February 2015 – Page 3

Sophia Bishell: Biographyin short

February 15, 2015May 22, 2015UncategorizedLeave a Comment

At the age of seven I was taken to see my first musical with my family- The Lion King. I loved the singing, dancing, costumes and above all how the production brought to life the story! During my childhood trips to the theatre and the West End I began to develop my passion for the arts. I wanted nothing else than to be a part of the big productions and I dreamed that one day I could be on the stage.

In 2011, I was privileged to be offered a voluntary placement where I worked under the close supervision of the General theatre Manager at The Queens Theatre London. I worked in the auditorium, the box office, lighting and stage management departments. Studying drama at the University of Lincoln has enabled me to explore the departments and the industry thoroughly.

I believe when you are an adult, it isn’t because you are told you are an adult. But it is when you feel ready to be an independent individual, be responsible, and accepting of others in your society. You realise you are too tall to ride a donkey at the seaside and you won’t fit in the swing at your old park. When you are an adult you just want to be a child again and have everything as easy as it was back then.

“Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.” J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan.

Funding ForeFront Theatre: The beginning

February 15, 2015May 25, 2015Sophia Bishell, Sophia BishellLeave a Comment

Arts council England’s’ (ACE) has five main policies to meet the criteria of ‘excellence, reach, sustainability, young people and diversity’. These policies are there to give companies a target to make the ambition of ACE happen so that an ‘excellent culture can thrive’ (Arts Council, 2015) in England. The expectations of the National Portfolio (NPOs) and applying NPOs is that they must apply to all of these goals in order to be considered and accepted for funding. Grants for the arts are lottery funded, and therefore limited so regulations make applications competitive.

Understanding the requirement for these arts organisations opens many doors to a theatre company. If Forefront Theatre later decide to take their work to tour we will need the backing of the Arts Council to strive in this industry.

The method of looking at the application questions of such funders in thorough detail helped our company to really get to grips on the type of theatre we want to put on and what we stand for.

Following on from this we looked at how do create a budget for our theatre company. I then went onto exploring formulas we could incorporate to our company budget so we have a strong overhead projection for achieving what we want to achieve in props to printing costs. As it stands the each company has been given £166.67 to distribute. As a small company our income is far less and so is our expenditure. I am looking into fundraising opportunities for ForeFront Theatre Company to develop our funds. At the moment I am looking at planning four focused events to have as contingency if we need more for this show.

Potential fundraising events:

1 Host a baking event:

Food related events at University are always a win! Any cakes baked must be in fitting to the company name or company colour-scheme. This week I have enquired to the University Library to ask would we be able to host a bake sale in the Freezone room. The answer was yes. I have the contact details to the management of the library who we would need to arrange a date with. If funds become low a small scale bake sale would be our best call for quick funds and promotion.

2 Crowd funder:

After exploring various fundraising sites I would like to set up a link for Crowd Funder so we can be sure to get the income we need to develop larger projects

3 Forefront to Host a live Music event:

This would be charging £2 for entry. Our own company members would perform, and any contacts who would like an opportunity to perform can do so but would be unpaid, however they would be given a complementary drink and a ticket to our show for a 20 minute set.

4 School workshops:

I have contacted local schools heads of drama departments for a potential opportunity for us to workshop our work. We must develop our concept and company for a few months before these sessions. Another difficulty in running schools workshop at the moment would be only a few members currently have CRBs as of present. So the full company wouldn’t be able to lead a workshop yet.

Works cited:

Arts Council: Our mission and strategic framework (2015) [online] Available at http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/what-we-do/mission [Accessed 15/02/15].

Blog 2

February 12, 2015May 25, 2015Blogs, Hannah Foden, Hannah Foden, UncategorizedLeave a Comment

As a company, we spoke about many potential ideas for scenes that myself and Ollie as the writing team went away and worked on. Music is a key point of interest for me as it has always been a large part of my life, having played the piano since I was six years old. The first scene we completed was a collection of song lyrics that related to growing up, collecting a large amount of lyrics and setting it out like a conversation between a child and an adult with the child saying how much they want to grow up and be independent, but then the adult voice contesting this saying how they want to go back to a simpler time when they were free from responsibility. * The song “Never Grow Up” by Taylor Swift was part of this scene.

Lyrics for scene

DRAFT 1 – LYRIC SCENE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYeO6LwgEes

Another song that was a particular inspiration for me was ‘When I Grow Up’ from Matilda the Musical. This song sums up what some children believe constitutes as an adult and it is a humorous way of showing their naivety. Lines like ‘when I grow up, I will be smart enough to answer all the questions that you need to know the answers to before you’re grown up’ (Matilda the Musical Cast, 2011) is a particular line that stood out as we were discussing that, as supposedly “adults” ourselves, we are still continuously learning how to survive. Even our parents or “adults” who are older and wiser are learning new things constantly. This song prompted the idea of possibly interviewing some children to find out their views about what they think makes an adult. ** We feel that this would be an interesting, more fair and appropriate way of showing the views of children instead of trying to play a young person ourselves by using stereotypes.

Looking into films has further interested me in this area too. Father of the Bride is an interesting case study as when the protagonist’s daughter announces she is getting married, he goes through a sort of mid-life crisis: starts wearing his old clothes and dyes his hair. He cannot accept that his daughter has grown up and he is also not as young as he once was.

Hannah.

* This scene never made it into the final performance due to copyright issues.

** One interview was successfully conducted between one of our company members and her seven year old cousin. This scene became the opening of Shoes to Fill and was a humorous and cute way to open the performance.

Works Cited

Matilda the Musical Cast (2011) When I Grow Up. [CD track] 3 mins. 36 secs. Matilda the Musical Soundtrack. UK: Rsc Enterprise Ltd.

Shyer, C. (dir.) (1991) Father of the Bride. [DVD] USA: Touchstone Pictures.

tanakorn love (2013) Never Grow Up Lyrics [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYeO6LwgEes [Accessed 12 February 2015].

Blog 1

February 12, 2015May 25, 2015Blogs, Hannah Foden, Hannah FodenLeave a Comment

Forefront Theatre Company’s journey began in January 2015 and from very early on we settled on the idea of “adulthood”, an ever-looming prospect for us all as our three years at University draw to a close. We wanted our final performance to have a purpose and to be relevant as it is significant not only to our peers at university who are preparing to leave the safe environment of education and join the intimidating wide world, but it is relevant to everyone. Adults are continuously growing themselves; growing with their children, growing older. As final year students, most of us agreed that we still do not in fact feel like fully-fledged adults and this spurred the discussion of what actually defines a person as an “adult”.

Is it your age – physical and mental?
How responsible you are?
Whether or not you are dependent on another adult?
Unfortunate circumstances forcing you to grow up faster?

Who then makes the decision that one has made the transition into adulthood? Is it the law: with passports, driving, drinking, sex? Is it society: your parents, teachers, friends? Or is it in fact yourself: your personal circumstances, responsibilities or achievements that deem you worthy to call yourself an “adult”? These questions provided us with the starting point for the next few months creating our piece, Shoes to Fill.

Hannah.

Augusto Boal

February 10, 2015May 25, 2015Blogs, Final Blog, Rachael Caulton, Rachael CaultonLeave a Comment

This week I work shopped my idea of using survey responses as stimuli, to develop Augusto Boal’s exercise Rhythm with chairs. Using the survey responses created some interesting images on what it constitutes to be an adult and what responsibilities adults have, in connection with a letter to a past self the writers created. This gave movement to the scene but currently a new way of transitioning needs to be researched to enable the actors to change fluidly when going into the spoken role and between creating the images. I will research this to allow us to explore and experiment with movements in order to develop our pieces aesthetic, whilst ensuring the movements relate to Shoes to fill and adulthood so that the scene retains clarity for audience members. The Theatre of the Oppressed allows actors ‘to stretch the limits of their imaginations, [and] demechanize habitual behaviors’ (Anon, 2015) meaning ages would be depicted in non-habitual ways and thought of more thoroughly.

An image of the actors showing how their relationship with chairs is challenged and changed to reflect thoughts on adulthood.

10403407_877722225583476_4836400386376306855_n (1) — An image of the actors showing how their relationship with chairs is challenged and changed to reflect thoughts on adulthood.

The writers are working from survey responses to edit and develop the scene, using the perspectives gained. The letter talks of what shoes the future self thinks the past self should fill. To develop this further I shall suggest to the director the idea of having shoes placed by the chair for the actor reading the letter to wear, to symbolise that they are the same person. This shall be referenced multiple times in our piece as the idea for this has been brought up when related to other scenes by the director.

Rachael