Stumped!

Apples2for10 · Stumped!

We have the first act completely planned out, but my director is having the following problems with Act II:

1) The Nightingale!!! He's spent hours and hours debating how to do the Nightingale scene. Have someone play the part, have a stuffed animal sit in the cage... what did you guys do?
2) In the script, the Finale takes place in the courtyard and Fred climbs back onto the bed during the scene. Well, in previous scenes, the bed is in Fred's chambers, so how could we explain the bed in the courtyard?

Any help would be appreciated.

PappyCat

An actual person sings the nightengale song, that person can whistle or sing it. As Fred, I interacted with the nightengale (yelled at it, threw my slipper at it.) We didn't have it in a cage since we didn't have a lot of stage space. But yeah, it's an actual song.

As for the finale, you don't really have to have it in the courtyard...we just had it in the main part of the castle. Our bed was connected to a piece of our wall, and was turned around for certain scenes. I've done an uber crappy mspaint drawing to show you what I mean.

Anyway, originally, we were going to have people flip it around during the finale, but we decided that it was too distracting (TINY TINY theatre with a TINY TINY stage and a tiny cast) so we just left it up and the audience just had to deal with the fact that it was onstage.

If your bed is independent (not attached) to your set, you could always have Dauntless snap his fingers at two servents while he gets Fred up off the floor and they could run off and quickly wheel the bed back on for her.

Set_Buildin_Dad

For our show the Nightingale was a girl in a yellow dress with feathers on it. She had a yellow mask and headband with feathers on as well. We built a small rope swing on an elevated platform for her cage. it worked out really well.

For our bed we built a reversable set piece. The front of the set piece looked like a tower in the courtyard, and the back of the setpiece was the bed. In the finale we brought out the tower, then rotated it. Pictures below:

Front of the tower during the wizard scene ( the tower was also the wizard's lair)

Tower reversed showing the bed (during the finale scent)

edited - SBD to add images

ConverseSneaker

1) We built an amazing cage for the nightengale on wheels and wheeled her out.

2)The Bed was also on wheels. We just wheeled it out to the front of the stage in the "Great Hall".

Brock07

^^Same for us

Beagle On Stage

I prefer to have the nightengale be a stuffed animal in a cage, with the music dubbed in. You can have someone sing/whistle it, or use a flute. I feel like when a person plays the bird, it always looks like exactly what it is - a lady-in-waiting wearing a feathery mask - and you don't know what to think...is it supposed to really be a bird? Or is this supposed to be the same girl we've seen for the last two hours, wearing a mask?

The audience will be pretty forgiving if you have the bed onstage on the last scene. Depending on the theatre, it may be an ordeal to bring it on and off stage, and they will understand that after getting it onstage once, you're not going to bring it off for five minutes, then back on again for thirty seconds.

Either way, you don't have to justify why it's there at the end. It's one of those suspension of disbelief situations where everyone knows that in reality the bed is upstairs in her room and would not be materialising in the courtyard for her to sleep on, but it's somehow okay. They won't be distracted.

And, by the way, Pappy is right that it's much more practical to just set most of the scenes in that main hall of the palace that we first see at the Princess #12 test. Actually, I've never seen a production that attempted to differentiate between the throne room, the various corridors, the courtyard, etc. It's not worth it. Everything except "Swamps of Home," "Happily Ever After," the bed scene itself, and the scene between the Minstrel, Jester and Wizard, usually happens in the throne room.

Cricket81

I'm taking a slightly different approach to the whole nightengale thing. I had a girl who was an amazing singer/tap dancer but didn't have a role for her so I decided to have her be the nightengale. She's going to sing it as written once, then the pit is doing a percussion thing and she's going to tap, getting louder and sillier until Fred screams at her. I've got her in a flapper-type dress and a big feather boa. I know that's really unconventional, but whatever.

As for differentiating spaces, I also have just about everything set in the "courtyard" but for the corridor scenes, we are doing them in front of the closed curtain. That gives us lots of time for set changes that need to happen and everything like that. Very Happy

Apples2for10	Stumped! We have the first act completely planned out, but my director is having the following problems with Act II: 1) The Nightingale!!! He's spent hours and hours debating how to do the Nightingale scene. Have someone play the part, have a stuffed animal sit in the cage... what did you guys do? 2) In the script, the Finale takes place in the courtyard and Fred climbs back onto the bed during the scene. Well, in previous scenes, the bed is in Fred's chambers, so how could we explain the bed in the courtyard? Any help would be appreciated.
PappyCat	An actual person sings the nightengale song, that person can whistle or sing it. As Fred, I interacted with the nightengale (yelled at it, threw my slipper at it.) We didn't have it in a cage since we didn't have a lot of stage space. But yeah, it's an actual song. As for the finale, you don't really have to have it in the courtyard...we just had it in the main part of the castle. Our bed was connected to a piece of our wall, and was turned around for certain scenes. I've done an uber crappy mspaint drawing to show you what I mean. Anyway, originally, we were going to have people flip it around during the finale, but we decided that it was too distracting (TINY TINY theatre with a TINY TINY stage and a tiny cast) so we just left it up and the audience just had to deal with the fact that it was onstage. If your bed is independent (not attached) to your set, you could always have Dauntless snap his fingers at two servents while he gets Fred up off the floor and they could run off and quickly wheel the bed back on for her.
Set_Buildin_Dad	For our show the Nightingale was a girl in a yellow dress with feathers on it. She had a yellow mask and headband with feathers on as well. We built a small rope swing on an elevated platform for her cage. it worked out really well. For our bed we built a reversable set piece. The front of the set piece looked like a tower in the courtyard, and the back of the setpiece was the bed. In the finale we brought out the tower, then rotated it. Pictures below: Front of the tower during the wizard scene ( the tower was also the wizard's lair) Tower reversed showing the bed (during the finale scent) edited - SBD to add images
ConverseSneaker	1) We built an amazing cage for the nightengale on wheels and wheeled her out. 2)The Bed was also on wheels. We just wheeled it out to the front of the stage in the "Great Hall".
Brock07	^^Same for us
Beagle On Stage	I prefer to have the nightengale be a stuffed animal in a cage, with the music dubbed in. You can have someone sing/whistle it, or use a flute. I feel like when a person plays the bird, it always looks like exactly what it is - a lady-in-waiting wearing a feathery mask - and you don't know what to think...is it supposed to really be a bird? Or is this supposed to be the same girl we've seen for the last two hours, wearing a mask? The audience will be pretty forgiving if you have the bed onstage on the last scene. Depending on the theatre, it may be an ordeal to bring it on and off stage, and they will understand that after getting it onstage once, you're not going to bring it off for five minutes, then back on again for thirty seconds. Either way, you don't have to justify why it's there at the end. It's one of those suspension of disbelief situations where everyone knows that in reality the bed is upstairs in her room and would not be materialising in the courtyard for her to sleep on, but it's somehow okay. They won't be distracted. And, by the way, Pappy is right that it's much more practical to just set most of the scenes in that main hall of the palace that we first see at the Princess #12 test. Actually, I've never seen a production that attempted to differentiate between the throne room, the various corridors, the courtyard, etc. It's not worth it. Everything except "Swamps of Home," "Happily Ever After," the bed scene itself, and the scene between the Minstrel, Jester and Wizard, usually happens in the throne room.
Cricket81	I'm taking a slightly different approach to the whole nightengale thing. I had a girl who was an amazing singer/tap dancer but didn't have a role for her so I decided to have her be the nightengale. She's going to sing it as written once, then the pit is doing a percussion thing and she's going to tap, getting louder and sillier until Fred screams at her. I've got her in a flapper-type dress and a big feather boa. I know that's really unconventional, but whatever. As for differentiating spaces, I also have just about everything set in the "courtyard" but for the corridor scenes, we are doing them in front of the closed curtain. That gives us lots of time for set changes that need to happen and everything like that.

The Resource For Musicals

Stumped!