmare that we all had to manage creatively. We had to rely on devising new ways of storytelling to capture the contemporary and existential essence of the story. The way characters act and react to each other is much more cinematic and takes on a cinéma vérité style.

We discussed three concepts for the performance: a live performance, a hybrid performance, and an online performance. We considered options of filming but chose to go with live, online streaming of the performance once we went to distance learning because it is after all, live theater.

The Perpich Acting Ensemble agrees that they can’t wait for things to go back to “normal”, as the communal aspect of live theater is what makes it so special. However, until the pandemic is over, they are making the most out of it and showing great commitment and creativity to the process.

Special thanks to: Toni Beckler, Betsy Anderson, Bob Frey, Conn McCartan, Rebecca Bullen, Mike Sande, Greg Naumann, Karla Donner, Kevin Hohlstein, Cindy Ladany.

12/10/2020