Use the questions below to spark conversation before, during, and after Caroline, Or Change.
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MUSICALITY
How would you describe the musicality of your life?
What music would you utilize to describe your everyday routine?
TIME PERIOD
Caroline, or Change takes place amongst the backdrop of the civil rights movement. Based on other articles in the Upstage Guide, how do you think this time period will affect the story?
CHANGE
Personally, how do you handle change? What kinds of changes have you gone through in your life? What are different kinds of changes an individual may experience?
MUSICALITY
Discuss how musical conversations might feel like a different kind of reality. What might conversations in this story be like if they weren’t sung? In your opinion, how do sung conversations add to the story?
THEATRICAL ELEMENTS
In what ways do the technical elements in the production (lighting, sound, scenic, etc.) help tell this the story? What do you notice about how all of these elements work together to create the world of the play?
RELATIONSHIPS
Caroline is at the center of many different relationships—with her children (Emmie, Jack, and Joe), with Rose and Stuart, with Noah, and with all of the appliances. How does Noah and Caroline’s relationship make you feel? Why do you feel they have a special bond that might be missing from Emmie and Caroline’s relationship?
TIME PERIOD
The focus of Caroline, or Change is on a very specific area of Louisiana where there was a high Jewish population, many of whom kept a low profile in terms of their opinions of the civil rights movement. (Read more about Jews and the civil rights movement in this article.) What do you notice about the relationship between Caroline and the Gellmans? Where do you see similar power dynamics between groups in New York City today?
HUMAN AGAIN
In many forms of entertainment, voice is often given to animals to give them very human personalities; you can reference the article, “A Singing Washer, Dryer, Bus, and Moon” for more information on anthropomorphism. Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori utilized Caroline’s appliances to give Caroline a way to express her inner thoughts. What makes this way of characterization special to this piece? How do the appliances serve as an extension of Caroline’s character?
METAPHORS
“Nothing ever happened underground/ in Louisiana/ cause they ain’t no underground/ in Louisiana./ There is only/ underwater” says Caroline at the beginning of the musical. “Why does our house have a basement?/ Underground is underwater” Noah questions at the end of the play. How do these two moments make you feel after seeing the course of the story? Why do these two characters have a connection to the “underground?” What other metaphors did you notice throughout the production?