And So It Begins…
“Devised work may begin and end without a written text. It may be inspired by a written text and contain pieces of the original text in the work. It comes from dreams, obsessions, rants, photographs, smells – well, you get the picture. It comes from everywhere and anywhere that creates inspiration. Simply put, devised theatre begins with an idea and then the creators start to investigate the best form to bring that idea to performance.” (Carr, 8)
As a collaborative piece of devised performance this means that my roles of Assistant Director, Assistant Stage Manager are very fluid. This allows me to have more creative input and work closely not only with the performers but also with the technical production aim of the show as well helping to translate our creative ideas on to the stage. I work as not only a second-eye for the director, running extra rehearsals, initial blocking and line-learning workshops for the cast but I also am on hand to organise rehearsals, take notes of blocking, oversee lighting, sound and video cue sheets, help with the stage managers script and organise set coming on and off stage in order to help create the directors overall vision.
When it came to deciding how we wanted to create the show we decided to take advice from Goat Island as our “work is developed collaboratively” (Goat Island, 2000). This meant that the major decisions about plot and subject matter would have to be agreed on as a group. We wanted everyone in the the theatre company to be passionate about the subject to create the best performance we could. The main focal point of our ideas was around political issues as our audience are just able to vote in elections and our political climate is always changing. Politics also effects our everyday.
The other main focal point was looking at real life stories, potentially using verbatim to tell the stories. Diving into issues such as homelessness, illness, leaving university, death of a loved one, issues which are very present in today’s climate. However, it was also at this stage that we decided we wanted to do more of a comedy than a drama. We want to provide escapism and a light-hearted show that our audience can walk away from feeling reassured.
The video featured below is one example of a real- life story we looked at potentially using. LaLa is an elderly gentleman in America who has devoted his life to maintaining his wife’s memory. He created a a garden of umbrella’s and a room of photo’s. His enthusiasm inspired a band called Mutemath to make their music video about him, along with the music video they also created a few back-story videos to tell the world about LaLa and Louise. Below is the official music video, however there is more content on LaLa available on Mutemath’s YouTube page.
(Mutemath, 2016)
Audience, Gatecrash and Technology
In order to narrow down an idea and find out more about our target audience we decided to go and ask a few people in our target audience as to what they want to see in a theatre show.
From the beginning of the process it has been clear that we have wanted to produce theatre which is relatable to a target audience of 16-25. We want to create theatre which can be a form of escapism but also relevant at tackling issues that our age target audience will face at some point over the next few years. We arranged to have a chat with Toby Ealdon of Zest Theatre in order to explore how they approached relevant issues, where they get ideas from and how they engage their audience. As Zest have a similar target audience we wanted to see how to achieve engaging our audience successfully without becoming too similar to Zest as a company. In particular, looking at their 2016 Gatecrash tour:
(zesttheatre, 2015)
Gatecrash explores relevant issues for Zest Theatre target audience in an interactive way. In particular, the audience where headphones and tune in to certain areas of the stage in order to hear what is happening. This kept the audience engaged and encouraged us as a company to explore ways of incorporating relevant media such as Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter into our show.
During a production meeting, we were discussing the option of having live media such as a Twitter or Snapchat that the audience could send content into. However, due to the nature and unreliability of technology we decided that this currently would not be a viable option as there would be too many technical risks. However, after more practice and a few experiments with technology we may be able to incorporate a live stream into the performance. We may also be able to adapt the show to incorporate social media into the decisions of the show. This would make the show unpredictable and provide a challenge for the cast, however, with rehearsal it may work.
After managing to have a brief talk with Toby Ealdon, he told me that Zest mainly decide their content by either being commissioned or a member of the company having a creative idea that they want to tackle. In terms of an issue he recommended not getting caught up in ‘issues’ unless the company want to be school and Theatre in Education focussed. He suggested just to make art. Zest are currently developing a show on World War 1 and the moment, it’s topical but has no particular issue which needs tackling. He also recommended that we have a local instead of a national focus purely for funding purposes and then explore further afield.
After exploring further into Arts Council funding and taking on Toby’s advice, including our usage of technology and social media to engage our audience we could apply to get Arts Council England Funding from the Creative Media and Digital activity, and GFTA, due to our involvement with social media. We could increase our chances at getting a grant if we further developed our use of digital art as the Arts Council “wish to support new forms of creativity; emerging arts practice and artforms which embrace digital technologies and push the boundaries of traditional artforms.” (Arts Council England, 2016) However, we could also apply to other grants such as the Public Engagement grant.
Final Ideas and Last Minute Characters
After we finalised an idea of a coming of age tale of a Newly Qualified Teacher’s first job we decided to have major plot points throughout the show and try to improvise around them. This however, did not work to the advantages of our cast and so we therefore decided to write a full script instead of improvising the show. This meant that we could guide the plot throughout and rehearse allowing the actors to ad-lib where they feel would be necessary for their characters.
Having a full and casted script we began the rehearsal process. Myself and the Director sat down to discuss the overall vision and how the set and scenes should be blocked and set out. I started by initially blocking the first two scenes roughly, originally allowing the actors to improvise the text themselves and showing their portrayal’s of the characters. Creating almost stock character’s which can be identifiable in any work place helps to make it relatable to the audience. From John Smith’s new staff member, unsure of what to do and where he fits in, in an established hierarchy, to an experienced and overbearing manager to the clingy girlfriend who lives her life through her boyfriend, making it almost similar to Commedia Del’Arte.
My role as an actor was originally only as an extra, however due to a last minute casting change a week before the show I challenged with learning a role in a week and having a bigger part in the show. This included learning lines, character analysis, units and objectives, blocking and working with costume in order to create her on stage.
I was cast as Sarah Chandler in Ungraded towards the end of the rehearsal process. This meant that I have had to get understand her very quickly. In order to fully portray a character, you must “strive towards ‘being’ your character not ‘playing’ your character” in order to create a believable and realistic character (Cannon, 2012, 66). This has meant that I have had to imagine the Sarah’s back story and create a character profile.
Shortened Character Profile:
Sarah Chandler
36-years-old
Music teacher
Single
However, she is very fragile and after a traumatic teaching experience 5 years ago she has been very nervous. She is always either crying or just pulling herself together, she never has a happy medium except when she is drinking alcohol. When she is drinking she becomes more confident and forgets about the experience of her past. This makes her less nervous and very carefree. She gets upset with herself because she believes that she is not making a difference to the children. She doesn’t believe she is helping or inspiring them in any way. Unfortunately, this makes her an easy target for the students and pushes her close to leaving the school.
After putting together, a full character profile I broke my script into units and objectives in order to portray what my character is thinking on stage. Portraying different aspects of my character from her constant nervousness and yet she is trying to reassure John, to pulling herself together when her boss is around. Yet, she also had this extra side of her when she drinks that helps her to let go and ignore her paranoia.
Count Down
In the day coming up to the performance, we have been rehearsing and rehearsing different aspects of the show in which we have felt needed work. I have been running through my blocking with the director and going over lines. During scenes that I have not been performing in we have been tweeking certain scenes, increasing energy and practising with the technical aspects of the show. During the Technical Rehearsal we had a few issues with where all the lighting and sound was going, however, once we went through the script, myself and the stage manager managed to sort the cue script out and have a show. We also found out that a few of our video were not entirely visible on stage. However, thankfully we managed to have time to re-record them in a lighter way. If we were to create another show, we now would record the video in a lighter environment. I would make sure all the technical aspects of the show were completely ready before the technical rehearsal on the development of the next show.
Final Statement
The day of the performance went well with a get in and various rehearsals and dress runs. We organised cast bringing set on and off stage, doing various runs of scene changes and making them as swift as we can. By adding music over the top of the scene changes we also managed to make the scene changes more engaging for the audience as we are entertaining at least one sense rather than having the audience sat in the dark and in silence.
The performance went far better than I could have imagined. We got great feedback from the audience and it technically went without a hitch. Whilst running around backstage everyone had a high energy and cast really showed how much they had got to know their characters. Parts of the performance includes a little bit of improvisation on the casts part, therefore it was imperitive that we knew our character inside and out. This really showed when the performance came.
Hopefully we will get to perform it again and yet we would continue to develop it. Maybe including live social media as a way to create an audience interaction or developing more humour into some of the more serious aspects of the show. It was a pleasure working with Railcard and I can’t wait until our next show.
Works Cited:
Arts Council England (2016) Creative media and digital activity, and Grants for the Arts. [online] England: A.C.E. Available from http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/information-sheets?search_api_views_fulltext=&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&page=1 [Accessed 3 March 2016]
Cannon, D. (2012) In-depth acting. London: Oberon Books.
Carr, T.W. (2015) Devised Theatre. Southern Theatre, 56(2)6-15
Goat Island (2000) Letter to a Young Practitioner. [online] Chicago: Goat Island. Available from http://www.goatislandperformance.org/writing_L2YP.htm [Accessed 27 January 2016]
Mutemath (2016) MUTEMATH- Monument Official Music Video [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6i6TBT4kfg [Accessed 4 February 2016]
Zesttheatre (2015) Gatecrash- 2016 Tour [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-mnpE_WjrA [Accessed 3 March 2016]
Leave a comment