Category: Sophia Bishell

The journey with ForeFront Theatre Company’s Shoes to Fill has been an exciting experience filled with evolving creative ideas. We were always putting to workshop newly written scenes written by the writers, and experimenting with verbatim. Having the opportunity to go out and find stories which inspired us gave everyone a sense of contribution towards our production. I feel we had tender moments which our audience could relate to, and the comedy aspects brought light to the show. It was great hearing the audience laughing whilst I waited behind the curtains for my next scene!

As a company we had our challenges but they did not set us back and we stuck together to the end. We have become a company.

I feel we carried the concept of our company manifesto and theme of this show across from marketing to the directing and script.

As we are now all in our final module at Lincoln, and the majority of cast will be moving back home over summer, unfortunately the company shall be distanced. However I feel if some of us or all of the company could create further work, I feel we have a lot of potential, and Shoes to Fill is only the beginning. I have fundraising ideas such as Crowdfunder, Live music events hosted by the team, and schools workshops to get us started for the next project…There are stories out there to be told and that’s what we do!

Goodbye for now,

Sophia – Producer.

 The importance of simplicity 

There was one scene too that we thought might have to go… The Doctors scene. The final scene which I feature in as Ashleigh, gets news of a brain tumor. The scene deals with a sensitive issue and as the overhead a voiceover of a diary is played I am onstage. I need a purpose to be there and what could I be doing? Mia (Choreographer) and I looked at the lines and thought carefully about the scenes intention. The scene is very much based on the confusion of Ashleigh’s lifetime. This needed to be expressed.

I ended up creating a simple frame of movements that linked smoothly and could be associated with waiting and confusion. This complemented the audio well. Oliver (acting as the Doctor) needed to have a way of getting off and onto the scene. As the scene was like a memory from Ashleigh’s character In the workshop, we had me puppeteering Oliver in a variety of ways, until in the end certain hand gestures I gave Oliver the direction to move and turn, and the placing of my feet walking on the spot gave him chance to move as though he was being put into place. Shoes from Ashleigh’s earlier scene were used in my movement I used them as a devise to bring back Ashleigh’s memories from her younger years.

We wanted to bring some more creativity into the show. Our title ‘Shoes to Fill’ was an inspiration for a workshop. I found these two clips which sparked an idea…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rot9uaVO8s

(Rushgarroth, 2012)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x88_EpJoFlE

(itsMRich, 2014)

In both of these videos shoes are a focus upon the camera. In transferring this to the workshop we considered ways we could highlight our footwork to have our shoes as a focus on stage. We thought about flashing shoes, low stage lights and then we thought how about small torches to focus the light?

We practiced with torchlight apps on our mobiles to see the effect in a dark studio. After looking at these two videos in particular the footwork has a reason and motive. With the ‘Ashleigh’s diary scene’ we took the script and Tamsyn highlighted words she wanted the cast to have a position on.

 

Works cited:

itsMRich (2014) [online] Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x88_EpJoFlE  How to GLIDE | Gliding Dance Tutorial for Beginners   [Accessed 6/5/15].

Rushgarroth (2012) [online] Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rot9uaVO8s Wrecking Orchestra-Amazing Tron Dance   [Accessed 6/5/15].

 

Last night myself and the company dramaturg Rachael went to see Out of Joint’s Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage at Lincoln Performing Arts Centre. Director Max Stafford created a thrilling piece of work. As it was based on verbatim it was great to see the verbatim presented in a creative way. One voice way multi-rolled, the prop of a rugby ball was used to represent a bag of chips, and a shirt showed a representation of Gareth ‘Alfie’ Thomas’.

Today we gave this feed back to the company so that we could embrace Out of Joints creativity with props and costume. In our production the shoes are to represent a different individual. And from now on, no shoe is just a shoe, it will have a purpose to be there. We also reported the use of tone and the importance when in Verbatim scenes to be transferred to our piece.

 

Works cited:

Out of Joint: (2015) Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage [online] Available at http://www.outofjoint.co.uk/production/crouch-touch-pause-engage  [Accessed 2/5/15].