Site Specific (19) - All scenes

We have now fully set all of our scenes, focusing on our proxemics and our own character's intentions. We have not been able to make definite decisions on entrances and exits due to the fact that we have not physically been to our venue yet. We are hoping to do a scene per room, but if there are not enough rooms, we could return to a room we have used previously - but this room will look different as whoever was not in the last scene can go to the next room we want and move the furniture so it looks different.

All we have left to do is to learn our lines, work out our ending and re-work the opening scene to include Taylor and Chloe. Our opening scene can be altered so that the audience get a slight insight to what is to come - they roughly know that the girls are up to mischief.

Theatre in Education (8) - Mechanicals

The mechanicals are supposed to be extremely funny, so we decided to spend this lesson working on our characters and exaggerating everything to make it more comical. We have decided to create a motif, by every time that they enter comical tuba music plays. The more physical we are with our characters, the more comical the whole scene will become. We decided to create a busy movement section to introduce our characters. We enter at different times carrying cases of costumes and props to prepare for the production. We workshopped our opening and what we could all do. I enter carrying a briefcase of costume and props, which Bottom then opens and takes things out of - he opens it so I can't see over the top, so I peek over the top and make it clear that I am struggling with the weight of the case. In the case, I have an old-fashioned phone which Ollie uses - when Lewis' character come over to speak to Bottom, Bottom just put his hand out in Quince's face. We added as many comedy moments like this in our opening scene as possible. Throughout our scenes, we have to keep this movement up. During this scene, I am taking random things out and putting them on. I have tried to make my characters as different as I can to make a contrast to show that I am multi-rolling.

For our second scene as the mechanicals, we do another movement section, but shorter than the first and slightly more organised, as the mechanicals are more confident and together as they have already had one rehearsal. We worked a lot on discovering and presenting our intentions in this scene, so we fully understood what was being said and how our characters felt about this. We worked on proxemics to show character relationships and to add comedy too. At one point, Lewis is sat DSL on a stall because he needs space - however, as each character has an idea or agrees with the idea being spoken about they move over to Quince on his stall. Quince breaks away and moves to SR, but unbeknown to him everyone else follows him. When he turns around to speak he is shocked to see us all there, gets frustrated, and moves away again, but everyone follows him again too. To add another bit of comedy, we are getting a long piece of paper to be the calendar they look at - we make a tableaux around Rob who holds the calendar up. Also, when Puck comes on everyone freezes when he speaks - this allows us to freeze in comical positions.

Theatre in Education (7) - Page 1 - 14

We began this lesson with another characterisation walking exercise, moving as our characters. By doing these movement exercises in class as a warm-up and by my work at home, I have now established my five characters (in order of appearance):

• Hippolyta:   erect carriage // elbows out but hands clasped // RP voice // leads from the chest
• Hermia:   very natural // basically me in terms of voice and movement // leads from the head
• Starveling:   bent knees // deep common voice // wears a hat // leads from pelvis
• Snout:   has a double chin // higher voice with lisp // leads from shoulders
• Titania:    free light movement // higher RP voice // leads from arms 

 As we finished the script last lesson,  we went back to the beginning of the play to begin setting in properly. Our main aim was to add movement in to the scene so it wasn't too static, but not too much movement that it becomes confusing. We have used all of the space at all times, but really worked on proxemics to make our relationships clear to our audience - thus supporting our primary function to educate. Our tone of voice is extremely important as this is what will help our audience understand what we are saying. As well as proxemics and tone, our body language is essential for educating our audience, so we were conscious of how we stood and moved.

We spent a little bit of time on Rob's monologue today, working on his tone and portraying the meaning of what he is saying. We did add in a bit more comedy by the way Rob said paused before saying "qualities" - this formed an innuendo, but we had to remove this because it wasn't appropriate for a younger audience.

Theatre in Education (6) - Reading to the end & Play section

Reading to the end of the play:  We decided to read from page 82 (Act 5 Scene 1) to the end of the play. We altered what had previously been cut from our version - we had originally cut out all of the lines that weren't part of the 'play'. However, when reading through, we realised that we needed Thesus' line "The Wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again" as the following line is in response to this comment. Therefore we have put this back in, it also very comical as James is playing both Thesus and Thisbe, so he can put his head out from the wings for his line as Theseus, to then go back and come on again as Thisbe. We also decided to put Moonshine back in, as this can be played by Lewis carrying a lantern (which we then tried later on and it was hilarious!). We had to put back in Theseus' line "Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead" and Demetrius' line "Ay, and Wall too" in order for Bottom's following line to make sense. However, as Ollie is on stage as Bottom we changed it so Lysander said Demetrius' line.

'Play' section:   We decided to set the 'play' section today. Our main focus was movement. As Wall, I shall be holding my arms out to the sides for the entire time - we are going to get sheets with a brick pattern printed on them; I'll attach them to my shoulders and wrists, so they hang down to the floor. Whenever I move, I waddle with all of my limbs stretched. To show the "chink" I put my right arm out directly in front of me, and my hand is the chink, as I create a hole for them to look through. To add more comedy in to it, we have made the most of the fact that James and Ollie are different heights - they move my arm height to suit themselves. Moreover, there is another moment in the play where Thisbe goes to kiss the chink, so as his lips approach my hand, I move my arm to the right away from him. We did try to add in another comedy moment that was quite risky - where they alter the height of my arm, we were going to have James look through the chink when the chink is quite low down... level with Pyramus' crotch. This did look really funny, especially with James' reaction... but we scrapped this as it is inappropriate for our younger audience.We also worked on the section with Thisbe and the Lion. When Rob roared as the Lion, he just managed a frightened "grrr", which added to the comedy when James did a full on scream.

Site Specific (18) - Characterisation

Although we are doing a site-specific performance, where we need to focus on making use of our chosen setting and our piece fitting in to it well, we still wanted to do work on characterisation and character relationships to make our narrative clear. Above is how I think my character feels about the other characters in the play, what her relationship to them is and how they feel about her.

Site Specific (17) - New movement & Scene 4

New Movement:  We decided that we wanted more movement in our piece; however, we were debating where to put it. We have our opening, a piece between the first and second scene and the idea of potentially adding an ending. We agreed that we wanted to use the Lord's Prayer to end it all, but wasn't sure what movement we would do. Therefore we discussed what other movement we could do. We decided that we wanted to show Abigail realising that she is going to get found out and her deciding to leave, with Mary. We decided that we would show everyone turning away from Abby as the sequence continues. We kept the same characters we played from the previous movement piece - which were very similar to our actual ones: I was carrying a child, which would still work for Elizabeth. We decided to use our ideas from our previous movement piece to create a sort of motif - we begin this new movement piece in the same positions as we ended our last one, but this time we all face the back, apart from Ollie K and Hope. Hope and Ollie K do a hymn hand section to show how they used to be quite intimate but Ollie then backs away and turns to face the back. We then all did a short round-by-through section one at a time with Abby - we did these duet sections in reverse order to which we got accused in the previous movement piece. When we are not partaking in a round-by-through we would walk around the space, but go into slow-motion when a duet is taking place. This is fitting to our last movement piece. The benefit of doing a fairly simple but captivating movement piece is that there are no lifts that could be risky in a different location - we wouldn't know if we could do a lift in our chosen location as we don't know how high the ceilings are at the moment and how big the rooms actually are.

Scene 4:   We performed some of this scene in the space today, but we didn't manage to complete it due to timing. However, we understood our characters feelings and worked on our character interactions and relationships.

Theatre in Education (5) - Page 48 to 58 & Page 74 to 78

Staging:   Due to exam season approaching, it will be difficult for us to book the school hall - it will be possible to get a date, but difficult to be able to book it for extra rehearsals in the space. Therefore, we have decided to change our performance venue. We shall now be performing in the drama room C5 - we are glad that this has happened as we agree that C5 will actually be a better venue for us anyway. Not only can we rehearse in this room every day, but we are able to light it more easily and we can use the curtains as wings. We propped the four white curtains (which two hang at that back wall and one on both side walls) further forward with chairs to give us space behind them to use as wings. We positioned the chairs so they were facing the wall, meaning we would be able to put any props we need on these chairs. It has also enabled us to have more entrance and exit points.

Page 48 - 58:   The beginning of this section is Puck telling Oberon what he managed to do with Titania - he used a potion to make her fall in love with Bottom, who now looks like an ass. The two then hide as Hermia and Demetrius enter. Demetrius is angered as she believes Demetrius is responsible for Lysander's disappearance. After their argument, Hermia leaves and Demetrius sleeps. Oberon and Puck re-enter. They have seen the whole argument as we have positioned them centre back, between the two curtains - this enable more room for comedy as they can move their heads between the two (as if watching the ball at a tennis match). Later in this scene, Demetrius and Lysander are both confessing their love to Helena, but she is livid as she thinks they are both taking the micky out of her. When Hermia then enters she is shocked and confused. We read through the majority of this bit, but we are leaving this section until we have done our research and all completely understand what is being said. We shall add movement in to this when we know our lines for this scene as we are wanting to add some fights in. Lysander and Demetrius shall fight, whilst Helena and Hermia have a cat-fight - we thought we could make this really comical, maybe I could pull Helena's wig off.

Page 74 - 78:  This section finds the four lovers all in love again and in the right pairs - Helena and Demetrius; Hermia and Lysander. This scene was difficult in terms of spacing, and entrances. We spent time working out where it would make sense for characters to enter and exit.

What we need to work on most is line-learning and making all of our characters completely different. I have made Snout and Starveling completely different in terms of voice and movement, but I need to make Titania, Hippolyta and Hermia different.

Site Specific (16) - Movement, Scene 1, Scene 2 and Scene 3

To begin this lesson, we went over the movement piece we did last lesson. Our timing was much better today as we managed to finish all of the accusations in time for Ollie to get to the centre before the music ends. We are happy with this movement piece, but we need to go over our first movement piece. As we made our opening section before getting the cast list, we have made a generic piece - I think we should consider altering this piece a bit so we can all be our characters (as we involve some of our own characters in the movement piece we made last lesson).

We then ran the first scene and staged it in a bit more detail. We considered our entrances. We decided that we would like all characters to come through the audience in this scene. We then moved on to the second scene. I think that these two scenes are getting a lot better every time we do them, but we should be off-script as soon as we can to then be able to work on our body language more. I think we understand our characters better now and how we would interact with other characters. We did a little bit of the third scene today but not all of it.

As we have cut down our scripts a lot, to make it our own version and practical for us, we now have four confusing looking scripts each. Due to the amount of cuts, we are wasting rehearsal time trying to make sense of our scripts and find where we cut to - therefore, I have edited the scripts and re-printed copies so we all have a clean copy which we can then annotate with notes on blocking if need be.

Theatre in Education (4) - Pages 37 to 47

The first thing we did this lesson was a physical / character warm-up. This play requires a lot of energy anyway as it is a comedy, but more so for our version as it is aimed at a younger audience. We did some walking exercises at different levels of ourselves. We then applied this to how one of our characters would move - to make them all so different. We learned how to implement our own traits into our characters, and how exaggerating one of our own traits for each character can make them completely different.

This scene is the second mechanicals scene; they are deciding where to rehearse and beginning rehearsals. There are lots of comedic opportunities in this scene - we want to make it as funny as possible, as the more funny we make it, the more likely the kids are to remember the play and learn something. We worked a lot on our movement and characterisation in this scene. Our individual movements and proxemics can add comedy to a scene - for example, Quince (Lewis) often tries to get away from Bottom (Ollie) because he is so annoying. I have to do a lot of multi-rolling in this scene as my characters talk to each other - I shall put on a flat cap for when I'm Starveling, but completely change my body language and take the cap of for Snout. As Snout, I make myself have a double chin and a higher pitched 'lispy' voice, whilst Starveling leads from his pelvis and has a deeper voice. To make it more comical, when I swap back to my other character I assume their body language and voice as quick as possible. On page 37, my last line is as Starveling, but I swap straight back to Quince ready for my next line.

Lewis and I enter again (as Quince and Snout) when Ollie (Bottom) is on stage. In the script, it states that Quince and Snout enter and exit at different times, but we decided to get them to enter at the same time as we could add in more comedy here. Lewis and I run on as if we are running away from Bottom - I enter first and Lewis is following me. When I stop in fright at seeing Bottom, Lewis doesn't notice that I have stopped so he runs in to the back of me.

The next section of this scene is between Bottom, Titania and Titania's fairies. As Ollie and I are both on stage for this point, we only have three people off stage, but Titania has four named fairies: Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustardseed. We did initially think of just cutting one of them, but then we thought that they don't have to be on stage and instead we could just hear their voices. This then lead us to the idea of them using puppets from behind the flats. To add more comedy into this, we have given them all ridiculously high voices, apart from Mustardseed, who shall speak with a really deep voice. In Titania's monologue starting "be kind and courteous", we have added in some sound effects from the fairies. We added a giggle, a gasp and a yawn to make it very cheesy and entertaining.

After working on this scene all lesson, we quickly ran pages 31 to 36 too as we didn't spend that much time on this scene, in comparison to today's scene.

Theatre in Education (3) - Pages 22 to 36

Pages 22 - 30:   This scene contains Puck, Oberon, Titania, Demetrius and Helena. The scene starts with Puck on stage as Oberon and Titania enter. We spent some time on Puck's monologue to bring out all the comedic potential in it - it ended up really comical, as James acts out all of the characters he speaks about. Oberon and Titania have been arguing for some time. To make their argument clear we had to really use our body language, tone of voice, facial expressions and proxemics. We enter from stage right and we get in each other's faces. To ensure we knew exactly what we were saying, we looked up translations on the "No Fear Shakespeare" site - by Sparknotes. Titania and Oberon are arguing about honesty and loyalty. They have both cheated on each other. Our spacing for this scene fluctuates from being really close together, in each other's space to being on opposite sides of the stage. When Demetrius and Hermia enter, they are also arguing - Demetrius is fed up of Helena following him. When they first did this scene, it was good but a bit messy - their tone of voice was great, but their movement / blocking was untidy. By working on the blocking, we managed to evoke more sympathy for Helena and make Demetrius come across as more horrible.

Pages 31 - 36:   This scene begins with Titania telling the fairies to sing and do their jobs whilst she goes to sleep. As we have cut this section down (as it is not all necessary for our version) it is very short, so I say this as I walk out from behind the left of the flat, round the front, to the go back behind the flat on the right side. Oberon then enters from where I entered and follows my path, stating the effects of the liquid he is going to put in Titania's eye - that she shall fall in love with the first thing she sees, no matter what it is. Lysander and Hermia then enter (so Lew and I will have to do a quick prop or costume change behind the flats before we enter) and Hermia is very tired from walking. Lysander is flirtatious and tries to get her to give in to him - she rejects him sweetly and goes to sleep (upstage centre), whilst he goes to sleep in a different place in the space (downstage right). Puck enters and puts the potion in Lysander's eyes and leaves. Demetrius and Helena enter arguing and Demetrius leaves. Lysander is awakened by Helena and falls instantly in love with her, due to the potion that Puck put in his eye. She thinks he is taking the micky out of her and leaves. Lysander then has a monologue stating how he hopes Hermia never wakes up and that he'll be with Helena. After he leaves, Hermia wakes and claims she has had a terrible nightmare - she then realises that Lysander has gone so she leaves to look for him. Our main focus of this lesson was to sort our blocking and to ensure we understand what we are saying. It is important that we know what each lines means so we know what parts to emphasise and how to deliver each line to help our young audience understand.

Site Specific (15) - Scene 4 & Movement

To begin this lesson we read through scene four, to ensure we were all happy with it, as some people weren't in last lesson. We were all happy with this scene and agreed that we have all the scenes we need - also each scene is of a good length and contains enough quality dialogue to portray our version of the story. All that is left to do with the scenes are to learn the lines and block them precisely. For our performance as a whole, as well as our scene work, we need to explore our venue (as this may alter our blocking as it depends where our audience would be positioned), work with costumes and props and add in some movement pieces. The ideas we had for movement sections were the opening, the accusations, Abigail's stabbing and the ending. We have an opening, so we decided to work on a piece to show the accusations (as this was something that we found interesting, as a class - how out of hand the accusations became, and how ridiculous they were).

Accusations movement piece:   After some debating, we agreed on a piece of music we found - a quite eerie violin piece that builds. For the opening, Abigail walks on with a rope, casually fiddling with it - tying it into a noose by the end of the entire movement piece. We wanted to create the accusation piece around her, but without her noticing, as if to show that she is the reason behind everything spiralling out of control but she doesn't care. Everyone, apart from Hope (Abigail), Kat (Mary) and Chloe (Betty), represented normal towns folk (and not their actual characters) - however, at the very end, Ollie K is Proctor. We initially discussed lighting and what we could do with it - we thought about using electronic candles, and being symbolic about who has them turned on, but we soon realised that this could easily go wrong, and it also might not be effective at all as we shall be doing this performance during the day when it is still light outside. We liked the idea of using an oil-lamp though, just for representational purposes (and to help aid the time setting), so decided to incorporate this into our piece. We wanted almost everyone to accuse someone in this piece to show how ridiculous and extreme the situation got - therefore we created a chain-like accusation process. We all made our own characters (apart from Ollie K, Hope, Kat and Chloe) to present different people in the town - I was a mother carrying her child, James was a priest, Rob was a carpenter, etc. Ollie M held the lamp first, and was the first accused (as he was hostile towards Lewis) - to show the accusation, everyone stopped moving a looked at him. He then goes towards Abigail and kneels down with his hands together. Lewis, the accuser, then picks up the lamp and is the next accused. The purpose of the lamp is to help focus the audience on whose story to follow next. To make the accusations clear, we have to be moving quite fast and in different directions to make it more obvious when everyone stops to look at the person being accused. Once everyone is on their knees around Abigail (apart from Kat and Chloe who stand on the outside of the circle) and just Ollie K is left, he walks up to Abigail and stands close behind her - to represent the affair. To improve this movement piece, we need to work on our timing for when we all stop. This movement piece takes place between scene one and two, as this is when the accusations really began to increase, and it also shows that Proctor visits Abigail - something that the Proctors discuss in the following scene. As this piece goes smoothly in to the next scene, we have decided not to include Abigail's stabbing in the movement piece.

Directing (21) - Evaluation & Pictures

Overall, we were really happy with our performance. Throughout the rehearsal process we were debating how we were going to show that the play isn't in chronological order, whilst maintaining a practical naturalistic style. We instantly ruled out placards and narration, but we did try to alter our costumes to show time. We did consider having the front page of a newspaper from the year projected, but decided against this as some scenes are in the same year, and a newspaper projection may be distracting. For a while we considered not having anything, apart from information in the programme about what year each scene is set it - however, we were anxious that if people didn't look in the programme, then they may get confused and are less likely to pay attention to the play. We therefore decided that we use a very simple projection, simply stating the year of the scene. As we were in the hall, we could project on to the actual projecting screen in the hall, meaning that the projection was higher up and not interfering with our piece.

Our audience really enjoyed our piece and we had some lovely feedback. Throughout the play, everyone was deadly silent and seemed engrossed in the performance - they told us our characters were really believable (which is good to hear when trying to do a naturalistic play!). The general feedback was that they didn't want any of the characters to be together, they felt sorry for Robert and disliked Jerry at the end. Thankfully, all of our work on subtext seemed to pay off as they said they were surprised at how they felt about the characters by the end, as this was completely different to how they felt about them in the beginning. Other comments we received was that the use of long pauses made it feel really awkward (which was the feeling we were going for) and that the use of set and space was effective at showing the characters relationships at that point.

Site Specific (14) - Cutting scene 4 & Running scene 3

Scene 4:

• This scene originally opened with Willard welcoming people and discussing Hale. However, we felt that this section wasn't very relevant, so we cut to Parris' line to Danforth "Oh, good morning, sir, thank you for comin'". We felt this was a sensible place to cut to as it still includes the important information that Hale has returned, despite not being part of the official high court anymore. 
• As we had cut the role of Mercy Lewis, we changed her mention to Mary Warren as this would still make sense - at the end of scene 3 Abigail and Mary were friends, so it would make sense for Abigail and Mary to have left together.
• In addition, we had cut Rebecca Nurse, so we changed the line "Reverend Hale has returned to bring Rebecca Nurse to God" to "Reverend Hale has returned to bring Proctor to God". We thought Proctor would be a suitable replacement here as he is in a similar situation to Rebecca, as they have both been arrested and are facing execution. We then cut Parris' next line about Rebecca but left the bit about Hale and the other prisoners: "he pleads with them confess their crimes and save their lives". 
• As Ollie M is playing the parts of Hathorne and Cheever, we have had to combine these roles. We have decided against multi-rolling in this play. The reason for this is because we are trying to make our play naturalistic (though all slightly heightened) and we think multi-rolling would detach the audience from our characters - multi-rolling works better for comedies rather than serious pieces. We therefore have decided to call Ollie's character Cheever whenever his name is said (as we couldn't agree on how to pronounce "Hathorne", "Cheever" seemed the logical choice). 
• We felt the dialogue about Hale was a bit excessive as he isn't our main focus, so we trimmed it down - we now go from Cheever's exit to Danforth's line "Mister Hale, have you preached in Andover this month?"
• We felt that we needed to keep the majority of the dialogue between Elizabeth and John but we cut the mention of Rebecca. Although we had cut the character of Giles Corey, we have decided to keep the dialogue in about him, as it is really descriptive and quite moving. Instead of saying "And Giles?" "Giles is dead", we have given Elizabeth the line "A man is dead. Giles". I shall emphasise the word "man" to infer that this is the first man who has been killed in the witch trials. My line acts as an introduction to the character, Giles. 
• We cut the whole section with Rebecca and changed who said what was Rebecca's line "Let you fear nothing. There is another judgement waits us all". We have split it so Elizabeth says the first half of this line and Hale says the other part. We thought it would be sweet for Elizabeth to say "let you fear nothing" as it shows that she supports her husband, regardless of his decision. 
• We discussed the ending of the film version. We really liked the use of the Lord's Prayer. We thought that we could include a movement piece at the end (but not too complicated) that we could say the Lord's Prayer over - we considered John starting this off, Elizabeth then joins in and then others all join in, but John wouldn't get to say "amen".

Scene 3:   We performed this scene in the space for the first time today. One of our main worries was where we would position the audience. We were conscious of having our backs to the audience - we automatically performed the scene imagining our audience facing the table of judges and reverends. However, we then thought about putting the audience behind the table as we would want them to emotionally connect to the characters who are being tried. It is also more important for the audience to see the girls and the Proctors' faces - especially as Elizabeth looks between Abigail and her husband, and Abigail and Proctor share looks. Moreover, by having our audience behind the table, it would mean that when Abigail starts "seeing" the bird, she can point above the audience and just behind them, to involve the audience more. For our first time, I thought this scene worked really well.

Directing (20) - Final rehearsals

We spent the whole time leading up to our performance preparing for it and running what we thought needed the most work. Below is what we did during the day to prepare for it:

• Set:   Before we did anything, we positioned the flats where we wanted them, so we could position the rest of our set and sort out our lighting. We brought in the sofa that we were going to use as the bed and the sofa. It was a lot lower down than what we had expected, so we all went through our movements on it to get used to it. We decided to change the ending of scene four slightly to make it easier for us - I got up as Lewis went to leave and then sat on the arm of the sofa when Ollie turned back to me. This meant that our hug was easier and looked better.
• Lighting:   This is an important aspect of our piece. We obviously didn't want any complicated of fancy lighting, as we wanted our piece to be as naturalistic as possible. We wanted naturalistic lighting for each setting that still lit all the sections of the stage we required. We could have done the performance during the day in normal day light, but we needed to do our performance in the evening and have lighting to be able to do black-outs between each scene. Therefore, we shut all of the curtains (to make it as dark as we can during the day) to see the lights properly and to know where to angle them all.
• Props:   We ensured we had all of the props necessary for the performance. We did our rehearsals with water in the bottles and glasses, but used blackcurrant for red wine, water for vodka and apple squash for white wine. We decided to do a top and tail run of the play to work out who should move what set and when. To turn the sofa into the bed, we took the back of it off so that the back of it was a lot lower. Smooth set changes help aid a smooth performance. To show each different setting we needed to make the set the same for each one. 
• Running scenes:   After we had set up everything we needed, we ran the scenes that we thought were the weakest.

Site Specific (13) - Cutting scene 3 & running scenes 1 and 2

Scene 3:   We managed to cut the first two pages of this scene and a couple more which we felt irrelevant (and wouldn't work for our performance as it contains the characters that we have already cut due to our smaller cast). We decided to change what was Corey's line to Proctor's line as both characters shared the same beliefs. We cut any sections that we felt were repetitions or not needed. Moreover, as we do not have enough girls to include Mercy, we decided that we would change these lines to be said by Betty (as she would have been in the court at this point anyway). After making our cuts and changing who says certain lines, we read through it again to ensure it all made sense.

Scene 1:   We ran the first scene in the space to add a bit of blocking to it. This was quite challenging without Chloe and Taylor (who are playing Betty and Tituba). However the people in this scene, who were supposed to interact with them, worked really well imagining the missing characters movements (whilst we read in for them). Due to cutting the character of Mercy, we edited a couple of lines at the beginning of this scene so it made more sense. We cut Mercy as we don't have enough girls and she is not essential to the plot. We worked on Proctor's entrance when he confronts Mary - we thought he could enter from behind the audience to involve them and make our use of space interesting. He would burst through the crowd to get to the scene. The set we used for today's run was one table (to act as the bed) and one chair. We agreed we wanted simplistic and minimalistic set as to not distract our audience and to keep the focus on our characters and narrative (as the language is very old-fashioned and not what our audience is used to).

Scene 2:   We had run this scene before in the space but not with everyone as their actual characters. This scene worked well with our set of one table and two chairs. We tried this with everyone speaking in RP and over-articulating. I felt that this worked quite well as it made the piece seem like it was set a lot longer ago, and it made our characters seem older - for this reason I feel like Kat and Hope can afford to be a little bit more relaxed on their articulation (as they are playing younger characters).

Theatre in Education (2) - Casting & Pages 4 to 20

Cast:

• Ollie:   Demetrius // Bottom
• James:   Theseus // Puck // Flute
• Rob:   Helena // Egeus // Snug
• Lorna:   Hippolyta // Hermia // Titania // Snout // Starveling
• Lewis:   Lysander // Quince // Oberon

Spacing:   We shall be performing this piece with minimal set, as the focus is on our characters. The picture shows how we are having our staging. We initially though bout having our audience further round the edges, so that it was almost in-the-round, but we decided against this as it would ruin the effect of us entering and exiting behind the flats because they would be able to see us more. We liked the idea of our audience being in a curved shape as it gives us more performance space and allows us to be a bit more creative with our blocking. Behind our flats, we shall have all of our props and small costume pieces, so we can run off stage, put on an accessory to them become our new character.

Act 1, Scene 1:   Page 4 - 14
Act 1, Scene 2:   Page 15 - 20
Act 2, Scene 1:   Page 22 - 30 (Cut 21)
Act 2, Scene 2:   Page 31 - 36
Act 3, Scene 1:   Page 37 - 47
Act 3, Scene 2:   Page 48 - 68
Act 4, Scene 1:   Page 69 - 78
Act 4, Scene 2:   Page 79 - 81
Act 5, Scene 1:   Page 82 - 100

Page 4 - 14:   With Shakespeare, it is extremely important for our characters to be larger than life and that our body language and tone of voice tells the story - especially for our younger audience, as they are not likely to understand it all. For the characters Theseus and Hippolyta, we are having to play up the flirtatiousness to make it clear what is going on. James is playing Theseus as quite desperate and clingy whilst I am playing Hippolyta as quite playful. On my last line I run off SL to behind the flat, to then be able to enter as Hermia SR. I am playing Hermia in this scene as very frustrated. We positioned ourselves to create different effects - for example, I am positioned in between Demetrius and Lysander, so when I look between them, my feeling as clear - I look at Demetrius in disgust and Lysander in adoration. We made sure we used all of the space to keep the piece moving and interesting for our younger audience to keep them entertained. Our use of proxemics throughout help our audience understand our character relationships.

Page 15 - 20:   The mechanicals scenes are the funniest scenes - we have had to make all of our characters very contrasting and very exaggerated. We have made the beginning of this scene very frantic and busy. Bottom is very arrogant and big-headed and gets on everyone's nerves, though the audience tend to like him. As Snug is the character who gets the part of the lion, Rob is playing Snug as very timid and stuttering whenever he goes to speak. It doesn't matter how the rest of us play our parts, but we are trying to make them as contrasting as possible.

Site Specific (12) - Scenes 2 and 3 & Casting

Scene 2:    We decided to get up and perform this today. We allocated parts at random and read for our characters in the space. We decided to have a table and two chairs for this activity. The characters involved in this scene are as follows: Proctor (Oliver), Elizabeth (Lorna), Mary (Hope), Hale (Rob) and Cheever (Lewis). Bearing in mind we had only actually read through this scene once, we were really pleased with how this turned out. Despite all staring at our scripts, not knowing what we are doing in the space and having not read as these characters before, I think everyone's characterisation and interactions were pretty good! We agreed that all our cuts made sense and we can see where our piece is heading now.

Scene 3:   We then decided that we would read through scene three, which involves the following characters: Proctor (Rob), Elizabeth (Hope), Mary (Kat), Abigail (Lorna), Danforth (Lewis), Cheever (Ollie), Hale (Oliver), Mercy (Lorna), Parris (James) and Hathorne (Oliver). This read through went well but we feel like we can cut this scene down a bit more.

Cast: 

• Oliver (K):   John Proctor
• Kat:              Mary Warren
• Lorna:          Elizabeth Proctor
• Hope:           Abigail Williams
• Lewis:          Judge Danforth
• James:          Reverend Parris
• Rob:             Reverend Hale
• Ollie (M):    Ezekiel Cheever
• ((Taylor)):    Tituba
• ((Chloe)):    Betty Parris

Directing (19) - Scene 1, Scene 2 & Photographs

In these past two lessons we have run a couple of scenes without scripts and took photographs of us in costume for our programme. We ran scenes one and two quite a lot, as a way to help learn lines and to get used to not having a script in our hands. Also, we find these scenes quite daunting as it is the first time the audience meet our characters and thus we want to create the desired first impression. The last scene is also crucial as the audience sees how the whole thing started and what the characters used to be like. We want the audience to feel completely different about Robert and Jerry at the end to at the beginning. We want our audience to dislike Robert at the beginning (as he comes across as arrogant and stubborn) but like and sympathise with him at the end (he is caring and clearly loves his wife dearly). Meanwhile, we want our audience to like Jerry at the beginning (as he is a bit soppy and is clearly besotted with Emma, he seems to have been caught up in it all) but dislike him at the end (as they realise he started this all and is horrific in how he confesses his love to her). We don't really mind what the audience thinks of Emma - personally we don't like her at all, though we do feel sorry for her a bit at time (i.e. in scene four and scene nine).

We did a photo shoot to promote our play but also as an exercise. We used this photo shoot as an exercise to create freeze frames that we found interesting and would hint at the characters and their situation. We felt that the photo in the centre in the top row, shows the characters before the affair - Emma and Robert seem to be in love with each other, whilst Jerry is staring at Emma. The other photos are all during the affair, as Emma doesn't look comfortable with Robert and is often looking at Jerry. However, we used the bottom right image for our promotion as it shows Emma as comfortable in the middle of them both and the relationships are well portrayed - the fact that Robert's hand is on my shoulder shows he is possessive and perhaps controlling (which is the aim for the second scene), whilst Jerry's hand is on my waist and thus presenting their relationship as intimate.

Theatre in Education (1) - Initial ideas

We are now beginning our "Theatre in Education" unit. We need to find a piece that is educational and entertaining. The title makes it clear that our purpose is to be educational, but by making it as entertaining as possible, the children will remember it more and hopefully learn more.

We firstly considered the play "Mugged" by Andrew Payne. It had potential for our class to do as it is educational and relevant to our audience, as it is about school students (and contain problems they face). However, this play our cast is not the right size for this play - as I am the only girl in the class. We also felt that this play was over-done and is a bit too basic, as it is aimed at KS3 students. We then considered the play "Face" by Benjamin Zephaniah. I studied this play for GCSE and thought it would be a good one to do as it is very educational and would always be relevant. This play is very hard-hitting and more suitable for an older audience. This play explores bullying, facial disfigurement, confidence, relationships and determination. It is very inspiring and would have been an ideal play, but it contains a lot of characters. Multi-rolling is obviously a possibility, but it doesn't work as well for serious pieces as it does for comedies.

We then thought that we could be different - instead of going for something typical like drug abuse, fire safety or bullying, we thought we could do Shakespeare. As Shakespeare is on the national curriculum for English, we could do a piece to make it more accessible for younger people. Shakespeare was made to be performed, so sitting down in a classroom reading it isn't very enjoyable for students - so if we did a piece for them, they might enjoy it and learn more.

Three plays that we could have done were "Macbeth", "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "A Comedy of Errors". We decided not to do "Macbeth" as not only is it done a lot, but we didn't want to perform anything too heavy or threatening. Therefore, we decided that we wanted to do a comedy - this made up come up with "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "A Comedy of Errors". Although the latter would have been very appealing to our young audience (due to its frantic nature and slapstick moments), it wouldn't have worked for our cast as this play is about mistaken identity in two sets of twins, and with only one girl in the cast and none of the boys looking similar (not even in build) this would have been a struggle! We decided on "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in the end as it is a very funny play in which we would need to do a lot of multi-rolling - which in itself brings a lot of comedic opportunities. We would also need one of the boys to play Helena (which will be entertaining!), so we can add more comedy in here. We won't be performing the whole play, as this will be far too long for our young audience (as younger audiences tend to have shorter attention spans). We shall also need to cut down the script as there are too many characters in it and not all of the dialogue is essential to the plot. We want to make our version as entertaining as possible, but our other and main purpose is to educate - we aim to make the Shakespearean language accessible and understandable to our audience, so we shall cut a lot of the dialogue down to get the key information across. Also to help the audience understand it better, we shall have to have really good body language and use a lot of gestus.

Workshop (35) - Evaluation

As of last week, we finished our workshop process and performance of "Sweeney Todd". Before we did our performance, we explained to our audience what a workshop performance was, and gave them all a questionnaire to fill out. This questionnaire contained the following questions: "what was your overall view of the performance?" / "what were your favourite parts and why?" / "what stood out the most and why?" / "what should we develop further?" / "which parts would you discard?". Below is a rough outline of our show broken down into songs. In my evaluation I have included how they went and what we would do if we were to do a full scale production of it:

• The Prologue - This was effective at introducing Todd's character and the setting (in terms of dark and creepy atmosphere). To improve this number we could have added harmonies. Moreover the boat didn't work as well as we had hoped. Although some audience members picked this out, stating that they thought it was very clever, the boat has looked tidier in rehearsals. 
• No Place Like London - I think how we the two characters leaving the boat was quite effective and I don't think we could have done any more with the dialogue section. However, we could have had some movement for the actual song. We did discuss showing the flashback somehow, but we were concious that this might distract the audience from the lyrics of this song. If we were to do it as a full scale production and if money wasn't an issue, we could have had a piece of material set behind the half-opened curtains to use shadow / silhouette movement. Our transition into the pie shop was smooth but we could have choreographed some movement for this. We did think of doing some round-by-through movements but didn't have time to create any due to not being able to rehearse with our full cast. Moreover, we could have has set moving around Todd or even used the cast as if we were the location he was in - he could have stayed still whilst we moved around him.
• Worst pies -  I had some nice feedback on the forms, saying that my characterisation was strong and I performed it well. However, we could have been more 'workshoppy' with this number, perhaps including more cast members? We could have had people coming in to the pie shop and making it the exact opposite of the song "God That's Good", but we decided against this as it would take attention away from my characterisation - as this is the first time the audience meet Mrs Lovett. I don't see how we could have done the dialogue section any different so am quite happy with it. The dialogue normally leads up into the parlour, but I liked how we kept it in the pie shop, as it meant that we had more space (and also didn't need to change the chair, as Lovett comments on it later before "Wait").
• My Friends - I think for an initial idea, this was okay - it was completely different to how this number is normally done. However, to develop it further, we could have Todd interact with our additional cast for this number who represented the razors. Each razor could of had a different personality, perhaps. Judging by our audience's feedback, I think they like naturalism in a show, as three audience members said they would discard the additional cast in this number.
• Greenfinch - Although Alice sang this nicely, I feel that song wasn't long enough for her to show sufficient characterisation (as this is the first time the audience sees her, after hearing a lot about her). An audience member suggested that we had a birdcage as a prop for her to sing to. If the budget wasn't a problem, we would have had a banister around the section of the stage that was cut out (where the steps go down under the stage), for her to lean on during the song as if she is looking out of the window.
• Johanna - This song and the dialogue around it showed strong characterisation from those involved. We felt that this was the best way to stage this number as the beauty of this is the simplicity. However, care should be taken with what direction characters face, as when they face the back, the sound is lost. Another idea we had for this number was to have some shadow / silhouette work to show Turpin treating Johanna badly, which Anthony would see and inspire him to sing. This would have made this number very original but we liked the way we did it.
• Pirelli entrance - If budget wasn't an issue, we would have a sign come down to introduce Pirelli. If we had a larger cast we would put actors in the audience to aid the atmosphere - even using them as the front row of audience. It was suggested that we used someone from the audience, which we did consider but thought would be risky if no one wanted to go up. We should have got actual bottles for props (to keep the nineteenth century setting). We could have used Toby more during the contest to make it clear who he is. However, the audience seemed to love this section as it provided comedic relief. Our feedback for this was that the characterisation was strong and the audience interaction was really good. We could have made Dan's entrance more elaborate by having a lift - this is how we would develop this scene if we were to do a full-scale production.
• Wait - Our timing leading in to the song was good. If we were to do a full production, we could use the whole song and workshop some movement into it. The scenes worked well and Pirelli's death was original and effective. Although it was cramped in Todd's parlour, I think the lack of space was effective as it was more tense up there.
• Ladies in Their Sensitivities - Beadle's characterisation was strong (and complimented by the audience's feedback). Although speaking the songs did work, he could have sung them as it felt strange that he was the only character to not sing. The numbers were a bit static, but were effective in showing characterisation from both Lewis and Ollie.
• Pretty Women - The atmosphere was good. The lack of space was restrictive but it added to the tension. The tension before the first shave perhaps could have been heightened, but it was well sung and the dialogue was strong.  If we were to develop this further, we could add a flashback, perhaps the same as the one we would use in "No Place Like London", to show Sweeney remembers what the Judge did.
• Epiphany - Rob sang this well and his characterisation was strong. Our idea with the whole cast on stage worked but it would have been more effective if we had a larger cast. As this number is followed by "A Little Priest", we could possibly have had the characters mentioned in that song shown in this number. If money wasn't an issue, we would have loved to have a revolve during this number - everyone could stand still but Todd could walk forward through them? (The revolve would also have been great for set changes throughout the show - there would be no need for changes as the whole show would be done on the revolve?).
• A Little Priest - This number got mentioned in a lot of the feedback forms for being funny, having good characterisation and for good movement / choreo. Others mentioned that the chemistry between the three of us was good. If we were to do it again, we could have used different props to dress Dan in to present the different characters? What we would probably do is have more dancers in this scene and create a sort of ball, for which Lovett and Todd would move about in.
• Johanna reprise - The double time section was a bit messy in terms of beats. If we were to do it again we could use Johanna more, perhaps adding and developing the dance we originally had for this number. However, the majority of our audience really liked this number as they thought that the soundscape was clever and very original. To develop it though, we could use different props to make different noises and perhaps make our movement mre naturalistic and choreographed (rather than all sitting down trying to make sounds). Contrastingly, some audience members didn't see the relevance of this number as both Todd's and Anthony's feelings for Johanna are clear anyway.
• By the Sea - This number didn't go as well as it has done in rehearsals. Unfortunately the swing didn't work very well and the whole thing was a little bit messy. Although the number was effective in showing Lovett's delusional state of mind, it didn't fit well with the rest of the show - it used to make sense with "God That's Good" just before it, but because we cut that and the dialogue before this number, some of the audience were a bit confused by this number. If we were to do a full production, we would keep but the dialogue and "God That's Good" and thus this number would make more sense.
• Nothing's gonna harm you - James sung this with a lot of emotion and feeling. Although it wasn't workshopped in terms of movement, it was in terms of music as we cut a lot and James spoke a section.
• Beadle scene - I think our staging was good here, however, we could have added a bit of physical contact between Beadle and Lovett. Beadles death could have been a bit clearer as it happened so quickly. This physical contact could have been inspired by Frantic Assembly or DV8 to increase the tension between the two characters.
• Where's Toby? - We could have showed Toby hiding whilst we're looking for him so it is clear that he has escaped. If we were to do it again, we would have some music to allow Rob and I to leave and get to the back of the hall, so we could enter from the back - maybe with low lighting, carrying a candle to add to the atmosphere. Toby could be shown hiding and then running away. I think the beggar woman entrance was effective and the fact that her death was so quick and sudden was ironic (as he hadn't seen her for fifteen years and was so longing to be able to see her again).
• Pretty Women Reprise -The scene and song were well performed, but we wanted to make the judge's death bigger. We made the judge's death the same as everybody else's by using ribbon, but the boys did act this out really convincingly. We had intended to use other people in this to show the death, but we were unable to do this due to a lack of space. To develop this we would use clever lighting to make his death more dramatic.
• Final song - I was proud of our choreo for this number, as we included a Victorian move to fit the time setting of our piece. Todd's supposed forgiveness could have been a bit clearer perhaps, but both mine and Rob's characterisation here was complimented by the audience as this number was very emotive. I think my character's death was effective and original - one audience member commented that it was very shocking and well done. I really like how Todd handed Tobias the razor without looking as it was very emotive and powerful. 

Overall, our feedback was very positive and we were rather happy with how our show came out. Our audience said that they loved our use of stage space and said that we had a good blend of comedy and darkness. We liked that we wore all black clothing for this production as we were able to multi-roll and be part of the ensemble. If we were to do it again, we might use a representational costume item to show when we are our main characters, but we wouldn't wear full costumes. We would also create a clever and elaborate lighting plan to help aid our atmosphere. Also if budget and space wasn't an issue, we would create a slide arrangement for those who get killed to go down. Moreover, instead of using backing tracks, we would want to use a live orchestra (as we couldn't get backing tracks for everything) and we would all have head-set microphones (as some audience members said it was difficult to hear everything). One audience member also said about using fake blood instead of ribbons (although they did clarify that they liked the ribbons). I liked the idea of using fake blood but it did work better with ribbons for our workshop performance.