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My mother-in-law has a Christmas tradition she incorporates into family gatherings and parties she hosts during the holidays. It's a group reading of one of the plays ("The Kings in Judaea") from Dorothy L. Sayers's The Man Born to Be King
. She's been doing it for almost a decade now and has trouble keeping things organized. There are over 22 speaking characters, so many of the people reading have to juggle a handful of parts; reading from a collection of dog-eared photo-copies and well-marked-up paperbacks. Since the number of people changes from reading to reading, she has multiple sets of scripts with confusing notes as to which parts are to be read. In addition, the family children are expected to sit and listen to the hour-long reading, yet have little to do to keep themselves respectfully attentive.
So, as her Christmas gift, I programmed a Flash-based Script Generator program to help her produce less confusing script assignments and made a wooden playset to keep the children occupied and involved in the reading.
. She's been doing it for almost a decade now and has trouble keeping things organized. There are over 22 speaking characters, so many of the people reading have to juggle a handful of parts; reading from a collection of dog-eared photo-copies and well-marked-up paperbacks. Since the number of people changes from reading to reading, she has multiple sets of scripts with confusing notes as to which parts are to be read. In addition, the family children are expected to sit and listen to the hour-long reading, yet have little to do to keep themselves respectfully attentive.So, as her Christmas gift, I programmed a Flash-based Script Generator program to help her produce less confusing script assignments and made a wooden playset to keep the children occupied and involved in the reading.
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Signing UpStep 1Designing the Playset Pieces
Originally, I planned to make each play piece with a front and back shot of the character. But, with Christmas fast approaching, I decided to go for the much easier design of front-only character depictions. This had the added benefit only requiring half the number of pieces since I could put a character on both sides.
I started by organizing the characters in a spreadsheet so I could pair each character on a piece with a character they wouldn't be simultaneously onstage with. End the end, I had to break this rule on one piece - The Zorastes/ High Priest piece. But, it totally worked anyway since even though those two are onstage simultaneously, Zorastes is first seen when King Herod exclaims, "Zorastes, what are you doing there? I see you hiding behind the skirts of the High Priest." So, during the performance, that piece is simply spun around to reveal Zorastes on the back side of the High Priest (genius!).
I shortcut the design of the characters by shamlessly stealing content from the internet. There's an online fanasy role-playing game called Renaissance Kingdoms. The creators of the game, Celsius Online, have created a nifty wardrobe simulator to see what your player would look like in certain fashions. I realize using copyrighted material is wrong, but hopefully this free advertisement for their game makes up for my transgression.
The variety of faces, hairstyles, and clothing made it pretty easy to make the characters fairly identifiable. Which, considering I had to build 20 different ones, is an achievement. I pulled screen captures into PhotoShop, added a black background, a slight outline glow, and a bottom nameplate. I also created a series of circles to be mounted on top of the pieces so they're easier to identify from above. I even color-coded the names on the circles for the act in which they appear.
After I'd created the character images, I paired them up into a series of 5" x 7" jpg files and uploaded them to Walmart.com for printing.
I started by organizing the characters in a spreadsheet so I could pair each character on a piece with a character they wouldn't be simultaneously onstage with. End the end, I had to break this rule on one piece - The Zorastes/ High Priest piece. But, it totally worked anyway since even though those two are onstage simultaneously, Zorastes is first seen when King Herod exclaims, "Zorastes, what are you doing there? I see you hiding behind the skirts of the High Priest." So, during the performance, that piece is simply spun around to reveal Zorastes on the back side of the High Priest (genius!).
I shortcut the design of the characters by shamlessly stealing content from the internet. There's an online fanasy role-playing game called Renaissance Kingdoms. The creators of the game, Celsius Online, have created a nifty wardrobe simulator to see what your player would look like in certain fashions. I realize using copyrighted material is wrong, but hopefully this free advertisement for their game makes up for my transgression.
The variety of faces, hairstyles, and clothing made it pretty easy to make the characters fairly identifiable. Which, considering I had to build 20 different ones, is an achievement. I pulled screen captures into PhotoShop, added a black background, a slight outline glow, and a bottom nameplate. I also created a series of circles to be mounted on top of the pieces so they're easier to identify from above. I even color-coded the names on the circles for the act in which they appear.
After I'd created the character images, I paired them up into a series of 5" x 7" jpg files and uploaded them to Walmart.com for printing.
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You've taken something that sounds boring and taken it to the next level.
Beyond the religious story I think this is a fresh way to present a story, you've made it interactive and personal.
I didn't see the EUA on my first read, a stroke of genius.