Apr 26th: Music

On 26^th April, we worked on our songs then performed them to the group again. 

I thought that Seb and Fran’s song was very sincere and lovely as Seb used personal experience to write it.  I liked it when the piano became louder and more powerful when the chorus kicked in as it gave it extra power and meaning.  It was also catchy, I’m still humming it!

Imogen’s song was also nice; it had that lonely, acoustic feel.  The fact that it was just Imogen and a guitar made it seem more lonely and personal.  The microphone really helped and enhanced the performance but she could do to work on the fluency of the chords as there was one transition to a barre chord that was sometimes a bit shaky.

Within our group, there was a bit of disagreement as to whether or not the piano coming in and out worked in the piece or not, even though this was a mistake as Frankie is still trying to come to terms with playing the chord with both the left and the right hand.  We still need to sort out the ending!!!  We are considering swapping instruments as currently, I play the drums, Olly is on guitar and Frankie on keyboard but it would be maybe a little more practical as I couldn’t really be heard very well over the drums as we didn’t have a microphone.

'The Worm Collector' West Yorkshire Playhouse

When Gail McIntyre came to Brigshaw, she mentioned a recent project called ‘The Worm Collector’ which is part of a trilogy of monologues about knife crime.  I checked it out on the West Yorkshire Playhouse website and this is what it said...

"THE WORM COLLECTOR
12 February 2010 to 13 February 2010
COURTYARD THEATRE
Mark has been making a film, armed with a digital camera, an arsenal of willing family members and an unusual subject matter. Mark wants to know who has the best scar, even the tiny ones count because its not just about size but about how you get them that determines whether you’re a winner or not.

But sometimes it’s the scars we can’t see that leave the most damage, and victory may come with a very high price.

Innovative filmed sequences and a powerful live performance bring to life a story that manages to be funny, heartfelt and heartbreaking at the same time. With a shocking twist in the tale, The Worm Collector burrows into the head of a teenage boy who makes the simple mistake of taking matters into his own hands.

West Yorkshire Playhouse Touring Company
The Worm Collector by J.C. Marshall 
Director Gail McIntyre
Designer Barney George 
The Worm Collector was supported by The Royal Armouries, Education Leeds and The Home Office Community Fund."

Gail McIntyre Interview

On 19^th April, we had the opportunity to speak to an actual T.I.E director from the West Yorkshire Playhouse.  This obviously is an amazing treat as this director, Gail, works day in day out on creating pieces of educational theatre for a range of age groups on a wide variety of topics.  Gail came with Jessica Farmer whom we met previously and have interviewed and also at the Offstage Choices day last year (Link to Jessica Farmer Interview, Link to Offstage Choices Review).

I wasn’t sure at first what Gail did within the complicated process of making a piece on TIE but I was to find out shortly.

We all gathered in the conference room as this was a more appropriate setting for an interview than that of the drama studio.  Gail first mentioned a couple of projects that she had worked on that were coming up in the theatre soon.  She mentioned the production ‘No Mans Land’ which will be running from the 29^th April to 7^th May and also she mentioned a co-worker Lem who has a one man show coming up which has been reported as being brilliant.  I hope that we can arrange within the group to go see one or even both of these productions as this would be enjoyable as well as helpful.

First, Gail explained what her job was and what it entailed.  She is an Associate Director of West Yorkshire Playhouse and is constantly planning, programming and delivering work for schools.  She works with musicians, actors, playwrights, physical theatre practitioners and a lot more people.  Each piece they create is aimed at a specific different age group but this is subject to change as she receives feedback from teachers all the time whether the age group they performed it to be right and whether it should change.  She also helps direct the annual Christmas production at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.  All the work is for young people, both touring and in the theatre.  Gail is passionate for it but her job is becoming increasingly more difficult as funding is decreasing.  She finds touring more exciting and challenging as you are performing to people who wouldn’t usually come to the theatre so you introduce drama to people who wouldn’t usually either voluntarily go and see it or don’t have the opportunities to go.  She is adapting a book into a piece of theatre by working with a poet.  The art is not to loose his skill as a poet when adapting it into a script but stay true to the authors story and style. 

We then asked Gail some of the questions we had thought of in preparation for meeting her.

Do you enjoy your job?

“Yes, it is exciting and challenging to try and create a good piece that will challenge and inspire.  Different things happen when you work with different people who all have different skills”.

Is there anything you’ve ever worked on where you’ve thought ‘please let it be over’?

“No but there have things I’ve worked on where the combination of people has been difficult.  You have to have your own point of view but embrace everyone else’s and recognise your strengths and weaknesses as well as everybody else’s”.

Are there any age groups that are more difficult than others?

“No, they’re just different.  You just have to find the thing that inspires and engages them.  The process of feedback is constant; you have to talk to as many people as you can”.

Is there a hierarchy for roles?

“Whatever happens, I am responsible, even if it was the team.  We are led by a different creative artist at one time like the writer, then the director and so on.  I choose who leads certain part such as I will ask a specific person who I think has the right experience to do a certain thing such as a certain monologue or scene.  I make the final decision as to whether or not we actually tour the piece in schools.  Everybody gets the credit if it’s a success but if anything goes wrong, I get all the blame”.

Do you use song and music?

“Yes, we use it for allsorts.  The latest piece has live pieces and a composer has created an emotional journey.  In ‘The Worm Collector’, there was an underscore to clarify the setting with the limited set.  The composer sits in on the rehearsals and composes bits as he goes along.  In a different production, the composer improvised throughout the whole performance”.

How do you connect with different communities and audiences?

“The use of forum theatre is a great way to include audience participation and sometimes, some of the actors are in the audience for example, in ‘The Snow Queen’, some of the actors playing robbers were in the audience and actually started robbing some of the audience members.  I love involvement of the audience as they are working with the character and they have a voice.  There is an ongoing discussion on how to get people into the theatre.  Because I go into schools, I am already promoting and encouraging people to come into the theatre that way.  There is also an audience engagement officer in the marketing team whose job it is to fill seats”.

How long does it take to make a piece of Theatre In Education from scratch?

“The latest project that is about to be perfomed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse was commissioned in 2008.  The writers had 9 months to a year to write it.  It varies.  We plan 2 years ahead: we have allsorts going on at the same time.  Then you have a few months of designers looking at the focus of the piece and what you want to people to see.  We have a 3 or 4 week rehearsal process but it depends on who you’re working with and whether or not there is a workshop attached.  Allsorts of things are happening during this time including booking the tour and publicity”.

What topics do you cover?

“It’s not just down to us what topics we do, it depends on what we get funded to do for example, I really want to do a piece on child carers but we only got the money to do a piece on knife crime”.

Where does the funding come from?

“We get some of it from Education Leeds but at the end of the year, that will end.  We also get funded through the West Yorkshire Playhouse through the Arts Council.  Outside businesses such as The Royal Armories and The Home Office give money to cover certain topics.  You just have to go out and get it, like a pitch”.

You mentioned that you an actor do you ever direct yourself?

“No I never do that.  Sometimes, when people direct and act, they find it hard to separate and see the other actors from an actors point of view”.

Do you ever go to other Theatre In Education companies for inspiration?

“We go see lots of work fro inspiration.  There are never any new ideas, just what you do with them”.

We thanked Gail and Jessica for their time and they gave out some leaflets about the trilogy of monologues that make up one big piece of Theatre In Education about knife crime.  Gail asked when our pieces were going to be performed and whether she could come and see them.  We were all stunned.  An actual Theatre In Education director wanted to come and see our pieces!  We thanked her very much and said it would be greatly appreciated it and that we would be in touch to confirm the dates of the performances.

It was a great opportunity to meet a director, especially as a couple of people in the group are considering taking that sort of career path.  Miss Woffinden informed us that she had been in touch with a lot of people asking for an hour of their time and some of them didn’t respond and the others said they would charge us so it was really kind of Gail to come and talk to us.

Set and Costume Design

On Tuesday 19^th April, Frankie and I with a little help from Jack came up with some costume and set design ideas.  We drew these on a white board so we could rub it off and draw another and correct it easily instead of doing it on paper.  We then took photo’s of the board so we had a record of the design.  We first discussed the set as we had mentioned having an invisible boarder for the two separate worlds of the narrators and the actors but we weren’t sure how to represent this.  We talked about having a rail or something but Frankie correctly pointed out that if we put it in the middle of the space, we would be blocking half of the space from some of the audience.  We then discussed the idea of having the rail at the back facing front with some basic set on it.  We then decided it would be easier if we had cloth with the setting painted on it and then turn it around and have another setting on the back.

This is what we came up with.

We also thought about the costumes for the characters.  We drew up some ideas on the whiteboard.

This is Little Red’s costume design.  She will wear a skirt and leggings with a girly cardigan at the start to please her dad who is against girls being tomboys.  When she leaves the house and enters the woods putting on some trainers, taking the cardigan off to reveal and sports top and wrapping it round her waist, she will roughly tie up her feminine hair and mess up her face in some way such as putting a bit of mud on or roughly removing her make-up.

This is the wolf/the dad’s costume design.  When he is the dad, he will have a flat cap on, a black button up shirt done all the way up, black trousers and a colourful tie.  When he is the wolf, he will take off the cap to reveal spiked up hair and take off the tie.  He will undo the top few buttons of his shirt and will have a chest wig on underneath and wear black gloves.

This is Olly’s costume design.  He goes into the story as a woodcutter so we decided that Olly would have a simple black overcoat on with jeans, a check shirt and braces underneath and black boots.  We agrees that I should have the same on not only to match but also to show that boys and girls can wear the same clothes and that fashion isn’t masculine or feminine. 

So this is my costume board.  It is basically the same as Olly’s.  We will be wearing the same clothes but just in a different way.

I quickly drew up a plan of the layout of the stage so we knew whether the set would be blocking any of the actors.

New Promo Photos

On Tuesday 19^th April, just before our music lesson, Frankie, Olly, Jack and I went outside to take some more promo shots we could use in posters and a programme.  We used the collection of trees just outside the music block because it would look a bit like a forest opening which is appropriate for the setting of our play.

                             

First, we took an individual shot each of the wolf and Little Red in the woods as this is the main setting of the play and also where the two characters meet.

We then decided to get a shot of Little Red on her way to the woods, walking along the path in her hoody in an industrial looking area which goes against the stereotype.

We next decided to get a couple of group shots in the woods showing the sly wolf, careless Little Red and the overlooking narrators.

Next, we got a couple of shots of the narrators by themselves, back to back with a tree in-between.  Olly had a scared impression and I was careless and a little exasperated about his fear.  Again, this was to go against the stereotype and it is an underlying theme in the play that Olly assumes females to be frail and easily scared and girly and I contradict him every time; in fact, there is a part where Olly gets scared whilst I just watch the action calmly.

Finally, we got a group shot on some grass in front of a building as the scene was not set in the woods.  It shows Olly, who is the woodcutter in this scene barging into the house and the wolf being terrified whilst Little Red watches calmly and I stand annoyed at the side, exasperated at the fact that Olly assumes Little Red needs protecting.   I am planning to change the background on this photo but I am currently unsure as to what.

Promo Poster: Abi vs Olly

I have made another promotional poster using a picture of Olly and myself.  I tried to keep the black and red theme I had established in the first poster and also the dark edge it had to it.  If I was to make another, I think I would try to show the fact that it was quite comedic as it just looks a bit dark at the moment.  I would like to take some more photos on Tuesday so I have more to work with.  Again, I will post this on my Facebook and tell my friends in hope it will recieve some feedback.  I will also email Jack, Frankie and Olly again.

Building a Character-Constantin Stanislavski, Chapters 1-6 Review

 Building a Character – Constantin Stanislavski

1950 – Methuen & Co. Ltd.

Chapter 1

Key Quotes:

“If you do not use your body, your voice, a manner of speaking, walking, moving, if you do not form characterization which corresponds to the image, you probably cannot convey to others it’s inner, living spirit”, page 5.

“Externally, it is not difficult to disguise yourself”, page 6.

Overview:

In the first chapter, Stanislavski talks about his teacher, Tortsov making changes to his physical appearance and how it changes how everybody see’s him for example, when he squints his eye, Stanislavski says he didn’t see Tortsov, but a man with “knavery, slyness, grossness”, but once he abandoned the trick, he was normal and ‘recognisable’ again.  He also says that it’s difficult to change your physical appearance and for people to see the ‘real inner you’.

Chapter 2

Key Quotes:

“Who is he? Who is he?” page 14.

“Only those material things could prompt me to find what I had subconsciously been searching for”, page 14.

Overview:

In the second chapter, Stanislavski is finding a costume for a masquerade the class is participating in.  He chooses one but by the time the masquerade comes about, he still hadn’t figured out ‘who’ his character was as this was also part of the assignment.  He decided to give in and not go up onto the stage with the rest of the class to be checked and started removing the make-up he had on but the make-up remover ended up smearing it all over his face and fake beard and hands.  He automatically changed his posture and got a cane.  He had found his person.  He went up onto the stage and gave a brilliant performance.  He described the experience as splitting his personality in half, instead of fully becoming the character, his ‘real seal’ spectator whilst the character controlled his actions and speech. 

Chapter 3

Key Quotes:

“The human being that you are is far more interesting and talented than the actor”, page 24.

“But they do not contain the essence of a character and they are not individualized”, page 27.

Overview:

In the third chapter, Tortsov gives everybody feedback on their masquerade character.  He explains that you must love the role in you, not you in the role.  He also says that you can play a general military person for example but by giving them a name and a proper job title and unique gestures, you begin to find the essence of the character. He says that people can show their best and their worst traits of their personality when hidden behind their character but cant without the mask.

Chapter 4

Key Quotes:

“We need strong, powerful bodies, developed in good proportions, well set up, but without any unnatural excess”, page 39.

“The actor cannot stop to think, to doubt, the weigh considerations, to make ready and test him.  He must act, he must clear the jump at full gallop”, page 40.

Overview:

Chapter 4 is all about posture and being physically ‘correct’ to be an actor.  Tortsov talks about professional athletes and how their physique isn’t ideal for an actor.  He also talks about how dance and gymnastics can correct physical flaws such as open the hips so the toes point outwards and broadening the gestures and finishing them properly.  Stanislavski also talks about his uncle visiting who is an actor and he comes with a fellow actor with whom he has a silent dispute with, using no words but tiny, almost unnoticeable finger twitches and movements.

Chapter 5

Key Quotes:

“In other words the left foot transfers the body weight at the same time that the right one takes it over”, (while talking about the incorrect way of walking) page 57.

“The things they used to do instinctively, now required the most conscious supervision and revealed how ignorant of anatomy and the locomotor muscles they were”, pages 58-59.

“I was learning how to walk.   But it was very difficult”, page 60.

“External plasticity is based on our inner sense of movement and energy”, page 71.

Overview:

Chapter 5 is Tortsov teaching his class fluidity in movement.  He has them take ballet lessons and acrobatics as some of their postures are wrong.  It is a continuation of chapter 4 but develops from being physically ‘correct’ statically but to in movement as well.  He inspects the way they walk.  None are correct.  Briefly, the correct way to walk is to swing your leg forwards, adjust its alignment with the knee, place the foot on the ground heel first and transfer the weight all the way down the foot until you are balancing on your big toe.  There should be a brief moment of floating before the other leg repeats this process.  He was also teaching them to move their arms, spine and legs fluidly.  He set a metronome on the slowest setting and every quarter beat; he moved a different part of his arm.  Elbow up first, then straighten the arm, raise the wrist and then the fingers and back down.  The students then did it and he broke down the counts so they had to do each part in smaller parts until the arm was moving fluidly.

Chapter 6

Key Quotes:

“Extra gestures are the equivalent of trash, dirt, spots”, page 73

“Every actor should so harness his gestures that he will always be in control of them and not they of him”, page 73

“An excessive use of gestures dilutes a part as water does goo wine”, page 74.

Overview:

Chapter 6 is all about restraint and control.  Tortsov tells the class about a conductor of an orchestra who with delicate touches of the baton drew out everything possible out of the instruments and the souls of the musicians as apposed to wafting his arms around which doesn’t have the same affect.  He also told of an art teacher who when he looked at a students piece of work, he saw nothing, it didn’t ‘speak’ to him so he took a paint brush and dabbed a tiny bit of paint on a blank piece of the canvas.  Suddenly, it came alive.  “Art begins with the slightest of touches”, he said.  This can also be applied with drama, music and dance.

Mar 15th: Drama

On 15^th March, we worked on our pieces of Theatre in Education further, whether it was going over a scene or blocking the next one or improvising.  Frankie had the script on her hard drive but unfortunately, it wouldn’t print out so we decided to do a bit of improvising to see if we could get any fresh ideas.  We had established that it was going to be based on the story of Little Red Riding Hood as Frankie and I found a politically correct version online and thought maybe we could do a parody of it as it included quite a few references to gender and sexism.  We decided that Olly and I were going to be the quarrelling narrators sat at the front reading the story as Frankie and Jack acted it out behind us.  We then thought, what if Olly was rather clumsy and said quite a few sexist remarks as we read, not realising what he was doing and the scene would change behind us as we discussed what actually happened next.  For example, Olly says “Little Red was skipping through the woods...” to which I intercept and say “No she was just walking normally!”  As this happens, Frankie changes what she does as we narrate it so she starts off skipping as Olly suggests then once I’ve said she walks, she does so.  Miss Woffinden then suggested that maybe we were re-writing the story of Little Red so we could change it as much as we like.  I really like this suggestion but we didn’t have enough time to put it into action as we had to perform what we had worked on in the lesson to the rest of the group.  Imogen asked me to take notes of the feedback she received so she could use it so I did so.  Miss Woffinden said Imogen’s group was “well written using other peoples work.  The language is a bit adult for Year 8’s.  Ask about the skeleton in the workshop and address misconceptions”.  I also took notes for Seb’s group as Miss Woffinden said that “You’ve given space for the audience to think.  Explain why you’ve chosen the freeze frames and the dialogue”.  The feedback we receives for our groups piece was “Maybe Olly’s character should not realise he’s being politically incorrect-more clumsy (as in the first draft Olly was intentionally sexist).  Make the wolf’s comment more obvious.  Set the theme of rewriting or directing a new version”. 

What was meant by the comment “Make the wolf’s comment more obvious” was Jack, (the wolf) was supposed to say something really sexist such as “A little girl shouldn’t be wondering the forest alone as girls are so week and feeble compared to the manliness strength of us boys”, but it didn’t come across in the piece as it wasn’t as melodramatic as it needed to be.  This quote is very significant as this is the cue for me to get up from my place narrating and become the joker saying something along the lines of “Now that is not on, I wouldn’t let anybody talk to me like that would you?  Now does anybody want to come up here and show us what he should have said or how Red Riding Hood should respond?” leading us into a piece of forum theatre.  It is important that Jack’s comment is obviously inappropriate and wrong so the pupils pick up on it without any prompting.  Looking at my research of the knowledge the Year 8 pupils already have on sexism and gender equality, I don’t think this will be much of a problem as they have a basic understanding already.  

Year 8 Interviews

I interviewed a few year 8 pupils (who are our target audience) to see what they thought about gender equality and sexism and what it was so we knew their level of understanding.  This would make it easier to know what information to put into our piece as we don’t want it too simple and for them to not learn anything but we don’t want it too complicated to they don’t understand.  Thomas Kirwin said that he thought someone being sexist was “When a boy says a girl can’t do a certain thing or vice versa”, Aiden Hackney stated that he though that someone was being sexist “When you tell women to get in the kitchen”.  Samuel Kitchen had a similar response as he stated “When you say women are bad drivers”.  The girls I asked took a different view on it and thought mainly about situations in school such as Natalie Sterland who said that “Teachers saying ‘you can’t do that, you’re a girl’”, and Ellie Taylor and Gaby Haywood both said to me that “Miss Walters favours girls over boys”.  Ellie also said that some teachers are “Punishing boys more than girls”, and Gaby even went as far to say that “Boys are always sexist”.

From these responses, I have found that girls generally only think about situations that affect them personally such as in school wheras the boys thought more generally.  In my opinions, all of the responses were to an extent stereotypical but this is not a bad thing as I have now determined that the year 8’s have a general and basic understanding of gender equality so we can now work on the content of our script.

Seb's Song

Imogen posted a link on Facebook to a YouTube video of Seb singing an original song he wrote himself.  To support him, I've subscribed to his channel and added him as a friend.  I REALLY like his song, the guitar playing is just so good as well! I like the little tune he did on it, it's catchy and I think it would be nice if it could be in cooperated into his groups song for or TIE piece.