Arts Toolkit: Drama Handout

Guide to the Kentucky Center: Teacher’s Discussion Notes

Performance Spaces and the Production Process

These notes may help you discuss the sections of the video with your students.

Section 1: Instrumental Introduction

• Things that students might observe in the introduction include tickets being torn, the crowd milling in the lobby before a show, lights being adjusted, box office activity, blueprints of a set design, a costume being created, makeup being applied, dancers warming up, and the audience entering the theater.

Section 2: Features of a Performing Arts Center

1. Physical space: The Kentucky Center has three performance spaces along with rehearsal spaces, workshops, and visual arts display areas inside and outside.
2. Psychological space: The center is a place where artists and audiences from the community interact. Theatergoers come for many purposes.
3. Resident users: Best of Broadway series, Louisville Ballet, Louisville Orchestra, Stage One.
4. Visual arts: Sculptures are displayed inside and outside.

Section 3: Aspects of Production

1. Production is ... a medium-sized word that describes a huge amount of work and diverse activities to get a show ready.
2. Aspects of production discussed or shown include selection of script, director, and cast; actors discussing goals and why their character was written into the play; the vision of the director; blocking written in pencil by actors; and the stage manager recording the blocking to assist designers.

Section 4: Dance and Musical Performances

1. Technical (or visual) elements: lights, scenery, props, costumes, makeup.
2. Sound creates the environment and can be the guiding force for a dance company or a musical.

Section 5: Rehearsals

1. Bridge to Terabithia: Actors use props similar to what they will use in performance in order to become familiar with them and to make it look natural when they handle them. The stage is marked off and divided into areas so actors can become familiar with the boundaries of the set and know where entrances and exits are. (This is not stated in the video, but is observable.)
2. Annie: Touring shows are brought in already rehearsed and ready to go. Before performing in a new space, the cast and director meet on stage for notes and to go over what is different about this space. Performers will walk around the space to become familiar with it.
3. Ballet: Rehearsals are different depending on whether it is a group rehearsal or just the principal dancers. In principal rehearsals, the piece can be worked on to get it technically correct; the dancers may have choices about movement.

Section 6: Performance Spaces

1. Whitney Hall: Largest space in the center. Stage is huge and is not suited for performances with just one or two performers. Generally, large events such as musicals and orchestra performances are performed on this stage.
2. Bomhard: Thrust stage. Half of the depth is in front of the proscenium. The part in front of the proscenium has two versatile lifts that can be left at stage level, dropped to floor level, or dropped to a lower level to accommodate an orchestra.
3. MEX: Three-quarter-round stage. Very versatile with full lighting grid. Space is good for small community theater productions, lectures, spoken-word events. Has a first-rate light and sound system.

Section 7: Art/Cultural Diversity

1. What a performance space does for an audience: Any performance space can transport the audience to a different place and time. Diversity of art forms allows one to understand other people and cultures.
2. Three of the visual art works shown are Personnage by Joan Miro (the doughboy); Night Wave Moon by Louise Nevelson (large black sculpture), and The Coloured Gates of Louisville by John Chamberlain (artwork made from car parts). All of these can be found on the Kentucky Virtual Art Museum CD-ROM in the Visual Arts Toolkit.
3. The center is used for many types of arts performances, including instrumental music, vocal music, ballet, opera, poetry, and lectures/discussions.

Section 8: Important Points

1. An art center is a place where people come together.
2. Physical spaces in the Kentucky Center: the Whitney, the Bomhard, the MEX, and the Todd/Clark Rehearsal Hall.
3. The center is also a psychological space where audience and artists share in the creative experience.
4. Every production has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
5. Literary elements: Script—written by a playwright, it develops the plot or storyline. Can be written as dialogues, monologues, or both.
6. Beginning can be different for a dance company or musical artist.
7. Staging and direction can involve a variety of styles.
8. Technical (or visual) elements: scenery, lighting, costume, props, makeup.
9. Sound can create the environment or be the driving force behind a dance performance or musical.

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