Week 14: Director's Challenge

Last Rehearsal

Due to this being our last rehearsal with the cast before the technical and dress rehearsal, we made sure that everyone was comfortable with what was going on and we did as many run-throughs of the piece as possible in the two hours.

We found that the first run-through was quite rocky as the cast had realised that our performance was coming closer and their nerves began. We reassured them that everything was going to be alright if they each did what we had told them to do and carried on if something went wrong. In the run-throughs after this, the cast settled into the style and we began to see a piece that is worthy of an audience emerging. The speed of the lines was excellent as one subject fed onto another and, even though I'd seen it multiple times, I started to become re-interested in what they were saying and it really made me think about the subjects that were highlighted especially B's paragraph which highlights that free will is not really as free as we thought. It's more conditioned from each individuals previous experiences and the outcome that we had got from them. If the outcome was positive, we are more likely to do that action again, whereas if the outcome was negative, we are less likely. I began to think about directing in this way, as I am conditioned

Before the rehearsal, we made sure that, if needed, we had cut-to-lines which are set lines that the cast know and can jump to if they have lost their place in the script. We did one run through to make sure whether we did need them or not and we found that in later sections they could need them but if they made a mistake, they were ready to move on and forget about it. There are certain lines that seem to be missed in nearly every run through and so we made sure that there were back up people ready to say those lines in case the person forgot to say them. Having these back up people allows us, as directors, to be sure that the next topic that is brought up makes sense and we know that no key ideas are lost or not mentioned.

Week 13: Director's Challenge

Focusing on Sections 3 and 4

We decided to have a small chat with the cast and ask them, now that we're getting down to the last few weeks before the performance, what they were the most nervous or slightly unsure of and we found that they were conscious that at the end of section 3 and the whole of section 4 was still quite new to some of them considering some people have been missing. We therefore decided to spend this week concentrating on section 3 and 4, and really making sure that everyone knows for certain what was going on and making sure that we had all of our synchronised movements in time. 

We purposefully said that we wanted to concentrate on these sections so that both we, as directors, and the cast themselves felt comfortable with the sections and also we wanted them to focus on the gaps between the lines and making sure that these weren't too long.

One thing that we did notice, as directors, was the delivery of some of the lines needs to change as there are sections where it seems like a conversation between two people and we need those lines to seem slightly argumentative so that we see a different in the tone of the people on stage.

Video of the final run-through of Section 3 and 4: https://youtu.be/q6UCxW-eUXU

In the video, we had to prompt a lot of people which is not what we wanted to be doing at this point in the rehearsal process and we wanted the cast to know this so we gave them a deadline for knowing their lines which is next week. Also in the video, the stand and turn is supposed to be synchronised but unfortunately it was not and so next week, I think we need to review the video as a whole cast and point out the bad and good points of it. I also would like to reiterate to the group that if something goes wrong, they have the power to carry on the performance and cover it up. I think that the use of tone in the video is very good as it shows the difference between the lines and also the difference in the opinion of the cast member saying the lines.

Week 13: TIE (Storms)

Forum Theatre Section

We started off by exploring the idea of Adam, the friend of John that we have seen in the background throughout the piece, having a breakdown (maybe even suicide) out of the blue so that we can accentuate the fact that we can all be a friend and you may not realise that someone has a mental health problem as they may cover it up with humor. We thought that at some point we could have a video of Sue, the CEO of SToRMs, talking about her own experiences with not noticing the signs of a mental health problem in her son but we then realised that it might be too horrific for her to recall the whole story.

After our full run-through, we decided that we wanted to focus on the Forum Theatre addition to the piece. A few weeks ago, we made a short scene that included John and his friends when they start drinking in the build up to the car scene, so like a flashback of when John started drinking. We came up with some suggestions that we think we may be told when we go out into the audience:

• Ask him whether he's alright
• Have a drink with him so that he's not alone
• Ask him why he wants to get drunk

We decided to imagine we had taken some suggestions from the audience and we were going to replay the scene multiple times so that the audience could have control over one of the friends and see whether they could help John express his feelings. In the first go of the scene, we said that an audience member would put forward the idea of a friend asking him whether he's alright and why is he drinking so much. We had the rest of the group answer for John by shouting "Well, it's Friday night." so we emphasised that maybe asking how he feels in a group and whilst the rest of your friends are around isn't the best idea. And so we said that when we are helping the audience that could be one of our suggestions to them that might spark some more ideas. And so we applied that to the scene and added in Adam holding back John from the group and then proceeding to ask him whats wrong.

The conversation that we came up with was:

A:Why are you drinking so much?

J: I don't know cos I'm pissed off, I don't know I just want to stop thinking for a bit

A: Pissed off at what?

J: Just...I don't know I've got a lot going on at the minute

A: You do seem really stressed

J: I am being stressed

A: Yeah being stressed can make you angry

J: I'm literally angry all the time: at mum, at school for putting all this shit on me, at dad for shouting at me, at holly for not getting it.

A: Yeah it sounds pretty tough mate

J: Yeah tough

A: Look I'll keep an eye on you tonight, yeah, make sure that you get home alright.

In previous years, we have worked with CAMHS on the Healthy Minds Launch and we found out that a good way to help someone open up to you was by relaying their feelings back to them and stating that it is clear you know they are upset and so we added that in when Adam changes his tactics and it eventually helps John explain how he's feeling.

We did think that we could also add in an extra bit of audience participation if we stopped after the first question so that we can allow the audience to have control of both sides of the conversation and know how it feels to try and communicate and also be a good friend. We wanted them to tell us what they thought John would say and we thought that they could say:

• Why do you care?
• Just want a good night
• I'm bored what else is there to do?

We then thought of the conversation that might come after and we thought that it may go like:

A: Why are you drinking so much?

J: I don't know

A: Come on , mate just tell me

J: (Lists some of the options given by the audience)

A: It's not like you mate

J: I've got a lot going on

We would then fast forward to the drunk scene with Holly but Adam stays with him whilst the rest of the group leave when Holly arrives. We thought that this could show the impact that having a friend in that situation could have upon John. Adam would stop John from smoking and getting on the car as the designated sober friend that is looking out for John. Adam sees the argument with Holly building and so removes John from the situation in a comedic way so that if reflects how it could happen in real life.

Moving the piece onward, we thought that we could do some small group work with the audience to unpick what Adam did for John. We would try enable them to explain the realistic situation. For example, there was no way that Adam was going to stop John from drinking but not everybody in the group has to drink so that one person can look out for him. Adam listened to what his friend had to say and identified how he was feeling and helped him understand that it was okay to talk about it. We could do small role plays and try to get them to do the scene themselves and see whether they could get John to express his feelings without asking him questions and then we could ask follow up questions like "how hard was that to talk to someone?" This would allow the audience to be put in the conversation still in a safe environment so that if the situation occurs in real life, they will know what to do.

Week 12: TIE (Storms)

Facilitation and Powerpoint

From the previous week, we noticed that in the first scene in the case study, the breakfast scene, didn't have any dramatic asides in it to accentuate how both the males in the scene were feeling at that point and so we made sure that we added in 2 asides, one for John and one for his dad, so that the audience would see what it was like to be on either side of the conversation and the two opinions about it.

We then moved onto the facilitation of John with Holly in the drunk scene where he is on top of the car and we wanted to use that to allow the audience to realise the barriers that are stopping John communicating in a way that Holly would understand and therefore be able to help. We used this as another chance to interact with the audience and so, as a cast, we came up with the 4 main barriers that we thought are the main reasons for John and his miscommunication with Holly:

• Peer-pressure- because at the start of the scene, John is with his friends and they are all drinking and so he is being peer-pressured into following what everybody else is doing.
• Alcohol- Mainly due to the fact that he is drunk and alcohol effects your ability to make decisions and also increases your chance of risk-taking. We have also had a conversation with a mental health ambassador in our own school and he said that when a mental health issue arises in someone they tend to isolate themselves and they do this through risk taking, so drinking alcohol, and we wanted to show that in our piece so that we are showing all the options that someone could take to hide their own feelings and also what could be signs, that we can pick up on, of someone with a mental health problem.
• Aggression - due to the alcohol, John becomes quite aggressive both verbally and physically as he tries to intimate Holly and this leads to him trying to communicate in a way that actually frightens Holly slightly and means that her attention has shifted from "what could make him be this way" to "is he going to hurt me in any way?" and this means that the miscommunication is both John's fault and Holly's.
• Swearing - As a consequence from all the above factors, John begins to swear at Holly and this means that this is adding to the miscommunication.

We were then going to ask the audience to rank them in the order from 1-4, with 1 being the biggest barrier and 4 being the smallest. We would go out in the audience and help them to explain their reasoning behind their answers and see whether they are picking up on the main reasons for each barrier. We would then ask them to show on their fingers which number they ranked each one and then we would remove the barrier that the majority of the audience thought was the main one. Doing this allows us to strip back all of the barriers that John had built up between himself and Holly and we are trying to show that John did try and communicate but not in the right way. We wanted to show the juxtaposition between what John thought he said and what he actually said in order for the audience to understand the difference and it also shows ways that you can communicate in a way that allows others to help you.

A small project that we did at the end was to make a powerpoint that will go up behind us whilst we are acting, with key points that we are making on the board and also questions that we want them to be asking throughout the piece. Having this behind us allows us to continue acting whilst the audience are gaining information from it and we are wanting the main points for each section of the piece to be on each slide so that the audience really understand what we are trying to say. When we go out into the audience to help them, the questions that are on the slide can be used as starting points for discussion and we can follow them up with secondary questions to further the audience's understanding of John and the piece as a whole.

Week 12: Director's Challenge

Changing Section 4

During the rehearsal, we noticed that during Section 4 there was a segment where the cast stood up when their letter was addressed but I realised that that was defeating the object of the piece and going against the authors intention as the audience weren't supposed to have any sort of connection with the people onstage, hence the letter. So if we were to reveal who was which letter then that would give the audience to chance to make a connection between who the line was talking about and therefore make assumptions about the kind of person that they might be.

We have a short rehearsal video from what we were working on and the main thing that we were focussing on was our sychronised movements and getting them perfectly on time as for the majority of the play, the cast remain quite still with no movements at all so we need to make the movements that we do clean and slick so that the impact is greater.

https://youtu.be/7wBZf-AX_9U

Because we have movements that happen between a few people and then movements that involve the whole cast both need to be as effective as possible as they are all adding to the authors intention and presenting the play as it should be. We are performing the play as much to the original as possible as we were intrigued by the idea of it being more of a social experience than an actual play with characters and we wanted to see how our audience would react especially with the parents of the people who are on stage in the audience, as they actually know the students onstage.

Week 11: TIE (Storms)

Adapting the sliding scale

This week, we started by making a slight change as we are noticing that we are mainly saying that boys don't communicate at all so, we wanted to add a positive side to the piece by saying that things like non-verbal communication, like in the morning after scene, is still a positive way of communicating even if it doesn't involved words. The morning after John's argument with his dad was the pinpoint of our negative connotations to non-verbal communication as we were originally saying that John wasn't communicating verbally with his father and therefore it was his fault for not expressing his true feelings to his dad but, we wanted to change this to show that communicating in any form is better than not communicating at all and even in small gestures, there are still feelings behind them.

After this, we decided to adapt our sliding scale and expand on the options that John has. In the previous week, we had defined the key points on the sliding scale but we narrowed those down to three major points: break-up with her, do nothing and beg for her forgiveness. We did this in order for the audience to explore the ranges in between the options when we go and facilitate the scale. We said that when John is walking down the scale, we would pause when someone in the audience raised their hands at one of the 3 main points and we would ask them for the reason why. Asking the audience follow up questions allows us to understand how much they are understanding and it also allows us to help them understand the messages that we are trying to convey in order for our main point to be backed up at the end. We would keep going until John was at the end, and the narrator, depending on the audience's choice, would identify the point that most people voted for. Making the audience vote for which outcome they think should happen engages them with the piece and, also allows us to see whether they have picked up on the key points that we have been hinting at throughout to help in the build up to the main point.We made it so that, no matter what the majority of votes was, it would always lead to the same lines of this was because John tried to communicate but Holly didn't listen to him.

We began extending this into John arguing that he did explain his feelings, or tried, to Holly as this reflects the reaction that many boys would have when asked whether they tried to explain how they felt. We added in a replay of all the scenes between John and Holly to accentuate the times that John did try and communicate how he felt. We thought that, from our previous workshop, we could add in or move our piece towards the Forum Theatre direction so that the audience could take control of one character and see how John reacts to different approaches from different people or how he responds to different acknowledgements of his feelings. We then discussed that we wanted to move away from the girlfriend as we wanted the whole audience to feel like they could connect with John's situation but not everyone has a girlfriend or even had one so we wanted to involved the whole audience and so we moved onto the idea of John communicating with his friends as, we hoped that everyone in the audience had at least one friend that they could talk to. We devised a scene that would be set before John is drunk on top of the mini cooper and it would show the build up to John getting drunk and included a big group of John's friends to highlight the fact that you don't necessarily need to tell everyone in your friendship group. We gave John some lines about wanting to get drunk so that he could forget what was going on and majority of the group cheered and thought of it as just another excuse to get drunk but one friend was concerned about John and why he was acting this way and so when we were going to leave to "go to the park" that specific friend pulled him aside and asked him what was wrong. This section was then going to be our Forum Theatre part as we thought that the audience could control the conversation that was about to happen and see how there are different ways that you can ask about how someone is feeling and there are different ways of telling someone how you feel.

The friend noticing the difference in John's mindset also links with the wise talkers element of SToRMS which was about noticing other people's emotions and how to talk and respond to their feelings/behaviour.

Week 11: Director's Challenge

Staged Production Meeting

Before we began rehearsal, all the directors met together with our teacher and decided to stage a production meeting which would normally include the directors, the lighting crew, the costume department and also the set department. Because our performances are only small scale, our teacher acted as all of the above apart from the directors, which we us.

We made sure that we had a plan of what we wanted the lights to be like. We had a plan of what we would want in a full scale production and a plan of what was more realistic in with our budget and the light/set/costume that we already have.

Our ideas for a full scale performance:

• On times when people were specifically referenced then we would light them with a spotlight and then have everyone else in a blackout.
• When a person had a paragraph, which evidently is only two out of six, then we would slowly fade from the whole stage being lit to a single spotlight on that person.
• Different filters in the lights and have each person lit in a different colour so that we could use the semiotics to reflect the idea of each person being different and they would react to every problem/issue that was brought up, whether it be big or small, in their own personal way.
• At the end, as each person leaves, their colour/spotlight fades until Maisie is the only person left in her spotlight on stage.
• Raised/raked seating.
• Spotlights that are coloured but natural lights coming from the sides. With 6 people on stage, this would mean that we need 3 lights on each person, which would result in 18 lights in total just focused on the people.

We experimented with the idea of these spotlights and found the reason that we would need 3 spotlights on each person as the shadows from the lights cover the facial expressions.

Our idea for our budget performance:

• Lateral lighting shifts
• Coloured spotlights on the set instead of on the people.

Run-throughs

We, again, used the rehearsal to run through the whole piece and keep refining the piece. When we were watching the run-through, we decided that the section where they stand up and down could be to distracting and so we wanted to involve only 2 of the cast members. We decided to add in another element of frantic assembly with a paired lift. https://youtu.be/A3F1pe7UJy8  Next week, we are going to experiment with the people who can do the lift and who makes it look better and those people will be the ones to do the lift in the real thing.

We also performed a small snippet of section 1 for the rest of N2C (https://youtu.be/31TUQqOEHNg) and we found that the speed of our lines was up to what we wanted but because we haven’t performed any of it to an audience, we didn’t know how long the audience could go for without getting bored and we found that we might have to add in more moves than we think to re-engage the audience.

Week 10: TIE (Storms)

Refining the Case Study

At the start of the lesson, we had a discussion about the main features of the piece and which focal point we wanted to address in detail this lesson. We decided that the case study of John Doe was the main point of our piece as it put all of the ideas that we had highlighted earlier on in the piece, into context: a real life situation. We went through the case study as we already know it and added in small sections that would be said by the narrators to introduce the different scenarios that John would be put in.

Because the case study is the turning point in the performance, as we moved into the more serious topics and start moving towards the aim of the piece, we need it to be clear for the audience so that the key messages at the end will be in context for them and they will be able to make some connections to their own life.

It was brought up that it is very easy for the audience to lose who is playing which character when we move into the case study and so we wanted to make it easier to see who was each character by formally introducing them to the audience. This makes it clearer and establishes each character separately. We thought that the narrator's could say a character and one of us steps up towards the front and looks towards them as though we are asking them what they want us to do. In addition to this, we also added in some slightly Goberesque stereotypical movements for each character. For example, as I am the mother who is pregnant, I have a hand on my stomach when the pregnancy is dropped in, the friend has a cheesy gesture and the girlfriend has a hair flick. It adds a slightly humorous tone to the characters which is juxtaposed with the scenes and creates a bigger impact as the scenes are about quite serious topics.  We thought that the idea of us not knowing what we were going to be ask to do, was a good way of having a small connection with the audience as it would appear to be new to us as well, adding in the ideas of Forum Theatre and making connections with your audience. To reaffirm this, we added in looks between the narrators and us, and also between the cast members, when we were being told what to do so that we were reiterating the characters that we were playing and it also added clarity about what each person was doing in the scene.

Next, we thought about a scene where we could add in a small section of Forum Theatre and the first idea that we came up with was a text scene between John and Holly, his girlfriend. The scene that was just before this was the morning after John has come home drunk and the tension between John and his father. We thought that the first text would be sent from Holly as the two had left off on a really bad note in the scene she was in before and, we thought that she would be up all night worrying about what he had done and whether he had got home safely or not. We would have Holly text, and read out loud, a big emotional paragraph about how worried she was about John and we would have John just reply with a sorry, and we would see the reaction to both messages from the characters onstage. There were a few problems that we had with this scene and the major one was that we don't know how boys would react to text messages and if our reply was correct or too stereotypical and if we were to make it up and it was wrong, we would lose the connection with the audience that we have been building up from the start as they would become defensive and shut off - a reaction that we have been talking about and trying to avoid since the very start of the project.

We then thought about a school situation as both of them would have to go to school and could pass each other in the hallway and so we made Holly's body language reflect how angry she was with John and we would show a conversation that would happen between the two of them in the corridor. It would get to a point where Holly would be so upset and angry at John that she would just walk away which would leave John by himself on stage and we would see the anger work up inside of him as he knows that "he has missed something" (a line that one of the narrators says) - an opportunity to apologise to Holly and truly express how he feels to someone who cares about his well-being. We would then show this anger through John punching the wall - a response that we learnt can be quite typical of men when they are angry as it is an easy outlet for them to express how they feel.

At this point we would ask the audience: What should John do now?

We think we could use a thought scale to address the different options that John has and we would allow the audience sometime to discuss where they think that John should be on the scale.

Here is a picture of what we think the scale should look like:

We would then walk John along the scale and ask the audience to raise their hands where they think John should be. We would acknowledge these people and ask them why they think he should go down that route and this would allow the audience to engage with the piece more and also allow us to make some positive comments on what they have said and also get other people involved. We would have a person at each point representing what he should do so that the audience would have a visual aid which we could help them make their decision. For example, if someone said "I think he should dump her," we would ask the follow-up question of "why?" We thought of some responses that we might get and we thought of things like "She's not listening to him" and "She's not taking into account her own feelings that might be confusing how she might react." We would then ask "Well, why would she be feeling this way? Shall we replay what John said?" and we would get John to repeat the lines that he said to Holly at the end of the drunk scene before she walked off. Asking follow up questions is the key to getting the audience involved and also getting them to understand what is going on.
The answer that we really want them to say is "Explain," as this is what Storms want more men to do: express their feelings. If we find that majority of the audience is giving us the answer that we want then we know that they understand and the main message is getting through, but if we don't get that answer we need to help get them to it which is where the follow up questions come in and we can guide them into the right direction of the correct answer. I think that we just need to clean up the sections next week and possibly try it out on a few people of the age range to see how they react and whether it would be what we were expecting.

Further SToRMS Research

We have been given some information about a leaflet that we will be handing out after the performance and it highlights some of the main points that we will have highlighted throughout the entire piece.

These show the main points that we are trying to convey throughout the whole piece and it will be a good reminder for us throughout the rest of the rehearsal process as they are clearly pointed out and we will be able to see them when we rehearse.

Week 10: Director's Challenge

Artaud Research

Before the rehearsal, we were having a discussion about many different practitioners who had interesting styles that we could experiment with putting into our piece. One of them was Artaud. He established Theatre of Cruelty which was described as " a primitive ceremonial experience intended to liberate the human subconscious and reveal man to himself. A communion between actor and audience in a magic exorcism; gesture, sounds, unusual scenery, and lighting combine to form a language, superior to words, that can be used to subvert thought and logic and to shock the spectator into seeing the baseness of his world. Artaud wanted to put the audience in the middle of the 'spectacle' (his term for the play), so they would be 'engulfed and physically affected by it'. He referred to this layout as being like a 'vortex'  - a constantly shifting shape - 'to be trapped and powerless'. He also placed a great emphasis on sound rather than words or dialogue, by incorporating loud cries, screams, eerie sounds, or noise causing the audience to become uncomfortable. Words were an insufficient medium of expression." This links to our piece as we also want to make the audience feel uncomfortable, not in the extreme way that Artaud wanted to, but none the less when they are just sat watching people say their lines onstage they will start to feel uncomfortable as there is literally nothing happening onstage. We could use the idea of loud sounds as one of our movements especially when the cast address the fact that they don't know whether there is anyone behind them as they haven't looked as that is quite spooky and if we put a loud noise in that can constitute as our movement.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Artaud#Theatre_of_Cruelty)

  

"The Theatre of Cruelty has been created in order to restore to the theatre a passionate and convulsive conception of life, and it is in this sense of violent rigour and extreme condensation of scenic elements that the cruelty on which it is based must be understood. This cruelty, which will be bloody when necessary but not systematically so, can thus be identified with a kind of severe moral purity which is not afraid to pay life the price it must be paid." - Antonin Artaud, The Theatre of Cruelty, in The Theory of the Modern Stage (ed. Eric Bentley), Penguin, 1968, p.66

We had a director's discussion about the research we had done separately and how we would fit Artaud into our piece (or at least some of his ideas) and we thought that it wouldn't really fit as he is too extreme and majority of the movements that we have previously choreographed are minute compared to Artaud and so the juxtaposition would be too much for our piece. We liked the idea of some of his work and if we had a longer period of time to do the piece as a whole then Artaud could be an interesting practitioner to look at in regards to adding in movements.

Run-throughs

We had another member of our cast missing this week and we stressed to the other cast members the importance of the full cast being present in rehearsals as we only have a small cast and when one member is missing it has an impact on the amount of work we can do and also the effectiveness of that work and we will have to repeat ourselves to the person that was missing. I stepped in as Peter so that Alexis could take the role as the lead director and she could make the changes that might need to be made.

As we are getting closer to performance date, we made it clear to our cast that it was now up to them to step-up their line learning as we are at the point in the rehearsal process, when we are beginning to tighten up the movements and we are really refining the speed of the lines and getting a feel for the real performance. We began with a run through of the whole piece and we limited the cast to only having their scripts for sections 1 and 2 again because the cast are still needing them for section 3, which we have made clear will not be acceptable after next week. We have given them this week to learn their lines for section 3 and some of section 4 so that we are using the scripts less and less.

The only things that needed to be stressed during the rehearsal was the speed of the lines and how fast we want the past to be. We need to cut down the gaps in between the lines so that the pace of the whole piece is kept up. Throughout section 1 and 2 the cast are completely still but when we start to move onto the later sections the small unchoreographed movements start to come back in. I know that this is because they are looking at their scripts for prompts on their lines but we still need to make the cast conscious of their own movements and hopefully we will be able to focus on that next week when they have learnt their section 3 lines.

Week 9: Director's Challenge

Run-throughs and lighting ideas

Run-throughs in Rehearsal

In the previous rehearsal we had managed to do a whole run through of the piece and so we decided that every week from now on we should aim to do at least 1 full run through in the rehearsal so that the cast get used to the length of the piece and it also gives us a good chance to check up on the cast's line learning. At this point, we made sure to specific that at this juncture, we have completed the blocking of the whole piece and we are now moving onto refining it all which means that in order for us to do this, line learning is key. We needed the cast to know that it is now up to them to remember their lines as we are getting closer to what it will actually be like onstage and we also wanted them to realise that what they have achieved at this point is really good. Throughout the run through, we found that all of the cast, were beginning to understand why we had asked them to not move unless choreographed as this would attract the audience's attention and Etchells wanted to see how long they could last just watching without anything happening. We started to see the cast truly understanding this as we got comments about actions that attract an audience's attention more like uncrossing your legs or simply just standing. In our plan, we wanted the cast, at this point, to be asking questions about why we are doing this. It is a pretty hard concept to grasp as the play is nothing that anyone has done before in our school environment and so we expected them asking a lot of question but in reality they are actually understanding it and it is starting to show through the run throughs that we are doing.

Lighting experimenting after rehearsal

After the rehearsal, me and Alexis decide to experiment with some lights. We wanted to see how different filters looked onstage and also if we got certain people to stand in the light, we wanted to see where their shadows ended and how we could create some interesting shapes with the shadows. 

I like the effect of the shadows on the wall from the white circular light as we could have this at the start when Peter is turning on all of the lights and I think that the audience would find it quite interesting to watch his shadow move around whilst he's putting on more lights. If we were to use this light I think that we would have to fade it out almost immediately once there were more lights on as it's quite concentrated and when there are more people on stage, we want the audience to be looking at them as a whole not just individuals.

I really like the overlapping shadows that these two lights create as we can say that the different colours show the different people yet when their shadows overlap it shows that they are talking about the same subject and it is both affecting them.

I like the contrast that these two lights create and the shadows that are created, as you can clearly see James' shadow yet if the audience were behind Harry his shadow would be on them. I think that if we use a variety of different filters on the lights then we can make the semiotics reflect the amount of different topics that we address throughout the piece and the severity of them.

I think that we could definitely use the orange colours when regarding the light-hearted subjects such as names and the smaller topics that don't seem very important as the semiotics can reflect the topics that the cast are addressing as they seem quite simple and then when they moved onto more serious topics such as the scientific explanations and death then we can change the lighting to the green in the picture above it as they juxtapose and can create a bigger contrast to show the audience that the topic has now changed.

We could use the circular spotlight when regarding the different people's fears so that they are isolated from the rest but when we rehearse it without lights I think that it looks more effective, not knowing who the cast are talking about and if we introduce the circular light, it may take away the mystery of who the lines are about.

We liked the shadows that this one created with red in the middle and then the blue light shining from behind making their shadows look into the red light. We thought that this could be used for a simple movement that could be emphasised with the lights.

Week 9: TIE (Storms)

Expanding and Forum Theatre

We ran through the whole piece so far and we made a list of things that need to be added in:

• When Hannah is John Doe, we need her to reference the characters that are onstage in her first dramatic aside so that the audience don't get confused about which characters the different people are playing. For example, we need her to say this is my family, my mum, my dad and my brother.
• We need to add in a more fluid way of going into the John Doe case study as it seems to go from quite a jokey manner to quite a serious one too quickly so we gave the narrator's an extra few lines that established the idea of a case study and how it allows us to see these reactions in a real life situation.
• After the case study we also need another fluid transition that allows us to interact with the audience through some of the devices that are used by Forum Theare. For this we wanted the narrators to acknowledge the fact that we aren't men so we don't actually know what it's like to be one and reference the fact that everyone in the audience is male and  so we can find out from them.

We thought that the scene we could explore with the input of the audience could be the morning after John has come home drunk and been caught by his dad. We could make it quite stunted, with a lot of pauses for potential thought as both men are going through a rough period of time and also if we make these pauses clear enough, it would indicate to the audience that that would be a good part for them to start thinking about the thoughts that are going through the two characters heads. We then had a discussion about where these reference points could be in the scene and so we ran the scene and people shouted pause when we think there could be a moment and explained why it was a good place for the audience's input.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/g8eTysKLn1g
Part 2 - https://youtu.be/MfRVLm5A-ck

These are some of the points that we picked out during the video.

In the actual performance, we would run the scene through once and then facilitate the asking of the audience. We would then go into the audience and ask what the characters were thinking - taking them through the thought track step by step and mention the different points as it would help them think of what to say. After, we would regroup and show the scene again but we would pause the scene and mention what people in the audience had said making sure that we defined who said it and include them in the piece.

Because we wanted this part to reflect Forum Theatre we did a small hour long workshop in the style. We were introduced to two characters through teacher in role and we were going to choose one of the characters and their situation to make better with help from us, the audience. We then took part in a small role play, where we made the set for a NHS waiting room and we were asked to stand in a place that reflected a person going through dialysis or someone who’s family member was going through dialysis. We then did another role play for the second character as well. Thought out the whole workshop we were picking up on how our teacher was talking to us and what things we could use in our piece. Some things we found were:

1. Pausing when the audience gets lost.
2. Repeating scenes so that they can ask the audience whether the scene is going the way they want it to.
3. Simplistic characters and storylines
4. Positive reinforcements of ideas at the people onstage things like, mentioning their acting boosts their confidence and also increase the chance of them joining in.

We could use all of these aspects in our piece as it would increase the amount of interaction we get from the audience which will, in turn, benefit their understanding of our piece and the message that we are trying to convey.

Director's Challenge: Half Term rehearsal

Half-term rehearsal 10-4

We wanted everybody in the session to be very focused on what we were doing so that we could get everything blocked today and so we started off the session with a few games like splat, name tag and ninja just to get everybody on the same page. We decided that we would do a focus game of 21 which is where only one person can say a number, consecutively all the way up to 21 but if two people say the same number then you have to start again. We thought that this would be a good focus exercise for the group as we are only a cast of 6 and so they really needed to listen to each other and be in tune with each other for the exercise to work.

We then wanted to see how well the cats had been learning their lines and so we did a full through of section 1 and 2 because we had previously asked them to learn the lines for everything that we block. We previously decided that each director would make notes on the performance and then we would compare the notes at the end. If there was something that we both picked up on, then it was something to be addressed majorly. We did this twice so that the cast could act upon our feedback and then we made some more on their second run through as well.

For around 20 minutes, we focused on Section 3 as one of our cast members wasn't here last week and so we had to fill him in on everything that we had added in. We had asked him to watch the video on Youtube, so that he had a rough idea of what was going on but we would fill him in once he was in the rehearsal. We went over the movements which everyone had seemed to remember and pointed out the fluidity of the lines. We told them that we wanted there to be a continuity between the lines so that when we get to the movements, which are in silence, then it has a bigger effect on the audience and draws them in.

After this, we decided that we would do a run through of sections 1-3 but we took away the cast's scripts for sections 1 and 2 so that we could monitor their progress on learning their lines. We found that we were pleasantly surprised as majority of the group knew their lines and the pace began to pick up and we started to see the beginning of what it would be like in the actual performance. After this run through, we started to become harsher on the cast about their un-choreographed movements as we wanted them to get used to not moving in rehearsal so that when it comes to performance night they are consciously thinking about not moving. We wanted this to be a clear instruction as when they do come to performance, we are anticipating nerves which lead to un-choreographed movements even more.

In the past few weeks, we have been debating over the plank lift in section 2. We have been told that we can't actually hear Peter's line as it is said to the back and we didn't want to change anything drastically as we still wanted the lift to be safe. We had the option of taking Peter out once the lift was stable but we thought that this was very dangerous having only 4 people spin Leah. We then decided that Peter could face the front whilst Leah got up and then turn around and assist with the lift. We tried this and it turned out quite well. https://youtu.be/KTrFD_dcA4Q We had the safety aspect of the lift and we also had the line being delivered clearly out to the front.

We then moved onto a read through of section 4 and added in some movements. Because of the length of section 4, it's the largest one out of the whole script, we added in some more movements than we did for previous sections. At the start of the section, there are multiple lines that address the people on stage directly with statements about their favourite tv shows,  favourite book etc. and we wanted each person to have a juxtaposing staging to the position they were in before hand. For example, one of the lines is "We know that J's favourite TV show is Breaking Bad." now at this point Luke, who is named J for this play, is stood in the centre and so when the line is said he sits down. The proceeding line is then "We know that A's favourite game is Cluedo." At this point Peter, who is A, stands up as he was previously sat on a chair. This was the first time doing it and so it was a bit clunky due to the cast having to refer back to their scripts but once they are off script the pace will be faster and therefore the juxtaposing movements will be of a quicker pace and the audience's attention will be regained once again.

As our last thing we decided to attempt a full run through of the whole play to have a rough estimate at how long it would be. We did the same as we did earlier and allowed the cast to have their scripts for sections 3 and 4 but not for the first couple. We were there to prompt but we had a chart of who needed a prompt just as a visual reminder for the cast on how well they knew their lines. We wanted the cast to do a run through in their costume so that they got used to what it was like to do the whole thing in their actual costume.  https://youtu.be/S_c8g0ZKjkQ (Sometimes the cast couldn't hear and we couldn't hear the lines as their was another group in the room who were being quite loud)

I think that the cast took on board what we said about staying still as the sections that they didn't have their script they stood perfectly still and we think that these sections are almost up to performance standard. We added in some turns for the rest of the cast when there is a movement going on. So, for example, when Joel and Hannah do their movement the rest of the cast turn to look at them, thus creating more effect on the audience as all attention is on the movement that it happened. I think that this was one of the highlights of the run through as these movements were very snappy and effective.

What we found with the costume was that they were used to it and so some movements crept in when they start fiddling with their costume. This why we had them rehearse in their costume this early on in the rehearsal process as we didn't want it to come to the dress rehearsal and they could have lost all the directions we gave them about remaining still.

Week 8: Director's Challenge

Section 3

Again we had another cast member missing and so I had to step in as Luke as it was Alexis' week to be lead director and so I took a step back to watch and write down any changes that we could make. We used the first 10 minutes to go over the lift that we did last week so that we could add in the person that wasn't here last week. We then went straight into a run through of Section 1 and 2 to see how fluid we could get it. In the video it is still quite lumpy but we think that fluidity will come with the cast learning their lines and coming off script. We made sure that we highlighted that learning lines was the key to unlocking the potential of this play and so we had to put slightly more pressure on the cast to learn their lines. https://youtu.be/FAHDPfuVzzE (We were in a room with another group and so sometimes it is hard to hear the lines that are being said. Although we could this to our advantage and try to get the cast to speak over the noise so they are using their full vocal range but this may just add to the chaos.)

Improvements that I thought of and we discussed as directors:

• Synchronisation of movements - The sharpness of the unison look up and then down. We definitely need to reiterate what words that the two movements are on and make sure that each move is more defined to help emphasise the move. 
• Staging - From a different angle the chair that I am sat on could block the girl sat on the floor but with our actual staging she will be sat on a riser which brings her slightly higher but I think that we need to investigate a little more when we have our full set. 
• Natural movements/twitches - The small movements that we have previously told them to avoid are slowly making their way back in, so I think that we need to be stricter about the movements and so in the rehearsal in half term I think that needs to be one of our focal points throughout the rehearsal.
• Reactions to lines - We need to figure out whether we want the cast to react to each others lines because reactions are quite natural and we want the audience to realise that these actual people being themselves onstage not characters, but on the other hand if the reactions are too big then the audience's attention will snap to that reaction so maybe the compromise is that the reactions need to be big enough for themselves to be reflected but small enough not to attract attention.
• Lines being said over movement - I think that if there's a movement going on the rest of the cast who aren't involved need to watch the movement so that they help draw attention to it and then the lines commence. If the lines are said over the top of the movements I think that we lose the author's intention, to see how long an audience can go until they lose concentration, as the style isn't reiterated after the movement. The movements should offer the audience a break from the stillness of the lines and allow them something to think about and if this is overridden with lines then it defeats the purpose.
• Fumbling of lines or loss of place - Because we are in the early stages of practice, we expect these but I think that we need to tell the cast not to react if someone does as we want them to really understand the atmosphere that we are trying to set up and if the cast are laughing or breaking that atmosphere by reacting to the loss of lines then they are disrupting the whole piece.

At one point, I actually did a leg swap by accident as a natural move but I think that we could use that as a small move to re-attract the audience's attention. I also think that the synchro movement on the line "we know the sun sets in the west and rises in the east", looks really effective and the pause before Joel's line, which is after, really helps emphasize the movement and I think that we should add a pause after every movement as it sets it apart from the rest of the piece and it could accentuate the snap in and out of the stillness. 

After this run through when then did a read through of Section 3 with the cast adding in their ideas for movements and for the positioning of those movements. Because we have done this process will both of the past sections, the cast have started to look deeper where and why we were putting the movements in their places which is what we wanted to happen. We gave them slightly more freedom with section 3 as we wanted to allow them to feel a part of the directing process. Although we do want to let them have an input, we do keep adding in ideas that we actually want and then letting them expand of them. We then narrowed down the movements that we wanted into around 2/3 and slotted them into the section. We wanted our cast to feel like they are really apart of this process and so we started asking him questions about how we are going to do the movements. For example there are a series of lines that talk about the fact that the cast is always looking forward and they wouldn’t be able to tell “what’s happening behind” them and a specific line that we previously decided we wanted a movement on was “unless we turn around.” We knew that we wanted a movement here as it was an interesting concept that not everybody thinks about in a drama piece and so we asked the cast what do you think we should do. We had many ideas including a look over the shoulder, turning around and looking at each other I’m confusion as not many people think of that. As directors, Alexis commented that we would like the movement to be a turn around but then she sparked the question of  should it be the whole cast? We had a small discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of doing a whole cast turn around but then we decided that the positives outweigh the negatives and it would look very effective. So we told the cast to all stand on the word “camera” from the previous line and then, once the line had been said, to turn around it a circle in silence to emphasise the move.

The final thing that we did in this weeks rehearsal, was practice the fluidity of the lift so that when we showed it at the end of the session we could do it fluidly enough for everyone to see what it would be like in the actual performance. Some feedback that we got was, when Peter, the boy who has his back to the audience throughout the lift, says his line, it is directed towards the back. We knew this from practice but we thought that we would focus on the safety aspects of the lift as we are still in the early stages and so we didn't ask him to turn around as we wanted his focus to be on the lift. We did think, with practice, that Peter could help lift Leah and then just before they begin to rotate her, turn around and say his line to the audience. This would mean that only 4 people would be spinning Leah which could be a safety hazard and so we want to be absolutely certain that the 4 can do that before we put it in the real performance. Overall it was a very successful rehearsal, getting everything that we planned to do completed, staying on track to block everything in the next week and helping fuel the casts understanding of the play as a whole.

Week 8: TIE (Storms)

Developing scenes

We started off the lesson by reviewing all of what we had done so far. We specifically went over the 4 topics that we discussed last week where the miss-communication of a boys emotion could lead to something vital or lead to both themselves and their peers suffering. We managed to get them down to 3 main events, difficult home life, exam stress and bereavement, that we could show in small scenes as the build up of pressures on our focal male character, John Doe.

We wanted our first scene to establish the scenario and atmosphere and so we thought that we could use the difficult home lift as our first short scene. We used dramatic asides from both the dad's point of view and John to help add to the story-line and keep the audiences attention on what was going on. We thought that we should use the moment of orientation to set up the atmosphere and we said that we wanted a lot of things going on so that we could add in dual conversations. So we had the younger brother looking for his school bag, John some revision on the kitchen table and the father figure waiting for his breakfast. This allowed us to have the freedom of multiple conversation going on at the same time. We also had the event of water being split onto John's revision notes through the mum being pushed by the younger brother which sparked even more conversations and the atmosphere grew with the intensity of the lines. The dramatic aside that we used for John's character was "Parents are arguing again, doesn't happen all the time, but it's started happening more often. I have to get myself ready and I need to make sure my little brother's alright. I'm not stupid. I know money's tight, they're trying not to let on but it's kinda obvious and that just makes it worse." We think that this is a good way of settings the scene for the audience as they now understand that this is a reoccurring thing that has started to become a problem and it also shows John's perspective on it which adds to the insight on the pressures that have already started building up. We also changed one of the lines to help drip feed more pressures into John and so we added in to the father's aside that the mother is pregnant.

We the thought we could use the exam pressure scene next at it seemed to be in chronological order and at the end of the last scene the two boys were going to school so this seemed like the next best scene to add in.We set the scene of a optional revision session and some of the class were staying and others were wanting to leave and we thought that this would be a good opportunity to add in some more pressures such as the teacher, a girlfriend and a mate. The scene builds up with all of these different people adding to John's pressures as they all have different expectations on him. The teacher wants him to reach his potential, his mate wants him to come out to football and his girlfriend wants him to do whatever he wants. The dramatic aside we used was "Fuck's sake! S'not like I don't want to stay but I need to pick up my little brother because no one else can and my parents don't want him going home by himself. Don't get me wrong, I do want to stay and she's kinda fit, but I just can't today." After we had done the bereavement scene, we decided to change the lines from "no one else can," to "my parents have a hospital appointment," so that we were drip feeding information about other pressures that were going on and this could also reflect the pressure that John is putting on himself by not telling anyone about his other ongoing issue.

Our final installment of the short scenes was the bereavement and we have previously drip feed that the mother is pregnant and so we made it so that the parents have lost the baby and so they ask John to take some of the pressure off them by looking after his brother more but, in turn, this puts more pressure onto John, adding to the pressures that we have already build up in the previous scenes. We thought that the father should have another dynamic aside so that we could see the thought process of a grown male in this situation to show that it effects everyone. We also chose miscarriage instead of stillborn because the statistic of having a miscarriage is 1 in 4 so we thought that it would effect more people and therefore we could relate to more people.

We knew that we wanted all of the asides to have a juxtaposing atmosphere so if the scene was high intensity the aside might have a more casual tone and vice versa so that the change of tone invites the audience to listen and understand what's going on.

We then had a discussion with Mr Bashir, a teacher who specializes in dealing with students who have or show signs of mental health. He said that the main signs of deteriorating mental health is that they will start to isolate themselves as they don't know who to talk to or don't know how to access support. This sometimes progresses into risk taking and things such as smoking weed and drinking alcohol or even progressing onto self-harm in some extreme circumstances. There is normally an underlying mental health issue when people start moving towards suicide, which is the direction in which we want our piece to go so that we begin to talk about suicide prevention. Everyone is from a different background and are brought up in different ways so some boys might have been taught that it's okay to openly talk about their feelings, and others are taught "man-up" and that "big boys don't cry." We need to talk this into consideration and think about the contrasting ways that some people might react to suicide and the triggers that are there.

We thought that the main reaction was going to be defensive of their actions that we are claiming they have and so we thought that we could add in a scene that shows us acknowledging this action. We could have a teacher who has noticed some of the signs of deteriorating mental health and has called John into a meeting about it. We would have John reacting in a way that is quite defensive and this enables us to show that we understand how they react and why.

We carried on adding a few more scenes to the piece and one of which was a scene between John and his girlfriend, Holly, were she has caught him drunk with his friends. We thought that this was showing one of the routes that John could take to "forget" about all the problems that are going on in his life. I think that this is a good example of what someone might do in this modern age as alcohol is available to many more people that it should be and it is one of the easiest forms of distractions for people in our target audience age range.
We then followed this scene with another that presented the coming home of John to find his dad sitting in the hallway waiting to confront him about where he has been. I thought that this scene could be quite hard because it involves two male characters. Both will automatically channel there emotions through anger as they will both sense that this is a confrontation, and also the father will want to lecture the son on his behavior and show his power and dominance as the older male figure and "that is what a father should do." We made sure that the scene ended with the father gaining control over John and sending him to bed but also showing signs that he is just relieved that his home and safe. We thought that the father would been in a similar position as John and being dealing with his own stress in a similar way as he needs to step-up and keep his family together.

We had a small discussion about Forum theatre and we said that a forum, in the roman times, was a place where you had a discussion and in a modern sense this could be an online forum for example. So if a forum means discussion then forum theatre could also be called "discussion theatre." Which it is in a sense as the cast take a scenario and they take on board discursive points from the audience. A facilitator would begin asking the audience questions and establish the subject that they would be addressing. The cast would aim for a resolution through these discussion points and could also add in points that might fuel the discussion onward, possibly into the direction of the resolution. We found that this pushed us onto looking at Augusto Boal, who was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, "whose objective was to study, discuss and express issues concerning citizenship, culture and various forms of oppression using theatrical language... His objective was to work out issues citizens might be facing in their communities through theatre, and also to discuss the laws of the city of Rio with people on the streets... Boal also worked with prisoners in Rio and Sao Paulo. Boal argued that people in prison are not free in space, but that they are in time. and that the Theatre of the Oppressed strives to create different types of freedom so that people are able to imagine and think about the past, the present, and the future instead of having to wait for it All this was in order for prisoners to have a 'healthier and more creative lifestyle.'"(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Boal#Center_for_the_Theatre_of_the_Oppressed-CTO-Brazil ) Boal pioneered majority of the techniques that are used throughout Theatre In Education pieces and I have personally seen multiple T.I.E pieces, like "The Raft of the Medusa", and researching Boal has shown me the roots of where the techniques that I have seen, and are currently working with, come from. Applying this discursive technique to our piece, I think the Dad scene would be a key spot, where we could show our version and then ask the audience if they think either of the characters would react in a different way, or their body language might be slightly different and we could also ask them to put in some lines that they think either of them might say. There is a risk that our audience might not participate at all or they might think of it in more of a joky manner and take the scene out of hand. I think that we really need to think about our course of actions if that happens. Will one of us have to give them a line? How will we respond to any inappropriate comments? If the audience to participate, there are core responses that we can anticipate being said as lines, things like "I'm disappointed in you", "I'm angry at you" etc.
I think that this could be a good path into some workshop activities and audience participation and so we could come to a comedic end, re-establishing the audience's interest, in our "scientific" presentation. We could then snap out of our male characters and acknowledge the fact that we are all girls and we don't know how boys react we are just guessing and assuming. This would then lead us into Boal's "discursive points" with the audience.

Week 7: Director's Challenge

Section 2

This week, we had another member of the cast missing and so one of us had to step in to read the lines and also when we started experimenting with lifts, one of us had to step in again. This set us back slightly as we wanted to get as much of the script blocked in the first 4 weeks of rehearsal so that we could maximize the time perfecting it but we had to slightly adjust our plan. We then decided to experiment with frantic assembly lifts instead so that we could decide which ones worked better and which ones were easier and were easier to get into.

We decided that this week would be my week to be the central director and Alexis would be reading in the lines whilst I explained the lifts. She would also make notes throughout the process and then we would discuss the changes in a small director's meeting after the rehearsal. I also asked Alexis to be an extra spotter on each of the first times doing the lifts so that we were very aware of the safety of the person being lifted.

We kept to our original plan slightly in that we ran through section 1 to check that everyone had remembered where we put the movements in and we made sure that we reiterated the fact that we didn’t want any other movements to happen apart from the choreographed ones. This is something that the cast was struggling with both this week and last so next week I think we need to incorporate an activity into the warm-up that will allow them to get into the nature of the play and re-emphasise the need for no movements.

We then did a read through of section 2, which is the shortest section of the play, and asked the same question to the cast: when do you think the audience's attention will falter? We all established that we think it would be when the subject moves onto quite scientific statistics and ideas and so we all agreed that there needed to be a big movement at this point so that the audience would stay connected and interested through the lines that they might not understand.

This is where we brought in the idea of a frantic assembly lift as we have had previous experience of learning how to do them and we've also got videos that we can look back on to help remind us. Before this, me and Alexis went through the videos that we took at the workshop we did with frantic assembly and made sure that we knew all of the safety features that need to be established before we lifted anyone in the air. We started off the process in our cast, by establishing and giving each person a specific part in the lift for example, "the rock," "the sides" etc. And we made sure that everyone knew what their role was in the lift and we highlighted the danger aspects of the lift and made sure that everyone was focused on the person that we were lifting instead of anything else that was going on.  Despite me having to step in, we still carried on with doing the lifts instead of postponing it to next week because we knew we wanted the frantic lift to go into section 2 so if the majority of the cast know where it is, we could still do a run through of section 1 and section 2 together and we can just say the lines. Also we have had a chat to the year 12 who was missing and they understand the concept of the lift and what they need to do, we just need to do the full lift with everyone involved.
We started off with a plank lift which required everybody and I think that the cast adapted well to the corrections that we gave them, which included the placement of their hands and altering the way that they stood in order for them to have the most balance. Here is the first frantic lift we did: https://youtu.be/1ao29wgUEIU

After we had had a couple of tries at it, I made sure to ask the cast something that they found easy about the lift, something that they found hard and then something that they thought could be added if needed. Majority of the comments were that the coming down from the lift was very easy for everyone and everyone found it very easy to get to their next position. The hard comments were mainly about the going up of the lift as we established that Leah, who was being lifted, needed to lift a leg in order for her to push off the floor and also to get her weight onto "the rock." I then decided to step in and establish an idea that we could do for an improvement which was to add a turn in to the lift. So when Leah was stable in the air, we would then rotate her so that she went from her stomach to her back and then was placed down onto both feet. I thought that this small change could be added in as this would be the first big movement that the audience will have seen and so we wanted it to look as interesting as possible.  The cast agreed and we had a try. For this lift, we made sure that there was an extra spotter which was our teacher just in case we had a fall. https://youtu.be/ZGS2W0MmdzE

This was the full lift sequence that we want to incorporate into the piece. https://youtu.be/9e23XyvZ-ZU

After we established the full sequence we then did a run through of the whole of section 2 with the lift. https://youtu.be/ZfGvDtLMLyU We think that we need more fluidity between the lines and also we established that everyone is speaking in the same tone and so we need to highlight that they can still talk as themselves instead of having a dead tone of voice and not using their voice to juxtapose everyone from each other.

Week 7: TIE (Storms)

Discussion

This week, we had a shorter lesson than normal and therefore couldn't create any new drama to add into the piece but we decided to have a class discussion about where we wanted the piece to go from the societal pressures on boys. We all said that we wanted the piece to take a slightly more serious route from here and we have done the comical sketches that hook the audience into the piece but now we need to start feeding in the ideas about the focal reason why we are doing this piece: to enlighten y10/y11 boys on the way that they communicate or the ways that they don't communicate and what dangers can come from this.

We all said that we wanted to start snapping out of the stereotypes that we have made and the comical situations and actually see what would happen if we put these people in a real life situation. We started then, to come up with different situations where a boys lack of communication could have some major repercussions on himself and those around him. In our pair we came up with 4 different scenarios:

• Bereavement  - Someone in a boys family has died and this boy has a younger sibling. He doesn't want to tell any of his friends in case they are insensitive or don't understand. We were saying that the boy might want to bottle his feelings up inside so that he could be there for his younger brother or sister and this would have a major strain on the boys emotions and also his mental state which could lead to him taking the grief that he feels and reproducing this into anger. Meaning that there is tension with himself and his peers. But if we were looking from our target audience perspective we said that not everyone would know the feeling directly because not everyone has lost someone but majority of people know someone who has, so we decided that it could work but it would have a bigger effect on some people than others.
• Relationship - A boy has a girlfriend and he also has a close girl who is just a friend. Would the boy feel comfortable in talking freely about his friend to his girlfriend? This sparked an interesting conversation as our teacher said that no male and female relationship can just be platonic and we said that it could. We said that maybe it's because of the gender difference (do girls only view the relationship as platonic but the boys think otherwise?) or maybe it's because of the age difference. I think that our generation has many more friendships that are platonic but we only have the perspective of a girl so we don't know what a boy views the relationship as. I looked on this website (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/men-and-women-cant-be-just-friends/) that said that the results they found "suggest that men, relative to women, have a particularly hard time being 'just friends'." Again if we look from our target audience perspective, our question was would they all have a friendship with a girl? And we wouldn't know the percentage of boys that do so again it may effect more boys than others.
• Friends - A boy has a grandparent who is in hospital and his friends have asked him whether he wants to come outside to play football. He doesn't tell them the real reason why he doesn't come and eventually he stops being invited out. We thought that this could take a massive strain on the boy's life as he now only has his family around him and some boys don't feel comfortable telling their family how they feel in case it puts more stress on them. We said that this might be hard to do especially showing the passage of time from the first time being asked to the last. We didn't think that this would be relevant to the majority of our target audience either because not everyone has experience the loss of friendship regarding a serious issue. Also we talked about a different issue that some boys might want to hide instead of an ill grandparent, and we came up with things like social anxiety at parties and not getting along with the group of friends any more.
• Exams- A boys friend asks him to come out but he has to revise and he doesn't want to say that he is stressed with all of his work load and so doesn't go out. We thought that with this age range, everybody is going to feel that stress at some point and it may affect some more than others but everybody is going to feel at least a little anxious about exams.

We then casually interviewed 4 y11 students and found that all of our assumptions we correct. We then decided we would now add in a scene that introduced one of these situations and establish the scenario in which the stereotype would be put into. We didn’t decide which one we wanted, because we decided that we would go away and next week come back with an idea about one of the scenes and we would then decide which ones we were going to put in the piece.