To The Moon and Back: Cultural Consequences of George Melies’ Trip to the Moon (1902)

My 2nd undergraduate thesis focused on creating and directing a devised adaptation of the short film "A Trip to The Moon" alongside two other performers. This project was also the subject of my film independent study investigating 'devised documentary.'

Abstract.
Georges Méliès’ 1902 film Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) has endured as a fascination of popular culture and media. Considered one of the first narrative films, science fiction films, and to apply several innovative editing techniques, the film is a technical marvel for its time that contemporary academics consider a simple fairy film. The film’s academic or artistic merit is less relevant to this project; the focus is on audience reactions, the films content, and the film’s legacy. This project deconstructed and developed Méliès’ film into a work of devised theatre that investigates, converses with, and intervenes in the original work. The goal is not to exactly replicate the film or simply adapt it for the stage, but to understand what the film and its creator are saying and craft a response using some of the same aesthetic and contextual language. What does the film articulate now, two-hundred years after its release? Combining biographical, autobiographical, historical, and generic elements, the resulting performance piece explores questions of identity, exploration, memory, the medium of film itself and our relationship to it.