UAL Assignment 3 - Production & Performance Skills, Prep for Specialist Study (Year 1, 2024)
Task 1
FOR PRODUCTION DIARIES SEE POST: https://siennasactingexperience.blogspot.com/2024/01/my-production-journey-production.html
LINK TO THE DESIGN ELEMENT: https://stocktoncollege-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/r/personal/02300122_stockton_ac_uk/Documents/Task%203%20-%20UAL%20Assignment.pptx?d=w116bfdb69a2d4c7491f96a1f07201bd9&csf=1&web=1&e=b4uuEc
As well as this, i also helped with the design by painting some of the chairs white in our black box room with my class mate Beth. The reason we needed to paint the chairs white is because our set is meant to be simple but be a distored 2d reality for Dana, so everything other than the characters were black and white. We also put some black marker on some of the chairs to further push this.
I also helped Hayley who is a mean girl with me label and put lines around the pink makeup props that we use. This was used in the actual performance as i carried them in my bag on stage and we used them in our scenes so it was very useful.
Task 3 - Creating your characters world:
FOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT SEE POST: https://siennasactingexperience.blogspot.com/2024/02/character-development.html
As well as thinking about this character development sheet, to get myself into my character more and more often, the girls in our group (mean girls) decided we would create a tiktok account. By doing this we made videos where we are in role as if we were making tiktoks and vlogs and get ready with me's as our character. I posted things such as doing interviews around the college, general tiktoks where i look nice and in role, a get ready with me for college and a daily vlog of college as if i was in detention and yoga class.
THE LINK TO THE TIKTOK PROFILE: https://www.tiktok.com/@goldengirls.src?_t=8lJkLzSLMP2&_r=1
Task 4 - The National Theatre
The National Theatre is a performing arts venue located in London and is one of the biggest theatre companies in the world. Their aim for them is to make theatre for everyone. They do many different things and there is a lot of history connecting to them.
One of the many things that they do is they try make their performances accessable to as many different people as they can. They care a lot about their audiences. At london south bank, they offer around 250,000 tickets for under £20 every year, even decreasing for student and children prices. They are apart of an access scheme which means they reach all the requirements someone would need and they even put on many assisted performances including BSL, audio described and relaxed performances. For accessibility also they make sure they tour their productions as pre-pandemic stats state that 50% of their audience was outside of London, therefore they like to move the productions around to make it more accessable. The most recent example would be "The Ocean at the end of the Lane" which toured over 26 towns and cities over the Uk. They also tour to schools to ensure that children and people in education get a chance to watch theatre. They also work with over 100 theatres in the country and are in partnership with 13 different ones. This network is all about strengthening the community and priortizing theatre for the long term in those different places. This is great as it allows a great range of shows to be seen by areas which arent very connected with theatre, the partnership network will reach over 500,000 audiences in the next 3 years. For people who cannot afford to travel / the tickets to go see it live or are unable for any circumstances they have a "National Theatre Live" which broadcasts the productions to people all over the world, the number currently stands at 11 million people watching. They are paired with over 700 cinemas in the UK alone as well as pairing with other countries. This shows their range of accessability to a great extent, which is one of the many reasons they are great.
This is just one of the many things they do in detail, they also work with around 2,500 creative freelancers a year and try help with new creativity and actors, being very free and diverse with their casting choices and offer apprentiships to upcoming artists. They also work in depth with young people which will be talked about in more detail.
As for the history of the National Theatre it is very complicated. The national theatre was an idea created by a London publisher called Effingham Wilson in 1848 but it wouldn't be built and open to the public until 1976. To start the renovations of the building, a playwriter called Harley Granville-Barker with a critic William Archer created a blueprint called " Schemes & Estimates for a National Theatre" in 1902 and it had everything in it which was needed to create the theatre from company size, wages to seat prices and capacity. It was a great plan however it was brought to a pause until 1930 because of the world war. By 1937 the money for the theatre was finally found but again the project was paused because of the second world war. Finally, in 1949 parliament finally granted a £1 million bill to the creation of the national theatre, in which the site got moved many times but was finally in construction. After being opened, it had many different important people help run it and keep it active and progressing. Some of these people include: Laurence Oliver, Peter Hall, Richard Eyre, Trevor Nunn and Nicholas Hytner.
Every year, the National Theatre do a project called "connections" which is a nationwide youth theatre festival. It is used to demonstrate the talent of young people across the country. They have been running this project for 30 years and it is all about making young people connect with their talent and their theatre. Schools, voluntary organisations and youth theatre groups are all able to participate, no advanced level of acting skill is needed, you could do no acting and still enter as it is open to everyone with no judgement. It costs £500 to participate and from there it is funded by the National Theatre and their fundraising team. Some of the fundraisers include: The Mohn Westlake Foundation, The EBM Charitable Trust, Buffini Chao Foundation and many many more. The reason why this project is so popular is because it ignites creativity for the next generation of actors and allows people to see their talent, it unites communities nationwide as there is no location limits and anyone from any background can participate and many more reasons. There are many plays in the connections projects, many that are new and unseen before and they come with a self care guide provided by the national theatre to support exploring the text and making the experience easier. Connections is open to people ages 13 - 19 but up to 26 for people with additional needs, meaning it is for youth theatre but also understands and meets any extra requirements for accesibility reasons which is really good. They partner up with many different theatres around the country (this year 33 theatres are being used) and it gives the youth who are participating a chance to perform in a high quality, professional venue as well as the home one which is an amazing experience for the people involved. As mentioned before, there is a fee of £500 but for that money the national provides: access to all the plays and the choice of what one to do, a weekend of skills workshops, time with the writer, a chance to perform up to 5 times at home theatre and a further time at a partner theatre, feedback from a connections mentor to improve and support from the connections team throughout the year. This is all amazing as it is a great opportunity to work with the National and understand how it works for that price. Usually, every year the plays are about humanity and to tell a story about different experiences around the world. It is meant to be a challenge to young people to put themselves into a position that someone in the world is going through and tell their story themselves. Connections is very accessibility friendly, allowing all parts to be played by deaf and disabled performers, aswell as all ethnicities, genders and encourage you to still participate even if you dont think your group meets the requirements. The whole purpose of connections is to showcase the talent of the country, as stated on the national theatre website - "We look for clarity, audibility, story-telling, conviction, and energy in the cast and pace. We like to see productions that have observed and realised the writer’s intentions for the play, as the NT Festival is also a showcase for the plays themselves. We are also interested in how groups respond to feedback from the Connections Mentor Director when transferring their play to the Partner Theatre Festival." It is an amazing experience and i would recommend participating.
All information from : https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/about-us/
Task 5 - Performance
The performance at the home theatre went really well! I participated as a mean girl in the performance and we got our feedback from the National Theatre worker and it was really good! Mostly everything in my opinion was positive, she could tell we had went in depth with our characters and even quoted something that i said to her, which was great! However, she said we could improve on our diction and falling off on volume at the end of sentences and to take some moments in longer, which we will definitely do for the York performance! Bring on York!
Performance at York theatre royal currently completed.
Task 6 - Evaluation of your work
Overall, i really enjoyed this project as it was something new and i loved to delve into my character in more detail. The context of the play was that a girl had selective mutism and gained her confidence and found her voice throughout the play, it was all about everyone being connected together even if they are very different. The overall objective of the performance as a whole was to spread awareness about selective mutism / neurodiversity and the differences in people. Not everyone is the same and everyone has something they are suffering with so just live life without the fear of judgement and we should all be connected together, not judge for the differences. It was meant to make the audience feel connected with everyone and especially Dana, and happy that everyone was accepting the differences in people. I think we managed as a whole ensemble to deliver this amazingly as the difference as the play went on with people showed a lot, the characters changing or just being comfortable around everyone else is shown and gives this idea of connection and acceptance, especially in our end scene where we are all hugging at graduation. This one scene definitely hits the content and audience because everyone is connected as one as mentioned in Dana's speech and happy, it was a nice moment to bring the whole piece together. As an individual character of a "cool girl" my characters objective was to be mean to anyone who was classed as different and bringing it down to the acceptance at the end. My character was meant to make the audience feel a bit angry or upset because of how i was treating Dana but also some comedic effect for certain parts. I believe i hit this criteria very well as i could hear the audience laughing in scenes that i was performing in but also silent when my character was being mean to Dana. I also believe i did well because the difference in my character at the start and end was visibly shown, from laughing at Viv to hugging him. I think as an ensemble, we emotionally engaged the audience really well. This is because even when i was not on stage i could hear the audience laughing at the Freak and Geeks (their objective and emotions was to portray neurodiversity and also comedic effect) and listening intentively when Dana was giving her speeches which was important because her feelings were a mix of anxiety, sadness and longing, it was her internal monologue. I also believe this because as the actors ensemble, we were all so emotionally engaged in what was happening and in our own minds that we reflected that to the audience, especially when we were all listening to Dana as we all were either so proud of Dana or disappointed in how we had been treating her. We made them laugh, sad and happy as a rollercoaster of emotions throughout the play. As an individual i also believe i engaged them really well, as my characters emotions were stable throughout to the end of mainly disgust and thinking i was better than everyone else and hatred. I believe i showed this well using my facial expression and body language as i was always pulling faces or frowning unless i was with the other girls and even then i was still like that. I also stood or sat tall with good posture and a hand out looking at my nails, almost showing disinterest. I believe i communicated my aim well because of this and i was told by audience members that the "cool girls" were their favourite, meaning it must have been portrayed well. I also believe i showed the change at the end well because there was a noticable difference in this at the end, as i relax my body and face and just listen to Dana, showing sympothy at the end. On the other hand, i do believe i could have improved the emotional connection in the bathroom scene with the girls as i wasn't fully in the character because me as an actor felt awkward in the scene as i was struggling to grab things out the bag and i don't speak so i had to find something to do on stage, i worry that this awkwardness was portrayed in the first bathroom scene, but i was fine for the second one. As an ensemble, i believe we did an okay job with the vocal part of the performance but it definitely had room for improvement. The way things were said with tone and pitch definitely portrayed the characters well for their individuals and groups, for example the cool girls being high pitched and giggly, cool boys being loud and the freak and geeks being more reserved. This was portrayed really well and everyone kept to what they should have been. As for articulation, volume and pacing i think as a whole we definitely need to slightly improve on this before the next performance at York Theatre Royal because our volume fell off towards the end of our sentences so some of it was lost which is a key improvement. We also need to make sure we pronounce everything with proper articulation and try lose the teeside accent whilst performing - i don't think there were many issues with this but it's always great to keep working on. And as for pace, we could have taken moments more in and dragged out more to really make it have an impact, especially if it was for comedic effect. These improvements are from what i noticed but also what was given to us by the National Theatre Reviewer so it is very important we work on it. As for me as an individual, i was a non speaking part but i think i did a good job of keeping the parts where i laugh with good volume and the parts of miming or whispering to a minimum. I could drag out the howl in the bathroom part longer as it is a funny moment gone fast. As for physically and movement i believe as an ensemble this was one of our strongest parts. We all were physically in the moment throughout the entire piece, praised for always walking on and off in character and not losing it because the focus isnt on us all at once. I also believe everyone portrayed how they were feeling through their body language throughout and as they were either closed off, overly confident or showing charge and it all blended together amazingly. I also believe the way all the different groups interacted with eachother physically was shown incredibly, a main example would be the cool girls picking on the freaks and geeks as the body lnaguage was open and showing their confidence however their facial expression and hand gestures suggested they were disgusted in them or not interested or mocking them at a constant. Our blocking as a whole and use of the space was great, a few things went wrong however with people running into set or falling in the wings, other than this it was great and all blocking went as planned. One of my favourite things we did as an ensemble was definitely the movement especially of set. We used physical theatre and movement to over dramatisize the set movement, making it look more fancy and spinning them around and it was such a great, creative twist on the set movement and a type of theatre i hadn't used before this play. I think this communicated to the audience we had really thought about everything in depth which is perfect. As an individual i think i used this really well as my phsycially told the story that i didn't like many people as i was very self reserved and didn't want anyone other than the other girls around me which was great for the play. I think on certain times i could have done my blocking a bit better as i got myself hidden a few times behind people taller than me but overall i had not that many issues. My interaction with the other girls was good as it showed that we liked each other but clearly with who i stayed with more and my body language and movement you could tell there was a bit of hatred in there. I wish on certain parts i had waited a bit longer before looking to interact though as sometimes i felt as if i was doing it too early. I think costume and props as an ensemble was used amazingly to represent the play as a whole as each character's costume and prop represented their individuality, the freak and geeks gradually getting more colourful and using figet toys for stress and comfort represented their neurodiversity. The cool guys rugby tops represented what they loved and the jock stereotype, the teachers being dressed nice or wacky represented them all. I believe the costume and props is what really brought the whole thing together as it was what made each character their own in this big society Dana is scared of. Individually i think my costume really helped my performance as it made me feel more the part and the fact it was all completely matching with the other girls really brought that cool / mean dianamic to the stage and gave the stereotypical 'mean girl' type. My props did the same effect as without speaking finding something to do was a challenge to me so the makeup allowed me to stay busy at all times and always be in role. Sometimes however the bag was a bit of a hinderance as it was in the way sometimes for set movement or i couldn't get the makeup out in time. For york i will make sure i will avoid it being in the way. Our set design was also a big part of what we did which was amazing and i think it fit into the play so well, with us all helping in some way to add to the design element it really brought the whole play together and you could tell the hard work was brought on the stage. One of the strongest things for us all was our characterisation. We all worked individually so hard creating a backstory for all of our characters and it displayed to the audience so well. In my opinion the strongest part of the entire play for me and the ensemble was the final scene before the bows where we play the breakfast club. It brings the whole ensemble together and connects everyone just as said in the monologue and really represents the whole play, it was all built up to this moment and it was such an incredible thing to act with my peers. I mentioned improvements through out but as stated before i think the main improvement would be volume. For the next performance at York, i want to push myself further by having my characterisation even bigger than i had at our home performance and i want to make sure i am fully in the zone at all times.
With everything mentioned, i think we hit the criteria for the National Theatre well, as everyone had in depth thought about what we needed to do and worked really hard to hit the criteria.
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