BGT AT HOME ACTIVITY #4:
Strengthening the Scene
(including songwriting!)

This week we’ll be going back to our scenes to strengthen them. Much like the professional artistic process, it’s always essential to make edits to make sure our work is the strongest it can possibly be. We will also have the opportunity to write an original song for your scene.

Materials: 

• Whatever you were using last week to write your scene

Adults:
For our strengthening the scene exercise, here are some additional tips to help make a scene stronger. 

• Raise the stakes! 

  • What will the characters lose if they don't get what they want? Are the stakes important enough? 

  • For example: If Maria gets her promotion and it makes her happy but nothing else changes for her, the stakes don’t seem high enough. 

  • Now, if Maria just had a curse put on her and if she doesn’t do a perfect presentation and get the promotion, a crazy witch will turn her into a lizard FOREVER, WOW! Talk about high stakes, right? It’s silly, but isn't it more exciting?

• Tactics!

  • The different actions characters take to try to get what they want. 

  • What tactics do they use to get to their goal?

  • Tactics can include: Beg, Bribe, Bargain/Make a deal, Flatter, Befriend/Gain trust, Threaten, Trick/Deceive, Force, Compromise, Guilt/Shame

Exercise:

Strengthening The Scene Checklist

• Are the answers to these questions clear in your scene?

  • Who is your character and what do they want, or what do they want us to understand about them?

  • What is or who is the thing or problem that is keeping your main character from their main goal?

  • What will the character lose if they don’t get what they want? 

  • How does your character try to accomplish their goal? How does your character succeed or fail?  

If you feel good, and want an extra challenge, try writing a SONG!! Insert a song in your scene and see if each character will have a section. 

• Some questions to ask about your song:

  • What style is your song? 

  • Style examples: Ballad, Rap, Country, etc.

  • How does your song help carry the emotion or conflict of the scene?

• Four ways songs function in storytelling

  • A moment when your character (or a group of characters) has to make a choice

  • A reveal-- a secret, surprise, or solution

  •  "I Want" song-- what does the character want more than anything, and how are they going to get it? (Another way to think about this is, what is the problem they're trying to solve, and how are they going to try to solve it?)

  • Agreement/ Disagreement (often turns into duet or trio)

Feel free to record your song and put your song into the scene.

Act out your song, record, and send your full BGT scene our way!!

BGT AT HOME ACTIVITY #3:
Environmental Justice

Building off the last post and the problems the animals/wildlife face, this week we’ll focus on an aspect of environmental justice that is very close to home in NYC: extreme heat. 

Materials: 

• Paper (Scratch paper or recycled paper is best! We love to save our trees!)

• A writing utensil

• Optional: A device with internet access for optional graphics. 

Adults:
For this exercise you’ll have the option to reference some graphics that show which communities in NYC are most vulnerable to heatwaves and rising temperatures. 

These are also excellent resources you can use to help you and your child in this exercise:

•  https://www.weact.org/2016/09/climate-action-beat-heat/

• https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2017/01/06/how-climate-change-is-affecting-new-yorks-plants-and-animals/ 

It will be helpful for you to know: 
Simple definition of environmental justice: “All people and communities have equal right to live in environments that are safe and healthy”

HEAT VULNERABILITY IN NYC:

Exercise:

We are not all affected equally. Make a list of people/wildlife that are most affected by or vulnerable to the warming climate and extreme heat. Now make a list of people/wildlife that are not as vulnerable to those problems. Be specific! 

For example a list may include the following:

Vulnerable People:
Mailpeople, construction workers, and others who often have to work outside. Elderly people or families that don’t have air conditioning or access to green spaces. 

People not as vulnerable:
Families or people who have access to air conditioning and are surrounded by green spaces. People who have jobs that don’t expose them to extreme weather. 

Vulnerable wildlife, such as: 
Atlantic salmon, bay scallops, oysters, and clams have all been affected by rising temperatures. Trees and flowers that can’t thrive in extreme heat. 

Wildlife that are not as vulnerable: 
Mosquitos and Ticks: warmer seasons cause insects to grow faster and larger, and produce more eggs and more babies. Red oak trees grow faster and bigger with more heat. 

*Creating green infrastructure, such as trees, green roofs, wetlands, vegetation, and exposing more surface water such as ponds, lakes, and streams, can help reduce heat through evaporation and shade. 

Now pick 2 characters from that list. 

• How do they deal with rising temperatures and heat waves?

• How does it make them feel? 

• Do they care about rising temperatures and heatwaves? Why or why not?

• What do they want the most in this scene? Their “want” should be something that would greatly impact or affect their lives if they don’t get it. 

  • For example: A father who sells air conditioners might love the rising temperatures because the more air conditioners he sells the more money he is able to bring to his family. But perhaps the other character is an elderly next door neighbor who can’t afford air conditioning and suffers from dehydration due to rising temperatures outside and inside their home. 

Now put the two characters together for your first scene. 

Take a moment to make some decisions about your scene: 

• What is the setting?

• What are the characters’ names? 

• Relationship: Do they know each other? What is their relationship? 

• Wants: What do they want related to the problem of extreme heat / rising temperatures? They should have different wants so that there is conflict.  Fill out this sentence for each character: 

[Character A] wants ___________, if they don’t get ___________, then _______________.  

*Tip: try to make what they want really important to them, so if they don’t get it, it affects them in a significant way. For example: Ted the mailman wants to get a new postal truck with air conditioning, if he doesn’t fix it, he will have to work in the extreme heat and maybe get sick, or stop and lose his job. 

• Tactics: make a list of tactics that each character uses to get what they want. 
  For example: Bargaining, pleading, persuading, etc. 

Use these different tactics in your scene. 

Now start writing dialogue (which is what the characters say to each other). Each character should have at least 3 lines each, and within those 3 lines (6 lines in total) we should learn what each character wants.

Materials: 

• Paper (Scratch paper or recycled paper is best! We love to save our trees!)

• A writing utensil

• Optional: A device with internet access for an optional audio

Adults:
For this exercise you’ll have the option to use an audio track to help set the mood for your walk in the city:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wydyxVYSUGE

Unlike last week, this walking exercise will have your child encounter and meet 2 new characters on their walk. The characters can be anything! Wildlife, nature, people, etc. They will be asked about some of the problems they might be facing now that they didn’t face before, including:

• Problems with human development. This can force wildlife out of their homes. They either adapt like pigeons for example, or migrate.

• Heatwaves are an increasingly bigger problem, especially in NYC. Because we have less trees, we are more exposed to the sun, as opposed to back in 1600’s NYC. Our concrete/pavement also absorbs and traps a considerable amount of heat that adds to the growing problems caused by climate change. 

• Trees also make our air considerably cleaner as they “breathe in” carbon dioxide, and “breathe out” fresh air. 

• Superstorms are also growing problems we face here in NYC. As we experienced in Superstorm Sandy, extreme weather due to climate change has been especially devastating for coastal communities.  

Beginning Exercise:
Last week we visited NYC back in the 1600’s when the Lenape people inhabited the area. Now we are here in 2020, on the island as it is now, but this time we’ll be “taking a walk” in Central, Prospect, or the closest local park in your neighborhood. 

*Adults, you can start the music now, if you’d like to use that option: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wydyxVYSUGE

Now “begin your walk”. Close your eyes and imagine that you’re leaving your home, describe and walk/travel to a close park near you. 

• How do you get to the park you are going to? 

• What do you see?

• What do you hear?

• What do you smell?

• What can you touch? What does the thing you are touching feel like? What color is it? How big or small is it?

NEW PART OF THE JOURNEY:

• On your walk, you meet 2 characters! They can be anything! (Air, a squirrel, a bush, etc.) 

• Name each character. 

• Ask each character to tell you about their home now as opposed to back in the days when their ancestors were alive. 

• How does each character feel about how their home is now? How do they feel about people? Do they face any problems?

After you’ve finished your “trip” to your local park, come back to have another “popcorn session.”  Identify “pieces of popcorn” about what was different from the walk this time. 

Now you will pick one of the characters you met to write a monologue from their perspective about their life in 2020 NYC. 

In your monologue be sure to include things your character sees, smells, touches, and hears, in their daily lives. You can also include information from the questions below:

• Does your character like where they live? (Tell us where they live. Include if they live with anyone else.)

• What does your character do during the day? 

• If your character doesn’t normally talk, but could talk, what would they say?

• What are your character’s hopes and dreams?  

Share your monologues at:
Facebook - @thebushwickstarr and SuperheroClubhouse
Instagram - @bushwickstarr and @superheroch
#biggreentheater  #bgtathome

BGT AT HOME ACTIVITY #1:
Go on a walk with your family through NYC/your neighborhood 400 years ago!
A BGT monologue writing exercise

Materials: 

• Paper (Scratch paper or recycled paper is best! We love to save our trees!)

• A writing utensil

• Optional: A computer with internet access for an optional video

Adults:
Here is a slideshow for this exercise. It isn’t mandatory, but rather a helpful tool to spark your child’s (and yours) imagination!

In addition to the slideshow, it’s helpful for you to know that there was a large variety of ecosystems back in 1600’s NYC. It is believed that wildlife included wolves, black bears, mountain lions, beavers, passenger pigeons, heath hens, timber rattlesnakes, tree frogs, bog turtles and over 30 species of orchids and 70 species of trees.*

Research has lead scientists to conclude that just over 1000 species of plants and vertebrate animals (24 species of mammals, 233 birds, 32 reptiles and amphibians, 85 fish, and 627 species of plants, and unknown numbers of fungi, lichens, mosses, insects, shellfish and other invertebrates) once occurred here.*

The first residents of what we call Lower Manhattan were the Lenape, an Indigenous people.  They called the island Manahatta, meaning hilly island. Their land, called Lenapehoking (Lenape Land), includes all of what is now known as New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, southeastern New York State, northern Delaware and a small section of southeastern Connecticut. Today, displaced Lenape communities live all across North America and continue to steward the land with vitality and care.**

*The Welikia Project "Recreating Mannahatta.” The Welikia ("Way-LEE-Kee-Uh") Project, welikia.org/science/recreating-mannahatta/
**Children’s Museum of the Arts New York. “6 Fun Facts About the Lenape of Lower Manhatta” “https://cmany.org/blog/view/native-americans-in-lower-manhattan/

Beginning Exercise:
Imagine you are in the middle of NYC in the 1600’s. 

You can use the slideshow to spark your imagination. Take time to notice and talk about the differences in land-use between 1600’s NYC and modern NYC. For this first exercise, let’s focus on the land. In the future, we’ll learn more about the relationship between people, the land and water, and wildlife. 

Now begin your walk. You are no longer in your home. You are in NYC 400 years ago. Walk slowly and talk to each other about the following:

• What do you see?

• What do you smell?

• What can you touch? What does the thing you are touching feel like? What color is it? How big or small is it?

• What do you hear? 

  After you’ve had a nice walk, sit down and have a “popcorn session” where you write down or talk about all the things you saw, smelled, touched, and heard. These “pieces of popcorn” can be words, sounds, sentences, or feelings that you felt on your walk. 

Once your “popcorn session” is done you will use it as inspiration to write a monologue about your walk, from your perspective as a time traveler, and how it makes you feel. 

A monologue is a speech made by one person. It can be short or long, but only one person or character will speak. 

In your monologue be sure to include all the things you saw, smelled, touched, and heard, along with any inspiration from your “popcorn session” or from the questions below:

• How did you feel as you were walking around?

• How did it sound, look, or smell different from your home today? 

•  What was it like to travel back in time and see how much this place has changed? 

We would love for you to share your monologues on social media! Please tag and hashtag us so we can see what you wrote!:

Facebook - @thebushwickstarr and SuperheroClubhouse
Instagram - @bushwickstarr and @superheroclubhouse
#biggreentheater
#bgtathome

Video by Jess Lazar: jesslazar.com