Theatre in Education (17) - Written report

Analyse and justify your ideas for a Theatre in Education performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream that meets the needs of your target audience

Our unit title is "Theatre in Education" so our primary purpose for our performance is to educate. However, we also have a strong secondary purpose to entertain, as the more entertaining we make our piece, the more engaged our younger audience shall be and so the more they will learn from our piece. As our audience are Year Nine students, we have to ensure that our material is age appropriate, and so not containing any foul language or gestures and nothing too crude. However, as we have an all-male audience, our cast knows how to appeal to their sense of humour (hence why we have incorporated stage combat into our piece). Also to keep them engaged throughout, we shall make our piece relatable to them but also comical, so they want to watch on, rather than feel like they are being taught a valuable lesson. To keep our audience engaged, we shall not do a full Shakespeare play as this would overwhelm though, so we decided that we would cut down the dialogue and make it our own version.

As our audience are Key Stage 3 Drama and English students, we decided to do a Shakespearean play, as Shakespeare is on both the KS3 drama and English curriculum. We wanted to give the students the opportunity to see Shakespeare performed live because Shakespeare's work was supposed to be performed and not read - the chance to see it performed is more entertaining than reading it in a classroom for the first time. We also wanted our piece to rid our audience of pre-conceptions of Shakespeare being hard and boring; therefore, we knew that we wanted to do a comedy piece because we would be able to make it more entertaining as it wouldn't feel too serious and like a lesson. We decided on "A Midsummer Night's Dream" because it would work best for our cast, we all like the play and think our audience would enjoy this the most.

To educate the English students (and the drama students), we want to make the language seem accessible to them. To do this we have cut down the massive monologues so they are not overwhelmed with what feels like a foreign language to them. Moreover, the language we do use has to be spoken convincingly as our characters - we want the language to come across as naturally so it is more understandable (apart from as our upper-class characters, as for these we are going rather melodramatic and very posh to almost poke fun at how people expect Shakespeare to be performed, which also creates a contrast to how we do perform it). We want to show our whole audience how you can adapt things and be more creative with a given text - so we have formed our own original characterisations of these characters - the fairies are all very common, the lovers are most like ourselves, the mechanicals are all different and just comical, whilst the other characters are very upper class. Whilst developing our performance, we have been very conscious of our facial expressions, body language and character interactions, as these are three key techniques that the drama students in our audience have been working on before picking drama as a GCSE. Also in our developing process, we have all stretched and pushed ourselves (as we had never done a Shakespeare play before and multi-rolled to such an extent) to show the drama students in our audience what can be achieved if you push yourself and don't hold back.

I have researched three different Theatre in Education companies, to give me a better understanding of what it is and what we could do to improve our piece. I researched "Big Brum", "Rubbish Shakespeare" and "Guildford Shakespeare Company". Big Brum's work is normally aimed at infant and primary school children - all their work is adapted so it is their own version and is suitable for their audience. I liked the idea of making it your own version - obviously we wanted to adapt it so it works best for our audience, but I liked the idea of ours being our own, though I was always conscious so we didn't draw too far away from the original as our audience contains English students who we didn't want to confuse! For example, we did consider changing the setting of our play but decided against it as to keep it true to the original - instead we just experimented with our characterisations. The Rubbish Shakespeare company also adapt their own versions, but they also combine the original text with "modern contemporary language" to make their version more relatable. In our circumstance, I disagree with changing the language, as we are wanting to perform a true Shakespeare piece to educate our audience who will be studying Shakespeare - however, I thought making the piece was essential to their engagement, thus inspiring the idea of making the lovers similar to them. The Guildford Shakespeare Company is also a site-specific company. Their aim is to make Shakespeare accessible to those who normally wouldn't get the opportunity to see it performed. I liked how this company make their theatre immersive, performing in close proximity to the audience - I thought that this was something we could do too - however, we have to be aware of the health and safety implications with this.

When working in close proximity to the audience we have to ensure that we do not have any physical theatre sections which could result in us landing or stepping on any audience members (as they will be sitting on the floor). We will have to put tape down and ask them to stay behind the tape at all times - if our audience were younger we would have not used such a close proximity and the physical theatre sections would not have any risk to them at all. However, as our audience is older, we are able to do these larger physical sections (i.e. the fights) but we have choreographed it so that these sections are the same every time in the space. We are using lighting throughout our performance so to reduce the risk of tripping hazards when our audience enters the room, we shall have to tape down all cables. We shall position the lights so that the audience won't be looking in to them. If we were using flashing lights / strobes then we would have to give warnings and ensure that the strobe doesn't last for more than ten seconds. However, we don't need to worry about this as we don't use any flashing lights - our lighting is only used to show times of day, characters, location and to aid scene transitions. If we were a proper TIE company then we would all have to be police checked, however, as we are students, and there will be teachers in the room, we do not have to worry about this.

We wanted to keep our set, props and costumes simplistic as to not overwhelm or distract our audience. We went through all the possible options for costumes, but we decided on wearing all blacks with representational props for each character. Not only are we not over-complicating it for our audience, but this is a lot more practical for us because it allows us to move easily and change quickly for all of our multi-rolling. We were careful with our choice of additional representational props as we didn't want to include fashion trends as we were aiming to make our piece timeless. We didn't want any set as we didn't think this was necessary - almost the entirety of the play takes place in the woods, and the characters even mention that they are in the woods, so we didn't think any set was necessary. Moreover, including set would minimise the stage space available for us, as we have already lost performance space due to bringing the curtains out further in to the room (on all three sides) to form wings for entrances, exits and costume changes. Our play will include a lot of props for the mechanical scenes to create a busy and chaotic atmosphere and to also for comedic reasons - as they all try on costumes and mess around with the props. Apart from the mechanical scenes, we won't use props to not over-complicate the piece. Although we want our piece to be entertaining, we don't want to lose our primary purpose of education, so we need to make sure that nothing distracts from the story line, characters and language.

Theatre in Education (16) - Rehearsals, Script and Final Stages

Script:   

Recently we have been doing full runs of our version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", but we have timed it and realised that it is rather lengthy and still contains huge chunks of dialogue, which would put us at risk of losing our audiences attention. Therefore, due to timing and engagement (and that Shakespeare is a real challenge to learn and maintain - especially when we are playing multiple parts rather than just one each, as we would if we had a larger cast), we have made the executive decision to trim more of the script. The main sections we cut were repetitive details within large monologues or details that weren't essential - however, when cutting, we had to bear in mind that Shakespeare often wrote in couplets, so we had to ensure that the lines still rhymed if needed.

We also cut down long duologues so that audience didn't lose interest, feeling like they are just watching a long conversation. Therefore, we cut down the argument between Demetrius and Helena, but also added more physicality to the remainder of this scene to make it more comical. Moreover, we cut the characters Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustardseed by ending the scene between Bottom and Titania on Titania's line, "thou shalt like an airy spirit go". We cut the rest of this scene as it wasn't essential to our plot - as it is a side-story and doesn't help progress the main narrative. We also didn't want to over-complicate our piece by having even more multi-rolling and another group of characters. Also, when I speak to the fairies earlier in the play, I act as if they are invisible: I can see them but the audience can't.

In addition, we also cut from the end of Puck's monologue on page 68 to page 78. Instead of having pages of Shakespearean dialogue that is complicated purely because of the actual story at this point, we thought that we should cut them and replace these pages with a movement piece which shows the Puck giving the potion, and the lovers falling in love with the right partner and them becoming friends again. Our movement piece involves accumulation, unison and counterpoint relationships to make the piece look aesthetically pleasing, as well as serving the purpose to educate, as this is another method of story telling, which we are using to avoid reeling off pages and pages of potentially over-whelming language. Our penultimate scene is the mechanicals getting ready and then Bottom returning and then we jump straight to the prologue and do the mechanicals play.

Final stages:

What we have left to do is as follows:

• full run of our new adapted version with lighting and no scripts
• make / gather all costumes and props, and rehearse with them
• put music we use in a playlist on a laptop (perhaps adding more music in places to make the piece more atmospheric and immersive).

Theatre in Education (15) - At this point...

We have now fully staged all of our scenes and are currently spending each lesson doing full run-throughs of our version of the play. We have completed our lighting design and setting, with the help of Mr McKay, so now what we have left to do is the following:

• everyone learn all of their lines
• make / source all props / costumes
• rehearse with all said props and costumes
• time our performance to work out where would be a suitable place to put an interval if needed

Theatre in Education (14) - Ending & Beginning

Pages 69 - 100:   

This was the first time we staged this scene. For the introduction to the characters Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustardseed, we had them as puppets being poked out from behind the gap in the curtains voiced by Lewis, Rob and James. However, for this scene we realised it would work quite nicely if we had these puppets as Barbie dolls on sticks and the boys in black, so they could come on stage with them. After this scene we shall have a short blackout to get the sleeping Bottom off stage and Egeus and Theseus on stage for the next scene. We had done the next scene before a few times and were confident with our blocking.

The next scene is the mechanicals realising that Bottom is still missing. We worked a bit on intentions to ensure that we all knew exactly what was being said during this scene, to know what tone to speak with. We also worked on Bottom's return and how our characters would react - we have made it so Flute is very camp and clearly has a crush on Bottom so we got him to run over and give him a hug when he enters - everyone is just very excited to see him again.

We cut the next scene down a lot as they contain large stanzas of Shakespearean language and we feel that our audience will disconnect from our piece and also these lines aren't essential to our story. Apart from the end of my line, we cut the whole of pages 83 and 84. We then cut down to Theseus' line beginning "I will hear that play". However, we put Philostrate's line on page 86 before Theseus' line. We then cut to the beginning of the play: the prologue. James and I leave USL to behind the curtains as if about to watch the play, but instead shall be ready to come on as the mechanicals. The actual play section itself went really well today. For the section where the Wall curses, we adapted this slightly from the original. At this point the chink in the wall is supposed to be Snout giving two fingers to Bottom, but to make it more appropriate to our audience, the "curse" is me poking my tongue out at Bottom. To add more comedy again, as Pyramus says "No, in truth, sir, ..." I go to poke out my tongue but stop myself just before I do, allowing me to use very over-the-top facial expressions (something that the drama students in our audience will be looking out for).

Pages 4 - 14:   We run this scene without scripts for as much as we could. We knew our blocking and intention, so our main focus was characterisation in terms of body language, facial expressions and use of voice - as these are three drama techniques that our audience have been working on and will be looking out for.

Theatre in Education (13) - The argument

Today we worked on the argument section from the girls part onwards. We wanted this to be very physical and quite realistic to make a contrast to the boys pathetic argument. To make the most of the fact that Rob is wearing a wig, I shall pull Helena's hair and push her to the floor. We both push each other for a bit, until she turns around. When I say my line "Puppet?" I run at her and jump on her back. We worked a lot on this to ensure this was safe but still looked effective. We worked out how I would throw myself off of Rob without causing risk to the audience - we had to work out where I would land and make sure this is consistent - that I don't land in a different place each time, to ensure that we all know where we are when this happens and that it is a safe difference away from the audience.

After this I get up and go to attack her again, but Lysander stops me as he picks me up when I'm running toward her and spins me round and puts me back down. This emphasises how short I am as the other three lovers take the mickey out of my character for this. As Helena continues speaking, Lysander dotes on her and forgets about the raging Hermia - therefore, I run towards Helena, but Demetrius puts his hand out and stops me from attacking her. Initially we tried a lift where I ran towards her but Ollie picked me up in a fireman carry and turned me round and put me down. This lift was perfectly safe and looked good when I was up, but it looked too pre-empted as we can't get into that easily whilst ensuring it is safe. Therefore we decided that instead we would have him put out his hand, and I would run into  it so my head was on his palm - I would then swing my arms trying to get to Helena. This adds more comedy into the scene and appeals to the sense of humour of our audience, by playing on the fact that I'm so much shorter than Demetrius and Lysander.

Afterwards both boys hold me back so I can't get to Rob. We developed this hold more so that they were almost lifting me off the ground.

Theatre in Education (12) - Opening Scene & The Argument

Opening Scene:   We ran this section today without scripts for as much as we could. We worked a bit more on proxemics today to make the relationships more clear for our audience. However, we also focused on our intentions and voice. We wanted to make the lovers realistic. We also thought that Lysander and Hermia could be very clingy and represent the typical young clingy couple, so that Helena is majorly "third-wheeling" - something that our specific audience will find comical and perhaps relatable for some. Meanwhile, we are making Demetrius quite geeky, very similar to the "Horrid Henry" character, Perfect Peter. This therefore makes Demetrius more similar to Helena, and Lysander and Hermia are similar, thus making the two pairs seem perfect for each other, and making it more obvious when things go wrong and who should be with who.

The tree...   James did some research on the scenes where Puck and Oberon watch the lovers, as they hide in the woods. James was inspired by this video of a company at the Globe Theatre, and thought that we could perhaps do something similar. This was really comical and something we could easily include. We tried to work out some lifts between James and Lewis, but Lewis didn't feel very confident lifting James on his own - he could manage having James on his back, but he wasn't high up enough to make the 'tree' idea work, so we have decided against having a lift between the two. We also wanted our version to be original, so instead the boys stand in between the two curtains at the back and watch forward and back in silence... this is then very comical when Lewis does a slow look at James and says "what hast thou done?". However, we have been original with pages 65 - 68, when Puck imitates Demetrius and Lysander's voices to each other to get them to end up in the same place. James moves places during this scene to get the lovers to move, but he only moves when they are not looking, and stands still for the rest of the time mimicking a tree. To show Puck impersonating the other lovers voice, we are making the most of the fact that only one of them are on stage during these scenes - the characters voice he is impersonating shall say their line off stage whilst James mimes saying the line (this will make it clear who he is supposed to be impersonating whilst adding to the comedy element).

The Argument:   We staged the first half of the argument. We worked a lot on proxemics and movement to ensure that this scene had movement throughout and didn't end up static at all. Our main struggle was to not end up in a line, but we worked on how close we were to what characters to reflect their current relationship and feelings at that time. We also worked out how the boys would fight - we didn't get to work on the girl's fight section, but we knew that we wanted the boys fight to be pathetic in comparison to the girls for added comedy! As Demetrius is big-headed but cowardly, we got him to mime hitting Lysander where it hurts to spark the fight on the line "quick, come!". If we were performing this play to a younger audience we wouldn't have included so much violence, but as it is an all-male audience and they are going into their GCSE's, we didn't think that we were over-stepping the mark and is still suitable for them. The fight then consists of them holding each other in a sort of head lock and struggling. We didn't want this fight to be realistic, as this would make it too violent, and we didn't want it to look impressive because we wanted to make this fight look weak and pathetic compared to the fighting girls. 

Theatre in Education (11) - Research

Our performance is going to be in front of Year 9's, which are Key Stage 3's. We chose to perform a Shakespeare play to them as Shakespeare is part of the KS3 Drama and English specification. Last year they studied Macbeth in drama and Richard III in English. Some of us agreed that we didn't enjoy Shakespeare in English when we did it, but this is because Shakespeare was meant to be performed not read. Therefore, we chose to do a comedy Shakespeare play to try and destroy  negative pre-conceptions of Shakespeare before they know what it is like. We wanted to make Shakespeare accessible to the students and help improve their understanding.

Below are some Theatre in Education and Shakespeare companies that I researched:

• Big Brum -- http://www.bigbrum.org.uk/index.html -- It is a registered company founded in 1982 and based in the West Midlands. Earlier this year they toured their version of Shakespeare's play "Macbeth" and are now currently touring "Rumpelstiltskin - The Straw Baby". Their production of "Macbeth" was an adapted performance and was followed by a workshop which got the children to "analyse, collaborate, make decisions, justify and evaluate". It was designed for students in years 5, 6, 7 and upwards. "Rumpelstiltskin" was designed for years 2, 3 and 4. Their performance is followed by a workshop which children learn to empathise with different characters.
• Rubbish Shakespeare -- http://www.rubbishshakespearecompany.com/about-us -- The company's ethos is "Shakespeare for all". They perform their own adapted versions which combine the original text with "modern contemporary language" to make their play more engaging and relatable. Although I really like this idea, I don't think we need to do this as our intended audience is a bit older and they are studying Shakespeare for English (as well as drama) so the language is very important. However, their idea of making the piece relatable inspired me and inspired us with the idea of making the fairies very common. Below is a quote from their website that explains about their version of the same play we are doing and how it became famous.
  

  "The company have collaborated with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Canal & River Trust to deliver the critically received 'Stratford 2 Stratford' project. This saw the company take thirty students from Stratford in London to Stratford Upon Avon on canal boats, and over the course of ten days create a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The project received national attention, celebrity endorsers and the pupils not only had the opportunity to perform at the RSC with the company, but also to participate in and learn new life experiences that will benefit them throughout their lives."

  They believe that Shakespeare needs to be performed or viewed performed to be understood properly - for a younger audience, I definitely agree with this! They do performances to schools and then follow their performances with workshops. 
• Guildford Shakespeare Company -- https://www.guildford-shakespeare-company.co.uk/vision.html -- Their aim is to make Shakespeare accessible and understandable for people who wouldn't normally see it or come across it. They are a site-specific company whose honorary patron is Brian Blessed. They make their theatre very immersive, performing in close proximity to the audience - this is something that I liked about the company and thought we could experiment with at times - however, as our audience is a bit younger, we have to remember the health and safety factors and that we don't want to overwhelm our audience either - we want them to feel safe and comfortable and simply enjoy the experience whilst learning from it. They run a variety of different workshops and tailor these workshops to suit the needs of the school - the play, the theme, the age group, etc. How adaptable this company is got me thinking more about the specific needs of our audience and who our audience really are. As stated at the beginning of this blog, our audience are Key Stage 3 students who will be studying Shakespeare for both drama and English. Moreover, they are all boys so what they find amusing may be different to what a mixed audience would find funny - they may be less sympathetic to the female characters and prefer certain male characters depending on how they interact with other characters.

Theatre in Education (10) - Production meeting

We spent this lesson having a production meeting to discuss what we shall do in terms of costume, characters and style. As we have almost staged the whole of our performance, we didn't want to make any changes in terms of time or place setting - we have aimed to make our piece quite timeless (so not putting in anything that brings it into modern day) and we kept the traditional location of a forest. Although we could have been creative and changed the setting, we thought it best to keep the original location, as our purpose is to educate, and we don't want the Year 9's going into their English exam and writing how the piece is set in a school, for example!

Below are the ideas we came up with for costume:

• Traditional Full Costume:   Fits the entertaining purpose (will be funny to see the boys in tights!) /// Characters are clear /// Ideal for a larger cast as they wouldn't need to multi-roll, but not practical for our cast as don't have time to do a full change
• Timeless:   Not too modern to make the piece look modern day, but not traditional clothing /// No fashion trends to make it era specific
• Modern dress:   Would be relatable for the younger audience /// Playing off stereotypes would make it understandable /// Might require changing the setting of our piece, which we don't want to do as would lose the educational element
• Own clothes:   In the Elizabethan times, they would have worn for the performance what they turned up in. We don't want to do this as we would lose the fantasy element and the atmosphere. The characters wouldn't be as clear either.
• Moschino (Velcro cardboard clothes):   Used in the Milan Fashion Week // Good for younger children /// Entertaining but not overwhelming /// Stripped-back approach to Shakespeare makes it seem more simple /// Not practical for our very physical piece
• All blacks with representational items:   Ideal for the amount of multi-rolling we do /// Easy to move in /// Characters are still clearly presented /// Ideal for our smaller cast
• Shirts & trousers with representational items:   More aesthetic than all blacks /// Suitable for multi-rolling /// Could work for different groups of people (i.e. if we set one section in a school, or for gangsters... etc) 

We have decided that we are going to go for all blacks with representational items as it is easy for us to manoeuvre in, it isn't complicated, quick changes are easier and the audience still get a clear idea on characters. For representational props, we have decided to group certain characters. The high society characters (Hippolyta, Theseus and Egeus) shall wear waistcoats or a shawl, to show they are upper class - waistcoats are also timeless as they have been around since the Restoration Era. The lovers are going to be quite modern, but to reflect their rebellious attitude in not doing what their parents want, we are making them rebels - so they shall wear leather jackets or flannel shirts (they are modern and relatable to the audience, but not too common. These characters are most like ourselves).

We were planning on making the fairies gangsters, but we don't have much time to develop these accents, nor do we think it is suitable for our piece - it would be too weird to have a gangster Titania falling in love with Bottom. To make this love more comical though, we thought that we could have the fairies as extremely common, exaggerating the Medway accent! This would make the piece entertaining but still practical for us.

For the mechanicals, we are still undecided, but I think we should just wear all blacks (apart from I shall wear a hat as Starveling as I swap between Starveling and Snout whilst on stage) as the body language clearly shows that they are different people and the use of music as a motif for them. However, to show Bottom as an ass, we discussed using a full-mask, a hat with ears or a half-mask. We decided against the full- mask as it would hide his facial expressions. We decided to go with the half-mask as Ollie made a half-mask for when we learned about Commedia dell'arte, and this worked really well. We shall just add some ears to the mask he used. This way, his look has been totally transformed but we can still see his facial expressions and his voice is unaltered. For the Wall, I shall wear a sandwich board as this is the quickest way for me to transform into Wall and is comical in the fact that I could put my arms down but I don't. It also enable me to bring an arm forward to form the chink still.

Theatre in Education (9) - Scripts, Monologues & Accents

Scripts:   Over half term, I have been trying my best to learn all of my lines! I have been reading the script repeatedly, gaining a better understanding on what is going on. Although the descriptive details the characters use, I felt Titania's section to Bottom was too much - I have decided to cut this down as to reduce the risk of our younger audience getting detached, as this was a fairly large section of dialogue. It is better to lose some descriptive detail in order to maintain their concentration, rather than doing the full script and them getting bored or lost.

Monologues:   As we were missing Rob today, we broke off into pairs and worked on our monologues. I went with Ollie, whilst Lewis and James went together. I did my Hermia monologue - where she wakes up after a bad nightmare to see that Lysander has disappeared. My first step was to add in pauses and work out my intentions - in such a short monologue, she goes through a few different emotions.

Help me Lysander! Help me! Do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.
Methought a serpent eat my heart away
And you sat smiling at his cruel pray.
Lysander! What, removed? Lysander! Lord!
What, out of hearing? Gone? No sound, no word?
Alack, where are you speak, an if you hear;
Speak of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
No? Then I well perceive you all not nigh
either death or you I'll find immediately.

The first two lines are her waking up, still in fear and in her nightmare. The next four lines are her describing her nightmare and a bit emotional and shaken, but clearly relieved. The last section is her panicking about where Lysander is, and then a new panic as she fears for her own safety.

Accents:   Whilst Ollie and I were working on our monologues, Lewis and James worked on some Puck and Oberon scenes. They tried this out in a variety of different ways but decided that they needed to make these characters clearly different from everyone else, but similar to each other (to show that they are from another world - they are the fairies). They realised the best way to do this was through use of accent. To make the characters different from the others, and to make them a bit comical too, we have got the fairies to speak with a New York / gangster accent! This also shows the children that Shakespeare isn't all heightened and over-the-top melodramatic British speaking, but it can be whatever you make of it - we have made our piece original. Whilst the fairies speak with New York accents (to show they are completely distant), the lovers shall speak like us (to make them relatable), the higher status character (like Egeus, Hippolyta and Theseus) shall speak with exaggerated RP (to show their high position in society) and the mechanicals speak with a variety of different British accents (to make them comical).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Workshop (34) - Final rehearsals

We spent the whole day in the hall to set the stage, rehearse in the space and do full runs with the full cast...

Setting the stage:   Thankfully we didn't have to worry about the remains of the "Grease" set on the stage, as the curtains remain shut for the entire performance. However, we did have to take down all of the banners and flats from this performance. We set up all of our stage blocks and ensured we had all the props we needed. We bought flour and pies, and cut the ribbons down to the sizes we needed.

Our cast:   Unfortunately, Taylor wasn't able to come in at all this day as she had food poisoning, therefore we had to find someone else to play beggar woman! Thankfully, our friend Kat came in to save the day - she had never seen Sweeney Todd or even knew the story so we knew we would have to spend a lot of time with her. We spent time running all of the parts she was in and went through all of her entrances and exits. Whilst we worked on other parts of the play, she listened to the songs she was in.

Cutting & running sections:   Although it didn't matter if our additional cast members used scripts or not, we preferred it if they didn't. For this reason, and the fact that we were running over with time, we decided that we would cut the discussion between Todd, Anthony and Lovett about hair and Anthony going to the asylum. I also cut down the track of "Greenfinch and Linnet Bird" for Alice, so that she only had to sing one verse from it. We had also never done the ending with the track so we tried this early on in the day, so I had time to alter the track if needs be. When I made this track, I had timed it so that the dialogue fit before we started singing; however, we couldn't work out where I started the dialogue. Moreover, this track sounds very similar until the faster section of the singing - therefore we thought it best if I cut this track so it just had one bar in before I started singing. I cut this track and it actually worked really well. Rob and I weren't very confident with this final song though as we hadn't done it a lot, so we ran this number multiple times (the lyrics are also very quick and we dance at the same time, so this was a worry for us both). The other number that Rob and I kept running was "A Little Priest". We found this number tricky due to the fast lyrics and complex choreo, but we were worried about the space, so wanted to do it a couple of times to get used to the amount of space we have. The other number we ran a few times, as a group, was "Johanna reprise" as this involved our additional cast members. We initially had planned to have a short dance section between Anthony and Johanna and then between Todd and Johanna, but we decided against it as a) we thought it might overwhelm the audience what with the sounds as well, b) we didn't have enough time to sort it, and c) it wasn't really necessary.

One of our runs was to work out where all of our entrances and exits were and who would move what set. Another run was to ensure all lighting cues and sound cues were accurate. Both of these runs were used to see what parts needed the most work - we then worked on these weaker parts for the rest of the time.

Workshop (33) - Full run to page 144

In today's lesson we did as much of a full run as we could in the time we had. We managed to get page 144, but discussed how we would do the end section. We went over at what points in the script the tracks need to be played and made a note of what tracks needed to be altered. This was the first time we did a run without scripts... unfortunately this didn't go as well as we had hoped! Some cast members needed a bit of prompting but we just about managed it. Our main focus over the next couple of days is to make sure everyone knows all of their lines!

Cutting sections:   Last lesson we cut "God That's Good" as it wasn't necessary and we didn't have time to perfect it, but we decided to cut more dialogue today as there were sections we hadn't done (and also our show was still running longer than we had intended). Depending on how it goes in our rehearsal on Monday, we might cut the scene between Johanna and Turpin on page 49 - they have never done it together as Alice isn't in our lessons. We aren't worried about this scene as it is not essential to the plot, so if we do end up cutting it, it won't matter. We cut the section with Toby in the bakehouse (on page 134) as it isn't needed. By cutting this, we are not only saving time, but also avoided the complications of making it look like James is in the bakehouse. We have also decided to cut the asylum scene as it is another section of script that is not really needed but is making our show longer. The audience knows the Anthony has gone to rescue her, but they don't really need to know what happened to them, just the fact that Todd never got to see her. As we have cut dialogue, the track that I made for dialogue to go over is now no longer needed! My section of song and Taylor's part will now be sung a Capella - this actually works really well as it sounds more eerie.

Tracks:   After today's lesson, we found that the track for "No Place Like London" wasn't quite right - I tried to fit in the lyrics in the script, not realising that they were wishing to do the film version. I cut this track again with Rob at the end of this lesson, to ensure that he was happy with it. I have now also made a new track to go between this song and "Worst Pie's in London" so Rob has some music to travel in - in our rehearsal Monday, we shall quickly work out his movement - this section will involve everyone doing round-by-throughs and just general moving frantically to create a busy London scene. We have left this for Monday as we will have everyone in the rehearsal so we can slot this together easily. I have also edited a piece of music to be played whenever anyone is killed, thus helping to form a motif in our piece.