DK+Extremities

1. If you had to take credit for having designed one of these posters, write a defense for your work and argue how it would attract an audience to the play and help that audience to understand what kind of play they are likely to see. Be sure to refer to the number of the poster as well as its content when making your argument.

Personally, I don’t really like any of these posters for advertising the play. Either they are appealing but do nothing whatsoever to indicate the subject matter and mature content of the play, such as #5 and #7, or they do warn audiences what they might be signing themselves up for but are not attractive or engaging (see posters 3, 4, and 6). I was stuck between picking poster 7, which I think is the most visually interesting, and poster 1, which really gives the best idea of the play’s content. However, I ultimately felt that, although poster 7 does not explicitly say “Warning: Mature Content, Viewer Discretion Advised” as some of the others do, nor does it give any indication of the sensitive issues it touches on, the overall feeling projected by the poster should give a viewer at least some idea that this play will not be a light-hearted, romantic date-night play. The color scheme is stark, dark, and somewhat foreboding, and the ominous shadow of the fireplace is reminiscent of the pathway descending into hell. In contrast, poster #1 is really somewhat boring, with its monochromatic color scheme and hand-made, pieced-together look. Although poster #1 does a better job of actually advertising the showings of the play, listing the times of each show as well as a phone number to order tickets, none of which are done on poster #7, the impact of the text on poster #1 is lessened because the entire poster is covered in text; the beneficial additional information is obscured and lost in the sea of words covering the poster. They may as well not even be there at all. In contrast, the text that is present on poster #7 is emphasized by its minimalization and correspondingly larger size. The structure and layout of poster 7’s elements also lead the eye naturally, from the fireplace, down to the title, down to the dates and additional information. On some of the other posters, but on poster 1 especially, there is no clear path for the eye to take. This visual confusion and lack of direction detracts from the message the posters are trying to communicate. Poster 7, on the other hand, is very linear and clear. For these reasons, I would take credit for poster 7. However, I would have put at least a small warning about the mature content the play contains somewhere at the bottom of the poster, possibly to the left of the theater’s information.

2. Discuss some of the other ways you could use to help educate the audience about the work, above and beyond the performance of the play?

As for going beyond the play to educate the audience about Mastrosimone’s work, the most immediate way I can think of would be to hold a kind of open discussion with the people involved in the production, the actors and director and such, after some of the productions and invite the audience (or the general public as a whole) to attend. The people could discuss the message of the play and the actors could share their feelings and responses to playing the roles in the play, which I imagine would be very emotionally taxing. Such an open discussion would help get thought about the issues Extremities deals with out in the open and in the focus of people’s thoughts. Additionally, it might have the effect of drawing in people who would not have otherwise attended a performance of such a play, which would increase revenues for the theater.