The
Class Acts Theatre Troupe was founded in the early 1990s
by Andrew Boyd, sponsored by United
for a Fair Economy (UFE), as a creative way to get the message out
about social economic inequalities and issues. The group combined activism
and theatre and performed at many rallies, conferences and festivals,
targeting economic issues, such as Corporate Welfare. The members varied
over time, but usually numbered between 5 and 6 core members and performances
were often monthly or even twice monthly at this time (connections to
the UFE were helpful in this regard). Because of the tight performance
schedule, most of the skits performed were of the Drill Team format.
In 1999,
Boyd left the group to pursue other opportunities, and the UFE funding
was dropped. Class Acts became an independent group, still focused on
political activism, but diversified. Class Acts worked with a charity
group to develop a piece on childcare reform and did a satirical game
show on gentically modified foods ("The Splice is Right" on
Cambridge Community Television) for example. See the skits
section for summaries of some of the pieces (including two I was involved
in writing).
I joined
the group in September 2003 and really liked it a lot at first, but when
one of the long-term members moved away and another new member (who joined
at the same time as me) also left, things started to get a bit difficult.
We did have a number of other new members circulate through (besides Matt
and Laura who'd been around a while and me, of course), but never found
anyone very reliable. So we struggled through most of 2004 and took a
break in early 2005 and then decided to disband (none of the remaining
3 had the energy to carry it through - it worked much better with 5 or
more people [4 was critical mass for most performances]).
Here are highlights of our last performances:
May, 2004  |
Occupation Drill Team + Improv games |
May Fire Arts Festival
The Esplanade
Boston, MA |
April, 2004  |
Occupation Taxation Drill Team |
Taxday Protest
Central Square Post Office
Cambridge, MA |
February, 2004  |
Occupation Drill Team |
Mardis Gras Whimsey
Zeitgeist Gallery
Cambridge, MA |
December, 2003  |
Parody X-mas Carolling (lyrics) |
Streets of Cambridge, MA
(Harvard + Central Sqs.) |
November, 2003  |
The Ashcroft Zone |
Her Ra!
Wheelock Family Theatre
Boston, MA
|
Class
Acts has a variety of regular performance pieces, or skits, that we use.
All are original pieces written and performed by Class Acts members. The
most versatile and commonly performed piece is a Drill Team, which can
vary by subject. Summaries of our documented skits are as follows.
Media
Monopoly script.rtf (skit I wrote mid-2004, but we never performed
after that)
The Drill Team
This is a call and response piece between a loud, obnoxious drill sergeant,
and the drill team (of about 3 – 6 actors) that s/he orders around. The
piece relies largely on sight gags, in that we all dress the same (black
suits, white button down shirts, and ties), and the soldiers respond to
the sergeant simultaneously. We have dozens of versions of this script
because it’s very adaptable to many issues (Welfare reform, the war in
Iraq, free trade, and tax cuts to name a few). Every script has some standard
gags: The drill sergeant leads the team onto the stage, with everybody
yelling, “boom chugga-lugga, boom chugga-lugga, boom chugga-lugga boom!
The Drill Sergeant then orders the team to “fall in,” and the team marches
in place for a beat. Next the drill sergeant orders the team to “present
shades,” and the team simultaneously puts on dark sunglasses, usually
followed by the drill sergeant ordering the team to “present phones”,
and the team simultaneously taking out cell phones and puts them to their
ears. After the standard gags, there is a short basic script that consists
of the drill sergeant asking questions/making comments about whatever
issue the script is focused upon, and the soldiers answering (usually
one at a time at this point) in character. The script always ends with
a call and response song between the sergeant and team, followed by the
sergeant leading the team off stage with another series of “boom-chugga-lugga’s.”
Occupation
Profiteering Drillteam script.rtf (I co-wrote).
There Was an Old Woman 
This piece is a parody of the “Old Woman in the Shoe,” nursery rhyme focused
on the high cost of housing. The piece has 2 narrators who tell the story
in nursery rhyme form, and 3 other actors (who also talk in nursery rhyme
form) who play a low-income tenant, her tenant-organizer neighbor, and
a housing bureaucrat at the local housing authority.
The Splice is Right
This is a parody game show with a game show host and 4 contestants: Bessie
the cow, Jane the consumere, Rajiv the farmer, and Joe Monsanto. Using
the backdrop of a game show, the piece makes references to “chromoroters,”
and points to the ties between the genetic engineering firms, and government/those
in power (during the piece, the game show host and Joe Monsanto switch
places.) In the past when we’ve done this, we’ve had access to a giant
cow costume for Bessie’s character.
The Race to the Bottom
A tragicomedy about the impact of globalization on poor countries as well
as on the U.S., this piece features a U.S. State governor and a Latin
American military strongman competing for the investments of a ruthless
corporate CEO. Economic superhero Supply Side Man, a sidekick of the CEO,
instructs the governor and the general on how to make their respective
domains attractive for investment. A Latin American worker, a U.S. worker,
and a U.S. single mother on public assistance become the experimental
subjects on whom Supply Side Man tests his theories, with results that
surprise him and end in tragedy.
Forum Theater pieces
We have performed pieces based on Augusto Boal’s technique of the Theater
of the Oppressed - in particular, a theatrical tool known as Forum Theater
- a number of times. This technique entails a group of actors performing
a piece with particular relevance to the daily lives of the audience,
depicting some oppressive situation that they encounter. After the first
run of the performance, the audience is invited to participate, first
one at a time, by taking the role of the most oppressed person in the
piece. The piece is re-run, with the audience member trying to work towards
a different resolution. If they fail, the piece is re-run again, with
a different audience member intervening. In this way, a large section
of the audience gets to participate, and practice real-life organizing
skills. We have performed forum theater on issues of scapegoating of immigrants,
and on low income tenant’s issues.
The Ashcroft Zone
Another tragicomedy, this piece is a commentary on the “National Security
State’ in post-September-11 America. It features three roommates: a Muslim
immigrant graduate student, an environmental activist, and an apathetic
Average Jane (or Joe). All three of them, for different reasons, have
chilling encounters with law enforcement and end up jailed for supporting
“terrorism”.
