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Hi, Friends: I’m looking forward to working with all of you again. Here’s a quick update:Mr. Elberfeld and I are well. I have worked arduously to keep us healthy during the pandemic. As with everyone else, we’ve had to make tough decisions and sacrifices.My dad, in failing health, passed away in May. This was a blessing as he would have suffered greatly during the extended isolation at his assisted living facility.I worked with Megan Pinette for almost two years researching and writing Belfast for Belfast Historical Society and Museum. It was published by Arcadia Publishing in June 2020 to minimal fanfare. I took a break from writing once we hit the final “SEND” to Arcadia in September 2019.The following piece is long--feel free to skim it and skip to the last paragraph for your part. I wrote it for myself, to remind me of the cultural/social/literary value of my project, to honor my creative process, to celebrate the checkpoints reached, and to acknowledge the ones remaining. Thanks in advance--JaneANANSI, A PLAY IN THREE ACTSJane B. McLeanOctober 2020ACT IScene 1: School of the Holy Childhood, Rochester, NY. October 1996.“Sr. Seraphine wants us to do something different this Halloween,” Mary told the Special Events committee. “Some families don’t celebrate Halloween, so no witches or mummies or haunted houses or blood or that awful scream mask. The kids can still dress up and go trick-or-treating and have classroom parties. But we need to come up with something…” “More inclusive?” “Yeah, any ideas?” “Jane, what about you and Marilyn acting out a story, like you did with Green Eggs and Ham last Easter?” “Hmmm, a Halloween story. But not about Halloween. Let me think about it. I’ll come up with something.”There was the challenge. Find a motif associated with Halloween that could work as a story appropriate for students ages 5-21 with developmental disabilities at our small nondenominational school. A black cat, maybe. Or a pumpkin? Or… a spider?Into my storytelling bag of tricks I delved, and out came a picture book, Anansi the Spider, the retelling of an Ashanti tale by Gerald McDermott (1972). Could this work? Was the spider-Halloween connection too remote? Because the story is most certainly not about spiders, but about animals with human qualities. I ran it by the committee.“It’s a little far-fetched, but I think we can pull it off. If I write it like a play, with no lines to learn, only pantomime, will you all be in it?”“Sure, Jane, whatever you say. I’ll talk to Sr. Seraphine ” promised Mary. A collective sigh of relief was heard as the committee members realized that the responsibility of creating a major production was off their shoulders.Sr. Seraphine, executive director and former kindergarten teacher, was less certain. “What’s this about a play with spiders for Halloween? We don’t want to scare the children.” “It’s a folk tale about spiders in name only. It’s about a father and his six sons and how they have to work together to save him when he falls into trouble. It’ll work--you’ll see.” Fortunately, she was a woman of faith and used to trusting in things she could not see.Scene 2: My Garret, Upstate NY. 1996.Now to write the play. Anansi is part of the oral mythology of the Ashanti people of Ghana. The Ashanti traditionally weave strong symbols into their silk fabric: Sun, Moon, Creation, Universe, Web of the Cosmos, and Anansi, their trickster and mischief-maker, an animal with human qualities.McDermott adapted the book from his animation (1969) of the same name. So our story must have movement. The language has such beautiful cadence that it stands alone, without dialogue. Here is what I have:A story that is told by a NarratorMain characters that are people: Anansi, See-Trouble, Road Builder, River Drinker, Game Skinner, Stone Thrower, Cushion, NyameMinor characters that remain animals: Fish, RavenSimple settings: Home, hill, river, tree, grass, skyMinimal propsPerformance space: a multipurpose room that serves as a small auditorium and chapel, no elevated stage, no wings, no stage lightsTone down the incidents with Fish and Raven to eliminate goreChallenge: How to adapt this simple story into a play that will engage students with a wide range of abilities across a wide age range on one of their favorite celebrations of the year. For this I draw on my years of performance and teaching experience:Cast the members of the committee and other staff whom the students love.Hand-pick the actors for the parts and include student interns.Make the costumes distinctive and recognizable to the students.Encourage large/exaggerated movements to pantomime the story.Use the entire space, with the actors moving up and down aisles, and vertically on the “stage.”Keep the pace moving.Challenge: How to make the six brothers more cohesive. A sudden inspiration: actors are often paired up for their curtain call to move the bows and applause along. In a production of The Man Who Came to Dinner, my brother and my son, for reasons known only to them, danced out together in a waltz. Why don’t I pair up these brothers and give each couple a personality? The oldest brothers will be responsible: See-Trouble is a doctor; Road Builder is a construction worker and leader of the crowd.The middle brothers will be fun-loving: River Drinker is a party animal; Game Skinner is a fisherperson.The youngest brothers will be jocks: Stone Thrower is a baseball pitcher; Cushion is a football receiver (for the Buffalo Bills, the school’s favorite team).Once I figured this out, the whole adaptation fell into place, and I wrote effortlessly. River was played by two people waving a rippling blue cloth, straight out of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in The King and I. The stepladder tree was inspired by our high school staging of the telephone scene in Bye Bye Birdie.Scene 3: School of the Holy Childhood, Halloween 1996.With minimal rehearsal, we performed Anansi the Spider to the delight of our audience, who enjoyed seeing their favorite teachers and staff being goofy and having fun. Sr. Seraphine beamed. Scene 4: The Finger Lakes, Summer 1997.A friend asked me to provide family-friendly entertainment at a pig roast. I created baseball cap costumes for each character and gathered people of all ages who wanted to help tell the story. With no rehearsal at all, I directed Anansi again. It was great fun, and the well-lubricated audience loved it.ACT IIScene 1: My Garret, Upstate NY. 1997.My mother, Isabel “Izi” Nichols, was an amazingly talented and driven person. She was a professional musician, well-known pianist, music educator, composer, craftsperson, librarian, and writer. She had written or adapted many musicals for students over the years. She never stopped creating and died suddenly at age 83 with a pen in her hand. I sang before I could walk or talk, and my first performance was as a toddler with the Antrim (NH) Players. I was active with the group even after I moved to Upstate New York. I wanted to develop Anansi into a children’s play for the Players, with a percussion score, much the way the story might be told in Ghana. “Hi, Ma. Remember I told you about the play I did at school, Anansi the Spider?” “I thought you hate spiders.” “I do, but it’s not really about spiders, it’s about a father and his sons who help him get out of trouble. It’s a folk tale from Ghana, with drums and stuff. Did you ever read it at the library?” “I’m sure I did. And your point [as if I couldn’t guess]?”All I wanted was a percussive motif for each character that would be played ad libitum throughout the play. Motifs that I could tap out on my Senegalese bugarabu drum. Because this venture had potential for her beloved children’s theater, she thoughtfully composed twelve two-tone (high and low notes) motifs. Her production notes offered a variety of options for instruments, including hand claps and oatmeal boxes, saying “Imagination reigns.” The surprise was Game Skinner: she used “I Want to Be in America” from West Side Story because she knew it was my favorite rhythm. Did I mention that she worked with Bernstein during World War II in Boston?Scene 2: Antrim NH Town Hall. 1998 [?].I fleshed out my stage directions into a full script, with production notes for characters, costumes, properties, scenery, lighting, and percussion, sending it off to the Antrim Players for a spring production. I traveled eight hours to see the performance. Unfortunately, the director was in over his head, didn’t ask for help, and was highly influenced by the static stand-in-a-row-and-say-your-lines production of the awful “Barney” show. Although the narration and percussion elements were fine, I was angry, frustrated, and embarrassed to have my name associated with this butchery. It was a very disappointing evening for me, and I never found out exactly why the staging was so poor. Scene 3: My Garret, Upstate NY. 1998-2015.After the lackluster performance, I put Anansi away. It had great potential as an educational resource for youth theater. It could be produced with very few resources in almost any setting with almost any actors, in the hands of the right director. My mother didn’t care; in her lifetime, she had never bothered to publish any of her musicals. It was up to me, but I lacked the energy to write a curriculum guide, and publishing by snail mail seemed arduous. Izi passed away in 2005, and Anansi languished on a shelf, gathering cobwebs. ACT IIIScene 1: My Garret, Belfast ME. 2015.In 2015 I retired and moved to Maine, hauling a few unfinished projects along with me--a Butterfield family website and my old friend Anansi. I continued teaching and writing. I took classes and workshops in blogging, creating memoirs, Moth-type storytelling, and getting published. I followed writing blogs, joined Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, and developed a senior college course, “Telling Your Family Stories.” I co-authored the book Belfast for Belfast Historical Society and Museum through Arcadia Publishing. Scene 2: My Garret, Belfast ME. Winter 2020.I had a book coming out in the spring. “Telling Your Family Stories” would again be offered at Belfast Senior College. It was time to show my students how it’s done. I made a resolution: This is the year to get Anansi published. To that end, I:gathered the various bits and pieces of book, score, and script in a binderstudied the latest format for a play script studied query lettersresearched publishers of children’s plays, as well as self-publishing. One of the requirements for acceptance by a publisher is that the play must have been produced in a theatrical setting. In addition to the performances of 20+ years ago, I would offer the completed script to any theatrical group in the area. They would get a play free of royalty fees, and I would welcome their feedback.Then Covid-19 struck, theaters went dark, and who knew what tomorrow would bring? My focus became keeping my husband and me healthy and supporting our families from afar. Again, with no theatrical groups performing live, Anansi went back on the shelf.Scene 3: My garret, Belfast ME. Fall 2020.Then came a query from Michele about getting our writing group together again. Did I want to make a commitment? If so, would it be the Butterfield website or Anansi? Which had the potential to reach more people and possibly impact more lives? The spider won easily.And so, here we are. During the next eight weeks, I will call on this writing group for support as I dig into the research and writing required to prepare the script for performance and submit it for publication. Thank you, All! ................
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