Category: Tamsyn Webley

As a company, Forefront Theatre want to use the words of others to create a performance piece which reflects other people as well as us. In order to do this we had to think of ways to portray their words in a respectful and honest manner. So, we chose to look at Verbatim theatre to help with this.

In a previous rehearsal, our writers had interviewed the Forefront Theatre Company members to help with their writing and I had recorded them so as to use the audio in a possible scene for our production. Using this idea Rachael Caulton, our dramaturg, put forward headphone verbatim theatre as a suggestion and so these recordings were experimented with in that way.

All performers were asked to pick someone else’s answers and listen to them. Once they had listened to the audio, I then told them to repeat what they were hearing as they were hearing it. I did not want the performers to mimic the accent they were hearing but instead to match the words and rhythm of the voice. To pretend to be the person would be difficult and is not necessary as the words are important in our piece not the accent of the voice.

Listen from Webley (2015)

This rehearsal was very productive and headphone verbatim theatre proved a challenge but is definitely  worth pursuing by our company. It helped the performers develop their understanding of verbatim and experience how to perform it to an audience in a stylised manner on stage.

Tamsyn.

Work Cited:

Webley, T (2015) Listen

 

On the 20th of February 2015, I came into Forefront’s rehearsal  with the idea of wanting to produce a physical theatre scene that explores somebody trying to break into or out of adulthood. After some great physical exercises ran by Mia Kaur (Forefront’s Choreographer), I had our performers create some chair duets, similar to those Frantic Assembly create. As seen in the video below (franticassembly, 2008).

I gave each duet, and one group of three, a theme or scenario of what they were doing and then allowed them the freedom to create a physical theatre piece using their bodies and the chairs they were on. The themes were all linked to adulthood and growing up, such as being on a date and drinking at a pub with a friend. These simple ideas opened the imagination of the performers and enabled them to create simple yet effective chair duets, as can be seen in the photographs below.

Love story from Webley (2015)

Love Triangle from Webley (2015)

Once all the performers showed their work back it became apparent to Emmie Kearns (Forefront’s assistant director) and I that we could put the seperate pieces of work together to create a timeline of relationships. This work opened the minds of our performers to the world of physical theatre.

Tamsyn.

Work Cited:

franticassembly (2008) Chair Duets by Frantic Assembly. Available from:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYPC-KjLRj0 [Accessed 25 May 2015]

Webley, T. (2015) Love story 

Webley, T. (2015) Love Triangle 

 

On Thursday 12th February, I had a brilliant opportunity to attend a verbatim workshop that was run by Jemma McDonnell from The Paper Birds Theatre Company. In this workshop I was able to hear about how verbatim theatre can be used in a performance.

Later on in the evening I also got a chance to watch The Paper Birds performance of Broke (The Paper Birds, 2015). This was a great opportunity for me as director of Forefront Theatre Company to see how others’ words can be used to create intriguing theatre.

Tamsyn.

Work Cited:

The Paper Birds (2015) Broke. [performance] Jemma McDonell (dir.) Lincoln: Lincoln Drill Hall, 12 February.

In our first practical workshop, to help get the performers in the right mind set, I chose to lead a workshop around Stanislavski’s techniques in a hope that this would make our Forefront performers think about age and how different we act as a result of it.

Stanislavski’s style of theatre is what I want the actors to engage with in their performance, “It was crucial for Stanislavski to find a technique which the actors could use to transfer to the role their own ‘honest’ feelings and experiences…”(Actor’s Way, p.75).  Whilst Naturalism might not be the main style of the work we create for our final production, it is something I would like to see worked into our piece. To create a naturalistic character on stage is a skill that I want the performers to show off on stage which is why I felt he would be a good starting point for this process.

I decided to use Stanislavski techniques to help me run activities that would help my performers with characterisation and to be able to differentiate between adult and non-adult behaviour.

For my first activity, I chose to use the Stanislavski technique ‘What if’. I gave the scenario that the performers were at a party and then proceeded to have them enter the scene giving each individual their own, ‘What if’. Then using these the performers improvised the scene. I then spoke to the actors about the scene in relation to adult behaviour.

For my last activity I chose to do ‘Given the Circumstances’. I gave the group of performers lots of circumstances and then let them improvise the scene. The performers used levels, without thinking about it, which also reflected the age they were representing. Some of the tasks are shown in the photo below.

Adults will be Kids from Webley (2015)

Interaction Changes with Age from Webley (2015)

For some scenes, I would ask them to do the same scene but as a different age group. In these cases I asked how the performers felt their performance changed and it stirred up some interesting thoughts which we will explore when creating our piece as the weeks go on.

Tamsyn.

Work Cited:

Actor’s Way (1993) Actor’s Way. n.p.: Taylor & Francis Ltd. (p. 75)

Webley, T. (2015) Adults will be Kids

Webley, T. (2015) Interaction Changes with Age