A good question, and I can honestly say that I don't care much for any of those award shows, for a variety of reasons. I try to tune in to the Tony's when possible, but mostly to see who's working on Broadway and to catch the bits from different shows. (Living in the Midwest, it's about as close as I can get to seeing a Broadway show.)Stix, so how do you feel about things like the Oscars and the
Tony awards? I heard a brief interview with some actor who'd been nominated for an Oscar today, and he said he was hoping it would happen. That seemed odd to me. Shouldn't you always strive to do your best work as an actor, and not be about wanting to be rewarded with a prize?
Yes, doing the best work possible should be enough, and I think there's more validity to an "awards" program in which winners are chosen by the average viewer, but the end goal of a performance or production should not be to bring home the statue.
There is some difference between the Oscar's and the One Act Play Competition (aside from the quality). An Oscar is supposed to be the recognition of an excellent performance by one's peers. I think that this notion has been somewhat lost, and often an award goes to what is "expected" or for a body of work, rather than a specific film. It has become, I believe, very political...in all the worst ways. The OAP contest is grading and comparing talent, with the losers going home. One shot and you're done. Even with other art forms, there are usually other contests you can submit your work to or look for some kind of publishing agreement, or a museum showing. Theatre relies on so many other people that it is difficult to keep them together (especially once they've been told they're not good enough).
Performers certainly like winning the Oscar because it increases their value -- win the award and you can expect to bring home a larger portion of the cash for each film.
The Tony Awards have become almost a joke. The Tony's represent Broadway (with one token award given out to a Regional Theatre for their work in a year), and most people in theatre these days know that the best new works come from the smaller, regional theatres today. They don't start in NY.
In the film and the theatre industries, major awards are generally seen as a cash cow. Win the prestigious award and the film/play has a better life. Not always true, of course, but that's the line of thinking. But even if there are no awards, there is still often a life.
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I didn't mean to suggest that the Oscars and OAP were very similar -- you're right, there is some difference in quality. One act is better! One act rules! Oh...excuse me. I'm better now. Anyway, it was just a jumping off point from one topic to another, albeit related one.
Another comment of yours disturbs me. I hope your kids from one act don't decide not to do it again because they didn't place in the contest. That shouldn't get them down too much, or for too long, hopefully. As you know, I thought out one act play from last year should have won, or at the very least placed second, in our subsection contest. When we didn't, I was really pissed off, as were some of my kids. But, with the exception of those who graduated, only one of my students who participated in one act last year didn't audition this year. While I was very sorry to "lose" him, ten out of eleven went out for one act again. I hope your kids choose to do the same.
Actually, I never thought you compared the One Act Plays to the Oscars ... I did. I caught your train of thought, but decided to merge the tracks (as it were).
And don't mistake the writings of a blogger for what my students may be feeling. I think that initially one of my students was very depressed -- I think he wants to go on and study theatre and really wanted to (and felt we could) move on. (I think he also wanted to have gone to "State" in two different areas [he was on the State Championship foot ball team last year].)
I think that having now seen the two shows that beat us out (and at least in one case, not doing nearly as well) put the kids in a complete disbelief and short-term depression. My students had a strong belief that they were capable of moving all the way to State -- and quite frankly, having that kind of confidence (albiet misplaced) and comraderie carried a lot more weight for me, than their actual performance. They believed in themselves and each other, and that was WAAAAAY cool. I guess I'm just sad for them that it didn't come across the stage.
This is actually more on the one act comment than the Oscars thing. While you obviously want the judges to be as qualified as possible, whatever that means, your kids are also learning a valuable lesson: to be in the arts is to be subjected to often uninformed, arbitrary or even malicious criticism. I'd ask two questions about one acts (I'll only ask one question about two acts): a part of the problem seems to be the unforgiving "one-shot" nature of the performances. It sounds like a sport in which there is nothing but a state tournament. Is there a possibility of the preliminary tournaments or some kind of scrimmages/exhibitions before the main tournament. This is essentially what happens in debate, where colleges sponsored tournaments throughout the year. Although my guess is that kids who are in one-acts have other performance options throughout the year in school plays etc.
My question is, how meaningful is the criticism? Do teh judges write an analysis or just check off criteria. And what's done with the criticism?
I'm extrapolating from experiences in debate and speech and writing workshops, so I'm not sure if this applies.
K, I see you have no questions about the traditional three act play, and I suppose we owe you a couple of answers to unasked questions about those Shakespearean five acters.
First, to be qualified as a judge...I believe that each person needs to attend a brief class and take a test. Kootch could asnwer that better as he is a certified judge. I think that what it needs is some supervision and a better attempt at making sure the judges are all looking at the same things. (If staging, and stage "pictures" are one of the criteria, how can a judge rank a play with NO real staging in the top three?)
The judges ARE suppose to write comments, AND they have a checkbox for certain aspects ("Needs Work" "Good" "Excellent" "Superior"). One of my judges wrote nearly two pages, which was appreciated, even though I may have disagreed with him on half. One judge wrote three lines, about five words per line. All positive -- though she ranked us lowest.
I like the idea of mini-tournaments. And in fact there was a tournament the weekend before our competition, which we were planning on attending, but it turns out we weren't invited (that's a longer story). More of those opportunities would be good.
I've probably painted a pretty bleak picture, but truth is, the kids have had a great time, and I've never seen such unanimity among 20 high school students. They've all been so positive amongst themselves and for each other, that it's been a joy to work with them. They performed three shows in a row yesterday for their peers, and that was a nice way to finish. As I told them at the cast party, I really enjoyed their work and that I could have watched the show every night and still found things to enjoy. Perhaps it's my own frustration that others aren't seeing what I've been able to see that these kids have accomplished that has me down about the whole competition thing. (And actually I should say that people around town who know the kids ARE seeing the change in the kids that this production has brought about.)
The thing about the one act play that is different from other arts (speech, debate, knowledge bowl, etc) is the time commitment. It's next to impossible to have all kids involved at each rehearsal, and the longer you try to stretch it out for other tournaments, the less likely you will have enough students to perform.
The system is imperfect, and I'm not sure that there are any easy answers for reform. I still like the idea of mass performances without judging/grading. A festival of plays.
K (& Stix, and anyone else listening): Stix is essentially correct in his listing of requirements to become a registered judge: one needs to attend a workshop (which is essentially a morning), and take a test on the rules for one-act. That test, however, is "open book" and you can look up any of the rules while doing the test. The other requirement is that you're supposed to have three years of coaching and/or judging experience. I maintain my stance that it's not that the judges are unqualified, but that the things we are judged on are entirely subjective.
As to the question of criticism, I think Stix got a pretty raw deal from the judge who barely wrote anything (and, Stix, I would suggest at least reporting that further up the line to whomever your fine arts rep for the section might be). Most judges tend to write a full page or two of comments. Those comments are supposed to constructive criticism to help the students "further their craft." They should also reflect how the rankings were arrived at. While I expected and agreed with almost all the comments we received on our one act play, it really didn't help me to understand the rankings. Part of the problem is that we don't see the comments the judges have for the other plays. Thinking more on it, I thought we should definitely have been ranked ahead of at least one of the three schools who came in above us (particularly one of the two which went on to the next round). It makes me wonder what they had to say about that play/performance. The "check-off system" is new this year, and is an attempt to equate the comments with the rankings more clearly -- obviously that didn't happen.
STix is also absolutely right about the time committment. I had about 2/3 the size of cast he had, and I had a hard time getting everyone to commit. In the A schools (the smaller ones, like Rushford and MCW), there is a two-step competitive process prior to the state festival, due to the larger number of small schools. We had five in our subsection (I believe Stix's had six), two of which advance to the section. THere were eight, then, at the subsection, only one of which gets to go to the state festival. (State one act, incidentally, is not a tournament, but a "festival" because plays at that level are not ranked.)
Thanks for explaining this stuff. I've been thinking a lot in the past year about art is critiqued.
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