Immediate Response

Immediate responses:
After reading All the Way for the first time I immediately recognized its historical importance, even if it wasn’t in the light I, personally, would have liked it in. I couldn’t help myself but notice the racism, which I think I was actively looking for. One of the subplots focuses on MLK and his quest to get a Voting Rights Act, or in other words LBJ’s decisive handling of the african american population and his party. In the play, this game called politics, there are a number of key players, and background players (people that no one will ever know or remember the names of) and yet they managed to change the United States. After reading, I was in sort of a shock and disbelief. Over all mostly what I noticed it that LBJ
had a chip on his shoulder, he had to prove himself, and as result there was a lot of emotional sacrifice that he and his family had to make. Immediately, I knew that is what I had to show: sacrifice.

Senses and Visualization:
Because this play falls under realism, I can’t do too much spectacle, but luckily for me Schenkkan abandon some form of realism when he has MLK and LBJ giving historically important speeches at the exact same time in different places so I get to play with that for a little while.
When I think about my two moments of TEAM I feel cold. Not freezing cold, but the type of cold that if you are wearing a full suit with and under shirt you are comfortable. Since, there are a lot of characters roaming about throughout the play I want to highlight the most important characters somehow either with lighting, makeup, or how they carry themselves. I want the theater to have hint of freshly lit cigar, and expensive
cologne.

My directorial intentions and the intended impact on an audience

First and foremost, I want to do Schenkkan’s All the Way justice. I intend to do that by putting the audience in that era. I want it to feel like the 1960’s. I want it to smell like burning draft cards, cigars, alcohol, womens perfume. Granted, I haven’t been to white house but I want the audience to feel like the Oval Office. I want the audience to feel like LBJ, and MLK is reciting their speeches to them in real time.

My set will be very realistic honoring the realism elements but also as simple as possible, requiring only one set change. I want to keep my audience engaged through technical elements mostly lighting. The play will be produced on a traditional proscenium stage with an apron. I want my audience to leave feeling that they just walked out of a time machine and watch history happen.

My costume goals will again, honor the time period but I will group people by color, a lot like the social climate back then. It won’t be too obvious because the costuming will be very similar, depicting the similarities between races yet differentiated by color. That is just a directorial preference, and I doubt most people would catch on, but like I said that little piece is just for me.
Below is a mind map I used to explore my costuming options.

For costuming I wanted to associate colors with the types of characters. First I listed the types of clothes that was worn during that time period.
Women in the play will wear: High neck button ups, cardigans with big collars, drop waisted dresses, and a lot of other types of dresses. I am not sure what it is called yet but it looks like the dressed in the pictures below. Where neckline is high and the shoulders are broad in comparison to the bottom of the dress where it flairs out.

Above is a few sketches of the styles I want the men and women to wear.
For the protagonist: I want his suits to always be black to reflect his authority over those around him. For the most part of the play, he will be in a black suit with a red tie. I realize that the red tie is against his party, but I think is necessary to express his powerfulness in subtle ways much like how he subtly manipulates people. I am also doing this because this the only way that doesn’t ignore the standards of realism. *Haven’t colored it yet, but I will*

***NOT DONE NOT DONE NOT DONE***

Target Audience:
The play will most likely be appreciated more by adults, and some very mature teenagers.
Even though the play is pretty mild as far as age appropriateness goes younger or immature student wouldn’t be able to grasp the complexities of the protagonist, nor would they be interested enough to watch the entire play. I asked my history teacher if she thought that some of her students would sit through All the Way , because she has seen it before and she said only her advanced students because they could look past the social differences that aren’t necessarily acceptable nowadays. I remember in the 6th grade I went to see Madame Butterfly with my class, and I understood most of the themes but most of my classmates either didn’t pay attention or were too angry to see the art behind the plot. Even for myself the first time J. Edgar Hoover referred to MLK Jr as a n***** (can I put this?). I was admittedly offended until I had to remind myself that in this time period referring to african americans out their names were common, accepted, and sometimes encouraged. During this time, we, African Americans, we still sitting in the back of the bus, using separate restrooms, schools, and entrances. I know that it angered people, but I assume they were used to it because that how it has always been. I can relate to this because I find it normal when someone judges someone by the color of their skin. This doesn’t mean it’s right, but it is not surprising. But to me what was surprising was
seeing that word, because now any derogatory slur is never okay.

How I would stage two moment of the play:
Being a director I knew that I had to consider numerous factors, including the stage directions, pretext, emotion and what’s between the lines.

Act One (pg 21-25) I chose this moment because the audience gets to see a little what the then president was like behind closed doors. I also think the attitude, and blatant urgency in the tone of the lines would be challenging, yet rewarding to explore.

This will all be set in the Oval Office, and I intend to have to temperature mimic the White House in a sort of clinical way. Below is rough sketch of the my first set design.