KEY ART: EXTENDED BACKGROUND Girl From the North Country | Study Guide Part One 1 Is created by cropping the layered extended background file. FILE NAME: GFTNC_EXT_COLORADJUST_ LAYERS_8.7.19_V3 ARTS EDUCATION AND ACTIVATION CREATED IN COLLABORATION WITH TDF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT 4 Girl From the North Country | Study Guide Part One 2 HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE This guide is intentionally designed to be a flexible teaching tool for teachers and facilitators focusing on different aspects of Girl From The North Country, with the option to further explore and activate knowledge. The guide is broken up into three sections: I. Getting to know the show, Conor McPherson story II. The Great Depression and historical context III. Bob Dylan and his music Activations are meant to take students from the realm of knowing a thing or fact into the realm of thinking and feeling. Activations can be very sophisticated, or simple, depending on the depth of exploration teachers and facilitators want to do with their students, or the age group they are working with. Girl From the North Country | Study Guide Part One 3 CONOR MCPHERSON ON BEING INSPIRED BY BOB DYLAN’S MUSIC ELYSA GARDNER for Broadwaydirect.com OCTOBER 1, 2019 For the celebrated Irish playwright Conor songs up; by setting it in the ‘30s, we could McPherson, Girl From the North Country rep- do them another way. I knew I wanted a lot of resents a number of firsts: his first musical, his vocals and a lot of choral harmonies.” first work set in the United States, and, oh yes, A guitarist himself, McPherson had always his first project commissioned by Bob Dylan been interested in Dylan’s music, but he — the first theater piece ever commissioned admits, “I was not one of those people who by the iconic Nobel Prize–winning singer/ could cover every decade of his career. I had songwriter. about six albums. Then this project came Technically, it was Dylan’s management team along, and it took me into a whole other who approached McPherson — known for realm. I became interested in stages a lot psychologically and spiritually stirring plays of people don’t know about — like when he such as The Weir, The Seafarer, and Shining became a born-again Christian, and he was City — about structuring a book around making these terrific albums, fired up by his selections from their client’s vast, cherished passions and his belief. Then he moved in catalog. McPherson assembled “a very short other directions, and I wanted to follow him treatment, maybe two pages,” he recalls. on his various journeys.” “That was sent off to Bob Dylan, and then his In crafting Girl, McPherson was also “trying to management came back very quickly and include songs that were not the ones every- said, ‘You could do what you like.’ I was quite one knew, though they meant something to stunned.” me. A lot of the time, the songs actually have Since then, Girl has been staged to glowing very little to do with what’s going on in the reviews — under McPherson’s direction — at story, but they reveal something about the London’s Old Vic on the West End and Off- story that you didn’t know about. That’s how Broadway at the Public Theater. Currently great a writer Dylan is.” launching a Toronto run, the show will then For McPherson, the song “Hurricane” is head to Broadway, where it’s set to begin used in the most literal context. Dylan wrote previews February 7 and open March 5 at the it about the black boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Belasco Theatre. Carter, who spent nearly two decades in The musical is set in a boarding house in prison after having been wrongfully convicted Duluth, Minnesota, Dylan’s hometown, during for homicide in the 1960s. The downtrodden the Great Depression. (Dylan himself was characters who pass through Girl include a born a bit later, in 1941.) “The last few years, talented boxer, also black, whose fledgling I’ve been thinking a lot about the ‘30s,” career is unjustly thwarted by the law. McPherson says. “It’s a decade we need to be McPherson was mindful of “racial inequality studying now, as we face more borders, more in the United States, and everywhere now” in walls, more division.” The conceit felt “instinc- crafting Girl, and of the inspiration Dylan has tive. Usually when an idea comes I have no continually drawn from African American control over it, and often the first idea is the traditions. “I think Bob Dylan was influenced only one I have. And musically, this freed the Girl From the North Country | Study Guide Part One 4 by so many different types of music. He was influenced by gospel music as much as he was THEATRICAL by Woody Guthrie. Even when he went into his born-again Christian phase, it’s pretty much gos- pel music — he has a gospel choir singing with VOCABULARY him. I wanted to bring that feeling of liberation, and of expressing the feeling of being threat- Throughout this guide there are ened, of what it’s like to be judged mostly by the theatrical elements and activations color of your skin.” referenced. Here are the definitions of those theatrical elements. At rise: A theatre term that describes what is “A LOT OF THE TIME, THE SONGS happening onstage as a show or scene begins. For example: the set, the action, the mood, ACTUALLY HAVE VERY LITTLE TO what the characters are and what they’re doing. DO WITH WHAT’S GOING ON IN Back story: A history or background, especially one created for a book, play, or movie. THE STORY, BUT THEY REVEAL Breaking the Fourth Wall: The fourth wall is a performance term that refers to an SOMETHING ABOUT THE STORY invisible and imaginary wall that separates the THAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT. audience from the actors. When an actor or actors “break” the fourth wall, they breach this THAT’S HOW GREAT A WRITER separation by acknowledging or speaking to the audience directly. DYLAN IS.” Dialogue: A conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book, play, or movie. CONOR MCPHERSON Given Circumstances: Refers to the who (character), what (plot/actions), where (place), when (time), and why (motivation for Other songs included in Girl, as of the Public characters) in a piece of theatre. production, range from “Went to See the Gypsy” Ensemble: A group of musicians, actors, — of which McPherson muses, “Some people say or dancers who perform together. It is an it’s about when Bob Dylan met Elvis, but Bob approach to a performance that aims for a Dylan claims he never met Elvis” — to favorites unified effect. such as “Like a Rolling Stone” and “I Want You.” Monologue: A long speech by one actor in Each time the musical has been presented thus a play or movie, or as part of a theatrical or far, McPherson notes, “we’ve tried to squeeze broadcast program. in another song, but I don’t know if there’s any space left. You’re inspired by the performers. If Narrator: A character who speaks to the audience to tell a story, comment on the action new people are involved, you get new ideas.” in a play or explains the details of the story. A But McPherson adds that the Broadway incarna- narrator may also play a character in the play. tion is being built “around the Public production, Non-Traditional Musical: A piece of theatre so hopefully we’ll get as many performers back that includes elements of a traditional musical as we can.” (The recently announced Broadway (dance, music, song), but uses these elements cast includes many holdovers, among them Mare in a new way. A non-traditional musical is not Winningham, playing the mentally decaying bound by a linear plot that tells a story from but still painfully alert woman who runs the beginning to end. A non-traditional musical can often engage the audience directly and have boarding house with her husband — a role that characters that break the fourth wall. earned Shirley Henderson an Obie Award across the pond.) Tableau: A group of models or motionless figures representing a scene from a story or Working on Girl has proven so gratifying that, from history; a tableau vivant. McPherson quips, “it’s almost hard now for me A form of theatre based to conceive of writing a play where people are Traditional Musical: on a narrative story that uses song, music, not going to sing. I don’t know how I’m going dialog and often dance to tell a story while an to go back.” audience watches. Girl From the North Country | Study Guide Part One 5 THINK ABOUT IT Before the show: Brainstorm ACTIVATE IT some traditional Broadway Who is your favorite musical artist and favorite song? Print out the musicals or film musicals that lyrics. you are familiar with. Working in small groups (ensembles), share your lyrics with your group members. After the show: In what As a group, decide on one song to use as a script. ways does the Girl From the Define the given circumstances for your new play. North Country differ from a Create a 1-3 minute play with your group that tells a story using traditional musical? Discuss only lyrics from the song. in small groups. Present this play as an ensemble piece to the class. GO FURTHER Add music and movement to your performance. Discuss how combining the scene with the music further enhanced the song and shaped the meaning of the scene? 6 CHARACTERS NICK LAINE ELIZABETH LAINE owner of the house, his wife, WHAT TO early 50’s early 50’s MARIANNE LAINE GENE LAINE KNOW their adopted daughter, 19 their biological son, 20 The show takes place in KATHERINE (KATE) DRAPER a family house that has been Gene’s ex-girlfriend converted to a boarding house.