Mask Work Evaluation

Describe your working progress i.e. Who came up with the ideas? How did you develop them for the performance? etc.  What worked? What could have been better?

As the first performance of the mask work was considered to short to evaluate and be given a mark, the majority of the groups, as requested by Sharron, had to extend the mask performances they had done.  This was an excellent opportunity for myself as I had missed the original development and performance and could be graded on this.  I managed to find myself a group, the members being:

Sharney

H'angela

Tutu

Conor

Keylehr {myself}

Apart from myself, Conor wasn't an original member of this group and we was very grateful to have been allowed to be added into the performance. 

Sharney had explained to me that the previous development of their mask performance revolved around improvisation and see what would work best and what worked and didn't.  The masks we used were called Trestle masks which gives the performer the freedom to explore and bring a character to life based on what trestle mask they chose. 

Sharney's group developed a performance with a setting in the park, they incorporated the technique of 'Kings Cross' and added props to allow the audience to have some awareness that where the characters were, were of a playful setting.  Initially, they had wanted the scene to be an office of some  sort and they were all colleagues but felt it was too cliché.  Thus they stuck with the playground but felt that it was too short and wondered what they could've done to extend the performance.

Given the opportunity to work with the the Trestle masks and be able to develop an idea and perform, the group wanted a new idea and instead of being improvised, that there would be a clear, structured performance and we all knew what we was doing.  As we all are aware, Conor really wanted to add a dark element to the piece and make it mystical but Sharney and I agreed that with the time given, and the ideas he was adding into the piece, he was making it too complicated and feared it would disengage the audience if it was too sinister and wouldn't be able to find a solid ending with the ideas he kept adding in.  

We all liked Conor's idea of adding a cartoonish element, when one of the characters encounters someone who becomes their reflection then comes to the realisation that the other person is in fact another person and not their reflection at all.  From there we were able to extend and add onto the piece and have a basic element of what it would be about. 

H'angela's mask

Tutu's mask

Conor's mask (mischievous)

Sharney's mask (goofy)

My mask (timid)

The plot of the piece was:

1st Scene:
H'angela and Tutu wearing the Twin mask, came in back to back, bump into one another and jump to face one another and do a series of movements as if they are reflecting one another then I come in wearing the timid mask and look between the two and slowly poke the two which makes all of us jump and run away.  

2nd Scene:
I come back on to the stage with an umbrella dancing, and while dancing I indicate that it's going to rain and put up the umbrella, Sharney comes in with a goofy mask and engages with the audience that she's going to take the umbrella for herself and tries to intimidate me but as she is goofy, I thought it would be a good idea for her to add more goofiness to her character by the way she walks and tries to hit me. She fails to do so and in my escape I poke her eye and she runs off after me in the other direction that I have gone.  

3rd Scene:
I come back on stage as the music changes to a scary song and I timidly walk in and behind me unknowingly, Conor comes in with the mischievous mask and that mask has a characteristic of becoming so mischievous that it comes across as malicious if embodied correctly. There is an alteration between Timid and Mischievous and I show that he is killing me behind the umbrella using my feet as if I'm getting electrocuted.  
Goofy comes back on stage and pokes me stupidly thinking I'm asleep but I am forgotten when he sees the umbrella. He picks it up and happily dances with it but Mischievous on stage seeing him tries to fight him with Goofy successfully taking the umbrella and escaping Mischievous by being unable to open the umbrella and turning around and knocking Mischievous out as he charges at him.

 
4th Scene:
All the while, the Twins come on stage looking for me, finding me dead, they pull me off and go in search of Mischievous.  
Goofy comes back on stage and joins in with taking revenge on Mischievous and kills him behind the umbrella, taking his jacket showing that he has been skinned and they dance around to the remixed version of 'Little Einstein's'.


As a whole the piece began to come together through everyone's co-operation and ideas. H'angela added music into the piece which I felt made the piece more exciting and edgy. She had added the trademark Pink Panthers song to the beginning of the piece when her and Tutu came in back to back and played out the reflections copying one another. She had added the music of something scary during the 3rd scene showing the audience that I was walking through a scary place and was the climax of the show. Then when victory was added she added an upbeat song of 'Little Einstein's' to which they danced around to. Having the music helped a lot as I felt it helped with our cues and how long the piece was, but unfortunately we had technical difficulties and wasn't able to play on the speakers when performing to our audience so instead had to play it on the phone which wasn't loud enough so we really had to focus on cue timing etc. We was really upset by this but the show must go on. 

Another thing that worked, though isn't good all the time, is working under pressure. The time frame we had to re-do our pieces especially for those that had to go into new groups etc made me think more and helped me think creatively and without knowing we had a simple but effective, enjoyable piece to perform to an audience. After we had developed the piece, I realised that the focus of the story was the umbrella and it would've been a great idea to have added the umbrella from the first scene. H'angela and Tutu could've dropped it in fright and I could've picked it up and the audience would've seen and known that the primary element to the piece was the umbrella itself and that's what it was revolved around. When that revelation to me while watching off stage, it would've been nice to have realised it during the rehearsals but other than that it was good none the less to have come up with that in that time frame.  

Conor wanted to add more things into the piece to make it more mystical and dark but we felt that we had, had enough of that especially that 4/5 of us had worked in Arts Company and wanted to do something more light. To be fair I added what I felt was more convenient and less stressful for us to perform. I felt that the ideas I was inputting wasn't being listened to and Conor had wanted to hypnotise Goofy when they both were on stage but I felt it was being dragged on and he also wanted there to be a death. We all agreed that it was being made complicated and with the time frame we had, we couldn't make it that, we needed to find a clear way to show an ending and that not everything had to be dark. To be fair I added Conor wanting a death to the piece but that's about as far as I would go. Everyone seemed to be fine with me inputting my ideas and going along with it and I was open to anyone else's ideas. Based on what they wanted and how they was receptive to each individuals idea, I listened and incorporated everyones ideas into the piece, taking into consideration how everyone reacted to the ideas as a group. It was really enjoyable being able to help develop the piece and with more time it would've been more suitable to add more of Conor's ideas into it. 

What have you learnt about working with masks?

I have learnt about the many uses of masks in performance, the origins, the different types of masks and the materials they can be made from. I have also learnt acting techniques that apply to mask work. I have also learnt how much the face is used and needed within acting as there is much emphasis on facial expressions and when given a mask, it's like a sense has been taken away, but your other senses are heightened, so the body is used to connect with the mask and elaborate the masks emotions. It is a wonderful technique to acquire to be able to artistically and creatively perform to an audience, drawing attention to the actors ability to communicate emotions, character and a story. It allows the actor to act more fully. Without speech and facial expressions which is solely relied on, we forget to use our body, so to convey a story to the audience, a heightened use of our body is used and encouraged to act more fully utilising the body as an acting tool. 

Using the Trestle Mask was really different but similar compared to using the plain masks I wore as a minion in our own company in Arts Company. The similarities between wearing the masks was having a more heightened sense in physicality, showing the audience and engaging their awareness to what my character was, creating more emphasis on what I was doing and my objectives. I couldn't speak either and had to focus on my physicality to make sure that it was emphasised.  
The differences between the masks was that the Trestle mask did have one emotion upon the face whilst the mask I used as a minion you could decorate with whatever but it was plain so I had to put more thought into idiosyncrasis of a minion and how they would act to show the audience I was evil. Whilst the Trestle mask already had a character on the face, all I had to do was automatically connect with the mask to create my character which would engage my body to act how that character would depending on the Trestle Mask used. The masks already are expressive so you don't really have to over exaggerate the body, subtleness works just as well. 

Name the basic techniques?

When wearing Trestle Masks there are a few rules that one must do:
• You are forbidden to speak behind the masks
• Masks are not to be taken off stage facing the audience
• You are to face away when the mask is on and off
• Make sure you don't turn your back to the audience
• Always wear the mask before you go on stage
• Move and act like the expression on your mask

Finally...How will this help you as an actor?

Performance with masks will help me as an actor, by extending my experience and technique of mime, remembering my body is a tool for acting and I muse be connected from head to toe naturally as we use our bodies to speak with silently to convey how we are feeling and incorporate it when we speak. It will help develop a naturalistic side to my acting, to not be afraid to 'be me' when performing. On the other side it develops my awareness of an exaggerated depiction of reality, because without voice and a mask used to replace your face, your 'sense' is heightened within your tools as an actor to present theatrical reality. 

Tuesday 27th January 2015 - Thursday 29th January 2015

Thanks to Jade, we went to Eastlea's Community School to present our devised show on Tuesday 27th January 2015 at 8:30am.  

We was the only group to have gone to a school and perform. 

Abigail was the intended person to find a school and had done so, only to have had the school cancel on her.  Abigail then called me before going to Norway and told me that I was responsible in finding a school as she had been told by Sharron to inform me to do so.  She would email me the emails she sent to schools and all I had do was copy and paste the emails and send them to schools around Camden so we wouldn't have to travel far.
I was annoyed at someone putting their job on me when I had my own job and things going on in my personal life and had that shoved on my plate.  I felt that she had leeched her job onto me instead of asking me for help which I would've had no problem with.  I thought it would've made more sense to have gone to Jade about helping her find a school as Jade was intent and informed everyone that she wanted the performance to be done at her school and that she was emailing them on her own accord to find out if we could do the performance there.  After explaining to Jade what I had been told and if she was enquiring further about performing at her school, Jade was also annoyed but had no problem with emailing her school once again.
A few days afterwards, Abigail whilst in Norway, whatsapp'd me enquiring if I had found any schools and I should check my inbox.  When I had replied that I hadn't, she said the email for the secondary school has been sent, it's very simple, I can just google secondary schools in Camden and send them the email, then ended it with nevermind. 
I personally thought that it made no sense how she could email and whatsapp me from Norway and not do it herself if she stated how simple it was to do.
The next day I had messaged Abigail after hearing from Jade that we had a confirmed performance at Eastlea Community School.  I explained to her that I explained to Jade about the school incident and I thought she would've told Jade as she was looking for schools but I asked her if she could look into her school and we've got their permission to perform at her school on the 27th January at 8:30am which Abigail said was fine. 
I had, had a feeling that Abigail hadn't been told by Sharron that I had to do it which was confirmed when I asked Sharron about it.  I have no problem with helping anyone and would've rather had Abigail ask me for help rather than lie about it and put all the work on me with no consideration if I had a lot on my plate because she was going to be catching up on work while in Norway. 

On Tuesday we went to Eastlea to perform but there was tension within the group because of an incident that occurred the day before.  We was told to be there for 2pm, and Jade advised Abigail to be professional and set differences aside and get on with the work.  However as we went on the school journey, Jade began to get frustrated because she wanted to get there for1pm so we was prepared in our set up and can rehearse with the theatre space at the school.   

I've learnt to be organised and to plan ahead for the journey, to make sure that everyone has topped up on their oyster card as we had to wait for our fellow actors to make detours before we could finally set off for Eastlea. 

We had gotten there for in time to sign in and see the theatre space and ask for an extra prop to be used as we didn't have it.  We couldn't find Sharron so wasn't able to rehearse with the lights and sounds as planned so while performing there was early cues but we had to press on and just performed.  We used the audiences seating to our advantage by blending in with the audience to come out as our characters as minions which was very effective and scared the kids.  

They enjoyed the performance and our audience was 52 people not including adults so it was very difficult when it came to the workshop.  What we had done before at Westminster Kingsway with our workshop we had changed it entirely.  

Connor suggested that we split the group when the teacher said we had the drama classrooms available upon request but it seemed Jade had taken over and said no.  It was difficult for them to understand what they was supposed to do as some were talking or either was reluctant to do things.  We didn't take this in account because we had it really easy with our previous workshop candidates and we had a much smaller group. 

We couldn't do the name game, nor the ninja game and ended up changing the games so we could move on with the students presenting their interpretation of dreams and their own mini devised pieces.  We ended up doing the fruit salad where H'angela divided the participants by assigning them to fruits, which is normal, oranges, bananas, apple and pears but as there was so much of the students she added extra fruits, mango, strawberry, pineapple and made one person a grape.  Usually the game involves chairs beginning with one participant shouting out the name of one of the fruits, such as 'oranges', and all of the oranges must change places with one another.  There was too many students in the space so in lieu of the chairs, standing up was the way forward.  H'angela would shout out the fruits and the last person who reached the spot in another part of the circle, had to sit out, (replacing the norm of the person who is standing in the middle trying to take one of the participants places as they move, leaving another person in the middle without a chair, thus causing them to sit out) had to sit out .  A call of 'fruit salad' means that everyone has to change seats/places which H'angela had done but wasn't a good idea because that could've caused a serious injury with the amount of students running around each other to build back up the circle. 

After the fruit salad, we decided on to let the kids devise their own plays based on the theme of dreams/mental illness.  Again it was fascinating, amusing and entertaining to see how much they enjoyed making their own mini plays and performing it to us.  We then was able to have a Q&A with the students advising and being a crutch to them about if they was interested in doing drama and further education, explaining what we had to do and how we did our devising piece and how long it took and our personal experiences.  However it was hard to get a word in edgeways with Jade doing most of the talking, H'angela made sure she answered questions, because she felt Jade was being controlling but it ended up again as being Jade and H'angela.  All of us did manage to put in our input at some points but it was mainly Jade and H'angela talking.  

From the whole experience of performing at the school, it was a humbling experience and made me appreciate our work, everyone in our group, and what we had done to perform and get that far.  It was a form of nostalgia also to be in a school again and reminded me of the (few good) times I actually was at school and how we as kids was at that age and it's astonishing seeing the extent of how much you mature mentally in just a few years. I have learnt to believe in what you apply yourself to, especially when you're in a team-based environment, people are going to have different visions and ideas, bringing them together and learning to be dependant on one another is key because we can't do everything on our own even.  Another thing I have learnt is to allow people to have leadership, and if we're being in the environment of a company, we have to stick to our jobs and act accordingly which wasn't always done.  People always took it up on themselves to be in charge.  I personally believe that a good leader is subservient, open to each individual within their team, and accepting constructive criticism and is accepting to peoples ideas when it's brought forward.
As stated I wouldn't say I would never devise again, I enjoyed the journey, but it's not a journey I shall be looking to go on again anytime.

Monday 12th January 2015 - Thursday 15th January 2015

During the weekend, Elliott wrote up the script and emailed it to us so we could learn our lines for this week.
To appease both Jade and Elliott in regards to the debate they had last week of if there was to be a moral behind the show, Elliott added ways to help people suffering with mental illness at the end of the script for when we perform to our targeted audience. 

Our finalised synopsis of each scenes are:

Prologue:
Conor's monologue

Scene 1:
Minions tormenting Jade while she sleeps, as she screams, the minions run off showing a change to reality as her flatmates run in.  The audience can see that Jade has been suffering with these dreams frequently, disturbing and having an effect on not only Jade but everyone around her.  Justyna then invites Jade to the Café to help take her mind off everything going on

Scene 2:
Justyna and Abigail are having a discussion seemingly about coursework, Abigail is concerned about someone helping her with her essay, while Justyna's concern is on Jade being distracted by seeing the minions in the café.  Justyna tries to console Jade, but Jade runs off saying no-one can help her
On her way home, Jade is suffocated by the presence of the minions.

Scene 3:
Jade suddenly finds herself at home after the encounter with the minions, to divert her attention, she tries to watch T.V. but as she switches channels, she sees the minions on the screen, eventually they coax and torment her into joining them.  She breaks the T.V.

Scene 4:
Jade finds herself in a dark forest, the minions lashing out at her, Conor then comes along where they converse about how she got here, metaphorically speaking.  Conor is revealed to be part of her, a figment of her imagination, she is only there because she herself put herself there, only she can come out.
A dance scene played by the minions after Conor leaves plays out.
Jade is faced with Hangela who convinces her she is crazy, that everyone will judge her if she speaks about her problems etc and that the only option to end it all is as simple as just...well ending it all. 

Scene 5:
The scene shows Jade is talking to a counsellor obviously mid-way into the session as the counsellor tells her that's all she has time for and they will reschedule when Conor appears to her telling her she needs to wake up. 

Scene 6: 
Back in the flat, Abigail and Justyna stumble in on Jade asleep on the floor, next to the broken T.V set.  Enquiring about the T.V. and what's really going on with Jade, Hangela appears and tells Jade false thoughts on what her friends will think of her if she tries to talk.  Jade seems to be at the end of her tither, going crazy as she states she can't take this much longer, and that 'they' are a part of her.  With nothing much else they can do, Justyna and Abigail leave Jade alone, thus ultimately sealing her fate and making her decision known to the audience that Jade has made her choice in suffering.  The play ends with Jade holding the knife up and a blackout occurs signalling the end of the play.

Epilogue:
Each actor takes turn in stating facts and mental illness and how people can help and benefit others suffering or knowing someone if they are suffering themselves. 

After reading the script, I noted that scene 4 is to make the audience think - to relate this scene, Jade found a text that she would like to read out the children before we start the show or even afterwards. 

"A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience.  As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they'd be asked the "half empty or half full" question.  Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired: "How heavy is this glass of water?".  Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.  She replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter.  It depends on how long I hold it.  If I hold it for a minute, it's not a problem.  If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my arm.  If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed.  In each case, the weight of the glass doesn't change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."  She continued, "The stresses and worries in life are like that glass of water.  Think about them for a while and nothing happens.  Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt.  And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed – incapable of doing anything." It’s important to remember to let go of your stresses.  As early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down.  Don't carry them through the evening and into the night. Remember to put the glass down!"

On further individual research I came across a statement:

(Haruki Murakami said "Pain is inevitable.  Suffering is optional".)
When I came across this statement, to me it meant it starts with you.  If you want help it starts with you.  It's easier to find comfort in your suffering and suffer in silence but you can find release in your suffering by leaning on someone, we have to be dependent on others at times, although we might feel lonely, we are never alone.  The choice to be alone is solely down to ourselves.  We cannot force ourselves to get help; to open up ourselves.  That choice is also made by ourselves.  The audience can see that Jade did try to seek help, only in her dreams however, but the audience is left to their own completion of the play if Jade actually kills herself or doesn't.
Jade finding the text I feel will benefit a lot to adding a more educational aspect to the show and to also make the audience go away and think more.
It oozes Brechtian! (Thanks Rob)  

In more ways than one, Elliott has been able to show a moral to the show without being old-fashioned and stating "the moral of the story is...".

This week we began working on the progression of our devising projects by setting up our plays with the theatre.  This was beneficial as we are behaving as a professional company, as companies have to make sure that each performance that they showcase at venues, they know how to operate the lights/sounds or to work alongside the technicians of the theatre if they don't know the technical side.
As H'angela in charge of the lights/sounds/costumes, she had to present her written script with light and sound cues to the technicians at the theatre at Westminster Kingsway. 

Once that was sorted we was able to rehearse our play with the added benefit of lights, sounds and costumes, adding more affect to the play.  Personally I feel that without the effects of the lights and sounds and costumes, the play would be very amateurish. 

During rehearsals within the theatre, our group did have a lot of venting and complaining about people coming in at set times, the lights and cues, actors taking long to set up the stage in between scenes.  There was even an argument about the script and wanting to cut parts out. 

On Elliott's behalf, he did make it clear to email him back if there were spelling errors, lines that doesn't make sense and nothing is going to get changed (I assume with regards to the scenes) as we're going to have to soldier it on and it is late to change anything anyways.  He also explained that he scripted the play to be dramatic not comedic because he personally felt that 'our class has a horrible problem with making any piece we've ever done funny in some way and its annoying.' At the end of the play Elliott stated that there wasn't to be a fight at the end because he couldn't work it in and the physical violence would've been 'shit'.

H'angela brought up that she found what he emailed with the script very offensive and due to lack of comprehension or I feel she scanned the email quickly, she thought that Elliott was being insulting. 

As a writer, Elliott felt insulted himself when Jade said she wanted to cut certain parts out but he was lenient about it being too late and refusing to cut any part out. 

Being able to set up our devised plays in the theatre was an opportunity to see the rehearsals of the other devised pieces of the other groups while the rehearsed with sound and lights and costumes. 

The 'Peer Pressure' group was about a girl wanting to be accepted by her fellow peers joins a world of prostitution and fraud by involving herself with a 'sugar daddy' that gladly buys her things as long as he gets coitus in return despite her friends warnings about it.  I like the fact that there was simple suggestions that this was occurring within the play, and was used as an objective for the antagonist to fit in and gain luxuries.  I applauded the group that no acts were shown of it but they do need to be more clear that this is what the character was basically doing to fit in and not just focus that it was about fraud.  I feel that even themselves in a way was uncomfortable in addressing that it was in fact prostitution that the character was doing probably due to taking in account and being aware of our targeted audiences age group.  They need to be more assertive in their belief of their play and not be afraid to state what it is about because these things happen in real life.  The group stated that they wanted the play to be from the perspective of the antagonist going through it, allowing the audience to become aware of the pressure and make their own judgements and reflections of that character that has made the decisions to fit in allowing the audience to go away and make decisions on their own.  If they want that reaction from the audience then they had to be aware that there audience is smart enough to come to those conclusions so should have no worries in addressing to their audience that it involves prostitution because the audience will see that.  Another reason why they may not have registered it as prostitution because it is commonly known as being exchanged with money rather than material gain.  

The 'Freddy Story' was really interesting to watch and this group had taken from what we had did with the Donmar with Naomi.  While it was really effective with the use of techniques of showing Freddy's past with the use of freeze frame in the current scenes and smoke and dark lights to show upstage that a scene within a scene was happening, when it came to their performance and adding more to their scenes, it took the focus out of Freddy's story and seemed to be a little about Freddy's boyfriend in the beginning scene.  

When the other groups watched ours, they really enjoyed it however it was annoying for someone to comment on ours that we should've known our lines when we had just received our scripts over the weekend.  Our group was the only group to have done a script and stick to it, while the other groups did it from improvisation and sticking to the lines.  From observation, I noted that when we did it with the script, there was no confusion, no missing lines, no-one ad-libbing or trying to take someones moment, the scene ran from beginning to end smoothly.  The groups that had done it without the script, especially the Peer Pressure, there was people talking over one another and there was usually an extension to a scene the next time Freddy's Story went up to rehearse.  I like that our group worked from the ground up and I feel we could appreciate it more because it stemmed from our own ideas and not from something we had already done and then trying to make it our own. 

The feedback for our group from the others was that it was really good but Jade shouldn't stay on stage in between scenes because it makes it look amateurish which I relayed to the group and the audience are questioning why she still is there.  People also noted that they could see H'angela and Jade in the sense of it was their ideas that was used and that they had come up with the play rather than from Connors suggestion which I, myself had noted. 

Certain actors within our groups wouldn't go to Connor who was the director and would take it upon themselves to say how things should go etc.  When I had a suggestion I felt would greatly benefit us e.g. The beginning scene where the minions are to antagonise Jade while sleeping, I thought it would be more effective to move around on stage and not touch her and if possible one minion could stand over her and puppet her as Jade had wanted to after the heartbeat and when she screams, the minions then run off.  I presented this idea to Connor which then he would allow me to present to the group and we could try it out.  I had presented this idea to Connor last week which was relayed to the group but no-one had taken notice to it whatsoever and Jade then complained about it before we went to perform.  It was infuriating for me as this idea amongst others I felt weren't listened to.  I voiced this to Connor and Sharney who agreed with me because Connor felt he wasn't the director anymore; Jade was.  I decided on a professional opinion to keep the ideas to myself and when the others would argue I'd keep silent because I had no qualms with anything.  I felt more peaceful and wasn't aggravated as much because I felt I wasn't wasting my breath.  I also decided that if I did have an idea, I would present it to the people that were only involved as it was less fuss and easier to explain so they understood clearly without others interrupting. 

For our performance, I felt it was really good, and was glad to have finished it and everything was worth the hassle because the audience enjoyed it.  It was an enjoyable experience to also work with the audience and do our workshop with them and they said we had made it fun and it was really interesting to see their perception of dreams and how they constructed their own short devised pieces. 

As the education officer I told the others that I had no problem with each actor leading a part of the workshop if they wanted to.  However I was generally upset because on inspection I noted that our audience didn't know who we were and I felt once again my idea had been shut down when I pointed it out.  We had done a warm-up of Fee-Fi-Foe led by Jade as she knows it very well, then Ninja which was led by Elliott.  When I said that we should do a name game, they just began with saying it plainly in a circle but I interrupted and said let's make it fun to then have Jade say we only have a certain amount of time. The name game would only take 2 mins tops so I carried on however with my name game, stating that you had to step forward, do a movement and say your name and come back into the circle so the next person could go on.  I felt really upset afterwards and voiced this to Sharney who also felt that my ideas were shut down everytime I presented them. 

My own feedback in regards to this whole experience has been enjoyable but I felt I didn't enjoy it as much as I should've and I wouldn't say I wouldn't do devising ever again, but I won't be quick to do it again any time soon.  

After the performance and workshop had been done, Abigail, who is the Administrator in charge of finding schools for us to showcase our devised shows to, had found a school that we'd present our piece to a hundred students next week and requested that we keep learning our lines while she was in Norway to which we agreed to. 

Tuesday 6th January 2015 - Thursday 8th January 2015

On the first week back, Sharron briefed us on our school tour and devising shows.  We discussed and focused on our consideration of our target audience always keeping in mind that while devising we have to make sure that everything is age appropriate. 

We felt that the shows, although short, should be understanding and effective in getting the point across and having a general impact for the audience to think about.  

The use of language allowed seemed to come up and while some people agreed that it'd be ok to have strong language, I personally don't feel that strong language doesn't need to be used to get one's point across and if a word is unavailable to use one can always get a dictionary out to find a suitable word.  

I'd rather have a script that doesn't have foul language, I feel sometimes it's unnecessary, especially when it's overused.  I personally feel that you can have a good play without the swearing, or to emphasise that a character is serious/angry.  I suggested that the plays should be kept PG, which is essential for the peer pressure group as they have themes revolving around a sexual nature i.e. prostitution.  

As we are working from the ground up, and the project allows us to have a working environment and conditions of a professional company, we had to show our individualism by thinking of a name/slogan and allocating roles to people within the group.  

This is what we came up with:

Company Name: Arts Wonders
Slogan: Where your dreams crush your pleasured desires. 

Play: E'fil 

Synopsis:
Brought to a seemingly normal world, we are allowed to view the life of one girl whose life isn't as it seems.  Brought to a world of mystical wonders and delusion, this mysticals world aim is to torment her with the aid of minions set out to destroy their targets mind.  Torn between reality and dreams, she begins to see the two worlds collide and as she is brought to her knees, she is given the ultimatum to either seek help or the temptation to end it all. 

As part of the course curriculum at Westminster Kingsway, we were put into groups, creating a working environment of a professional company.  We were to devise, script, rehearse and perform a short theatrical piece, given a free choice on the subject and theme, to perform to 15-16 year olds. I was assigned to being an educational officer.  With the time frame of 20 mins, I had to build a workshop after the performance to involve and encourage the students, especially those that have taken an interest in acting.  The workshop was able to allow the students to approach us comfortably and more personally while still demonstrating a professional attitude, and allowing them to reflect their opinions on mental illness/dreams.
The workshop consisted of basic activities to vocally and physically warm up, an introductary game to know each others name, a concentration game and then give a performance on the basis of what they interpreted from our performance to see if we had delivered our objectives.  

Allocated Roles -
Director: Conor
Assistant Director: Jade
Stage Manager: Justyna
Writer: Elliott
Costume/Set/Light/Sound Designer: Hangela
Publicist: Sharney
Education Officer: Keylehr
Administrator: Abigail

As I am the education officer and had previously looked at workshop games to help with our group but was told that our workshop had to correlate with our themes that we based our devised piece on.  It was quite hard to find such workshop itinerary to work with, so I felt that as it is quite a dark theme, there should be a contrast in the workshop so that our audience isn't so oppressed by such a theme as they will be given the opportunity to talk about how they feel about dreams/mental illness.  I did some research on workshop games and I found a website that had useful workshop games and had step by step on how to carry them out.  I will be looking through it more closely to find ones I think will be useful for the workshop and relaying it back to the group. 

Link to Workshop:
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=sXO-VPHHL8vmaPy9glg&url=http://www.icaso.org/vaccines_toolkit/subpages/files/English/energiser_guide_eng.pdf&ved=0CB8QFjAB&usg=AFQjCNFWKowuSqAcNsx909VoHMp6ZQhcQw&sig2=D9BtM5mI81Rm1phnNTPdTA

As we now have our allocated roles, it is more easier to continue with progressing with our company/devised show further.  We are able to bring our characters to life more, we had initially agreed on E'fil's character to wear white to contrast her personality but the final agreement on costumes would be black excluding Jade.  I feel that in terms of costume, the black emphasises the denotation of evil, accentuating the themes of mental illness and dreams.  The costumes of black is simple yet holds a strong statement allowing us the added benefit to move comfortably especially being a minion as I have to move around on the floor and having a mask brings out the creepiness to the costume.  Hangela thought it would be good for the masks to be black but too much would've taken away the attention and the audience may not have been able to see.  Instead we got brown masks which was better because to the audience it would've looked like a floating, sullen face.  With the help of costumes and the sound already sorted, I feel that we are one step ahead as Hangela has been hell bent on perfecting the sound, making sure we're all ok with it and the timing.  

Although we are progressing, there are slight delays also.  Elliott joined our group and was told he was the writer but Elliott and I personally felt that the ideas Jade presented to the group was too complex for our targeted audience.  Jade thought that the audience would understand what was going on but I had to remind her that she may have been mature and philosophical in her thinking but not all children of that age are like that. 
One of Jade's ideas that the character losing her mind could see animals and wanted a forest scene and that we could ask the art department to make trees to add on the set design. 
I was worried that the ideas although good, was too much in the sense of our time frame we had to get this all done in, making more work for us, and that taking something as complex of a subject as big as mental illness/dreams could be drawn to a subject of confusion instead leaving the audience perplexed which we don't want.  She wanted it as abstract as possible, but I told her to be careful to not overdue the abstract because it's easy for the abstract for that to be initial focus, and the play to just become linear, taking away the wow factor from it and it would become dull.

There was much debate between Elliott and Jade's preference of if there was to be a moral behind the show.  I personally agreed with Elliott, I thought that there was too much focus on the play becoming abstract rather than how it would end and what the audience would get from it and genuinely enjoy it.  As Elliott is the writer, he will be writing alongside us as we rehearse the scenes, making sure each scenes flow well, and the dialogue fits.  

To help progress my group, I will be working on my lines as soon as I get them.  I will be trying to not be so anxious and quick to worry that the audience won't like the show because after feedback from the rest of our class, it was surprising to find that they enjoyed what we had to far and that it was interesting.  From the constructive feedback I will also make sure that I am invested in my character as a minion and that despite me having a mask, I will be in character from head to toe because it is easy for our characters to become comical which our practise audience (the rest of our class) did, and we was laughing at each other on stage so I will be becoming more serious in my role as a minion.  It's only beginning but I will try to keep positive as I know that there will be some personality clashes and disagreements in the coming days of us putting on the show in the Theatre as there has already been some minor disagreements here and there already.  Elliott said that he will be writing the script over the weekend so we should receive it hopefully before Monday.

Tuesday 23rd September 2014 - Thursday 25th September 2014

Thursday 25th September 2014

In the afternoon, Sharron had instructed us to get into groups of 6 people and each group would be in charge, taking turns to be a teacher co-ordinating exercises to warm up a class.

Andreia's group went first.  They instructed us to get into one single line and the person in front would start off a movement which would then be copied by the person behind them. Ideally the group was aiming for a domino affect when copying the movement but when they was explaining, the class was hectic and not listening very well to instruction and was looking at the person at the beginning of the line instead of the person at the front.
As our class is quite big, people did get quite impatient because it wasn't over until everyone had, had a turn and wanted to move onto the next exercise. 

 I thought the exercise was quite interesting and fun but began to get tedious to continue. It would be better with a smaller group rather than a large group such as ours.
This game is useful to involve everyone's contribution and they have to say yes.  As it was the first game and we had come back from lunch, it was good to have started off with this game first as it helped us prepare for the games to come and made us want to get involve with everything.

The next group was Grace's.  Their exercise was 'Cat and Mouse'.  Grace explained that everyone is to be in pairs and link up and spread about the room.  Two people, one cat, the other mouse, had to chase each other around the room and people and to avoid getting caught had to link someone at random.  The person they had linked stays while the other person that was already adjoined becomes the mouse and has to avoid the cat.  If the cat however catches you, the cat becomes the mouse resulting in the mouse becoming the cat.
This game was very fun to play, and everyone seemed to have enjoyed it, however the disadvantage to this game was that not everyone got a chance to be the mouse and just remained a link.  If we did go out to a school and did this, there probably would be favouritism and avoidance within the group.

The next group was Jade's group.  Their game was 'Zip, Zap, Boing'.  We all had to stand in a circle, and hold our hands together in a prayer form, to pass the zip around you had to turn your body to face the person either side you and say 'Zip'.  To reject the 'Zip' which resulted in the person turning back around and giving the 'Zip to the other person at their side you said 'Boing'.  If you wanted to send the 'Zip' to someone else anywhere in the circle other than at your side, then you sent a 'Zap'.  You can 'Boing' a 'Zap' and a 'Zip' but not a 'Boing'.  The aim of the game is to keep the 'Zip' going, failure to do so by a person cause the person to sit out making the circle smaller till there is only one winner left.

Danielle's group was Duck, Duck, Goose.  This is a traditional game and we was all very happy to play this game.  The aim of the game is to all sit in a circle, tapping on each person's head while saying 'duck' until one person is chosen by saying 'goose'.  When the 'Goose' is chosen, the person is to chase and catch the picker before they get to the 'Goose's seat'.  If successful,the 'Goose' gets to sit back down, however failure to catch the picker results in the 'Goose' becoming the new picker, thus continuing the game.  We made sure everyone had been chosen to show equality and fairness.

Overall the class was very hectic and people weren't listening when they should've been.  I feel we need to improve on our listening skills and learning to respect one another when talking.  Despite this, we do come up with great ideas, and do get the work done, but would get more done if we all respected each other while someone is talking.

We then moved onto working on the Tomorrow Project (see Donmar Blog).

Tuesday 16th September 2014 - Thursday 18th September 2014

Tuesday 16th September

In today's lesson we started off with warming 

up, beginning with doing facial and vocal warm ups then moving onto physical warm ups.

For facial and vocal warm up we hummed and said tongue twisters and then began to walking around the space and getting into small groups and getting in a line and copying each others movements. 

The warm ups helped us to neutralise our energies and focus on the task ahead. 

We sat in a circle and discussed what would make us watch theatre, what we would want to see.

suggestions -
Sharney said understanding so the audience has clarity and isn't confused and get lost with what is going on in the performance, she wanted to be able to understand what's going on. Interesting, eye catching, relateable and natural.
 Francis said it has to have an air of professionalism and seriousness.  If the audience sees your serious they will be serious too.
Kurtis said that the play has to have climatic but have a comedic side so it's not heavily tense to keep the audiences attention. 

We thought of a stimulus of what we can show to students who are doing GCSE's in school so the age performance would be for 15-16 years.  Sharney suggested 'Still I Rise' by Maya Angelou because she felt that it was a poem that gives a message about social awareness and a right to stand up for yourself.

Afterwards we had to come up with topics to create a devised piece around to be able to appropriately show a GCSE class (ages 15-16). 

We had:

• Individualism

• Mental health

• Bullying

• Peer pressure

Sharron then asked us who chose which subject and we split into groups.  As I didn't pick a subject, and saw that it was just Conor and Kurtis doing Mental Health, I decided to join them not only because of the lack of people but I could relate to that subject in multiple ways.  We came together and discussed an idea around the subject to develop our own piece which we would then present to the rest of the class to evaluate.

Conor had previously done this issue at GCSE level and as we was in a group used it as an advantage to elaborate on the subject. Discussing his idea, Kurtis and I agreed strongly on the idea as we felt that Mental Health has a wide spectrum to explore from normal everyday people living with depression or autism to mentally ill people and it creates not only an awareness of sympathy and understanding to an audience but to empathise with the audience if they can relate that people care and understand and if you need help there is someone who is willing to help.  As actors also presenting the piece it is very informative for us as we can explore the subject, go into depth and develop a further understanding of the subject to relay to an audience. 

Conor gave a suggestion how to set the stimulus, afterwards we acted out inputing how to set the scene, giving ideas to gradually mould it.

For our first scene Conor came up with the idea that a mental patient goes to see her doctor in a mental institution but has an episode that causes her to be restrained and calmed down.  I was the mental patient, Conor was the doctor and Kurtis was the security guard/carer. 

The scene began with me at a table organising the items on the table and getting myself a glass of water as it is a obvious routine that my character does muttering myself "order...everything has to be in order".  Max (Kurtis) comes to get me but I refuse to move and get frustrated at being interrupted and lose my place which causes me to self-harm by hitting myself.  To calm me down Max reassures me that the Doctor will have my rubber glove which comforts me which calms me down and I go with him.  I go to see the Doctor (Conor) who discusses an outburst I have that happens off stage so Conor creates the scene for the audience by explaining the situation which causes me to react and start hitting myself and shouting which causes me to be ushered off stage by Max.

I really enjoyed my character and my scene, I thought there would be difficulty in creating a character with an extreme case of mental health but I really connected with the character and was able to stay in character despite there being giggles while the audience watched.  

Our Feedback was that it was really good and we kept our focus and the intensity of the scene stayed on our hand and not the audiences when they giggled; we didn't play on it.  

Kurtis played his character really well, he wasn't seen for a long period and didn't speak much but he committed to his role really well and in the words of Stanislavsky, there are no small parts, only small actors.  All roles are important and be performed well which Kurtis did.

To improve on the scene, I feel we just need to extend the scene now and develop ideas on how to develop it even further, keeping in mind the age group. 

It was interesting to watch the other groups, in particular the peer pressure group stuck out for me as it was interesting how they developed their stimulus. They didn't focus on just one peer pressure, they did a wide specturm of it and the way they presented it was like an advert. However it was over comedic in the sense that while it was intersting to watch, it did at times forget that it was a serious matter

Watching the Individualism confused me because I was unsure of what was going on and I felt it was dragged out.

Thursday 18th September

In todays lesson we went straight into work and carried on with the work we did on Tuesday. 

We added an extra scene to what we had previously done, we decided to show little playlets of each character branching from the mental patient, showing the intimacy and care between the carer and the mental patient, freezing and transforming into the next scene which was the carer and his wife's marital problem stemming from her jealousy erupting from him bringing home the picture Max and the mental patient created to calm her down, the next scene showed the Doctors life showing that the Doctor had in fact a problem also stemming from the loss of his wife and his emotional attachment and incapability to the patients so would drink which affected his relationship with his kids. 

Feeback was that we had to watch our language and remember the age group we was performing so intead of saying "crazy is the best pussy", I could divert the conversation that the wife is feeling neglected. There were mixed reviews with who I was at the beginning of the scene with Connor. Some people could see that I was the daughter but a mature one, others thought I was the wife again.

So to make it better more thought has to go into the characters so there is a clarity of who is who so the audience doesn't get confused.

Tuesday 9th September 2014 - Thursday 11th September 2014

Tuesday 9th September 2014

Sharron began the session with a warm up of us walking around in the room, commanding us to constantly change direction, this caused us to keep focused on ourselves and become neutral.
As it was our first day back, Sharron then instructed us to get into pairs, and explain to our partners what we did over the summer holiday.  I paired up with Jade who summed up to me that her summer was boring which I then asked her to explain more in depth exactly what happened for it to be boring.
She then proceeded to tell me that for the first part of her summer holidays she was hanging out with friends, not really doing much until the last 2 weeks of the summer holidays where she went to Turkey with her Dad's side of the family which she thought was a big mistake as none of them wanted to explore or have fun, all they wanted to do is sit by the pool and sunbathe and there were a lot of German tourists who kept trying to converse to her in German and kept having to tell them she wasn't German.
After Sharron had checked each partner had recounted their summer to their partner, we was instructed to then join another pair where our partner would recount their partners story to the other pair and it would continue until the whole group had heard everyone's summers.  Once that was done, we then had to devise a piece based on our summers.  The short play could either be a recount of one person's summer or we had the option of combining everyone's summers to make a bigger piece.

As it was the first day my group, (Jade, Sharney, Andreia and myself) didn't seem to be as enthusiastic to try and devise a piece based on our summers.  After a lack of determination and deliberation on what we was going to create, I suggested after much indecision (on whose summer we would recreate if we chose to pick one person's summer) to just combine parts of our summers together.

For the first scene, we chose not doing anything interesting, just contemplating what to do which three out of four of us had in common when we heard one another's summers.  The second scene incorporated Jades' summer where she went to Turkey, we showed this by moving from lazing about to relaxing in a straight line as if we was sunbathing.  The third scene was Andreas summer of her mom opening up her cafe then the last scene was my summer where I had my birthday.
We thought it best to just let the scenes flow into one another as best as we could to keep our devising play going.

For our feedback we could've been more energetic which we knew it lacked already because of our thoughts on the task beforehand which affected our performance.  We needed to work on our transitioning into the next scene and use the space a bit more which is a con with combining a piece that incorporates different aspects rather than one persons story.

We then devised a short story with different characters.
Sharron described a scene of a town, afterwards she asked us to pick a character we thought would be in the town and to play a day in the life of our character.  I picked a dressmaker who owned a shop.  I brought my character to life by envisioning myself using a spinning wheel, a treadle wheel to be more specific which is powered by the spinners foot, making thread, putting it onto shelves to sell, using the thread I yarned to stitch clothes to sell eventually when completed.  Afterwards Sharron asked us to freeze and went around the room asking everyone what character they was.
Sharron picked a police office, lady of the night, fisherman and a preacher. 
She then asked us to stand in two lines facing a partner opposite you and both pairs had to act out the characters.  So one line would play the police officer while the other line played the lady of the night and we'd walk to the middle of the room and interact with our partner opposite as the character. 

We then related each character with personalities:
• Priest: Humble, Wise, Social
• Fisherman: Physically strong, Old, Determined
• Officer: Proud, Brave, Confident
• Lady Of The Night: Vulgar, seductive, Sensual

Afterwards we got into pairs of four and had to come up with a scene using the characters that was chosen and then we performed it to the 1st Years. 
Our groups scenario was that the lady of the night was the policemans wife who doesn't know she is the lady of the night.  She sleeps with the fisherman, while the policeman voices his concerns about his wife to the preacher.  Each character proceeds to confess their sins to the preacher thus building up a story to the preacher that pieces together when the conclusion of the story is when the Lady of the Night finally confesses that she enjoys sleeping with other men.

Thursday 11th September 2014

We began with physical warm ups and tongue twisters to warm up our bodies and voice. We then carried on with the stimulus that was created on Tuesday.  We all sat in a circle and looked at a poem by Dylan Thomas called "From Under Milk Wood" where after reading it I realised that's where Sharron got her characters from.
We all read the poem but with difficulty as people weren't listening to instructions so we had a few tries until we finally completed it and could move on with the next task.  When reading the poem, at each comma the person reading would stop and the next person would read until the next comma and so forth.  Once the whole was finally read, we split into groups and split the poem and had to act it out. 

My group was Kurtis, Sharney, Samuel and Elliott and we got the beginning paragraph of the poem. We developed our piece by picking parts we wanted to read out and adding physical elements to the piece to personify the poem thus creating a deeper atmosphere of the poem.
Afterwards we combined our movement with the poem with the other groups which created a bigger piece.  What our group lacked in, with our usage of space another group made up for it.  Overall the piece was very dynamic and creative and it was extraordinary to notice that regardless of separating and doing our own thing with our groups when it was all combined it flowed really well with one another.