Tag Archives: Theater

Improv Warm-up Rituals

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/13
Primary Language: English

“So in improv, because usually there’d be a lot of improv people, within shows, we would get together and, um, the girls would do something where they would just, like, talk about being womanly and then would do– they just go, “fem, fem, fem-prov” and it was femprov. Um, and then the guys would get together and we’d huddle together and this was, like, a big secret thing that no one knew what we did, but we’d go in, like, a corner, like, far away from everybody else and we’d, uh, start slowly, really slowly chant, we’d start chanting the words: “Gay, penis, sodomy, gay.” (LAUGHS) And we start really quiet. You go, “Gay, penis, sodomy, gay.” And you get bigger and bigger and bigger. Do you remember the ‘rape, kill, pillage, and burn?’ That they do here? It’s like that. You just get bigger and bigger and bigger in your circle and you run round and round and round and round and you just finish going “GAY, PENIS, SODOMY, GAY” just like running around. It was really weird but just a lot of warm-upy– like feel connected…

We’d also get all the improv people together and play something called “Golden Ball of Light” where—this would take forever—but, um, you stand in a circle and, um, you say, ‘Imagine that there is a golden ball of light starting at your toes and it’s working your way up. And now it’s into your feet. And there’s a golden ball of light and it’s covering all of your feet and everything’s, from your ankles up now,’ and you’d just work your way up… and once your body’s covered, which takes such a long time. Cause like, ‘Oh, it’s in your hair, it’s coming out of your hair…” And then the golden ball of light is—and everyone’s supposed to have their eyes closed just focusing on this golden ball of light—it comes up and it connects you to all the actors in this room, and now it’s going up it’s connecting to all the audience members and all that And it’s connecting you to anyone who’s ever been in a show before. And then just all of humanity. And now it’s, the golden ball of light, it’s up in the universe and you just feel it, you feel everyone’s presence, you feel everyone. And then you take a deep breath. So its just… it’s one of those things, ya know.”

My informant remembered quite a few rituals that were done in theatre at his high school. He enjoyed remembering all the details about somethings he hasn’t done it quite awhile and said that discussing them made him very nostalgic. Theatre games and warm-ups are done almost always when performing. Not only is it beneficial for cast energy, it is also a way for the cast to bond together.

Pre-show theater traditions

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 30, 2013
Primary Language: English

My informant describes himself as a “theater kid” in high school. He told me the rituals he and the other cast members go through before every show they perform. He said that the male and female members of the cast start out separately, and that they have slightly different traditions. This is his description:

“I obviously don’t know all that much about what the girls do before a show, because it’s kept secret. I do know they listen to… What is that 90s song? Oh, it’s ‘If You Wanna Be My Lover’ by the Spice Girls. And they listen to that and dance around, and I don’t really know what else they do. But the boys… There is a knife that has been kept up in the suspended ceiling of the boys dressing room for several years know, and we use the same knife to cut up lemons every show. And then we listen to Bohemian Rhapsody, and jump around and are crazy, and everyone eats a slice of lemon and throws it in the urinal. I don’t know who started the lemon tradition, but I know that the senior class that was there when I was a freshman… it had already been there for a few years when they were freshmen. So that’s about ten years now. So after the lemon eating, they do a stupid chant. It’s really sexist and terrible, so I don’t think I should repeat it. I actually didn’t participate in it for awhile because I was like, ‘This is stupid.’ And then the girls came up with their own rival chant, so now I participate because sexism is fine as long as it’s an eye for an eye? Right? No. Whatever, anyway… We yell this chant in the dressing room, and because the girls and boys dressing rooms are right next to each other, we like, will have battles between the girls and the guys to see who can be louder, which is usually the guys. And then everyone gets together and we get in a circle, and we pass a pulse around by squeezing each others’ hands in a circle. And we do a big a chant together which is not sexist and is just weird, which is, ‘Everybody, have fun tonight! Everybody, wang chung tonight! And in the honor of Kristin Wendel, let’s kick some ass!’ Kristin Wendel went to my high school several years ago. She was a very quiet girl who yelled, ‘Let’s kick some ass tonight!’ before her last show of her senior year. Anyway, another thing we do is, if you haven’t yet performed in our auditorium, we make you kiss the stage. It’s very low-key hazing, basically.”

This is a tradition that initially creates purposeful rivalry, but it ultimately ends by unifying the students. The chants the cast members yell divides them by gender, and they compete against each other to see who is louder. Furthermore, the nature of the chants is apparently quite sexist. Despite these divisive aspects, my informant says these traditions bring the cast together. They also pump up their energy and get them all excited to perform. They convert all their nervous anxiety into positive exhilaration. Another function of these customs is to remember and pay homage to those who came before them, such as Kristen Wendel. The fact that they repeat these same rituals before every show means that they keep the customs that had been in place for years alive. In this way, they are connecting their past to their present. By teaching these things to younger members of the cast, they also ensure that they are building connections to the future. Each student likely hopes to leave some kind of legacy, and for a few of them, a part of that will be the new variations they make on the pre-show rituals.

 

“Don’t say ‘Macbeth’ in a theater.”

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 30, 2013
Primary Language: English

My informant described himself as a “theater kid” in high school. He told me about a folk belief that was held by the members of his school’s theater. According to him, it is bad luck to say the word “Macbeth” in any theater. He thinks that this folk belief is quite widespread in theaters around the world. This is his description:

 

“I actually have no idea where the Macbeth tradition came from. I think it might just be… I heard a rumor that the opening cast of Macbeth on Broadway—when it was first on Broadway—all got mono during the rehearsal process, so that might have been it. And I know that happened with the first cast at my high school when we did Macbeth a few years ago. Like, six of the twelve people in the cast all got mono. I think I heard of this superstition for the first time when I first said it in the theatre, because someone was like, ‘You can’t say that in the theatre!’ And I was like, ‘What?’ So I got in on this conversation about all this bad stuff that has happened. And at first I thought it was stupid, but then that night, there was a short circuit backstage and like, sparks flew out and ignited a piece of carpet. And we didn’t have wings my theater; we had garage doors on the sides of the stage because… well, Illinois state funding. And one of them just fell down in the middle of a set change and hit someone in the head. And a costume change didn’t work, and something ripped. And lots of bad stuff happened that night and I don’t know why, other than attributing it to the fact that ‘Macbeth’ was said in the theater that day. So now I’ve learned to call it ‘The Bard’s Thirteenth Play’ or something like that, or like, ‘The Play That Starts with M.’ So yeah, that’s where that came from, and I have like, weirdly believed in that ever since.”

 

Folk beliefs—or “superstitions”—like this one are very common in drama and theater environments. Performers are very aware that they are under a significant amount of pressure to make sure everything to goes right during the show. This can be quite stressful because there are so many things that are out of their control, from technical difficulties to illnesses that plague the cast. Perhaps by not saying a certain word, they are making an attempt to curb the things they cannot control. Furthermore, it gives them what they see as a rational explanation for why things do go badly sometimes. It provides them a scapegoat for the problematic issues that can arise during a performance. They shift the blame to an old curse on a forbidden word; this explanation is widely accepted in the theater community. My informant admits being quite skeptical of this at first, but the suspicions were confirmed for him when a string of disasters occurred after “Macbeth” was uttered in his theater. That was enough evidence for him; he does not want to be the reason for future problems by being the person to say “Macbeth.” It may simply be that he was expecting things to go badly, so when they did, he immediately linked them to the folk belief. Yet who is to say that this word does not have the power to curse a theater?

Theatrical Folk Belief: Ghost Light

Nationality: Eastern European Jew
Age: 18
Occupation: High School Student
Residence: Calabasas, California
Performance Date: March 17, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: None

Informant: “At the end of each theater performance a lone light is pulled onto the stage because legend has it that without a light ghosts play around and will mess up the set so you have to leave a light on”

The informant heard another version of the folk belief which says that “the light is turned on so that when the ghosts go to play around on the stage they have a light to see and don’t bump into things on the stage.”

The informant learned about this folk belief when he served as a member of the technical theater production crew for his high school. The light would be set “in the middle of the stage every time there was a set onstage, from the first time work is begun on the set until the last night of the performance.” The informant said that this tradition was passed on from the older crew to the younger crew informally because the younger crew would learn from example when they saw the older crew place the light on the stage. According to the informant, this was not an important duty and was actually seen as something akin to a chore. As a member of the technical crew, the informant would have to “drag the light out every night” after the performance. Putting up the light was “just something that needed to be done before the tech crew could go home.” Also, according to the informant, the light consisted of “a light bulb on top of a portable light stand.”

The informant does not believe in the “superstitious” reason for putting up the light, but he says there are practical reasons for the light. The informant said “the reason for the light is so that no one walks onto the stage in the dark and trips over something and breaks it.”

The informant said that the light is important because the tech crew sometimes has to work on the set after hours, and they have to cross the stage to get to the electrical panel to turn on the set lights. Thus, it is helpful to have a light so they can see and not bump into things on stage or fall off the stage. In addition, the crew has put a lot of effort into making the set so they want to prevent it from being damaged.

I thought this was an interesting folk belief because not only does this belief have superstitious roots, but it is also extremely practical. From talking with the informant and from online research, there are many different theatrical superstitions, and some are more common and widely used than others. From what I could find, this particular folk belief is very popular, even the Broadway stage uses the ghost light.

You cannot say Macbeth before the show

Nationality: Caucasian, Irish, German, and Bohemian American
Age: 22
Occupation: Graduate Student in Computer Science
Residence: Minneapolis, MN
Performance Date: 3/25/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Japanese, Spanish

This is the same informant as the entry on the gels for the lights. The setting is my dining room table. My informant has experience working in theater, and was on the crew for the show Macbeth.

Me: what do you mean?

I: Like, you can’t say Macbeth’s name when you are rehearsing. And you are supposed to call it “The Scottish Play” or something else because you can’t say Macbeth in the theater before a performance.

Me: Did they actually follow that [in the performance the informant worked on]

I: Of course [the director] did. No one was allowed to say Macbeth through the entire rehearsal period leading up to the performance.

Me: Does that go for any show?

I: No, just Macbeth. It was bad luck. I think it was because Macbeth dies in the end. You don’t want Macbeth’s bad luck.

My informant heard this story from the director of the theater department in high school and tells this story because of her interest in theater and theater legends and traditions. This tradition was actually followed in her experience. I think this comes from a long lasting tradition that most directors and actors don’t want to test, therefore they just follow this taboo. No one really knows what will happen if you say Macbeth’s name, but the superstition is so old that I think people are cautious with it just in case.