“我一直在寻找好的剧本，于是决定不走寻常路，看看是否有可以改编的免费剧本,托尼·维兹纳说, a professor in 欧文康考迪亚大学’s theatre department.
His search for Victorian adventures turned up mostly books about soldiers and daredevils. Then he came across Ten Days in a Madhouse, 这本书是为约瑟夫·普利策的《正规博彩网站排名亚洲体育博彩平台》连载的，然后在1887年出版成书. 布莱(真名:伊丽莎白·科克伦)是一位有抱负的记者，她接受了一位编辑的挑战，让自己被宣布为疯子，这样她就可以进入纽约市布莱克威尔岛(现在的罗斯福岛)的一家精神病院，写下她所看到的一切. Her articles about abuse in the asylum made her a celebrity, 并使纽约市每年多拨出100万美元用于照顾精神病患者.
欧文康考迪亚大学 alumnus Katie Foggiano ’15, now with the First Floor Theater in Chicago, was recruited early on to serve as a dramaturg, helping Vezner imagine and create a world true to the script in its dialogue, 设置和行为.
“因为我们是从一本书开始的, 不是脚本, we had to figure out what needed to be fictionalized and what should stay true,福吉亚诺说. “我们举办了研讨会。. Vezner教授会写大量的文章，我会介绍各种精神障碍的背景和一些治疗的历史, and we would improvise some scenes.”
Foggiano says Madhouse was the first big project she was asked to dramaturg.
“It was a great honor to be given the experience,” she says. Though she graduated before it was produced, her work on the play helped launch her into a full-time career in theaters in San Diego, Chicago and Louisville where she has helped to develop 35 new plays in casting, 作为副导演, 作为制作人.
“韦兹有一种伟大的本领，能激励人们去钻研他们所热爱的东西,福吉亚诺说.
在那些最初的研讨会之后, 改编《博彩平台网址大全》的过程放慢了，因为维兹纳在思考情节和表现上的困难. When students caught wind of the project, however, they always expressed excitement. Theater major Kyleigh Hoye ’18 assisted Vezner with the script as part of an internship, 并在剧中表演.
“The second he told me about the story of this woman, I read the entire book and realized it was an important story that should be told,霍伊说。.
她和其他学生向维兹纳施压，要求他在毕业前完成并展示这部剧, 维兹纳的同事们鼓励他在剧本完成之前宣布，这部剧将成为2017-18年剧院季的一部分.
“设定最后期限是一件好事，可以让剧本走出研究和研讨会阶段,维兹纳说.
障碍仍然. To begin with, what did mental illness inside that asylum look and sound like? How could they depict it accurately?
霍耶的任务是与康考迪亚大学欧文分校护理系的伊丽莎白·维加教授会面，以深入了解角色可能患有的精神障碍, and how that would manifest on stage, 身体和听觉.
“I asked questions like, ’What does low-level schizophrenia look like versus high-level? Or a combination of schizophrenia and paranoia? 这将如何体现??’”Hoye说. She then made cards for each actress telling her how to manifest that disorder.
“If somebody’s hearing voices, what are they hearing? 它是从哪里来的? What images are coming into their head?维兹纳说. “Once you give young people a framework to work in, their imaginations run wild. They created a whole culture, a whole new environment inside our asylum. They felt a real sense of ownership in getting their patients’ ailments right.”
Hoye说，创造这种环境的一部分包括“非常不规则”的第一次排练. Vezner designated five students to play nurses, and the rest were asylum patients. 他指示病人:“尽你所能不要被带到房间的另一边. Go.”
结果是“我们不得不放下我们的社会规范，变得非常原始，尽我们所能不被带到另一边,霍伊说。. “一开始感觉很奇怪，但我们必须意识到，在这个节目中，你不能有自我意识. 打破了僵局.”
The next challenge was to tactfully depict uglier aspects of asylum life, 特别是一些相当于身体虐待和性虐待的待遇.
We did a ton of research on how female mental patients were treated in that day.
维兹纳说:“我们对当时女性精神病人的治疗情况做了大量研究。. “That’s what most students’ time was spent on, to find out what treatment was like, using sources outside of Nellie’s book.”
他们了解到，在19世纪，人们认为女性在子宫内积聚液体时会变得歇斯底里. So-called treatments ranged from the undignified to the traumatizing. 如何描述这些?
“That was one of the really big decisions: how to portray the sexual assault scenes, 原因显而易见,霍伊说。. “My thought was we could do it very poetically so it wouldn’t be gratuitous. 但维兹纳教授说了一些重要的话:“我们不能粉饰这一点，假装它很有诗意。. But we also can’t make it gratuitous.’”
“That was my main worry,维兹纳说. “如果我们遇到了一个问题，我们不能完整地讲述这个故事，同时还能保护我们的学生不感到妥协, 我们遇到了麻烦.”
他们决定在幕布后以剪影的形式呈现治疗过程，同时由扮演护士的女演员向观众介绍治疗方法.
Because of the heaviness of some of the material, Vezner found it helpful to end rehearsals with a technique called emotional cool-down, 为了“消除任何黑暗，这样学生们就可以回到正常的生活中，而不用带着这些东西。.” It involved shaking out their arms and legs, 深度同步呼吸, 俯卧和集体祈祷.
“That’s what makes Concordia the perfect place to do this,维兹纳说. “这不仅仅是摆脱它，呼吸，而是每个人都可以一起祈祷，互相支持.
That spiritual element adds a level of support that’s more significant.”
随着开幕之夜的临近，学生们继续深入参与戏剧的创作.
“There were times when I would crowdsource their input and ask, ’What should happen from your character’s point of view?’”维兹纳说. “They saw what it’s like when the script can be fluid. 你可以插队或换队. It was the first time many of them had ever worked in a situation like this, 而不是我们从出版社得到的剧本，因为合同上说你不能修改文本，所以我们认为剧本是神圣的.”
这个故事展示了布莱试图营救她在精神病院结识的囚犯时的内心冲突, 困难的是, 真实的结果. 从历史上看, after Bly’s newspaper articles came out, 一项大陪审团的调查显示，她书中的许多女性已经不在那里，虐待行为已经被清理干净. Some believed the asylum made quick changes to avoid punishment, and that some of Bly’s friends were hidden or even killed.
“一边做一个为精神病治疗筹集了100万美元的英雄，一边把你关心的人藏起来, 要么被杀，要么被运走, you know you’re responsible because you exposed it in the newspaper,维兹纳说.
这出戏的节目单向观众详细说明了哪些部分是虚构的，哪些是历史事实.
“我们希望观众没有理由怀疑这个故事是编造的，或者我们让情况变得更糟,霍伊说。. “这让它更可信.”
The cast included twenty women and four men. 布莱的报告给霍耶的主要教训是，“很多人并没有主动去伤害别人, but were by-standing and turning blind eyes. 重要的是要看这些戏剧，并付出额外的努力来认识到我们必须做正确的事情，而不是在邪恶的事情发生时袖手旁观.”
“这是一个挑战吗? Oh yeah, a huge challenge,福吉亚诺说. “[But] I enjoyed watching how it all developed. 当韦兹宣布他将在今年制作这部戏剧时，场面非常激动人心. To see the finished product is truly a gift.”
Each show ended with a question-andanswer session with the audience. Hoye最喜欢的回应来自一个女孩，她说:“谢谢你做了一个关于真实事物的戏剧.”
Vezner is proud of the student input that brought Madhouse to life.
“The students had a lot of impact on it,” he says. “给 me perspective during the research period was invaluable. 我在排练中从他们身上学到了很多东西，并根据自己的所见所闻进行了调整. There’s a lot of their personalities in these characters now.”
They may try another original in the future, 维兹纳希望它能由他在康考迪亚戏剧系的一位同事在学生的帮助下完成.