Zombie Apocalypse 2012

Characters:
Kurtis
Schinny
Lynn
Zombie 1
Lurch
Moose
Fuzzy
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Act I Scene I

The scene begins with Kurtis sleeping. He is awoken by his cell phone. He looks at his clock before answering. It is 12:01 am December 21, 2012.

Kurtis: Hello
Schinny: Oh My God! Dude! You were right it’s for real happening.
Kurtis: Schinny man was are you talking about?
Schinny: The world is coming to an end! Just like you said it would the….
(Kurtis interrupts)
Kurtis: NO!
Schinny: Yes! It is just like you said it would be.
Kurtis: You thought I was crazy. You thought I was being irrational. You said it could never happen.
Schinny: I know I didn’t believe you I’m sorry. But you have to help me. You’re the only one that can get us through this.
Kurtis: Did you at least put the copy of the survival plan in your wallet like I told you to.
Schinny: Yes. I have it in my hand now.
Kurtis: Good. If you stick do that check list you should be able to survive until I get there.
Schinny: Dude Kurtis hurry up and get here.
Kurtis: I’m on my way. Oh and remember headshots.
Schinny: I know I know the only way to kill a zombie is with a headshot.
Kurtis: That’s right and get ready to survive Zombie Apocalypse 2012.
(Kurtis rummages through his room finding everything that can be used for complete Zombie destruction, including knives, guns, bats, and the cricket bat he bought just for this occasion. He gets in his truck and heads off to meet Schinny. He starts making phone calls to all loved ones to let them know what is going on and to help them with there survival needs.)

Act I Scene II

Kurtis: Come on. Come on pick up your phone.
(He shouts at his phone but there is no answer.)
Kurtis: No it’s not possible they couldn’t have gotten to you yet mom.
(He dials another number.)
Lynn: Hello.
Kurtis: Oh My God! It’s happening. I’m going to be passing your house soon you have to come with me. Just wait inside.
Lynn: What are you talking about?
Kurtis: The zombies. They are real.
Lynn: Yeah right!
Kurtis: I’m not kidding around here.
(There is a loud crash on the other end of the phone)
Lynn: Hold on a minute I think someone is trying to break in.
Kurtis: No don’t go look lock yourself in your room I’m at your house now.
(Kurtis then jumps out of his truck making sure to lock the door as he grabs the cricket bat as he approaches the door he notices it is open and there are bloody hand prints on it. He cautiously enters the house.)
Kurtis: Oh Mr. Zombie Come out come out where ever you are. I’m not gonna hurt you I just wanna play a little game with you.
(Zombie comes charging from living room)
Zombie 1: BRAINS! BRAINS
Kurtis: HOW DO YOU LIKE THIS GAME YOU MUSH BRAIN ZOMBIE!
(He shouts as he repeatedly strikes the zombie in the head with the cricket bat. Kurtis then rushes up stairs to find Lynn finding in the corner of her closet)
Kurtis: Are you okay?
Lynn: What’s going on?! What was that thing?!
Kurtis: Are you okay? It didn’t bite you or anything did it?
Lynn: No No I’m fine it didn’t touch me I’m just so confused. What going on?! What was that thing?!
Kurtis: That thing used to be your neighbor, and then it got turned into a zombie, now it is dead.
Lynn: What???
Kurtis: No time to explain we have to go meet Schinny at Lurch’s.
(The two race back down to Kurtis’ truck. After making sure there are no zombies hiding in it they get in and continue on there journey to Lurch’s house.)

Act II Scene I

Scene begins with Kurtis and Lynn Arrive moments after Schinny. From the amount of cars out front they know that they are not alone. They enter the house and head for the basement.

Lurch: Kurtis I am so glad you made it I was starting to assume the worst about you.
Kurtis: No need for that I wouldn’t miss the chance to destroy zombies for anything.
Lurch: Ha-ha that’s the spirit man.
Kurtis: Are we expecting anyone else.
Lurch: No everyone I could reach is here already.
Kurtis: Then let’s board up the stairwell.
Lurch: No we have to plan this out. Moose, Fuzzy go board the stairwell up and not do a crappy job at it either.
Moose: Alright
Fuzzy: Fine
Kurtis: Schinny were you able to reach Joyce?
Schinny: No. I have to go see if she is okay.
Kurtis: NO! If she can’t be reached then we must assume the worst.
Schinny: But…
Kurtis: No buts, we can’t afford to risk you getting turned into a zombie.
Lurch: So what’s the plan?
Kurtis: We stick to the plan. What all supplies do we have?
Lurch: Three or four shotguns, your 44, my dad’s old Winchester your cricket bat and about seven baseball bats.
Kurtis: Okay we are going to need more than this to defeat the zombies.
Lurch: Where should we go?
Schinny: Wal-Mart?
Kurtis: No we need a sporting good store I think Dick’s is the closes
Lurch: Isn’t it closed?
Kurtis: Nothing is closed during a Zombie Apocalypse!

Act II Scene II

The scene opens with the group of six standing out side the local Dick’s Sporting Goods store. Inside is what they hope to be enough supplies to kill all the zombies. They are currently trying to find away in.

Lynn: Just break the window!
Schinny: No then all the Zombies will start to come over here because of the noise.
Lurch: I used to work here. If they haven’t changed the codes we can get in with out the alarm going off.
Kurtis: Try it.
Lurch: Okay
Schinny: I GUESS THEY CHANGED THE CODES SINCE YOU WORKED THERE LURCH!
(Screaming since the Alarm started to sound)
Lurch: We better grab all we can we don’t have long.
(They all run the store finding there weapon of choice and enough Ammo to take down the herd of Zombies they all know are coming)
Zombies: BRAINS! BRAINS! BRAINS! BRAINS! BRAINS! BRAINS! BRAINS! BRAINS!
(The zombies are getting louder and louder as they approach)
(Kurtis holding a weapon in each hand jumps up on top of a counter an proclaims)
Kurtis: Its Zombie clobbering time!
For the next hour there is nothing to be heard over the constant gun fire and soft mumbling of BRAINS. The group of six exits the Dick’s Sporting Goods completely exhausted
Lynn: Did we kill all of them? Are we safe now?
Schinny: I think so. I don’t see anymore coming, and none of these ones are moving anymore. I think we saved the world.
Lurch: It couldn’t have been that simple.
(Everyone in the group turns to look at Kurtis. There is a long awkward silence.)
Kurtis: We may or may not have destroyed the zombies in the town but what about the next one???

The End

Finding Theater in My Major

Theater is any where and any thing around us. Theater is something we all relate to everyday. So I asked my self how does theater fit in with my major of electro optics? At the beginning of the semester I would have said it does not fit in with it at all. That theater has nothing to do with my major and that I had no clue why I was required to take it to graduate with an applied science degree in May. I didn’t see the point of how learning theater was going to help me with my major. But now that I have learned a bit about theater, I would bet I could find a way to fit theater in to just about any major at all.
With electro optics theater fits in quite well. Once you get a job in this field a lot of the work you will be doing it contract work. With the contract work you will need to do a lot of presentations. Either to win a job bid or to update the person or company that contracted you with the progress of the project. So you are going to need to be a decent speaker and presenter. Theater can help out with your presentation skills. If you are nervous play a little improvisation game to relax you before speaking. If you plan out what you are going to say it is like you are writing a script. You have to make sure the message will be relayed to the audience in the way you would like it to be. The audience is the most important part of theater cause with out the audience what is the need for theater. In the case of the job the audience would be most important as well because they are the ones you are working for.
Another way theater fits in to my major is with that it takes team work to work in the electro optics field rarely if ever will you be tasked in doing something a lone. You will work in small groups and different things to make and end product. This processes reminds me a lot of what goes on to make a theaters production. You have different goods of people all working on there own parts of the production, that by them selves are impressive yes, but not a complete finished product of what could be accomplished. So after the lighting teams plans out what they are doing, the set designers are done, the cast knows what they are doing. It all gets brought together to make that finished product. The electro optics field works similarly. No matter if you are installing fiber optic cables or polishing lens the work is broken down into teams then put together to make a finished product. So theater and electro optics both share task division.
So even if you do not think it is possible or don’t see how its true. Theater is everywhere and everything. It can be as simple as listening to a conversation between two people. Their words being the script of the play called life. Or if you are walking down the street and see someone dancing. There theater all around us. The question is we will take the time to notice it, and if we do will you be able to understand and appreciate it, or will you walk by unaware of what is happening and not notice like most people. Theater is definitely a big part of every major, the question is will you notice that it is a part of you life.

A Musical Passion

One show that I truly love is Meredith Willson’s The Music Man. It was originally on Broadway in 1957. It was a major success with a total of 1,375 performances. It won a total of five Tony Awards including the award for best musical. The show has been made into revivals in 1980 and 2000. There was also a film made from it in 1963 because of its success. Then in 2003 there was a television remake of the show. The show is frequently reproduced my many different professional and amateur companies as well. It is a very popular show. There was even a song from this musical used in an episode of the popular show “Family Guy”. Peter griffin and the New England Patriots break out into the song and dance number "Shipoopi" during a touchdown celebration.
Robert Preston was the original Professor Harold Hill, the leading male role of the show. He is a con man who travels from small town to town selling uniforms and instruments for boys’ bands that he organizes and instructs. His scheme didn’t sit well with any of the other traveling sales men. They all wanted to do something about him. Everything was working out for him taking all the peoples money in each small town his visits until he reaches River City, Iowa. It is there he meets a girl named Marian Paroo. She is the librarian of the town. Problem is Marian believes she knows Professor Hill’s type, a fast talker who only want one thing, and she wants nothing to do with him. This puts a hindering on Harold Hill’s plan cause he can’t stop thinking about Marian. Marian has a little brother that Harold puts his the fake band and helps him out by talking to him and her littler brother gains some confidence from that. This makes Marian fall in love with Harold, and now he has a new problem. A who missed his train and is stuck in town tells the whole town that there so call band instructor, Professor Hill, is nothing more than a fraud. After hearing that the whole town is out to find him. Once he is caught the town doesn’t know what to do with him. They aren’t sure who to believe anymore after hearing what he has to say. The town decides they want to here a performance of the band, but the band has never actually practiced. So now the whole town is in the high school gym with the town mayor leading the charge. Then out come all the kids with there uniforms on and instruments to put on a performance. They all play and man does it sound awful, but the parents of the children are so moved by what they here and seeing there children perform that Professor Harold Hill get away with everything. He gets the girl and settles down in a little town called River City.
The reason I picked this show is because it my all time favorite for many reasons. One reason is because I love all the up beat songs in the production they are so catchy. The main reason however that I picked this show is because it was my first true experience with a theater production. Yeah before this show I had seen other performances. This however was the first show I was apart of. In ninth grade my high school chose this to be the yearly musical production. I though the musical would be something fun to do from what I heard about it. So before I tried out I rented the DVD of the show and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I remember rehearsing my tryout sound over and over, I didn’t end up with a major role in the production or anything I was just mostly part of the ensemble with a few lines here or there, but this is the show that opened my eyes to theater. I got to see what all went in to making a show. And after taking this class I can say I missed a lot of stuff. I was just focused on learning my part and being able to fit in with the flow of the show. I made so many new friends and memorizes during this show it is unbelievable. Looking back on it deciding to join this musical was one of the best decisions I made during my high school career.
So for the fact that the show is just a delight to watch and of course my personal connection with this show its really easy to see why I feel so strongly about this production. There is no other show in my mind that even compare to it, but that’s just my opinion of it, I’m sure you have owe.

Whats On Broadway?

There are a lot of shows playing on Broadway right now. But only a few seem interesting to me. The Addams Family Musical and The Lion King. Everyone has heard of The lion King, either the Disney movie or the stage musical. The stage musical is based on the Disney movie itself. The Addams Family is based of the successful television show from the 1960’s with the same name. So lets learn a little about these Broadway shows.
Lets start off with The Lion King since it is more well know. It first became a stage production in 1997. debuting on July 8, 1997, to be exact, at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The production is produced by Disney Theatrical. The show is directed by Julie Taymor. Elton John wrote the majority of the music for this production and Tim Rice did the lyrics. An interesting thing about the show is that it id currently the eighth longest running show in history. The Musical is currently playing at the Minskoff Theatre. Tickets for the show are available for this show at there box offices, and several places online including but not limited too, www.ticketmaster.con and www.minskoff-theater.com. The production is currently starring Dashaun Young as Simba. There are a total of nine showing a week so you will have plenty of chances to see it. The show as been nominated for and won several Tony Awards including Julie Taymor for Best Direction of a Musical, Disney Theatrical Productions for Best Musical, and Julie Taymor and Michael Curry for Best Costume Design for a Musical.
So I just gave you a tiny bit of information about a Broadway production that you might have known something about, how about something I doubt you know anything about. The Addams Family musical debuted on April 8, 2010. The show that features a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, features Tony Award winners Nathan Lane as Gomez and Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia. The show is nominated for two Tony Awards Best Original Score and Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical, Kevin Chamberlain is the nominee for that award and Andrew Lippa is the nominee for the best original score. Lippa wrote the music and lyrics for the musical production. The story within the production is a unique one. It stars the Addams family and is about a girl and her new found love interest. Seems pretty normal right? Now imagine the true princess of darkness Wednesday Addams being in love with a normal human boy. The story is about him and his parents are coming over for dinner. This is quite a shake up in the macabre Addams house hold. What are Gomez and Morticia going to do? If you would like to find out for yourself you can go see that show, it is playing at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre with eight showing a week. Tickets range from $51.50-$136.50 and can be purchased at the theater and online.
I have introduced you to two of the many shows that are playing on Broadway stages. If you don’t think that you would be interested in either of these two shows you could easily find one that does, there are so many currently play that it is almost guarantied that you will find one you like. All it take is about five minutes of research, which can be rewarded with a once in a life time experience. If either of these shows do interest you I truly hope you get a chance to see one of them since there is nothing like a true theater experience.

Guthrie Theater Profile

I chose to research the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis for this theater profile blog entry. The reason I chose the Guthrie Theater is because I had never heard of it before, and also, one of my favorite bands is from the city of Minneapolis so that influenced my choice as well.The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota started as an idea that Tyrone Guthrie had in 1959. Having become extremely weary and exasperated with the commercialism and consumerism that had overtaken Broadway productions, Guthrie wanted to open a theater that avoided those pitfalls in the theater that he conceived.The first step along the way was to determine where the theater would be built, as it was not planned with a location in mind. To decide where to put the theater, Guthrie ran an article in the New York Times imploring any cities that were interested in hosting the theater to apply, and Minneapolis won out against the six other applicant cities, which were: Waltham, MA; Cleveland; Chicago; Detroit; Milwaukee; and San Francisco.The theater was completed in 1963, and proved that the choice to place the theater in Minneapolis was a good thing when it opened with over 20,000 season tickets sold. Since 1963 when it opened, the theater has seen many changes, the latest being the addition of new multi-stage theater. In addition to the three different stages, the new Guthrie Theater also has an Endless Bridge that looks out onto the Mississippi River, and was declared by a local newspaper to be the best in the city. The new theater, which was built in 2006, was also praised by Architecture Magazine as one of the best buildings of 2006, and by GQ magazine as well.The Guthrie Theater’s mission statement, according to the website, is as follows: “The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is an American center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training. By presenting both classical literature and new work from diverse cultures, the Guthrie illuminates the common humanity connecting Minnesota to the peoples of the world.” (Guthrie)As it says in the mission statement, the Guthrie Theater’s material it shows varies from classics like Shakespeare, to more modern fare. It offers a nice mixture, in my opinion, since there is more of an option for people who may have no interest in seeing older classic plays but would want to see a newer one, or vice versa. The current productions even show a great variety of material being shown just over the next few months.The Guthrie Theater also does offer internships, which it prides itself upon, as they are meant to give a feel for working in the professional theater world. There are internships in various types of fields, from directing to stage managing to marketing. And for children who are too young to participate in an internship but have an interest in the theater, they also offer camps over summer vacation and winter break for children up to seventeen years old.In my opinion, I find the Guthrie Theater interesting because of it’s mission of showcasing different types of productions as I mentioned previously. I think it is a very inclusive idea and would maybe make more people go to see a play as it seems they try to show lots of types of plays. I also found the idea behind the inception of the theater to be admirable since the theater’s productions should be focused on the artistic vision behind the story being told, not the commercialism of simply making money. I like that the theater was founded on those types of principles.

Conclusion

Through out the course of the semester I have learned a lot about theater. I have a new understanding and respect for the performing arts. Theater productions take a lot of work. Even while participating in them I didn’t take it serious and thought it was a joke. After this class I no longer think that. The performing arts are really nothing to joke about nor is any art form. Theater I think or a least I used to think that it was a boring art form, mainly that’s what I thought after learning what little I paid attention to in high school cause all they wanted to do it teach us Shakespeare. I have nothing against Shakespeare he was amazingly talented and made main contributions to theater, which I learned mainly through this course, but its not my style. It was written in a langue that I can’t relate to and would always have to look words up to understand it and even then I didn’t get it. I like the up beat high tempo theater. Mostly musical theater I am not very interested in plays.
Even though plays are not my style there are so many types of theater that I believe anyone can find a type of theater that I do like. I like musical theater its normally up beat and almost always have some comical relief even when dealing with the most serious of topics like the holocaust, which is what Fiddler On The Roof is about. But they are not the only type of theater that I like. I had to do some research on improvisation, which I wasn’t even aware had anything to do this theater. After watching some videos of improvisation skits online I have been watching them none stop. A lot of them are so funny and I just wonder how they come up with these ideas. It shows it doesn’t take much to do theater. I have actually just found myself watching some of there videos on YouTube for no reason at all, other than pure entertainment.
Another Thing I found interesting about theater is how it changes from culture to culture. I had a pretty good idea what theater was like in our culture. I did learn some stuff about theater in our culture though, I learned the difference between Broadway and non profit theater. I also learned about different theater organizations like the League of Resident Theatres and the National Endowment for the Arts which both do a lot of good things for theater in the united states. Now back to what I was saying about theater in other cultures. I didn’t expect them to be the elaborate production we are accustom, before this class I had no clue what they were like really. Now I know quite a bit. Like in African cultures theater is know more than storytelling in some places. The stories vary in mean but they are told only by the elders of the tribe and it is consider an honor to be picked to be the next generations storyteller. Some of the stories are told verbally and others through dance depending on the culture. I learned about Kabuki. Which is extremely conventional classical Japanese dance-drama. It involves intricate makeup and scenes that are full of drama. Theater is different within every culture which is one of the most interesting things about it. Every where you go there is some type of theater it is one of the true universal things we have in this world.
This course has opened my eyes to all a wide variety of things. Plays, other cultures, different performs and organizations, to the changes of the stage itself over the years, and a whole lot more. I am glad I took this class, I feel like I got to know a lot of people I never even met actually through all the discussion post I read. It is still amazing to see all the different opinions and ideas my classmates have. I also feel like the next time I get the chance to go to the theater I will appreciate it a lot more than I would have before this class. Knowing what all goes into making a production and the history behind theater itself makes me realized how important theater is. I believe I will also start to realized different theatrical thing in my day to day life. Art in general is a subjective thing, you don’t have to like every piece of art you see, but I think you should appreciate the meaning behind the art and the work that went into it. I know that I will.