Tuesday 2nd February

Today we looked at the actual space for our performence and started to set how we would perform it. We decided that Spec's prompting chair would be behind the audience so it would be like the audience seating would be set out like they are about to perform the play. We then looked at levels with today's run-through. We looked how we could not all be in one place and make sure we are on a variety of levels to make sure that the audience would keep their attention for longer. We also decided that we would have our own chair aswell that would stay stationary as they wouldn't be able to as it would be too dangerous as it could be used as a weapon.

Monday 1st February

Today we looked through the script and started to develop each of our characters past. This is will help us to create a character if we actually know what they have done to end up in this prison. I feel like that what we said about Specs could be correct but I'm not sure that he is faking everything. I feel like the fact he has always been bullied for his stammer, this would then cause him to have psycopathic thoughts. Even if he is faking they way he acts, it would be hard to actually potray this as he is always around eveyone else and always acts shy and gets bullied. I feel like that he is genuilly like this and isn't faking this and the fact that other people like George bully him makes the situation that he is in even worse. Spec's will have to be sympathised with the audience and will be hard for the audience to understand him with little stage time but it is possible if I do act it right so the audience can fully understand him as he is a confusing character especially as he doesn't have much of a backstory and doesn't have any hints to what he did unlike the other characters.

Character profile

Specs

Real name: Unknown
Age: 16-20
Specs could be one of two things, he could generally have a stammer and be quiet, not looked after and in some cases bullied by others or he could be actually putting things on pretending to be. I personally think that he is very clever but I think he is being honest. My group discussed the possibility of him not being actually being bullied and alone but I think that he is actually like this and isn't hiding behind this and is planning to break out. I think he does actually have a stammer and I think he probably the worse offender of the group and has done the most horrific crime but you don't get any hints of this because he is the worst offender. It also may be the case that because he is the first one in this prison out of everyone in the play, he could be the only one who knows what he did and hasn't actually told anyone what he has done because he doesn't really speak much and maybe doesn't get a chance to.

Thursday 28th January

Today we looked at how we would have our audience for the play. We thought about having it in in the round but then thought that it wouldn't be good to have people with their back the audience at times. I felt that it also meant that it became unrealistic as we were going to have a circular stage in which wouldn't be the case in which this play is set as they wouldn't have circular rooms. We decided that we would instead have our audience in a square with no seats at the back. We then did a run through of the play focusing on where the audience are now sitting

26th January 2016

Today I was cast in Specs in handbag for our unit of contempary theatre. I like the character of specs but will be challenging as he doesn't have many lines. There is also just one scene so will be hard to keep hold of the audience's attention. Also it's set in a plain room meaning that it's hard to make it visually good to watch as well. I think that Specs is the one person who could possibly be the smartest but is the most ignored/bullied person in  there which will mean that I will have to make him come across as sympathetic. Specs also multi-roles by playing everyone in a scene of the play meaning a range of voices for both male and female

Rent week 11

Today we cleared up the numbers that we felt like needed work. We all pitched in on each others songs and I think that it improved a lot of songs with our ideas. I felt that everyone's characters were much more obvious in the songs and they felt more confident. I think this was an extremely productive and impotent rehearsal week which I think should be done for all shows.

Devising Evaluation

Group Work
Getting things done
I found that as a group we worked well together once we had started putting a scene or a movement piece together. I feel like that we struggled to start because I feel like that we liked to discuss what we are going to do. If we were going to do another devising piece, I feel like we need to be more active and just get up and try something and if it doesn't work scrap it and try something else. But once we started, because we had a similar idea of the piece we wanted to create, we got things done quickly. We may of been able to maybe to try another scene if we were more active as we had the same idea but wasted time discussing ideas rather than trying them. I did like the fact that we did workshop a lot of ideas like the different staging to make sure we did it the best possible way we could do it. It was also difficult to devise when we did have members of our group away but now looking back at this I felt like we were relying on there being a full group which isn't always guaranteed and ended up wasting time because of this.

Research
I feel like that we did good research and made each piece very realistic to how each problem of the aspect of women's rights was presented. I feel like because we also used quotes that were used in real life, it improved our dialogue compared to previous devised pieces. Also, because we used a lot of realistic events, it made it more believable and audience could relate to each scene as they would of heard of each of our problems as they are very well known. I think it helped that we looked into each of our scenes into more detail out of lesson and then coming in to see how we could then incorporate this into our piece.

Group arguments
I felt like the group as a whole took offence to when either their idea was rejected or when something wasn't done their way. I feel like in devising pieces, there are always going to be arguments on people preferring other ideas but I felt like some people sometimes gave off an angry tone and this lead to people being offended leading to bigger arguments. I feel like this was unintentional and was thinking of the devising piece and wanted to be good but I feel like this could of prevented a lot of falling outs and gave us more time to work on the actual piece. Because of this, a lot of people got fed up of what could come across as moaning and retaliated (including me) which just made the argument worse. I feel like next time, things should be said in a calm and controlled voice to prevent this fro  happening.

Performance
I think that the performance went very well. I think acting wise, everybody knew what they were doing and nobody went wrong or confused anybody else. I think that we were very prepared and ready for the performance. The technical problem we had was that the speaker turned itself off meaning the audio for the clip for Emily being hit by the horse, the audio the video for "In the jungle" and the music for the signs weren't played. This did make it a bit awkward but I don't think many of audience members noticed this and I think the group did well to improvise this.