Tag Archives: theatre

“Don’t Use Children or Dogs in Theatre”

Nationality: British, American, Canadian, Indian
Age: 40
Occupation: Actor, Director, Producer, Teacher, Consultant and Coach (spoken work and performing, arts)
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 27, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Sindhi, Spanish, French

“Don’t use children or dogs in theatre.”

 

In theatre, the informant said it’s supposed to be bad luck to use children or dogs in a show. In the informant’s first full run production of a play (as a producer) in 2010, he used several children and one dog. He said that the belief ma be valid because children often have varying degrees of discipline, and both they and dogs can be distracting to audiences. In this production, the informant said the dog pulled focus (her tail was moving back and forth “like a flag” much of the time because she was so happy to have attention).

The informant learned of this when he started doing theatre 10 years ago. He regularly hears it from theatre professionals. He says that because audiences love kids and dogs, they often find them more entertaining than the actors, which is not ideal for those putting on the play. Ultimately, he has found that dogs and children may be difficult to work with, and may steal focus.

Understandably, dogs and children are very distracting because they are so easy to focus on (many YouTube videos will attest to that), so this belief makes sense. However, it could become problematic for productions that require children or dogs because adults dressing up as either could also be distracting. This also causes me to question whether or not writers steer away from adding children or dogs to their plays.

Immaculate Heart Ghost Nun

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student (Fine Arts Major)
Residence: Burbank, CA
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese, Japanese, Spanish

“So apparently at my school, there’s supposed to be the ghost of some nun, just hanging around… I think it was supposed to be near the auditorium, which was, coincidentally, the center of all school life. The auditorium, is also the gym, so it has all these basketball headboards around it, but we also turn it into the chapel, but it’s also where the plays are held, so it’s like this—the heart of the school, but there’s supposed to be a ghost that inhabits… behind there.

“When I would work on the sets back then, there was this guy, he was about 25 years old, he looked like s stork. There was a guy there, and he would work on the sets of the plays and I would work on them too, and then one day, he just brought it up, saying “yeah, I don’t like to work too late at night, or I have to play loud music,” or something like that because he feels like he’s being watched… He just feels prickles on the back of his neck, or the hairs raise on the back of his neck or something. And then coincidentally, when he mentioned that, my Spanish teacher mentioned that she was really superstitious… she just mentioned that “ah, yea, there was a ghost here and the, the, I talk with the janitors sometimes, and when they were here late at night they feel like they’re being watched from down the hall and they played music don’t want—I guess they just feel like that would protect them somehow from their senses, and they would talk and be superstitious about the ghosts and my friend… umm… from middle school who’s Filipin..a, it seems like always, they, the Filipinos  always have these strange ghost stories, and she would take—she had this picture of us kinda goofing around outside of campus, and there was this sort of silvery figure… this kind of grey figure misting over the… one part of the photo and she would print them out on those regular six by something photos and she was convinced that that was a habit, and she passed them around to I guess my Spanish teacher that actually—the story of how the workers on the campus believed there was a ghost.

“Uh… so I was spooked, for a while—and actually, I remembered it recently, because a mutual acquaintance who goes on lots of dates with people who seem to know my school because he went to our brother school, St. Francis, he just recently texted me and asked me if I knew anything about the Immaculate Heart Ghost because the girl he was recently going out with brought it up too, and she saw some… some nun in the dark corner who smiled at her, and she just thought it was her teacher hanging out in a dark classroom or something like that and she was spooked. So.. I… luckily haven’t seen a ghost because I am easily spooked. And that’s the Immaculate Heart Ghost Nun who was there—but then also I remember that everyone was freaking out when something or another, like this story became popular, and they were looking on the internet, and lo and behold, there were several stories, like ‘ah yea! She inhabits the catwalks in the auditorium and she just hangs around,’ and I don’t remember the back-story about why there was a nun there, but she doesn’t seem to attack people with knives, maybe she just really liked it there, or something.”

 

The informant was informed about this ghost story by her friend, Lucy (who was in the same grade as she), during her senior year at the high school. She remembers her classmates “freaking out” when they discovered that the tale had made its way out of the school itself and into the public domain. There were several stories recounted to her both live (by her classmates and the school staff) as well as online. She was initially skeptical of the veracity of the tales, but she admitted that deep down, in her “animalistic core,” she was spooked and continues to be spooked by it when it’s recounted to her, or when she tells it to other people. She said she was not likely to go up in the catwalks at night, but also added that the ghost was not reputed to be violent, so she was not overly worried about being attacked. She mused that because her school motto was “Women of great heart and right conscience,” the ghost, too must have had a great heart and right conscience. This tale goes against the grain of many ghost stories in that it serves as an example of good behavior, demonstrating that even in death, the women of this high school are respectful and well behaved.

It’s especially fascinating that this story has moved from a very specific and small community to internet because it represents the rapid movement that is often intrinsic to storytelling. This suggests that there is something compelling about this story besides the fact that the nun came from this school that makes it important from a humanistic view. Ghost stories are perhaps so prolific because even people who question the reality of ghosts (such as the informant) find the tales frightening, and take a “better safe than sorry” attitude.

Riding the Pony

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

“One of them, our biggest one, was called ‘Riding the Pony’ and you might’ve, I might’ve told you about this before, or something, or you might… other people do it too. Yeah, it’s a bunch of people standing in a circle and then people will go in the middle, like 5 or 6 people will go in the middle, and then everyone goes: ‘C’mon baby let’s ride that pony. C’mon baby let’s ride that pony.’ And under that, while that’s happening you’ll, the people in the middle, will run around the circle and then they’ll find someone, so it’ll go: ‘C’mon baby let’s ride that pony. C’mon baby let’s ride that pony.’ You go ‘front, front, front’ and then you go, ‘side, side, side’ and ‘back, back, back’ on them and then you say, ‘This is how we do it.’ And you switch and then new people come in and do it so it’s just, like ‘C’mon baby let’s ride that pony. C’mon baby let’s ride that pony. Front, front, front. Side, side, side. Back, back, back.’ Switch. And you do it. And you just do it a million times, um, and it’s really fun ‘cuz when you’re doing the ‘front, front, front’ part, people are, like, grinding up on each other and stuff. And in the back you’re, like, hitting your butts on each other and just pushing each other out of the circle. So that’s a huge, like, energy thing for us that we would do.”

My informant was very involved in the theatre program at his high school, Dos Pueblos High School, in Santa Barbara, CA. This was a game that the casts of shows he performed in would play before a performance. It was a fun thing to do, but also a good warm-up to increase energy before a performance. My informant enjoyed telling this story and he laughed about it a lot.

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.

Backstage Rules

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Santa Fe, New Mexico
Performance Date: April 29th, 2013
Primary Language: English

“At the Greer Garson theatre, absolutely NO non-performing arts majors are allowed backstage. There’s no other reason, okay, well maybe it’s a slight liability issue too, but the belief it is bad luck to have an audience member or such behind the scenes.”

My actress friend told me this. In my experience, thespians are a pretty superstitious bunch. However, I imagine this practice originated in the practical issue of actors and crew members not wanting to have to deal with extra people getting in the way of heavy moving sets and quick changes.