Girls Will Be Girls (Dec 2007)

The Academy @ KLPac's production of Girls Will Be Girls was our year end production. Our contribution to the kids who have completed both semester 1 and 2 of our Children's Theatre Programme.

I wanted to create a setting whereby the children get the opportunity to work at different areas as not only on stage. Hence, this performance was a unique experience for the children as it was performed at the stairs & foyer area of KLPac.

Last year we did, The Big Brown Mushroom on stage and the children who had experience that will now experience something different. In fact, the process was different too as I introduced working with puppets and masks. The script by Sue Scot, itself involved research as we had know about the historical personalities mentioned. Semester 3 of 2008, was quite a task for the children as they set out searching. From Cleopatra, to the suffragettes, from Strauss to Hitler. It helped me enrich myself too. Long forgotten history was coming back to life.

Thank God there were some left over cardboard, from a project done previously - we used the cardboards to make Cleopatra, Florence Nightingale, Joan of Arc and the suffragettes who were instrumental in getting men to allow women to vote. There they were, these ladies perched on the landing of 1st floor as their deeds were revealed.

We even got the kids to paint their camouflaged soldier masks. Of course when I conceptualised the production, I did have these elements in my mind but was also looking for a cast of at least 20 kids. Unfortunately, as usual it is always difficult to get 1) children committed enough to work though their 3 weeks of school holidays 2) parent's work schedule that able the children to be sent for rehearsals; so we ended up with 12 kids doing multiple roles. Which was actually good for them.

So while in the beginning they are playing roles of boys and girls; they end up featuring occupations of men & women, talking about men & women who made history, even imagining what would happen if the 3 little pigs were girls (since they were girls - the big bad wolf didn't get a chance to eat any of them up - the girls were just too smart!) or little red riding hood was a horrid PS2 playing bullying boy!

Did we have fun? Of course, we did. Especially me - 'torturing' my kids. Well from start, I knew that I only had Deda (The Academy Co-ordinator) to help as Stage Manager / Make-up Artist ; as Lawrence (The Academy Assistant) was hobbing along with a broken leg and stage managing another show, still managed to record the kids in action. Show days I had to garner the help of Stephanie Chua who helped with make up and collecting donations.

I needed the kids to be responsible and manage their own props. So each were given a box. They had to take care of their boxes, ensure their props are kept in order that will help them to get ready on time. They managed very well except for the part when Howard had taken the wolf paw and playing around and didn't put it back proper.

The parents sure were impressed with the displine shown by their children. What was important was the children had a different experience and I was actually proud of their voice projection in a rather open space. (Much better than some young performers on stage.)

End of the day - I love my kids and hope they will cherish their moments and be a part of the new generation of theatre people in future!

The Actors
(First row from left to right: Yasyika, Anusha, Shao Yu, Yoki;
Second row from left to right: Samira, Howard, Afifi; Wafa;
Third row from left to right: Juliet, Ilmira, Alishya & Arisya)

Creative Writers Club SMK Bukit Bandaraya, Bangsar

6 Feb 08 @ 8:30am.

Yes, I had to get up at an ungodly hour to get to the school. Luckily, it was the eve of Chinese New Year and most were already on their 'balik kampung' journey.

I was supposed to give a talk about writing. Like, what do I know! Met some cool teenagers 10 of them. Blabbered on about how little I know about performing arts and some of fun but hard work that I do.

Flashback: I remember the time I was invited to this school, I think in 2005, when there this teenagers who had written scripts and asked for my opinion. One of it had potential, it was about the school Open Day when parents come to collect report cards and it showcases some strange but life-like characters. The play was then featured at Yayasan Budi Penyayang's Keluarga Bahagia event at Genting Highlands. Branavan was one of the script writer / actor.

Back to this group. They want to do a Malaysian version of Romeo & Juliet.. aww. They should have come for KLPac's Romi & Joo Lee. The teacher, Pn. Zaleha also said that the school would like to participate in script-writing competition involving science related matters. There were also some who were there purely for the fun of it.

To start them off.. I got them to write a short piece involving an object. It was very interesting to hear the short stories [I didn't start with a script for 1) it was a creative writing club 2) that was what I experienced at the Dramatic Writing at NIDA]

We explored on what we can do with the stories - dramatise it on stage or any other media. As much as I wanted them to do a dialogue piece, I felt that perhaps helping them to create characters might help them to acheive what the school wanted. So we went on to create a character each.

Again it was interesting to see some characters take life. Opps.. way beyond the 10am limit that I had with them but managed to work on till about 11am.

Now question time - their big concern was to create the Romeo & Juliet characters and if their slapstick joke would work. My advise was to create and let the characters do things together. Never to edit themselves for that was the advise given by all my instructors at NIDA.

We exchanged e-mails and I told them that I would like to see the completed script. "Guys, just e-mail me or call me will try to share with you whatever little bit I know." All the best to the Creative Writers Club of SMKBB! Hope to see more of you.

[Yay! I managed to stick to my 08 Chinese New Year resolution! i.e. to ensure I update my blog everytime I do special projects. But this is only the first : ) ]