After being assigned into groups, and our project being affordable housing, we decided how we are going to proceed. We quickly decided our focus on NYCHA, since we all live in New York, so we all know what NYCHA is, but not many of us know what it truly is, nor its struggles. In terms of props we hit a wall on what would represent the struggles that NYCHA residents endure. Johan came with the clever idea of creating a suggestion box, where the suggestions go directly into a fire. This symbolizes the lack of concern NYCHA has towards its residents, so we ran with that idea. We had an idea of what we would talk about, but we really did not iron out our talking points in the form of a script.
When the group showed up for the dress rehearsal, the lack of a script was clearly evident, as our group did not have queues on when a group member is introduced into the performance. Another thing we lacked was a proper closing to the performance. We initially had the idea of having the NYCHA representative win, because this has been the case thus far in real life. Thanks in part to professor Swift’s suggestion, we saw that such a somber end is not so great, but rather making people laugh would be more engaging. As the days to the performance neared, we worked on the script, put the finishing touches on our props, and prepared ourselves for the performance.
As a group, we had a plan, but upon showing up to the location, those plans went out the window. We had the idea of placing the box on a raised area that is in front of the fountain. This was no longer possible, as the city filled this raised area with potted plants. Another thing which completely threw us off was the bitter cold. In fact, it was so cold that we forgot to turn on the fan, which simulated a fire, and we also forgot our placements during the performance. Many of us struggled to remember our lines as the cold punished us. Regardless of this, we adjusted and continued with our performance. During our performance, a person walking by was interested in our performance, because he too is an advocate for a better NYCHA. Although this man’s inclusion interrupted our performance, we were not bothered by this because our performance affected a stranger, and we got to see someone that is actually fighting the good fight, not just performing it. If we could have done this performance again, one thing that we could have fixed was the idea of prepare for the unexpected.
Overall, this was great experience. A few people in our group were nervous about performing in public. The unknown of how the audience can react is quite scary within itself. As the days drew closer to the date of the performance, those same people that were nervous were being more vocal. Regardless of any negative that happened during the performance, being able to group up with people you do not know, and give it your all makes this experience absolutely worth it.
