Academic Scenes is a team-building activity developped at Fields institute in 2024 during a special semester, after an original idea of Annette Karrer. The full text has been jointly written by Annette Karrer and Christian Gorski, with the editing help of Giulio Tiozzo and Indira Chatterji, who also drew the pictures.
Sit around a big round table. You neet at least 3-4 people to be fun, but the more the merrier. Download the script, and choose a narrator, who will randomly assign the roles (either for each scene or once and for all if you do the whole play). Then play the scenes, criticise and discuss the scenes -or not. Pizza and drinks are a welcome addition to the activity! You can also use the raw material and add stuff to it in this collaborative pad, maybe it will lead to a second part of this play!
Theater mode
You need at least 15 actors, a classroom with a projector, and a friendly public. Actors don't really need to rehearse, but they need to download the script on their ipad or computer or have a print. Everyone has a role and reads the script, while the narrator or someone else shows the slide corresponding to each scene, from this slideshow.
Please let me know if you aregoing to perfom this play in front of an audience, that way we can share tips and note it below for our records!
What is Academic Scenes and MATHOPOLY? During the awesome Randomness and Geometry program at Fields, a group of people started discussing short academic scenes, meeting over pizza and beer at the end (or the middle) of a productive week. We laughed and had fun, and one day some of the people (mostly Annette Karrer and Christian Gorski) produced a full length play, that we called MATHOPOLY.
End of semester play, first complete performance (by zoom)
Thursday June 27th, 2024, by zoom with a bunch of awesome actoresses! I used these slides, then shared the screen with the slides and people read the scenes as they arrive, with the following:
Instructions to read by zoom:
Download the script, either on another device, or print, or leave open on your desktop, but you will have to read and follow while the zoom is open.
The host should activate "close captions" and "active speaker only".
Start by renaming yourself with the name of your character (click on participant up right after you join the zoom, then on your name and you should have the option to rename yourself).
If you are one of the 3 heroes you choose an avatar of the color corresponding to the one in the cast -red, blue or yellow- (go to "more" then "background&effects" then "avatar" on the right of the window) and select "show avatar" (go to "more" then "show avatar").
If your character is a student you choose an animal filter (go to "more" then "background&effects" then "filters").
If your character is professor you choose a filter with glasses on your eyes.
Make sure your mic is open when it's your turn. Then, read the script, you can be creative but don't go too much off script, and have fun!
Notice that by zoom you don't hear the laughs so it makes the whole experience much less fun...
First live performance, theater mode
Thursday August 1st, 2024 during an awesome ICTP program of 2 weeks in Bangalore. The play was performed one evening in the lecture hall, with awesome actoresses, and a very enthusiastic audience (of over 40 people) that made the experience a lot of fun! The actors were given a couple of days notice, with the instruction to download the script on the largest device they could take to the set. They read their parts while someone else projected the slide show.
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