Tag Archives: Theater

Pre-Show Rituals

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Manhattan Beach, California
Performance Date: 4/21/19
Primary Language: English

Abstract:

This piece is about pre-show theater rituals at Mira Costa High School. It deals with all the students in a theater production following and believing a tradition of naming a celebrity that will come to the show and a song that is sung before the show.

Main Piece:

“Before a play at my high school, every single time, we would have a big speech. It was always a senior and they would be like “okay guys, like blah blah blah.” We’re all emotional. Then we would get in two lines looking out at the audience, and we’d be super emotional and then they would always flip it like “And you know what? Beyonce’s coming here tonight. So we have to perform for her.” And they would always choose like a random celebrity and honestly, my freshman year, they said Selena Gomez was coming and I like didn’t know it was a tradition, so I was like “why the hell is Selena Gomez coming and how does everyone know she is coming?” And luckily I didn’t say anything, but I was like really confused. And then afterwards we would go upstairs and get shoved into this tiny room. And the seniors would be in the back of the room and we would all hold hands and sing Piano Man every time before a play. And there were these little traditions, like there was always one person on the harmonica, and at another part we’d have to kick out a leg and another part where he references a girl or something and we’d have to kiss the person to the left of us on the cheek. Then when you’re going out of the room there was always this picture of something provocative and you’d have to jump up and slap it at the doorway.”

Context:

The informant is a 19 year old from Manhattan Beach who was involved in theater productions at her high school by playing in the orchestra. She learned these traditions after her first production with the school and had to quickly catch on so she was not left out.

Analysis:

Any kind of tradition before a big event is significant to those involved because it promotes unity as a group and good luck. I think name-dropping a celebrity after a big emotional speech is a funny way of reminding the performers and those involved that there is pressure, but to also have fun with the process. Not explaining that it is a joke I think is part of the ritual, and also enforces the idea that there is an “in group” (the theater kids who know the ritual) and an “out group” (students who are not involved in theater). The part about the tiny room is strange to me too because it almost feels like an initiation into the world as well.

Gag Gifts Before Theater Productions

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Manhattan Beach, California
Performance Date: 4/21/19
Primary Language: English

Abstract:

This piece is about traditions before the first production and the last production at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, California. It mainly focuses on gag gifts, but touches on the last show’s medley tradition as well.

Main Piece:

“B: Another thing we would do in theater, for the first performance we would do everyone would exchange gag gifts and you didn’t know who it was. The first couple of years we would try to do it with everyone, but it got really confusing because it was just so many people. And no one in the pit knew who was in the cast or tech because we just didn’t spend as much time with them and so then we just did it in the pit that was nicer because we knew everybody. And it’s always stuff like… like I got a bag of rice one year. And then the last year I actually got my boyfriend, and he hates snakes so I got him a ton of fake snakes and put them on his drum set. And then he hates tomatoes and beans so I bought like five cans of tomatoes and beans. And then on the last performance, you’re suppose to reveal yourself and give like a real gift.

C: You give a gift every performance?

B: No just the first one and the last one. Because we had like seven performances. And for the last performance, like the last piece, we would meld it and make a bunch of cuts in the music and make it one big piece. After everyone gets their claps, like at the end of the show, then everyone from the cast will come down and surround the pit. And then we will all be playing. And we make the cuts so it basically goes through every big song in the performance. And it’s cool because the cast is right there and singing into the pit.”

Context:

The informant is a 19 year old girl who attended Mira Costa High School for all four years and was extensively involved in the theater productions at her school as a musician in the orchestra. She has played music since she was young. She first learned of this tradition freshman year after her first performance with the theater club.

Analysis:

This reminds me of the game White Elephant that is often played at Christmas time, but mixed with Secret Santa. In White Elephant, you are suppose to get bad gifts so that when people open up the gifts they want to steal to get better gifts. However, the element of Secret Santa comes into play with the idea that there is only one person who has you to give gifts to. In both Secret Santa and White Elephant, and this theater tradition, I think the main purpose of the gift is to show a sense of care – even with the humor involved. When the informant talked about getting her boyfriend, it seemed that the gag gifts were funnier to both involved because they knew a lot about each other. These types of games can be played with close friends or family or in larger groups as well.

Macbeth in the Theatre

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Primary Language: English

Context: Subject had worked Theater production in high school and had been exposed to many superstitions surrounding ideas of bad luck, prevention, and reversal methods.

Informant:

[Speaking face to face in a lounge while studying for classes]

“The whole Macbeth rumor… where if you are in a theater and you say the word ‘Macbeth,’ you have to leave the theatre and… is it spin backwards in three circles, or forward…?”

“Um… I feel like it might be backwards”

“I think you have to spin in three circles backwards and like… spit or something. Um, and basically, people are very superstitious about it, even if it’s not… even people who aren’t generally superstitious or worried about it. Like my friend who studies stage management at Syracuse… um… was like… complaining to me about some kid who said Macbeth in the theater and refused to do the circle thing and their play went horribly… And she legitimately believed it was his fault. And in a way, it’s interesting because just since you think it’s going to ruin the play, like you subconsciously ruin it yourself… so that’s interesting.”

Introduction: The informant was introduced by fellow theater crew members when they joined stage production in high school.

Analysis/Interpretation: This is interestingly, a common phenomenon seen within the theater community. Given that I hadn’t been exposed to theater until becoming employed at one, I hadn’t been exposed to any theater folk beliefs or customs. As of recently, I have come to see more commonalities between theater-based folklore. Specifically, regarding Macbeth, it seems as though much of what is actively practiced and reinforced within the theater community, consistent amongst even the most different regions is contingent upon ideas of prevention of bad luck from pursuing during a production.

High School Post-Rehearsal Chant

Nationality: Israeli American
Age: 23
Occupation: Writer's PA
Residence: Studio City
Performance Date: 04/19/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

Ritual:

“At the end of every rehearsal, no matter how tense it ended, no matter how bad of a note it ended on, we said this chant. It was something like, “I have one last thing to say, goo cacti. Wu-tang, wu-tang, wu-tang crew ain’t nunckuck, who? With tight groups and apple…proceed.” So how this came to be was that apparently our director started it when he was at that high school and people over the years just added on different phrases to it. Cacti was the name of my director’s friend group in high school I think.

Context:
This was the post-rehearsal ritual of a high school theater group in Los Angeles.

Informant Background:

The informant is 23, from Los Angeles.

My Analysis:

High school in general is a place that likes to memorialize people. While sports teams can hang banners in gyms to immortalize sports achievements, high school theater groups must come up with alternate methods to preserve their “greats”. For example, the kids in my high school theater program would save costumes of respected peers as a way to preserve their memories. This chant seems like another way of doing that as well. The actual chant is completely indecipherable of any sort of meaning to me, and the informant I interviewed couldn’t explain any of the segments besides the first one, “cacti”. Therefore, it seems that each group of kids that adds to it gets to add their own private meaning to the chant through their own nonsense word. This is an example of cultural intimacy that would seem weird to outsiders, which only makes members of the group more proud of their tradition.

Senior Send Off in High School Theater Community: Ritual

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/16/19
Primary Language: English

Folk Tradition:

“This was a senior tradition in theater. After our last performance of our last show, the director would invite all the seniors back into the theater after everyone had left and we would look at the ghost light and he said, ‘Right now is just a time for you to be with all the characters you’ve played here, so this is a time to say goodbye to them. So, we would go on stage and remember through action. We would go through different entrances or funny moments in shows and there was no end time. We would stay until we said goodbye.”

Context:

This would take place after the seniors’ last performance with their high school theater program in their Los Angeles public school.

Background:

The informant is 21, from Calabasas, and an actor.

My Analysis:

This is a folk piece with a lot of levels. First and foremost, the concept of the ‘ghost light’ is a folk belief that a light must always be left on in every theater for the ghosts that haunt the space. Though not every theater has someone who died in it, most theater spaces are regarded as sacred by the community and the residence for supernatural beings/occurrences.  The idea of everyone gathering around to stare into the ghost light is a way of symbolically channeling the spirits. It is interesting that the theater teacher prompted the students to say goodbye to the characters they played because it aligns these fictional characters with the actual spirits regarded by theater communities everywhere (symbolized in the ghost light). It could also be interpreted as summoning previous versions of oneself (the self that did perform these characters). High school is a very transformative time for many people, so summoning and saying goodbye to iterations of yourself over those years could be a very cathartic task for students before they leave for college.