Small scale theatre presentation

My script for the presentation:

--Film of presentation--

https://youtu.be/Lhfgu5rFYQY

In evaluation, I feel my pitch was delivered well and made sure I included key points of how I came to my total income, specification on exactly what it will be spent on, and how the 30% investment will go towards future shows.

17th dec - rach

Today we focused on production roles. For props, I now have created a fully detailed props list, may items of which we already have but I included anyway for when we make a props table. In the table, I included the act that the prop is used in, which character(s) use it, how many we need/have, the location it is used e.g Mark & Roger's flat, and any additional notes.

3rd dec - rach

Today we did a Rent rehearsal, running the songs that we were performing at Durrington High School this afternoon

Adaptations we have made to suit the performance at Durrington:

• Performance space: As the area we are using in the school is much smaller than our space, and there's going to be audience in there aswell surrounding us, we've had to change things to suit it. Seasons Of Love was also adapted as we all change to face the audience head on in a clump formation, rather than a long line facing opposite ways
• Length of songs: We cut down Light My Candle
•  Costume: We decided to wear all black
• Transitions: We had to create transitions between each song such as the moving of the chairs for Santa Fe

What do you want them to understand of the performance?

• Understand the relationships and mood of scenes: In example, Take Me Or Leave Me portrays anger and break up, Light My Candle portrays flirtatiousness, the start of a romance, Santa Fe portrays the dreamy phase and Will I portrays the sadness and the state of giving up

AFTER PERFORMANCE

I feel very pleased with my performance at Durrington. All the songs went particularly well and I managed to belt the high notes that I have been struggling with in 'Take Me Or Leave Me'. I also maintained good facial expressions as most directions I stood facing had an audience there (semi circle of audience surrounding us), so I had to always be aware of my body characterisation. I think I get an adrenaline rush and risk it more when I am performing in front of people I don't know, rather than in front of everyone in class. This has given me much more confidence in believing I can polish my vocals for the song and perform this on the show day without much fear. Santa Fe I felt was a bit rocky, I think it needed more power and stronger movement.

The pupils understood the contrast of moods in each scene, however as many of them had not seen Rent before it was difficult for them to grasp the contexts. But when we explained to them all the topics in the production they then quickly linked that up to the scenes so now understood why the mood was like that. 

10th dec - rach

Today we began to go through the list of scenes that take place in Mark and Roger's flat. When we got to Rent, we tested our ideas about the focus on the characters, and it worked well. I found it will also help the audience to hear clearly what I'm saying because I'm speaking at a normal volume, so the manic movement of running and jumping and shuffling of the gangs may have muffled my dialogue a bit. The Collins idea also worked out well. although he wasn't exact centre stage he wasn't right at the back out of sight.

We also went over Happy New Year B and Finale A as my character is involved in both those scenes, covering all the blocking.

Me and Sophie also did movement for 'Take Me Or Leave Me' with the help of Liam. We did an exercise similar to when me and Bryleah learned 'We're Okay', where we find a new direction to walk to each time. Because Maureen sings to me and tries to make me pay attention to her, everytime she approaches me I walk off in a different direction, making sure I use every area of the space. It's also effective as it shows my frustration and eagerness to escape her 'nonsense'. We then meet in the centre shortly before my verse starts, where we created the action of Sophie lowering to her knees in front of me, to which I reject her at "Kiss pookie" by pushing her head away. When we both start singing together from "That's it", we face each other keeping eye contact and walk around continuously in a circle. This is where Maureen has met her match, with this style of movement similar to two wild animals facing off, preparing to fight. At then end, we finish closely face to face, and as we say our last lines we exit opposite side of the stage. This concludes the relationship status after a long battle. Our movement is now all sorted for this scene, and I'm feeling much more confident about it.

8th dec - worthing high

Today we went to Worthing High School to perform the selection of songs from 'Rent'. This time I was off-cast so Bryleah performed as Joanne.

Adaptations we have made to suit the performance at Worthing:

• Performance space: As the area we are using in the school is much smaller than our space, and the audience will be lined up on one side rather than all around which is what our audience will be like, we've had to change things to suit it. We changed Will I by performing it in a slight semi circle facing the crowd. Seasons Of Love was also adapted as we all change to face the audience head on in a clump formation, rather than a long line facing opposite ways as there was no audience on the other side.
• Length of songs: We cut down Light My Candle
•  Costume: We decided to wear all black
• Transitions: We had to create transitions between each song such as the moving of the chairs for Santa Fe

What do you want them to understand of the performance?

• Understand the relationships and mood of scenes: In example, Take Me Or Leave Me portrays anger and break up, Light My Candle portrays flirtatiousness, the start of a romance, Santa Fe portrays the dreamy phase and Will I portrays the sadness and the state of giving up

AFTER PERFORMANCE

I feel the ensembles went much better than our Durrington performance, maybe because we had more space and didn't feel so closed in. Our timing for Santa Fe and the energy was much better and Will I also stayed in time and didn't go off key. Take Me Or Leave Me was great and Bryleah delivered a great performance playing Joanne. In One Song Glory, James had captivated the audience and had very convincing expressions and emotions in his performance. The audience's response was similar to Durrington's, they understood the moods but weren't sure on the actual themes. 

4th dec - rach

Today we made a list of all the scenes that take place in Mark and Roger's flat. We then chose two scenes that we were going to look at and think about movement ideas ad other suggestions on how to improve that scene. I focused on Life Support and Rent (Rent with Izzy)

For Rent, me and Izzy thought about the individual solos within the songs such as Joanne, Benny/Betty etc. and how they should be more significant, as at the moment everyone is still running around in the space while the characters are performing their solo. I suggested that everyone in the space could freeze in their current position when Joanne's solo or Benny/Betty's solo is happening. This way, the audience will direct their attention to those characters, as they are positioned in the corners which would make it more difficult to be focused on if everyone continued moving. For Collins' solo, however, the rhythm/beat underneath his dialogue is more pacier and sounds like there should be movement still going on. We thought if Collins was positioned in centre stage performing his solo rather than at the back, with everyone still rushing around the outside of him, it would be effective because he would at least be centre stage, and the contrast of him being stationary and everyone panicking around the outside and going fast will highlight that character for standing out.

For Life support, I thought about Gina's solo where she starts off stubborn and gradually shows vulnerability. She could possibly stand up and disassociate herself from the group, by walking into the space maybe centre stage. Roger, who joins in on her solo could be looking out the window. This could show an interesting connection between the two, as they are both feeling lost and worthless. When everyone joins in for the chorus, they could all stand up too and join Gina by standing around and next to her in moral support, to show she belongs.

Small scale theatre budget form research

Research to estimating costs/income:

Ticket/programme sales: For these, I estimated around 70% of tickets are sold each performance, as well as programmes sold

https://www.kickstarter.com/ - For information on crowdfunding, I researched this website and explored projects focusing on theatre productions. 

https://www,Josef-weinberger.com/ - For information on the costs of licensing the production so you are able to perform it, I researched this site which I was able to find the royalty fee = 15% of total ticket sales

www.helloprint.co.uk/flyers‎ - I was able to find a good pricing with this site for my flyer printing

http://www.programmeprinting.co.uk/collections/programme-printing/products/a4-booklet-printing - On this site I found a pricing for printing the programmes a4 size

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/discover-more/welcome-to-the-national-theatre/about-the-national-theatre/finance-and-funding - Using he National Theatre as a base, I estimated a grant I would receive from the Arts Council England which would represent 15% of the total income.

Venues/technicians/equipment/staff - As stated in a previous blog, I rang each company and gathered info on the rental prices of the venues, and any additional hiring including lighting/sound technicians, front of house staff etc.

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/props-hire-store - For pricing of possible props needed, I found that the National Theatre company rent out various props from a large collection to productions which includes amateur organisations, at reasonable costs according to the reviews

Costumes - I estimated the pricing at arround  £200 as the clothing will be part self-supplied by the performers, and part supplied from small businesses or charity shops. This is because the style of clothing is fairly easy to get a hold of a a small price, unlike period plays etc.

Makeup - This was at £0 as the performers will do their own makeup, as once again it is fairly basic everyday look