Triple - Voice and the Actor - Blog 4 - 29/06/17

Now that I've optimised my voice through a vocal routine, I've decided to put my more dynamic voice to work and play two very different characters and effectively use my voice to display these differences.

The two characters I've chosen are Lou from Dennis Kelly's "DNA" and Deputy Governor Danforth from Arthur Miller's "The Crucible." It's easy to tell the difference between these characters simply from the difference in plays; DNA was published in 2008 while The Crucible was first performed in 1953. Also DNA is a comedy while The Crucible is a tense serious play.

In order to present these character effectively in voice and other aspects, I needed to research them so I had a better understanding of them. Below is my research:

(Note: Lou is also very sarcastic and can be quite mouthy at times but knows his place when someone reminds him)

Below are the vocal qualities I'll apply to each character:

Danforth: Deep voice, sharp consonants, confident, assertive, strong, superior, slow spoken unless angry, well spoken (great articulation)

Lou: Slightly high voice, softly spoken, sarcastic, often weak, speaks fast when panicked, common (not great articulation).

Single - Site Specific - Blog 15 - 26/06/17

Risk assessment:

Tripping over steps/doorways:

This risk is very likely as there are lips on the doorways and some steps are very disproportionate compared to others. Despite tripping over is usually quite a minor risk in terms of severity, we will put tape down across the steps and doorways to make it clear that they are there.

Event of a fire:
The likelihood of a fire breaking out is relatively low as we're not using anything flammable but in the event of a fire, we would follow the church's procedure for fire safety as the results of the fire could end up catastrophic.

Tripping over uneven terrain:
Although there isn't much we can do to stop the audience falling over on uneven ground, we will warn everyone before the performance begins so all are aware of the risk.

Triple - Voice and the Actor - Blog 3 -

Two weeks ago, I created a vocal exercise routine so that I could improve my voice as an actor. The three areas I wanted to train were Articulation, Pitch and Tone. Below is my progress in the three:

Articulation: Where I used to have quite a prominent lisp, I have thoroughly improved and am able to speak more clearly. Where before it was a bit difficult to understand some things I said, I feel that I'm more understandable when I speak.

Pitch: I was very surprised with how different I sound after working on my pitch as I sound like a different person. By just simply breathing from my diaphragm, my voice is a lot deeper than usual.

Tone: From practising using my tone effectively, I am a lot more natural putting emotion into my voice. Where before I would get the meanings of lines wrong, I've improved a lot more in that respect.

Double - TIE - Blog 10 - 21/06/17

Analyse and justify your ideas for a Theatre in Education performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream that meets the needs of your target audience.

What is “Theatre in Education”? Theatre in Education is a process in which it includes all the interactive theatre/drama practices that help aid the educational process. (tie.com) TIE isn’t just an education of various theatre techniques but also passes on knowledge by educating a target audience on a specific place, person, book or theme such as betrayal or loneliness. This let’s an audience look on their topic in a more receiving fashion and is laid out in a simple format which is easy to understand. Key Stage 3 students often study a text, such as Shakespeare, and are tasked with exploring difficult themes and characters. Watching TIE production of said Shakespearean or alternate text would allow them to have a better understanding every aspect due to the performance having a simplified plot, obvious costumes to depict a character’s status within the play, relevant set/lighting to fully demonstrate where a scene is set, and almost melodramatic characters to full express each characters’ emotions, objectives and motives every time they’re on stage.

The most important thing for every performance is safety; the audience’s safety is prioritised above everything else. Our first precaution that came to mind instantly was the event of a fire. If the fire alarm in the building were to go off, no matter what point we are at during the performance, we will stop, direct the audience to the fire exit and guide them to the fire assembly point which will be announced before the performance. Informing the audience of the location of the fire assembly point will make matters a great deal easier if it comes to evacuating the building. We will also warn to remain calm in the event of a fire alarm; although, being KS3 students, they’d be used to process of fire drills, some individuals may choose to overreact and cause a ruckus. To combat this, before the performance when informing about fire safety, we will make it clear to remain calm if the event were to be a reality.

To avoid a fire happening, all our lighting equipment will be hung up high away from students and curtains, as opposed to having the lights on the floor, beneath seats. This keeps the equipment out of reach of students who want to tamper and keeping the lights away from the curtains avoids the risk of a fire. Finally, we will ensure that the audience is seated far away enough from any lifts/physical theatre as a lift gone wrong could result in a cast member falling into the audience.

The key to Theatre in Education is to keep everything bare bones simple to so that the audience can really soak in the plot of the play to be able to reference back to events, such as the duel. We have decided to do this with our set as this is not something we want our audience focusing on too much. Although, having extravagant set would be very entertaining for the audience, our key aim is to educate rather than entertain and I feel that the audience would end up being distracted by the set. Our plan for representing the different locations (e.g. the woods, Athens, the fairy world) is to use lighting. Lighting is a lot subtler but still very clear at displaying the different areas. Also, as we are only a small company, having extravagant set would either be too expensive or very time consuming, while lighting wouldn’t take long to set and we already own the equipment so there would be hire costs to consider.

With costume, we would ideally want to have full costumes as this would fully express who our characters are. However, due to having a small cast, we are multi-rolling which leaves us minimal time to get changed. Getting changed from one extravagant costume to another would take a minute or two but at times, we have literally seconds before we re-enter as a different character. Our solution to this is being fully dressed in black joggers and t-shirts and having representational costume for each of our characters to show which character. 

This is not only easier for us as actors but also allows the audience to think deeper into our characters based on the little representational costume we have. They would wonder, out of all items of clothing they could’ve chosen from, why is Egeus wearing a waistcoat? A performance which has audience’s asking questions like this not only educate but encourage independent ideas being implemented into their knowledge. A lot of KS4 English work asks students to implement their own opinion into their answer and this ties in extremely well with our minimal costume plans; does the waistcoat represent a wise character or an upper-class character?

Something that changed our outlook on costume was our decision to set our story in a more modern era. With theatre becoming very revolutionary with its alternative takes on classical pieces, applying the same theory to our version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is something which will appeal to our target audience a lot more. Our original idea was to set our production within a school and separate each three groups (The Fairies, The Mechanicals, and The Lovers and Royals) as different groups within a school. The Mechanicals would be become the drama kids with Bottom being the egotistical actor and Quince the control freak etc. The Fairies could’ve been a group of Caretakers who are in the background of all the action and The Lovers could be the more popular kids with Egeus being a parent asking Theseus, the headteacher, to forbid Lysander and Hermia’s relationship. Although this idea could’ve been very fun to work with and could allow the audience to engage more with the characters due to their many similarities, we felt this idea may lead to the audience taking the play a lot less seriously as such mature themes were being displayed by immature characters. Also, we couldn’t think of any logical way that the Caretaker Fairies would interfere with the lovers without the magical herb.

The idea we went with resulted in a modernisation of the plot but with each of the three groups being from different backgrounds. We changed the fairies to “chavs” while keeping the magical herb element as at this point we felt that this is a detail we don’t need to focus too much on and neither will the audience. We chose to have them as chavs as this is a group of people that our audience will not only find comical but they’ll understand them too. The Mechanicals have been changed to a group of actors in an amateur drama company, which we feel works very well and is similar to our previous idea of the drama class which was our favourite part of that pathway. The idea of the mechanicals being dramatists works extremely well with their bold and melodramatic personalities and will entertain the audience while keeping them focused on the story. Finally, the Lovers and Royals are to be upper-middle-class citizens whom all are very well kept and spoken apart from Lysander and Hermia; two rebellious teens who are sick of being treated like kids and want to do what they want. Having the pair as an insubordinate couple makes the relationship a lot more passionate rather than the classic soppy lovers which everyone has seen countless times. Demetrius is a “does as he’s told” character and will do anything to get into the good books of Egeus which is why Egeus thinks so highly of him and wishes he marries his daughter. Helena however, is a bit rougher than the rest especially in her looks which is why Demetrius wishes to be rid of her. Still considered upper-middle-class due to her family, her looks don’t fair her so well and steps her down a peg from the other lovers. This group of young lovers works extremely well for our target audience as not only are they now being played closer to their age, but the way they’re being portrayed is a lot more down to earth and easier for them to understand.


Based on these character choices, we decided that our costumes would also be modern as it’s something that the audience can connect with better. We’d keep to all blacks with representative costume as this is easier for our quick changes. The “Chav Fairies” would all wear some sort of hoody or bag to show their character while, for The Mechanicals, we’d have them lots of different outfits to show how different they are from one another; this highlights the many different personalities within the group. For the Royals and Demetrius, waistcoats and other smart wear would be appropriate, whereas for Hermia and Lysander, a rebellious, punky item of clothing like a cap or a flannel shirt would be well suited. Helena would wear some sort of ugly dress over the top of her clothes to highlight she isn’t particularly good-looking. These costumes do very well to highlight our characters and this would allow students to draw a lot of key themes from them (for example, Helena’s poor dress sense makes it clear she is not pretty at all.)

Double - TIE - Blog 9 - 14/06/17

Today, we looked over the duel scene between Lysander and Demetrius and leads on to the argument between Hermia and Helena.

We explored ways to make this scene entertaining and engage our target audience. We originally thought about keeping it to a real duel but instead of with swords, they battle with comical objects such as cucumbers or brooms. As funny as this would be, we felt it wouldn't work as we'd need to already have these objects on us and the audience would be confused as to why we were holding vegetables during the tenser dialogue scenes. We don't want the focus to be on the silly weapons until it gets to the actual duel.

Instead, we made the duel more slapstick and had Demetrius begin with a low blow followed by Lysander going for a quick punch. This then goes into a pathetic, childish grapple which the girls are really embarrassed about. Having these two manly contenders for Hermia's heart (or Helena's at this point in the play) result to slapstick headlocks is very comical and we felt that the audience would find this very funny. Oppositely, when Hermia and Helena fight a little later, they engage a lot more violently than Lysander and Demetrius did. Hermia begins viciously grabbing Helena's hair then jumps on her back. She later charges at Helena twice like a bull. We felt that these violent tendencies are very good for Hermia as it matches her anarchic attitude we've given to her and Lysander.

We then carried on through the script just before the Titania and Bottom's scene. For the section where Puck gathers all of the lovers, we have him disguised as a tree with branches in his hands and when he speaks to a lover as another character (e.g. talking to Lysander as Demetrius), James mouths the lines while the actor offstage will actually say them. We think that the audience will think this is really clever and appreciate the skill needed to lip sync.

Single - Site Specific - Blog 14 - 15/06/17

As we are no longer able to perform at Temple Manor, we have had to adapt our performance to fit to a different location but as we picked such a dynamic original location, our ideas are easily transferable. The location we went for was Saint Margarets Church, Rainham and we felt this worked effectively with the Puritan society that The Crucible is set in. Below are photos of the venue and ideas on where scenes will take place:

Scene 2

Scene 1

Scene 3

Scene 4 (plus the latter two movement pieces)

Opening Movement scene

Triple - Voice and the Actor - Blog 2 - 08/06/17

For my vocal routine, I wanted to focus on my articulation, pitch and tone as these are the three parts of vocal technique I needed to work on. Below is my vocal routine which I will perform once a day for the next 2 weeks:

Articulation:

The EET/EETS/EES exercise (http://www.wikihow.com):
Separate your teeth slightly, and press the sides of your tongue against your upper back molars (the teeth in the back top of your mouth). Smile, and try to say "EET" and keep the back of your tongue in this shape while the tip of your tongue rises to make the final "T" sound. If the back of your tongue falls when this happens, keep practicing until you can say "EET" with your tongue in this position.

Once you can say "EET" with your tongue in the right position, say it again while holding the "T" sound. Leave the tip of your tongue up there while you say "T-T-T-T-T-T." The flow of air past your tongue tip can turn this sound into an "S." Keep practicing this exercise until you can get an "EEETS" sound, then an "EES" sound.

Tone:

Practise makes perfect:
Take simple words and say them with different emotions in mind. This will naturally change the tone of how you say each word. Step it up by moving on to short sentences and longer sentences. To make things extra tricky, try saying words/sentences in an opposite emotion (e.g. say "That's a really nice Sandra" in a scared tone. Or "I really don't like you Lucas" in a happy tone.)

Pitch:

Breathing and speaking through diaphragm (http://www.wikihow.com):
Breathing from your diaphragm as opposed to your chest will make your voice both more powerful and deeper. When you breathe, your stomach should rise, and your chest and shoulders should remain still. These are full, diaphragm breaths.

You want your breath to come from your diaphragm, and go out through the part of your face you identified in step one. Practice this often, saying anything you like, but focusing on these two parts of your body. You will notice that you can get more power in your voice with less vocal strain, resulting in a louder, deeper voice.

Double - TIE - Blog 8 - 07/06/17

Today we spent our lesson looking at costume ideas for our characters. We recorded all of our ideas down on the mindmap and filmed part of the discussion. Below is the mindmap with a tracking of our thought process and the recording of our discussion:

Full costume? - too expensive and not enough time to get changed - if we had a bigger cast and budget then it could possibly have worked.

Moschino cardboard clothing at Milan Fashion Week - flat costumes which are easy to take off - not very easy to move
Shirts and trousers with representational props - effective at displaying characters while still looking authentic - not very easy for movement.
Perform in own clothes - very true to the style of Shakespearean actors who wore their own clothes in performances - not suitable for a performance at all and doesn't distinguish our characters apart from each other.
All blacks - no need to get changed - easier to move in than full costume - not very good at portraying our characters/relies entirely on our characterisation to differentiate our characters

Blacks with minimal representative costume - ideal for multi-roling - not bad for movement - not much change needed for each character (e.g. hat taken off, jacket put on)

When/where are we going to set it? - What will they wear based on this?
Set it in modern day? - in school (the lovers being students, Theseus and co would be teachers etc, The Mechanicals being the drama kids, the fairies being caretakers - doesn't suit the story at all.

Set in a timeless era but characters wear clothes based on their type of character in the era:

Fairies as New York gangsters? - literally in a different world to the rest of the characters - we tried a scene but felt that the accent wasn't for everyone and we needed to make it as convincing as possible - Fairies as "chavs"? - makes the very different to the rest of the cast and provides a lot of comedy (classical words being pronounced very commonly) - this worked well when we ran a scene.

The Royals and Lovers all being very upper class but Lysander and Hermia being dressed more rebelliously to show how anarchic their relationship is in the eyes of Egeus - Royals dressed in waistcoats etc - Demetrius in a smart blazer or more youthful waistcoat - Lysander and Hermia dressed down in a flannel shirt/hoodie but still well spoken to show they're still upper class (unlike the Fairies)

The Mechanicals all villagers? - tides in well with Quince's longing to perform to the Duke - possibly have them as a random group of characters from all corners of the UK/world - didn't have time to experiment with this but will give it a go next lesson

Triple - Voice and the Actor - Blog 1 - 01/06/17

Today I began writing my skills audit for my voice. As an Actor, opportunities for employment will increase as I hone my skills and work on aspects of my voice which need improving. In order to improve these skills, I need to identify them. Below is my detailed Voice Audit which highlights the strengths and weaknesses of different parts of my voice:

Technique (tone; pace; pitch; pause; projection; inflection; modulation; articulation; dynamics; accent):

With my tone, I believe at times, my tone doesn't always match the way my character would say their lines. For example, if my character is attempting to be very sarcastic, I may misread this and take it quite literally. This then spoils the effect of the scene. Work is needed

I feel that my pace is always very well used, with intense, excited lines being read fast and suspenseful, well-thought lines being read slowly. No work needed

My voice is naturally quite high pitched so this means when I play a more mature role, I would need to lower my voice intentionally which is sometimes uncomfortable. Work is needed

I feel my use of pauses is very effective and always gives the right effect every scene. After my work on Harold Pinter, my use of pauses is always impactful on different types of scenes. No work needed

I feel over my time as an actor, I have developed a much better stage voice which includes my projection. Being able to project your voice effectively is an important skill for acting, especially theatre acting. From being quite quiet in an average size room to being easily heard in a hall, I believe my projection isn't an issue at all. No work needed

My inflection is usually very well used, emphasising important words in sentence to show the motives of my character. No work needed

I feel that my articulation needs a LOT of work and this is due to my lisp. Although it's not that difficult to understand what I'm saying, it's still not ideal. This is probably biggest hurdle. Work is needed

Accents aren't my strong point but I am capable of a few including Western American, Cockney/Chav and Northern England. However, having accents under your belt is good, they're essential when pursuing a career in the arts as you'd focus on a specific accent for a role, not just in general. No work needed

For my vocal routine, I want to work on these qualities of my voice starting with the most important:

• Articulation
• Pitch
• Tone

Single - Site Specific - Blog 13 - 30/05/17

Grid Iron Theatre Company:

"Some of the more challenging and unusual locations we have performed in include a boat-builders’ island in Norway, the land-side and air-side passenger areas of Edinburgh International Airport, the Informatics Building of the University of Edinburgh, a former jute mill in Dundee, the former General Security building in Beirut, a working cancer hospital in Jordan, the old city morgue in Cork, Debenhams department store in Edinburgh, ten metres underwater in Belfast’s Lagan Weir, a haunted underground street in Edinburgh, The London Dungeon, parks, gardens, playgrounds and fields all over Britain and Ireland, our local pub, The Barony Bar, on Edinburgh’s Broughton Street, the EICA (Europe’s largest indoor climbing arena) and a huge oil-rig manufacturing shed in Port of Dundee." (gridiron.org.uk)

Natural Theatre Company:

"Natural Theatre Company has been making people laugh in nearly 80 countries for over 45 years"

"we produce a delightfully absurd interactive walkabout street theatre from over 100 characters and scenarios."

"We also appeared The Bath “Min” Hospital having researched the life of James Lind who undertook the very first medical experiments.  We have worked with a number historic sites in Bath and have animated Prior Park Gardens for The National Trust." (http://naturaltheatre.co.uk/)

Red Earth:
"Red Earth events amplify and resonate with the natural landscape, immersing the audience in its hidden terrain, engaging the public in the creative process."
"Our work looks to the wider world for inspiration while focusing on local detail.
Performances are often inter-cultural exchanges, while our temporary sculpture installations are sensitive to site and built on location from locally sourced materials; a combination which results in atmospheric and immersive experiences challenging our expectations of the landscape." (http://redearth.co.uk/about.html)

Where Grid Iron Theatre Company and Natural Theatre Company have performed in a lot of enclosed private venues such as bars, security buildings and hospitals which would require a lot of planning and permission would be needed from the owners of the property. Whereas Red Earth perform within natural areas like fields, forests, mountains etc which may not require permission but would require a lot of planning in terms of risk assessment etc. I feel that performing in locations like hospitals and airports like the former two groups both have are better as I feel like they're more popular with audiences due to Grid Iron being more universally heard of than Red Earth.

Also, Natural Theatre Company are more accessible due to their work in nearly 80 countries for over 45 years. Interestingly, dreamthinkspeak are the only company who mention their use of film integrated into their performance which we feel is a clever addition to any performance let alone a site specific production.

Double - TIE - Blog 7 - 24/05/17

Today we spent our time working on the first two Mechanical scene's. We wanted the audience to explore our characters from the moment they first walked on stage and we felt that we could add a short sequence before both scenes to fully accentuate each character. We felt that doing this will help highlight the characteristics of each individual. This would help our student audience with their understanding of the characters, thus allowing them to be able to write more about them.

This sequence featured Starveling carrying all of Bottom's things while he carries nothing and being obnoxious, Flute trying on costumes and leaving no-good ones on the floor like a diva, Quince running around after everyone trying to keep everything organised and Snug stood timidly centre stage in the midst of all the chaos.

Next lesson, we will work on costumes and how we will portray the characters throughout the entire play. 

Double - TIE - Blog 6 - 22/05/17

Today we spent the lesson constantly running from the start up to pg 14. We looked at the blocking of this scene in depth and focused on bringing out and introducing the characters to the audience. We wanted to make them relatable for the audience, that way it helps educate them more on what role they play in the plot.

We also looked at our lines a great deal more detail, working what each line means as opposed to our speedy walkthrough before where we got the basic idea. This not only gives us a better understanding of our characters intentions and personalities but it allows us to portray them better which in turn displays it better to our audience.

Next lesson, we will do the same to The Mechanical's first two scenes.

Double - TIE - Blog 5 - 19/05/17

Reading to the end and doing the play

Today we read up to the end of the play and blocked the entire Pyramus and Thisby section. We continued on from where we were last lesson; from Bottom's Dream monologue. From this we continued on til the end just simply reading through the script and making sure we're all aware of the storyline. After this, we felt that out of everything, the performance of the play, Pyramus and Thisby, is the most important part to focus on so we blocked this entirely focusing on how to make it comical. Not only is AMND supposed to be a comedy but the play within the play is also a comedy. We were going to include a joke where Thisby would look through the chink on the wall but the chink is on the level of Pyramus' crotch so Thisby would be in for a surprise when looking through the chink. However, we felt as we were targeting this performance to a younger audience of 13-14 and this sort of comedy would be inappropriate for them as this would lead to repeating said activities.

For the rest of the scene, it would rely on the characteristics of The Mechanicals to provide the rest of the comedy (e.g Snug being absolutely petrified as the lion, Flute being a little bit too feminine as Thisby.)

Next lesson, we will start from the beginning and work on fully blocking each scene and giving each scene meaning.

Single - Site Specific - Blog 12 - 18/05/17

accusation movement
Today we created two pieces of movement to add to our piece between Scene 1 and 2 and between Scene 3 and 4.

For our first movement piece, we wanted to fully portray the girls' newfound power to manipulate the minds of the higher officials due to their lies. This would go from one person being accused to the whole town being "prisoners" of the girls' judgement. We also highlight the affair between Proctor and Abigail at the end before heading into Scene 2. We used a lantern to represent innocence, to show the audience their is no evil deed implied by those accused but the girl's judgement which gets them imprisoned. Below is a video of this movement piece:

In our next movement piece, we wanted to show the opposite effect of the previous movement by starting in our previous end positions and showing Proctor cut off all ties to Abigail. This is followed by Abigail encountering villagers and they want nothing to do with her as they have all eventually caught on to her lie. We reprise our same characters too to make it more familiar with the audience. We end it by physically representing a house and Abigail stealing her uncle, Parris', money and fleeing with Mary Warren who try to persuades her to stay but ends up leaving with her. Below is a video of this movement piece:

Double - TIE - Blog 4 - 17/05/17

Today we continued blocking the play from page 48 up to 55. For pages 55-78, we decided to put it on hold until we know or are more familiar with our lines as this section is very good for comical movement. Pages 48-55, I am Oberon, whereas 53-55, I am Lysander so I have to use my change in voice and movement to make this very clear despite having a minimal costume.

Next lesson, we will look towards finishing our walkthrough of the entire play and possibly look at the Pyramus and Thisby section in more detail.

Double - TIE - Blog 3 - 15/05/17

Today we worked on our characterisation and then blocked pages 37-47, the second Mechanicals scene.

Firstly, we thought about our characters in general and thought about their motives throughout the play. Lysander starts off wanting to be with Hermia no matter what it takes, then after being manipulated, courtesy of Puck, he falls in love with Helena and wants to be with her for all of eternity. In the end, it all sorts itself out and he goes back to loving Hermia once again.

Oberon starts off wanting revenge on his wife Titania along with wanting poor Helena to be loved. Once, he realises the mess that Puck has made of it, he wants to return everything back to normal.

Finally, Quince constantly wants control. Control over the Mechanicals and control over the production which he is slowly losing because of Bottom. When Bottom gets turned into an ass, Quince wants to get away from him even more than usual. Later on, he actually wants to find Bottom otherwise their play can't go on.

We then started blocking pages 37-47; this is the second Mechanical scene which involves them getting their teeth into the play and Bottom's transformation into an ass.

Next lesson, we will continue to speed our way through this script. Our goal is to get through the script quickly and then work on more of the script.

Double - TIE - Blog 2 - 12/05/17

Today we blocked everything from pages 22-36. This included the first fairy scene and continued on to where the lovers get mixed about. This is where I really needed to establish my characterisation as I needed to use very different body language and voice for each of my three characters. I feel that although he has the strongest emotions out of all of my characters, Lysander is by far weakest, especially when his competition is the leader of a theatre group and the king of the fairies.

For Oberon, I took a much stronger stance compared my other characters but chose not to worry too much about characterisation as we will focus on differentiating our characters tomorrow.

After this the blocking went very well and I feel that our performance is becoming stronger and stronger. We agreed that we'd look further into the meaning of our lines and try to learn them as soon as possible as knowing our lines will make it easier to perform them with meaning.

Next lesson, we will work on characterisation and block more scenes.

Single - Site Specific - Blog 11 - 11/05/17

Today we cut our scene 4 down (the final scene in the play and our version). This involved us cutting out lines of characters whom we don't have in our version, referencing different characters due to the previous characters being cut (E.g. "Reverend Hale has returned to bring Rebecca Nurse to God" is now "Reverend Hale has returned to bring Proctor to God") and cutting down unnecessary dialogue which isn't heavily relevant to the plot (e.g. the conversation about Hale).

Single - Site Specific - Blog 10 - 08/05/17

Today we spent the entire lesson cutting our third scene in our version of The Crucible: Act 2 Scene 2. We chose this scene because it carries on well from our last scene as Proctor tells Mary he will take her to the court to reclaim his wife.

We cut quite a lot out of this scene as the scene was going to run at around half an hour if we didn't cut it. This is a long time for an audience to stand up during a promenade performance. The main things we had to change besides cutting lines was changing Corey's lines to Proctor's as they both shared the same beliefs and changing Mercy's lines to Betty's as Betty would've been there too and Mercy is cut.

Following this we ran scenes 1 and 2.

Double - TIE - Blog 1 - 08/05/17

Today we began with our Theatre In Education unit. We decided to perform a play by William Shakespeare as Shakespeare is widely taught in secondary schools for GCSE English. Although they study the text in depth, students often struggle to understand the story and meanings behind the plays, so performing a Shakespeare play would not only be entertaining but also very beneficial.

The play we decided to go for was A Midsummer Night's Dream. We chose this play as it not only an extremely entertaining comedy but also has good range of bold characters which would challenge us in terms of characterisation.

Below is our cast:

Theseus - James
Hippolyta - Lorna
Egeus - Rob
Hermia - Lorna
Demetrius - Ollie
Lysander - Lewis
Helena - Rob
Philostrate - Ollie

Quince - Lewis
Bottom - Ollie
Flute - James
Starveling - Lorna
Snout - Lorna
Snug - Rob

Puck - James
Oberon - Lewis
Titania - Lorna
Peaseblossom/Cobweb/Moth/Mustardseed - Lewis, James and Rob

We spent the rest of the lesson acting out and roughly blocking the first 20 pages of the script; this included the explanation of the Lysander/Demetrius/Hermia situation, the plot to escape Athens and the very first Mechanicals scene.

We decided that we would perform this in the hall infront of the stage to give us lots of space to perform and have two flats at the back centre to allow us to walk "offstage". Obviously with such a small cast compared to the amount of roles there are in this play, there would be a lot of quick costume changes so this where we'd, for example, switch hats/jackets.

Next lesson, we will continue on reading and blocking through some of the script.

Single - Site Specific - Blog 9 - 02/05/17

Today we spent the lesson actually getting up and blocking scenes 1 and 2! Although my character, Deputy Governor Danforth wasn't in the scene, I still got involved with the blocking process. We needed to keep our blocking fluid and adaptable as, although we've seen photos of the venue and its rooms, we don't know how big they are or their actual size so we would have to adapt our scenes to the space we have.

Single - Site Specific - Blog 8 - 02/05/17

Today we cut our second scene in our version of The Crucible: Act 1 Scene 2. We chose this scene as it's extremely crucial at highlighting the affair between John and Abigail and the effect it had on him and his wife, Elizabeth. We cut the beginning as we felt it wasn't needed and went from midway through the section between Elizabeth and Proctor onwards. We cut out most of the parts which we deemed irrelevant and repetitive which left us with a much shorter script. This will be very helpful with learning lines and turning a 3 hour play into hopefully an hour (approx.) long version. We also cast the entire play today as well after reading through Act 1: Scene 2 and Act 2: Scene 2 (this will be our third scene in our version as it leads on nicely from the previous scene). Below is our cast including two Year 12's to play minor roles as we haven't got enough cast members in our class:

Abigail - Hope
Mary Warren - Kat
Elizabeth Proctor - Lorna
Tituba - Taylor (Y12)
Betty Parris - Chloe (Y12)
John Proctor - Ollie K
Reverend Hale - Rob
Judge Danforth - Lewis
Ezekiel Cheever - Ollie M
Reverend Parris - James

Single - Site Specific - Blog 7 - 28/04/17

Today we spent the lesson cutting the script for our first scene.We cut out all of the lines of the characters we weren't keeping in such as the Putnam's and Corey and cut any lines that don't make sense because of the absence of those characters. Next lesson, we will do the same to our second scene.

Single - Site Specific - Blog 6 - 27/04/17

Today we read through Scene One of The Crucible and made major decisions on how we'd perform our adaptation of the classic play.

We read through the first scene to remind ourselves of the story and highlighted important questions we asked ourselves afterwards:

• What characters are crucial?
• Are we performing The Crucible or only some scenes? 
• Or maybe only an adaptation?
• Or our own telling of the events during the Salem Witch Trials using scenes from The Crucible.

We wanted to stick to the script as much as possible but we wanted to do more than simply perform the play. For example, just performing the play would waste our opening movement piece as it would be scrapped. Ideally, we want to do something similar to what we did for 1984 which was perform the entire script along with a few movement pieces dotted inbetween scenes. However, The Crucible is a three hour play on its own so we'd need to cut scenes/characters out.

On the topic of characters, there was controversy on whether to cut/keep certain characters due to there being A LOT of characters in comparison to cast. We decided that the Putnam's needed to go as the plot of the play still made sense without the mentioning of their dead children and that already cuts out a chunk. Then there were discussions over Giles Corey; although he is an interesting character to have, he isn't really necessary to the plot either so the majority decision was to cut him. The Nurse's were also cut as they weren't in the story much at all either so below is our final list of characters:

John Proctor

Elizabeth Proctor

Judge Danforth

Reverend Parris

Mary Warren

Abigail Williams

Tituba

Betty

Hale

Cheever (With most of Hathorne's lines too as this still made sense and gave the character more of a role in the play.)

There was also a debate on whether we were going to keep the affair between Proctor and Abigail in our version of The Crucible or if were going to stay closer to the truth and scrap the affair. Although it would've been interesting to see the play without the affair, the majority of us felt that it would require a lot of effective cutting to be sure the script keeps continuity. Plus we felt that it removes a lot from the story and renders the courtroom scene nearly pointless as Proctor wouldn't be able to confession to lechery because it actually never would've happened.

After resolving all plot issues, we decided to begin cutting next lesson!

Single - Site Specific - Blog 5 - 25/04/17

Today we worked on adding the other group to the short movement piece we devised last lesson.

We began by simply filling in the gaps we already had and making slight adjustments:

• We filled in the gaps in the square formation using the other group members. Ollie K stood between me and Lorna, James stood between me and Kat, Ollie M stood between Kat and Hope and Rob stood between Hope and Lorna.
• Now that there were more of us, timing needed to be changed for the crossing sections. Instead of each pair going on every 2 beats, we changed it to 1 beat to make it more frantic and to fit with the music so the rest of the timing could stay the same.
• Now that there are more of us, we thought it'd be better if we recorded our own version of the "Satanic Matra" as this could let us change the tone when we want to and allows us to edit some sections if we'd like to distort a line or two. This is a more realistic idea now that there's eight of us rather than previously having four.

We then went over the end of the piece but felt it didn't work very well due to having too many of us all doing the same thing so we devised something new:

• From grouped in the centre, Ollie K, Ollie M, Rob, James and I go to the back while the girls stay at the front in a line. They perform tap-like ritualistic routine while the rest of us do a lift...
• Rob and James lift up Ollie M by the feet in a pencil lift and Ollie K and I, link arms behind them.
• Ollie falls backwards into our arms and we arrange ourselves to lift him up in a coffin carry.
• We then all drop him except Ollie K who swoops in and carries him in his arms and lays him down behind the girls. We wanted this to represent the "possession" of Betty.

This adaptation to our previous physical movement went very well and ran nicely after a few run throughs. Next lesson, we will read through scene one and decided how we want to perform our version of The Crucible.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 19 - 25/04/17

Below are my notes on our production:

Prologue: 
+ Effective at introducing the story and character to the audience
- We should've added more harmonies
- During the messy section after we disperse, we should be messy, but not unorderly. Ollie, Alice and I looked very out of place so we need something to do such as round by through or some other form of interaction

No Place Like London: 
-boat didn’t look as impressive as it has done in rehearsal
+ our representation of getting off the boat was good and intuitive
? we could've added a flashback to enhance storytelling techniques while rob sings about the barber and his wife
? perhaps we could do this by having a sheet up instead of the curtains and have a silhouette dance/scene to represent the flashback
- set transition needed to be more fluid which could've been done by having more people involved and using round by through

Worst Pies In London: 
+ very good movement and was sung brilliantly
- could’ve included more cast members to make our piece more original 
? for example having customers come in and try, and hate, her pies; the opposite to what "God That's Good" would've been if we kept it in

Poor Thing: 
? add another flashback to tell the story more clearly

My Friends: 
? Todd could've interacted with Ollie, James and I as we were representing the knives
- the movement was out of time so we should've worked on this section more
? we could've built on this physical theatre section and made it more complex

Greenfinch And Linnet Bird: 
- we should've used the longer version of this song to fully accentuate character and make the audience familiar with her.
? perhaps we should've added a prop into this number as it would give Alice something to interact with

Johanna: 
- the song was lacking in volume at different points
? perhaps explore more original ideas; the way we performed this song/scene is very typical and identical to the script so we should've shaken it up a bit.

Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir: 
+ James’ audience interaction was superb
- I feel that relevant signage would be very helpful to show the audience that we are Pirelli's caravan
? actors like Ollie M and I, could've been planted in the audience to create ambience and be interacted with by James
? with bigger cast we wouldn’t need to rely on audience interaction and could have a chorus crowd
- our props weren't all the same (the bottles were all different shapes, sizes and materials) so having all the same would keep continuity.

The Contest: 
+ pirelli’s entrance was grand and provided a great deal of comic relief to a very dark musical!
- although it was great as it was, Pirelli's song would've been better with a backing track or live musician
? Pirelli and Toby could've interacted with each other more as they only really interact at the beginning and end of Pirelli's scene.

Wait: 
- with more time behind us we could’ve done something more with the entire song whether that be a movement scene, silhouettes or character interaction
+ Pirelli's death was very effective and sets up the story well with his first kill
? round by through between James and Lorna could've been used to 

Ladies And Their Sensitivities: 
- with more time for rehearsals, we could’ve worked on singing the song
+ however the way it was performed was still very effective and original 
- very static: with a bigger stage or more time for set changes we would’ve used more space to walk.

Pretty Women: 
? bigger budget idea: move the entire stage into the parlour
- there wasn't much tension built up during the song according to audience members

The Epiphany: 
? perhaps ensemble movement could've been more complex
? with a larger cast, this would work much better
? having costumes, if this was a full scale production, would’ve represented the townspeople better.

A Little Priest: 
? a larger cast could have had more townspeople involved (such as the royal marine and politician)
? perhaps an ensemble dance or movement piece would've worked really well for this song, to show the potential success of the pie shop 

Johanna (Reprise): 
+ the noises were effective...
- but should’ve been in time
? during the beggar woman sections, we should've been more organised and, for example, do our beats twice as fast

Anthony and Beadle:
+ very short scene which keeps the audience up to date with Anthony
? perhaps could've used spare actors like James or Ollie M to chase after Anthony as he flees.

By The Sea:
- this scene was very irrelevant without the dialogue prior to the scene which we cut in rehearsal. This is something we only realised
- our swing didn’t work at the end verse

Not While I'm Around : 
+ sang very well 
- well-staged, however not very original
- Mrs Lovett didn't show much maternity so being more motherly would make the scene better

Beadle's Death: 
? more physical contact between the pair
+ staging was great
- make Beadle's death more obvious with brighter/coloured lighting

Searching for Toby and Anthony & Johanna: 
? Lovett and Todd could’ve explored the aisle more by walking through the audience and looking for Toby, eventually going under the stage
+ the short bit between Anthony and Johanna was good and caught the audience up with the pair

Beggar Woman's Death: 
+ although it was ironic that the most important death of all wasn't very dramatic...
- it could’ve and should’ve been so much more
? we could've stuck with our original idea of using red cloth to have blood pouring out of her throat

Pretty Women Reprise: 
+ showed the panic in Judge as he comes close to losing Johanna but recovers her
- Judge's death should've been a lot bigger but this was difficult due to lack of space
? with a bigger budget, we could've had a moving parlour or purely have a bigger performance space

Finale: 
+ very emotive
- bigger dance section was needed for such a significant part of the story
+ the way we did Mrs Lovett's death was very different to the typical burning in the oven and I felt this original approach served us well
+ Todd’s death was extremely effective as he hands the razor to Toby, signifying he has nothing left in this world and that he shall pay for the sins he committed


General: 
In general, I feel our performance was extremely impressive for a workshop performance. If we were to turn this into a proper full scale production, I would make the following major changes:

• We would have full costumes to further represent our characters and make the performance more atmospheric.
• With a dynamically bigger budget, we could've had an extravagant set like a proper barber chair, pie shop furniture and backdrops etc to represent different places. With a big enough budget, we'd want to perform in a bigger space like a theatre.
• Ideally, we'd like to use headset mics to carry our voices further into the audience and be heard over the backing tracks.
• We'd also prefer live musician(s) to enhance the atmosphere of the live performance.

My individual performance:
I feel my portrayal of Judge Turpin was very effective at creating an image of the tormented soul on stage. However, I didn't change the way I played him throughout due to my thought process behind the development of the character. I wanted the character to have his own aura about him when onstage and perhaps make the audience detached from him due to the lack of variation in my emotion. I then went on to later reveal to the audience how soft the Judge can be after learning Johanna is safe and wanting to spend the rest of his life with her, granting her forgiveness. Although this is clearly an irrational way to think - stealing Todd's own daughter from him for self gratification - it has implications about the characters possible mental health issues. These implications are also relevant in the scene where Turpin strips naked and whips himself whilst thinking of his innoncent ward; we were unable to keep this scene in however as we deemed it extremely unneccessary to perform in a school. Support with mental health issues was non-existent in the time of Sweeney Todd so that would've been one fo the very few coping mechanisms Judge Turpin would utilise. Overall, I feel my portrayal of Judge Turpin was very good at portraying not only his clearly evil and sadistic intentions but showed the weaknesses in what he thought was good.

Single - Site Specific - Blog 4 - 21/04/17

Today we got into two groups (Ollie K, Rob, James, Ollie M/Kat, Hope, Lorna, me) and created either an idea for a scene/production or an entire movement piece based on the stimulus of The Crucible. We did this based on our preferred venue of choice.

In my group, we wanted to further explore the opening scene in the movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUGvUhlj-cc) but to show it in a more orderly ritualistic fashion. We wanted to almost trick the audience into believing that this myth of witchcraft was the truth as the girls in the play do so to the villagers. This would then make the realisation even more ridiculous for the audience when it comes to the later scenes.

We originally were thinking of doing this indoors as we wanted to be independent from the film and not go with the classic "cauldron in the woods" scenario, however we felt that it would be better to make better use of the rooms for more crucial indoor scenes rather than doing the ritual indoors just for the sake of it. Also, we were unsure of the height of the ceilings so we weren't able to plan lifts if we wanted.

Based on the following photo, we would perform the movement on the patch of grass to the left near the balcony and stairs. We previously thought to have our ritual take place with everyone on the grass and have one person walk to the grass from atop the balcony but this would mean that there would be 7 people on the grass with the whole class which isn't a good number to work with so we decided to keep everyone on the grass to have a solid number of 8.

Below is the movement we devised (we did this to a beat of four from "Satanic Matra" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsEw9lBiDBg):

• To start, we're in a square formation with each of us facing outwards at each corner (pictured below)
  

1. We reach out for four beats desperately, then pull back in for another four.
2. During the next 4 beats, the pairs opposite swap positions - starting with Lorna and Kat. When there was only four of us, Kat and Lorna swapped places taking up two beats, then followed by Hope and I who took up two beats.
3. We repeat step 1.
4. For four beats, we meet in the middle, staring blankly at the person in front of them, then for four beats, we swap with the person at the corner to our right. For example, I would've swapped with Kat, Kat with Hope, Hope with Lorna and Lorna with me.
5. We repeat step 1.
6. We repeat step 2.
7. We repeat step 1.
8. We walk to the centre taking up four beats. Then Hope performs a chant in Yoruba, a native language of Africa which she is fluent in which sounds fitting to the chants you'd expect from witchcraft rituals.
9. One by one, Kat, Lorna and I fall to our knees.

We presented our idea to the other group and they felt like it was brilliant idea which would work well in the planned space. Also, it's an easily adaptable idea where we can add the extra four people from the other group. This is what we will work towards next lesson!