This has been a very interesting semester. I had always intended to do a project focusing on politics, but I wasn't exactly sure from which angle to approach it from. While watching a video of Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, it hit me that that I should do a project focusing on political satire, and I'm glad I did. I don't think I've ever laughed so much while researching a project before. I had no idea about how great the impact of political satire was, and I have learned so much about its history on television.
The creative project and the goals I had for it changed over time. For the creative project, I had originally intended to write a musical about the 2008 election. After realizing that such a project would never come to fruitarian given my poor writings skills and the length of the semester, I instead decided to simply write a collection of scenes in the style of SNL. Originally, I had no intention of ever performing these scenes, and I wrote them on a variety of topics that really didn't tie together. However, as I wrote more and more, I really wanted to perform my scenes. So I tied them to together as political highlights from the last two years, and added George W. Bush as the show's narrator. The biggest hurdle that I had to overcome while typing up these scenes was my busy schedule. This meant that it took me longer than expected to type up, edit, and finalize the script. Right now my goal is to perform my show during C Block at some point during the month of January. I am confident that I am on track to meet this goal, and I am excited to present my project.
In addition to presenting my show, another one of my goals was to apply some of the lessons I learned while researching political satire to this project. I worked to make, to the best of my abilities, that provided a reflection of American politics, albeit humorously. For example, the scene dealing with Beck and Limbaugh exaggerating the stories they read in the paper, has roots in the controversy over the ground zero mosque. Originally, the story was simply part of the day-to-day building projects occurring in New York. However, a blogger took the story and blew it out of proportion. Other people responded to this story and soon it was national news. In addition, the Obama-worshipping aide is an exaggerated representation of the way that many people felt about Obama when he was first elected, and the dramatic turnaround of opinion that occurred during the healthcare debate. Both of these issues are serious issues that faced the nation, but it is my hope that I was able to put them in a humorous light. Another goal I had was to create scenes in the style of shows such as SNL, but not copy them. Some of my scenes have their roots in SNL skits, but while the theme may be the same the outcome and the jokes are different. That being said I did include several direct references to the show, such as when George W. Bush tells Sarah Palin that he can't see Russia from her house. My last goal was to be satirical without being openly offensive. This being parody, there is a high probability that someone will find it offensive, but I hope that I make more people laugh then I make angry. I went about this by not focusing on one specific group. My show does not simply make fun of Bush, Obama, Republicans, Democrats, Tea Partiers, but rather the American political climate as a whole. In keeping with the philosophy of shows such as Family Guy I am making fun of everyone and using that as a justification. That being said I took the opinions of both Mrs. Ward and Mrs. Thornton into account while I was writing. If they felt that the audience might consider something offensive and altered or removed that particular joke. Ultimately, I believe that I have achieved, or am on track, to achieve my goals. In the end, that judgment will not be mine to make, but I am inclined to hope.
I finally completed the script in mid-December. I had already cast some of the parts, but upon the completion of my script I finalized the rest of the roles. My cast is made up entirely of drama club members. This was done to ensure that everyone would have had some experience with the theater, and would have an easier type learning and memorizing the blocking of the show. For my cast, Sean Vermiere will be playing Joe Biden/ Bill Clinton, Erin Agnew will be playing Hillary Clinton, Eliza Burkelbach will be playing Christine O'Donnell, Ben Jaffe will be playing Glenn Beck, and Matt Tsui will be playing Rush Limbaugh, I personally took the role of George W. Bush, because he had a lot of lines, and I didn't want to burden anyone too much. My actors and actresses took time out of their busy schedules and I needed to make sure that I was a flexible and understanding as possible during the rehearsal process.
Throughout this project, my mentor Mrs. Marlene Thornton has been a great help. She has edited my draft many times, and has always pushed me to create the best creative project that I could. Her advice and expertise has helped me immensely, and I am very grateful. I would also like to thank Mrs. Monica Femovich for providing me with an instrumental version of "The Wizard and I" for use in the scene where Joe Biden sings, "Obama and I."
Currently, my group is beginning to rehearse my scenes. Everyone seems very enthusiastic, and I'm hopeful that we can have the lines memorized quickly. I'm purposefully going to keep the blocking to a minimum due to the scarcity of time, but also because I don't feel that the nature of the scenes warrants a lot of movement (the exception being the John McCain vs. Bush brawl in scene 3). I'm going to schedule as many rehearsals as possible during the Christmas break to avoid overburdening people once rehearsals for the spring musical start.
This process has taught me a lot about the creative writing, political satire, and producing a show. I was unprepared for all of the revisions I would need to do, but I know realize that only through constant revision can a work reach its full potential. It's also important to know one's audience. Since I will be performing this piece for teenagers, I need to make sure that there is some humor that they will get, thus the Harry Potter references in the Christine O'Donnell scene. I also learned that it is much easier to write political satire on Republicans then it is for Democrats due to the many colorful characters associated with the Republican Party. Effective political satire must be insightful, yet entertaining. If it becomes too complex then the meaning is lost on the audience. Finally, in order to stage a show one must be flexible when it comes to the schedule of one's actors. Everyone has other commitments and a good director will be able to allow for such commitments while still arranging for the actor to get in the necessary amount of work to prepare himself for the performance.
The biggest thing I've learned about myself is that I might want to have a future in either political satire or analysis. I've had so much fun writing these scenes and learning about the political issues that are associated with them. Whether or not the quality of my writing would warrant a career in political satire remains to be seen, but satire is a kind of analysis so I figure if I'm not funny then I can stick to the serious side of the political analysis. I also learned that one must plan for the unexpected. I my original schedule had me finished the writing of the script by the beginning of November. However, delays, confusions, illnesses, technical problems, and other issues prevented me from finishing the script until mid December. In the future, I will need to be able to foresee and work around these delays and insure that they do not negatively impact the quality of my work. I will take these lessons with me as I attend college and look for a career.
The creative project and the goals I had for it changed over time. For the creative project, I had originally intended to write a musical about the 2008 election. After realizing that such a project would never come to fruitarian given my poor writings skills and the length of the semester, I instead decided to simply write a collection of scenes in the style of SNL. Originally, I had no intention of ever performing these scenes, and I wrote them on a variety of topics that really didn't tie together. However, as I wrote more and more, I really wanted to perform my scenes. So I tied them to together as political highlights from the last two years, and added George W. Bush as the show's narrator. The biggest hurdle that I had to overcome while typing up these scenes was my busy schedule. This meant that it took me longer than expected to type up, edit, and finalize the script. Right now my goal is to perform my show during C Block at some point during the month of January. I am confident that I am on track to meet this goal, and I am excited to present my project.
In addition to presenting my show, another one of my goals was to apply some of the lessons I learned while researching political satire to this project. I worked to make, to the best of my abilities, that provided a reflection of American politics, albeit humorously. For example, the scene dealing with Beck and Limbaugh exaggerating the stories they read in the paper, has roots in the controversy over the ground zero mosque. Originally, the story was simply part of the day-to-day building projects occurring in New York. However, a blogger took the story and blew it out of proportion. Other people responded to this story and soon it was national news. In addition, the Obama-worshipping aide is an exaggerated representation of the way that many people felt about Obama when he was first elected, and the dramatic turnaround of opinion that occurred during the healthcare debate. Both of these issues are serious issues that faced the nation, but it is my hope that I was able to put them in a humorous light. Another goal I had was to create scenes in the style of shows such as SNL, but not copy them. Some of my scenes have their roots in SNL skits, but while the theme may be the same the outcome and the jokes are different. That being said I did include several direct references to the show, such as when George W. Bush tells Sarah Palin that he can't see Russia from her house. My last goal was to be satirical without being openly offensive. This being parody, there is a high probability that someone will find it offensive, but I hope that I make more people laugh then I make angry. I went about this by not focusing on one specific group. My show does not simply make fun of Bush, Obama, Republicans, Democrats, Tea Partiers, but rather the American political climate as a whole. In keeping with the philosophy of shows such as Family Guy I am making fun of everyone and using that as a justification. That being said I took the opinions of both Mrs. Ward and Mrs. Thornton into account while I was writing. If they felt that the audience might consider something offensive and altered or removed that particular joke. Ultimately, I believe that I have achieved, or am on track, to achieve my goals. In the end, that judgment will not be mine to make, but I am inclined to hope.
I finally completed the script in mid-December. I had already cast some of the parts, but upon the completion of my script I finalized the rest of the roles. My cast is made up entirely of drama club members. This was done to ensure that everyone would have had some experience with the theater, and would have an easier type learning and memorizing the blocking of the show. For my cast, Sean Vermiere will be playing Joe Biden/ Bill Clinton, Erin Agnew will be playing Hillary Clinton, Eliza Burkelbach will be playing Christine O'Donnell, Ben Jaffe will be playing Glenn Beck, and Matt Tsui will be playing Rush Limbaugh, I personally took the role of George W. Bush, because he had a lot of lines, and I didn't want to burden anyone too much. My actors and actresses took time out of their busy schedules and I needed to make sure that I was a flexible and understanding as possible during the rehearsal process.
Throughout this project, my mentor Mrs. Marlene Thornton has been a great help. She has edited my draft many times, and has always pushed me to create the best creative project that I could. Her advice and expertise has helped me immensely, and I am very grateful. I would also like to thank Mrs. Monica Femovich for providing me with an instrumental version of "The Wizard and I" for use in the scene where Joe Biden sings, "Obama and I."
Currently, my group is beginning to rehearse my scenes. Everyone seems very enthusiastic, and I'm hopeful that we can have the lines memorized quickly. I'm purposefully going to keep the blocking to a minimum due to the scarcity of time, but also because I don't feel that the nature of the scenes warrants a lot of movement (the exception being the John McCain vs. Bush brawl in scene 3). I'm going to schedule as many rehearsals as possible during the Christmas break to avoid overburdening people once rehearsals for the spring musical start.
This process has taught me a lot about the creative writing, political satire, and producing a show. I was unprepared for all of the revisions I would need to do, but I know realize that only through constant revision can a work reach its full potential. It's also important to know one's audience. Since I will be performing this piece for teenagers, I need to make sure that there is some humor that they will get, thus the Harry Potter references in the Christine O'Donnell scene. I also learned that it is much easier to write political satire on Republicans then it is for Democrats due to the many colorful characters associated with the Republican Party. Effective political satire must be insightful, yet entertaining. If it becomes too complex then the meaning is lost on the audience. Finally, in order to stage a show one must be flexible when it comes to the schedule of one's actors. Everyone has other commitments and a good director will be able to allow for such commitments while still arranging for the actor to get in the necessary amount of work to prepare himself for the performance.
The biggest thing I've learned about myself is that I might want to have a future in either political satire or analysis. I've had so much fun writing these scenes and learning about the political issues that are associated with them. Whether or not the quality of my writing would warrant a career in political satire remains to be seen, but satire is a kind of analysis so I figure if I'm not funny then I can stick to the serious side of the political analysis. I also learned that one must plan for the unexpected. I my original schedule had me finished the writing of the script by the beginning of November. However, delays, confusions, illnesses, technical problems, and other issues prevented me from finishing the script until mid December. In the future, I will need to be able to foresee and work around these delays and insure that they do not negatively impact the quality of my work. I will take these lessons with me as I attend college and look for a career.