The Play:
As this play has been written very recently, it was very hard it find any information on the play, so to help us understand the play with research we were lucky t0 have the playwright come into our college so we could ask him some questions. We started by asking him what inspired him to write this play. He told us that he was a fan of taking his old stories and characters and putting them into new settings. He created this play for his theatre group who didn’t have much of a budget, and the script includes so many different characters so everyone had a chance at a character. He didn’t want a main cast and background characters, he wanted everyone to be included. Next, I asked him if there was anything he would change about the play. He responded that he would change a lot of things. He would often take breaks after he had written something and then come back to see if there was anything he could change or improve. He said he appreciated us having the script and adding our own spin on it as he appreciates constructive criticism. One thing we all wanted to know was if he wanted the characters to be similar to the original Grimm Fairytales characters or not, He created the characters by focusing on a main personality trait that the characters have, like how the Evil Queen was obsessed with being the most beautiful in the land, and then added his own spin on them, He also took inspiration from the original stories, like Gothel being a witch who took Rapunzel in exchange for herbs, but adding a more family friendly twist on it.
Evil Queen
My character, the Evil Queen, also known as the Wicked Queen, is the main antagonist in the fairytale Snow White written by the Brothers Grimm. In the original fairytale, the Evil Queen was actually Snow Whites biological mother, however the story was re-written so that Snow Whites biological mother died as her father remains unknown. This makes the Evil Queen more popularly known as her step mother. The Evil Queens character is known for being obsessed with the idea that she was the most beautiful and fairest in the land and becomes overwhelmed with jealousy when she learns through her mirror the title now belongs to Snow White. The Queen stood in front of her magical mirror everyday for 15 years asking the same question and getting the same answer. One day the mirror replied that now that she is all grown up, Snow White is now the fairest in all the land. Being outraged and driven by jealousy, the Queen starts planning different ways she could kill Snow White. She started by hiring a huntsman to kill Snow White and to delivery her liver and lungs, thinking that by eating them, it would enhance her beauty, and return her title of the most beautiful. When that didn’t work, as the huntsman let Snow White leave after being enchanted to her beauty, the Queen resorted to witch craft starting with the tightening of her coreset and offering her a posioned comb and finally a poisoned apple which eventually killed Snow White until the prince saved her with true loves kiss. In the original tale, the Queen was executed for her crimes, same in the play. The origin of the play was to teach young children a lesson about the dangers of narcissim and pride to warn them against the dangers of the traits.
Snow White:
The story of Snow White is about a young girl who is banished from home by her jealous and vain stepmother who made three attempts to kill the young woman. Snow White finds refuge with a group of seven dwarfs who rescued her from the evil queens first two attacks. When the evil queen attacked her the final time, the dwarves couldn’t save her, instead they put her in a glass case in the woods until a prince rode past and woke her with a kiss of true love. While this story is familiar with what we grew up with, there has been suspicion that the character of Snow White was actually based on the Countess Margaretha Van Waldeck, and her possible romance with Phillip II from Spain. The Countess was very well known for her beauty. Both Margaretha’s strict stepmother and father sent her away twice, the second time being where she met Phillip II at the court of Mary of Hungary. Their relationship was doomed from the start, with Phillip being catholic and Margaretha being Lutheran. She died in 1554, at the young age of 21. The Countess had sent letters to her father explaining her failing health. In the Walderick chronicles, it was suggested that she had in fact been posioned, and that caused her death instead of her failing health.
The Mirror:
The Mirror in the story of Snow White is a spirit trapped in the mirror inside the Queens castle. The Mirror is a very important character in this fairytale as it is the Mirror who informed the Queen of her losing the title of the most beautiful in the land to Snow White. The Queen also uses the Mirror to track down Snow White after the huntsman fails to kill her, so she can try kill Snow White herself using a poisoned apple as well as other methods. While the story is known as the Evil Queen being the villian, there has been theories that the real villian in this story is the Queens magical Mirror instead. While the Queen is extremely selfish and vain, as well as being overwhelmed with jealously when she is no longer the fairest in the land, the mirror seems to push the Queen towards Snow White. This is shown multiple times with the Queen tracking Snow White down through the Mirror, as well as the Mirror supposedly giving the Queen ideas to kill Snow White accidently saying things such as ”Of course it is” and ”How’d you like them apples”. This gives a different idea of the Queen by shining a different light on her. While she is still very much an evil character, it opens our minds into the different reasons as to why she is so evil.
The Grimm Brothers:
The brothers Grimm, Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm are two brothers from Germany who created a collection of stories inspired by German folklore, known as the ”Grimm Fairytales”. Their fairytales have become popular over the years and even turned into TV shows and movies such as Snow White, Rapunzel and Red Riding Hood. While these fairytales are a well known part of our childhood, these tales weren’t actually intended for children, they were actually adapted by companies such as Disney to make the themes suitable and send a message to be courageous to young children. This is much different from the original stories as they included themes of things like violence, incest and sexual themes which is much darker than the fairytales we were originally introduced to. As well as the Grimm Fairytales, the Grimm brothers wrote books about mythology and published scholary works on medieval studies and were working through an ambitious german dictionary but both of the brothers died before they were able to finish it.
Production Role:
The role for the Front of House team is to greet the audience politely and provide excellent service for the customers. We start by welcoming the audience into the college and provide them with drinks and snacks before leading them into the studio and to their seats.
To pursue a career in the Front of House industry, qualifications aren’t necessary, however it is preferred that you have high grades in certain subjects such as, Math’s, Drama and English. It can also helpful if you can speak another language. The skills required for this job is being able to multitask and keeping up with the fast-paced environment. You also need to communicate professionally and it would benefit to have experience handling money.
Musical Songs:
For the songs we’ve included, we’ve taken consideration that they’ve made to be in that scene. For the opening song we’ve chosen to go with ”Revolting Children” from the Matilda musical. This is because we want to have a piece where we show how Boseman has changed the lives of people. they used to have an imagination but have grown obsessed to phones and social media. the next song is Bosman solo to explain how he changed the way the world used to be and we chose ”Friends on the other side” from Princess and the Frog. This explains how evil Boseman is and how much he enjoys control and power. Cinderella’s song is ”Helpless” from the musical ”Hamilton” which I think fits perfectly with this scene as she interacts with the prince at the ball and falls for him as well as her to two step sisters wanting his attention as well. Still in Cinderella’s story, we have the ugly step sisters singing ”Take a Chance on Me” from ”Mamma Mia”. This is because the sisters are trying to distract the prince from finding Cinderella and make him fall for one of them instead. Next we have ”New Girl in Town” From ‘Hairspray’ which is the Mirrors song in Snow White’s story. This shows how Snow White differs from the Evil Queen, making the fairest in the land and sending the Queen into a jealous rage planning to kill Snow White. Act One finishes with ”All in this Together” from ‘Hugh School Musical’ and it symbolizes the fairytales, Rumpelstiltskin and the new generation of Grimms coming together to beat Boseman and his version of the world. To begin Act Two, we’ve chose ”Jailhouse Rock” from ‘All Shook Up” as the group is trying to break Red Riding Hood out of prison but ended up getting locked in themselves. Red Riding Hoods song is ”Surface Pressure” from ‘Encanto’ This explains Reds differences to the other princesses as she had to fight to protect her family. After this, we have the Frog Prince and Bosemans duet ”Alive” from ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ showing Bosemans manipulation and how desperate the Frog Prince is to become human again that he doesn’t think about consequence of betraying his friends until after the deal was done. For Rapunzels song, ”Waving Through a Window” from ‘Dear Evan Hanssen” fit well as all she wants is for someone to notice her instead of being locked in a tower. The ending song for the finale we chose ”We Go Together” from ”Grease” to symbolize everyone coming together and defeating Lord Bosemans power and making the world believe in Fairytales once again.