She Loves Me Curriculum Guide

Limelight

teacher literary & curriculum guide

May 16 - June 15, 2008 at the Boston University Theatre

HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY IN RESIDENCE AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY

HUNTINGTON THEATRE COMPANY

Nicholas Martin

IN RESIDENCE AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY

Norma Jean Calderwood Artistic Director

Michael Maso Managing Director

She Loves Me Book by

Music by

Lyrics by

Joe Masteroff

Jerry Bock

Sheldon Harnick

Music Directed by

Choreography by

Charlie Alterman

Denis Jones

Directed by

Nicholas Martin

STAFF This Teacher Literary and Curriculum Guide was prepared for the Huntington Theatre Company by Alexandra Smith, Education Department Intern With contributions by Donna Glick, Director of Education Ilana Brownstein, Literary Manager Amanda Rota, Education Department Manager Jason Fitzgerald, MFA Dramaturgy Student at Yale School of Drama Melissa Wagner-O’Malley, Layout

Table of Contents 3 Synopsis 4 “Grand Knowing You’’: Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock 5 Nicholas Martin: Why I Love She Loves Me 6 The Sweet Life of She Loves Me 7 A Long-Lived Love Story: From Parfumerie to You’ve Got Mail 8 Dear Friend: The Letter as Dramatic Device 9 A Romantic Atmosphere: 1930s Budapest 10 Audience Etiquette 10 Characters & Objectives 11 Preparation for She Loves Me 12 Open Response & Writing Assignments 13 Mastery Assessment 13 Related Works and Resources 14 Media Assessment 15 After Viewing the Performance 16 Lesson Plans 16 For Further Exploration 18 Handout 1: Vocabulary 19 Handout 2: Analyzing the Elements of Musical Theatre 20 Curriculum Framework

Proud Sponsor

May 16 - June 15, 2008 at the Boston University Theatre

2

Huntington Theatre Company

SYNOPSIS

She Loves Me F

or the clerks who run Mr. Maraczek’s perfumerie, success means working hard, selling high, and being “stylish.”

More to the point, it means making the successful businessman Mr. Maraczek happy enough to keep them on the payroll. Georg Nowack, Maraczek’s favorite employee, would be more focused on his work if it weren’t for his latest letter from “Dear Friend,” his romantic (but anonymous) pen-pal from a Lonely Hearts Club newspaper ad. Although they’ve never met, he knows he’s madly in love with her. Georg is further distracted by Maraczek’s latest employee, the exasperating and constantly tardy Amalia Balash, whom he just can’t stand.

As summer turns to autumn turns to winter, Georg’s epistolary relationship blossoms, as his working relationship with Amalia continues to sour. More surprising, though, is his deteriorating relationship with Maraczek, who has turned a cold and contemptuous shoulder toward him without explanation. Unbeknownst to Georg, Maraczek suspects that he’s having an affair with Maraczek’s wife. Tensions burst the night Georg is finally scheduled to meet his “Dear Friend” in person. Pushed to the limit, he quits and runs to the Café Imperiale, where in place of a beautiful stranger he finds, to his shock, Amalia, who has been quietly corresponding with a “Dear Friend” of her own. Georg never imagined that he was writing to his least favorite coworker. Too terrified to reveal himself, but suddenly realizing his love for Amalia, Georg intrudes at her table and tries, unsuccessfully, to talk her out of her liaison. A distraught Amalia throws him out of the restaurant and waits in vain for her new love to arrive.

Maraczek reconciles with Georg after realizing that another employee, the smooth-talking Kodaly, is trysting with his wife.

Georg returns to the perfumerie, but not before visiting an emotionally overwrought Amalia in an attempt to comfort her.

Amalia begins to realize the depth of her own feelings for Georg, but her heart still belongs to “Dear Friend.” As the new year approaches, will Georg gain the courage to reveal his identity to Amalia? Will their love be as real in person as it is on paper? A valentine to valentines everywhere, She Loves Me explores the question, can actual love ever be as perfect as what we read in books, or write in our letters? – JF

Limelight Literary & Curriculum Guide 2007-2008

3

“GRAND KNOWING YOU”

Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock

Sheldon Harnick, left, and Jerry Bock, right; photos: Warner Bros. Publications

F

iorello!, Tenderloin, She Loves Me, Fiddler on the Roof, The Apple Tree, and The Rothschilds. This theatrical sextet is a monument to the Broadway musical and its ability to portray, with tender nuance rather than broad spectacle, the lives of families, romantic couples, strong-willed individuals, and tight-knit communities.

Written between 1958 and 1970, they are the complete output of songwriting team Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (not counting their first Broadway show, 1958’s The Body Beautiful, which was unsuccessful but brought the two men together for the first time). Jerry Bock’s music is marked by its variety and ability to evoke local color (whether it be Depression-era New York, postwar Hungary, a Jewish shtetl, or the Garden of Eden) without becoming

4

Huntington Theatre Company

imitative or losing its distinct melodic style. Sheldon Harnick’s lyrics, by complement, are a model of characterization, always vulnerable, empathetic, and achingly human. Together, Bock and Harnick have won two Best Musical Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize (for Fiorello!, one of the few musicals ever to receive the honor). Their shows have enjoyed numerous revivals around the world, particularly Fiddler on the Roof, which, with 3,242 performances, held the record for the longest-running musical on Broadway prior to A Chorus Line.

It was music publisher Tommy Volando who first brought Bock and Harnick together in 1958 (Volando would also later introduce John Kander to Fred Ebb). Bock, who grew up in Flushing, New York, first

tasted success with a musical about Paul Bunyan he wrote at the University of Wisconsin. His first collaborator was Larry Holofcener, with whom he learned to write often and on deadline, creating one-act revues for the Tamiment Playhouse Camp in the Poconos. Bock’s music was first heard on Broadway in the 1955 revue Catch a Star, and he continued to write for stage (Mr. Wonderful, written with Holofcener and starring Sammy Davis, Jr. on Broadway), screen (Wonders of Manhattan) and television (“Your Show of Shows”), until Sheldon Harnick entered his life.

Chicago-born Harnick, whose mother celebrated each holiday by writing “a little verse,” attended Northwestern University to become a professional violinist. An inherited bug for wordsmithing drove him to write music and lyrics for the WAAMU Show, an annual student revue for the Women’s Athletic Association Men’s Union. When a friend gave him the cast album of his idol Yip Harburg’s new musical, Harnick’s path became clear — he went to New York City in 1949, he says, “to write Finian’s Rainbow.” Many years in cabarets and revues (including Broadway’s New Faces of 1952) followed before he began work with Bock on The Body Beautiful.

During their ten years of fruitful collaboration, Bock would send Harnick tapes of music he had composed, with comments like “I think this song is for the wedding scene.” Harnick would respond with a lyric set either to the music or to a tune in his head, and then the pair would meet and “argue” each song to perfection.

Along the way they worked with talented directors such as Harold Prince, Jerome Robbins, and Mike Nichols, as well as rising and established stars such as Zero Mostel, Barbara Cook, and Barbara Harris.

Though they parted ways after The Rothschilds in 1970, the former collaborators remain close friends — as Bock describes it, “we weren’t divorced, we were romantically separated.” They even

Bock would send Harnick tapes of music he had composed, with comments like “I think this song is for the wedding scene.” Harnick would respond with a lyric set either to the music or to a tune in his head. reunited to write a new song, “Topsy Turvey,” for the recent Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof. While Bock has had little output since Rothschilds (an exception is his new musical, The Princess Who Could Not Be Heard, which premiered this past June in Houston), Harnick continues to write for musical theatre, film, and opera.

His A Wonderful Life, a musical adaptation of the Frank Capra movie, has enjoyed much success in regional theatres around the country. He has even developed a new reputation as a translator for classical opera and oratorios. Bock and Harnick’s legacy, and the electrifying combination of their talents, lives on in recent revivals of Fiddler on the Roof, The Apple Tree, and of course, the musical they still describe as one of their favorites, She Loves Me. – JF

Nicholas Martin; photo: T. Charles Erickson

NICHOLAS MARTIN

Why I Love She Loves Me Like many mid-century New York kids, I was introduced to the theatre by way of the American musical; then sweetly (and accurately) called the musical comedy. It was a rite of passage for Jewish kids from the boroughs to be hauled aboard the subway and carried to the matinees of shows by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Jule Styne, and Irving Berlin.

In retrospect, the phenomenal thing to remember is that those composers all had shows running at the same time. It was truly a special time to grow up in the theatre. Love at first sight struck this kid when I saw (or perhaps heard) Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun, and I was met with a lifelong need to be part of the profession that there’s no business like.

Many years and many musicals later — though fewer and fewer as the century grew older and yielded to the genius of Sondheim and the workaday middlebrow musical ‘theatre’ of the British — there are only a handful that still remain vivid, not to say life changing. Among these, She Loves Me has always haunted me most persistently, especially the unique power of its book and music despite the gentle romanticism of the piece. Its score is arguably the most eloquent, original, and varied ever composed. As Barbara Baxley, the original Ilona, remarked “the music kept us so happy. No one can listen to that music every single night and not be happy.”

The book, based on an excellent play and a classic movie is unusually tight for a musical, and the piece provides bravura roles for no less than five performers, and some delicious cameos for several more. For those of us who saw Barbara Cook and Jack Cassidy, we will never forget their career-making work.

Yet, like many other truly transcendent pieces of art, She Loves Me was not a smash in its Broadway premiere. Slowly, it graduated to the limbo status of cult musical, until finally, in a stunning production directed by Scott Ellis and choreographed by Rob Marshall, it became the big fat hit it deserved to be in the revival of 1993.

From its ethereal music to its taut and witty book to the sweet joy of its performances, I’m sure you will fall for She Loves Me. Ultimately though, I’m directing it as my final show as artistic director of the Huntington so that I may recover a little of that boy on the BMT, and perhaps give Boston the gift of eternal youth that She Loves Me inspires in everyone who knows it.

Limelight Literary & Curriculum Guide 2007-2008

5

Amalia (Barbara Cook, left) confesses “I Don’t Know His Name,” to Ilona (Barbara Baxley, right) in the original Broadway cast of She Loves Me; photo Friedman/Abeles.

THE SWEET LIFE OF

She Loves Me W

henever critics and other theatregoers describe She Loves Me, their adjectives gravitate to the petite and culinary — since its Broadway debut on April 23, 1963, The New York Times has called it “delectable,” a “confection,” “a sweetheart of a musical,” “lip-smacking good strudel,” and most famously in Howard Taubman’s review of the original production, “a bonbon” that “should delight who knows how many a sweet tooth.” When it comes to She Loves Me’s two Broadway productions, the fact that they each melted away like bonbons within a year does not convey what a treat they truly were to audiences and creators alike.

It was Broadway producer Lawrence Kasha who decided Ernst Lubitsch’s 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner (itself based on the 1937 play Parfumerie by Miklós László) would make a great musical. His friend Sheldon Harnick agreed, and the team of Bock, Harnick, and playwright Joe Masteroff coalesced quickly thereafter. Masteroff, who had never written a musical before (but would go on to write the book for Cabaret a few years later, and win the Tony Award 6

Huntington Theatre Company

for Best Musical), quickly absorbed the Lubitsch film and adapted it into a short play to which Bock and Harnick added music. They wrote so much music, in fact, that She Loves Me has often been compared to European-style operetta (quite appropriate, considering its Hungarian setting). “The problem with that show from our standpoint,” Harnick remembers, “is that it was so emotional that it suggested songs all over the place.”

This hybrid of American musical theatre and operetta could explain why She Loves Me looks and sounds so unique in the American musical theatre canon.

The final member of the creative team was young co-producer Harold Prince, who dreamed of sitting in the director’s chair. When established director Gower Champion turned down She Loves Me, Bock and Harnick suggested their friend for the job, defending him even when it looked like Champion might return to the project. In the process, they launched one of the most successful directing careers in Broadway history (which would include Cabaret, Company, Sweeney Todd, Evita, Phantom of the Opera, and many others). Although Prince’s contri-

bution to She Loves Me was more subtle and understated than his later work, he still looks back with pride on his Broadway debut: “As far as I’m concerned, it’s as well directed as anything I’ve ever done.”

The reason She Loves Me closed after only 302 performances remains mysterious — perhaps it was the lack of major stars in the cast (scheduling prevented Amalia from being played by Julie Andrews, who wanted the part), or the sheer modesty of the show itself (no showgirls, no lavish costumes, no Hello, Dolly! type numbers), or the sense of nostalgia and innocence that 1963 America simply wasn’t interested in. Whatever the reason, it took years for the show to gain the devoted following it enjoys today. A London production in 1964 and an abridged BBC film that aired in 1979 helped, but most of the credit goes to the original cast album, one of the first to record an entire musical score on two records, which became a prized item in many musical theatre lovers’ collections.

The recording preserved the now legendary performances of Daniel Massey as Georg, Jack Cassidy (father of Patrick and David) as Kodaly, Barbara Baxley as Ilona, and the incomparable Barbara Cook as Amalia.

By the time the Roundabout Theatre Company produced a Broadway revival of She Loves Me — first as a concert and then, beginning June 10, 1994, a full production — the musical had secured a place in high school, amateur, and regional productions across the country.

The revival was again lauded by critics, its turntable staging making it even more fluid than Prince’s original, and it outran the original Broadway production by nearly two months. Nearly a half century since it first opened, Bock, Harnick, and Masteroff’s piece of “theatrical caviar” (Harnick’s words) has gained a reputation as one of the musical theatre’s greatest — and certainly most delicious — achievements. – JF

A LONG-LIVED LOVE STORY

From Parfumerie to You’ve Got Mail S

ome stories never get old. For over 75 years, audiences have found their own romantic dreams and anxieties reflected in the misguided courtship of Georg and Amalia, and more than a few artists have seen in their tale a modern love story. As the history of adaptations that precede and follow She Loves Me reveals, the story is not just modern; it’s timeless.

1937: Parfumerie. It all began with Hungarian playwright Miklós László’s play about the employees of a small beauty shop in Budapest. Called Illatszerar in Hungarian, the play revolves around the shop’s effervescent but hard-nosed owner who discovers his wife is having an affair.

But László is equally interested in all the shop’s employees, and no character stands out as a clear protagonist. One of the play’s many subplots involves two bickering employees who discover, to their surprise, they are engaged in a passionate letter-writing romance with each other.

Remarkably, Illatszerar was not produced in the United States until 2004, when an English translation was finally presented at the University of Illinois. But the play met with great success in Paris shortly after it was written, in a French translation by whose title László’s play is now most commonly known: Parfumerie.

1940: The Shop Around the Corner.

German-born Ernst Lubitsch, one of the greatest directors of romantic comedy in the 1930s and 40s, encountered Parfumerie and was inspired immediately to adapt it to film. The epistolary lovers became the center of the plot and gave actors James Stewart (whose character is here named Alfred Kralik) and Margaret Sullavan (as

James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in Ernst Lubitsch’s film, The Shop Around the Corner.

Klara Novak) two of their greatest roles.

Nevertheless, Lubitsch maintained his focus on the perfumerie and its clerks, casting a brilliant ensemble led by Frank Morgan (fresh off his performance as the title character in The Wizard of Oz) as storeowner Mr. Matuschek. Morgan anchors the film with his paternal joviality and, later in the film, his moving portrayal of a man whose marriage is collapsing. It is thanks to The Shop Around the Corner that László’s story is known in America, and every subsequent adaptation was inspired

by Lubitsch’s masterpiece.

1949: In the Good Old Summertime. This lesser-known second film adaptation contains two surprising “firsts.” It deserves credit as the story’s first musical incarnation, with songs performed by its star, Judy Garland (as Veronica Fisher), whose co-star was the sweet-faced Van Johnson (as Andrew Delby Larkin), a pairing that may have made sense at the box office but not onscreen, where their chemistry is hard to find. This film is also the first to transport the story to America — turn-of-the-century Chicago to be exact. The perfumerie is transformed into a music store, in which

the shop owner fires Johnson’s character not for a perceived tryst with his employer’s wife but for breaking his Stradivarius.

The film’s songs are largely pre-existing standards that Garland essentially steps out of character to sing — it would prove to be one of her last projects for MGM. The film also features the silver screen debut of Liza Minnelli, who plays Garland and Johnson’s young daughter in the final shot of the film.

1963: She Loves Me opens on Broadway.

The musical adheres closely to The Shop Around the Corner, though it also borrows from Parfumerie. It returns the story to Budapest and restores all the characters to their original Hungarian names. It was producer Larry Kasha who first hit upon the Lubitsch film as potential for a new stage musical. Most of the credit for She Loves Me’s faithful adaptation, though, goes to bookwriter Joe Masteroff, who became so familiar with the film he could practically recite it in rehearsal.

1998: You’ve Got Mail. The connection between Nora Ephron, one of the most successful romantic comedy writers of the last few decades, and The Shop Around the Corner is not hard to fathom — the story of two soul mates kept apart by their own stubbornness bears a striking resemblance to Ephron’s 1993 hit Sleepless in Seattle. Ephron brought the co-stars of Sleepless, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, back for her new film, which departs most radically from any of its predecessors. Set in New York City, You’ve Got Mail includes not one shop but two — Joe Fox’s mega bookstore Fox Books and, just down the street, Kathleen Kelly’s small, family-owned children’s bookshop called — what else? — The Shop Around the Corner. As the opening of Fox’s store threatens to run Kelly’s out of business, Ephron finds a reason for the lovers to quarrel beyond a mere personality conflict.

Meanwhile, they write not love letters but love e-mails to each other (appropriately, Kelly uses a Mac, and Fox a PC). The film’s success had the added benefit of restoring general interest in all the adaptations of this now classic love story. – JF Limelight Literary & Curriculum Guide 2007-2008

7

DEAR FRIEND

The Letter as Dramatic Device T he letter rivals the sword as the oldest and most important prop in dramatic history. Though they seem unlikely companions — the live-action spectacle of the stage, the textual flatness of the written word — letters have proven especially dexterous as dramatic devices.

Tools for easy exposition, they provide the audience with information the characters don’t have; revelations contained therein can upend power relationships between characters, and they allow for deus ex machina (quick, tidy, and often spectacular) endings. Who has the letter?

Who’s read the letter? Who wants to read the letter?

Plays that revolve around written correspondence date back at least to the Greek New Comedies of the 6th century B.C.E. While the texts of these plays are lost to history, they provide the model for the later Roman comedies that survived, particularly those of Plautus, in whose plays the letter is often a tool for disorientation.

The plot of his Pseudolus, for example, moves forward because the main character, a slave, reads a letter intended for his master. As other correspondences are later intercepted and misread, the farcical spincycle befuddles all until the play’s happy conclusion.

By the time of the Renaissance, the letter had become a more serious matter. On stage, characters’ fates revolved around who held, or didn’t hold, the letter — while audiences were left, horrified, watching characters act without the knowledge they needed. In Romeo and Juliet, the lovers’ tragic ending could have been avoided if the Friar’s letter had reached Romeo before he left for Verona.

Offstage, 18th century Europe became enamored with fictional letters in (some-

8

Huntington Theatre Company

Valmont (Michael T. Weiss) hands Merteuil (Tasha Lawrence) a letter that seals the deal on their dastardly plot in Les Liaisons Dangereuses; photo: T. Charles Erickson

times racy) epistolary novels, like the exceedingly popular 1840 Pamela, or Virtue Restored by Samuel Richardson. Such novels were composed entirely of letters and journal entries. One of the finest epistolary novels, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 Les Liaisons Dangereuses, has been made into a number of English-language films — as well as Christopher Hampton’s stage adaptation, performed at the Huntington in 2006 — that preserves the original novel’s epistolary mode.

The letter thrived as a comic plot device, especially in Britain and France, through the 18th century. As comedies and tragedies inched toward realism in the 19th century, the mishandling of written notes suddenly needed to fit more logical, and less obviously contrived patterns.

Around 1815, the “well-made play” came into existence as a realistic form often dependent on letters and missives. It condensed the techniques of classical and early modern comedy into a unified and commercially successful formula, and was popularized by writers like Eugène Scribe (The Glass of Water) and Victorien Sardou (A Scrap of Paper). The typical well-

made play provides the audience with a secret that must be divulged — often through a letter — before the hero can succeed and reveal his enemies in their fraudulent aims. The well-made play doubles as a tool for social instruction, as good is rewarded and the unworthy are punished. Henrick Ibsen’s 1879 masterpiece A Doll’s House, and Edmund Rostand’s 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac take the importance of letters one step further, using the device as a tool for the unraveling of polite society. Both were extremely popular and influential plays, not least due to the drama of their central letters.

She Loves Me makes use of both the comic and the moral potential of the letter — when Amalia writes lovingly to her “Dear Friend,” she unwittingly brings comfort to her enemy in Maraczek’s store.

In realizing their mistake, though, the lovers also realize that there can be more to a person than what they see on the outside. Their missives are mishandled and intercepted just like those in Plautus’ comedies and like an epistolary novel, the series of letters gives the lovers an insight into each other’s true selves. – JF

The terrace of a coffee house on Andrássy Avenue, Budapest

A ROMANTIC ATMOSPHERE

1930s Budapest A

New Yorker review of the 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner, the inspiration for She Loves Me, took issue with the film’s setting: “I kept wondering myself why they hadn’t put the shop in our good country, somewhere in whimsical Iowa or enchanting Kansas,” wrote critic John Mosher, who found nothing particularly Hungarian in the film’s scenery, characters, or plot. His confusion is justified: nowhere in director Ernst Lubitsch’s movie is there an explicit reference to Hungarian politics or society.

Similarly, the setting of She Loves Me is vaguely described in the script as “a city in Europe. The 1930s.” The characters’ Hungarian names (Kodaly, Arpad, Maraczek) strongly suggest that the “city” is Budapest, as does our knowledge of the film’s source material (see “A LongLived Love Story: from Parfumerie to You’ve Got Mail” on page 59) and a few fleeting moments of dialogue, but Mosher’s observation still holds. The ambiguity is appropriate, however, for in many ways the world of She Loves Me is a romantic escape from a harsh reality.

There are subtle ways in which the perfumerie and its surroundings are unique-

ly Hungarian. The musical’s version of Budapest is a conglomoration of innocent shops and cafés, literature, and homespun capitalism. Indeed, the city, founded in 1873, has long been known for its thriving coffee-house culture.

Georg and Amalia’s discussions of great artists like “Shaw, Flaubert, Chopin, Renoir” in their letters parallel real life — the cafes of 1930s Budapest were ablaze with cultural discovery, political debate, and social gossip, not to mention the tastiest pastries in Europe. It is said that at the turn of the last century, you could walk into a coffee shop on one end of the city, tell a joke, and have it told back to you an hour and a half later on the other side of town.

But in the Hungary of the 1930s, there was a lot more to discuss than Tolstoy and strudel. The Treaty of Trianon, which made Hungary independent from Austria in 1920, had robbed the nation of twothirds of its land and people. The Hungarian people were in dire economic straits — one reason, perhaps, for Mr. Maraczek’s obsession with the bottom line and his clerks’ fear of losing their jobs. Like the rest of Europe, these devel-

opments inflamed a growing antiSemitism: in less than a decade, Hungary would become a Nazi stronghold, on the losing side of the Second World War and headed for decades of Soviet communism. The nostalgia of She Loves Me and The Shop Around the Corner, then, is nostalgia for Old Europe, that literary and cultural utopia that 1919 weakened and 1945 finally destroyed. This Europe may have existed only in fiction, but it holds a powerful place in the collective European imagination. It is a world marked by security and easy superiority, in which industrial smokestacks and proletarian oppression are invisible. She Loves Me imagines itself in that prewar utopia, safe behind the walls of Maraczek’s perfumerie and the Café Imperiale, untainted by history and by politics.

Playwright and musical book writer Joe Masteroff followed She Loves Me by writing Cabaret, a musical about the cultural forces that permitted Nazism to take over Germany. How different, really, is Maraczek’s beauty store from Fraulein Schneider’s hotel or the Kit Kat Klub — hermetic worlds that, by rejecting politics, allow politics to destroy them?

Composer Jerry Bock, lyricist Sheldon Harnick, and book writer Masteroff have acknowledged the darker undersides of their story. “In two years,” Masteroff says about his She Loves Me characters, “a lot of the people are going to be dead, or their lives totally ruined.” After She Loves Me, Bock and Harnick wrote Fiddler on the Roof, in which the Jewish shtetl of Anatevka — another isolated community — is shattered by political forces beyond its control. The confrontation between idealism and reality is at the heart of She Loves Me. Just as Georg and Amalia must reconcile the real, flawed individuals they encounter in the shop with the ideal lovers they write to in their letters, so their “city in Europe” in the 1930s would soon have to confront the dark consequences of its own history.

– JF Limelight Literary & Curriculum Guide 2007-2008

9

BU Theatre by T. Charles Erickson

Audience Etiquette Because many students have not had the opportunity to view live theatre, we are including an audience etiquette section with each literary/curriculum guide. Teachers, please spend time on this subject since it will greatly enhance your students’ experience at the theatre.

1. How does one respond to a live performance of a play, as opposed to when seeing a film at a local cinema? What is the best way to approach viewing a live performance of a play?

What things should you look and listen for?

2. What is the audience’s role during a live performance? How do you think audience behavior can affect an actor’s performance?

3. What do you know about the theatrical rehearsal process?

Have you ever participated in one as an actor, singer, director, or technical person?

4. How do costumes, set, lights, sound and props enhance a theatre production?

photo: Angel Middleton/sxc

BACKGROUND

& Objectives Use the following synopsis and objectives to inform your teaching of She Loves Me curriculum.

M

r. Maraczek owns and operates one of the most successful pafumeries in 1930s Budapest. Here, the interwoven dramas of his friendly, efficient employees take center stage, including the bickering of sometime-lovers Ilona Ritter and Steven Kodaly, the nerves of right-hand man Georg Nowack, and the perpetually late new-hire Amalia Balash. Georg and Amalia clash from the start, but they each secretly find refuge in letters to sweethearts met through Lonely Hearts ads. As they continue to write to their respective loves, Georg and Amalia’s disdain for each other only grows, and in an unexpected complication, Georg suddenly finds himself on the receiving end of Maraczek’s mysterious anger. When the staff members are asked to work late one evening before Christmas, Georg and Amalia’s frustrations come to a head as they both try to make it to a local coffee shop to finally meet the anonymous recipients of their letters. As tensions mount, will Georg and Amalia face off in an employee showdown?

Or will they soon discover that the other is not quite what they seem?

OBJECTIVES Students will: 1. Identify key issues in She Loves Me including: • the search for love • rushing to judgment and making assumptions • coworker relations 2. Relate themes and issues in the play to their own lives.

3. Analyze the themes and issues within the historical and social context of the play.

4. Participate in hands-on activities that enhance understanding of the production.

5. Evaluate the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of She Loves Me.

10

Huntington Theatre Company

PREPARATION FOR

She Loves Me Note to Teachers: Use the following ideas to engage your class in thinking about She Loves Me and its major themes.

ADAPTATION She Loves Me is one of many adaptations of the play Parfumerie by Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo. Other versions include the 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner, the 1949 movie-musical In the Good Old Summertime, and 1998 film You’ve Got Mail starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Ask students to list some other plays, books, or films they know of that have been adapted into another form.

Why adapt a book or play into a film or musical? What characteristics in the original material make for a good adaptation? View a scene from one of the other adaptations of Parfumerie, and then watch the corresponding scene from one or more of the other adaptations. Ask students to compare and contrast the scenes.

What was different? What was similar?

Were the choices about what to change and what to keep effective in telling the story?

TONE AND SETTING: PARFUMERIES AND COFFEE SHOPS In She Loves Me, the settings where the pivotal action is set go a long way towards establishing the tone of the play.

The shop the characters work in is called a parfumerie. In the 1930s, when the play takes place, these shops sold a variety of items, ranging from scented soaps and shampoos, to cosmetics and skin care items, to hairbrushes and accessories.

Modern versions of parfumeries exist today in the form of stores like The Body Shop and Bath and Body Works. Some of the important action in She Loves Me also takes place in a small coffee shop.

Describe the atmosphere in these types

of settings. What senses do they appeal to? What characteristics of these types of stores make them good choices for settings for a love story?

LETTERS Letters play an important role in transmitting information in She Loves Me. When Amalia arrives at Maraczek’s shop to ask for a job, she brings a recommendation letter with her from her former employer. Georg worries that he has gotten his sweetheart’s hopes up in the letters he has sent to her, and that she will be disappointed when she meets him in person. Then, when the time finally comes to see her face to face, he asks Sipos to deliver a letter to her which claims he has been called out of town. Amalia’s love for her “Dear Friend” is based entirely on their written exchanges. Mr. Maraczek receives an anonymous letter tipping him off that his wife is having an affair with one of his clerks. What are some of the reasons why a character might choose a letter as their preferred means of communication? What kinds of emotions are conjured up when someone receives a letter?

In today’s world, how is a hand-written letter different from an email?

KEY ISSUES The Search for Love Mr. Maraczek tells Georg to “find [himself] one person to dance with,” pointing out that “it’s not necessary to change partners every night... Or even every other night. You just think it’s necessary.”

While Maraczek’s employees Ilona Ritter and Steven Kodaly struggle through an on-again-off-again relationship, their fellow workers Georg and Amalia each believe they have both found their

one person. Through the letters they unknowingly write to each other, Georg and Amalia swoon, but in their daily lives, they are constantly at odds. At what point do Georg and Amalia realize their true feelings for each other? Are there any earlier signs in their interactions that indicate that Georg and Amalia’s feelings for each other could be more than what they appear? How does their handwritten relationship compare with Ritter and Kodaly’s?

Rushing to Judgment and Making Assumptions Amalia’s ability to sell the musical cigarette box results in Georg losing a bet to Mr. Maraczek. Because of this, Amalia assumes that Georg hates her. Georg, observing Amalia’s behavior towards him, determines that Amalia hates him.

Mr. Maraczek receives an anonymous letter telling him that his wife is having an affair with one of his clerks, and assumes that because Georg is a frequent dinner guest, he must be the guilty party.

What effect do these rushes to judgment have on the characters’ interactions with each other? Were the characters right to make these assumptions? Why or why not? How else might they have gone about dealing with these situations?

Coworker Relations Amalia is thrilled to be hired at Maraczek’s shop, where the employees are almost a second family. But minor and personal tensions are not completely unheard of. Ask students to consider times when they have worked as part of a staff or team, whether at an afterschool or summer job, or even working with others on a class project. What dynamics made it possible for the group to work together successfully? What problems can arise in a group setting and what impact can they potentially have on the work to be done? Through what process might such problems be solved?

Limelight Literary & Curriculum Guide 2007-2008

11

OPEN RESPONSE & WRITING

Assignments OPEN RESPONSE ASSESSMENT Instructions to the students: Please answer the following as thoroughly as possible in a well-planned and carefully written paragraph. Remember to use topic sentences and examples from the text.

1. What is the musical She Loves Me about? Think in terms of themes and ideas, rather than recapping the plot.

How can young people today relate to this story?

2. Why do Georg and Amalia seek love through “Lonely Hearts” ads rather than face-to-face communication?

3. Consider the three romantic relationships in the play: Amalia and Georg, Ritter and Kodaly, and Mr. Maraczek and his wife. What is the major conflict that prevents each one from progressing smoothly?

4. Why do Ritter and Kodaly repeatedly break up and get back together?

What does each one get out of being with the other?

5. What does Arpad want from Mr. Maraczek? Why? How does he convince Mr. Maraczek to give him what he wants?

6. Why does Sipos send the anonymous letter to Mr. Maraczek?

WRITING ASSIGNMENTS 1. Musical theatre is different from “straight” plays because of its use of music, singing, dancing, and frequently elaborate sets and costumes.

The songs in a musical are of particular importance, as they can be used not only to set the mood and tone of the scene, but also to further the plot, or more fully express a character’s emotions and thoughts. In a 12

Huntington Theatre Company

photo: kevinzim/sxc

musical, characters will generally talk until they have no other way to express themselves than to burst out into song. Choose a song from She Loves Me to analyze in the context of the scene in which it appears.

What prompts the character to start singing at this particular moment?

What information is being communicated that cannot be revealed through spoken dialogue?

2. Many letters are exchanged throughout the play, including one Maraczek receives anonymously from Sipos, tipping him off that his wife is having an affair. Imagine what this letter might say and write it, keeping in mind what information Sipos does and does not have, and his intent to save his own job.

3. Discuss the transformation Ritter’s character goes through in the course of the play. Use specific examples from the text to support your claims.

4. When the time comes for Georg to meet the woman he has been writing to, he is exceptionally nervous because he has exaggerated some

information about himself in his letters. Why would Georg choose to be deceptive with someone he claims to be in love with? Given his acknowledgment of his deception, why does he later plan to lie again to get out of the prearranged date?

5. When Georg discovers that he and Amalia have been writing letters to each other, he tells her that he spoke with her Dear Friend, who says he will write again very soon. Why does Georg lie rather than tell Amalia truthfully that he is actually the one she has been writing to?

6. Ritter says that Kodaly is “an expert on love. Which is really quite remarkable—considering he’s never been in it.” Why does Ritter say this?

Is Kodaly really an expert on love?

Use specific examples from the text to support your argument.

7. Georg and Amalia both fall in love with the recipient of their letters without ever having met the person.

What are their feelings based on? Is it possible to truly fall in love with someone you have never met?

MASTERY

Assessment ACT ONE SCENE 1 1. What type of store does Maraczek own and what kinds of items are sold there?

18. Who have Georg and Amalia been writing their letters to?

19. What does Amalia think Georg is doing at the café?

2. Who is Ritter’s “secret” lover?

ACT TWO

3. What does Georg do with Mr. and Mrs. Maraczek every week?

SCENE 1 20. What did Mr. Maraczek suspect Georg of doing?

4. What bet do Georg and Mr. Maraczek make?

5. What does Amalia want when she arrives at the store?

SCENE 2 6. Why does Sipos think Georg and Amalia like each other?

7. Why is Amalia late to work?

8. Why is Mr. Maraczek upset?

9. Why is Georg nervous when he comes in to work?

10. Why does Mr. Maraczek want the employees to stay late?

11. How does Sipos stop the argument between Georg and Mr. Maraczek?

12. Why does Amalia think Georg hates her?

SCENE 3 13. What excuse does Kodaly give for breaking his date with Ritter? What decision does she make as a result?

14. How will Georg and the woman he has been writing to recognize each other when they meet?

15. Why does Georg want Sipos to deliver a letter to Amalia?

16. How did Mr. Maraczek know his wife was having an affair?

17. Who does Mr. Keller say is Mrs. Maraczek’s lover?

21. What does Mr. Maraczek ask Georg to do?

SCENES 2 22. Why is Amalia at home instead of at work?

23. What does Georg bring to Amalia?

24. According to what Georg tells Amalia, how does he know Amalia’s “Dear Friend?”

SCENES 3 25. Who did Ritter meet at the library?

26. Who wrote the anonymous letter to Mr. Maraczek? Why? 27. Where is Kodaly going to work?

James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in The Shop Around the Corner

Related Works and Resources PLAYS AND MUSICALS Parfumerie by Miklos Laszlo (1937) Carousel by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein (1945) Fiddler on the Roof by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (1964) Fiorello! by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (1959) FILMS The Shop Around the Corner, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, with James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan (1940)

SCENE 4 28. How do Amalia and Georg behave towards each other? How is this different from the beginning of the play?

In the Good Old Summertime, directed by Robert Z. Leonard, with Van Johnson and Judy Garland (1949)

SCENE 5 29. Who is coming to Amalia’s house for Christmas Eve? Why does she invite Georg?

You’ve Got Mail, directed by Nora Ephron, with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (1998)

30. What does Ritter say her friend is going to ask her?

WEBSITES

SCENES 6 31. What gift does Amalia have for her “Dear Friend?”

www.songwritershalloffame.org www.ibdb.com www.musicals101.com

32. What does Amalia discover?

Limelight Literary & Curriculum Guide 2007-2008

13

MEDIA

Assessment The following exercises are interactive, handson challenges in Drama, Music, and Design.

They aim to give students a better understanding of the many kinds of tasks that contribute to a theatrical production.

new insights can they find as to inflection and emphasis? Students should apply this information to their performance of the song, paying particular attention to the verb they have chosen.

MUSICAL THEATRE PERFORMANCE As opposed to opera, where the performers are generally singers first and actors second, musical theatre performers are usually strong actors who can also sing. Because musical theatre songs require strong acting as well as singing, it is necessary to explore a character’s objectives when rehearsing a song. Ask each student to choose a song from She Loves Me. Students should start by dividing the song into “beats,” or thoughts. They should then find the character’s objectives by answering the following questions: a. What does my character want?/What is my character’s objective?

CHARACTER EXPLORATION Actors get a lot of information about their characters from details in the script.

However, every moment of the character’s day is not included in the play. Therefore, actors often have to work on their own to more fully develop their character’s emotional life. Ask students to work in pairs and choose an A and a B. Each A and B should choose a different character from She Loves Me to play. Have student A narrate the events in a day in the life of the character student B has chosen, starting with waking up in the morning and ending with going to sleep at night. As student A narrates, student B should act out the events in character. Then do the activity again, with student B narrating a day in the life of student A’s character. The narrator is permitted to add a few out of the ordinary situations for the student in character to react to as their character would. After both students have had a turn to act their character, discuss any interesting discoveries.

b. What action is my character doing to get what they want? Choose the verb that best describes what the character is doing. The verb should be as specific and strong as possible. c. What is getting in my character’s way? What is the major obstacle? d. What is the best thing that could happen as a result of my character getting what he/she wants? e. What is the worst thing that could happen if my character does not get what he/she wants?

Ask students to then speak the song out loud as a monologue, disregarding the melody and rhythm of the music. Rather than simply reciting the lyrics, they should focus on acting the song, considering objectives, actions, obstacles, etc. What 14

Huntington Theatre Company

VISUAL ART Ask students to each choose a character from She Loves Me. Have them create a mixed media collage that reflects who their character is. They could use cut out images from newspapers and magazines, paint, markers, pencil sketches, or any combination of materials. They should consider the character’s background, beliefs, socio-economic status, habits, likes, dislikes, and other characteristics, and choose images that best reflect them.

When presenting their collage to the class,

students should not tell the group which character they chose, but instead allow their fellow students to view the collage and try to determine which character it represents, based upon the chosen images.

Students should be able to explain why they chose certain images, and be able to pick out one central image that most represents their character.

CREATIVE WRITING AND ELECTRONIC ARTS The “Lonely Hearts” ad through which Georg and Amalia begin writing to each other has many contemporary counterparts. These include the very similar modern newspaper personal ad of today, but also dating websites such as eHarmony and Match.com. What might the ad and subsequent written exchanges between Georg and Amalia look like in these different contexts? Have students write the content and design the look of Georg’s ad • in the 1930s Budapest paper in the play • in a contemporary newspaper personal ad • on an online dating website Then write the content of a letter from Amalia to Georg and his response • in handwritten letters • in typed emails • via instant message

COSTUMING Students should research styles of dress in 1930s and contemporary Hungary. How closely do these fashions resemble or differ from clothes in the United States from the same time? Students may: (a) Design at least one costume for each character, or (b) Choose one character and design a costume that reflect the 1930s, and a costume that could be used for a modern adaptation. Students should note on each sketch in what scene the costume would be worn.

Design choices should reflect the time period, as well as the character’s personality, profession, and class.

AFTER VIEWING

The Production Post-show discussions can serve as a valuable way for students to process what they have seen in the performance and relate it to aspects of their own lives or other academic subjects. In addition to the post-show actors’ forum offered by the Huntington Theatre Company, it can be useful to actively engage students in an examination of the play and the themes it presents upon returning to the classroom.

PART I: STATEMENTS Read this series of statements to the students, all of which are related to actions and choices made by the characters in She Loves Me. They should stand if they agree with the statement, and sit if they disagree.

• If you work hard, you will always be rewarded.

• It is not necessary to have a good reason for not liking someone.

• Sometimes it is necessary to hide information from someone you care about.

PART II: EXPLORATION Explore subtext and “reading between the lines” by getting student volunteers to read the following three scenes out loud.

This can be done either with the students in their seats or trying to recall the staging used in the Huntington performance.

• page 40-41, Maraczek/Georg/Sipos Begin MARACZEK: Mr. Nowack— perhaps you can help me . . .

End MARACZEK: . . . Clumsy idiot!

• page 44-47, Amalia/Georg Begin AMALIA: Mr. Nowack, Mr. Nowack, I can’t stay . . .

End GEORG: . . . worst-tempered girl in the world.

• page 69-73, Georg/Amalia/Waiter Begin GEORG: Miss Balash . . .

End GEORG: . . . they never did find the rest of her. Or her book.

For each scene, examine the contrast between the text and subtext of the scene.

What are the characters saying versus what do they actually mean/think/feel/ etc.? What in the actors’ performances at the Huntington and in the classroom indicates that there is something else being communicated beyond the words being spoken?

PART III: REFLECTION This is the time to tie things up. Ask the students to offer any final thoughts about the play. Was there any character they particularly identified with? Was there a specific aspect of the production they felt was particularly well executed? Did the live performance reflect what they expected as a result of their in-class work?

What do they think might happen to the characters in the future? Do they still have any questions about the characters or the play?

• Suspicion is grounds enough to accuse someone of doing something wrong.

• Exaggerating is a good way of getting someone to like you.

• Love will always win out in the end.

It is likely that a variety of opinions will arise. It is important to allow students to speak more on their thoughts if they would like to do so. But they should at all times be speaking in support of their own position, rather than attacking other students’ positions. It is important that differing opinions not only result from this process but are also welcomed by the class.

Szoda Garden,Budapest, photo: SsJ Toma/sxc

Limelight Literary & Curriculum Guide 2007-2008

15

Lesson Plans Teachers’ note: Choose activities that are appropriate for your classroom period. All assignments are suggestions. Only a teacher knows his or her class well enough to determine the level and depth to which any piece of literature may be examined.

ONE-DAY LESSON PLAN introduces students to the context and major themes of the production.

DAY ONE - Introducing the Play 1. Distribute Mastery Assessment (P. 13) for She Loves Me for students to read before, and to review again after attending the performance.

Optional: Distribute Handout 1: Vocabulary and ask students to complete. A vocabulary test could be administered after viewing the play.

2. Read the Synopsis (P. 3) of the play. Discuss other works students have studied with similar themes and issues.

3. If time allows, discuss further pages from the literary guide, narrating highlights for students.

FOUR-DAY LESSON PLAN introduces students to the production and then, after viewing the performance, asks them to think more critically about what they have seen. Includes time for class discussion and individual assessment.

DAY ONE - Introducing the Play Same as Day One above; completed before seeing the production.

For Further Exploration Note to Teachers: The following ideas and questions can be used to further explore the text. They can be used as prompts for class discussion or additional writing assignments.

1. A dramaturg is a person who provides the director, actors, and company producing a play with various pieces of background information that will help them to interpret the script. This background information could include, but is not limited to: information about the socio-economic status of the characters, the history of the period and location in which the play was written or is set, any motifs or recurring symbols, past productions of the play, and/or relevant biographical information on the writer(s). If you were assigned to be the dramaturg for a production of She Loves Me, what kind of images and other information would you provide to the production?

2. When Amalia arrives at Maraczek’s shop seeking a job, she demonstrates her abilities as a sales girl by selling a new item on the spot.

What in Amalia’s words and actions convince the customer to buy

16

Huntington Theatre Company

the item? What other qualities make for a good sales person? What qualities make for a bad one? Do the other employees at Maraczek’s shop demonstrate these qualities?

3. She Loves Me is sometimes referred to as “The Ice Cream Musical” because of the song Amalia sings in the second act called “Vanilla Ice Cream.” This song was made famous by Barbara Cook, who originated the role of Amalia in the Broadway production of She Loves Me in 1963. Do some research on Barbara Cook’s life and theatrical career. What other productions has she appeared in? What other roles has she played? How are they similar to or different from her role in She Loves Me? 4. She Loves Me is set in 1930’s Budapest, the capital city of the country of Hungary, located in central Europe. Today, Budapest is a popular destination for tourists, particularly those interested in history and art. Do some research into this historical city’s rich cultural offerings. What art movements have influenced its architecture? What landmarks help shape its skyline? What theatres and concert halls are currently producing performances for the public?

Which artists are featured in Budapest’s museums and galleries?

DAY TWO - The Production Attend the performance at the Huntington Theatre Company.

Homework: Students should answer the Mastery Assessment (P. 13) questions.

DAY THREE - Follow-up Discussion Discuss Mastery Assessment answers in class.

DAY FOUR - Test Individual Assessment: Choose either several questions from the Open Response (P. 12) or one question from Writing Assignments (P. 12) for students to answer in one class period.

Optional: Students may choose one of the For Further Exploration (P. 16) or Media Assesment (P. 14) tasks to complete for extra credit.

SEVEN-DAY LESSON PLAN completely integrates She Loves Me into your schedule. Within seven school days, you can introduce the play, assign reading and vocabulary, and assess your students on both a group and individual level. Students will ideally view the play after completing Mastery Assessment questions.

DAY ONE - Introducing the play Same as Day One above.

Optional: Distribute Handout 1: Vocabulary due on Day Four.

Homework: Read Act One and answer corresponding Mastery Assessment (P. 13) questions.

DAY TWO - Act One Discuss Act One and answers to Mastery Assessment questions.

Homework: Read Act Two and answer corresponding Mastery Assessment questions.

DAY THREE - Act Two Discuss the end of the play and answers to Mastery Assessment questions.

Homework: Distribute Handout 2: Analyzing the Elements of Musical Theatre DAY FOUR - Attend Performance Handout 1: Vocabulary due.

Homework: Prepare work from Preparation (P. 11) , Key Issues (P. 11) , For Further Exploration (P. 16) , or Media Assessment (P. 14) sections.

DAY FIVE - Analyzing the Elements of Musical Theatre/Group Work Discuss the many forms of the musical with the class.

Discuss question #3 of the handout in class.

Meet in groups to prepare presentations; schedule Media Center for this period if necessary.

Homework: Research and presentation preparation as needed.

DAY SIX - Presentations Group Assessment: Students present their findings to the class.

Homework: Complete sample questions from Open Response (P. 12) or Writing Assignments (P. 12) to study for test.

DAY SEVEN - Test Individual Assessment: Choose either several questions from the Open Response or two questions from Writing Assignments for students to answer in one class period.

Limelight Literary & Curriculum Guide 2007-2008

17

Name:_______________________________________________________

Handout 1

VOCABULARY bachelor

optometrist

chic

parfumerie

condemned

pompous

conscientious

petty

correspondence

prevail

depression

quarrel

discord

quintessence

disillusioned

rationale

domestic

ravishing

elation

rendezvous

genuflect

resign

illiterate

resolve

incandescent

smitten

inconceivable

smug

indiscreet

tete-a-tete

infinite

truce

jarring

tyrant

mortification

Date:_____________________

Name:_______________________________________________________

Date:_____________________

Handout 2

ANALYZING THE ELEMENTS OF MUSICAL THEATRE Musical theatre, like theatre itself, is frequently universal and often life-affirming. Most-importantly, America has embraced the form and made many of its most distinctive artistic contributions to the world of theatre in different types of musicals.

1. Ask students to work in groups to research and define each of the following musical theatre forms, citing examples of the influence of earlier forms. Students should be encouraged to present recorded examples that will allow the class to appreciate the variety of music, songs, artists, and musical facts that represent their findings. Assign teams to one or more of the following categories: Opera

Revue

Operetta

Follies

Ballad Opera

Oratorio

Minstrelsy

Musical Comedy

Vaudeville

Concept Musical

Burlesque

Rock Musical/Rock Opera

2. Many musicals have a book, or script, that is adapted from an outside source. For example, She Loves Me is a musical stage adaptation of the play Parfumerie by Miklos Laszlo. Create student teams and assign one of the following musicals adapted from an outside source-material as the subject for reports.

West Side Story — Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, 1957 The Color Purple — Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, 2005 The Threepenny Opera — Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, 1928 Wicked — Stephen Schwartz, 2003 Fiddler on the Roof — Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, 1964 My Fair Lady — Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, 1956 Carousel — Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, 1945 Questions to consider include: What was the musical’s source material and when was it written?

What, if any, significant changes were made to the story when it was adapted?

What themes are prevalent in these musicals? In the original material?

What connections exist between the musical’s themes and the historical events of the time the original material was written?

At the time the musical adaptation was written?

3. Encourage your students to become familiar with the elements of the musical: book, lyrics, and score.

THE BOOK (sometimes called the libretto) generates the “theatre” in musical theatre. It is the glue that binds the other elements of the musical together. The book encompasses the necessary components of dramatic form: Character — the people we remember in the story Plot — the sequence of actions which drive the characters, ideas, or situations Situation — any moment within the plot that generates drama, sustains audience attention, and begs for resolution Dialogue — speech; generally a companion in tone and style to the lyrics of the musical theme, the main idea (or ideas) of the musical In a traditional musical book, the following dramatic elements are generally established within the first five minutes of the performance, either through action or exposition: time — morning, afternoon, or night place — geographical setting characters — social identity, status, relationships theme — a hint of the message or purpose of the story is introduced conflict — obstacles that the characters must endeavor to overcome tone — mood of the musical (serious, comedic) THE LYRICS share time with dialogue, dance, scenery changes, and instrumental music. Lyrics must be compact, dense with word meaning and delivered with dramatic power. Song lyrics are an integral part of the story and are created to develop character and move along the plot of the musical.

THE SCORE is the music. Music expresses and reinforces the emotion in drama as well as serves to underscore dramatic action. It establishes the tone and sets the mood of a piece. Its component parts are melody which represents an aural image of the lyric, harmony which creates tones that color the aural image, and rhythm which contrasts the dramatic values of character and action.

4. Ask students to observe the staging and listen to the opening song in the first scene of She Loves Me. From watching and listening to She Loves Me, ask students to discuss which of the essential dramatic elements are introduced to the audience.

CURRICULUM FRAMEWORKS TIES

T

he Huntington Theatre Company’s Student Matinee Series provides an invaluable opportunity for teachers, students, and families looking to increase young people’s understanding of and interest in dramatic literature and the performing arts. This section contains a list of the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for Theatre and English Language Arts that are addressed fully, in part, or are supplemented by attending the Huntington’s production of She Loves Me and utilizing this study guide as a pre- and postshow resource.

THEATRE Acting • 1.7 Create and sustain a believable character throughout a scripted or improvised scene

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS Grades 5-8 • 8.19 Identify and analyze sensory details and figurative language • 8.20 Identify and analyze the author’s use of dialogue and description • 8.23 Use knowledge of genre characteristics to analyze a text • 8.24 Interpret mood and tone, and give supporting evidence in a text • 8.25 Interpret a character’s traits, emotions, or motivation and give supporting evidence from a text • 9.5 Relate a literary work to artifacts, artistic creations, or historical sites of the period of its setting

• 1.10 Use vocal acting skills such as breath control, diction, projection, inflection, rhythm, and pace to develop characterizations that suggest artistic choices

• 10.3 Identify and analyze the characteristics of various genres (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, short story, dramatic literature) as forms with distinct characteristics and purposes

• 1.11 Motivate character behavior by using recall of emotional experience as well as observation of the external world

• 17.3 Identify and analyze structural elements particular to dramatic literature (scenes, acts, cast of characters, stage directions) in the plays they read, view, write, and perform

• 1.12 Describe and analyze, in written and oral form, characters’ wants, needs, objectives, and personality characteristics • 1.13 In rehearsal and performance situations, perform as a productive and responsible member of an acting ensemble (i.e., demonstrate personal responsibility and commitment to a collaborative process) • 1.15 Demonstrate an understanding of a dramatic work by creating a character analysis • 1.17 Demonstrate an increased ability to work effectively alone and collaboratively with a partner or ensemble Technical Theatre • 4.12 Conduct research to inform the design of sets, costumes, sound, and lighting for a dramatic production. For example, students select a play from a particular historical period, genre, or style and conduct research using reference materials such as books, periodicals, museum collections, and the Internet to find appropriate examples of hairstyles, furnishings, decorative accessories, and clothing.

Critical Response • 5.5 Continue to develop and refine audience behavior skills when attending informal and formal live performances • 5.12 Attend live performances of extended length and complexity, demonstrating an understanding of the protocols of audience behavior appropriate to the style of the performance

20

Huntington Theatre Company

• 17.5 Identify and analyze elements of setting, plot, and characterization in the plays that are read, viewed, written, and/or performed: setting (place, historical period, time of day); plot (exposition, conflict, rising action, falling action); and characterization (character motivations, actions, thoughts, development) Grades 9-10 • 9.6 Relate a literary work to primary source documents of its literary period or historical setting • 11.5 Apply knowledge of the concept that the theme or meaning of a selection represents a view or comment on life, and provide support from the text for the identified themes • 17.7 Identify and analyze how dramatic conventions support, interpret, and enhance dramatic text Grades 11-12 • 9.7 Relate a literary work to the seminal events of its time • 11.6 Apply knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme • 11.7 Analyze and compare texts that express a universal theme, and locate support in the text for the identified theme • 17.9 Identify and analyze dramatic conventions (monologue, soliloquy, chorus, aside, dramatic irony)

Š Huntington Theatre Company Boston, MA 02115 May 2008 No portion of this Teacher Curriculum Guide may be reproduced without written permission from the Huntington Theatre Company’s Department of Education.

Inquiries should be directed to: Donna Glick, Director of Education Huntington Theatre Company 264 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02115