XONR8 THEATER
Inspired by a couple of plays that we read in class (like The Crucible and The Exonerated) we were divided in small groups to create a verbatim play of our own based on an interview we conducted, interviewing a member of the California Innocence Project. Our team had the honor to interview the founder of the CIP, Justin Brooks.
Final Script
The process was overall pretty simple. It consisted on designing an interview map, interviewing Justin Brooks (the founder of the California Innocence Project), transcribing the interview and creating the play. Everything went well and as planned. I personally struggled with the transcription of the Interview but my teammates helped me and that was no longer a problem.
There is a moment that somehow automatically comes to my mind whenever I think of the Project, and it’s not the one I’m most proud of. I’m talking about the moment when I was backstage behind the door waiting for my teammate Rafi to finish his part so I could step in. It was dark backstage, even though I asked the stage managers to keep a light turned on while I was there. I could only see a stream of light from the bottom of the door. It was interesting feeling nervous because it was only a school play, I guess I knew I had to do my best since I wanted to prove myself that you can be great at anything even if it’s not you strongest ability, and acting is not my strongest ability. But the thing is, this wasn’t even acting, it was just public speaking, reading from a piece of paper firmly and out loud, but I didn’t. The answer of why I didn’t do a great job on stage is because I simply didn’t want to. I was practicing before it was our turn and my friend Rafi was helping but when it came to the play, it didn’t seem like I did. You see, in High Tech High we always reflect about how we did on our projects but I feel like we are not completely honest. And here I am being honest about how I didn’t do a great job because I didn’t want to, and I feel awful. I wish I could go back and at least say with strength the last words of the play, the ones I said.
On the other side I feel like I worked hard on the script and stage directions, we all did. And speaking of stage directions, with this project I learned that you can’t know for sure if your play/exhibition is going to flow wonderfully if you don’t know the context in which it’s going to happen. I learned this because we saw the place for the first time the same day of the play and we didn’t know it had so much potential for our play, so we did a lot of last minute changes to take advantage of it. I am actually proud of this, because it was mostly me who saw all of the different ways of improving our play when we all saw the stage.
On the other side I feel like I worked hard on the script and stage directions, we all did. And speaking of stage directions, with this project I learned that you can’t know for sure if your play/exhibition is going to flow wonderfully if you don’t know the context in which it’s going to happen. I learned this because we saw the place for the first time the same day of the play and we didn’t know it had so much potential for our play, so we did a lot of last minute changes to take advantage of it. I am actually proud of this, because it was mostly me who saw all of the different ways of improving our play when we all saw the stage.