Production Tips
Peggy production tips from Melinda Eck in Wisconsin.
MELINDA
"I did have to make a few adjustments due to the fact that I had more cast than parts. I changed most of what Peggy spoke directly to the audience into a Narrator part.
We got a lot of laughs. The age group I was working with was 1st - 3rd grade and a lot of them were 1st graders! This made it quite a challenge to have them memorize their parts when they could hardly read. It worked though. I cast a small sized first grade boy as the (child) sea monster. He got the most laughs! He was so little I think people were shocked by how much he memorized, and what a little actor! It was fun.
We used very simple costumes, mostly either black pants or jeans with white shirts, bandanna, eye patches and I put some face paint on their cheeks to make them look a little dirty. One of the captains wore a pirate hat. Peggy wore all this accept no eye patch, and she had pony tails and I painted pink cheeks and freckles to make her look younger since I cast a 3rd grader for this part because of the huge amount of lines there were to memorize in a week's time. For the sea monsters, they wore all green clothes and I painted their faces green with black nostrils, black bushy eye brows, and a large red mouth. They really looked cool (in my opinion!).
For Scene 1 we used card tables with a simple red plastic tablecloth on them & folding chairs, we had a card game on one and mancala on the other so they could look as though they were actually playing games. For the back drop we had a big sign that said Pirate's Cove with a big pirates flag on it (including a skull).
For Scene 2 we used a big blow up palm tree, had a backdrop of a beach scene with water, sand, and a palm tree. We also made a "No Littering" sign and hung it on our Narrator's podium.
It all came together quite nicely, thank you for such a great play. I had a lot of nice complements. The theme regarding little people being able to do big things and of course, the environmental message was a hit!"
If you have any questions for Melinda, you may email her at wmeck@earthlink.net
If you have other production ideas for the website please email freedrama.com at pocolocoplayers@yahoo.com
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