Category: Eden Shortt

The big day

I am ecstatic at how our performance went. I was so nervous behind stage but once we got on and started performing it just seem to be over in a flash. I was really overwhelmed with some on the responses I got. It so nice to hear our hard work paid off. I was nervous in the final two weeks because everything still seemed to be in working progress but we pulled it out of the bag.

The theatre company module has been a world wind of emotion and hell of a lot of hard work has gone into our finishing process. Often I found people in our group felt like they were not getting enough credit for the hard work they put in. But it has to be said that this module was a group project and we all put so much effort into. Everyone deserves credit for the time and patience they have put into making Forefront Theatre Company happen! Well done to us all and we should all be proud.

 

Half n hour before show time

Photos by Eden Shortt

 

 

 

Photos by Clare Owen (2015)

 

Work Cited

Owen, C. (2015) Pre-set.

Shortt, E. (2015) Show time.

Final props and costume

For our performance, props were more important than the costumes. Although the costumes were difficult to decide on at times (clothing not shoes). The reason for this is because we all played some many different characters; we could not restrict ourselves for one costume to represents one character. We had much discussion as a company on what people wanted to wear. We knew we did not want all black because we felt that was edging towards GCSE drama.

After much debates, we decided on, black jeans/leggings. Along with a top of their choice, nothing with patterns or labels, just plain, simples tops. I asked people to bring their tops in so I could check them other and I ask Oliver Samuals to wear a shirt for the pacific reason of him playing a doctor and geek characters. We used certain clothing to represent characters further, such as the Bosnia scene. We used a smart/military jacket.

However, the most important part was the shoes. Obviously our shoe is called ‘Shoes to Fill’. We wanted shoes to represent the characters we were playing as we were ‘stepping into their shoes’. Our performance had a variety of verbatim in it and I needed to make sure I got the shoes clear for the characters. On the day of our performance Diana gave me feedback and said the only ones she would change are the nurse’s shoes. I stuck with Diane’s decision and changed them to some white dolly shoes, which is what Diana said to do.

Hope Tarmey Peters was an individual character and only had one character throughout the script. She did movement in certain scenes. All of the movement was barefoot because the actor performing the verbatim was the character. With Hopes individual monologues, me and Tamsyn thought separate shoes boxes representing important elements in her life would be affect, such as ‘growing old’ ‘job or uni’ and furthermore stand out to the audience

I hope I made the right choices in the costume and props I went for. It might have not seemed much our props but it was hard work collecting 50+ shoe boxes and shoes and very thankful to the people that helped me throughout. Unfortunately, I did not have the chance to take pictures of peoples props and costume because I was so overwhelmed with what was happening.

 

Hope’s final shoe boxes.

Photos by Tamsyn Webley (2015)

Shoe boxes for opening song.

Photos by Clare Owen (2015)

Work Cited

Owen, C. (2015) Pre-set.

Webley, T. (2015) Final Props.

Tech run was a day for me to get last bits of props and costume. It was an ideal time to set up the stage and see what was left to be done. Thankfully, I did not need any more shoe boxes and the shoes we had collected and brought in ourselves was just enough. However, I did get some men’s shoes from the props cupboard so we had a variety shown on stage and then it just was not women’s shoes around the back of the stage.

Tech run was a bit up and down. We got all the lighting done (thanks to Clare being prepared and Emmie and Tamsyn staying focused throughout when they were a few hick ups). The lighting looked brilliant on the photos we managed to take. I think it fitted in really well with what we were trying portray, for example, the spot lights on the expectation and reality scenes. The spotlights on the verbatim scenes worked well too.

We did manage to get a full run after the mishap with the stage and it did run fairly smoothly. Now we just have to see what happens on show day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos by Tamsyn Webley (2015)

 

Work cited

Webley, T. (2015) Technical Run.

 

Final few weeks

We have just less than three weeks up until it is performance day. On the 28^th April we had a feedback session with Refract. We performed our working progress to each other; this was really helpful to find what stage we are at and what we can do to work to our final performance. After we had our feedback session, Tamsyn arranged a meeting. I think we all seemed to panic and there was no reason to. As two separate theatre companies, we had very different styles of work. We needed to realise that we are not anything like Refract and they were at a stage of nearly finishing their performance. We, however, had a long way to go but we were on the right track.

All our ideas are coming together. As a theatre company there is often miscommunication. I found a book ‘How to Start Your Own Theatre Company’ by Reginald Nelson, David Schwimmer and they state “The most common reasons that new [theater] companies fold are a lack of serious artistic focus and fiscal mismanagement” (Nelson, Schwimmer, 2010). We often lacked the focus we needed which was often a risk for us making progress in rehearsals. However, we were determining to work hard to maintain a successful performance.

Later in the week, we consisted to work together get a strong opening. We had a numerous of ideas for our open song. This set us back on time. However, our final decision was to perform as children. A book called ‘Acting Skills for Life’ by Ron Cameron, he states “Whether or not you realise it, you have already acquired a number of acting skills from the time you were a child” (Cameron, 1994). We often did workshops in rehearsal which allowed us to get into the characters age. When it came to acting like children, we thought back to when we were younger ourselves. Like Ron states as a child you develop a character, it is the character that is inside of you.

These past two weeks have been extremely stressful for us. But we have finally managed to get a show together and for these past few days we have dedicated our time to constant run through to prepare us for show day.

 

 

    Ideas for our opening song.    

Photos by Oliver Samuals (2015)

 

 

Work cited

Cameron, R. (1994) Acting Skills for Life. Canadian Catalogue Publication Data.

Nelson R. and Schwimmer, S. (2010) How to Start Your Own Theater Company. Chicago review press.

Samuals, O. (2015) Rehearsal process.