Marketing Plan

Forming our Marketing Plan and research

There are currently two of us working on the marketing plan for the TIE piece for SToRMS so, we decided that we would think about all the different ways of marketing by ourselves and find out which ones we think would be the most effective way of advertising our piece. We would then come together and discuss what we want to do and divide the jobs between us and make sure that every area is covered and we are using as many techniques as possible in order to get our piece to be advertised.

We decided on a plan together and the steps that we would take to advertise the piece:

1. Phone Calls - We were thinking that we could call either the head of year 10 and 11 in the secondary schools as they are the people who our marketing campaign would be targeted at due to them being a pathway to our target audience for the actual piece. Having a phone call would allow us to give them the basic information about the piece and what it aims we want the piece to have, plus we could get an immediate response about whether they are interested and then we could get a follow up route to send them more information.
2. Emails - We would then follow up the phone calls with an email that explains the piece in more depth and we would include links to the N2C Theatre website which has more information on it and we would also send them a small version of the poster that we would put up so that they know what to expect.
3. Social Media - N2C Theatre has a variety of different social media platforms, including twitter, facebook and instagram, which can be used throughout the rehearsal process in order for the piece to reach as many people as possible. Both of us have access to these platforms through our teachers who run them and we can both pass on photos and captions that we think advertise the piece the most and in the best light.
4. Trailer - We thought that we could make a short trailer video that could be played at the start of the piece to introduce the rehearsal process of the piece and it could include cast interviews/ the cast saying how influential it has been on their lives as well.
5. Flyers - SToRMS have already given us a flyer that they want us to hand out but we thought that we could combine what is on that flyer with information about N2C and also maybe create a joint logo between N2C and SToRMS.
6. Program - We were thinking about creating a small program that the audience can read whilst they are sitting down in their seats which gives an outview of what SToRMS is and what N2C is and also what the piece is generally based on including some information from the SToRMS website about communication between males.
7. Posters - We had the idea of creating a couple of posters that we would take down to the secondary school with us and have on the walls behind us whilst we are performing containing short and snappy sections of advice that correlates with the piece and we could also include some of the "Wise Talkers" information from SToRMS which they will be given later in the piece.

I am going to be in control of creating the posters in different eye-catching forms as well as being a part of controlling the social media as a pair. As we already have some schools that have contacted us about the piece, our teacher is going to focus on the email aspect as he has been emailing and calling them from the start and we don't want to interrupt that process and so we are only stepping in after those steps have been made.

I decided to do some research on aspects of a good poster and what makes a poster eye catching and interesting. I found a website (https://designshack.net/articles/inspiration/10-tips-for-perfect-poster-design/ ) that has bullet points about the good points of a poster and I am going to create a draft poster using their points and see what the outcome is. The main aspects that I found helpful were:
- Making the poster easy to read from a distance
- Using one big visual
- Use plenty of space
- Consider size and location

Week 17: TIE (Primary School)

Starting a new project, research and devising

Our new TIE project is based around the idea of a "Survival Guide" aimed at Year 6s who are transitioning into secondary school and have worries about what is going to happened both in school and out of school when they move up.
The client wants a few specific things to be present throughout the piece:

• The message that the students aren't alone and that every year 6 around the country will be feeling exactly the same.
• Highlight the differences between secondary and primary school so that the pupils are ready and know what to expect.
• Give them tips on what to do if they are stuck in a situation or find that they don't know what to do
• Acknowledge that we know they have fears and it's okay to be scared because it is such a big change.

We then brainstormed some worries that some of us actually had and also some that we think they might have:

1. Being Bullied
2. Getting Lost
3. Homework
4. Getting to lesson
5. Catching the bus
6. Older pupils
7. Being by yourself
8. Not making friends
9. School dinners
10. Being the only one who's scared
11. Detention
12. Teachers
13. Exams/tests
14. Growing up
15. Setting plans
16. Corridors
17. Fights
18. Smoking/Alcohol/Drugs
19. Relationships

Other ideas that we thought that we could include are things like:

- "It's the thought of it that's worse" so thinking about all of the scary aspects will make it worse and we know that not thinking about those things isn't an easy thing to do considering it's a major part of their lives and a growing experience for them but thinking about the good aspects will help.

- "We survived!" Saying that even we had the same fears as them when we were their age and we made it through secondary school and we have experienced it and can tell them how it actually is.

- "Your fears are the same as ours." It is okay to be scared and it's a normal thing to be scared about going into secondary school and everybody has them. We also come up with a kinda of slogan which is "Don't be scared, be prepared" meaning that if you're prepared and you know what to expect that it could be slightly less daunting and that's what the piece is going to be aimed at. Getting them prepared so that they know what to expect.

We then discussed the structure of the piece and we referred back to what we thought of at the start of the other TIE piece which was the idea of short bursts of information that keeps the audience interested in the piece with interactive sections in between that help us gage where the audience's understanding of the piece is and we can also help them in those sections if they are stuck.

We then began working on the beginning and we obviously introduced ourselves as N2C theatre and explained what we were going to do in the piece and we had to change some of the language that we were using as we needed the year 6s to benefit from what we were saying and understand how they could use our advice when they move up to secondary school.

We thought of using unrealistic examples of secondary school to ease the audience into the piece and have a quite comedic start and so we decided to use High School Musical as it is a film that is well-known and we could use the US version of what secondary is like to make a joke out of it. So we added in a small section of cheesy dance moves and then we said "yeah, it's not like that" and then we thought that we could contrast that with the extreme which is an all out fight and then we paused that and said "yeah, it's not like that either"

We then thought about the easiest way to get our target audience to understand the fears and stresses that we are exploring and so we decided to split it into named chapters so that the piece was easier to follow so the first chapter is called "Little Fears." I feel like naming the chapters allows the audience to stay grounded on a central subject and can relate everything back to that.

When I went into secondary school, I didn't have any big worries like some people have and so we decided that I should narrate Chapter 1 because I could relate to the "Little Fears" and it might make the audience more understanding towards what I felt and those in the same position could relate as well. So we started off with me saying "When I was moving to secondary school, I didn't have many big worries I just had small ones. Like whether I had the right equipment, whether I was going to get lost, what if the work was too hard and was I the only one having these worries?" Having this section allows us to acknowledge some of the little fears that we know are present in the minds of the children when they think about moving to secondary school. Also having a person on stage that is saying that they felt the exact same way will allow the audience to both open up to us about how they feel and also will begin to relate to what we are saying and this is when they can take the advice we are giving them, understand it and then proceed to use it in real life.

Marketing Research

Starting an advertising campaign

Before starting an advertising campaign, you need to identify your target audiences and the target audience for our Theatre In Education piece is boys aged 15-17, in years 10 and 11 in school. The performance target audience is this age range but the target audience that we will be advertising to will be the people and teachers who are going to pay and book for us to come and perform for their children. As we are beginning our marketing research, in preparation for our own marketing campaign regarding our T.I.E piece, we need to identify the different types of advertising there are and how effective they are in the society that we live in and also regarding our target audience. We found that there are two different types of advertising specific and non-specific. Specific is when a campaign that is focused at a group that we know is in our target range and non-specific is a campaign that has a more widespread field of focus.

We discussed some of the options that there are for an advertising campaign and methods that could be used and we put them into the categories of specific and non-specific. And we came up with these:

Specifc

•  Emails
• Letters
• Web Page
• Phone calls
• Social Media
• Marketing products such as cups, tshirts etc

Non-specific

• Posters
• TV Adverts
• Radio Adverts
• Newspapers
• Word of Mouth

Obviously some methods are going to be a lot harder to produce than others like Radio and TV adverts as we don't have access to those types of marketing but we could create a sample of what we would do and use that as an introduction to the piece whilst the audience are walking in. Things like phone calls, emails and social media are some of the easiest forms of marketing that we have access to and also we can directly advertise the piece to specific people who are linked to our target audience for the piece.

Week 17: TIE (Storms)

Performing to an audience and making changes

So this week, we actually had the opportunity to perform in front of a group of around 15 students, some of which were female but only around 4 of them, the rest being male, who were all in the age bracket of our target audience, 14-16. Performing in front of them allowed us to practice our facilitation skills and also see what it would be like to actually speak to a group of people and find out some of the answers that they might say in regards to our questions about the piece. At the end of the performance, we asked them for some feedback about the good points and some points that may need improving.

Our groups good points included:

• Interaction with the audience - they said that they really enjoyed how involved the audience were in the whole piece and breaking that fourth wall really allowed them to ask any questions if they were unsure which, in turn, also allowed us to see where they were with their understanding of the piece and help them if needed. Specifically, the "morning after scene" was mentioned as it was easy to follow and the questions that were asking and the fact that we actually went out to discuss them, helped the audience to understand the situation more and this also meant that they could relate to it more.

Our groups points to improve on included:

• Difference between John being drunk and sober needs to be bigger - It was pointed out that there needs to be a bigger difference once the Alcohol factor has been removed from the mini cooper scene as the audience became confused whether John was actually sober or not.
• More options for the text message - some of the audience brought up the fact that they know that John's reply to Holly was inconsiderate and they said that they wouldn't have even thought of sending that. The only problem with more options is that, the text message triggers scenes that happen later on in the piece and so if we had options then we wouldn't know which one the audience was going to pick meaning the later scenes don't coincide with the earlier ones.
• Confusion with rewinding - there was a mass confusion about where in John's story we were skipping back to at certain points and so we need to make it clearer about where we have skipped back to and even give a short overview of what has happened so that the audience can understand the scene more and where in the story line it actually is.

We then had a full class discussion with our teacher included to feedback what we had found out from the audience's feedback and sort out what we need to fix and improve.

• Extended Family - As one of the options for "who should John talk to" one of the audience suggested extended family which we thought was a good option as they are less obliged to become defensive and will listen to what you have to say but they don't have to take immediate action because they aren't your parents and are more of a listening ear.
• Option of us repeating their point - During the piece, I asked one of the audience members to say their point to the rest of audience but I also gave them the option of me saying it and we discussed that it might have been too early on in the piece to suggest that as we want the audience to feel comfortable enough to say their point so if we let them have another option too early they may not feel comfortable later on.
• Positive Reinforcement - We needed a lot more positive language being fed back to the audience once they have said a point so that they feel included in the piece and also know that their answer was appreciated. We need to be giving them positive encouragement almost constantly after a point is made and this will both boost their confidence as well as help cover up some of the blank spots.
• Narrator's repeating the audience's points - We were saying that the narrator's need to re-say the point that has been made by the audience so that the whole audience can hear the point.
• Banter - we could use banter on stage between all of us on stage to make the atmosphere less pressuring on the audience and easier for us to talk to them and also easier for them to talk to each other.
• The piece as a whole - The piece is working in theory as the audience are saying what we wanted them to say but it feels flat when some of the jokes are being made. This could be due to timing or maybe some of the jokes are really funny.
• Pace - At times, the pace was slow which had a big effect on the feel and energy of the piece which also led to some sticky transitions that made the piece quite bumpy.
• Too much alcohol? - It was brought up that there was quite a lot of the piece based around alcohol but not everyone wants to drink which means that we could be aiming at a specific type of male, so some males may not react in the same way to the piece as they can't connect with what's going on. We also discussed the idea that it might be the difference between Year 10 and Year 11 as majority of people are normally introduced to alcohol influence more in Year 11
• Removing all the barriers - We need to establish the fact that by removing alcohol we could also remove swearing as alcohol can influence how your speech and language.
• Peer pressure in the mini cooper scene - Because peer pressure is one of the barriers on the list, we think that we need to keep everyone in the scene whilst Holly is there to act as another distraction for John. It would also give the scene energy and an atmosphere.
• Music - We could use music when we go out to talk to the audience so that it isn't completely silent whilst people are talking and when the music is turned off that is the signal for us to come back on stage and get some feedback.

 After discussing all of these changes, we decided to re-work the start. We decided that we would carry the chairs on separately instead of getting them off of the stack because we could then introduce the banter aspect as we could give each other smug looks as we know what is to come in the piece.

 - We also made more of the fact that we have fake penis' in our hands and made it more like we were proud of what we were going to do.

- We also kept the interaction between the "lads" quite quick so that the pace was kept up throughout and we used that as a starting point for the atmosphere especially with the music in the background.

- We decided to cut off some of the "societal pressures on boys" because we found that the audience had lost concentration during all of the different examples and so we cut some of them out and shortened that extract so that it wasn't as long and the audience would still remain included in the piece. We also changed one of the end examples from clothing to talking about going to the gym because we wanted to include some of the ideas that Sue, the client, spoke to us about when she came to review the piece. Adding in something about the gym was one of the points that she had mentioned as something that plays a very big part in the modern male's life and can become quite a pressuring factor. 

Week 16: TIE (Storms)

Adding in improvements

Due to us having the client review our piece last week, we focused on the feedback that we were given and went through the entire piece making sure that changes were being made and we were keeping what Sue said in our heads at all times.

We started with changing the line "80% of people who commit suicide have a penis" to "80% of people who die by suicide" so that suicide doesn't sound like a crime. We also changed the wording of some other lines so that it made the build up to the question easier for the audience to understand what we wanted them to do clearly. The line "please help me explain to my colleague what happened by answering the following questions with the person sat next to you," was changed to "right, we need you guys to help me explain to my colleague how non-verbal communication was used between all three characters in the scene you just saw. To help you out, we've put some questions up on the board for you to discuss with the people around you." We made sure that we included "with the people around you" so that they wouldn't be restricted to the person sat next to them and it also leaves room for bigger discussions. We also made sure that we the cast was called back, the instructions for what we wanted them to do was clearer and so we now say "let's replay the scene and when we reach a point of non-verbal communication, we'll pause the scene and hear some of your ideas." We thought that this wording made it much clearer to the audience what was about to happened when we replayed the scene and it also prepared them to be called on to say their ideas.

We then started discussing the idea of doing a potential second arm test during the sliding scale if no one decides to put their hands up to stop John when he's walking then we thought that someone could say something like "so you all think that John is going to get on his knees and beg for forgiveness" as a joke and then we would redo the sliding scale, asking for them to be honest.

Also during the "who should John talk to" scene, we were thinking about adding in the option of Childline or Samaritans etc as someone that he could talk to, or maybe not adding it on the slide that would be shown but when we go out and talk to the audience, we could mention it and see how they would react to Childline as an option. We would then have a true reaction from the target audience on how they would feel calling an anonymous line.

After these discussions, we then focused on the asides that are throughout the piece as we wanted them to have the most impact which meant that the atmospheres, from the actual scene to the asides, need to be as juxtaposing as possible. We went through each individual aside and made sure that we, as the cast, knew when the asides ended in order for us to bring the atmosphere back up.

We then moved onto the facilitation of the forum theatre as we have never actually clarified what we were going to say in that section and so we decided that Adam, John's friend, should be the one to introduce the idea of the audience telling him what to say and do in order for John to open up to him. We came up with some reasons, that we thought the audience might say, for why John isn't communicating. We thought of:

• He might be embarrassed of admitting he's struggling 
• It might be out of the blue
• The alcohol could be stopping him from communicating
• It's also in front of everyone

At this point, we would be in the audience asking questions in order for them to understand the situation more. If they did say that having the friends there was harder for John to explain how he's feelings then we would encourage them to put their hand up and suggest that Adam get John on his own.

We then decided to add in some chorus narration so that we could drip-feed some information to the audience about what was about to happen in the next scene, where Adam takes it upon himself to ask John how he's feeling instead of waiting for John to open up. One of the lines that I was given was "so here's our top tip for helping someone open up about their feelings," but we decided to change the line as saying "feelings" to an all-boy audience may cause them to switch off as it seems like a quite feminine thing to say. So we changed the line to "so here's our top tip for helping someone open up about stuff." We would therefore be using vocabulary that the audience can relate to and understand more in order for them to be able to unlock the real meaning behind the piece. We also had to change another line to "one thing that makes it easier to feel like someone gets you," for the same reason that we changed my line: so that the audience could relate to it more.

We also had a discussion about how we wanted to end the piece and we though that we could have a small section of reflective listening which is where we, as the cast, would go into character as John and give the audience a chance to practice reflecting John's feelings back to him. It also allows the audience a chance to see what it feels like to help someone open up and so if this situation happens in real life, they know what to do and how to react when someone is telling them how they are feeling and their situation. We would also highlight some mistakes that people make when communicating, which are thinks like direct questions which are more likely to make someone switch off instead of open up and so we would try and get them to avoid asking questions. At this point, we would also hand out the wise-talkers leaflets to reiterate what we have been saying about it being easier to ask than to explain. 

Week 15: TIE review (Storms)

Performing in front of the client

Before the client arrived, we had a 2 hour rehearsal of just running the piece again and again in order for the fluidity of the piece to replicate what we want it to be like in the actual performances. We added in a piece of music which added in comedic timing, making the idea of us "becoming" boys all the more effective because we are using humour to allow the audience to fully open up and take on board what we are going to tell them. This was from previous research that we had done and we found out that majority of males communicate through humour and so we are communicating in a way that they will understand.

At 3pm, the clients arrived in order to watch the piece and give us feedback on whether it fitted their campaign and whether it reached the points and topics that they wanted it to. They were also checking that the information that we are giving out is appropriate and in a way that is easily understandable. After the run-through, the client and Mr Chipp had a small discussion about the piece and whether they thought things needed changing. We then joined them after 30 minutes to receive this feedback so we could begin to think about adapting the piece.

Overall, the feedback that we got was very positive. They enjoyed the comedic start and they were happily surprised by the idea of us becoming boys as we have a completely female class and so they were glad that we found a way around it with the stereotypes of boys and still managed to keep the audience focused on the topics. It was very engaging for an audience to watch and they liked the way that it was very jokey at the start and then the seriousness of the piece came with the statistics which they agreed was very needed in the piece. The interactive side was very effective and they thought that the forum theatre section was a very good idea to keep the audience engaged with the piece and also an opportunity for us to check in with the audience on where their understanding of the topic is.

They said that maybe we could change the line "80% of people who commit suicide have a penis" to "80% of people who die by suicide have a penis" because the word "commit" makes it  sound like a crime and not something that has happened to them. They also commented that they think we should have a bigger build-up or some sort of preparation before we ask the audience questions so, we need to get slightly further into the piece before we have any audience interaction just so the audience can really get a feel for the topic and understand what we want them to do once we do go out.

The client also brought up something that we had discussed earlier on in the rehearsal process, which was the idea that everybody goes through these problems which they have to deal with but, it can be just lots of little things instead of big topics that we have used like bereavement and financial status. These little things can build up as well as pressure until that person reaches a breaking point. This pressure, if not expressed or let out, over a period of time can lead to having an effect on the mental health of that person. The client expressed that this was one of the major starting points of a mental health problem and so we are considering having Adam, John's friend in the piece, showing signs of these little problems and showing that these problems effect everybody. Everybody comes across their own struggles in life and will recognise that build up of pressure but, we want people to know that there are ways of relieving that pressure and it doesn't have to be a massive thing. This is where we could bring more information about the SToRMs "Wise-talkers" campaign which focuses on recognising the signs of someone who is stressed or upset and taking the first step to talk to them about their problems instead of them coming to you. We want to highlight the fact that everyone needs to look out for everyone all the time because we are all dealing with the same problems and SToRMs want more people to take the steps to helping someone else.

We then moved on to a discussion of our ideas around Adam's character and the client mentioned ideas about modern society and the peer pressure of male's "image". One of the things that SToRMs do is look at alcohol in relation to mental health and challenging stigma. A huge thing for the males in our age range in modern culture is "gym culture," being bigger and having more muscles than your friends. The idea that the client had for Adam was that he could be big and outgoing on the outside but he still has internal anxieties about the way that he looks. So we wanted Adam to represent the idea of males using the gym to cover up their insecurities about their bodies and we would use this character to reveal and admit these insecurities about his image in order to normalise that idea and let the audience know that its okay to be insecure about your body and that many other people are going through the same thing. We wanted to use the idea of Adam being quite scrawny in year 7 and was picked on and now he goes to the gym five times a week and if he misses 2 session then he feels anxious about his weight gain. He appears to be this tall and muscular male but inside he is still that small boy. This issue to so relevant in the society that we live in and I think that once it has been commented on, because it isn't talked about enough, then people will start realising the signs in other people and hopefully use the methods that we have mentioned in the piece to talk to their friends about it. This could be possible with Adam's character as we would see the friends perspective of "John's a lad...he's only having a laugh...he's fine" as Adam doesn't see the other side of John that the audience do and we can accentuate the fact that John is going through all of his problems and his friend doesn't even realise that they are they reason behind his excessive drinking.

The client was then giving us information about the charity as a whole and mainly focused on the wise-talkers campaign which they want to launch with the TIE project, like CAMHS did with the previous year. We took a look at the leaflets that would be handed out and we found that it was to used to help people who know that someone else is going through a rough period of time to find routes into helping that other person talk about their situation. We said that there was a lot of words, all of which were important but it was a bit of an overload of information, also the SToRMs logo was only very small and so for advertising purposes it wouldn't do a very good job and also if someone wanted to get in touch with the producers then the SToRMs logo needs to be bigger in order for them to do that. There was a small change that needed to be made on one of the back pages as the telephone number for one of the companies had changed and we suggested the Samaritans number as you can text that number as well as call due to the modern society finding it easier to text someone instead of call them so including that number would be beneficial. We then moved onto how likely the target audience was to actually keeping the leaflet and what their response would be so we brought in three lads, two in year 11 and one in year 10, and asked them what their response would be to the leaflets after they've seen the piece. They all said that they would have most likely put it in the bin but after watching TIE would most likely keep it but maybe not actually use it because of it being so small.

We had the idea of actually bringing that reaction into the piece so like we were preempting their response to being given this leaflet. The least it could do was think more about their actions and perhaps actually read what they have been given in depth. We talked about what it would mean to throw the piece of paper away. Would they be saying they don't want to be a good friend? Do they not need it? Perhaps adding some of those questions into the piece would also be effective in getting them to rethink their actions regarding the leaflet. This led to us having a conversation about appealing more to using it to help a friend in need, not necessarily for yourself which might make people more likely to engage with the idea of it and also use it. They did comment that it was originally aimed at adults which led us to suggesting that maybe social media was the best route to go down when referring to our target audience. Caitlin mentioned that social media feels more personal and having that constant exposure to the campaign would have a bigger effect than organisational leaflets. Imogen also suggested the idea of anonymous stories, so anyone who has a problem can send them in anonymously and be able to get advice from anyone going through the same problem. I suggested even sending in experiences of helping someone else to help accentuate the fact that these things work and can be helpful to start of the conversation about their situation. SToRMs' social media platform would act as a middle man for communication between peers. We thought that using social media alongside the performance is the way to get through to our age range and actually if the piece impacts 2 people out of 300 then it worth it.

In terms of continuity after the piece, we wanted to get people to realise these signs in both themselves, but more importantly, their friends and use the leaflet in order for them to step up and start the conversation. We would sell the leaflet as "this is a guide to help someone else" and "admitting you've got problems is hard" which would appeal to the male ideas of comrades. Sue talked about friends asking for advice because some people come across a situation where they're at a loss to how to get help for them or a friend, as they don't know what to say or what to do or where to point their friend to for help. We also touched upon the idea of a counselling for friends of people who are having counselling, a kind of helpful hand to tell them how to have an open mind when regarding their friends problems and issues.

Overall, the performance to the client was a success and we don't have any major changes to make to what we originally had and we have some interesting ideas to move to piece into the right direction and start to move onto the perspective of the friend, Adam.

Director's Challenge - Performance Review

Our cast performed on the 19th of December to an audience of around 60 people. From the start of the performance, the cast established the style well and reflected all of the direction that we had given them throughout the rehearsal process. Although there were some pauses during the last two sections, where the cast had forgotten lines, and there was the majority of one section was missed out due to a line slip which meant that a lot was cut out, the cast continued to perform the piece at their best and finished the piece without too many other mistakes. Having these slip -ups meant that the piece didn't have its complete effect on the audience although the cast did continue to maintain the style and the directions that we had given them to the best of their abilities.

Looking at the performance from the beginning, the timing of the entrances was exactly as directed but the only problem that we didn't take into consideration was the raked seating would block the idea of two of the cast coming in from the back. When Leah, the cast member who entered from outside, knocked on the door only a few of the audience turned around to look meaning that didn't have the effect that we wanted,  although the audience did watch both people walk down the sides of the seating. The last entrance worked well as all the others were in quite quick concession of each other which meant that the juxtaposition was increased and therefore bigger effect was created when Hannah entered from sit in the audience. We wanted the entrances to highlight the difference between each person and show that each person was an individual that was coming to help with the delivery of the messages of the piece. We tried to reflect this in the lights with more light entering the stage as each person entered to reflect that each person was needed to have a complete performance. We didn't want the lighting to make the play seem artificial and so we had some lights on the audience and on the back corner of the room so that the majority of the room was lit.

The first two sections of the piece were very fluid and the speed of the lines was as directed and the pace of the piece meant that the topics that were being introduced had a greater impact than they would if the pace was slow as the audience was more immersed in what was being said. The group movements, like the head movements and the lift, were very synchronised and had the desired effect on the audience as some of them reacted audibly and we assumed that this meant that they were re-engaged with the performance - the effect that we wanted.

When we got to Section 3, I think that the casts nerves really began to set in as this is where they began to miss lines and where a substantial amount of script was lost due to one of the cast members saying a line that was too early and it ended up skipping the last third of section 3 and moving onto the start of section 4. The cast carried on as well as they could but it threw some of them off which resulted in some pauses between lines but the segment that was missed out included some of the more interesting topics and also the paragraph that involved the ideas about their capacity to generate surprise is slowly decreasing is a very interesting idea for the audience to consider whilst watching the piece but they couldn't consider it because they didn't hear it. After one of the pauses, two of the cast members tried to cover it up by saying a line, but this just led to them saying their lines over the top of each other. By this point in the play, it was completely up to the cast as to how they were going to react to this and how they were going to deal with this. Perhaps, it could have been down to something in the rehearsal process, as we wanted the atmosphere to not be pressuring on the cast as we didn't think that a stressed rehearsal environment was a successful and productive one but taking this into consideration, maybe we could have been a little harsher on line learning so that the cast knew the order of the lines better. We also had a cast member who became very nervous before hand and we did see her nerves reflected in her performance as she forgot the majority of her paragraph but covered this up by saying what she could and the piece carried on.

Overall, the cast managed to continue with their performance and maintained the style even through their errors. The exits had the same effect as the entrances with each person going off the way they came and as we left Maisie on stage, the final blackout came down on a performance that did have some errors but majority reflected Etchells intentions and the Forced Entertainment style.