Week 21: TIE (Primary School)

Feedback

This week, we had a lot of people missing from our class and so we decided to have a sit down discussion with our teacher so that he could play the devil's advocate and ask us to explain why we are doing everything the way that we are so that we can realise any mistakes that have been made and also so that he knows the reasoning behind what we are doing in order for him to understand where we are up to in the rehearsal process.
We began by talking through the piece step by step and at the beginning of us explaining chapter one, Chipp commented "This is the beginning of using yourselves as examples...what is the logic behind this?" We relayed to him the discussion that we had had when we were devising this ourselves and we explained that this would give the audience something to connect and relate to and it also shows that we went through it and highlights the fact that they can take advice from someone that has been through it already.
We then proceeded to explain that the little worries that had been addressed were acted out in little scenes and when we came to the idea of an older student helping the younger one to find their way around school, we were addressed with the question of "Is that real?" so does this really happen in real life and we replied with yes and plenty of us have been both the older student helping and also the younger one being helped.
We were then given the comment of "the core principal of what you're saying is fine as you're giving examples, but it's about how they're being executed." We had a short discussion about how we need the anecdotes to be more believable and heartfelt so that the audience can really grasp that they are real and we had experienced this ourselves first-hand.
We were asked how we had fixed the issue of too much narrative, which was a comment that we had previously got from other run-throughs. We explained how we had extended the classroom scene so that I interrupted and gave comments on how I was feeling at this point and we also added in some forum theatre aspects like asking the audience who I could ask for help so that they were more interactive with the scene.
After explaining our concept of the freeze frames, Chipp reminded us of the comments that we had been given previously about us not addressing the problems that would be brought up by the students and so we explained how we are now deciding to spend longer with the students when making the freeze frames so that we can address their problems in smaller groups so that they don't feel like they are sharing their fears with the whole year group. Chipp asked us "what are you actually trying to explore in this freeze frame section?" and we told him how we wanted them to express their own little worries and explain to us what they're scared of so that we would be able to help them and tell them what it is really like to be in secondary school. We then explained some of the little worries that we would expect them to say like getting lost or getting your head pushed down the toilet to which Chipp replied "Are they little worries?" and we thought that throughout the piece they're going to be thinking of bigger worries and so these are more just like their own worries that concern just them. We wanted the worries to be smaller things whilst we are workshopping so that we are discussing little things in order for them to find the solutions, with our help, rather than us just outrightly telling them the solutions to their problems. It gives us the chance to discuss with them, in smaller groups, in a creative way, whilst they're doing something active.
We moved onto Chapter 2 which addresses the fears and ideas around friendships as they are a massive issue in secondary school and are the cause of 90% of the problems. We need to enhance the format idea of anecdotes so that the audience can identify with us onstage and really feel like we know what we are talking about and in order for the audience to understand the piece and get something out of it, they need to be fully immersed in the stories and feel like we are talking about a situation they can relate to. A possible extension of Alexis' storyline could be the answer to including some other scenarios to do with friendships as well as it giving us the opportunity to explore Alexis' story in more depth. It would also give the audience the chance to see some of the things that they suspect might happen in secondary school and also some of the things that are definitely going to happen.
Later on, we got the comment of " If you're trying to bring in new characters for each of the different scenarios regarding friendships, doesn't that mean the audience only get a short space of time with each one of the characters?" We decided that we would only use the scenarios in asides so that we weren't following 4 different scenarios at the same time but if a situation occurred we could use dynamic asides to highlight how each person felt at that time with their friendship situation.
Chipp thought that using the personal stories format was good and approachable from an audience perspective but does the heavy narrative base obstruct the way of them connecting with the characters. He asked us "what are you doing to give a lot of information and, get them engaged with the characters quickly so that you can work on the moral issues that we want to focus on?" We responded with our ideas behind extending the scenes so that the audience are engaging with specific characters and the narrative helps stop them from getting confused about who is which character and also the narrative helps them understand the scenes. We could also use the narrative to highlight the key morals and ideas that we want them to take from the scene and this allows us to know that they are getting the key ideas from each scene.
We then began to find different ways of breaking up the narrative so that the piece wasn't so narrative based and we had the idea of the character in the scene could come out of the scene and speak to the narrator. For example, Charlotte could step out of her character as Little Alexis and engage with the audience through dynamic asides as this allows us to begin to establish a clarifying dialogue alongside the narration that helps make what Alexis was feeling at this point more relatable and therefore the audience can understand and use the advice we are giving them to their fullest advantage. In addition to this we were trying to think of alternative possibilities that will help us move away from a heavily narrative base and we thought we could get Big Alexis, so the person who's story it is, to try and talk to her younger self which reflects the idea of adding in dynamic asides but still keeping the narrative in place. We would want to have the older Alexis telling her younger self what to do but we also had the questions of "would the younger self listen" which we thought we could bring into the piece to show that the advice we're giving can actually work. So we would have Alexis the narrator trying to convince the younger version to listen to her advice as she has been through it before and knows what to do but the younger version wouldn't listen as they are in the moment and their emotions have been heightened.
We then moved onto thinking about what does this form enable us to do, and challenge, as facilitators and educators towards the target audience that we wouldn't be able to do if we just had one or the other. We are allowing ourselves to challenge the idea that the things that are happening to them at the time might feel like a big deal but in the future they won't matter. We could use Little Alexis to articulate the thoughts of the audience, therefore allowing them to connect and relate to her more, alongside Big Alexis giving advice, we would have a very interesting paradox between the two. We are creating a dialogue which the audience will emotionally connect to however the dialogue is within the dynamic asides as this allows us to open up opportunities to question the decisions made by little Alexis.
The next thing that we moved onto was the list of tips that we made for making friends and we think that the best decision would be to get rid of it and find a different way to enable to audience to engage with the tips more as the audience will try to engage with what we're saying but if we're too energetic and moving around the stage, there will be at least 10 children in the audience who are not paying attention as they are already feeling overwhelmed by the concept of having an assembly on moving up to secondary school.
I think that we need to explore the negative impact it has on an individual when someone says a back-handed mean comment. For example, the moment when you put yourself out there and try to make friends but you get blanked or when you smile at someone but they don't smile back at you. We could incorporate this into Little Alexis and make her feel like she just wants to go home and never leave again just because no one wanted to sit next to her at lunch. We were thinking that we could add this into the nan scene that comes after as we could use the nan as an excuse to stay in the house and not tell her how she is truly feeling. We started to discuss what's more important giving them a list of what to do or preparing them for a reality in which they could encounter and if they do so they will know what to do in that specific situation. We could make a scene in which we include a back-handed comment that is a personal anecdote from someone in the cast, as some of us have experienced that before, and show that person working through the issue and finally overcoming it. We could use a worse-case scenario to show that these situations can still be over-come and we can use this to open their minds to the idea that everybody is feeling the same and will, at some point, feel the same.
Using the connection between Alexis and her nan allows us to accentuate the idea of telling your family how you feel is a good way of letting your feelings out. We could use this relationship and make Alexis feel bad, then bring in the solutions to her problems. We need to make sure that we are making it clear that if these things happen to you, you are not a bad person and you're going to have connections to people at some point. These things can definitely make you feel bad and we know this from personal experience but it's ok to feel this way. It is actually making you a stronger and kinder person.
We then moved onto the bullying chapter. At this point, we had only blocked the first scene and the outcomes that could come from that so we were more discussing the theory and reasoning behind it. We were discussing the reasons behind why we want them to choose "do nothing" as the best option for the bullying as there is no situation created if you don't lower yourself to their level. But we also want to accentuate the fact that asking for help is also a good option and is the first step to asking for help which doesn't create a situation right then and there. We need to make it clear to the audience that there is a difference between asking for help and snitching on someone. We were talking about the idea of see what happens if the situation gets worse and including the reaction of the child who would find the "breaking of the phone" situation very traumatic as would we also be telling them to do nothing? We need to clarify that if it upsets you, it's always best to go and tell someone whether that be a teacher, an older sibling or another family member. Sometimes doing nothing in certain situations can make it worse. I think we need to give them options more than telling them to have a set outcome for specific situations. So we would say that every situation is different and it is up to them in those situations to decide what to do and we're just giving them a few options on what you could do but eventually they will have to make the decision themselves. We thought of our examples as a sort of stepping blocks to helping them figure out what to do so we are giving them a range of examples on what to do which can be used in a range of situations no matter how small. We want to make it clear that if the situation does escalate then telling someone whether that be a teacher, sibling or other family member is needed. We made sure that we are including less stereotypical bullying as there are other forms of bullying that are regularly passed over in school and not recognised as bullying, like the whispering and the sarcastic nature of asking for the pencil. Passive bullying is the issue that we are wanting to show as this is one of the major problems in secondary school and we still see it happening in our every day lives. We need to make sure that we get this particular section right in terms of the delivery and how well the audience can pick up our key messages as this is the single biggest cause of unhappiness in modern secondary schools.
Bullying can start with casual off-hand comments which is what we have included in the small scene and we have escalated that into a more physical representation in order to continue the effects that this could have on someone and I think that it would be good to include the idea that sometimes punching and physically fighting back can be the only way to get rid of bullies but it does also have it's consequences and can get you in trouble. We were trying to identify what we would do if the phone situation actually happened to us and we decided that there would be so much rage and humiliation throughout the situation escalating. We also said that we would probably try and laugh it off at the start as though it was a joke but then the humiliation starts to set in and you start trying to fight back which is how the situation gets escalated even more. I think that we need to adequately explore the emotional aspects of some of the negative side to friendships so that we are showing the audience the reality of what its like and this also gives us other things to talk to them about which may result in them being able to open up to us more and let us help them talk through their fears.
After the bullying chapter, we are still deciding on whether we need to add more chapters in and we thought about adding in an extra chapter about organisation which could include things like forgetting your homework, forgetting your P.E kit or how to organise getting you food technology ingredients before the lesson.
Overall we have found that the anxiety that is centered around bullying and friendships needs to be made clearer and maybe we need to magnify the effects that the anxiety can have. We said that if we tackle the major issues then everything else will seem like less of an issue and therefore hopefully make them feel slightly more excited about going into secondary school than nervous.
There was the issue of gender neutrality as we are an all girl class and so if we are taking things from our own experiences, we don't have anything from a male point of view and so we were thinking of ways that male students would react to things like bullying and we thought that they would laugh it off, as well as females, but then if someone else was being bullied they would just join in on the torment as the spotlight was off them. We need to find a way to add in males worries as well as female which we have a slight hint at in the freeze frame section as we will be working with a mixed group of children so we will be getting the perspective of a boy from that and also with our target audience's age range, their emotional responses to situations will be the same so they will be feeling the same things in relation to a situation but bullying can manifest itself in different ways in regards to the genders. We could use some of our SToRMS experience here and say that it could look like the male isn't effected so that he doesn't get bullied anymore but inside he will be feeling the negative effects of that and when he goes home that could affect him even more. In regards to girls, bullying could also manifest itself into friendship groups as well as they may cling on to a friendship group that they have been friends with all along but that might be toxic for them so they could start to pick up on some traits that we see reflected in bullying.
After the discussion we thought that the best way to use our time would be to act on something we had mentioned in the discussion and so we decided to adapt the scene with Little Alexis talking to her Nan.

Adapting the Nan scene - adding in dynamic asides

We decided to focus on extending this scene and having the conversation between Little Alexis and her Nan after her return from school and we added in a small section of conversation between Little Alexis and Big Alexis to communicate to the audience what Little Alexis is feeling at this point which is like she can't tell anyone. Ultimately we have Little Alexis ignoring the advice and holding all of her emotions back. We then inserted a small scene between Little Alexis and her friend about school and her friend has made lots of new friends and is bragging about how many she has made. Little Alexis would then do an aside explaining that her friend is making her more worried about making friends as she hasn't been able to talk to anyone even though its only the first day of school. We would then abstractly show all of the thoughts that are building up in her head using the rest of the cast crossing behind her and saying all of her thoughts. This method allows us to relay to the audience how much pressure she is putting on herself and we can use the proxemics to reflect that and have the cast moving closer towards her as the thoughts build up. We would then get Big Alexis to reflect on her past actions and reiterate that the best thing to do would be to tell someone probably her Nan since they are quite close to each other.

We thought about the idea of talking to someone like your Nan in terms of having someone there and then we started thinking about it in terms of how much she could actually help with the situation and we thought that talking to some one like your Nan could be quite hard because she could be quite sympathetic and be a good listening ear but she wouldn't really be able to give you any advice. And we said that it would still help as it would relieve you of the stress and it's good to give your perspective to some one that might not understand the situation so clearly. So we added in a few lines to reiterate this idea:

Nan couldn't exactly give the best advice in that situation

But sometimes its better to talk to someone anyway

Its more effort to keep it all in

That will just stress you out even more

Talking to anyone whether that's a family member, sibling or teacher can help put things into perspective

If you don't want to or can't talk to someone, here are some things to remember

And then we proceed to include some ideas around friendships that hopefully will avoid situations like these from ocuring.

Don't limit yourself to one group of friends
Don't expect to make your best friend in the first week
Try joining clubs

Week 20: TIE (Primary School)

Creating more chapters

The first thing that we began to discuss when we moved onto this TIE was based around the build a friend section where we try and make "Alexis" a good friend by asking the audience what they think makes a good friend. What we began to question was it is true that every person you smile at is going to be your friend? Is trying to teach someone how to make friends really needed and/or suitable for a survival guide? We found that maybe we should get rid of the build a friend as it would be quite hard to try and portray the suggestions from the audience and so we adapted this section into top tips from us abbot making yourself more approachable to other students. We came up with these top tips:

1. Don't take it personally if people walk off, it's not a comment on you.
2. Talk to people in class, like people on your table.
3. Have things to lend like chewing gum, pens etc as that will give you a good starting point for conversation
4. Join things like school council
5. Go to social places in the school like the library, the basketball courts and the computer rooms
6. Join a club

This would then allow us to ask the audience what kind of clubs they would like to join in secondary school and we could then use that as a segway into Alexis' interests. To round off the top tips section we have Caitlin saying "If you put yourself in enough situations where you're meeting new people the chances are you'll have common interests and make friends. Don't worry if this doesn't happen straight away, I didn't make friends until February." Showing that these tips can be put in place but warning them not to expect to make best friends with someone on their first day as you have to get used to the people around you. We then added in Alexis saying that she went to art club and then moving on to the small scene that we have previously devised where Alexis starts to try and make friends using the tips we have provided.

We then moved onto the Bullying chapter and blocked as much as we could which lead us to thinking about the outcomes of a bullying situation and what options we had. We decided to set up a scene in a classroom which involved the bullying of Connie and we added in some of the small things that all add up to bullying like whispering, stopping the conversation when she walks in and having peers encouraging the bullying. We used this scene to show the small things that we see on a day-to-day basis that we sometimes neglect to call bullying and we wanted to show the audience that we also see this and, in turn, this gave us a segway into how to deal with the bullying.  Here is the scene which we devised:
https://youtu.be/xwXyR-WV_lA (unfortunately background noise covers some of the interaction at the start but it still gives you the kind of scene we're looking at)

We then moved onto another scene that would follow on from the first scene and we could use it to get the audience to actively interact with the piece so that we could see how they would react to the situation. We made the scene at lunchtime which would follow the previous lesson and we tried to make it as realistic as possible and so we made it about Connie's phone with comments like "that's a really old phone" and "I had that phone like two years ago." We would then give the audience three options of what to do in the style of a sliding scale so that it was easiest for them to see the options and pick theirs more clearly. Our options were to fight them, ignore them or tell a teacher. The option that we wanted them to choose was do nothing and ignore them because in this situation nothing came out of it and the situation actually moved into them including Connie in conversation.

Ignore them - https://youtu.be/ZwgCIejFl9w
Fight them - https://youtu.be/rz9vFBQD9lw
Tell a teacher - https://youtu.be/EF9kDgFRWw4

We made sure that we had a scene for each of the outcomes so that no matter which one they picked we would be able to play it out and then ask them what they thought the conclusion was in terms of Connie's feelings and also has the bullying actually stopped.