JUNE 12TH WEEK 2 LESSON QUESTIONS

1. What tasks did you do in the lesson today towards creating TTWCTT? (e.g. creating character, learning a song)? Describe and evaluate the exercises

In class today, we did exercises that are excellent for directors to do with their performers. For instance, as a company we partook in the "I am a slimy frog" exercise whilst exploring the 7 states of tension by ourselves then later on in groups.

In the slimy frog exercise, we had to say "I am a slimy frog" by exploring the seven states of tension. Firstly, we started off saying it in a monotone with no movement whatsoever. Nonetheless, as we went through the seven states of tension, we saw our bodies started to move more freely and find different and exciting ways of using our bodies and voices in any way possible. The slimy frog exercise allowed us to freely move with our body whilst collaborating our bodies with sounds from our voices. This allows us to explore different tones and movement that we could do in TTWCTT ranging from a low pitch to the highest pitch we can make. Furthermore, the exercise allowed to not care about what anyone else thought as the aim of it was to be completely free and careless of what you did. The aim of the exercise was to experiment and live in the moment. If you could not do that within the exercise,it would be extremely challenging to gain the attention of little children for TTWCTT as living in the moment is a crucial factor of how to be a performer in children's theatre.

By exploring different vocal tones, discovering various movements with our body and becoming careless with the actions you do collectively help towards creating an engaging and exciting performance of TTWCTT. This exercise involved us working with our peers. In order to make it successful, we had to possess the qualities of a good actor that responds to an exercise their given and feels how to interpret what they have to do in their own unique way whilst working with other people. It's better to not think at all about what you're doing and instead feed off others that are around you. Give each other freedom whilst experimenting by being supportive of one another. You would feel silly doing this exercise, however, that is the aim of the exercise: to be silly.


In addition to doing the slimy frog exercise and exploring the seven states of tension, we learnt the song 'Tiger Tiger' written by William Blake but performed by Pattie Smith who turned the poem into a song.

Singing in theatre wasn't unexpected for me as I know theatre in the modern world is becoming more and more developed. I enjoyed exploring the musical side of theatre whilst focusing on a poem performed in the form of a song that has historical values as it was written by poet William Blake. I believe this poem has connotations of how tigers lurk around their territory due to the slow pace and tempo of the song. The slow pace that Pattie Smith sings it in suggests how deadly and mysterious a tiger can be. The song sounds lament and dirge, which links to the deadly personalities that people assume tigers possess (stereotypes). The rhetorical questions included in the song made me think in depth of the hidden morals of the poem. What I think needs to be done now is to find the hidden morals within the poem, explore them and develop it into a piece where children with be mesmerised and engaged in it. 

Learning the song has helped to create TTWCTT by incorporating other elements than acting in children's theatre. To fully engage the audience, we have to think of different ways of grabbing their attention; we have to think outside the box. Therefore, singing this song with help us involve different pitches and tones within our voice. If we think we are singing high, we will sing low. If we think we are singing low, we will sing high. This helps us to successfully reach these pitches and tones. Singing is just talking with extended vowels. Therefore, it cannot be that hard to sing.

2. How do you think it contributes/will contribute to towards making TTWCTT?

I think doing different exercises and learning the song will help us work as a group in the best way possible. It will help us create a piece so diverse and intriguing for viewers by feeling the moment. We shouldn't over think anything. In fact, not thinking at all would be easier. Baring in mind that our audience is children from ages 2-5, doing exercises where we have to be silly will help us make the audience laugh more and be entertained if we look like we do not care about how we look on stage. These exercises teach us to be in the moment and take everything as it goes. It teaches us not to criticise ourselves but instead applaud how careless and free we are being. We have to put in 100% energy, not half or anything less. The more silly you look, the better you will entertain the children.

Overall, exploring different vocal tones and freely moving with our body contributes to making TTWCTT. Not caring how you look like and being carefree will help to perform to the best of your potential! Not caring is the best thing to do in order to be completely free on stage. With the help of exercises such as "I am a slimy frog" and the seven states of tension followed by 'Tiger Tiger' collectively contribute towards making TTWCTT to successfully work as an excellent ensemble.

- Singing is just talking with extended vowels - 

Think high, sing low and vice versa

Song is like a hymm

Pace of the song like a tiger walking 

What tasks did we do?

'Tiger Tiger' by William Blake (sung by Pattie Smith'

WEEK 3 MORNING EXERCISE

Working our head, neck and chest

This exercise helped to train us how to be aware of our body when on stage. It is crucial to not neglect or isolate a part of the audience as this will not engage the audience and instead will make their experience of the performance an experience that is not enjoyable. In order to make sure all three sides see at least one part of your body, make sure your head is facing one side, your neck at another and your chest at the third side of the audience. This will make sure each audience member in the room can see you at all times during the performance. 

Doing this exercise felt unnatural as I felt myself straining my nck trying to work my head, neck and chest at different directions. I had to be cautious of my body to make sure I was giving each side of the stage a part of my body they'd be able to see. This exercise is perfect for helping you to be able to show at least one side of your body to different sides of an audience. If you can do this successfully, there will never be a moment when the audience cannot see you.

4 stages of consciousness 

During the 4 stages of consciousness, you start off extremely slow within your body movement. Infact, you hardly move at all having a still peace of mind. As the stages progress, your body and mindset becomes more alive so that when you reach the fourth stage, your mind and body is uncontrollable.

At the beginning of the exercise, I felt myself thinking about what I was doing and making sure I was during each stage well. However, as the exercise progressed, I realised that I should not have to think about it and that it should just come naturally. Therefore, I began to loosen up my body and mind and experimented with it. This exercise helped me to realise that I should not need to think about not only what I'm doing in the exercise but what I'm doing on stage. Anything you perform should become natural and not rehearsed; live in the moment and experiment with what you can do.

Both the head, neck and chest and the 4 stages of consciousness both help to prepare us for performing for little children. The exercises teach us to be cautious of our body on stage and how we should be free and not focus on how we look. If we live in the moment, experiment with our bodies and not care about how we others, we can perform and entertain the children as best as we can. 

JUNE 5TH WEEK 1 LESSON QUESTIONS

1. What is Children's Theatre?

Notes:

Making children think outside the box 

Making them wonder and think 

Using different creative art techniques e.g music, acting, dance and art

Explains things to children in an exciting way 

Teaches them things in a fun way (educational and fun)

Everything is eye-catching 

Vibrant and lacks dullness 

Engage moralistically and humanely and offer them insights into the world 

Colours used to connotate characters personalities or the feel of the play in general 

I believe Children's Theatre is when you use different elements of creative arts to bring together an eye-catching, exciting and vibrant piece for young people. Examples of these techniques are music, acting, dance and art. Collectively, these elements work together to bring to life a piece that any child can enjoy. As well as children theatre being exciting and fun to watch, usually there are morals behind every piece that they showcase. The way they portray these morals definitely do not lack enthusiasm but instead imply these morals in creative ways that infants can absorb and understand. Colours used in Children Theatre may have connotations of the natural feel of the play and of character's personalities. For example, bright colours have connotations of the play being bright and vibrant whereas dark colours sense something bad might happen.

Overall, Children's Theatre is when you incorporate other creative arts elements, involve morals in your performance, have enthusiasm and keep . Without these elements, Children's Theatre wouldn't be Children's Theatre!

2. What skills does an excellent children's performer need to possess?

You need to be a total artist by not only being able to act but incorporate music (.e.g make noises from your mouth (singing)) and dance (movement) when performing to children. This will fully engage children as much as possible and will make your performance more enjoyable. Creating and devising your own work will show how creative you are and will help develop your creative skills. Furthermore, you need to be able to play with the space you are given. If your performance space has three sides where the audience can sit, make sure you show each side at least your head, neck or chest at all times making sure you're never isolating one side of the space from your performance.

Another skill you need to possess is being patient. Bare in mind the audience's perspective of how the play will be to make sure you're performing in a way that suits them. Children don't get things so quickly. Therefore, it is important to be patient and let your performance be as straight forward as possible as well as exciting. Also, be illiterate. It is important the audience understands what you're saying! If you speak too fast, the audience will not understand what you're saying! On the contrary, speaking too slow will lose the attention of the audience. To prevent this from happening, speak at a tone and volume that will attract the audience whilst also being clear and precise with your words to improve your articulation.

Develop the skill of having constant eye contact with the audience. Don't make the performance bad and amateur just because children are of a younger age - there will be adult members of the audience too so try and create a performance that is enjoyable for both adults and children. Moreover, allow the audience's input to be in the play by maybe involving some audience members in a particular scene or asking questions to the children to keep them as entertained as possible.

It is important to bare the skill of being entertaining. If you are neutral when you perform, automatically the attention from the children will be lost! Be controlled whilst also engaging. Make sure you are always on the go and ready to excite! Think outside the box, think of exciting and creative ideas to capture the minds of the audience. Forget who you are as a person and focus on what the audience wants you to be. Connect with your inner child that will allow you to be care-free. Remember the performance is not for you, it's for the children!

3. How would you adapt an issue for delivery to a specific audience?

Our "issue" in this context is facts about tigers e.g. their life span, what they eat and where they come from. A way in which I'd adapt the information of tigers to a specific audience (children) is by giving information about tigers in a way that is as exciting and engaging as possible. For example, children may enjoy visually absorbing information about tigers rather than just reading the facts. Therefore, creating documentaries, videos about tigers and also all of us on stage being safari explorers may capture their attention.

In week 1's lesson, I worked with Sam, Courteney, Samantha and Olivia where we discussed how we could adapt information about tigers to children. Collectively, we came up with the idea of Sam being a zookeeper and the rest of us would be tigers. However, to add more to it, we thought we could be tiger from different well known films and books! Here is the cast list:

Zookeeper Sam - Sam

Tiger who came to tea - Lara

Diego: Ice Age tiger - Courteney

Tigger: Winnie the Pooh tiger - Sam

Shere Khan: Jungle book tiger - Olivia

We thought that this would engage the audience more as some of the children will know at least one of the tigers from the films/books we have chosen. Each fictional tiger we have chosen have different characteristics. In addition, they can say how they have adapted to live in their surroundings which educates the children. 'Diego' from Ice Age is a distinct tiger. Therefore, he could talk about how he is becoming the last of his kind.

I believe it's very important to think outside of the box and explore different ways of communicating and giving messages to an audience. There are varieties of ways to adapt the information of tigers to children in ways that are exciting, inventive and creative. Nonetheless, it is important to do all of this whilst also educating them so they learn from their experience of watching your performance.

BEAUTIFUL THING EVALUATION

 BEAUTIFUL THING EVALUATION

 Beautiful Thing was written by Jonathon Harvey and directed by Nikolai Foster and was first performed in 1993. The modern play explores themes of homosexuality, relationships, lifestyles and many more. With 15-year-old Jamie trying to discover his sexuality, his neighbour Steven (known as ‘Ste’) helps him figure out who Jamie truly is whilst Jamie helps him too. Jamie’s 37-year-old mum (Sandra) is a single mum living in an estate with her son Jamie who she loves. However, Sandra seems to also crave a different kind of love and ends up meets 27-year-old partner Tony in Tesco. With all this love and romance going on in the estate, Jamie’s school friend Leah lives right next door to Jamie; she is the only person at school that speaks to him. Throughout the play, you see how the design of the set, sound, lighting, costume and much more combine together to create a piece so realistic that you forget you’re watching a play.

The outdoor setting and staging was extremely naturalistic. On the set were outdoor sitting chairs, a little block to sit on, flower pots and clothes hanging on a rack outside. The only colourful thing on set was some of the clothes that were drying and the flowers. The rest of the set had dull colours consisting of grey, dark blue and black. The use of those colours had connotations of a dull atmospheric feel. What also added to the atmosphere was that the walls of the estate houses were run down. This indicates that the characters that lived in the estate were not from a higher class and instead were of a working class. The effect the setting of outside had on the play made it simple rather than it being complex. The less they had made it seem more realistic in my eyes as simplicity can tell as much of a story as complex can. The fact that the characters could enter from front stage into the outside stage setting made it more realistic as well to imply there were coming from somewhere and now have arrived back to the estate.

The clever uses of costume for the characters really help to distinguish who the characters were. For example, Jamie and Ste were usually in uniform which shows that they were school boys under the age of 16. Leah didn’t have uniform as a costume as she was expelled from her previous school. On the contrary, her character would usually were bright youthful clothes such as dungarees and floral playsuits with her hair up in a side ponytail to emphasis her youth. The footwear that most of the characters wore was worn out shoes. The fact that they were worn out implies the lack of money the characters have. In the play, we know that Jamie and Sandra are living under a tight budget as Sandra’s partner Tony declined Sandra’s £5 note when she told him to buy a sketchpad, he said “You can’t afford that”. I believe costume is a key part of a character as it shows what type of class they may be in, their age and their personalities. In this play, the costumes do that very well.

The lighting of the play was used cleverly to show when there was a change of scene. For example, there was darkness for when the scene would change to Jamie’s room. The use of darkness could imply this is the place where Jamie’s true side comes out and where his thoughts that he thinks are dark unleash. Furthermore, the lights would dim for when it was night time in the estate and there was a spotlight on Jamie when he was getting ready for school and the rest of the cast were around them. When it was day time, the lights were used to make the setting look as natural and authentic as possible which adds to the realness of the play. Lighting can be used to display different moods, showing change of scenes and focusing on specific characters. Within this play, I definitely believe different ways in which to use lighting was explored.

To contribute to the realness of the play, the sound effects of birds, sirens and dogs parking made it seem as if they were actually in an estate outside! Using sound effects incorporates one of the key elements of multimedia. Using my knowledge from previous studies, I can recall that using multimedia within productions helps to modernise them as much as possible which makes the play more interesting. I believe not only did sound effects make the play more realistic but engaged the audience more. When Jamie and his mum were in his room and Sandra found out he was gay, Jamie opened up to her and confessed that he was by shouting and then crying. Through this scene, you could hear sirens coming from ‘outside’. Playing sirens during this particular scene has connotations of danger lurking. In this case, the danger was Sandra finding out that her son was gay and Jamie having to confess that he liked Ste. Sound effects can contribute to the atmospheric feel of scenes whilst also making scenes more realistic.

Music was played during scene changes within the play. The music played usually consisted of a fast upbeat tempo which demonstrates what will happen next in scenes will be positive. However, sometimes this idea would be wrong e.g. when Jamie and Ste see each other after the night of their first kiss. The music played helped to create an illusion of how scenes could be like. It helped to engage viewers whilst scenes were changing and lot allowing them to lose focus; they didn’t allow the scene changes to create luls within the play.

The play overall had a very naturalistic feel to it in terms of the staging and setting. Although, there were at times characters would speak in unison which took away the realism of the play. An example of this is when Jamie and his mum both say “Because you were such a cow” to Leah. When they say this, it doesn’t sound like didn’t mean to say it at the same time; it sounds rehearsed. There was another time when characters both said “yeah” at the same time but because of how short the line was, it seemed less planned and rehearsed. Sometimes I felt as if actor Jake Davies’ (character Jamie) accent lost naturalism during the play. Leah’s voice seemed unnecessarily loud at times and the character Tony didn’t seem that realistic to me. The general speech of all the characters was informal by using words such as “init”, “slag”, “git” and much more. However, I believe this was effective as their speech links in with the character’s background, who they are and where they live.

One section of dialogue that stood out to me was the moment we first see Jamie reveal his homosexuality by showing affection towards Ste. You see Jamie rub cream on Ste’s back then rests his head on him for approximately 30-35 seconds in silence then later on Jamie and Ste become more comfortable with each other and show the passion they have towards one another. I believe this moment is key within the play as it openly brings up the issues of homosexuality people face in society and how some have difficulty owning up to their sexuality and who they are as a person. Nonetheless, we see Jamie accept who he is in this scene and see him unravel more and more as the play goes along.

Overall, I believe the play was very successful in openly talking about not only homosexuality but also abuse relationships – not just with couples but within families also (Ste’s dad abusing him). Moments such as Jamie and Ste’s first intimate interaction, Leah confronting Jamie and Ste and Jamie coming clean to his mum are moments I will remember as they are moments that focus on key themes within the play such as violence, love, homosexuality and relationships. Jonathon Harvey did an excellent job by incorporating these themes in as these are issues that can be explored with so much depth and I believe the play did this! Characters like Jamie and Ste were believable as they represent boys and girls who go through the same struggles as they did within the play. Despite Jamie’s accent sometimes becoming unrealistic, his character helps to make bring back the believable character I believe Jamie is alongside with Ste.

I enjoyed watching Beautiful Things! It is a great play and I would recommend it to anyone to watch – bearing in mind the use of strong language and sexual references!

(1,444 words – sorry I went over sir :()