HISTORY
The curriculum
for our workshop, Hurrah for the Mysterious Wonder Balloon! is modeled after
the Missoula Oblongata’s own process for making our mainstage shows.
In post-show discussions around the country, we found that our method for
collaboratively creating original work was unique. We began to wonder if it
could be teachable and useful for students and theater makers.
After one such discussion in 2007, Michael Cadman, the director of the National
Theater Institute requested that we lead a group of his students through our
show-making process. We designed and led an enormously successful two-day
workshop, and since then have taught this workshop at colleges and theaters
around the country.
Though carefully planned, Hurrah for the Mysterious Wonder Balloon! is no
paint-by-number approach to theater making. Rather, each component of the
workshop is flexible and multi-faceted. As the class progresses, the performers
assemble a cache of material and possibility. They have their own list of
dreams, as well as their partner’s list of dreams. They have the text
that they have generated, and also their partner’s text. They have a
collaborator, artisan skills, and materials such as wood, cloth, desk lamps,
flashlights, paint, and duct tape. They may only use a fraction of this inventory,
or they may draw from almost all of it.
The final performances run the gamut, from mostly silent to dialogue-based,
from comedic to dramatic, or somewhere in between. Students perform from the
rafters, in basements, wading in water, in closets, bathrooms, and elevators.
Each group of students completely shape the direction of Hurrah for the Mysterious
Wonder Balloon!
We have found that the essentials of this curriculum can be modified to fit
almost any time constraints. We have successfully taught this as a two-day
workshop, a two-hour workshop, and a week-long class. Our expanded format
can be taught over a semester, approximately the time we use to create and
stage our own productions.
