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.