Creating a Performance
Railcard Theatre was born on the ideals of creating relatable theatre for younger people. We want to help make theatre accessible and ‘cool’ for 16-25 year olds. It was our choice in target audience that gave us our name, Railcard Theatre, inspired by the railcard that 16-25 year olds can apply for. The first thing we did as a group was decide who would perform and who would take a larger backstage role in the company. I choose to focus on a role as a performer, while also helping with props and set backstage.
The first step in creating our performance was exploration. We knew that we wanted to create a piece that would be relatable to our entire audience and so wanted to explore what aspects of that time of life would impact our audience directly. As university students ourselves we briefly considered creating a piece that would reflect the feeling of leaving university and being let out into the big wide world, which could also be relatable to students leaving GCSE years and A-Levels. However we thought that maybe focusing on leaving university would be too focused and alienate the rest of our target audience, and that trying to involve all three educational levels would be trying to fit in too much. A second idea we had was to explore losing someone at a young age. This performance would centre on a group of university students who had lost a friend, and would show the audience their different reactions depending on their relationship to the deceased. That idea was eventually scrapped and replaced with what would eventually become Ungraded.
Before Ungraded became a concept we first conducted some individual research. Because our last two ideas didn’t feel quite right we thought it would be best to chat to some of our target audience and see what they wanted to see on stage. I interviewed my younger sister, Helena Towell, who is 15 and only just on the edge of our target audience. During this interview she communicated to me that young people feel “like older generations are being prejudice towards them for their age. [They are] being told they are young and don’t understand” (Towell, 2016). Often the younger generation are stereotyped as being stuck to their phones, always staring at a screen, and having no respect. As such I wanted to make sure this issue was addressed in our performance. Another specific issue she flagged up was her impending exams, that she didn’t know what she wanted to do in the future, with her A-Level subjects and eventually getting a job, and that she felt like she had to live up to society’s expectations regarding exam results and social situations.
Once we had conducted all our interviews we came back together as a group to report our findings. Generally we found that the issue of not knowing what to do in the future, of going into a new environment (such as a new job, new school situation), and the feeling of not fitting in. From this research we decided to focus on a new teacher, freshly graduated, entering into a new job at a school. Once we had a basic idea of what the show would focus on we turned to what style the show would take. From the interview with my sister I had found out that young people liked theatre that was “comedy with a hint of drama or serious with funny moments, and subtle references to pop culture” (Towell, 2016). This was the angle we decided to go with our show, we wanted to make our audience laugh but also make them feel for our characters. To help them relate we included social media apps that our audience would use on a daily basis, such as Snapchat and Twitter.
Production Roles
During initial discussions of production roles I took on the role of props, however set would later be added to my responsibilities and I would help with writing and marketing. My first responsibility, once we had the bare bones of our script, was to design our set. This was one of the most important roles I took on as the set “provides a background for the play. It establishes a sense of time and place” (Bailey, 2010). I did this scene by scene, creating rough drafts of what it would look like and what set pieces were needed. Early on in the process it was decided that our staff room would remain onstage throughout the performance, as it was our largest set and was used the most often. The staff room was on a collection of rostrums which were slightly raised. Originally it was planned that they would stay in the middle of the stage, with the left and right of the rostrums free. However once we were allowed onto the stage during our tech rehearsal it was changed so the rostrums would cover the entire back of the stage, to allow more room for our set pieces. The staff room required two sofas and a kitchen counter. The latter of which proved to be difficult to find, as we had originally hoped to split the cost of one with a fellow theatre company however the counter they were planning on buying did not fit our requirements. In the end we bought an old computer desk from a local charity and dressed it up to look like a kitchen counter. This included installing a curtain over the gap in the desk where the keyboard would usually go so it would have a 50s kitchen feel to it, and added props like a kettle, mugs, and tins that hold coffee, sugar, and tea bags.
Our production consisted of three extra sets, originally four. Our second most used was a classroom, for which we had a desk and desk chair which remained on stage throughout the show, and desks and chairs for students that would be brought on and off depending on when they were needed. This set would have originally doubled up as the headmaster’s office, with a whiteboard depicting which room the scene was taking place in through notices. However later in the process the scenes which required the use of a headmaster’s office were moved to the staff room, removing the need for that set. The last two were only required for one scene each. Firstly we had one set with portrayed two different rooms. This was for a scene which had the two couples in the play having conversations in their homes which overlapped, as such we needed to be clear they were in their own living rooms. To do this we had one couple on the left side of the stage and the other on the right. On the right side of the stage we had two arm chairs and a TV remote and on the right we had a sofa and coffee table, with a beer and some nail polish placed on the table. Through the staging we wanted to show the difference in age of the couples, with the couple on the right being older and the couple on the left younger. The set for this scene was not stationary as with the other two, the set pieces were moved during a blackout either side of the scene. This was the same as our last set, a bar table and two bar stools for a scene set in a bar. It was only a simple set, with wine glasses and shot glasses used as props during the scene to help convey the setting, but worked within the context of the show.
As part of both my props and set duties I created a document where I could keep track of what items were coming on from each side of the stage which I could refer back to. As props master I was in charge of “hand props, set props (including furniture), practical effects, and set dressing” (Hart, 2013). For props most items were provided by members of our company, with only a few items having to be outsourced. As our show was more naturalistic we only required props that would be necessary for everyday life, such as mugs, bags, and mobile phones. To help the cast keep track of their props, as well as keep everything organised in the right place, I created two props tables on either side of the stage. Props would be placed on the tables that corresponded to which side of the stage they would be originally brought on, and each table had a list of which props should be on the table that the cast could use to crosscheck.
Aside from my main role as the prop and set designer I also helped to write the script and market the show. For writing the script we split the job between five members of the company which each wrote one or two scenes. I personally wrote scene 2, which was a staffroom scene which introduced some key characters, and scene 5, which was an argument scene between two characters that is interrupted by another character. For marketing I had a very minimal role helping run the company Instagram account.
Getting to Know Jacqueline Hughes
In the final performance, named Ungraded, I played the part of Jacqueline Hughes, the wife of Steven Hughes who is the head teacher of the school. The character was an interesting one to play and certainly not one I had played before. Originally she was intended to have somewhat of an ego and sense of self-importance, believing herself to be the headmaster of the school, in a sense, through association. However during the creative process her character evolved into somewhat of a motherly role. She comes across as overbearing but well-meaning, which helps the audience to feel for her when she ultimately gets betrayed by her husband. This essence of her is shown strongly in the script, with lines such as “I like John, that girlfriend of his sure is a barrel of fun” (Begg et al, 2016) and “I just wanted to put a smile on that handsome face of yours” (Begg et al 2016) revealing the friendly and thoughtful aspect of the character. I thoroughly enjoyed getting stuck into her personal journey, which saw her go from a stay at home mother with a kind heart to a woman scorned. The latter of which was challenging, as her final scene on stage demanded a rollercoaster of emotions, from happy, to shocked and upset, to angry. Though it was challenging and, at time, exhausting it was a role I gladly sunk my teeth into and I enjoyed every second of getting to know exactly who Jackie was and what made her tick.
Show Day
On show day my responsibilities were making sure the set was dressed correctly and looked as we had planned, as well as making sure all props were where they were supposed to be at the start of the show and collected at the end. Though we had a slight hiccup with one of our set pieces, which at been stored at a member of our company’s house and was too big to be moved in the car, the majority of my responsibilities ran to plan. Aside from that one item of set everything we needed we present on the day and the whole group pulled together to move things from storage to where it needed to be on stage. Once the set was dressed my attention turned to props. I gathered together everything brought in by the company, and items such as food and drink that had been bought on the day, and made sure they were on the correct props tables and everyone knew where their props where. One thing I would have done better in this aspect was the clean up afterwards, making sure that everyone knew who needed to take home what regarding props and where things needed to be put back. Overall I was extremely happy with how the props and set looked!
The actual performance itself I felt ran smoothly and was performed brilliantly from all involved! From the moment I heard the first laugh from the audience I knew we had resonated with them, and that was only cemented in our penultimate scene where I, as Jackie, slapped Steven and was greeted with shocked gasps from our audience. Feedback from both our peers and tutors in the audience confirmed that we have successfully conveyed the message we had hoped, and that the characters being portrayed on stage were relatable and represented people from everyday life.
Works Cited
Bailey, D. (2010) Scenery and Set Design. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.
Begg, Z., Cooksey, E., O’Donoghue, C., Petit, C., Towell, L. (2016) Ungraded. [performance] Zach Begg (dir.) Lincoln: Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, 24 May.
Crowe, P. (2016) Ungraded. Available from https://www.flickr.com/photos/61839232@N02/sets/72157666303824684/with/26614522814/ [Accessed 25th May 2015].
Hart, E. (2013) The Prop Building Guidebook: For Theatre, Film, and TV. Oxon: Focal Press.
Towell, H. (2016) Interview about personal theatre preferences. [Interview] Interviewed by Lauren Towell. 12 February.
Towell, L. (2016a) Original Set Design. [image].
Towell, L. (2016b) Final Set. [image].
Towell, L. (2016b) Set List. [image].
Towell, L. (2016c) Props List. [image].