Evaluation

I have thoroughly enjoyed devising our 'Little People's Day' performance this term as it is very different to any of the other themes and plays that we were given to perform. Most of the work we have done in theatre over the past year has been very serious and dramatic work, so it was nice to take a break from that to create a very enjoyable piece of theatre aimed at children - it almost bought the inner child out of me!

Overall, I think that the piece went incredibly well. Even though many of us had doubts about the performance, we all pulled together and worked hard to create a great piece of theatre for the little people visiting our school. At the beginning of the term, some of us were slacking a bit and not working hard enough, but once we realised this, we all focused more and worked harder. All of the strands and the other theatre group were also amazing! It was interesting to see what everyone did with their section of the book.

I think that parts of the piece might have been quite difficult for our target audience, little children, to understand as we used a lot of physical theatre. However, with all of the motions and sounds that we used, I think that they enjoyed it as they reacted positively with laughter. It wasn't until we performed the piece that we realised how funny it actually was. Everyone seemed to enjoy listening to all the strange sounds that we all made.

For me, the best part of our performance was when we all worked individually on our dream pieces and went into slow motion. I think this looked effective and hopefully made the audience feel as if time had frozen. In my opinion, the transition from this scene to the Dinosaur scene worked well and went very smoothly.

We had to use many devising skills when putting this piece together. For example, we had to work as a collective and support each other to make sure the piece worked for our target audience. If we didn't feel comfortable working together, we wouldn't have been able to get the performance done and incorporate the physical theatre elements into it.
We also had to have a sense of spatial awareness, so that we could take the piece from where we had been rehearsing it, a small theatre room, and put it onto a big stage in The New Theatre. We managed to do this without any hassle, but we had to make sure we were all spaced out so that there were no accidents and the audience were able to see everyone on stage.

The performance could have been developed further by including a scene with more dialogue as much of our piece included physical theatre, which was also effective in interpreting the book. With more rehearsal, we could have included more movements to show the dreams and had more of a storyline.

I have learnt that to devise a piece of theatre, you must be able to cooperate and work with many different people, no matter what you may think of them. You also have to have a good sense of spatial awareness, direction and rhythm. To devise the piece of work, we also had to interpret the text in our own way and put it into a theatrical performance.

This term, I have really enjoyed learning about a new style of theatre and developing my acting skills. I cannot wait to see what the next year of theatre at BRIT has in store for me!

Rehearsals

During our theatre classes, we completed many activities and exercises to help us get into character and to focus for the lesson.
The exercise 'Sleeping Bunnies' consisted of pretending to be asleep and then hopping around the room when the music started playing. This was to get us to wake up more and feel energised. It also helped me to get rid of some of my tension and feel less embarrassed about acting in a very over-the-top way for the target audience - young children.

We then took some time to reflect on a dream that we had remembered. It was interesting to see what everyone else had to say. My dream was that I was lost in a magical world and fascinated by everything that surrounded me. Describing our dreams to a partner helped us to imagine how we could stage it and develop it into a piece of theatre to use for the final performance. 

After this, we took one section of our dream and acted it out in just a few repetitive motions. For my dream. I looked around in three sudden movements with the sound 'doof' as if I was stepping on the floor. Then I pretended to hold onto a railing and walk up some stairs whilst looking around and making a creaking noise. I wanted my piece to show that I was in a world that I was utterly intrigued and fascinated by, leaving it to the audience to imagine what I was visualising.

I then had to take this piece and exaggerate it completely. It felt strange as I am not used to performing this sort of theatre. I thought it would be embarrassing, but it turned out to be enjoyable and interesting. By exaggerating the work we helped the audience to understand and view the piece more easily. Some of the exaggerating also added a comedic element to the piece. Comedy was intertwined even more when we put the piece into slow motion. The sounds were dragged out and the body movements were very slow.

Previously, our class was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to be given a workshop from two actors from The 'Frantic Assembly' Theatre Company. It was incredibly fun and I feel as though I learnt a lot more about movement in theatre. One of the activities was to get with a partner and discover their body using different movement. My routine with Clement included two lifts, pushing and pulling to move in different directions and discovering through movements such as going under his arm or twisting his head. This activity was to use your body in a more interesting room to create a character. 
It was later decided that these routines would be included in our performance for Little People's Day to give a sense of different things happening in someones head during a dream.

To begin the performance, we all stood in a position from our piece with a partner, whispering 'Yes - There are places in the world where dreams are almost dead'. Then one group would start performing after the other, like a chain reaction. Connor was on the floor in the middle of the room, trying to sleep with all the dreams filling up his head. Then, a few people from around the sides of the room would explore the space and as they touched each pair, they would slowly melt to the ground as if the dream had died. After this, Connor awoke from his sleep and looked around as we each began to perform our individual dream pieces that we devised. The aim was to make the performance almost look like a 'Dream Machine'. We all included sounds and repetitive movements which made it look like a more interesting factory machine. Eventually, Connor jumped up in the air and we all continued our routines in slow motion, as if all of the dreams were fading away. Still in slow motion, we moved into positions in the middle of the room. We all organised ourselves on different levels to create a huge 'Dinosaur' using physical theatre. Some people at the front used their arms to create the mouth, and others used their hands to represent the eyes opening and closing. I was one of the spikes in the middle of the dinosaur that swayed as the tail moved around at the back. At the end, we all pushed back and then forwards and let out a huge 'ROAR'. I think the children would enjoy this piece as it was very interesting and quite exciting to watch. Finally, we exit the stage from our dinosaur positions into the front row of the audience.

Children's Theatre

Children & The Theatre
Theatre is so valuable and it is important that children are able to watch it and be involved with it. Through the use of theatre, children can be taught to empathise, be more creative and learn to have a wilder imagination. These are all incredibly important things that you need to be able to do as it means you can see the world in a different and more exciting way. Watching theatre performances can also teach children about humanity and how the world works and evolves. Being involved in theatre can help children to gain the skills and creativity to face the world and understand it. Children are our future and can change the world! For theatre to live on, children need to carry on studying and enjoying the theatrical world and pass it on through the generations. Performing shows aimed at their age range will encourage them to do this!

Polka Theatre
Located in the centre of Wimbledon, The Polka Theatre has been putting on exciting and interesting performances for children since 1979. Children between the ages 0 to 14 can go and enjoy a show at The Polka Theatre. Every show is supported by a learning programme and the theatre is dedicated to introducing children to the world of theatre.
I remember going to watch an adaptation of Roald Dahl's book 'The BFG' when I was in primary school. It was very exciting as it was one of the first shows that I got to watch as a child. I really enjoyed the show and started going to the theatre more frequently.
'Puss In Boots' is currently showing at the Polka Theatre. Some of the shows coming soon are 'Gorilla', 'Thumbelina' and 'Beauty And The Beast'.

Unicorn Theatre
Since being founded in 1947 as a touring company, The Unicorn Theatre has since been situated in the centre of London. It is known as the UK's leading professional theatre for young audiences and is constantly producing shows for audiences aged 2 to 21.
Recently I watched a production called 'Girls Like That' and was really impressed with it! It was very different to any show I had seen before and suited the audience as it was very modern and interesting. Some shows that are coming to The Unicorn Theatre soon are 'Breaking The Ice', 'Grass' and 'Minotaur'.

Companies such as The Polka Theatre and The Unicorn Theatre can help us with the work we are devising as we can look at previous shows that they have put on and take inspiration from them. By finding out what children enjoyed when watching theatre shows at The Polka and The Unicorn, we can interpret the same sort of style into our piece to make it enjoyable for the children. By looking at other theatre companies, we can find out ways to make the performance more exciting and captivating for our audience.

Devising Skills

There are many challenges to overcome when devising a piece of theatre. Where do you start? Where do you end? How do you make the piece effective for your target audience? How do you direct the piece when working with a large ensemble? These are just a few of the questions that you need to think about when you devise a theatre performance.

To overcome these challenges, there are skills that you need to obtain. For example, if you can't work well as a collective, the piece will take a lot longer to devise. Some other skills you need to have when devising theatre are spacial awareness, a sense of rhythm. You also need the ability to work from text, develop characters and explore texts and themes. It is also important to be able to improvise and know how to use physical theatre in performance. Some other things that you should know are how to construct and deconstruct different pieces of work and how to use different speed in performance.

I am confident in using both large and small performance spaces as I have quite a good sense of spatial awareness. For example, when we warm up in class and have to walk around with purpose, I always tend to walk into the areas that are more spacious with less people. This is to fill out and balance the space.

I am also quite confident devising performances with physical theatre as I did a lot of work with it on the 'East End Tales' topic. However, I would like to develop my skills even further and learn more about how to portray different emotions through physical theatre.

An Awesome Book - By Dallas Clayton

Questions:

What is your first opinion of the book?

I really like the book as it seems to spread a very positive message and can help young children to see the world in a different light. It inspires people to be bold and dream big which is something that I encourage everyone to do! The book is wild and crazy, but interesting and wonderful at the same time. From reading the story, I am already extremely excited to start devising a performance piece as there is so much that you can do with the topic of 'dreams'.

Why has it been selected for our 'Little People's Day' audience?
'An Awesome Book' has been selected to be performed for 'Little People's Day' as it can be performed in various ways (for example, theatre, music and dance), so it was a good way of getting all of the strands involved. Also, the book is aimed at very young audiences and the children coming to watch the show are from local primary schools and nurseries. Therefore, we book was very suitable for the performance piece that we are doing.