Week 24: TIE (Primary School)

Blocking and refining

We used this lesson to focus on making sure that we had our primary school piece completely blocked and then we could begin to refine it and make it performance ready. We had a possible performance date of sometime in the next two weeks and so we needed to make sure that we knew what was going on in all chapters and we were prepared for the possible performance.

We started with Chapter 4 and made sure that we had an introduction that allowed the audience to understand what was going on in the next section and also to set up the atmosphere for the game show that we were about to play. We decided to use a game show layout so that the audience felt at ease with the decisions that they were going to be asked to make and also to show that secondary school can be fun and it doesn't have to be tense all the time. A game show also may get the whole audience involved as it is a competition and our target audience may feel all the more included if we are making them compete against each other regarding who had the best answers in relation to the situation they were given. We decided that each group would have two cast members to help discuss their answers and give positive reinforcements to their suggestions. We also though of having a dedicated speaker for each group so that each person out of the group got to say one of the options that we were discussing. As a conclusion, we used the fact that everyone had come up with multiple answers and outcomes for each situation and therefore they have many options that they could take if any of these situations seem to arise. I think that addressing the fact that they also came up with the majority of these answers by themselves to highlight the point that they could come up with these things by themselves on their feet in these situations.

Moving onto Chapter 5 which we have titled “Good things”, we wanted this chapter to be a positive conclusion to the piece so that we weren’t bombarding the audience with an extensive amount of negative aspects about secondary school. We knew that the client wanted a piece that brought some of the fears that surround the idea of secondary school into light but the piece still needs to make the audience feel at ease with these problems and see that they can deal with them. This is why we wanted our last chapter to end on a positive note so that the audience still felt that they were able to go into secondary school knowing what to expect and knowing that they can expect good things to happen as well as they are transitioning into one of the most important and essential parts of their lives. We wanted there to be a range of good things so they can see that "good things" can come from a range of things and they are definatly going to find their own good things from their own secondary school experiences. We decided to include things like school trips, science labs, food technology etc. just to highlight that our good times come from different years and also we said that we could use these "good things," to mention some of the aspects that they may not realise that secondary school have in comparison to their primary school.

After we had blocked and completed the piece, we decided to do a full run-through and make the piece as fluid as possible so that it was performance ready.

• Energy levels - At the start, we obviously have the high school musical dance section which needs to be very energetic and the whole point of using this is to highlight the misconceptions that surround secondary school and so it needs to be seen as extreme and false. In order for this to work, we need it to be high energy so we decided to add in short sounds like "woo" and "yeah" for us to say over the music to accentuate that false image of secondary school that high school music portrays. We even added in small conversations in pairs that had the same high energy which involved things like homework and clubs etc. This allowed us to set the energy and the atmosphere of the piece high so that we interested the audience straight away and hopefully hooked them into learning about our experiences in secondary school.
• Delivery of lines in relation to the dance section - After the dance section, we have a couple of lines that are "Secondary school isn't like this" and "It can actually be quite scary." We wanted these lines to juxtapose with the enthusiasm of the first section to make it clear to the audience that this is interpretation of secondary school is wrong and a lot of people will probably believe that this is correct. In order for these lines to have the desire effect, we need to make the delivery of the lines break this idea of secondary school and so we decided that we needed to deliver them in a state of disbelief and in a tone that helps break this distorted image. 
• Speed of lines - Due to us becoming comfortable with the lines, we were beginning to speed up the lines and they were beginning to become slightly hard to hear the lines. We need to consciously make an effort to slow down the speed of our lines. I, in particular, found this quite hard because when I thought I was slowing down my lines, it was still quite fast and I found it quite difficult to differentiation between what I thought was slow and what the correct speed for the audience to clearly understand what was going on. I think that I was talking at a speed which students of my own age would understand but I needed to focus on the audience and involve them in what I'm saying and adjusting the speed of the lines to accommodate for that.
• Staging - At the beginning of each chapter, we designate a narrator for each chapter and in order for the audience to know who to focus on and to fully engage with what is going on we had that person step forward and the rest of the cast step backwards. This allows both the audience to clearly see the narrator and vice versa. The narrator can also see the whole of the audience and can therefore interact with the whole of audience by directing their words to everyone. When I was the narrator for Chapter 1, I made sure that I was making eye contact with as many people in the audience as possible in order for them to feel included in the piece and I also had to keep moving changing who I was directing my lines to so that I was explaining to everyone what was going on. 
• Interactive Noises - In order for the energy levels to be maintain throughout, we decided that there needed to be more agreement noises from the rest of the cast whilst the narrator is speaking so that the audience can see that we are all on board with what is being said and having these agreeing noises emphasizes that we have all been in this situation as well. 
• Identifying who's speaking - There are particular sections where we are stood in a line and each person delivers a line, to help the audience identify who's speaking at each particular time, we had the rest of the cast looking at that person along with them making agreeing noises. We had to slightly adapt the speed of the lines in these sections as well so that there was enough time for the audience to realise that there was another person talking and tune into what they're saying.
• Enthusiastic responses - During each chapter there are times when we assign different characters to the cast and we wanted the reactions to each character to be as extreme as the dance section at the start. So if we were assigned a character, then we wanted the reaction to be massive so that the audience could identify who was which specific character and it also adds comedic aspects to the piece.
• Wording - In certain chapters, especially those with more serious subjects, the audience need to be able to understand the situations that we are setting up for them and the way that we are explaining these situations, and the feelings involved in them, needs to be in a way that is accessible for the audience. Sometimes I think that the whole cast found it hard to re-word some of these situations as we were trying to find a way that the audience would be able to understand what was going on and specifically in the forum theatre section in which we had to ask for suggestions from the audience. We began to think about some of the responses that we could get from the audience and we came up with things like "tell a teacher" and "ask them to stop." The wording of the responses was something that we needed to focus on as our response to their suggestions needed to be professional yet appreciative. For example, if we were given a suggestion that didn't fit with the situation and we acted it out, we could completely dismiss the idea yet we couldn't say that it was the correct thing to do. 
• Reactions to the "good things" - The scenes during this chapter are short and quite quick and we needed to keep the energy up so we decided to set small background reactions that would add to the atmosphere and make the "good things" seem even more exciting for the audience.

TIE (Storms) Review

Performance Review

Positive points:

• Comedic timing - audience responded as we expected to the jokes that were made and if we went out to speak to them afterwards the interaction was always easier if there was a joke that had come before it as it made them feel like the atmosphere wasn't as pressuring on them.
• Pace - was majority kept up throughout the whole thing and the speed of the lines throughout was good and kept the audience engaged with the action onstage.
• Opening sequence - when showing the penises to the audience, it created a comedic atmosphere and introduced them to the topic easier and we did get a lot of laughter from the audience considering we were showing them fake penises that we then proceeded to put down our trousers. This was the response that we were expecting and it allowed us to use this to our advantage when we were talking to them because they had clearly seen the penises.
• Facilitation - majority of the facilitation was said in a clear and precise way so that when we did go out to the audience, they knew what was going on and the conversation could start and flow much easier.
• Reflective listening groups - I thought that the end groups worked really well and, specifically my group, found the 7 sins of communication very interesting to try and work out what they each were and then we intrigued to find out examples of each one and identify them in real life. We found that a lot of them identified moments in their own lives when they had seen these and that gave me a nice segway into trying to get them to realise how that made them feel and then proceeding to link that to reactions that they had seen in the piece. Also in my group one of the members came and found me towards the end of the session and told me that he was grateful for us talking about this as he was struggling with some of these things and he hoped that he would now have some of his friends to talk to him about it. This proves that in that audience of 40/50 students, we helped at least one person and that was the overall aim of the piece and it highlights the need for someone to hear what we were saying. It was an amazing feeling knowing that we had helped someone and helped them have a changed opinion on boys communicating how they are feeling with each other.
• Approaching the audience - Every time that we went out to the audience, I feel like the whole cast didn't make the atmosphere awkward and we approach the groups quite naturally and our body language was quite open reflecting the fact that we wanted them to be open to interpretation and I hope that that message came across to them as I wanted them to feel like we weren't going to judge them on what they say, we just wanted to understand their thought process and also their interpretation of the piece.

Negative points

• Murmuring during transition - For an unknown reason, when we got to the cross transition, the murmuring stopped and this therefore made the atmosphere drop, losing the effect that we wanted it to have on the audience which was for them to see the feelings building up in John's head.
• Pace - at times, the pace and speed of lines increased which meant that it was hard for the audience to catch onto what we were saying and this therefore made the continuity of the storyline and the audience's understanding of what was going on slightly harder to follow.
• Refocusing the audience - even though the facilitators had microphones, at times it was hard to understand what they were saying due to them not waiting for the audience to have fully re-focused on the piece and re-engaged with John's emotions. During the facilitation of the sliding scale, the audience hadn't finished their conversations and were still talking/laughing about some of the things that we had previously been discussing and so they lost the explanation of us wanting them to raise their hands when we got to their option and so when we proceeded to carry out the exercise, they didn't understand what to do which resulted in the exercise not getting the result that we wanted because they didn't hear what to do. We did cover it though by making the joke that everyone had broken their arms and so that allowed us to pick the atmosphere back up and carry on the piece.
• Repore with the audience during interactive sections - As expected, there were particular groups of students who weren't interested in the piece and weren't interested in giving their opinions to us which made it hard for some of the questions to be answered. To get around this we had to use some of the techniques that we had previously discussed in the lesson before when we had discussed ways to initiate the conversation. Sometimes this worked and others there was no response at all except for them laughing amongst themselves.

Week 23: TIE (Storms)

Last rehearsal before performance

We used this week to focus on the SToRMS T.I.E in order to get it as fluid as possible and performance ready because we had our performance the following Friday. We wanted to do as many run-throughs as possible both cue runs and full runs in order for us to feel confident and prepared for the performance. We wanted to get as much feedback as possible from our teacher so that we had the best performance that the audience would gain the most advantage from. One of the run-throughs, we found that we could emphasise the fact that we have fake penises and use it to our advantage so we wanted to go out in front of the audience and actually show them what we have to make them feel uncomfortable. We found that we could do it in a Berkoff style so using the extreme facial expressions to emphasise the fact that we are all females and we are talking to an all male audience. This also added to the comedic elements of the piece but the fact that we were being so serious about it meant that that also added to the comedy.

http://youtu.be/eaUhkcPPA0M

The piece was around 40 minutes long and that was without the interactive group section at the end which we thought was enough time for the audience to grasp the idea of what we wanted them to take from the piece.

The main feedback that we got from the run-throughs was:

• All of the earlier scenes - perfectly timed and the speed of the lines was slow enough for the audience to grasp what was going on in the scene.
• Start sequence - nice timing, allowed the atmosphere to be established and the tone of the piece to be set.
• More noise - need more noise when we are doing the crossover transition where we are saying lines. The atmosphere needs to be kept up so that they are constantly being interested in the piece in order for them to both understand what is going on and to gain the most out of the performance.
• Centre the scenes - Because of the new audience seating arrangement, we are so used to being further to one side than the other and so we needed to realign the scenes so that they were central and the whole audience were involved in the scene.
• Asides - Need to be shared with all sides of the audience so that they all felt like they can understand what is going on and understand the information that the asides are sharing with them because that's the whole purpose of the sides - to add extra information to the scene.
• Pace - the overall pace of the piece was very sustained and allowed the piece to have a calmer atmosphere so that the audience were more inclined to listen to what we were saying and therefore understand it more.
• Line pick ups- need to be slightly quicker during the societal pressures on boys section as this is a quicker pace section where the audience's attention needs to be verbally taken through what each little scene is so that they understand.
• Facilitator tone - The tone of the facilitators was good and accurate so that the audience were getting the information that they need in a tone that was easy to listen to and easy for them to take in.
• More irritated thank yous - When Caitlin is getting annoyed with Imogen, we wanted the thank yous to get more irritated to add to the joke and comedic timing of the lines.
• Family scene - needs to be brought further forward on the stage so that the audience feel more connect and immersed in the scene. But we also need to make sure that when we bring it forward, we don't close the scene from the audience on the outside. We need to involve the whole audience and not just those at the front and centre.
• Define the asides - For the maximum effect of the asides, there needs to be a juxtaposing atmosphere change to make them more defined and stand out more. One of the ones that need to be changed is the aside that is done by the school teacher in the school scene as we need it to be giving the audience the right message and the atmosphere helps set that up.
• Murmuring - We need to have continuous murmuring in the background of when the thoughts are building up on John as it adds to the atmosphere and when we go past John in the crossover scene, the lines that are being singled out at that point need to be shouted over the top which also adds to the tension that is building reflecting the breaking point that John is at.
• No props- At the start of the rehearsal process, we started using props like a cup and bottle in the scene but in particular when John "throws" the bottle, we found that there was the sound of the bottle bouncing along the floor whilst Hannah was trying to carry on her John lines which was taking the focus away from the lines that were being said.
• Caitlin's narrator tone - As the piece goes on, we wanted the narrator's tone to reflect the status that we had given them at the start of the piece as the leaders of the performance and so their tone, towards the middle and end of the piece, needed to be more formal. And then when we go into the smaller groups that is when they are able to use a slightly less formal approach.
• Corridor scene - volume needs to be louder to reflect the atmosphere of the school
• Barriers to Communication facilitation - doesn't make sense as the lines that are said are repeated and so we need to add in the line "John may think that he's communicating clearly," so that the audience can understand that John is communicating but perhaps not in a way that is clear enough for Holly to understand what he is trying to say.
• Context for the friends scene - If we add in some context then it might make more sense for the audience to understand the timeline that we are using and so we want to add in the line "Earlier in the evening."
• Echoing lines - There was a line that was repeated that we needed to change so that the audience didn't get confused about what was going on and so after the small scene where we fake what John's friends would look like when he tries to talk to them about his feelings, we got the facilitator to say "that looks ridiculous" instead of repeating the same line of " nothing like this would ever happen."
• Reflective listening - We originally had a version of the reflective listening on a slide on the powerpoint but after considering it we found that it wasn't as helpful as we thought and it was also a distraction from the subjects that we would be talking about it in our groups.

Week 22: TIE (Storms)

Preparing for performance

We have recently found out some provisional dates for performances at King Ecgberts School to launch the project and those are during the next week and so we used today's rehearsal to map out where the audience will be sitting and because it is being performed in our vicinity, we are able to rehearse in the actual performance space. We are thinking that we will be performing to roughly 50-60 pupils in year 11 so they are directly in the centre of our target audience age range. We are thinking that we are performing for 70 just so that we are prepared if it's anymore and that would roughly give us 10 students to work with in each interactive group.

The first thing that we decided to work on was the audience positioning so that we were prepared before the audience even entered the room, to make the interactive elements easier to divide up. We eventually came up with a curved seating arrangement that made sure everyone in the audience was involved in the piece and felt like they could interact with us. 

With the audience seating arrangement then in place we decided to do a run through and adjust anything to accommodate for the seating. The first thing that we came across was the first line of chairs that we sit in was very far forwards and the audience around the sides would only be able to see the backs and sides of the chairs. In order to change this we both brought the line backwards and made it into an arch instead of a line so that we could address the whole audience and play to all the sides of the stage in order to keep them involved.

The next problem came at the "societal pressures on boys" section as we were the opposite of the earlier problem and were all too far backwards. When we did bring the focal point of the action forwards, we then found that the sides of the stage could see the mechanics behind some of the sections so we needed to use the extra people to cover the mechanics at the side and this also allows the sides to see their reaction in regards to the situation, meaning that they are still being engaged in the piece. We also thought about the TV section when we are all facing forwards as the sides wouldn't be involved as much as the central section as we are facing in that direction but we wanted it to be realistic and we are all watching the same TV so it made more sense for that small section to be facing the front and centre to ensure it was realistic. 

We then found that we needed our dramatic asides to be directed to the whole audience and this was the hardest thing as there was only one person talking and they had to direct all lines to the entire audience which meant that they had to keep moving along the audience line so that they included everyone.

We then moved onto the section where the pressures are building up on John and we have him seated centrally and the rest of the cast cross behind him. The issue that we found from this was that the seat was too far backwards and so we moved it as close to the front as we could get which gave this section a theatre in the round feel. This also gave us more space to work with behind the chair and to involve the audience a little more we decided that when we cross and say our lines, we then exit through the diagonal exits that are in the audience so that it gave the piece a more dynamic and "in your face" feel to accentuate the building up of the pressures.

In order for the interactive sections to run as smoothly as possible, we decided which sections we were going to talk with so that we know which group to go to immediately. We also thought that when you address your group and some of the things that you have been discussing we need to come out into the audience to make the juxtaposition bigger and it also makes them more involved and connecting what we discussed with the actual scenario.

When we get feedback from the facilitation of who could John talk to, we need to think about how we are going to tell the audience that John doesn't want to react in their suggested way without telling them that they are wrong and so we wanted it to be more of a sharing of ideas and then have John saying that they are good suggestions but then giving a reason why it wouldn't work in this situation. 

After the run through, we decided to talk through the facilitation and interactive parts in depth and have a small practice of how we would respond to a wall of silent when we ask a question as this is one of the most expected response. We know this from the fact that the target audience are being specifically that, targeted, because they aren't communicating how they feel in an effective way. It made sense for us to have small role plays of how to get round non-communicative behaviour because we can't get annoyed at it or try and ignore it. We thought of a scenario such as being in a classroom and the teacher has moments when the teacher asks an impossible question to the class and the class will try and work out what the answer is and that silence is not an awkward silence. On other occasions there are times when the teacher will ask the simplest question and the class won't answer because it's that simple. And then the teacher will apply the same logic as they would to the first scenario and try to break it down to the class, that is when it gets awkward. Applying this situation to the piece, we were trying to work out the sections where we are asking them these simple questions that may result in the awkward silence that is hard to get out of. We decided that instead of simple questions, we have sections where the audience may not understand what we are asking them to do without us coming and explaining it and that's a potential way into a conversation because you can come up to them and ask them whether they know what they're doing and so that might be able to initiate a conversation. I think that when we come out to the audience, we need to find a way of saying "what do you think" in a more tangential and calmer way that invites them in and makes them feel like they can talk to us about what they've seen and not feel scared, because we're not teachers, we're sixth formers and we can use that to our advantage as we can have a conversation with them in a way that's very different from how a teacher can. The biggest problem that we could possibly face would be silence especially when we're performing a piece about communication.

The first section of interaction that we have with the audience is when we ask them to identify the moments of non-verbal communication and we have specific questions written on the PowerPoint behind us that the audience need to answer. It is a fairly clear task and the only reason why that wouldn't be able to do it would be if they're choosing not to or they're not engaging because they don't see the point of it. Our job is to motivate them into giving us answers as we don't need to explain it, it's more about making them feel like there's a point in talking to us about their opinions. We could possibly even vocalise that it's a simple question but what we're trying to do by that is get them to think about the situations that they have been in and identify possible areas of non-verbal communication in those. We can even try and say that we have seen signs of non-verbal communication in our own conversations with our parents as a way into a conversation and make them feel like we're not being patronising and we actually value their opinions. If we only get one or two answers out of the group that's still okay because it's not all about getting everybody to answer but if the group hears someone talking openly about the piece then it might enable others to feel like they can too. We then paired off and worked on some ways that we thought could be conversation starters as this is our first interaction with them and we need to work out how to break the ice as the first contact is important as it sets the tone of the group discussion for both you and the person who will talk to them after you. We need ways to get under the façade of "we're not going to do anything," as we're quite far into the piece before we ask for audience participation. In our pairs, we discussed a few different ways of opening up the interactions that allows us to set the tone for the subjects that we will be talking about. We thought about introducing yourself - although this means that you will have to introduce yourself to every group that you talk to and avoiding telling them what you want because that seems very patronising.
We also talked about how there are different types of ice breakers because if they are already talking, then this allows you to listen to their conversation and pick up on the points that they are making and add in follow up questions to see the extent of their understanding. There is also the danger of them completely being silent at you if you proceed to ask them a question in which we thought that you could start to repeat some of the things that you heard in their conversation to spark them talking again. We found it hard to not fall into a patronising tone and not sound like it is scripted because we need to ask them questions about their understanding but we need to do it in a conversational tone instead of sounding like a teacher.
We then got the chance to practice how to start of the discussions on our teacher who become an audience member who had been hardly paying attention to the piece and once we had told them that we needed their opinions, suddenly found that they didn't know what to do. We found it very difficult to not approach the situation with a direct question as this made our student immediately not want to talk to us. Our teacher was being deliberately difficult so that we were prepared in case this actually happened in the piece and we would know to expect some students to be like that, hopefully they won't be that difficult and we know to expect the first discussion to start with silence. We need to not be put off by the awkwardness of the first interaction because if we think that the atmosphere is awkward and act like it is then that's going to make the situation worse. I think that we need to really think about these conversational sections and the facilitation before it as that facilitation is like a whole other performance and way of communicating that quite a lot of practitioners in Theatre in Education are lacking in and those that are, dynamically changes the atmosphere of the piece.
Some of us in the class, including myself, have had the opportunity to watch a couple of T.I.E pieces and there was a particular facilitator who was amazing and really engaging with the audience by just listening to things that we being said and drew people in to talk to him. He asked questions in a way that made the audience feel like their opinions were needed and made them feel fully engaged with the piece. We also saw the same company the following year and that facilitator wasn't there and there was a massive difference, not in terms of the acting or the subject that they were talking about but it was the quality of the facilitation that destroyed the piece. So we wanted to take the best assets of the good facilitator and use them in our piece so that we could make the atmosphere lighter and less pressuring on the audience to answer the questions that we need them to.
We discussed some more ideas like acknowledging the strangeness of the situation (an all-girl class speaking to an all-boy audience about communication), bypassing the strangeness of the situation and trying to make some observation and connection to the piece. If they're talking already, we have a massive head start because we can just listen to what they're saying and prompt more questions which is very different to asking direct questions. We could delegate who was going to talk to who which is quite a mechanical method but if we begin to pair people up, they may not be comfortable enough to talk to the person they've been paired with. We could begin with mentioning what non-verbal communication actually is and then we could make a joke out of the silence, if there is one, as in "you're demonstrating really good non-verbal communication right now." If we begin to expand on what we have seen in the scene then we could get them listening to what we are saying before we begin to ask them questions as it's more of an indirect approach. We found that it does help to have a bank of things that we could say in our heads and a shape that we can use because if we go up to them and have nothing and do get the response of a blank look then we are just relying on instinct and this can sometimes go really wrong.
I, personally, found this really helpful especially discussing ways that we could initiate the conversation and building up a bank of things that I could say to my group when the conversation begins.