Charlotte Meek

Day of performance: Schedule and dress rehearsal

Charlotte Meek

I created a tight schedule for the day of the performance so that time would be used wisely and the actors would be able to get the most out of the day.

  • 9.am get in
  • Tech first thing – cast in studio 1 doing a line run and going over any scenes
  • 12.pm lunch
  • 1.pm cue to cue run with lights and sound 
  • 4.pm dress rehearsal 
  • 5.30pm Break for dinner
  • 6.30pm all cast in costume for warm up on stage
  • 7.pm cast talk, last preparations
  • 7.20pm all cast members on stage for audience entering
  • 7.30pm show time.

During the dress rehearsal i sat as an audience member and made notes on any last minute technical requirements and positioning and volume issues. It was also important that these notes noticed the successful performances from the actors.

DRESS REHEARSAL NOTES:

  • Lovely first speech Jessica Dyer
  • Jess Crosby you were not in the spotlight (stand on marked spot)
  • Julia first verbatim – great
  • Volume in general could be a bit louder
  • Nice enterence police
  • Phone sound for Jess Crosby needs to come in sooner
  • Nice speech Leanne
  • Commit to take over the speech with Rob, Leanne you are in charge
  • Wait until you sit down to speak Rob, you are going back to the previous scene
  • Get rid of the throw on the sofa, it is too slow to put on
  • Julia you could get up earlier to make sure you build enough tension to throw the chair
  • Jess Crosby where are your earphones?
  • Nice monologue Jess Clubbe
  • Make sure everyone’s head is up for the verbatim – get eye contact with the audience
  • Leanne good voice
  • Chelsey much better in the gang scenes and with Shanice
  • Really nice stood verbatim Jess Dyer
  • Leanne please wait before coming on – let Rob read the paper for a while
  • Have the fight lights been moved? they could do with panning out even more
  • Really nice in the fight Julia
  • Quieter to walk on in blackouts everyone
  • ‘Divvy up’ scene is great
  • Nice interrogation Jess Dyer
  • Rob you are not in the light when you say ‘shit’
  • Rebecca’s last verbatim very good

At this stage of the process, as expected, most of the notes are positive and notes to work on are just positioning and volume.

At 6.30 i conducted a cast warm-up, this was important to get the energy and concentration levels up for the performance. This warm up was planned in advance to ensure the warm- up was concise and timed correctly.

Firstly i told the actors to walk around the space, think about their breathing and what they were going to be doing on stage. I told the actors to think about a line that they say in the play, they started off by saying the line in their head, they then whispered the line getting louder and louder filling the space with noise. The actors then stood on opposite ends of the room and recited the lines from a scene. This made them project their voices to the actor they were addressing as they were on other sides of the theatre. Both of these activities made the actors think about the volume needed in the performance.

The cast then formed a circle, i decided that we would play a fun game to get the energy levels up. Wink murder is a game which can be played with all age ranges and is a fun way to get the actors heart rate up.

To make sure that the concentration levels of the actors were addressed i decided to play a quick rhythm number game.

Finally each member of the cast found their own space around the stage, they closed their eyes. I spoke about remembering personal props, about the meaning of our performance to an audience. I felt that this ensured that the actors were well prepared for the performance ahead, which turned out to be a great success..

Role of the director – rehearsal notes

Charlotte Meek

The role of the director is a very important one, the director is responsible for the vision of the play and putting together the play as a whole. In WAKEUP theatre i was given the role of the director which meant that i had the responsibility to work closely with the team to decide the type of play we wanted to put on, how we were going to stage it and portray my vision for the piece onto the stage.

‘Typical activities include:

  • programming and budgeting;
  • working with writers through workshops or script development schemes;
  • adapting a script and, if the play is newly written, working with the writer or collaborating with playwrights;
  • breaking down a script, analyzing and exploring the content and conducting relevant research;
  • translating and interpreting a script or musical score;
  • conducting auditions for productions, selecting and hiring designers, musicians, etc.;
  • managing time and organizing people and space;
  • attending production meetings with set designers;
  • conducting rehearsals;
  • communicating and liaising with all parties involved, including actors, the creative team, the production team and producers;
  • attending preview performances and preparing detailed notes for the cast and creative and production teams;
  • helping to publicise the production by giving interviews and leading discussions.’ (AGCAS 2011)

 

I felt that as the company director i must come to every rehearsal with dated notes and an agenda to ensure that rehearsal time was used efficiently, an example of these notes are as follows:

130,000 – 10/5/13

– Yesterday was great to see scenes really come together
– Well done on lines, the majority were much better
– Please keep going over lines
– Marketing, do we have flyers out yet? Ticket sales are at 27, what could we do to boost sales?
– Today i want to go over all group scenes, make them much bigger.
– I want to work on transitions, moving set (who will move what)
– We will go over each scene as follows: Line run, then action, notes, repeat
– Performance is in 10 days!! Commitment and energy is key!

Before every rehearsal notes were given about what we were going to do and address any issues that may have come to the surface before rehearsals begin.

 

Works Cited:

AGCAS 2011, Online: http://www.prospects.ac.uk/theatre_director_job_description.htm, Accessed: 20/05/2013.

 

Kidulthood – characterisation influence

Charlotte Meek

In order to give the actors an insight into the energy, commitment and characterization needed in particular scenes i decided to show them clips from the film Kidulthood. This film shows much resemblance to our script, with similar themes and scenes throughout. I thought showing the cast examples would help them really understand the needed relationships and tension which needed to be built in various scenes.

I picked this scene to help the character of Emile and Dwayne:

Although not all of this scene is relevant, i felt that the points which could be taken from this scene were the following:
– The volume of the actors in the scene, they really are able to project their voices in order to give off tension and almost compete with each other. At some points the volume dropped in order to add tension between the characters when they are in close proximity which i thought could work well on stage.
– The attitude of the characters are something which is worth noting in this scene, also the relationship between the characters could be used in all scenes through 130,000. In particular the relationship between the couple in this scene could be used to help the relationship between Emile and Shanice. You can see in this scene, as in our play, that the characters care very much about their appearance and how they look in the eyes of one another (gang culture). This is a very significant theme in our play and something which should be noted.
– When the character pulls out a knife on ‘Sam’ in this scene you can feel the tension between the two characters, the way the character holds the knife out from his body with a straight arm shows that he has the power in this scene, whereas the character ‘Sam’ stands up right, clearly nervous to see the knife. I really like this imagery between the two characters.

Another scene i thought would be helpful was any scene which had clear representations of teenagers and gang culture which i thought would help with the dynamics of scenes where many characters are on stage. Many scenes in Kidulthood demonstrate tension which can arise at any point between the gang members.

 

Channel 4 – Fallout

Channel 4 have made a version of the film fallout which our play is based on, this was very helpful to show the cast characterization and group dynamics. Although, i did not want to show the cast too much of the play as our style of theatre would present the play in a very different way. There were some scenes, however, which i felt could be useful to show.

 

Works Cited :

Eaton, George 2013. Kidulthood – Ending Scene [Video online] Avalible at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EqUY65nOIQ [Accessed 13/05/2013]

 

 

 

Staging 130,000 supports Brecht’s alienation effect

Charlotte Meek

stage

As part of the process it was my responsibility to decide the type of staging which would best fit the style of our performance.  I decided that the stage should be flat so that the actors would be able to break the fourth wall and become on the same level as the audience, making the action much more relateable and real. If the staging was raised it would suggest the audience to be onlookers of the action, but as a company we wanted the audience to really involved in the action.

To some extent the staging and style of the performance supports Brecht’s alienation effect, ‘Brecht’s use of the stage as a platform to confront ethical issues’ (Barranger 2006, p.122). This is similar to the effect that WAKEUP theatre are trying to create, we are using the stage to bring the audiences attention to the current effects of knife crime in the UK.  The actor audience proximity enables the audience to feel close to the action thus being able to see costume changes and actors at the box, eliminating a theatrical illusion. ‘ He or she should recognize the work behind the theatrical illusion of reality’ (Barranger 2006, p.122). The play becomes a reflection of reality  rather that a theatrical experience the audience can sit back and watch, it forces the audience to think about the action happening.

In terms of the actors in the play, although the verbatim in the play has much emotion attached to it, i wanted the actors to not act the verbatim in the play but simply act as a vehicle to portray the words said by the people involved. This way it would become less about who was saying it and how, but more about what was being said. This supports Brecht’s alienation effect, for the actor the effect states:

 ‘The actor must separate him or herself from the role so that he or she may clarify an attitude towards the character. The actor quotes the role to the spectator instead of living it.’ (Butler 1991, p.67)

Although this staging suits our performance very well, we did encounter some early problems when working this way. Where the seats had been brought to the same level as the stage, when the actors walked on it, it made a lot of noise making it sometimes very distracting and hard to hear what the actors were saying. When having meetings with the technical team it came to my attention that there was no other way of achieving the same effect, if the noise was too much of a problem we would have to raise the stage creating an onlooker effect. I felt that this compromise was much too big and would destroy the effect we were trying to create. Therefore, i told the actors that we were going to have to deal with the noise, i directed the piece with this noise in mind so that not a lot of movement was happening when intense scenes were performed. The actors also had to increase their volume during busy scenes.

Works Cited:

Barranger, Milly S. 2006, Theatre a way of seeing. Thomas Wadsworth

Butler, Jeremy 1991, Image and Performance in Film and Television. Wayne State University Press

Working Progress

Charlotte Meek

On the 18th March we had the opportunity to show the other groups in our class and our tutor a 10-15 minute snip it of our performance that we had been working on. I felt that this was a great opportunity to show the work we had done, but also would be an opportunity to get an honest response to our work. As our performance genre was quite a risk this would be a good chance to get an audience response. I suggested to the cast that we work from the beginning so that the class would be able to gain some context to our work, rather than showing small scenes from throughout the play. I also stated that this would be the way the scenes would be blocked in the future, in chronological order.

We were able to show 3 short scenes from our performance and got notes to work on, these were as follows:

  • Ronnie’s stabbing witnessing was not clear, which was probably down to the use of space
  • How important is light in this performance?
  • The cafe would be successful if it was lit by a window light
  • Leanne has a good face when sat down
  • CCTV scene could be done smartly, using visual elements/pace
  • Leanne needs to work on her tone of voice and deliver the speech to Rob
  • The behavior at the box is not quite clear, its slightly awkward
  • Rebecca’s voice needs to be more natural at the sofa
  • The space in the middle is overused
  • Areas can be transformed more, rather than using the space in the middle

From these notes we were able to address such problems as the action from the box and the use of space early on in the process.