1. You have to show or create a shipwreck on stage. How might you do that?
  • Create cardboard ships that would crush
  • When the two ships crash, blackout, and use sound effects
  1. One character in your play is a spirit. How might you have a character as a spirit onstage?
  • Actual actor: this actor’s makeup needs to look like “spirit” (pain white face?)
  • Using lights and sound effects: using lights as the spirit
  1. Another character is imprisoned in a rock. How would you show a character imprisoned in a rock?
  • Using rock shaped sculptures that have a hole inside where the character can fit in
  1. You have to portray ‘magic demon dogs’ that are unleashed onstage. How might you portray magic demon dogs (without using real dogs)?
  • Use fierce-looking puppets with a human controlling it
  • A human dressed up as demon dogs
  • Use colorful lighting (green? means evil and wicked) and smoke to show that they have magic
  1. What elements would you bring in to create a deserted island? What would you create? Describe how the audience would know that it is a deserted island.
  • Sand put a sandpit in the middle of the stage and put blue cloth around it
  • Sound effects: insects, no other noise
  1. What challenges would you face when trying to create all of these elements in person, on stage, live, in front of an audience.
  • There are some things that are fake (made up characters) or impossible to be brought on stage, we need to use symbolic objects to represent them, but not everyone can understand the symbols
  • Unlike television where you can just edit the show, a live performance must be continuous, the scene must continue without long pauses
  1. “Inspiration” comes from many sources. Describe one source of inspiration for Julie Taymor when she was setting the scene for the play.
  •  Julie is inspired by the photos of the mudmen in New Guinea, they had clay-made masks which look like rocks. She then made a rock mask; it is very simple but shows the idea of Caliban imprisoned in a rock.
  1. Describe one moment where you went “a-ha!” or “that is brilliant!” or “I never would of thought of that!” and describe how or why that moment stood out to you.
  • I really liked her idea of combining a puppet and a human hand to create the character of the spirit. It is very impressive that a human hand can express so many feelings. This is an awesome idea because it also shows the properties of a spirit; a dead soul which still has some parts of a human
  1. What stuck with you from watching this? What moment, element,
  • It’s very overwhelming to see how Julie came up with the awesome ideas; all these elements became one of the most interesting parts of the play. Watching this show gives me a chance to think out-of-the-box, like Julie, her ideas were very impressive, there is always a solution to the problem, even though it seems impossible to overcome.