Re: purim shpiels

[Janice Steirn <jsteirn...>]

Wow.  I've had a lot of requests for my 60s-70s music Purim spiel.  I'm
sending it as an attachment, but if anyone has trouble accessing it, let me
know and I'll send a hard copy.  Actually, I've never sent an attachment (I
just learned how to do it today) so chances are pretty good that I'll screw
it up on this end.  Let me know if there are any problems receiving it.

When I write spiels, I do so knowing that I'll be the "director", so I don't
have a lot of details in the stage directions.  I've always been there to
tell the cast where to go and what to do.  If anyone on cast has trouble
figuring out my parodies, I just sing it for them, or make them a tape.  A
twelve year old girl was playing Vashti in this speil and she had to sing a
Helen Reddy parody. She had never heard of Helen Reddy (my heart was
breaking), but, with a tape she did fine.

The parodies are just snippets, mostly because I have a shy congregation and
I have trouble getting them to sing entire songs.  They seem ok with belting
out a few lines, getting a laugh and then moving on to another scene.  If
anyone would like any of these expanded to a full song, I'd be willing to do
it.  Writing the parodies is my favorite part of the spiels.

Since I don't have a lot of stage directions, let me mention a couple of
things. Our narrators were standing on either side of the bima (our
"stage").  There was no way for us to focus audience attention on them,
except for them to start speaking.  But, if you have a real stage, you could
really do a lot with spotlights.

Also, what few stage directions there are are included in parentheses in the
play.

OK, I'm rambling because I'm nervous about sending this out.  My
congregation liked it, so I'm hoping other people like it too.  We had a
great time doing this one.  If anyone likes it well enough to want others
I've written, stroke my ego and let me know.

Janice

Purim.ply
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Dr. Janice N. Steirn
Department of Psychology
P.O. Box 8041
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, GA 30460
(912) 681-5505
Internet:  JSteirn (at) GaSou(dot)edu