Week 17: TIE (Storms)

Performing to an audience and making changes

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

Our groups good points included:

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

Our groups points to improve on included:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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