The World of the Show
Tips for Engaging with Failureland at Signature Theatre
Our invitation to you is to resist the urge to lean back. Lean forward! The act of watching the production, of being an audience member, can be just as artistically challenging and rewarding as the work of making the show itself! You, dear audience member, are an essential part of this production.
The intention of these “Rules of Engagement” is to encourage audience interaction with the show: laughing, clapping, even a “mm-hmm” wouldn’t be out of place here when something big happens on stage. Our team wants you and your students to engage with the actors to help create a new kind of theatre experience for the actors and the audience.
Going to the theatre for a show is a communal event. A big group of people come together to share not only the same space, but the same energy as well!
SIGNATURE IN THE SCHOOLS RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
SIGNATURE IN THE SCHOOLS RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
- This piece may prompt some noises of agreement or disagreement. Applaud when impressed, laugh when it’s funny, cry when it’s sad and clap when it’s all done. The more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it!
- This is also live theatre, and the actors need you to engage with them, not distract them or throw off their performance. The same goes for your fellow audience members. They want to hear and see everything happening in the show too!
- Silence or turn your phones off. You’d be amazed by how loud even just a phone vibrating is. And when you look at your phone in the dark, everyone can see you looking at it. Be present in this moment because it’ll be over in a flash.
- This is a chance to be together and to form a community in a shared space. Let’s go.
FAILURELAND SCRIPT
FAILURELAND SCRIPT
Click the link below to read a draft of Failureland (This version of the script is subject to change and should not be shared with students, parents or other faculty members, without express permission from Signature Theatre Education.)
GLOSSARY
GLOSSARY
Defining people, places, things and ideas mentioned in Failureland
- 401(K) - a tax-advantaged retirement savings plan offered by employers in the United States. Employees can contribute a portion of their salary into long-term investments.
- Antisemitism - hostility to or prejudice against Jewish people.
- Aquiver - quivering or trembling.
- Architect - a person who is qualified to design buildings and to plan and supervise their construction.
- Baguette - a long thin loaf of French bread.
- Broker - a broker is a person or a company that acts as an intermediary between buyers and sellers. Brokers exist not just in the financial markets, but in the real estate market.
- Capoeira - a system of physical discipline and movement originating from Brazil, treated as a martial art and dance form.
- Contemporaries - a person or thing living or existing at the same time as another.
- Duress - threats, violence, constraints or other action brought to bear on someone to do something against their will or better judgment
- First Amendment - the First Amendment guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly and the right to petition. It forbids Congress from both promoting one religion over others and also restricting an individual’s religious practices.
- Hallucination - an experience in which you see, hear, feel or smell something that does not exist.
- Iconoclast - a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions or a destroyer of images used in religious worship.
- Impervious - not allowing something to pass through or not to be affected by.
- Impunity - exemption from punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action.
- Inadvertence - not resulting from or achieved through deliberate planning.
- Inevitable - certain to happen; unavoidable.
- Livres - French magazines.
- Lore - a body of traditions and knowledge on a subject or held by a particular group, typically passed from person to person by word of mouth.
- MLM - multilevel marketing (MLM) is a strategy used by some direct sales companies to sell products and services. MLM encourages existing members to bring recruits into the business by promoting and selling their offerings to them.
- MTV Jersey Shore - Jersey Shore is an American reality television series that ran on MTV from December 3, 2009, to December 20, 2012. The series follows the lives of eight housemates at a vacation home in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.
- Sacrilege - violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred.
- Saint Paul de Mausole in Saint Remy - The Monastery of Saint Paul de Mausole is a former Roman Catholic 11th—century Benedictine monastery in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, France. It was later administered by the Order of Saint Francis in 1605. Several rooms of the building have been converted into a museum to honor the famed Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, who stayed there in 1889–1890 at a time when the monastery had been converted to a lunatic asylum.
- Sanatorium - an establishment for the medical treatment of people who are convalescing or have a chronic illness.
- Scattegories - a popular creative-thinking, category-based party game.
- Succession - Succession is an American satirical black comedy-drama television series.
- Tenure - a status granted after a trial period to a teacher that gives protection from summary dismissal.
- Unfeigned Faith - genuine and sincere faith without any pretense or hypocrisy.
- Virulent - bitterly hostile or (of a disease or poison) extremely severe or harmful in its effects.
- White Claw - an alcoholic hard seltzer drink.