Discovery Guide
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DISCOVERY GUIDE Student Matinee Series 01 Dear Educator, Looks Like Pretty meets NYS College and Career Readiness Anchor Thank you for choosing to share with your students the world premiere Standards in ELA (Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and production of Looks Like Pretty, a Geva-commissioned Rochester story. Language), History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects, We know that each academic year you are presented with a multitude Arts, and Theatre for grades 5-12. If you require a list of the curriculum of thought provoking and exciting educational visits, performances, standards explored via participation in this production, please contact exhibitions, tours, and other options and opportunities to enrich your Lara Rhyner at [email protected]. students’ classroom curriculum and to inspire them as they continue to transform into young adults, sharing their bright minds and empathetic hearts with the world around them. And, each year, there is less time and Development Timeline for Looks Like Pretty fewer funds available to participate in these experiences, which are deeply July, 2017: Geva agrees to co-commission, along with the meaningful in so very many ways. We appreciate that you found Looks Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Like Pretty to be compelling and enriching, and have chosen to share this Technology Project through the Ensemble particular story and it’s explorations of several facets of Rochester’s history Studio Theatre, Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder’s with your students this year. Rochester story involving Kodak. September, 2017: Elyzabeth’s first research trip to Rochester Several of the topics we’ve found central to a richer understanding of this occurs. story and the issues it highlights are investigated in the following pages. Of course, there are plenty more local resources and opportunities for further August, 2018: The first draft of the play is completed. research that may be interesting and inspiring for your students, and we November, 2018: The first workshop of the play, then called The encourage you to discover those together. Please plan to utilize this guide Color Girl, takes place in Geva’s Festival of New in collaboration with the script and exploratory video provided. We are Theatre, directed by Hana Sharif. eager to share in a rich discussion about the themes and impact of this January, 2019: A second workshop of the play, directed by piece. We invite everyone to lean forward, engage, and enjoy Looks Like Miranda Haymon, takes place at Ensemble Pretty. Studio Theatre in New York City. February, 2019: The title is changed to Looks Like Pretty. March, 2019: Geva announces the world premiere of Looks Like Pretty in its 2019-2020 season. Lara Rhyner February, 2020: A Third workshop of the play takes place at Associate Director of Education Sewanee University in Tennessee. [email protected] (585) 420-2058 March, 2020: Rehearsals for the world premiere production begin at Geva. August, 2020: Looks Like Pretty is slated to open at Geva Theatre Center. Background at the Forefront Synopsis In 1963, in a lab at Kodak Park in Rochester, NY, Charlie is As an example, Geva’s Literary Director and dramaturg for Looks Like putting the finishing touches on the latest color film technology. When Pretty, Jenni Werner, researched cases of missing children in Rochester Gloria, an African American Kodak supply delivery employee and aspiring in the early 1960s. She noted that articles about missing children were film technician, questions the authenticity of color in the film after her few and difficult to find – often wedged onto the page of a newspaper daughter Alice goes missing and the film is unable to capture a clear and tucked between other, more prominent stories – and none were image of Alice’s features, the success of the color film project, Charlie’s accompanied by photographs of the child. In one of only four cases from career, and finding Alice are at stake, and innovation, visibility, and the early 1960s of a reported missing child in Rochester that Jenni was perception are put to the test. able to locate, an article states that 13-year-old Carol Ann Lewis went missing on April 22, 1965. Her mother told police she had never run away from home or been late before. In Looks Like Pretty, 13-year-old Style Looks Like Pretty is a work of historical fiction. The plot is rooted in Alice disappears, and Gloria insists Alice would never run away or get history and inspired by the real science of color film evolution at Kodak, into trouble. The police refuse to assist until Alice has been missing for at as well as experiences truthful to life in Rochester in the early 1960s. Just least 72-hours, and say they need a clear photo of Alice if they are going as Kodak is the analogy or lens through which this story explores some to help. Gloria tells us that a white child also goes missing the same day factual components of society in the 1960s, Looks Like Pretty explores as Alice, and that her story and photograph make the front page of the what may have been historically feasible, although not necessarily what was historically accurate. Gloria: “And when people saw the final result, well then, they fell in love with possibility.” 02 newspaper within 24-48 hours. In this one moment from the play, we can Other historical re-imaginings that you may have seen recently at see evidence of events similar to real Rochester history, and also factual Geva include Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, Deborah Zoe Laufer’s deviations inspired by events that potentially could have occurred. After Informed Consent, Matthew Lopez’s The Whipping Man, Mat Smart’s The exploring this guide and reading Looks Like Pretty, examine other facets Agitators, and Keith Glover’s Revival: The Resurrection of Son House. It of the story relating to Kodak, the advancement of color film technology, might also be interesting to consider what qualities help us categorize and what life in Rochester was like for many African American citizens a piece as a historical fiction, versus a science play, a history play, a re- during the 1960s. What truths did you discover, and what components of enactment, or a dramatization of a biography. Where do these genres this story may have been inspired by history? intersect, and where do they diverge? Meet the Artists The Cast Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder (Playwright): Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder’s plays have been produced at the Royal Court (London), Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center, Cleveland Play House, KC Rep, Northlight, the Arden, B Street Theatre, and Hartford Stage, among others. New work includes The Light of the World, which explores our relationship with Confederate iconography, and Looks Like Pretty, which explores racial bias and the development of color photography. In 2018, Elyzabeth traveled with the Alabama Shakespeare Festival on their “State of the South” tour where they hosted town hall discussions in 12 cities throughout the South and explored the changing face of Southern identity. The project culminated in a documentary and was featured in the New Margaret Ivey York Times. Elyzabeth is the current Tennessee Williams Playwright- as Gloria in-Residence at Sewanee: The University of the South, where she teaches playwriting. Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder Playwright Valerie Curtis-Newton (Director): “For most of my career as an artist and teacher, I have held firmly to the belief that Theatre’s fundamental function is to put us in relationship with one another, inspiring a sense of community. I want my community to hear some new stories. I want them to sit together and hear some new stories. And after hearing some new stories I want them to be changed. And because they are changed, I want them to really see each other and to move through the world with greater kindness, greater compassion Aaliyah Reed-Miller for each other. And because kindness and compassion in action look like as Alice courage, I want to make my community brave.” Personal motto: “Find the fear in the room and face it.” Valerie Curtis-Newton Currently the Head of Directing at the University of Washington Director School of Drama, Curtis-Newton also serves as the Founding Artistic Director for The Hansberry Project, a professional African American theatre lab. Additional credits include The Guthrie Theatre, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Seattle Rep, Playmakers Repertory Company, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Intiman Theatre, Seattle Children’s Theatre, The Mark Taper Forum, New York Theatre Workshop, and Southern Repertory Theatre, among others. Seth Andrew Bridges as Charlie Gloria: “When you see someone like you achieving things, it makes you think you can do it too.” 03 Interview with the Playwright Geva: What do you hope Rochester’s students will come away with when In the spring of 2019, while the play was still in development and they explore the play? undergoing workshops and re-writes, Geva staff members called Elyzbeth: I urge them to re-discover their Rochester history! Stop and playwright Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder at her home in Tennessee to talk think about the images you see, and how you interpret them. What is about the origins of the story, it’s growth and transformations, and what pretty? Is what is pretty to you different than what is pretty to someone she wanted the Rochester community to know about Looks Like Pretty. else? How has technology changed to address the issues brought up in the play? What are the new technological obstacles we need to take Geva: Where did Looks Like Pretty come from? a more detailed look at and solve? What are the social and personal Elyzabeth: This story was developed around the initial idea and ramifications of corporate choices? There’s so many approaches, and so challenge of growing characters out of a science base.