Author: Emily Cooksey

After some deliberation, we have now completed a scene breakdown that the entire company is happy with and have been allocated individual scenes to write for the 9^th of March, after which we will edit the script as a team to ensure character voices are consistent and scenes flow correctly from one to the next.

Scene One – Chris O’Donoghue

Scene Two – Lauren Towell

Scene Three – Chris O’Donoghue

Scene Four – Zach Begg

Scene Five – Lauren Towell

Scene Six – Chris Petit

Scene Seven – Emily Cooksey

Scene Eight – Zach Begg and Emily Cooksey

Scene Nine – Chris Petit

The method we have chosen to write the script should yield efficient results as we will hopefully be able to produce a full script in a week, however, we are anticipating further work on the script will be required. We hope to have a finalised script by the 23^rd of March.

Now that our roles have been allocated I feel we are able to make more progress as a company. As Stage Manager I scheduled our first production team meeting for earlier in this week. This gave us the opportunity to begin considering our rehearsal schedule and important deadlines, such as the production of marketing materials and our script. We have decided to aim to have some rough designs for potential logos by Thursday next week and have also distributed Code of Conduct contracts to be signed by every member of the company. In regards to our rehearsal schedule, unfortunately we have not been able to produce a full schedule as most of the company members have not yet been informed of their tech/assessment days for other modules. We have also finalised the script writing team, which will be led by Zach, in preparation to begin writing next week.

This week Zach Begg joined our group and we began to discuss the roles which needed to be undertaken by members of the company. We evaluated our strengths and weaknesses and with consideration of peoples past experience, decided the roles would be divided as follows:

• Zach Begg – Co-producer/ Assistant Director.
• Rebecca Bierton – Choreographer/ Health and Safety Officer
• Emily Cooksey – Stage Manager
• Chloe Harrison – Director
• Chris O’Donoghue – Lighting Designer
• Chris Petit – Marketing Director
• Emma Rewse – Costume Designer
• Lauren Towell – Set Designer
• Charlie Watts – Co-producer/ Sound Designer
• Laura Welberry – Hair and Make-up Artist

Having worked as an Assistant Stage Manager for a promenade performance in the past, it was decided I was most suited to the role. Due to the significant workload the falls onto the stage managers shoulders, I will not be taking on a performance role alongside my backstage role.

The first week of this process has been very experimental, as a company we began by discussing what we wanted to achieve and the style of work we wanted to create. We explored issues that company members were passionate about or affected by, in order to find our common ground. We have decided that we want to create theatre that is accessible and relatable for young adults (16-25 years old), which is both entertaining and inspiring. Our current concept is that of a young postgraduate starting out in a career in teaching, during the play he/she will encounter struggling/difficult GCSE students and learn to balance their work and personal life. We feel this is a strong concept as it allows us to reach out to a number of people in our target audience range and has potential to be relevant to students from GCSE age upwards, as well as postgraduates and professionals. We have decided to write our own script as a number of people in our company have script writing experience.