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