Week 25: Primary School Review

Review of performance

During the last week, we performed our Theatre In Education "Survival Guide" to an audience of around 50-60 students at Dore Primary School. The piece lasted for around 45 minutes which was more than we had originally anticipated due to the interactive discussions being in more depth that we had originally thought. We did, however, leave extra time for this in case the students needed more help or needed us to go into more depth about the subjects we had mentioned during the piece. After the performance, we had given us some time to talk to the audience to get their feedback on the piece and we thought that we could also use this time as a discussion that the audience can use to ask us any questions that they had about secondary school whether we had mentioned them or not. Here are some pictures from the performance:

Some of the positives from the performance were:

• The opening - As we were doing the high school musical dance, I was looking over the audience and could see that a lot of them were enjoying it and even started to laugh at us whilst doing it which was the point of using the dance, for comedic value. And the dance clearly had started to interest them in the piece and they were starting to become intrigued by what we had to say about both high school musical and what it had to do with secondary school. Also the fact that they were finding it amusing accentuated the fact that they knew it was false and knew that we were using it as a gimmick.
• Interactive Sections - Every time that we asked the audience for suggestions whether that be "who can I talk to?" in the Little Worries Chapter or "what could I do in this situation" in the Bullying chapter, they were constantly engaged with the piece and could give us an array of suggestions very willingly. This made it so much easier for us to interact with them as the cast fed off of their energy which made the piece all the more enjoyable to perform and, I hope, to watch. The enthusiasm that was shown for all the questions that were thrown at them, reflected their interest in the piece and the answers that they gave were both intelligent and expected. Majority of the answers that we got were what we expected but there were some unusual ones especially in the Little Worries section.
• Responses to their "Little Worries" - I think that overall, we responded to the audience's personal little worries both professionally and confidently. As the narrator of this specific chapter, I didn't have a set group to myself and so I had the freedom to go round each group and join in all the different discussions that were going on. I found that everybody was talking through the worries and acknowledging that the worries that they had were what we also had when we were in their position. I was able to help with this and I had a conversation of my own with a student who told me that he didn't have any worries which was what I was like when I was moving up to secondary school. This allowed me to have a short discussion with him about the ways that he could help other people who have some worries and he agreed that now that he knows what people are worried about, he can help them to feel a little more comfortable with transitioning to secondary school like he is. I also had another conversation with a girl, during the friendship chapter, who wasn't going to the same secondary school as the rest of her friends which allowed me and another cast member to reassure her that it's okay to be nervous about these things and making new friends does take time so she doesn't need to rush.
• Freeze frames - The freeze frames that came from these little worries were very interactive and the whole audience worked hard to come up with some interesting freeze frames of their own little worries. They were a range of different worries which allowed the audience to see an array of worries from all of the students. The audience were both enthusiastic to show their own freeze frames and guess what other people's were as well. This interest in the freeze frames allowed us to explore them in depth both in the individual groups and as a whole.
• Quiz scene - This was the most interactive part of the whole piece as it took up a whole chapter and the response to it was more than we could have ever imagined as they were really competitive which added to them wanting to get the best answers. Especially my group, came up with a load of different answers obviously, some were jokey answers but majority of them were great responses to the question like "ask the teacher" and "remove them from the situation" Doing the discussions between each question, the whole of my group was really involved in the answers that we were giving and as a collective we came up with the best answer. Both me and Jenna, who was also in charge of our group, tried to include the whole group in the conversation and brought everybody's opinion into the mix so that we could choose from everybody's answers for the best one. This allowed us to have a big discussion about which answers were the best to suit the situation and at times there were discussions between not just me, Jenna and the group but between people in the group as well which gave me and Jenna the chance to build on those conversations.
• Question and Answer Session - At the end of the piece, we broke off into smaller groups to discuss what the audience had learnt from the piece and to try to answer any questions that they had remaining about secondary school. In my group, we started with discussing what they had learnt from the piece and they all said that they felt better about transitioning up to secondary school and some said that they're even looking forward to it. We moved onto some of their questions and I got a lot of questions about detentions and what you get them for. I explained all of the reasons why you could get them and explained that they are only there if you go against the school values. I also got questions about the work and whether it was much harder than what you get in primary school which I assured them that it may seem difficult at the start but you soon realise that you can do it and it isn't much different. I also mentioned that there are also plenty of teachers that can ask for help as there are multiple teachers in each department which also shocked them because they've only ever had one teacher for each year. We also talked about being late which was the biggest worry out of my group and I made sure that they realised that once you get used to the school then it really isn't as big as you think it is and if you're late in the first couple of weeks all the teachers are understanding enough to let you off for being late as it's a new school.
• Responses from the audience afterwards - Our teacher was able to get some feedback from the children in the audience after the performance and some of those reactions were: "It helped us with our worries" "They showed me that moving to secondary school is not a big deal" and "It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders." Hearing these comments being made about the piece shows that the things that we had discussed really allowed the audience to become more comfortable with the subjects that we had mentioned and that was the whole point of the piece.

Some of the things that went slightly wrong in the piece were:

• Asking the audience after the freeze frames - During the "Little Worries" chapter, which I narrate, after each group had shown us their freeze frames I forgot to ask the rest of the audience whether they had the same worries to accentuate that majority of the audience were feeling the same. But I feel like the in depth discussions that we had whilst making the freeze frames were enough to show that many of the audience had the same worries. I did make a conscious effort whilst I was going round the groups that I had heard some of the other groups with the same worries. The flow of the piece wasn't jepardised and the pace was maintain so that the audience didn't realise that a mistake was even made.  
• Pace - I know that at the beginning of the piece, the pace was very fast and I know that some of the cast members thought that I was talking too fast at the beginning but I thought that I was speaking at a pace which was understandable for the audience. I think that I, and the rest of the cast, did slow down pretty rapidly when we all became comfortable with the piece and accepted the fact that the audience were really enthusiastic about being involved in the piece. I don't think that it effected the piece at all, as the pace was slowed down anyway and the audience still grasped what was going on and the fact that it was my own personal experience that we were talking about.
• Responses during the Bullying chapter - During the section where we asked the audience for their opinions on what Harriet should do in that situation, I don't think that we took enough suggestions in from the audience as we didn't manage to get all of the responses that we wanted. I personally thought that we could have taken another couple of suggestions from the audience as we didn't get one about physically fighting back and I feel like that was a key one that the audience needed to see how the situation played out with that. Although the responses that we got were some of what we expected and allowed the audience to witness what their choices didn't to the situation.

Overall I feel like the performance was successful and ran as smooth as we could have wanted. I thought that the audience understood the messages that we were trying to send them, that moving up to secondary school isn't as scary as you might think. Although I did miss some things out I feel that the pace was kept up throughout the piece and the energy levels didn't seem to drop at any particular point which enabled both us and the audience to feed off of each other in terms of interaction.