Devising Essay

Discuss the devising process of both the SToRMS and Primary School piece with reference to how the material was produced.

Both Theatre In Education pieces that we have worked on, have been thoroughly thought through and tailored to the specific target audience for each piece. Theatre In Education aims to use theatre as an educational tool to discuss a certain topic through audience participation and interaction. The SToRMS piece was directed at teenage boys between the ages of 15-17 and the Primary School piece was aimed at Year 6s going into secondary school. Both pieces were different in terms of both format and approach as we needed to make the information that we had included accessible for that specific audience. In terms of the devising process for each, there were certain difficult junctures that we would find ourselves in whether that be in terms of wording a topic that was substantial to the piece, or finding a method that would portray our message in the correct manner.

SToRMS stands for Strategies To Reduce Male Suicide and so we wanted the focal point of our piece, not to be on suicide but, to be about communication and how communicating to anyone whether that be your friend or your parents can help release the stress that might could possibly lead to suicide if it's not spoken about. Due to the age range of our target audience, we knew that this was a crucial point in their lives as they begin to realise their place in society and the societal pressures that there are for males, as well as females. We knew that we wanted to make that one of our main messages; that these pressures are not healthy and they can be very damaging if taken the wrong way. We know that one of these stereotypes is the idea that males are not allowed to express their feelings out loud and are told to keep them inside with reference to them needing to be "strong". On the SToRMS website, it stated that "In 2013 male suicide accounted for 78% of all suicides, which was the biggest cause of death in men aged 20-45 in the UK. The silence around suicide means that this statistic goes largely unrecognised." We wanted to put across to the target audience that we want to make it easier for males to discuss how they feel, with each other, and feel comfortable when doing so, not being judged because it is deemed "unmanly". Having this statistic from our client's website, we then proceeded to find other statistics about males so that the audience could see facts about their own lives that may not have been apparent to them. We included statistics about hearing loss, speeding and then we ended on the suicide statistics which would then act as a segway for the cast to speak to the audience about these surprising figures.

Another main factor that could have made the devising process a lot harder was that the whole of our cast was female and so we needed make that advantageous rather than a negative aspect. This was one of the main discussion topics at the start of the devising process as we wanted to use this as a comedic beginning to the piece because we thought that our target audience would be more likely to listen to the message about their communication skills if the piece began with a more relaxed atmosphere. We brought in the idea of "banter" as it could accentuate the comedic opening and also help make the audience feel more relaxed and so we thought of situations that males may feel uncomfortable talking about and may use banter as a mechanism to talking about it. Our examples were parents divorcing, a relationship breaking up and failing exams. Adding in scenes, that could be relatable for the audience may give them a chance to reflect on their actions and see how acting and responding to events as a joke may not be the most successful method to discussing how that situation is affecting you.

Moving on from these comical sketches that have hopefully hooked the audience into the piece, we wanted the piece to take a more serious route and gravitate towards the focal message about our target audience's communication with their peers. We needed a method which enabled the audience to understand, in a realistic way, how these examples can affect them and so we decided to bring in a case study of a character called John Doe. We explored, through class discussions, situations that a lack of communication, from a male, can have repercussions on both himself and those around him. The situations that we concluded on were bereavement, exam pressure and family commitment. At this point in the devising process, we wanted to interview 4 males of our target audience to justify the suspicions that we had about how males would react in the situations we had created. They confirmed our suspicions about not wanting to tell anyone about how that situation was making them feel and all 4 of them said that they would just keep it in and deal with it internally.

To begin the case study, we thought that we could set up a series of realistic situations that would accentuate the stress levels in John's head in a realistic way so that the audience would be able to make connection between their own lives and these situations. At this point in the devising process, we thought that we had established the story and characters involved to an extent that the audience would now be able to answer questions about the situations that the characters are in and so, we decided to add in a forum theatre section. Forum theatre allows us to set up a scenario and ask for the audience's opinion on what the outcome should be and the steps that would need to be applied to the scene in order for that end result. The forum theatre scene that we decided would be appropriate is a scene that is set the morning after John Doe returned home drunk. There are short interactions between both John and his mum and then shortly after, his dad. We wanted to use this scene to highlight ways of non-verbal communication in the form of an apology. We wanted the audience to identify the moments were non-verbal communication were used and explain how this benefited John in his life and help the audience see that this could be an advantageous segway that would allow them to indicate how they are feeling without having to put it into words.

We were given the opportunity to talk to one of the teachers in school who is a mental health ambassador and we asked him to identify actions that could indicate that, particularly boys were stressed or didn't know how to communicate their emotions in any other way. He gave us the examples of alcohol abuse, anger and violence as the two most common actions that are results of pressure being built up inside a male. From this research, we decided to add these examples into a situation between John and his girlfriend which would accentuate the fact that reacting in the way can actually form a barrier of communication that prevents you from explaining yourself in a rational way. We again asked the audience to identify these barriers and then rank them from biggest to smallest in terms of what they think is preventing him from explaining how he feels the most. This allowed the audience to see the effects that these reactions can have on both John and those around him so that they can visually see that these outcomes are not the right answer to trying to talk through your problems.

Communication is not just about how you try and explain how your feeling but also seeing that someone else looks stressed and helping them talk about the situations that they are going through. We wanted to highlight that clearly it's hard for the target audience to open up about how they are feeling and so, at some points there needs to be an intervention from a friend or family member that gives that person an opportunity to talk about how they are feeling. We put this into a situation for John and we had his friend, Adam, trying to get John to open up about the stress he is feeling. We have previously worked with a charity called CAMHS and they gave us information on reflective listening which is essentially seeing how someone is behaving and reflect it back to them, instead of asking direct questions about how they are. This allows the focal person to feel like they aren't pressured into talking about their situation and the friend is just commenting on the behaviour that they have seen and registering that they have seen a difference. Building on this, after the performance we added in a reflective session where we would split into smaller groups and discuss what had been shown in the piece. We decided that we would also talk through the "7 deadly sins of communication" which include devil's advocate and direct questions. We highlighted that in certain situations these methods of persuading someone to talk about how they're feeling can work but we have found that the best way is by reflective listening. Having this discussion session allowed us to see where the audience's understanding of what happened in the piece was, answer any questions they had and talk to them about why reflective listening is the best way to help people explain their problems.

In terms of the Primary School piece that we did, one of the main starting points was finding a way to communicate what secondary school is like in a way that a younger audience would understand. The piece was aimed at Year 6 in Dore Primary School who may have worries about the differences between Primary School and Secondary School. We needed to make sure that the target audience were clear that if they were worrying so was everyone else and they weren't alone as everyone is in the same boat. We knew that we needed to acknowledge the fears that they might have and talk them through what to do to overcome them through personal experiences that we have been through. Using personal experiences from cast members we were able to highlight certain problems that we knew were going to be the biggest worries from the target audience as we had been there ourselves.

We wanted to highlight that there are many misconceptions about secondary school and so we decided that we would start off the piece with some of these false images that are portrayed about secondary school. We started off with a dance section from High School Musical as it is known all around the world and it is one of the biggest false images of Secondary School. We then made the statement that "Secondary school isn't like this" and followed it up with the scenario of everyone fighting which we then repeated the same statement. This then allowed us to segway into what secondary school was actually like for the cast members and highlight the experiences that they had when transitioning up the school.

Having thought through all of the worries that the audience might have during the start of the devising period, we decided to focus on 5 key difference between primary school and secondary school; the little worries that they will be experiencing, which involves things like getting lost and equipment, friendships, ones that could be lost and ones that could be made, bullying, as we know that it happens, growing up, as it is a focal point in your lives and you have to mature very quickly, and finally good aspects, as secondary school is very fun and has its advantages as well. We decided that we would use a chapter format with each one being titled so that the audience would be able to focus in on one topic and would be able to follow along easily. They would also be able to relate any activities that we did in those chapters and stay grounded to that focal idea. We wanted the narrator of every chapter to be able to speak about their personal experiences and so we made sure that the narrator of each different subject could relate that to something that had happened in their lives in order for the audience to feel like they could take our advice seriously because we have been through it and know what the best outcomes are. This also helps us to acknowledge that they aren't the only people worrying about secondary school and even those people who have experienced it used to feel exactly the same and it's alright to be nervous.

In each chapter, we labelled cast members to act out specific scenes from our personal experiences to help the audience understand the situations that we are describing. We had the narrator talking the audience through the situation so that the audience could understand what they were thinking and feeling at that point in order for them to be able to identify, if they are ever in the same situation, that it is rational to be scared and so are many other people in that situation. Following on from this, we would give them solutions to situations that they may find scary. For example, we talked about getting lost at school and we highlighted the options that the target audience will have if they ever find themselves in that situation. For bigger subjects such as bullying, we added in sections of forum theatre so that the audience could decided the actions that we could take and then see the outcome which enabled them to see what decisions gave the best outcome and what response to bullying, and other subjects like making friends, would give everybody in that situation a positive end. During the first chapter, which was "Little Worries" we talked through some of the little worries that the narrator themselves had and we re-enacted what that looked like for them. We then decided that we needed to see what the audience's "little worries" were in order for us to talk them through and so we did this in the form of a freeze frame. This allowed the audience to see each others worries and recognise that they might feel the same way without having to say it out loud. In each small group that made a freeze frame, the leader was able to talk through each fear and, at certain points, explain that these fears were just rumours about secondary school and other times explain that they felt the exact same way when they were moving up from primary school.

We wanted the piece to end on a positive conclusion so that we weren't bombarding the audience with all the negative aspects of secondary school and so we titled the final chapter "good things" which allowed us to help the audience feel like they could go into secondary school feeling like they know what to expect and if any of the situations that we commented on in the piece arise they will know how to respond to that. The "good things" that we wanted to share with the audience ranged from classroom differences such as the science labs to new subjects such as food technology and lastly school trips. We wanted to share with the audience the highlight of our school experiences through the years and this allowed us to also highlight more difference between primary and secondary school and specifically the ones that they can look forward to.

Both pieces were made with the client's needs and the target audience in mind which enabled us to mould the pieces into what we needed them to be in order for the main messages to be portrayed to the audience. Due to the juxtaposing target audience each piece was formatted to tailor to them and this resulted in the language being changed so that we were engaging everyone, in both audience, with the performance. In both cases research was needed to help us identify with both the needs of the client and the target audience that we would be working with which enabled us to create two Theatre In Education piece that benefited both target audiences and positive feedback was obtained.