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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 18 - 31/03/17

Today we finalised our production of Sweeney Todd by completing the final section which includes the deaths of Beadle, Turpin, Lovett and Todd.

We started with Beadle’s scene, which we felt needed to be quick and merely serve the purpose of the plot. We wanted his death to be insignificant as the only kills that matter to Todd are Pirelli’s as it’s the first kill and he recognises him for Barker, Turpin because he wants revenge and Lovett because she used and lied to him. We had the scene prior his death which was very simple and based in the pie shop and then had Beadle walk up the stairs and the death music play as he walks up. He would exit through the door by the chair and by the music alone it was obvious to the audience that Sweeney had killed him.

Afterwards, Sweeney and Lovett search for Toby, taking them from the pie shop down under the stage into the “bakehouse.” Anthony and Johanna rush up the stairs into Todd’s parlour and he hides her, then leaves to return with a carriage to take the pair away. We then have a blackout where the pie shop floor is then turned into the bake house by removing the table and chairs and dimming the lights. We then have Beggar Woman enter searching for Beadle, who’s body is now on the floor in the bakehouse and Todd appears to find her. She queries with him but he restlessly and quickly murders her to get her out of his way; this creates a great deal of irony considering he murdered his own wife he’s obsessed over for 15 years. During this, Johanna is looking over the edge and watches Todd murder the Beggar Woman; little to Johanna’s knowledge the Beggar Woman is her mother but this is made clear to the audience later which all pieces together in the end.

Todd then rushes downstairs to go meet the Judge who he’s invited as he “knows the whereabouts of Johanna”. As he runs downstairs, I rush up to Todd’s parlour and shout for him and he then runs up the stairs from the bakehouse. We perform the song, which has been very good when we’ve rehearsed in through a sing through. We also changed how I get killed as there wasn’t as much room in the parlour to do our original plan so this led Rob to slitting my throat slowly and pulling a Red cloth out of his hand as he sliced his throat. This looked very effective and worked very well for the “big kill” of the musical.

For Lovett’s and Todd’s death we have it all on the bakehouse floor, in front of the audience. The deaths are simple and stay very true to the story however, instead of Todd being killed by Toby slyly and undetected, Todd senses that Toby is behind him and hands him the razor. This not only signifies that Todd feels like he deserves his death in order to pay for the many sins he’s committed, but he it also takes away a lot of the innocence from the character of Toby, one of the only good characters in the play. Toby the drops the razor and runs away through the aisle in the audience and the lights dim.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 17 - 28/03/17

Today we explored which songs needed something more to them and we felt that My Friends certainly needed something added to it.

Despite it being moving, having Todd and Lovett sing alone, we wanted to fully accentuate the meaning behind the razors and how close Todd identifies with them. We decided to have Ollie, James and I enter during the first verse with a razor each, embodying the razors themselves. We slowly walk down to Todd as we interact with the razors. We get closer and then leave the razors on the table and exit. I feel this portrays the razors a lot more and gives this song a lot more purpose in the show.

Next lesson, we will finish blocking everything by finishing the end section where Beadle, Turpin, Lovett and Todd all die.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 16 - 16/03/17

Today, we worked out the Johanna reprise. We were originally going to have Tom and Rob, but we felt this wasn’t a very interesting way to perform this. We decided to create a rhythmic piece based a lot on the musical Stomp. In Stomp, they use everyday objects like trashcans and brooms, as percussive instruments and this is something we wanted to replicate in Johanna Reprise. We wanted to get every character involved with this number to somewhat show the characters going about their daily actions; we felt that this would how that despite life going on as normal for everyone else, Todd and Anthony obsess over Johanna.

The noises we used were Mrs Lovett whacking a rolling pin on her counter, Toby sweeps the floor with his broom, Beadle walks around and stomps his stick down violently, Judge Turpin banging on a stage block representing a gavel, Johanna tapping on a case she’s packed for fleeing with Anthony and Dan and Ollie M as patrons of the pie shop clinking mugs. Upon practising this we felt that it sounded great and worked very for the scene. However, when it came to Beggar Woman sections, continuing at our regular pace would’ve sounded odd so we decided to be sporadic with our noises, speeding up and slowing down. This sounded very effective and worked well with the tempo of the song. I felt this was a good way to make a simple song more complex.

Next lesson, we will review the other numbers we’ve already done and we will workshop them also.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 15 - 13/03/17

Today we experimented with different ways to show the murders within the show and how we can create the illusion of blood.

We recognised that we have 6 deaths within Sweeney Todd that are seen by the audience: Pirelli’s, Ollie Marshall’s (citizen) Turpin’s, Beggar Woman’s/Lucy’s, Mrs Lovett’s and Todd’s. We wanted to be sure that every death would be somewhat different so that the audience are always impressed by each one. This is far more creative way to approach this rather than them all dying the same way.

With Pirelli’s death, we already have him being choked which meant we didn’t need to worry about anything like blood and for Mrs Lovett’s death, we were considering during her dance with Todd prior to her demise, she gets spun which and Todd lowers her down as if he were to kiss her but then Todd snaps her neck instead. Although this isn’t true to the original story, we felt artistically it looks more effective to end her life so suddenly and it’s a lot more realistic as trying to represent her burning in a furnace would look too cheesy.

This left us with 4 deaths left to deal with. We wanted all of them to be different as we felt that it would make them all independent of each other and not just the same thing again and again. Also, we could show the magnitude of the kills with different ways of killing the characters rather than the same thing every time which suggests the deaths are all equal. We thought instead of going obvious with fake liquid blood, we should go for something more outside of the box yet still conventional. This is where the idea of using red material came into play. Not only is it easy to manoeuvre but it also looks impressive as well.

We thought for Ollie M’s death, as it’s not major, it should be quick and simple. We came up with the idea of him sitting in the chair, it being spun around and the white dust sheet around him is lifted and the underside is red. Ollie would then exit and the chair would swivel back round empty. For Lucy’s death, we have Taylor holding the ball of material in her hand and when Todd swipes his knife at her she reaches for her throat and lets the ball unfurl and drape from her hands as if the blood were dripping from her throat; this is very suitable as this death is very quick and in-the-moment.

For Judge Turpin’s death, we need it to be major compared to the other kills as this is the man Todd has wanted to murder for years. We thought about having a physical theatre piece for this part but we felt that it might be too complicated; just because it needs to be a very bold moment, it doesn’t mean we need to go fully abstract with it. However, our final idea we have Todd stab me, followed by 2 other cast members pulling red material from my chest (which they already have balled up in their hands) and then Todd slowly pulling out the last strand of blood out from my neck.

For Todd’s death, we thought we could have a very simple slitting of the throat from Toby but we then thought that any young child wouldn’t be so suave about murder and after all his thoughts of Todd being a demon, he’d surely want to stab him several times to be sure he’s dead. So, with this, we have James stab him in the throat once and then run around him stabbing him more and more. We discussed having fake liquid blood for this scene as this would be effective to show how much blood Todd has inside of him due to his bloodlust on his hunt for Turpin.

To finish, Tom and Rob sang through Johanna (Reprise) which sounded brilliant. The song is lovely and simple so we definitely now won’t add movement to it; we’ll simply have the pair stood singing. 

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 14 - 10/03/17

Today, we spent the entire lesson singing through all of the songs in the show (up to “By The Sea” as this was all we had time for). This helped us all with going over tricky parts of different songs which we wouldn’t have time to go over when working on the scene.

For my song with Todd, “Pretty Women,” we did extremely well with only one timing error towards the end of the song. From “Blowing out the candle,” to “How they make a man sing,” we found the timing very difficult as it’s different for both characters.  After a couple more tries, we got the hang of it but we will meet at lunchtimes so rehearse this in order to get it right.

Besides Pretty Women, no other songs had any issues; the opening song during our prologue is the only other song I sing in which went very well too. All the other songs went incredibly well too and I’m confident that we’re making great progress leading up to the final weeks of rehearsals.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 12 - 06/03/17

Today we had an extra hour afterschool so that we could runthrough somethings with Taylor and Alice, so we got a lot done!

Firstly, after setting up the stage, we experimented with our idea of being able to go underneath the stage and go up onto the stage through the trapdoor as opposed to the walking back out through the entrance. We placed a ladder underneath the stage below the open trapdoor, placed warning signs around the trapdoor, and tested it. This worked incredibly well and this allowed us to be a lot more experimental with the way we have characters enter and exit. For example, if someone exits from the stage curtain, they can appear again from underneath the stage by climbing down the ladder which wouldn’t be visible by the audience at all!

We also worked out how Todd would cut throats in his chair and have the bodies exit slyly without the audience noticing. We’d have the victim die, the seat would be swivelled round so that the back is facing the audience, Todd would lift the sheet across his clients front and hold it up as if he were examining it. While the victim isn’t visible, he exits behind the curtain and when Todd lowers the sheet, he swivels the chair back round to show and empty seat ready for the next shave. The sheet works extremely well as before, when the victim left the chair they were seen from nearly all angles and although the audience would obviously know this is what was happening, it still looks unprofessional and we want to create a proficient performance.

We also completely blocked out “God That’s Good,” the opening to Act Two and introduces the recent illegitimate upgrade Mrs Lovett has made to her business. We had plenty of issues after our first idea but below is the finished plan.:

• Dan and Ollie K start sitting at the table and chairs in the centre, Rob by Sweeney’s chair, Lorna by Lovett’s counter, Ollie M (a spare cast member who has volunteered to step in for this scene) is sitting on the stage block staircase and James on the table Ollie and Dan are sitting at. We’d all be in a freeze frame besides James who starts addressing the audience with his opening “Ladies and gentlemen speech.” Once he finishes (“just inside of this door!”) we all unfreeze back into the now busy shop environment. James interacts with Dan and Ollie, taking their pies away from them, taking a bite from one and telling them all about Mrs Lovett’s business.
• On “Toby//Coming!//Ale there!” Alice and I enter from the main stage door into Mrs Lovett’s shop and Toby comes to us giving us pies and ale. On “nice to see you, dearie, how have you been keeping…” Alice and I are sitting on the stage block staircase and converse with Ollie and Lovett. During this Taylor, the beggar woman, will enter from the curtain and come towards us. On, “Toby! Throw the old woman out,” beggar woman gets a bit too close for comfort to me and Alice and James throws the old woman out.
• During, “Eat them slow…” Toby and Lovett serenade Dan and Ollie K, while I suggest to Ollie M that he goes to Todd’s parlour for a good shave. On, “Hold it- Bless my eyes,” everyone freezes excluding Lovett, Todd and Ollie M. Ollie M is midway through climbing the steps to Todd’s parlour and Lovett gets happy as this means more meat, which means more pies, which means more customers. Once Ollie M is greeted by Todd and Lovett starts singing again, everyone unfreezes and continues. Taylor makes her way back into the store and hinders Alice and I again and on “Toby” Throw the old woman out!” Toby removes Taylor once more and thus the end of the scene.

Below are the issues we encountered before:

• We originally had Ollie K, meet Todd for a shave and I and Dan in each other’s places: Dan with Alice, me with Ollie. However, we felt, although we’ll be out of costume, Ollie and I would look far too much like Turpin and Beadle and Ollie’s throat being slit with this misinterpretation in the audience’s mind would cause far too much confusion later when Beadle appears whom the audience would then already believe to be dead.
• Before, James entered from behind the audience but we felt that this didn’t work well for movement and having him up high on the table resembles quite well to his original “Ladies and gentlemen,” from Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir.
• We did have Taylor enter from the main stage door too but she wouldn’t be very noticeable by the audience as the stage block staircase is only 5 feet away from the door so her hindering Alice and I would be completely missed. Up on the stage however, she can be seen by all and James throwing her out is loud and easily seen also.

We also completed The Epiphany too! Before we weren’t sure of what we’d be able to do but as we had Taylor and Alice, we had a much better idea of what we could do. Below is what we have blocked:

• Rob jumps down from the stage on “Finished!” and the entire chorus enters the stage and walk from end to end in varying speeds as if we were on the streets of London; Taylor and Tom from underneath the stage, Alice and I from stage right, and Ollie and James from stage left.
• While walking, we all completely blank Todd out as we’re only visions in his head. Todd sings at us violently, threating us with his razors. On, “I will have vengeance,” we all stop and Todd looks up to the skies and sings in woe.
• On, “Who sir? You sir?” Todd comes up to our frozen bodies and threatens us; we ignore him completely. On, “Not one man…” we all exit in our pairs, James and Ollie stage right, Alice and I stage left, and Taylor and Tom under the stage. Whilst we do this sings to the skies again. On “And I will get him back…” Todd sings threateningly, swiping his knife outwards. On, “And my Lucy lies in ashes,” he falls to the floor and keens one last time.
• To end and transfer into A Little Priest, Lovett is stands at the top of the steps with Dan’s body and says her line.

We only had one real issue with this scene and that was whether we can have Dan in this scene. We originally wanted to have Dan as a chorus member but we realised this wouldn’t work for two reasons. Firstly, there isn’t any way he can be in this song and then be back up on the stage to be a dead body for A Little Priest. Secondly, he would need to be in costume for A Little Priest but in blacks for The Epiphany. So even if he could make it up to stage in time, he would need to quickly throw on his cape which isn’t enough time at all.

Finally, we went through the prologue with Alice and Taylor here to show them what they do and then ran it with them which went very well.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 11 - 03/03/17 ADD VIDEO

Today we blocked everything for the quirky number, “By The Sea”. With this song we wanted to create an illusion, much like in The Epiphany, to show that this clearly isn’t reality. We experimented with ways we could show this but we wanted to do something different compared to cast members walking in and out of the scene which would simply be copying The Epiphany. We thought about using a sheet like the boat in the opening prologue but we felt that it wouldn’t work unless we had plenty of things to do with it. So we used one we already have and experimented with it to see what we could create with just one sheet. From this we came up with:

A swing:

A hammock:

Wedding canopy:

And water (obviously the sheet would have to be blue): 

Below is the outline of how the scene will go:

Lorna and Rob start upstairs in the barber shop and the song starts and Mrs Lovett is all over Todd. On, “Where I’d really like to go,” Ollie and I enter from the side and hold open a blue sheet facing the audience and James is walking behind it but only his upper body is visible and he is pretending to swim. Mrs Lovett and Todd also start walking down into what was once their pie shop.

On “By the sea, Mr Todd, that’s the life I covet”, Ollie and I lay the sheet on the floor and wave it around like it’s a river and James is splashing about it in childlike. Lorna then proceeds to join him and on Rob’s line, “Anything you say,” he steps into the river begrudgingly and has a small splash.

On, “Think how snug it’ll be…” the family step off of the sheet and Ollie and I lift it up and lay it on the stage block behind us which was a table in the pie shop before. By the line, “we’ll have chums over every Friday,” the family and Ollie and I are gathered around the table, which has the sheet as a homely tablecloth.

For the next verse, Ollie and I lift up the sheet and hold it over our shoulders as a swing again and Lorna pushes an unenthusiastic Rob as she sings about seagulls. On, “But a seaside wedding,” Rob hops down and Ollie and I hold the sheet above them as a wedding canopy and they stand as they are ready to be wed.

Below is a video of the final scene:

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 10 - 01/03/17 ADD VIDEO

Today, while Lorna, Rob and Dan continued on with A Little Priest, Ollie, Tom and I worked on Johanna.

In this song, Anthony ganders at the Johanna which angers Judge Turpin and he orders Beadle to “dispose of him”. We staged this so that Alice (Johanna) is standing on the right on the stage, locked away in her bedroom and Tom (Anthony is standing on the floor, just in front of her singing up to her. We realised that his back is facing the audience in this part which removes all the emotion so we have him looking upwards facing the audience as it’s still clear that he’s singing to her.

Ollie and I enter from under the stage as if we were just randomly walking and we stumble upon Anthony without him noticing and we walk closer inspecting him. On “I’ll steal you Johanna,” I look at Beadle and look back at Anthony which is a clear order to attack him. When Tom finishes singing, I cough to which he turns into a strike from Beadle’s cane. Fallen to the floor, Anthony is forced to face me by Beadle. After telling him to leave and never come back, I walk back to my home and talk with Johanna closely followed by Beadle after he threatens Anthony once more. We all exit excluding Anthony who sings his last verse and exits.

Below is a video of this scene and finally a finished “A Little Priest.” The only thing that needs to be done with A Little Priest is to rehearse the waltz midway through as this could do with improvement.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 9 - 27/02/17

Today we worked on A Little Priest, the song that closes Act One and kicks off the chaotic murderous rampage of Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett. We at first thought that Rob and Lorna would interact with each other a lot and mime the different characters they’d murder but we felt that this would be pretty boring if not pulled off right and we wanted something a bit more extravagant for this song as it’s a huge pivotal moment in the musical. We wanted there to be plenty of movement but keep it imaginative. That’s when we remembered a video we’ve seen before of Kristen Chenoweth performing “If You Haven’t, But You Did,” from the 1951 Broadway show Two On The Aisle. In the performance (which is linked here) she uses another person and interacts with them as a dead body. She moves him around, picks him up but the guy moves around aswell but makes it look like he’s dead still. Not only does this make it very effective and dark but also very funny too.

We thought that we could easily transfer this into our Sweeney Todd by using the body of Pirelli! We could have the body/Dan come in from the passage leading under the stage and Lorna and Rob interact with him putting him into the positions of their “victims to be”.

Next lesson Lorna, Rob and Dan will carry on with this and Ollie, Tom and I will go over “Johanna” as we have Tom.