#modern theatre

[sevenswansinatrenchcoat]

I really love this idea. And with having the bots and a short "play", I can imagine being able to reperform it, and then opening up a channel for discussion afterwards. It really does feel like modern theatre in that sense, which I adore

We were talking on my server the other day about a sort of "performance prose" piece, a way to have a work of fiction that takes place within the digital world. I'm a fan of epistolary novels, and this is an epistolary novel that would have a time component to it.

Basically, the idea is that you set up a discord server, make all the channels read-only, then have a "performance" where bots are talking to each other according to a script. (You could also do this via roleplay, but I think that would be worse.) All these bots are "reading their lines" in these channels, forming a coherent story that's told entirely through text messages, but also, importantly, through the timing of when messages are sent, through when the messages are edited, through mutes and bans and slow modes.

It would all be realtime, that's part of the gimmick. I think it would be best if it was actually on discord, mostly because I think that's a better gimmick than having a javascript thing on some separate dedicated website.

There are lots of options for how you'd do it. Time is one major consideration: an hourlong "performance" as the bots do their scripted actions is interesting, nice and tight, more like a movie than anything else, something you sit down for as a dedicated viewing "experience". But at the other extreme, it could be as long as a week (more than that is probably impractical). Since it's in real time, that means that people actually need to check in and keep up with it, and you can actually miss things, catching them only in the backlog.

In practical terms, I think you'd only want ~10 characters and another ~20 secondary characters, the "main chatters" and the people who come in for a few lines every now and then. This is just a format in which the writing would take place, you'd want to figure out what the plot is, what it's "about", if it's about more than just internet/online culture.

So it's a stage play, but it takes place within a chat client of some kind, and has its own rhythms, and because we're using bots and not humans, and because we're using a format that has verisimilitude, we can do cool things with it.

And you might be asking "well wait, you're writing a script, just write a chat log instead, that's a relatively normal thing to write and read" but I dunno, there's something that's magical about doing it "live", witnessing a quiet conversation in the middle of the night, seeing the whole server get embroiled in a flashpoint issue, watching these characters get revealed in ways large and small.

[ot9000]

cero / STUTS band modern theatre 2023.02.24. めぐろパーシモンホール 大ホール

cero 1. Cupola 2. Summer Soul 3. Nemesis 4. 魚の骨 鳥の羽根 5. Fuha 6. Fdf 7. Orphans 8. Tableaus 9. Poly Life Multi Soul

[pinkblanc]

Oskar Schlemmer, Drawing for Figure in Space with Plane Geometry and Spatial Delineations, 1924

[chiscribbs]

Disaster Twins Karaoke Battle (alt title: Getting Hyped for the Next Lair Games)

These sketches are old, but I couldn't let National TMNT Day pass without showing my appreciation in some way. I drew these some months ago, while listening to the song Stalemate from the Death Note musical yes, that's a thing, go check it out on loop, and forgot to post them. The song is a bop and I could so easily see the twins loving it, and loving to perform it even more. Massive theatre nerds, the both of them, no one can convince me otherwise.

(In my mind, Leo is singing Jeremy's part and Donnie is singing Jarrod's, but it's interchangeable.)

[cubbyhole-for-flea-bee]

give it up for Mr. I-don't-really-talk-about-my-feelings-maybe-I-should, everyone, any donations made to the theatre are going straight to a therapist fund!

[beardedmrbean]

[arc-hus]

The Leietheater, Deinze, Belgium - TRANS Architectuur

[finelythreadedsky]

underrated point of difference in the conventions of ancient and modern theatre is that the ancient chorus is all one gender and age group while a modern ensemble is more usually mixed, at least in terms of gender. must consider this more.

[fruity-pontmercy]

headcanon that Modern!Enjolras doesn't know how to smile for pictures so he just... doesn't, all the pictures the amis have with him just have him giving the camera the most blank, soulless, unexpressive stare in the world, and when he ends up actually smiling you can read the discomfort all over his face. I don't think he doesn't smile normally or anything, I just think the second you point a camera towards him he just immediately forgets how to.

[a-storytellers-wish]

Zahra & Noor's dynamic as shown in memes

I've always wanted to share how exactly Zahra and Noor pair with each other, and I feel like I can just best explain it by doodling them into memes XD

Admittedly, many of the planned dynamics and interactions I planned for them are inspired by the other Asha/Star dynamics from the other AUs. The third one, in particular, was inspired by the art-focused Asha and the music-focused Star dynamic; and I think that dynamic would be a very fitting dynamic for a story that is also a celebration of what are basically animated musical films.

Also, the idea of both quiet people, one who is shy and keeps to herself while the other who is literally mute, actually have so much to say and are most comfortable at expressing it through art is so cool.

Also the irony of Noor talking in visual language but is more into music and sound while Zahra can talk and sing but is more into visual arts and language??? Yeah I can already imagine an AU where they work together as partners to make an indie animated musical film/show XD

[decepti-thots]

the fact that in mtmte we establish that live theatre exists despite them presumably never having been without the ability to record things digitally in a way that for most of human history we lacked has fascinating implications for what, exactly, the idea of a live theatrical production even represents to an audience. why WOULD you invent theatre in a society where at basically no point do you have to physically show up and act things out for people to see it. you'd have to go out of your way for artistic reasons to do that when your planet has never not had the ability to digitally record things, right. 'theatre is seen as kind of a pretentious indulgence' means something totally different when there has literally never been a pragmatic reason to do that instead of recording it, right. you gotta do it On Purpose. sorry i'm in theatre mode tonight for unrelated reasons but i'm just always obsessed by the idea of 'what DOES cybertronian theatre even look like' ngl.

[savvysquid]

Alex meets Aar's cat

(Since they're like 17 I wanted to include Theodosia jr somehow)

[corvidclub]

the parallel between Lestat marking all the tenor's flat notes and Armand writing all his aggressive director notes for Claudia on the 500th performance... the performing community of Paris better thank their lucky stars everyday that lesmand didn't become a real couple because there would be no survivors

[izzyhandsyouaglassofwine]

seen a couple people running to that "is it bad writing or do you not understand genre" post in regards to the ofmd upset. and let me remind people that this show was marketed as a romantic comedy, ESPECIALLY this season!

In that regard, I found an article/blog post that directly addresses the question "can you have character death in a romantic comedy?" And it really hits the nail on the head.

Even if you were to make the argument "well it's a dark comedy!" or "its a pirate show!" there's still a balance that needs to be met if you don't want to alienate your audience.

People are going to argue that the death was earned because they spent the entire season building up his character and "completing his arc". Well, I'll argue that they DIDN'T complete his arc. In fact they took about twelve steps back in his death scene by seemingly ret conning his progress and having him center Ed's feelings on his literal deathbed. So it really feels a lot like fridging, because that's exactly what it was. Izzy's death was for Ed's arc, not his own. And they spent so much time focusing on Izzy all season, focusing on his growth and giving him such a specific arc about queerness and recovery, that yeah, his death feels like a slap to the face and not a tragic story beat that makes the story all the richer.

[postcard-from-the-past]

Vietnamese theatre in Saigon, modern-day Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

French vintage postcard

[fenrichaita]

Sometimes I wonder if people understand that you cannot make people stop comparing mentally ill and neurodivergent people to like serial killers and horror movie monsters without abandoning most of how we conceptualize and categorize mental illness. It's not like an ableism that comes from outside of the DSM or ICD from laymen, it's entirely baked in. The entire mental health system is about categorizing mentally ill and ND people as threats, liabilities, and inconveniences, while blaming it on intrinsic brain illnesses based on the ideas of typically incredibly biased and bigoted psychologists from several decades ago which are not founded in evidence (and said ideas persist mostly unchanged with the reasonings merely altered or justified with a shrug). The fact that after every mass shooting there is more posturing of "mental health awareness" and increasing MH services, when most mass shootings are committed by radicalized cis (and usually white) men tells you that a lot of this is security theatre. The MH system really just makes it more unsafe to seek medical help but it helps "neurotypical" people feel better, and it is the comfort of "NTs" that is most prioritized by this system. And of course, anyone who commits acts of extreme violence like mass shootings will likely be labeled mentally ill first (rather than radicalized, exc.) because of the circular logic that no one can be a Threat without being mentally ill. Do you see The Problem?