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Show I niiiui ii i ill i II ...n.i.n.m ,ii i mi n i mini i t Theater Group Holds High School Work Shops f h f r : i I f J . t I y , , " i k ; l ; f (f i v. i J 'J i - - ' " . ' ' L " i " i j J. Pat Miller leading students of Park City High during theater workshop. The gymnasium at Park City High School was filled with violence; vio-lence; well, at least it APPEARED to be filled with, violence. Members of Chicago's Organic Theater held two theater the-ater workshops, the first session devoted to demonstrating various techniques on violence that are used on stage. Meshach Taylor, one of the members of the group, began by telling the students attending, "We are going to learn some of the ways to feign violence on stage." But the 'violence' didnt't start immediately. First, students formed form-ed a circle and began breathing breath-ing exercises in order to "loosen up." Then Keith Szarabajka, another an-other member of the theater group, proceeded to teach body exercises with all the students joining in the movements, mostly on the floor. The purpose of these exercises is,.to prepare for any action an actor must go through on stage, including violence, which came next. Students paired off, faced each other, and thentested their quickness quick-ness by participating in "reflex games." For example: without warning, one student tried to touch his partner's shoulder as quickly as possible, as the 'victim' attempted to move out of the way to avoid beingtouched. Another 'game' entails hittingthe hand rather than the shoulder. Again, the objective is quickness. quick-ness. Everything seemed fairly harmless thus far. But it didn't last long. The next exercise was "hair pulling," followed by "nose pulling," "slapping," "punching," "punch-ing," (face and stomach,) and finally, "face kicking." The session on violence ended with everyone still ingoodshape. The students were obviously enthusiastic en-thusiastic as they continued to practice on each other after the bell rang. The next workshop was much more docile. It was called "Preparing "Pre-paring For The Stage." Preparatory Prepar-atory games, including "Steal the Bacon," were played, led by Sonja Lanzener, an actor with the company. "Monster Tag," where the 'monster' tries to tag one of the other participants, was also included in-cluded in this session. These children games are played in order to get into the mood of portraying a particular character charac-ter on stage. Both sessions proved not only exciting for the students, but also increased their understanding under-standing of stage techniques used in the theater. |