Business Essay - Jobs in the Theatre

A theatrical performance both on the performance date and in the rehearsal process includes many different vital roles to make sure that a performance runs smoothly and effectively. These roles range from the actors onstage who are portraying the characters on the stage to the set and lighting designs to the ushers who try and make the audience feel as comfortable as possible. All of the roles are needed in planning and performance aspects, and to retain each job there would be steps that would need to be made in order to reach the expectation for each role.

The director of a performance is one of the most important people in the whole process of creating a performance and it is essentially their interpretation of the practitioner and so they are involved with everyone so that they can achieve the best display of acting and hard work. They can be a permanent member of a set theatre or they can be hired for a particular show. They develop and implement their artistic vision for the piece with the possible help from an Assistant director and a choreographer, who would oversee both dance sections, if needed, and/or staged fight scenes to ensure that they are safe, rehearsed and managed. Although unless the director is very experienced and successful being a director can be unpredictable in terms of employment as a theatre may not employ them if they haven't got any past work to account for and to show the influence that you have had in past productions. The responsibility that is placed upon a director is greater than any other as they are generally responsible for everything and everyone included under that bracket which means that many questions are going to be directed towards them as so they need to be able to work quickly yet efficiently in order to get the play to a performance ready whilst having their artistic vision to be correct and presentable. 

One of the roles that are included in a theatre are the Ushers who's job it is to guide people there seats and make sure that everyone is sat in their designated seats smoothly. They are the public face of the theatre and normally work throughout the performance and act as a base for the audience to ask questions about both the theatre and the performance. They also sell programmes, merchandise and refreshments during the interval which means that they overlook the sources of income in the theatre during the performance. They are also responsible for the health and safety of the audience and the safe evacuation from the theatre. Representing the theatre means that they need to be portraying the theatre in a positive light at all times and making sure that the audience feel comfortable both while watching the performance and going in and out of the theatre. 

Theatre designers such as the set designer, costume designer, and the lighting designer are the key to the Director's artistic vision coming to life on stage and in terms of the set designer they are responsible for transporting the audience into another place or time and making it believable. The positions can be combined if the production is of a smaller budget and proportion. Set designers need to be able to take the ideas of those around them and put them into 3D objects on the stage. They could need to work with other roles such as the production manager, stage managers and the lighting crew in order to build the set according to plans that they have been given and so they need to be able to listen to everyone and then combine those wants into the set. They may need to do their own construction as well as making drawings of the possible set for the director to review, if the theatre does not have it's own construction crew. As a set designer they may need fine art training before hand in order to accentuate their aesthetic sense for design and construction. They need to be patience with demands of the director and need to be open for change in case the design is not what the director wanted it to look like. A set designer may need to work under time restrictions and budgets which means that they need to be able to work with other people in a short space of time and if the production is on a larger scale this could become particularly stressful. The director may want to change an aspect of the set in a time that is close to the performance and this may lead to possible long hours or a hectic schedule before the production opens. They would need to thrive under this pressure and work as hard as possible in order for the set to meet the design brief.

In terms of costume designers they may also work with the set designer to make sure that they both reflect the time period in which the play is set. They are focused around dressing the actors on stage in a particular way that reflects the time in which the play is set and making it realistic. To become a Costume director the academic needs are less than that of a director and so you could enter this line of work with just a diploma in any type of art or specifically fashion. A costume designer needs to be passionate about their work and be able, like a set designer, to put the design brief onstage and to fill the expectations of the director. Like a set designer they will have to work with deadline and possibly under pressure which means that they need to be time-aware and be able to use their time wisely. Costume designers need to be able to react to criticism of their work in an orderly manner that reflects not only themselves but the theatre they are working for as well. The costume industry is very competitive which means that in order for you to get the job you need to be able to distance yourself from other competitors and make your designs stand out.

Another designer that is included in the theatre is the lighting designers who are responsible for lighting the stage in relation to the setting and the time of each scene. This means that they can be controlling up to 50 lights at a time and they will most likely be changing from scene to scene and so they will need to keep a level head throughout in order for the lighting changes to run smoothly. They are contributing to the overall atmosphere of the productions and help set the scene for the audience. They too, follow the directions that they are given yet they do get their opinions heard more than others as they need to be educated in how to use a lighting desk and, depending on experience, may know the best ways to achieve the directors design brief. They will also have to deal with last minute changes by the director and have to work long hours in order to set the lights to what they need to be and be able to use them in a performance easily.

A stage manager is a role which entails overlooking all of the backstage jobs including all designers and they are responsible for the organisation of backstage crews and the cast during performance as well as during the rehearsal process. There can often be more than one manager and so they need to be able to work as a team in order to run a performance as smoothly as possible although in smaller productions there are normally just one stage manager. They are normally associated with a company as a freelancer or can be part of the permanent stage crew at certain theatres. Stage managers need to be have a wide range of knowledge about the theatre itself and methods that can be used in order to make a performance run smoothly. They are responsible for the health and safety of both the performers and the stage crew for every performance as well as ensuring that all departments have reached the goals that were set for them at the start of the rehearsal process for the production to be performed to its greatest potential during rehearsals as well. Their jobs may include pre-show prop checks, safety checks and movement rehearsal. They co-ordinate the show and so need to be able to control a large amount of people and be work-driven so that everything is completed in the time frame given. They may even have to organise props and assist with set and costume changes during the performances to make sure that the performance can carry on without disruption.

Another key position in a theatrical performance is the actor onstage. They are constantly being watched throughout the rehearsal process and in the performance as they are the focal people who are telling the story of their characters. They need to be dedicated to their jobs as securing a job can be very hard and so they need to be resilient as they may face a lot of rejection and they need to be able to come back from that and pursue on-wards to other auditions. They need to put an immense amount of time and effort into the portrayal of their characters in order to make it realistic for the audience. An actor needs to be to take criticism and direction in order for the character to be played in a certain way that fits the directors interpretation and so they need to be open to suggestions about their work and be able to change anything, whether that be their tone of voice or body language, without interference.

For the past two years, I have been taking BTEC performing arts at A level and previously before that 2 years of GCSE drama which are two of the steps that could be needed to gain the job of an actor. After A levels, there are an array of different university degrees that I could take in order to reach the goal of an actor from Actor training to Musical theatre to performing arts and these are offered at many universities around the UK. Whilst in university, there are many audition opportunities including the National Youth Theatre which is based around 19-25 year olds and they give courses in acting and backstage opportunities. The more audition opportunities that I take, the more experience that I would have with auditioning and the more confidence I would gain. Also the more auditions I attend the more my name would become recognisable and therefore I would become more known for my acting skills. These steps would hopefully give me the opportunities to become an actor in the future.

Week 29: Sarah Kane

Researching Sarah Kane

Sarah Kane is the other play write that we are studying for our contemporary unit and we discussed her in class and I also did some research about her outside of the classroom. She was writing between 1995-1999, up until she died aged 28 in 1999. She came from the Royal Court Theatre, which pushes new writing and at the time of her debut, she was at the forefront of a very visceral and explosive type of theatre. The theatre was shocking to an audience and the language that was used was similar to Berkoff but very dis-similar in terms of the themes which for Kane were more socially orientated. When the play that we are studying, "Blasted", was first reviewed, it was particularly slated by some critics, because they claimed it to be immature writing, a series of explosive actions just to make the audience react in a certain way. Although this could be seen as a fair point, there are many things in her writing that are interesting and the fact that her plays are still being performed nearly 20 years after they were originally written says something about her writing. A reviewer coined the phrase, "In-yer-face Theatre", that has been associated with this type of theatre. It's not a style that she created and then set to follow but it's the style that many people use to describe her theatre. The majority of her plays deal with themes such as love, sexual desire, pain, torture of both the physical and psychological nature, and death. They have an almost poetic intensity and include the exploration of theatrical form and her earlier work also includes the use of extreme and violent stage action. She originally wanted to be a poet, but decided that she was unable to convey her thoughts and feelings through poetry. She once wrote that she was attracted to the stage because "theatre has no memory, which makes it the most existential of the arts...I keep coming back in the hope that someone in a darkened room somewhere will show me an image that burns itself into my mind."

Blasted was first produced in 1995 at the Royal Court and then produced again in 2001. It was a very controversial play of its time and was fiercely attacked in the British papers. It was later seen to be making parallels between domestic violence and the war in Bosnia, and between emotional and physical violence. An assistant director of one production suggested that "the argument is made through form, through the shifts in styles throughout Blasted. That's how she constructs the argument, by taking this setting in an English Northern industrial town and suddenly transporting the action to a war zone." The critical realism that the first scene sets up is literally blasted apart in scene two. A critic once said that "for Kane, hell is not metaphysical: it is hyper-real, reality magnified."

We talked about the synopsis of the play and found that it was based around the character of Ian who is dying of lung cancer and the first scene includes him and Cate who we suspect has a mental condition due to her actions and body language that is described in the stage directions. Ian is depicted as racist, homophobic and misogynistic through his language and attitude towards others in the play, especially Cate. He abuses his position as the older man in the couple and projects his thoughts and opinions onto her. Ian becomes completely disillusioned by the horrific lengths that humans can go to in both his life as a journalist and also in real life. Ian is left blind after a visit from a soldier and he essentially becomes reliant on Cate. Cate is young and innocent in comparison to Ian. She is naive and her occasional stuttering reflect her nervous disposition which is back up when she passes out when she  is overwhelmed or intimidated. Her youth makes her a representative for the more progressive views in society and she retaliates when Ian uses racial slur or anti-politically correct language. Cate seems unfazed by the horrors that are being described outside the hotel room  and she is even willing to escape the hotel room and venture into the war torn outside world. Her progressive outlook makes her more socially aware than Ian and by the end of the play he is completely reliant on her and she becomes the one in the position of power.

After reading through the play we started discussing the language that's included and mainly from Ian. The language that Ian uses is quite shocking at the beginning of the play and then the audience almost become accustomed to the way that he speaks. There has been a gradual increasing of intolerance for racist language from the time in which the play was written and so the audience may not find the language as terribly shocking as we do at this day and age. It would still be language that the audience may not come across very often but it wouldn't be as shocking as in our modern society. The events that happen throughout the play seem to never end in terms of shock factor as each event seems to be the worst thing that could happen yet there are more scenes to come. It's almost exhausting to the audience in a way who are watching it for the first time as there are so many extreme event being shown onstage and it can be quite draining. At the end of the play, there is almost a breakdown in the style of the play and it is beginning to feel like the scenes are getting shorter and the events are getting harder to keep track of in a logic timeline. Part of that fracturing is due to the passage of time and in one way not much time has passed at all but its feels different because of the suggestion of the different seasons being mentioned in the stage directions.

The end section of the play where we see Ian in different positions around the room could reflect his deterioration throughout the passage of time and it is almost a review of the play in shorter scenes. When the lighting switches from blackout to full lights very quickly yet methodically, it could show the pain that Ian is in being by himself and possibly reflecting his blindness at this point in the play. It almost goes through all of the different needs of the human race and the base survival instinct of man. It looks at human nature as there is sexual drives, emotional response, regret, fear, need for food and then at the end death as thought it is a type of relief yet you keep going and when the rain pours on his face and he realises that he is still alive it's almost like he has done all of these things just to want to die. The play could be focusing on what violent conduct does to society and what war does to society. Possibly commenting on how sometimes we are set apart from that in the west and it's presentation in a very extreme way and when you come to the end of play, we see a small act of kindness from Cate and she is being a good person to this character who seems to have been engineered for the audience to dislike.

In comparison to Brecht, Sarah Kane appears to potentially want the same message to be taken from her work that the audience need to change how they act about certain issues in the world yet they both present it differently onstage. Brecht focuses on the political aspects that are behind the conversation and events wheres Kane focuses on the social effects that events can have and how we act with other in response to these major events. It has been said that Kane made no reference to the struggles that she was going through mentally and since her suicide, audience's have noticed connections between her life and her writing. When Kane was discussing Blasted in an interview, she mentioned the haunting newspaper image of a Bosnian woman hanging from a tree that emphasises the start of a civil war. Some say if it weren't for Blasted "In-Yer-Face" theatre wouldn't have had the impact that it did in the 1990s. James Macdonald, who directed an array of Kane's play says that "the media painted her as a wild axe-girl, but actually she was far more theatre-literate than most writers of her age. To shake it up a bit - with an ambition and urgency and passion that's often lacking. She wasn't just symptomatic of the 1990s - what was refreshing was that she was up to something different from most of her generation. She was writing about politics in her own way." As for Brecht, he was writing in the early 1900s and so is influences were different to Kane's, especially since Brecht was writing when the Nazis were coming into power and he was actually on a wanted list because his writing was so anti-Nazi. Clearly the two writers have different influences meaning that the styles and the topics of the play will be different but they both wanted to provoke the audience to question their lives and perhaps cause them to question their actions both past and present, whether that be socially, in terms of Kane, or politically, in Brecht's case.

Marketing Effectiveness Essay

After performing both Theatre In Education pieces, we needed time to reflect on the positive and negative aspects and also the effectiveness of each piece. There were both positive and negative aspects to both of the piece and these could affect the effectiveness of the pieces as well. We had reflective sessions at the end of both of the piece with the audiences and we also got a chance to talk to our teacher about our performances.

Our SToRMS piece was the first to be performed and one of the main positive feedback that we got was that the reflective listening groups at the end were really beneficial to particular audience members who actually commented that they were struggling with some of the topics included in the piece and they hoped that someone would be able to listen to them and help them after this. We were able to talk through the 7 deadly sins of communication with my group being particularly intrigued about what each one meant and at times when examples were given, the group was able to identify when they had experience someone use that in their lives. This opened up the situation for discussion as we could talk through what happened in that situation and ask how talking to them in that tone made them feel and how reflective listening could have been used in that situation. When we also went out for the interactive sections with the audience, they seemed very open to talking to us about what they would do in those situations. This was how we wanted it to be so that the audience didn't feel like we were going to judge them on their opinions and we just wanted to talk through their thought process throughout the piece and their interpretation of the piece. The comedic timing of the piece was also commented on as the audience responded as we expected to the jokes that were made which allowed interaction between the cast and the audience much easier as the atmosphere was already set from the comedy aspects before hand.

One of the main negative aspects of the SToRMS performance was refocusing the audience which was needed in order for them to understand both the story line and for the audience to completely understand the messages that we were portraying. Even though the facilitators had microphones, at times the audience overpowered them and lines were lost due to the talking of the audience. This meant that particular explanations of the activities were lost in the sea of voices and so the activity did not work as we had expected due to the audience not being able to hear the explanation of what they were being asked to do. As expected there were also certain groups in the audience who weren't interested in the piece and the messages that we were trying to convey and this lead to them not wanting to interact with cast members and relate their own lives to the piece. This made it harder to ask some of the questions and we had to use techniques like asking other questions about the scene and what happened which allowed us to initiate conversations about the scene. At times this was successful and other not which altered the effectiveness a lot.

In terms of effectiveness, I feel that the SToRMS piece was overall quite effective as in a discussion with the client, we said that in an audience of aorund 50/60 people, if we could help 2 or 3 people then that would be enough as this could be exactly what they needed. I know that we helped at least 1 person as they told me about how this was what they needed and so I believe that we achieved what we set out to do and therefore the piece was effective. I do however believe that there were members of the audience who didn't think about the piece once they had left the performance space so it was not 100% effective.

In terms of the Primary School "Survival Guide" we had a much younger target audience and therefore it appeared to be much easier to interact with as they were very interested in what we had to say. Especially in the interactive sections, we had a lot of students wanting to answer our questions and were eager to make their opinions heard. They were very willing to participate in the small activities that we gave them which made it much easier to discuss and talk through their opinions in relation to the subject chapter we were on. During the Quiz scene, in which we were asking the audience in small group for the best response to the scenario we had set up, the audience's competitive streak was clear and we had many discussion about what the best response would get the best outcome. During the discussion groups at the end of the piece, the audience were given the opportunity to ask any questions that they had and this also allowed us to ask them for feedback on the piece and the response was that they felt more relaxed about moving up to secondary school. One of the teachers at our school has a daughter that watched the piece and her and her class were talking about it for a week after we had performed it which clearly show the effectiveness of the piece if the children were talking about the piece and secondary school even after we had left. The only negative aspects of the performance was the pace during the start of the piece which was too fast, this could possibly change the effectiveness of the piece due to the audience not being able to hear the start of the first chapter as the narrator talked slightly too fast and so the audience might not have been able to connect to the situation that had been set up for them as they couldn't hear the explanation.

Overall the performance was successful and the audience clearly took away the main messages that we wanted them to understand which was that moving up to secondary school isn't as scary as they thought. I think that it was completely effective for the audience as they were talking about it even after the performance. We even got verbal communication that they were more excited about moving up to secondary school which means that the Primary School piece was more effective than the SToRMS piece.

Business Essay - Edinburgh Fringe Festival

If we were to take the SToRMS Theatre In Education piece to The Edinburgh Fringe Festival to be performed to an audience, there are many steps that need to be taken in order to see whether this would be suitable for our theatre company and also in our price range. We have a budget of £15,000 which needs to be able to cover travelling costs, accommodation, food and drink, seeing other shows, venue hire and ticket hire. If £15,000 wasn't enough there are other ways that we can fund the trip from things like Gofundme accounts online, sponsorship, donations and grants.

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the world's largest arts festival and last years festival spanned over 25 days and featured 53,232 performances of 3,398 shows in 300 venues around Edinburgh. It was established in 1947 and runs every year in August. There is no selection committee for the festival which means that anyone may participate with any type of performances. This can include performances from theatre, comedy, dance, physical theatre, circus, cabaret, children's shows, musicals, opera, music, spoken word, exhibitions and events. The festival is based all around Edinburgh and in some of the University buildings which are open for the festival. The role of the Fringe Society is solely to facilitate the festival and concentrate on the logistics of this huge event. A past administrator of the festival said that "as a direct result of the wishes of the participants, the Society has been set up to help the performers that come to Edinburgh and to promote them collectively to the public. It did not come together so that groups could be invited, or in some way artistically vetted. What was performed and how it was done was left entirely to each Fringe group."n
The venues come in many different forms, with the festival using all viable space that is available from regular theatres, like the Bedlam Theatre, functions rooms, churches and church halls, lecture theatres, including the George Square Theatre and conference centres. There are many diverse groups that operate these venues with some being commercial and others being non-profit. The decision on the performance locations are based on key factors such as cost, it's location within Edinburgh and its proximity to the main Fringe hubs around Edinburgh University, and the philosophy of the venue. For example what does the venue specialise in; amateur productions, school or college productions, semi-professional or wholly professional productions. According to the Fringe Society, there were 258 venues in 2011. The biggest venues during the festival are known as "The Big Four" and they include the Assembly, Gilded Balloon, The Pleasance and the Underbelly. They are not only the largest venue operators but the most long-standing. The Underbelly is a relatively new venue with only 15 years history. Each one operates a multi-room venue complex and often across multiple sites.
Although the festival is unjuried, there is a registration fee which in 2008 was £289.05. Some of the outdoor spaces also require registration thus some artists perform outside the specified venues of the Fringe. The aim is to encourage experimentation by reducing costs to performers which results in them not charging for spaces, and providing accommodation. This also applies to the audience so they "pay what they can" towards the performances.

One of the controversies that there is about the festival is the ticket prices, as in 2006 tickets prices reached to £20 for a one-hour show. The raising tickets prices could be down to increasing costs of hiring the large venues, theatre licences and the price of accommodation during the festival which is both expensive for the performers as well as the audience. In recent years, a couple of organisations have introduced free entry shows that collect donations at the end of each performance in order to fundraise for the festival. 22 shows were included in this category and these grew rapidly during 2011 with the numbers reaching over 600. Putting on a show in the Fringe festival with the venues that it offers can be very costly to performers due to the registrations fees, vehicle hire, accommodate and also the transport to Edinburgh. Recently a change has been in the process which allows the performers to negotiate with the bigger venues first-hand and the festival is becoming a wider opportunity for future careers for all performers. There is also the cost of the venues that needs to be taken into consideration when planning on entering the festival which start at £824 for a venue of up to 200 people and rising to £2472 for a venue of up to 5,000 people. If we were to take our Theatre In Education piece here to be performed these two of the most important aspects that we need to budget for.

Gofundme accounts allows the focus to be on that specific individual campaigns and this platform makes it easier to access and organise to gain funds. It can be accessed by computer or mobile and the company can start receiving donations from people all around the world who support the cause and the company. Once the account is set up and running, the company will get automatic updates and notifications when someone donates to the account. This makes it a lot more efficient and easy to follow which means that we can focus on other things and not focusing all of the attention on the fundraising. We can also add personal photos, information and updates about the company and the piece which we are taking to the festival and this may gain more interest in the piece if they can see how much work is being put in to the performance and who it is actually aimed at. With there being easy access to the website on mobile phones this means that it can be accessible for anyone who is on social media platforms which is the majority of the population. This then allows the fundraiser to reach a wide range of people and this means that the chance for more people to donate to us. Although fees are required to maintain the website at its current position and this is commonly used when companies use the website as a platform for their product which we would be doing if we used Gofundme to raise money for our trip. A 5% fee is given to the GoFundMe website for each donation given. Therefore, whatever is raised on the website is not fully rewarded to the company. Also, it takes time for fundraisers to receive their donations as it usually takes 5-7 business days to process and for the money to be deposited.

Another method of fundraising that could be use is sponsorship. Sponsorship is where a company receives financial support from a sponsor and this then provides a broad opportunity for the company to reach their goals. For sponsors, these goals are normally associated with their marketing aims and letting their name be known. For those being sponsored, normally goals may include things that need equipment or in our case funding for transport and accommodation. Companies often use sponsorship to be visible and to create a connection to other companies, event or organisation. This would help create appeal to our target audience and present a positive perception of our company and those who sponsored us. It also gives the sponsors a chance to promote themselves as well through supporting a product that links to its own target audience. The connection that is made between the two companies whether it's supporting the individual company, a product or an event has no definite way of benefiting both parties. Different methods of support are available depending on the needs of the company needing to be sponsored. This means that more time needs to be spent planning and evaluating what both parties want and need. Sponsorship needs a more in depth relationship between the two parties which means that more time may be needed talking through which leads to more time being needed in terms of discussions between the companies.

Donations are another form of funding that could be used in a situation where the company might not have enough budget to fund the trip themselves and by getting donations from helpful causes we are ensuring that companies end up receiving the necessary funds that they need to deliver the product and work towards providing the best performances and most importantly, in our case, getting the message to as many people as possible. Financial donations to a non-profit organisation often come with deductions in terms of tax depending on how much you can give to the company. The act of giving a company money to achieve what they want also puts a positive light on both the company receiving it and the person donating it. Although getting donations is very difficult to receive as you are open to anyone giving you their donations but if the audience have no information on your company or the product which you are funding then it is hard for them to decide whether they can donate to you or not.

The final way that could be possible for us to get funding if needed for the piece to be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and grants are a sum of money given by a government or other organisation for a particular purpose. Grants allows a company to receive generous amounts of money and once you have obtained one grant then the company is more likely to receive others in the future. It is also a positive way to build a company's visibility and credibility. There is a lot of research that goes into a granting agency before writing the grant which can be very time-consuming. Competition is very fierce when it comes to grants and success rate can be very low. On average per day roughly 2,700 grant proposals are submitted but fewer than 200 will actually receive funding. Most grants are also short term so when they run out you have to repeat the process over again.

In either scenario that I have budgeted for we would be able to fund ourselves to go and so wouldn't have to look for further need for funding. To conclude, we would be able to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2018 and take our Theatre In Education piece so that we could try and talk to as many people as possible and talk about the communication between teenage boys and how we can help elevate that.

Devising Essay

Discuss the devising process of both the SToRMS and Primary School piece with reference to how the material was produced.

Both Theatre In Education pieces that we have worked on, have been thoroughly thought through and tailored to the specific target audience for each piece. Theatre In Education aims to use theatre as an educational tool to discuss a certain topic through audience participation and interaction. The SToRMS piece was directed at teenage boys between the ages of 15-17 and the Primary School piece was aimed at Year 6s going into secondary school. Both pieces were different in terms of both format and approach as we needed to make the information that we had included accessible for that specific audience. In terms of the devising process for each, there were certain difficult junctures that we would find ourselves in whether that be in terms of wording a topic that was substantial to the piece, or finding a method that would portray our message in the correct manner.

SToRMS stands for Strategies To Reduce Male Suicide and so we wanted the focal point of our piece, not to be on suicide but, to be about communication and how communicating to anyone whether that be your friend or your parents can help release the stress that might could possibly lead to suicide if it's not spoken about. Due to the age range of our target audience, we knew that this was a crucial point in their lives as they begin to realise their place in society and the societal pressures that there are for males, as well as females. We knew that we wanted to make that one of our main messages; that these pressures are not healthy and they can be very damaging if taken the wrong way. We know that one of these stereotypes is the idea that males are not allowed to express their feelings out loud and are told to keep them inside with reference to them needing to be "strong". On the SToRMS website, it stated that "In 2013 male suicide accounted for 78% of all suicides, which was the biggest cause of death in men aged 20-45 in the UK. The silence around suicide means that this statistic goes largely unrecognised." We wanted to put across to the target audience that we want to make it easier for males to discuss how they feel, with each other, and feel comfortable when doing so, not being judged because it is deemed "unmanly". Having this statistic from our client's website, we then proceeded to find other statistics about males so that the audience could see facts about their own lives that may not have been apparent to them. We included statistics about hearing loss, speeding and then we ended on the suicide statistics which would then act as a segway for the cast to speak to the audience about these surprising figures.

Another main factor that could have made the devising process a lot harder was that the whole of our cast was female and so we needed make that advantageous rather than a negative aspect. This was one of the main discussion topics at the start of the devising process as we wanted to use this as a comedic beginning to the piece because we thought that our target audience would be more likely to listen to the message about their communication skills if the piece began with a more relaxed atmosphere. We brought in the idea of "banter" as it could accentuate the comedic opening and also help make the audience feel more relaxed and so we thought of situations that males may feel uncomfortable talking about and may use banter as a mechanism to talking about it. Our examples were parents divorcing, a relationship breaking up and failing exams. Adding in scenes, that could be relatable for the audience may give them a chance to reflect on their actions and see how acting and responding to events as a joke may not be the most successful method to discussing how that situation is affecting you.

Moving on from these comical sketches that have hopefully hooked the audience into the piece, we wanted the piece to take a more serious route and gravitate towards the focal message about our target audience's communication with their peers. We needed a method which enabled the audience to understand, in a realistic way, how these examples can affect them and so we decided to bring in a case study of a character called John Doe. We explored, through class discussions, situations that a lack of communication, from a male, can have repercussions on both himself and those around him. The situations that we concluded on were bereavement, exam pressure and family commitment. At this point in the devising process, we wanted to interview 4 males of our target audience to justify the suspicions that we had about how males would react in the situations we had created. They confirmed our suspicions about not wanting to tell anyone about how that situation was making them feel and all 4 of them said that they would just keep it in and deal with it internally.

To begin the case study, we thought that we could set up a series of realistic situations that would accentuate the stress levels in John's head in a realistic way so that the audience would be able to make connection between their own lives and these situations. At this point in the devising process, we thought that we had established the story and characters involved to an extent that the audience would now be able to answer questions about the situations that the characters are in and so, we decided to add in a forum theatre section. Forum theatre allows us to set up a scenario and ask for the audience's opinion on what the outcome should be and the steps that would need to be applied to the scene in order for that end result. The forum theatre scene that we decided would be appropriate is a scene that is set the morning after John Doe returned home drunk. There are short interactions between both John and his mum and then shortly after, his dad. We wanted to use this scene to highlight ways of non-verbal communication in the form of an apology. We wanted the audience to identify the moments were non-verbal communication were used and explain how this benefited John in his life and help the audience see that this could be an advantageous segway that would allow them to indicate how they are feeling without having to put it into words.

We were given the opportunity to talk to one of the teachers in school who is a mental health ambassador and we asked him to identify actions that could indicate that, particularly boys were stressed or didn't know how to communicate their emotions in any other way. He gave us the examples of alcohol abuse, anger and violence as the two most common actions that are results of pressure being built up inside a male. From this research, we decided to add these examples into a situation between John and his girlfriend which would accentuate the fact that reacting in the way can actually form a barrier of communication that prevents you from explaining yourself in a rational way. We again asked the audience to identify these barriers and then rank them from biggest to smallest in terms of what they think is preventing him from explaining how he feels the most. This allowed the audience to see the effects that these reactions can have on both John and those around him so that they can visually see that these outcomes are not the right answer to trying to talk through your problems.

Communication is not just about how you try and explain how your feeling but also seeing that someone else looks stressed and helping them talk about the situations that they are going through. We wanted to highlight that clearly it's hard for the target audience to open up about how they are feeling and so, at some points there needs to be an intervention from a friend or family member that gives that person an opportunity to talk about how they are feeling. We put this into a situation for John and we had his friend, Adam, trying to get John to open up about the stress he is feeling. We have previously worked with a charity called CAMHS and they gave us information on reflective listening which is essentially seeing how someone is behaving and reflect it back to them, instead of asking direct questions about how they are. This allows the focal person to feel like they aren't pressured into talking about their situation and the friend is just commenting on the behaviour that they have seen and registering that they have seen a difference. Building on this, after the performance we added in a reflective session where we would split into smaller groups and discuss what had been shown in the piece. We decided that we would also talk through the "7 deadly sins of communication" which include devil's advocate and direct questions. We highlighted that in certain situations these methods of persuading someone to talk about how they're feeling can work but we have found that the best way is by reflective listening. Having this discussion session allowed us to see where the audience's understanding of what happened in the piece was, answer any questions they had and talk to them about why reflective listening is the best way to help people explain their problems.

In terms of the Primary School piece that we did, one of the main starting points was finding a way to communicate what secondary school is like in a way that a younger audience would understand. The piece was aimed at Year 6 in Dore Primary School who may have worries about the differences between Primary School and Secondary School. We needed to make sure that the target audience were clear that if they were worrying so was everyone else and they weren't alone as everyone is in the same boat. We knew that we needed to acknowledge the fears that they might have and talk them through what to do to overcome them through personal experiences that we have been through. Using personal experiences from cast members we were able to highlight certain problems that we knew were going to be the biggest worries from the target audience as we had been there ourselves.

We wanted to highlight that there are many misconceptions about secondary school and so we decided that we would start off the piece with some of these false images that are portrayed about secondary school. We started off with a dance section from High School Musical as it is known all around the world and it is one of the biggest false images of Secondary School. We then made the statement that "Secondary school isn't like this" and followed it up with the scenario of everyone fighting which we then repeated the same statement. This then allowed us to segway into what secondary school was actually like for the cast members and highlight the experiences that they had when transitioning up the school.

Having thought through all of the worries that the audience might have during the start of the devising period, we decided to focus on 5 key difference between primary school and secondary school; the little worries that they will be experiencing, which involves things like getting lost and equipment, friendships, ones that could be lost and ones that could be made, bullying, as we know that it happens, growing up, as it is a focal point in your lives and you have to mature very quickly, and finally good aspects, as secondary school is very fun and has its advantages as well. We decided that we would use a chapter format with each one being titled so that the audience would be able to focus in on one topic and would be able to follow along easily. They would also be able to relate any activities that we did in those chapters and stay grounded to that focal idea. We wanted the narrator of every chapter to be able to speak about their personal experiences and so we made sure that the narrator of each different subject could relate that to something that had happened in their lives in order for the audience to feel like they could take our advice seriously because we have been through it and know what the best outcomes are. This also helps us to acknowledge that they aren't the only people worrying about secondary school and even those people who have experienced it used to feel exactly the same and it's alright to be nervous.

In each chapter, we labelled cast members to act out specific scenes from our personal experiences to help the audience understand the situations that we are describing. We had the narrator talking the audience through the situation so that the audience could understand what they were thinking and feeling at that point in order for them to be able to identify, if they are ever in the same situation, that it is rational to be scared and so are many other people in that situation. Following on from this, we would give them solutions to situations that they may find scary. For example, we talked about getting lost at school and we highlighted the options that the target audience will have if they ever find themselves in that situation. For bigger subjects such as bullying, we added in sections of forum theatre so that the audience could decided the actions that we could take and then see the outcome which enabled them to see what decisions gave the best outcome and what response to bullying, and other subjects like making friends, would give everybody in that situation a positive end. During the first chapter, which was "Little Worries" we talked through some of the little worries that the narrator themselves had and we re-enacted what that looked like for them. We then decided that we needed to see what the audience's "little worries" were in order for us to talk them through and so we did this in the form of a freeze frame. This allowed the audience to see each others worries and recognise that they might feel the same way without having to say it out loud. In each small group that made a freeze frame, the leader was able to talk through each fear and, at certain points, explain that these fears were just rumours about secondary school and other times explain that they felt the exact same way when they were moving up from primary school.

We wanted the piece to end on a positive conclusion so that we weren't bombarding the audience with all the negative aspects of secondary school and so we titled the final chapter "good things" which allowed us to help the audience feel like they could go into secondary school feeling like they know what to expect and if any of the situations that we commented on in the piece arise they will know how to respond to that. The "good things" that we wanted to share with the audience ranged from classroom differences such as the science labs to new subjects such as food technology and lastly school trips. We wanted to share with the audience the highlight of our school experiences through the years and this allowed us to also highlight more difference between primary and secondary school and specifically the ones that they can look forward to.

Both pieces were made with the client's needs and the target audience in mind which enabled us to mould the pieces into what we needed them to be in order for the main messages to be portrayed to the audience. Due to the juxtaposing target audience each piece was formatted to tailor to them and this resulted in the language being changed so that we were engaging everyone, in both audience, with the performance. In both cases research was needed to help us identify with both the needs of the client and the target audience that we would be working with which enabled us to create two Theatre In Education piece that benefited both target audiences and positive feedback was obtained.

Week 28: Improving Our Country's Good

https://youtu.be/EipA7-L9MIU

We used the whole of this weeks lesson to focus on the scene from Our Country's Good that we would be performing next week. Due to us only performing a snippet of the play and not having a full range of props and costume that we could use, we had to discuss what the set was actually going to be like and the costume that we would wear if we doing a full scale production of the play.

• Flags- Flags were used to show that Great Britain was deeply involved in the transportation of these convicts and that needs to be made aware to the audience that the society and rule that we live under, did play a part in the cruel handling of these people.
• Center Table - Currently we are using two risers to replicate the idea of a banquet table that would have stretched down the centre of the stage and would be filled with an excessive amount of food and alcohol. This is to highlight the idea that these men, who have caused so much pain in terms of their actions towards the convicts, are now gorging themselves on food that could be given to the convicts who are starving due to the lack of food they were given on the ship/
• Uniforms - All officers would be dressed in full military uniform with badges of the British flag on the sleeves and all their medals on show. We would have chains and keys hanging from their belts to highlight the control and power that they hold over the convicts.
• Set - We would be under a canopy outside a big mansion or meeting house because one of the characters makes a comment about the stars and so we would be eating the banquet in a public place almost as a declaration of the power that they hold.
• References to convicts - There are particular lines that indicate towards the convicts and we wanted there to be a physical representation of the convicts onstage and so we thought that we could gesture to an outline of what could look like convicts working off to one side. This is emphasizing the idea that the convicts are being worked and treated so cruelly whilst the officers who have authorized that are eating and wasting food.
• Placard - We would have a placard at the front of the stage with "Authorities Discuss the Merits of the Theatre" on as it was another element to Brecht's theatre to help accentuate the "V effect" or the distancing method that allows the audience to focus on the political message at hand more than making emotional connections to the characters.
• Last line - The last line of the play is "The last word will be the play, gentlemen" and wanted to respond to that line in a bigger way as at that time, making grand statements that were slightly philosophical made you look more intelligent and intellectual. So we thought that the rest of the officers could see that and appreciate that in different ways, some by raising their glass as though in a toast and others with verbal agreement.
• Marriage - During the scene there is a comment about why two characters in "The Recruiting Officer" get married and Ralph comments that they got married for love and then to confirm wealth. We wanted to make this a point about the societal expectations for marriage in the time that the play was set and so we all reacted to "love" in a kinda of disgust and then when Ralph confirms that they did it "to secure wealth" then we responded in a more positive manner.
• Lighting - Due to use being outside and because there are reference to the stars, we thought that it must be late at night and so the lighting needed to resemble that and we thought that we could have lamps both around and on the table to show that it was later in the evening.

Week 27: Gestus and Our Country's Good

Gestus

At the start of the lesson, we had a short discussion about the elements of Brechtian Theatre that we had found out about last week. This also gave us the opportunity to feedback any research that we had found out about Brecht and his style. Majority of what people had found out was the same as me and so we had the chance to talk it through as a group and help everyone understand his style a little more.

We then moved onto talking about the Brechtian style piece that we did the week before as we had done some more researched outside of the lesson and therefore could comment on some improvements with a more educated mindset.  

• Stereotypes. We did use stereotypes in our piece last week, but we needed to make sure that they were all on the same level in terms of accuracy and also intensity. We concluded that sometimes it is alright to have real characters, like Alexis and Connie’s characters, so that they can highlight the idea that everyone is surrounded by stereotypes and it is hard not to get caught up in them. I think that we could use this idea to our advantage especially with the scene being so political and have those real characters express their views in a realistic way.
• Creating process. Whilst we were in the creative phase with this scene, our core thought process probably wasn’t about the political message of the scene, which it should have been, but more about the hierarchy and who was interacting with who, due to the topic that the discussion was about.

Moving on from the scene that we had previously looked at, we started talking about another technique of Brecht’s that we had partially touched on last week which was Gestus. Brecht said that he wanted to pick a scene from any part in a play and be able to pause it and, from that specific point, be able to understand the political motives behind the actions of the characters onstage. To help us understand the idea of Gestus more, we decided to relate it to Stanilavski style, as we have done production in that style before. We compared it to a moment of orientation where you learn the relationships between characters onstage but with Brecht, you learn about the political background to the scene. Or in perhaps an easier sense, a freeze frame. He wanted to be able to see the political arguments that are going on as well as the political motives behind the actions.

We then did a small task in pairs where we thought of 4 things that, if we were doing a piece on slavery, would indicate that slavery was the political message behind the scene. In my pair we came up with:

• Chains. Both the sound of them rattling and the visual reminder of them always being there can remind the audience that no matter what the topic of the scene is there would still be slaves that are being mistreated somewhere in the background.
• Levels to reflect hierarchy. We thought that because there was a clear divide between the slaves and those in power we could make the staging reflect the status of those in the scene. Those who were higher up would therefore have the most power during the scene.

During some of the scenes, there would be a moment of stillness or a slowing down of movements so that the audience would be able to take that opportunity to understand and think about the actions of those in the scene in relation to the political message. The root cause when making a scene or a play in a Brecht style should be what the political message is and making sure that the audience don’t get distracted by their emotional connections to the characters, but they’re still engaged with the performance in terms of realistic behaviour onstage.

We decided to compile a list as a group of different examples of Gestus which we could relate to Our Country’s Good. 

Splitting them into the columns allowed us to recognise that there are many different types of Gestus and we have a wide range of elements that we could add into a scene. We then proceeded to find a scene that we could add clear elements of Gestus to and we found that finding ways to add in Gestus in the actual script was quite hard. We had to think not just about the lines and the characters, but about the props, set and the bigger picture regarding a scene. We also decided to think about putting on this play on a bigger scale than which we would be able to afford and so we decided to use staging as big as “The Tempest” which we went to see at the Barbican theatre in London last year.

In our pairs, we each picked a scene and discussed the staging, props, lighting and characters that we would set up as directors. We chose the scene right at the beginning of the play: “Act 1 Scene 1”. This was on board the ship with the slaves at the bottom of the ship whilst they were witnessing a whipping of a fellow slave. The scene involves a mixture of characters who each speech about topics that are unrelated to each other as they have been confined in a small place for a very long time and it has started to affect their mental health which is evident through the syntax of their speech. We decided that we would have a layered staging so that we could show the idea of a boat and reflect the hierarchy involved between the officers on board and the slaves. We decided to have the whipping taking place on the highest level as that would be on the deck of the ship and so we wanted there to be an almost harsh white light being focused on them. In juxtaposition to this, we would have the slaves on a lower level with quite dark lighting with the slaves only just being seen whilst they are talking. We would also have the British flag flying on the mast on the main deck and have all officers onstage with flags embroidered onto their uniforms to highlight that Great Britain was involved in the slave trade and highlight the disgusting measures in which the slaves were being treated by the officers on board. This is a sketch of what we wanted our set and staging to look like:

Here are some pictures of the other groups staging as well. 

I found the Act 2 Scene 2, which is the last picture, interesting as the staging in which we were discussing had an officer at downstage right and a prisoner at downstage left with Ralph, the officer leading the rehearsal, in the middle. As a director, and thinking of it in terms of Brecht, I would use this to show Ralph trying to form relationships with the convicts that would allow them to listen to him so that the play could go ahead. Having him positioned in the middle of the two opposing sides could be seen as him trying to blur the lines between the two classes of people.

We were then given a series of pictures, and we had to decipher which ones were from a Brecht play and which ones weren't. Included in the pictures was the "Silent Scream" which we had looked into previously and we already knew was from a Brecht play called "Mother Courage and her children." After discussing which ones we thought fit the Brechtian category, we were then told that they were all from a Brecht play called "The Threepenny Opera".

The Threepenny Opera is a "play with music" written by Brecht which is based on an English Ballad opera called The Beggar's Opera. Brecht once commented on the play at a concert performance that "You are about to hear an opera for beggars. Since this opera was intended to be as splendid as only beggars can imagine, and yet cheap enough for beggars to be able to watch, it is called the Threepenny Opera." It focuses on the lives of a group of beggars being lead by Macheath, also known as Mack the Knife, who marries Penny Pechum which displeases her father. He sets out to have Mack hanged and the story evolves from there. It has been performed at the National Theatre and one review said that it included "enduring fascinations and a timeless appeal for the bold satirical strokes of this malleable story of lowlifes, criminality and justice. The particular joy of the Brecht/Weill version, of course, remains its insinuatingly dark musical score, pulsing with brass, strings and harmonium sounds, and rendered here with stunning elan under the musical direction of David Shrubsole for his onstage band." (https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/reviews/the-threepenny-opera-review)

We then split into 3 groups and did a more detailed account of the set and staging for a different scene than we did earlier. In our group we did Act 1 Scene 7 which is when Harry and Duckling go fishing. 

As we were making the set for the scene, we wanted to keep both the political message behind the scene, hence the slaves still being seen, to remind the audience of what is happening on a bigger scale of things and also we wanted the elements of Gestus that we had discussed previously to be involved which is in things like the addition of the Great British flag and the military uniform. 

Here are the other scenes that people were staging:

I think that all of the staging that was proposed kept the political aspects very clear and they all included different areas of gestus.