Miner's Chant/Graduation Day

I'll email the organized document with color-coding and appropriate columns to you as well, but here is the txt version of the script.


The Miner’s Chant

(4 miners are spread throughout the area, high and low on both walls. Scene begins in blackout, then one light is turned on for each stanza read)

I. Trapper/Ventilation Boy
Away down in that hole,
With a light we only see
Dampness with coal and slate,
Its fall may be my fate.

II. Nipper/Errand Boy
Away down in that hole,
Day by day we dig and slave,
Our strength and body and our heart
Must be strong and must be brave.

III. Spragger/Wood Framing
Away down in that hole,
Dark, oh dark as it can be.
We pound and pound and dig
With all our strength and might.

IV. A Hewer/Digger
Away down in that hole,
Our companion is the mule,
The poor beast stays in
there all his life,
He’s one of our only tools.

(a clamor of noise across from I.)

I. Trapper/Ventilation Boy
Away down in that hole,
A slide and then a groan,
One more life I’ve been told,
I heard that miner moan.

II. Nipper/Errand Boy
Away down in that hole,
We take our buddy home,
The voice of his crying wife,
My God, another life.

III. Spragger/Wood Framing
Away down in that hole,
Oh God, pity another soul,
We buried him on the hill.
Farewell, his voice is still.

IV. A Hewer/Digger
We tramp back home alone,
To comfort wife and family,
Our hearts are sad with grief to bear,
We’re the only ones to care.

Graduation Day

John D. Rockefeller Jr. –

There are certain things even in this machine age, which mass production and standardization are the watchwords, so important that they demand personal attention and must be carried upon the shoulders of those to whom they are entrusted.

The business of being a father is surely one of these things. Many try to transfer it to men like those on my right, (motions to miner below)

But even they cannot relieve us of this responsibility and privilege. Just as the child instinctively looks to his father for food, so he turns first to him for companionship.

If, on the other hand, they find us so much occupied with our business or our pleasure that we have no time for them and their interests, their youthful longing for the companionship of their fathers is quickly chilled and their affection and confidence promptly transferred to less worthy companions.


end another day, IV. Hewer/Digger returns to his company home

IV. – Hey hun
E – My god Richard, it’s past 9 already
IV. – I know, I know
E – I just don’t understand how they
can get away with these kinds of…
IV. – Yeah. I know.
E – But how can they expect you to…

IV. – Jesus Mary, I know! I get it! And there’s nothing I can do about it. We just got here for Christ sakes; I’m not gonna ruffle some feathers and get canned. We’d be worse off than we already are!

E – But you’re never here! You leave before dawn, and return long after your son has gone to bed.
IV. - And you think I want it that way?
(turns away)

E – You said this would be a great opportunity, you said that they needed workers real bad, but that’s all you do now, is work sun up to sun down.

(pause)
E – He took his first steps today.

(pause)
IV. – I gotta get some sleep. It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.
John D. Rockefeller Jr. –

When this Government places in the cabinet men like Commissioner of Labor Wilson, who was for many years Secretary of the United Mine Workers of America, which has been one of the unions that permitted more disorder and bloodshed than any class of labor organizations in this country, we are not skating on thin ice,

we are on top of a volcano.

(clang beat begins and lasts for 1 minute as a freestyle buildup)

(1 beat)

(2 beats)

(3 beats)

(…)

(8 beats)

IV. – STRIKE!

(all beats stop)

I.
Armed miners reported rushing in to exterminate the guardsmen

II.
Fighting rages 14 hours and hills are swept by machine guns

III.
Tent colony burned


→


Western News Report

Denver, April 24 –
Thirteen dead, scores injured, the Ludlow strikers tent colony burned and hundreds of women and children homeless, was the result up to midnight was one of the bloodiest battles in labor warfare ever waged in the west.

Four hundred striking miners were entrenched in the hills of Ludlow this morning awaiting daylight to wipe out 177 members of the State National Guard with whom they fought for 14 hours yesterday.

The known dead are Private A. Martin of Company A, and Louis Tikas, leader of the strikers at Ludlow.

More information soon to follow.

The Pillars

A crowded street. Night. Miners, women, children bustle about, getting home or going for a drink. Amongst them appears George Belcher. He is strong, persistent, menacing. People avoid his gaze as they pass, giving him a wide breech. Opposite him is Louis Tikas. He is tall, proud but soft. Then….a gunshot. For an instant we see a soft look, one of surprise, of fear, of tragedy.

Freeze. Through the crowd comes a child who pulls on Tikas’s hand. Tikas sits with the boy on his lap.

TIKAS: So then,
royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, man of exploits,
still eager to leave at once and hurry back
to your own home, your beloved native land?
Good luck to you, even so. Farewell!
But if you only knew, down deep, what pains
are fated to fill your cup before you reach that shore,
you’d stay right here, preside in our house with me
and be immortal. Much as you long to see your wife,
the one you pine for all your days . . .

Freeze. A woman pushes through the crowd to Belcher.

WIFE: Under the wide and starry skies, they dug the grave wherein he lies. But long he lives in our hearts who dies as he, in doing his duty well. Do you have to go?

BELCHER: I’ll be back before you know it.

WIFE: What about me? What about your family?

BELCHER: Country first, honey. You know that. These men are breaking down the system, behaving like animals.

WIFE: My sister, in Denver, she says that winter is coming and they cannot keep warm. The strike has lost them all of the coal. She cannot keep her children warm.

BELCHER: And that is why I am going. To restore order.

Freeze. Tikas recites.

TIKAS: Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.
But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove—
the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all,
the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun
and the Sungod blotted out the day of their return.

Freeze. A voice from the crowd, deep and demanding.

AGENT: You work for Baldwin-Felts now, son. You’ve got a job to do.

BELCHER: Yes sir.

AGENT: These men are animals, wild. They will shoot you and everyone you love just to get some pay. You have to put these men down, Belcher. Like fucking animals.

BELCHER: Yes sir, I know my duty sir.

Another voice cascades down.

FATHER: Listen to me son, are you listening?

BELCHER: Yes, pa.

FATHER: There ain’t nothin’ more important in this world than your country, ya hear? She is your love, your life, your home.

TIKAS: Of all that breathes and crawls across the earth,
our mother earth breeds nothing feebler than a man.

BELCHER: Pa?

FATHER: They’ll come. You’ll see, from all over they’ll come – looking for opportunities. But they’ll destroy her, son.

TIKAS: So long as the gods grant him power, spring in his knees,
he thinks he will never suffer affliction down the years.

BELCHER: Sure Pa.

FATHER: Don’t you ever let someone sully your home. Promise me, now.

TIKAS: But then, when the happy gods bring on the long hard times,
bear them he must, against his will, and steel his heart.

Pause

Our lives, our mood and mind as we pass across the earth,
turn as the days turn . . .

BELCHER: I promise, Pa.

Belcher and Tikas freeze. The bustling of the street continues.

BOY: Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

WIFE: Under the wide and starry skies, they dug the grave wherein he lies.

BOY: Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter of Zeus,
start from where you will—

WIFE: sing for our time too.

Gunshot. For an instant we see a soft look, one of surprise, of fear, of tragedy.

The pillars fall.

how did it go today?
Laura C

Leroy and Emily's 5 minutes

Hey guys! Leroy and I ended up developing this piece together, I will work on rehearsing it with everyone else Sat and Sun.

A Red Cross Worker, Chavez, experiences the horror and tragedy of the ruins.

Angry Miners rally for revenge.

Rockefeller sits in his office, listening to Wagner’s “Siegfried’s Death”

C: And so I stood, hands in my pockets, unable to breathe like the bodies down below.

R: They have burnt down our homes

C: And the ruins all around me

R: They have killed our wives and Children

C: Frozen in a moment

R: I say no more…NO MORE!!!

C: Like the dew before it drips

R: It is time we took out our anger

C: Clinging onto life lik eth esweet leaves of yesterday but anticipating the drop

R: They, the operators, now it is out turn to strike fear into their hearts.

C: The fall, the pain down below

R: It is time to take our revenge

C: And so I waited, unable to breathe

R: Onwards my firneds, take up arms, it is time

C: Until I inhaled and with the air came smoke

R: Onwards to Hastings

C: And fear

R: Tabasco, Delagua, Berwind

C: And ash and ruin

R: Empire, Roayl, Green Canon, Primrose

C: And ghosts

R: Destory

C: The ghosts

R: the precious buildings

C: spoke to me

R: and equipment

C: frozen

R: Do this for

C: In a moment

R: the women and children

C: between sweet life

R: that they massacred

C: and agonizing death

R: at Ludlow

C: They longed for what they lost

R: Let’s see if the militia will gun us down

C: And yearned to tell their story

R: We are armed

C: Before they are blown away

R: Onwards my friends

C: Away into the unknown

R: Onwards!

All: Remember Ludlow

Remember Ludlow

Remember Ludlow.

A hand rises from the ashes.

"History"

Between 1884 and 1912 1,708 miners killed in Colorado mines, the highest rate in the nation. 1903 the United Mine Workers of America lead a strike in the Northern Colorado coal fields. 1908, strike starts in the northern Colorado coal fields, these strikers marched to southern Colorado to try and get the southern miners to strike and join the union, it fails. September 17,1913, strike in the southern Colorado coal fields starts. Tent colonies set up by the UMWA, the most famous or infamous one is called Ludlow. The winter is one of the coldest, up to this time, to ever happen in Colorado. 90% of miners join the strike. The miners, some not all, were fighting against Industrial Feudalism (the company controlled everything, miners charged for all things that they need to live, they are even payed in company script, a type of company money, which they can only use at the company store. They are only allowed to see company approved doctors and their children can only attend company schools.) Also need to remember that children, usually boys, as young as 11 and 12 would go to work in the mines.

Rally for Revenge "Remember Ludlow"

I think this act would follow nicely after the "Chavez's Hole" act.
The bodies in the hole have been discovered, in the background Wagner's "Siegfried's Death" is playing (8 plus mins. of music) people are wondering around the remains of Ludlow, some sad and some upset and a few angry. After a few mins. of wondering around and talking with others one miner stops by the "hole" looks in and than starts to talk, first in a mild voice and has he continues his voice gets stronger and stronger until he ends yelling
"They have burnt down our home" (arms doing a sweeping gesture) "They have killed our wives and children" (looking at the other survivors) "I say no more........NO MORE!! It is time we took out our anger!! (Start walking around call over the other survivors who have not joined) "They the operators (point off up to Rockefeller's area, everyone look up) now, it is our turn to strike fear into their hearts! It is time to take our revenge! (look around for a "weapon" pick it up and motion for the others to do the same) " Onwards my friends, take up arms, it is time, onwards to Hastings, Tabasco, Delagua, Berwind, Empire, Royal, Green Canon, Primrose. Destroy their precious buildings and equipment. Do this for the women and children that they (again point up to Rockefeller) massacred at Ludlow!! Lets see if the militia will gun us down again now that we are armed, onwards my friends onwards!! Remember Ludlow!! (start walking off) Remember Ludlow!!! Remember Ludlow!!! (and exit lights out maybe).

journal for 9 nov 2010

First off, it was nice to be back after being out sick last week. We were informed that we are to work in groups to develop or expand existing material into 5 min. acts, need to make the material open so that others can flow into each other. We need to keep in mind the 4 aspects when developing these acts
1. Geography
2. Events
3. Outside forces/perspectives
4. Issues/incidents
Each person must develop one 5 min act. We have content and different styles our job is to figure out how to make it flow together. We also need conceive of how to use the space with the acts; up and down and audience. How do we incorporate the "King Coal" speech?
The start of the play of so far was to have Ryan and myself walking around to the "workers" (who are working at their jobs, noise is going on) we start saying to these workers the demands of the strike:
1. Dead Work Pay
2. Laws Enforced
3. Workers Elect Own Weigh men
4. 8 Hour Day
5. Choose Our Lives
6. Wages Increased
7. Trade Anywhere
8. Union
From this we move into the "Company Spy" typing up what he saw and than into "The Death Special" which moves into George's monologue and than into the reading of the names of the dead.
I liked how this was developing, with a little more practice I think it would be a good starting point.