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.