Blog – Creative Kids Playhouse

Optimizing Your Online Look

May 1, 2020 By Kerstin Stanford-Dorren

Here are a few tips for optimizing your online zoom group participation or video performance. Think about setting the scene. You actors know this to be an important part of a show production. Don’t forget this step when you’re online!

BACKGROUND: Ask yourself, what do you want the viewer looking at? Now ask yourself, what does your background look like? My advice is, keep it simple. Let me say that again, keep it simple. Put yourself in front of curtains, or a background that fits with your performance, or a background that keeps to different shades of only one color. This advice is pleasing to the eye and will detract much less from you! For zoom groups, you can also take a look at the background images available in the VISUAL BACKGROUND FEATURE on zoom or load your own background graphic into zoom.

LIGHTING: Just as theatre stages have lighting, your online visual presentation will benefit greatly from the right lighting. The easiest good lighting is natural light, so if your in front of the camera during the day, try facing a window. If that’s not an option, find a good lamp and place it right behind, or next to, your camera. This will give you direct lighting. You do not want side lighting, back lighting, or overhead lighting. Don’t sit under a ceiling light or with your back to the light/window.

DRESS FOR THE PART: It’s very easy to minimize your outfit effort telling yourself “everybody knows I’m just at home.” Instead, remind yourself that your audience has expectations and what you’re wearing will play into their perception of you, your abilities and/or your performance. This is a visual medium! I recommend you dress the part.

RECORD A PRACTICE SESSION: Think of it like a tech performance rehearsal. Test and practice and record yourself using the microphone. Turn your volume up and down. Then play it back and listen to yourself on the recording. If your live, follow the same practice and recording steps but note that ZOOM will let you adjust your audio settings.

Look at yourself sitting at different distances from your camera. You don’t want to sit too close, especially if you’re using an iPhone camera or webcams as they will distort your face by flattening it. Experiment and find out exactly how far away from your camera is your best look.

Practice which lamp is going to afford you the best hight and light. Eye height is the most flattering for both lighting and camera angle. This might mean you place your computer on a stack of books. If you’re recording a standing performance, I suggest you use a tripod.

STAY FOCUSED: Remember, just as when you’re on stage, if you’re in front of a camera, people will be watching you. Stay focused. Don’t multi-task in a group zoom (you look like you’re not paying attention). If you have to multi-task in a zoom meeting, don’t speak while you’re doing it so that zoom won’t make you the center focus box. Complete your task, then speak. Use good posture. In zoom, you can click on the TOUCH UP MY APPEARANCE and the HD features to see if you like the changes it imposes.

“It’s Showtime!”

– Beetlejuice

C.A.T.E.

January 8, 2020 By Rachael Gafner

What is Giving Tuesday You Ask…

December 3, 2019 By Rachael Gafner

Back in 2012, a small group of people gathered to discuss the possibility of using social media for good. They were living through, what felt to them like “unprecedented disruption in global politics and the global economy.” This was a time when the use and effectiveness of social media platforms by politicians and private individuals, as a persuasive medium, was being heavily evaluated in mainstream news outlets. This prompted them to wonder what positive change could be effected if people were encouraged, through social media, to take action for a good cause. Giving Tuesday has grown from that humble, creative and inspired discussion, to become a global movement effecting positive change in 150+ countries and has raised over $400 million dollars.

If you remember, back to a time when you were a child and loved receiving gifts, you probably remember the anticipation, the act of ripping the paper open, and maybe, you even remember the gift. And then, somewhere along the way, giving became, for you, as it did for most of us, just as fun as receiving. Selecting just the right gift, watching the receiver’s excitement, and feeling satisfied for having given is, statistically, more satisfying than receiving. Giving Tuesday is a beautiful way to remind us that giving to our community helps all of us. It was St. Francis of Assisi who said, “For it is in giving that we receive.”

And just as it takes all our skills, perspectives and participation to build our communities, it takes our collective communities, working together for the greater good, to create a healthy world. If we take just one day this year, say, December 3rd (Giving Tuesday) and decide to mow an elderly neighbors lawn, or clean out your closet and give the items to a shelter, or make a financial donation to a non-profit that has effected positive change your families lives, you can make a difference. It was Henry Ford who said, “ To do more for the world than the world does for you – that is success.”

CKP New Building campaign: http://igfn.us/vf/CKP

Protect Your Singing Voice

July 23, 2019 By Kerstin Stanford-Dorren

Performance Dancer Tips

June 18, 2019 By Kerstin Stanford-Dorren

7 Tips from Working Dancers

To help you commit to the dance, get rid of the mirrors and lose the audience. Ignore your fear of looking stupid. If you’re holding back, your dancing will show it.
Rehearse as though it’s a performance. You will perform the way you practiced. Are you being lazy or goofing off or are you practicing how you want to perform?
Remember eyes are on you every second you’re on stage. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the last row, back corner. It doesn’t even matter if you’re running a cross over back stage; be in your performance. Someone will see you – count on it.
Keep it fresh with the other dancers. Remember, every dancer in the performance effects your performance. Besides, it’s fun to watch people on stage having a good time and interacting with each other:)
Don’t forget your face. Where you’re looking and your expressions are being watched. When you get tired of smiling, relax your jaw and raise your eyebrows.
Consider your costume. If you’re performing in skinny jeans, practice in skinny jeans. Same goes for heels, sunglasses or a hat – anything that will effect how you move should be part of your practice.
Don’t expect to to dance at full energy if your dragging yourself to the performance because you didn’t get enough sleep. Set the alarm on your phone for bed time so you don’t forget and end up climbing into bed three hours late.