Production Tips for
Home of the Brave

I am using this play for competition. To ensure that scene transitions run smooth and efficient, I built a rolling, carousal set made out of 3 flats, connected easily at the base with plywood floors, on casters. As each scene changed, the set can easily be turned by the actors to show the 3 major "areas" of the play, Jada and Johnelle's house, Marcus and Brady's house, and the School/Park. Additionally, I casted extra students. During the opening scene when the 5 major characters are all talking about where they are from, having to PCS, etc, I opened the show with a table full of house hold items that belong to the houses of Jada/Johnelle and Marcus/Brady. The extra students came on stage during that scene and packed up boxes as if they were PCSing, rolled the set to each kids house and "unpacked" the boxes. Because in the play Ty says he helps families pack, I had Ty help these extra students with the packing. It was all completed efficiently before the scene ended. I also started the show with all of the actors planted in the audience while the house lights were out at the start of the show. I had "Reveille" played on bugle over the sound system as the lights slowly came up and each actor then walked up the stage. It created a very relative expectation as the very first words in the play are "My family is a military family". During the Navy Ball scene, I had the sound of "retreat" played followed by the National Anthem which is often played at military bases to sound the end of the duty day. I had my sound technician randomly pick points during the scene to play the song to force the actors to always be ready to stand at attention and face the flag, regardless of where you are and what you are doing. It got funny at times as the song would start when one of the actors would be in the act of throwing the ball across the stage and the other actor couldn't catch it because they had to be still.