Spread the Love: Being Bianca by Alan Haehnel

This week on Spread the Love, Lindsay and Craig talk about Being Bianca, a comedy by Alan Haehnel.

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Transcript

Welcome to Spread the Love. This week we are talking about Being Bianca by Alan Haehnel. Bianca has to do some volunteer work and she decides that she is going to give a great service to all of mankind. She is going to teach us all how to Be Bianca. Craig what do you love about Being Bianca?

Being Bianca is a rare gem. With a running time of about thirty minutes, it’s a perfect piece for competition, particularly if you’re looking to get a lot of people on stage. The casting can accommodate anywhere from 20 to 50 performers with a really wide range of choices for people with different acting abilities. Also, it’s very easy to stage, there’s nothing complicated in terms of set or props and all the costuming is modern. It’s a ton of fun. Lindsay, what do you like about Being Bianca?

This play is a nice introduction to character work. And Bianca is quite the character! Now, just because she’s a rather fluffy kind of girl does not necessarily mean that she’s easy to play. The actress playing Bianca has to have the whole package: specific voice, physical attitude, likeable personality. For the other actors, if you’re doubling, great opportunity to play more than one part without help from costumes and make up. It’s so important for young actors to learn how to change a character by changing themselves – changing their body, changing their voice, making these elements character specific. I think that plays with short moments and short scenes are a wonderful introduction to character development. If you’ve only got a few seconds on stage to establish a character what do you do to be noticed and remembered? That’s it for Spread the love.