To begin the lesson we looked at ways to devise theatre and different techniques to help us work well as a team.
Today we started to plan our scenes for our own devised piece in our set groups. The name of our play is 'Cupcakes or Knives' as it is based in a orphanage and the girls are selling cupcakes to earn money, however at the end the main character Olivia feels like she has been stabbed in the back.
We wrote out each scene in bullet points to prompt us during rehearsals throughout the week, and as we develop the scenes and go through each part we will begin to script the lines. The reason we chose to act out the scenes before scripting the play is because we felt we could be more free whilst improvising and create more naturalistic characters without setting boundaries or limits. We then listed all the weeks from 1/11/2017 up until the performance on 24/11/2017 and stated each day from Tuesday - Friday and what scene we would rehearse to clearly set out dedicated time to work on each part and to spend equal time on the scenes to not become fixated on minute details. During the final week, we have chosen to work on the whole play to finalise any adjustments and to run through as smooth as possible.
Draft overview plan of our scenes:
8/11/2017
Today we wrote the script for our play. We each took it in turns to lead each scene and to write our thoughts and each wrote our individual lines for our set characters. This was to help feel more in control of the characters dialogue and connecting to the words. To inspire our work, we used an improvisation technique during my scene as Joe before he logs online to talk to Olivia. The rest of my group re-enacted a setting of being Joe's family and the tensions arising during his childhood. This helped to root myself as the character, by understanding his harsh backgrounds which has led him to turn out the way he has. His parents were very strict and controlling and his father never listened or showed him any attention. His parents were also addicted to drugs which built a lot of resentment and anger inside of Joe.
9/11/2017
Today we each hot seated our characters in my group. This helped to deepen and develop the characters personality, history and background information. By doing this exercise, I learnt a lot about my character and the motivations behind his actions in the play. I learnt that Joe is 40 years old, however feels he didn't have a teenage/young adult life as he was controlled by his drug-addicted parents which is the reason he lies about his age online and tells girls he is 20 years old. He doesn't feel that his action are harmful as he is making other girls feel good about themselves and in his spare time he enjoys reading articles and watching wildlife documentaries. He dislikes sports and is a very shy person with a lack of confidence. He also has a lot of held in anger towards the world and feels that he can become aggressive sometimes as he has been grown up around a angry family. I found answering the questions freeing and being able to improvise helped me to creatively answer the questions and let my mind flow. I went into the rehearsals of our scenes with a clearer understanding of my characters personality and history which helped me create a more naturalistic scene.
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