Blog | Shearwater Productions

Holly and JR in Melodrama and Murder by Mystery & Adventure Agency

A Mini-history on the Mis-Maligned Melodrama

April 30, 2013

You must pay the rent! I can’t pay the rent! I’ll pay the rent. My hero! I admit I LOVE melodrama — the true stuff, the new stuff, and the mustachioed tongue-in-cheek stuff. That being said, I weep copious tears, gnash my teeth, and rend my garments when folks use “melodrama” in solely disparaging ways. In truth, melodrama grew from the dance hall, cheap entertainment (thrills, chills, and crazy love stories!), into a means to forward a progressive social agenda and large-scale cultural and system reform. WHHHHAAAAAT?!?!?! NO!!! Yes, my friends, yes. The history of melodrama In Victorian England, if

A young boy paints in an arts in education poster

Advocating for Arts Education

April 21, 2013

Okay friends, it’s the time of your school districts are making plans for next year, Arts Advocacy Day just happened here in the USA, and politicians are planning for fall elections before people check out for the summer. Therefore, this blog is devoted to fabulous writings and research on the importance of arts education and arts at the heart of common core academic learning. First off, there is an awesome cyber clearinghouse for arts research, and I highly recommend it if you are a one-stop-shopping kinda person: www.artsedsearch.org Here’s a portion of a recent research posting on said site, with

Hands making shapes against a yellow wall

Body Language: How to unpack the non-verbal parts of communication

April 13, 2013

Communication is about more than just words—it’s tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions. Cadence, eye contact, gestures, body angles, and weight placement all have implications, which change depending on the social situation, the cultural background of speaker, and the status of the participants. As an actor whose specialty is Physical Theatre, and also as a person with a keen interest in interaction, empowerment, and culture, I have given a great deal of my life’s attention to these non-verbal cues. Along those lines, I have taught workshops with some wonderful college students who are going into health-related fields, and

Holly Adams in her studio recording an audiobook

Maps: unpacking perspective, creating awareness

March 17, 2013

Calling all teachers, artists, and community leaders—it’s map time! Many of you are cartophiles like myself, and all of you probably use map comparison to look at socio-cultural perspectives of the map makers and how the cartographer’s viewpoint in turn affects our own. Here’s a few on-your-feet activities to go with your history awareness and empowerment project. Blindfolded Map Adventures I’m going to give two examples of this exercise, which is also a fun way to build trust. Both have the first step: Get a Partner. Choose which of you will be blindfolded to do the Cartography, and which will

Artists and Aging

March 11, 2013

This past weekend, I met a man who is a jouster (sigh!). I had been invited to join a joust-training team years ago, but the commute was too far to make it work, and I had been PINING to do it ever since. I have always loved adventurous, physical things, and I do enjoy both sword fighting for stage and horse-back riding. So of course I want to joust, right? Doesn’t matter that I am female, relatively small, or just had a mid-forties birthday….oh crap, maybe that last one does matter. For the first time in my life, I am

On Teaching Intimacy (theatre is life)

March 3, 2013

I recently taught a workshop on Dramatic Improvisation for a Comedy Festival focused on Improvisation and Stand-Up comedy for adults. Mine was the first workshop of the day (a Saturday), and I had anticipated a small turnout of people, mostly men, who might resist all but the hilarious and shallow. Why? Because Dramatic Improvisation only works with deep vulnerability and an almost intimate relationship with a scene partner, who may be a stranger. It’s hard to do, and if the commitment to the scene partner is not complete, the scene is unsatisfying. It’s also not necessarily funny (although it can be),

Holly sitting with her table for a mystery dinner

Married To My Work

February 17, 2013

So you may have noticed that for the first time in the year I have had this blog, I missed a posting!! Don’t worry, dear reader, it won’t happen again. Here’s what happened…. You see, I have been carrying on a long-standing affair that finally took over my life…..with my work. AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! I know, I know….. I never thought it would happen to me, either! You see, work started off as a small part of my life, nothing to side-track me from my roles as loving wife and mother. Just the occasional secretive business call during a dish-to-pass, nothing noticeable. I

Arts and Empowerment

February 4, 2013

Playwrighting is about creating a means for people to empower themselves, grow, explore, find joy, and reach out to a larger community through theatre. Without even meaning to, the best and best intentioned of us shape content, form, and process direction to our understanding and comfort level. This process is one more attempt to get away from “colonialism” style thinking (Marino, 1997) where the facilitator or director reproduces the imbalance of power as well as his or her own belief system in the very group that is supposed to be expressing themselves. Since we want to encourage responsible citizenry and