Vanities, a playwright composed by Jack Heifner, comprises of a story about a life lasting friendship that takes all sorts of twist and turns. In, this playwright we dive back into the 60's where three girls; Mary, Joanna, and Kathy originally become friends. They are cheerleaders in High School for the Tigers. The girls don't stay young forever though, and this play follows these girls as they grow up, drift apart and somehow find a way back to each other. The play was most likely written to demonstrate and create a story of characters who form a bond, and though times get tough, they still manage to finish there friendship, right the way it started; as best friends. In this play, Jack illustrates how important friendships can be and what the power of a bond can do to a group of people. I think that he wanted to communicate this with his audience and really show a deep connection of these characters. From what we see in the beginning of the play when they are in High School to what I read about how they evolve for the rest of the play in terms of depth and connection to character, I sense that it builds throughout the story. The character that I play in Vanities, is Mary. Her character is very confident, self assured and poised. Since she is a very popular girl she does not have any obstacles, but I think internally she does within her friendship. In this scene I sense a little bit of competition and jealousy between her and Joanne. We later find out in the play that Mary sleeps with Joanne's husband. It was interesting to see how we could get this sense so early in the part and how it lingers throughout the play. Although, we were not given various details on her physical properties, we can assume she is fit and well toned, considering the fact that she is an active cheerleader. We can assume that she is girly and a little snobby by the way that she interacts with her friends. The physical trait that I gave Mary was the act of always chewing gum. I thought that this would be a good physical trait because I want her to be chewing in a ditsy way so that the audience can capture her girly, snobby, loud, attention-grabbing personality. Emotionally and intellectually Mary is a very intense emotionally and smart in a girly way. She knows how to get what she wants and will play whatever role she needs in order to get what she wants. Doing our scene we can she the emotion building when she starts talking about Sarah and then becoming all intense when talking about her boyfriend. In general, I characterized Mary to be a popular High School girl, who is very sure of her self and loves attention. In our scene we are at our High School and practicing our cheers. We soon get frustrated and tired and go sit on the bleachers and floor and begin to complain and gossip. Our props that we plan on using is black bench that will demonstrate as our bleachers. Joanne will be sitting on the floor, facing Kathy and Mary while the two of them sit almost back to back. I plan to have a purse sitting right out by the bleachers, which I will go in and grab a nail filer out of a backpack after we do our first cheer. This nail filer will be used throughout the scene as my prop but also as a hint or aspect of my characters personality and attitude. Gum is also going to be a major prop and character trait. I want Mary's gum chewing habit to show in this scene and I want it to look like a natural everyday thing that she does. In order to create my fourth wall, which is an imaginary wall behind the audience, I had to think about what would be a good and non-distracting object to concentrate on. Since my position on stage will be semi to the side, I think it would best to concentrate on the spot of the wall between the glass box and the door on the left side of the black box. This way I will still be facing the audience and my position will not distract myself from not looking forward into the audience. Atmosphere is
