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Friday, October 19, 2018
5 Things We Learned Bringing Night Of The Living Dead Live To Life
Breaking Character: The writers of Night of the Living Dead Live recount some of the lessons they learned while bringing their satirical adaptation of the classic horror film to the stage.
5 comments:
Mirah K
said...
This article describes the play adaptation of Night of the Living Dead and the efforts of the producers and designers to create a successful performance that would appeal to both theater and movie fans. I was really impressed by the care they took to preserve certain elements of the movie; for example, using greyscale in their makeup, costumes, and lighting to give the illusion of a black and white film. I was also intrigued because, despite all of the measures they took to make sure the audience comfortable and happy, they also seemed to try and push the horror aspect of it a lot. The article says that they came up close to the audience during the most suspenseful scenes and tried to heighten the feeling of being immersed in the story completely. In a way, however, even this was in an effort to please the audience. I was very impressed by the producers of this show; they gained a solid understanding of what audiences would expect because there was such pressure to live up to the movie, and they used that information to create and immersive and interesting production
There are many aspects to this show that I admire just from reading this article: the collective '68 design that extends to aural and visual design, and how they addressed catering to an audience not used to the theater. It's an interesting concept to have a show in black and white. That means going against quite the norm of usual theater designs, because it's not even to have duller colors it's to recreate the television/movie/photo type of the 19th-20th centuries. This choice makes it seem like you, the audience are watching the show in it's original state. However, the creators make it clear that you aren't just watching some television in safety. Their choice to include some of the scarier scenes closer to the audience further pushes this idea that you are actually inside this classic movie. I think this was a smart decision on their part, considering they are playing to, essentially, two different audiences: fans of the original movie who perhaps have never been a theatergoer, and regular theatergoers. I think the challenging design ideas, and its use to create a cohesive ambience (sound in pre-show, color scheme) will be exciting for some viewers, and the creators stance on staying close to the source and the source creators will be exciting for die-hard fans.
I’m not a big horror fan but I really approve of the way this group is adapting and combining these wildly different genres. Clearly a lot of thought was put into how to make the show appealing to the different audiences that might see it! I’m glad to see them bringing the original writers on board, which is a great way to stay faithful to the spirit of the source material, and from what they said about the way they’ve structured the plot, it seems that the show would make sense and be entertaining both to die-hard classic horror fans and to traditional theater audiences. I like the thought process of the design work and the way they chose to adapt black and white cinema into theatre, and they seem to have a good way to incorporate the scariness of the movie into real life. Overall this seems like a great, well thought out adaptation.
To bring a same content across different genres is such a complicated and hard effort work. The article indicated five thing that the writers learned when they tried to bring the horror film on theatrical stage. The thing interesting me the most is about the credit, during the rehearsal process of the show, they had chance to meet with the original creators and the director who made the film a major hit. The original creators might sometimes be a double-edge sword, but in this case it turned out a resourceful decision to invite them join the cause. I think this story might help us in the theater, for that we always have to deal with the playwright's opinions toward our production. How to strike the balance between the original designs(both on plotting and visual) and the adaptation is an eternal question to all of us in the theater industry.
I initially clicked on this article because I have been a part of two different productions of Night of The Living Dead, so I wanted to see how the writers of this version of the play did it differently and what they 5 things they learned from it were. The most interesting thing to me about their show is that the second act of it is touching on what the characters could have done differently. I have watched this movie many times and every time I do, the people I am with and I always wonder why these people made those choices, so I find it very interesting that they write a whole act on it and I would love to know what they think the characters could have done. Something else I found interesting is how they chose to add in the history of the time into the show and that is also something that I would love to see how they do. I am very familiar with this show and based on this article it seems that they are doing some very new tings with the show so that is something I would really love to see and I am interested in these other people’s interpretations of the classic movie.
5 comments:
This article describes the play adaptation of Night of the Living Dead and the efforts of the producers and designers to create a successful performance that would appeal to both theater and movie fans. I was really impressed by the care they took to preserve certain elements of the movie; for example, using greyscale in their makeup, costumes, and lighting to give the illusion of a black and white film. I was also intrigued because, despite all of the measures they took to make sure the audience comfortable and happy, they also seemed to try and push the horror aspect of it a lot. The article says that they came up close to the audience during the most suspenseful scenes and tried to heighten the feeling of being immersed in the story completely. In a way, however, even this was in an effort to please the audience. I was very impressed by the producers of this show; they gained a solid understanding of what audiences would expect because there was such pressure to live up to the movie, and they used that information to create and immersive and interesting production
There are many aspects to this show that I admire just from reading this article: the collective '68 design that extends to aural and visual design, and how they addressed catering to an audience not used to the theater. It's an interesting concept to have a show in black and white. That means going against quite the norm of usual theater designs, because it's not even to have duller colors it's to recreate the television/movie/photo type of the 19th-20th centuries. This choice makes it seem like you, the audience are watching the show in it's original state. However, the creators make it clear that you aren't just watching some television in safety. Their choice to include some of the scarier scenes closer to the audience further pushes this idea that you are actually inside this classic movie. I think this was a smart decision on their part, considering they are playing to, essentially, two different audiences: fans of the original movie who perhaps have never been a theatergoer, and regular theatergoers. I think the challenging design ideas, and its use to create a cohesive ambience (sound in pre-show, color scheme) will be exciting for some viewers, and the creators stance on staying close to the source and the source creators will be exciting for die-hard fans.
I’m not a big horror fan but I really approve of the way this group is adapting and combining these wildly different genres. Clearly a lot of thought was put into how to make the show appealing to the different audiences that might see it! I’m glad to see them bringing the original writers on board, which is a great way to stay faithful to the spirit of the source material, and from what they said about the way they’ve structured the plot, it seems that the show would make sense and be entertaining both to die-hard classic horror fans and to traditional theater audiences. I like the thought process of the design work and the way they chose to adapt black and white cinema into theatre, and they seem to have a good way to incorporate the scariness of the movie into real life. Overall this seems like a great, well thought out adaptation.
To bring a same content across different genres is such a complicated and hard effort work. The article indicated five thing that the writers learned when they tried to bring the horror film on theatrical stage. The thing interesting me the most is about the credit, during the rehearsal process of the show, they had chance to meet with the original creators and the director who made the film a major hit. The original creators might sometimes be a double-edge sword, but in this case it turned out a resourceful decision to invite them join the cause. I think this story might help us in the theater, for that we always have to deal with the playwright's opinions toward our production. How to strike the balance between the original designs(both on plotting and visual) and the adaptation is an eternal question to all of us in the theater industry.
I initially clicked on this article because I have been a part of two different productions of Night of The Living Dead, so I wanted to see how the writers of this version of the play did it differently and what they 5 things they learned from it were. The most interesting thing to me about their show is that the second act of it is touching on what the characters could have done differently. I have watched this movie many times and every time I do, the people I am with and I always wonder why these people made those choices, so I find it very interesting that they write a whole act on it and I would love to know what they think the characters could have done. Something else I found interesting is how they chose to add in the history of the time into the show and that is also something that I would love to see how they do. I am very familiar with this show and based on this article it seems that they are doing some very new tings with the show so that is something I would really love to see and I am interested in these other people’s interpretations of the classic movie.
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