Entry 8 (24.05.2022) FINAL WEEK!
The final week! I started working on Tuesday and spent the morning writing up the previous week. I then had my best go at ironing the fabric, this was incredibly challenging due to the sheer size of the fabric. My plan of action had been to fold it in half and iron it bit by bit and move the part id ironed onto a flat surface in order to avoid it crumpling on the floor. Then to iron our the middle fold I folded the two sides inwards and tried to use the same technique, this was a lot harder as the fabric was longer in width folded this way. If I am to attempt ironing a 12ft piece of fabric again I think I will definitely have someone to help me, as in hindsight its definitely a two man job. I then rolled this around a tube to avoid further creases, there are some I can avoid, I had to fold it once as I didn't have a 6ft tube but I folded it length ways and rolled it onto my tube. After I did this, I worked on the poster and program further and got most of the inside of the program done, minus the small synopses for each stage but I did add the cover to the document to print tomorrow as I had finished the poster.
Due to Bluebells poster designer telling us she didn't have time to make our poster we had to do it ourselves. To make this I found a screenshot from the parts we had recorded the other day, and sent it to the group chat to get their input on what they thought of the photo, they both liked the image but Bluebell replied with an edited version of the screenshot which was the inverse of a shadow that we also thought was quite cool. I made a draft poster on each of the screenshots so that we could decide between the two. I thought a cursive writing looked quite tasteful on the poster so we decided to use the font 'Snell Roundhand'. We wanted all the information on the poster, such as; place, time, date and who created and performed in the show.
In this slider you can see the process of going from the raw image to the draft posters to the final one, and variations on word placement.
I will print these in college tomorrow, as I have plenty of unused printer credit.
In the future, it would be good to have a backup plan for the creation of the poster just incase this happens again, so that we don't have to rush the creation a couple days before the show.
On Wednesday, we mastered songs, continued written work and printed out & distributed our posters and stuck our programs together.
In the morning we went to the IT suite and Dan continued & finished mastering our final songs, whilst he was doing this Bluebell and I were finishing the programs. We didn't have much to do but we wrote the synopses for each stage and then printed them 20 out. We then printed out the posters and the programs and cut them all to size. I then did some written work, research and updated my weekly diary from last week. Bluebell and I then searched college for two pritt sticks to start gluing the programs together, we went to art and to our tutors office but between the two we only found one glue stick. So in the end I glued all the sheets together into booklets, which on my own took a long time.
This is the result of the program being put together. We had a little booklet with the poster for the show as the cover and each stage pithing with a small paragraph about what each stage is like and how it may make you feel and at the end some links and numbers you could call if you were struggling with grief.
We put the posters up around college on different cork-boards to advertise our show to people in college, we also sent the digital versions to friends to see fi they wanted to come and watch the show.
On Thursday, our show day, we spent the morning rehearsing to final track, remaking props and sound checking. We used room 117, one of the musical theatre classrooms to rehearse our show with the screen. We collected all our materials and started to put up the screen. However, this is when we found out that one of our props (the grave), had been ripped apart and wasn't in a salvageable condition. This meant that Bluebell and I had to find some cardboard and go back down to the art department to quickly remake another whilst Dan put up the screen.
After we had made another grave as quickly as we could we went back up to room 117 where we rehearsed the show over with all the props and screen. After we had got through the show around 2 times along with creating the new props we got called in to do our soundcheck.
Our soundcheck ended up being more of a dress rehearsal as Dan Fox (the theatre technician) wanted to set up the screen. We set the screen up with him as we had before with two PA stands with the fabric clamped to the top.
He then let us know that he had not had time to create the original frame for the screen made out of plywood, so had suggested hanging the
screen from the rig above the stage. So instead of rehearsing after the sound check we were stapling the fabric to a long wooden plank which for the show we tied rope to and hung from the rig.
Not long after that it was show time, we had a short break for the audience who had seen the previous acts whilst we set up our screen.
To put the screen up we moved the screen stapled to wood into the theatre and Dan Fox got a scissor lift which he used to get up to the rig and tie the rope to, once the screen was unwrapped and up we taped the bottom of the screen to the floor using gaffer tape to keep the screen taut.
Then the audience came back in and we did our final show, which made most of the audience very emotional as they all came up to us after and said thank you and donated which ended with us raising a total of £43 which we will donate tomorrow. In terms of how I felt my performance in the show went I was fairly happy with it. There was a few mistakes, notably in the Bargaining scene I started trying to put the broken heart back together before I had looked upwards in the synth-guitar section. In the moment, when I did realise I had made a mistake and gotten ahead of myself I panicked, but I realised the audience does not know the script, I improvised until the section where I looked upwards. I improvised by hyperventilating which I thought paired with the failed repair of the heart created an image that I was upset about the broken heart, and to an audience could look intentional. During my project I did a research paper on Micheal Chekhov, a theatre practitioner, I studied his "five guiding principles". Whilst learning about his method of acting I learnt that emotions and feelings within can be shown in a physical way, as the body and mind are connected. I used this throughout the show along with another principle, “the most potent means of expression are intangible” this principle explains how the best acting is the acting that creates an atmosphere that the audience can feel. I think a great example of us using this principle is during the last two scenes, and how they intertwine. In the depression scene the atmosphere we create by the set design and repetitive movements signifies the character is stuck in this state. When the deceased character stands behind the character grieving reaching out, as if they want to help, is left with no response or reaction from the grieving character it shows that even the comfort of denying the person is dead could rectify the sadness they are feeling. I believe by then carrying the same set into the final scene, Acceptance, highlights the change when the stage is cleared, I think the technique of making the onstage character pick up all the bottles and symbols of money & peace etc created the atmosphere of pure acceptance, 'what will be, be'. As well as using the psycho-physical methods of Chekhov's practice, the correlation between music and acting creates an even bigger atmosphere, music can provoke emotions and so can theatre but the use of them together can create the exact atmosphere or provoke the emotion a writer / performer intends. In our project we really wanted to play with the use of music in theatre, and try and create atmospheres that provoke feelings and I think we did this very successfully. We also recorded the whole show which you can watch on the homepage of this website!
On Friday, we spent most of the day writing up the reflection diary for this week to get on top of it so this weekend I can focus on writing the evaluation for the deadline next Tuesday. I also got asked by my peer Brandan to perform in his show so at 12.30 I went to the theatre and did a dress rehearsal for that and watched the rest of his show. Brandan's show started at 3pm so until 2.30 I continued writing my diary and donated the money we raised to Cruse Bereavement Care.
Overall my final week has gone very well, although we did have some setbacks, like the screen construction changing last minute and our prop getting destroyed. We worked efficiently as a team and didn't let the changes and setbacks demotivate us. Im very happy with how the show turned out, visually it was exactly how wed hoped and although there were a few mistakes in the acting I believe it didn't come across obviously. In the future some more long term planning at the beginning of the project would've helped us avoid making these mistakes as the rehearsal period wouldn't have been so rushed.
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