It's Opening Night For Your Play!!!
A Review of Opening Night
William T. Yates
All right, places everyone! Quiet on the set! Curtain!
To the sound of generous applause from an enthusiastic audience, the curtain rises on the opening night of your play. You are the playwright, producer, director, propman, stage manager, dialog coach, and composer of the incidental music. Developed in cooperation with The Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis, MN, MECC's Opening Night is designed for grades 3-12 (ages 8-16).
In an impressive package, Opening Night provides the would-be playwright/director with 22 categories of scenes, each with several variations; props galore; 48 characters who can not only be placed on the stage, but turned, moved, and cued to go through a variety of actions; 4 types of lighting with multiple effects; a wide range of sound effects; and, a variety of music and musical effects. The characters speak the dialog you write and their voices can be varied in volume, pitch, and speed of delivery. And, of course, you can save your play for a long run at your local computer!
Read the help files carefully first: this is not a simple program, but it is straightforward and once you understand the procedures, it's really pretty easy - and fun! There is a timer and 'recorder' with which you record and synchronize all the actions of your play. The voices are good; as with any type-to-voice software, just remember to spell out phonetically any word that does not seem to be correctly pronounced. The graphics and sound are very good.
I ran Opening Night on a Mac Centris 650 with System 7.5.1, 12MB RAM, Apple 14" display, and Apple CD-300i CD-ROM. I use Conflict Catcher to set up a limited set of extensions to use with CD-ROMs. This reduces chances for conflicts with the myriad goodies I run normally. I had no problems at all with the program.
An additional CD-ROM came with the package: "Opening Night - Behind the Scenes". This disk contains QuickTime movies giving short guided tours of the Stage, Scene Shop, Props Shop, and the Costume Shop; Interviews with 9 different members of the Children's Theatre, from the Sound Technician to the Executive Producer. These interviews explore the scope of their jobs and how they work in the Theatre. Opening Night can be used singly or in a classroom environment. Site licenses and lab packs are available. In summary, I enthusiastically recommend Opening Night! This is an imaginative use of technology to further interest in the theater.
School House Scorecard
| Product: |
Opening Night |
| Company: |
MECC
|
| Cost: |
$48.00 |
System Requirements:
Windows:
486 or higher; Windows 31. or 95; 8 MB RAM;
5 MB hard disk space; 256-color SVGA display;
Windows-compatible mouse; 2x or faster CD-ROM;
Windows-compatible sound card; printer optional.
Macintosh:
68030, 68040, or PowerPC; System 7.1 or higher;
8 MB RAM; 5 MB hard disk space;
640x480, 256 color display (13" or larger);
2x or faster speed CD-ROM; printer optional.
Breakdown:
Ease of Use 4
Learning Value 5
Entertainment Value 5
Graphics 5
Sound 5
Overall Score:
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