tomspdp

[tomspdp]

Early logbook

To help aid my evaluation, I’ve writing up my hand written notes onto here. My handwriting is too untidy to be legible.

Logbook 1: 

Discussion of ideas for the show;

Beth: Angsty, Vodka insertion. Outsiders view in. Substance abuse, over the top - why? Peer pressure. Why is one drug better than the other? Does it matter? House party, gig theatre. 

Mesha: Urban Myths. Elvis didn’t die, internet spreads fake news. Song, Harry Styles, stop crying its a sign of the times. Death is inevitable. Spread positivity. Social media? Lots of stuff. Stories to better deliver information, bullying is more accessible. Insecurities, confidence issues, greed, acceptance. 

Megan: Woman sleeps with married man, starts family with him. Living in bubble, affair, till wife pops it and ruins everything. 

Me: I find it funny how humans don’t even care about meteors, we accept that earth is shit, but have hope for it. 

Gabi: The Fish story, taking advantage. 

Write story about Mesha drinking alcohol, wanting more, arrogance, sassiness grows, eventually she has nothing and wants food. Have a kind wise person tell her to stop. 

I feel like we can play with the house party idea. A house has different compartments, so we can allot different scenes in unique rooms. There’s a lot of ideas so we must behave and be considerate. I’ve been a little impatient, but I’ve not said anything nasty. 

We were playing around with an event at the party that brings all potential characters together. We came up with a woman dying, and gave each other stereotypical characters to comment on the event.   

I was given the stoner, and I wrote the following: 

Stoner - Woah, so majestic man. Did you guys see her eyes? She passed from this realm into the land of dreams. She’s dreaming man, up in the skies. That’s like, so radical. We need to look after her body, nobody disturb her passage. She’s with the stars now, man, she’s like with god you can’t disturb god, he’s.. thunder.. and lightening.. pow pow. I wish I was there but earth is my home and I must protect my land.. from STI’s, politicians and beer and.. Man I have a destiny, I wont lie.. Wait is she dead? Oh shit, I think she’s dead. 

Write about Meshas animal farm story, wiping pages on her ass.. apologise to Orwell. Oh well! 

Make the beat of the songs out of sounds effects from house parties. 

Tomb atmosphere. Find out the grotesque side of parties. Create the atmosphere. 

Volume drowns out Angela’s voice? Slower music = sadder tone, tragic.. suspense. We could increase the volume of our voices, it won’t break the rhythm. Play with contrast, Mesha, heroic music to vile text. Get audience on the side of someone who’s done wrong. 

Bring in Ukulele for Friday.       

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The 12th, 13th, and 14th.

We’ve now performed the show to reasonable success, but I’ll talk about the rehearsals leading up to it. 

Something I’ve learned from this project is that the closer you are to the performance, the greater impact small mistakes can have. On the day of our performance, we’d left a vital prop (the rope) and keyboard at the venue. Because of this, we didn’t get to do an authentic run and only practised with the rope two hours before the show.    

Our structure needed work and noticeably changed before the performance. I suggested that we put the show into segments instead of spreading it out; I could feel myself getting confused about our structure and thought; if I’m confused, the audience surely will be. Also, our transitions before the show were just scene changes which looked sloppy and disengaged the audience.  

One of the biggest challenges was remembering all of my newly given responsibilities which included pressing buttons on the laptop to change the slides displayed on the TV, moving set around, and learning new pieces of text.

Within this project, change has always been good and worthwhile. I do believe our content was disorganised and excessive at times, we stubbornly clung onto it because time was running out. 

However, when encouraged by Alice to move around and adapt content, the show come out clearer, and better. I just wish we had this confidence and trust with each other, not only the external director.

We lost our outside eye in the form of a director, as Hayden became so involved as a performer that he could no longer step back and think ‘why is this in the show?’ ‘is it needed?’. This is why we needed Alice.

I’m actually glad that she wasn’t always present at rehearsals because at the start of this project, I wanted to create a show as if I were with my own theatre company, with people of equal experience. Having Alice present sparingly meant that we encountered challenges that, inevitably, we’ll come across in future life. 

Our old dares were placed into one section, and Georges text and puppetry were combined so we had one scene before the interval, and one after it. We decided to add an interval the day before the show, and it helped greatly in giving us time to refresh our minds. 

At times I was confused as to why content was removed, other times I agreed. My Do you remember? Song was removed because it’s purpose of telling the audience about our dares was already being delivered in the form of our old dares. It was quirky, but useless in terms of moving the story onward.

I feel as though the removal of Beth spitting into the bucket was due to Beth as a performer not believing in her self enough to remember to carry out the action. The content was useful in creating an atmosphere, and was liked among the group. I appreciate however that we were pushed for time, and in the moment, conflict was not needed so overall, it was the correct decision. Letting go is the best option sometimes, and I need to accept what’s most useful in the heat of the moment even if personally I don’t agree. 

My writing skills were put to the test in the last two days, and I was asked to edit the George scenes. In the second George text, he no longer died and so I had to change the ending and come up with ways in which he could recover overnight. If I hadn’t known my text so well, the task could have been difficult, but I rarely struggle when given clear writing instructions and had a good sense of the characters visions. 

Writing a new monologue for myself blaming a fellow character for Georges weak state was refreshing and added to the deterioration of relationships between the characters.

 Compared to previous rehearsals, I found the task simple; it’s now clear to me that we’re storytellers, and through text I needed to tell the story, so that’s what I did. Language patterns or dialect of my character was never a concern.     

I’m glad we added movement and puppetry to the dog text, me Megan and Mesha carried George out to the audience to be stroked, and it worked really well with the support of the text. 

I also thought it was wise of us breaking the illusion of the rope dog by tangling the rope up and dropping it to show George playing dead; this also foreshadowed the decline of Georges health, and possible death. 

We’ve been aware of our puppetry skills and have used them well throughout the process. Breathing into the puppet, giving it life is a technique we learned together a year ago in a workshop. I’m proud to have knowledge of such a useful performance element, and believe it worked well. 

Devices such as metaphors and foreshadowing, and symbolism were our creative breakthroughs, but they also hindered us at times. The dog as a metaphor of friendship was an aspect of the show everyone agreed on including, but it also clashed with the narrative at points. Ending the performance ambiguously meant that we weren’t able to show George dying, but using the rope physically, stretching and pulling on it, and also hitting the dog shaped pinata to show tension in the friendships risked the audience thinking George had been put down, which my girlfriend Megan actually did! 

Over the process my nips scene has changed a lot. Cutting text at the end under Alice’s suggestion reduced the unnecessary length of the scene, making the piercings themselves fast and unexpected, even for me as a performer! I was on edge and full of energy when it happened, and creative juices were flowing on the night, resulting in a great moment for me. 

Not coming to a decision on where we’d be performing in relation to the venue space meant our rehearsal time was halted. Unfortunately we never had an organised meeting about where set would be placed. I admit, I was expecting Gabi as set designer to know this information, and it’s true that she came up with a rough sketch, but it was never pursued or developed or practically demonstrated and we fell into the trap of becoming too used to our rehearsal space. 

To overcome this obstacle, I found the measurements I’d taken from my visit to the venue, and replicated them within the space of the Minories; we then placed props and set accordingly. 

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Nips

I don’t want to rely on cheesy pick up lines to make the nips seen good. So I’ll only use one, just in case things aren’t going to plan. Because I can’t dance, it’ll be funnier for the audience if I try and fail. Reading a book a while back, on clowning, I remember the author stating that if a performer acts innocent when they are doing a trick, they’ll invite the audience in, and after doing the trick correctly, if they they fall over, it’ll be even funnier. By keeping this in mind, I’ve been practising a drop low dance move in which I bend my knees and extend my bum . If I genuinely try to do it looking sexy, but innocently fail, the audience should have a laugh.

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Logbook 9/6/2017

Leading a warm - up today was tough. It’s hard to spread positive vibes when you yourself aren’t in the best of moods. I’ve been insecure about my warm - ups for  a while now, I haven’t felt like people are interested and value them enough.

Within the warm - ups, I include a variety of exercises which cover the body, breathe, and voice. Stretches, swings, and motivational communication are part of my warm - ups. But today I was told that my warm - ups have lacked energy. I’ve been planning my warm - ups and slowing them down recently because of the disabilities half of the class have.

I’ve asked the group to tell me anything they’d like me to add, but I’ve rarely had feedback apart from Hayden, who interrupted the warm - up today and talked to everyone about politics which was disheartening. I just feel like there’s a lack of respect towards me when I’ve put in an effort.

Perhaps I’m just being sensitive, but there’s only so much I can do on my part as warm - up leader and the behaviour of the group just isn’t appropriate or professional. I don’t want to tell people off, that’s Hayden’s job. But if Hayden doesn’t realise what’s wrong, and is even part of the problem, what can I do? After interruption today, I just let everyone do individual warm - ups. I’ll ask this weekend whether I should lead one for Monday, and see what happens.     

Refining scenes today was a good call; I’m glad we’re at the smoothing our cracks stage of our process. I took on the feedback Hayden gave me concerning the nips scene, and performed it well today. The breath is key in supporting my transformation, by slowing it down I’m able to give an air of testosterone filled manliness.

We gave out leaflets today which was productive - I split up from the others because I noticed how people were intimidated by our large group. I even came up with a strategic voice quality to draw people into taking a leaflet. By speaking softy and high pitched to girls, I didn’t appear a threat, and by rooting my voice and being direct to boys - quick to the point, I showed dominance. The high street seemed a bad choice of location to hand the leaflets out; people felt trapped due to its cramped, narrow design. 

Our run through went quite well, but I feel like we need more ensemble connection. Energy was great however; I brought in a ball today for the warm - up and we played catch, and throw the ball in a bucket, (which I made up but worked a treat).

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Logbook 8/6/2017

Today’s warm - up was a success. I took on board the request for more articulation, and coincidentally, this morning we received vocal feedback from Stella telling us to work on articulation for our ‘Do You Remember’ song. She reminded us that we needed to over articulate in order for the pitter patter (name of the devise we’re using in the song) to have full effect. 

I found an exercise in which the group made their voiced and unvoiced consonants, but added a vowel in front of them. I reminded everyone to be aware of tongue position, and lip position. I then asked everyone to get the text for ‘Do You Remember’ and practise it keeping in mind breath connection to voice, taking power from the abdominal muscles and diaphragm.

I further rehearsed and developed my nips scene today, working on the transition from Luke into sexy love guru. Part of the reason I was struggling before was because I didn’t know the logic behind my scene. I knew I was meant to be afraid, I knew why, by I couldn’t find the game at the start.

 I was relying on the text to make it funny but I didn’t find the humour funny after a while. I wasn’t playing around with the manliness aspect enough - pretending to not be afraid.

By over exaggerating, and giving a tough growl, it’s clear that I’m overcompensating for my fear. By gently letting my fear show through cracks in the voice, and eventually just expressing it vocally, the scene runs smoothly and it clear.

At lunch I handed out posters and leaflets around town. We were all given areas to go to and I went down North Hill. What I’ve learned from the experience is that businesses prefer leaflets to posters. Leaflets are smaller and casual, they don’t require a lasting place on the window of a shop. I tried to keep in mind our target audience - young people who enjoy a drink and a laugh. So I went to 4 different pubs and bars, and left leaflets. I also went to the Arts Centre, and Mercury Theatre for those interested in poetry, or just performances of any kind. We did forget to bring blue-tack though! Preparation could have been better, as I had to go and buy some.       

We worked on transitions today, and I wrote down in my notebook all of mine so that I don’t forget.    

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Just realised that our trailer, our teaser trailer especially, doesn't match up to what our performance is showing. Earlier on in our process we wanted to use technology, but now it's not used at all! However the trailer shows us reviewing a message on a phone and reacting in a sincere way. I know it's not too big a deal, but the trailer has reached and been viewed by 1700 people!

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All of my text -

Luke's text: 1. I love cheese balls. 2. Do you remember all those funny bits when you took your shirt of and showed your (Interruption). 3. Do you remember riding like a demon, chocked right on his salty (Interruption) 4. Correction! I did, I did do it.. And if you don't believe me.. 5. SALT, SHOT, LEMON! 6. Through bonfire smoke he appeared. An industrial factory, abandoned. He was so happy to see us, came right over Everyone wanted a touch He sat in the middle of our circle, He moves, we follow. One day a week between us.. Perhaps George. 7.. Wahay gonna vomit, wahay gonna vomit, wahay gonna vomit, Ellas gonna vomit. Wahay soaked in vomit, wahay soaked in vomit, wahay soaked in vomit, they're all soaked in vomit. Wahay soaked in vomit, wahay soaked in vomit, wahay soaked in vomit, Lizzies soaked in vomit. Passed out in her vomit, passed out in her vomit, passed out in her vomit, passed out in her vomit! 8. HOW FUCKING AKWARD 9. They seem to have forgotten who I am, my feelings, my rights. Maybe I'm just being sensitive. I was thinking we'd take this party slow, it's going too fast for me. Can I be myself? That's not what these guys are interested in. 10. Oh dear tibbles, why'd you poop for me? Jucy Lucy, you're legandary. You proved your worth and at then turd when you were 17. 11. Sitting. Waiting. Palms are sweating. My nips are bare for the world to see. They harden in anticipation. They sense the impending doom. I focus on the chanting. This is a ritual, and I am the chosen one. I'll take the piercings with pride, I'll polish them daily. Fuck this is it. Bring it on. Pierce me, p p p pierce my nips! I mean why do we men even have nips? They're just there to be abused.. Twisted and sprayed with deodorant and.. Pierced. Maybe you could do my leg instead? Or you could braid my hair? AHHHH! I feel reborn.. I feel alive! All my life I've been hiding, now look at me! YOU look at me, you right there.. Share this moment with me. 12. George is sick. Nowadays he can only manage a weak growl. Comfortably along his tube of a body. Shredding furniture and playing the fool. Strange how quickly affection can turn sour. Now that’s betrayal George. 13. We didn’t want any mess. It was trying escape the situation wasn’t it? it stopped moving and paused time itself. Can’t turn back now. 14. Hey! How are you? Oh, me too, me too, strange seeing you lot again. Yeah, I stopped caring, now, like a weed, it won’t stop growing. No, I like the way it is. let’s talk about something else, hey? You still into drugs? Just joking! Of course you’re not. All mature now aren’t you. It was good fun though! Remember when you sat on the floor of Tesco’s eating all the chocolate? And I stood there filming it all? Man, that was great. I wanted to meet with you, you know? See how you’d bee - So.. you’re well off then? Comfy. How’d you know I still lived there? No. You have. 15. Let's be rational about this. We're all ill. If there's a virus, you kill it.. I suppose. Loved us? It's still our decision, we still get to choose! What can we do! 16. We're young and free Just dancing to beat, All night until the suns up. Living our lives so recklessly, All night until our times up. Oh decision oh decisions Can't we leave them til Twilight. Oh decision oh decisions Can't we throw them out of our minds.

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Minutes - 7/6/2017

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Logbook - 7/6/2017

Everyone bar one was on time today! My warm - up ran pretty well, people seemed to benefit from it. I could have put a little more energy into my voice however. The guys seemed interested in articulation, so I’ll try and find an exercise tomorrow which extends onto the b, d, g exercise. 

I did some writing today, and am pleased with the end result. After being asked to write a duologue for me and Gabi, I wasn’t too confident as we’ve not focused on characters so much, seeing ourselves more as storytellers. I didn’t want to delve too deep into characters backgrounds, I didn’t want to confuse the audience. 

The aim of the writing was to show deterioration of a friendship. I typed this exact phrase into google to find some inspiration. I found a list of warning signs that a friendship is breaking down. I wrote a few down; They don’t make time for you, they start joking too far, they start showing jealousy, and they don’t contact you first. 

I also wanted to include George the dog because Hayden said that the duologue would come after finding out about his illness.  My first piece of text was as follows: 

Luke - Hey. 

Evan - Hey. 

Luke - Only the good die young.

Evan - Don’t assume he’ll die, he’s a strong dog. 

Luke - Yeah, is. Why, I remember when he bit an electric fence! 

Evan - That happened? 

Luke - Oh yeah, it was shocking.. 

Evan - Animal abuse is yeah, what did you let him do that for?

Luke - To be fair, you did laugh, I sent you a picture of him, you did laugh, he was all frazzled, you found it hilarious.

Evan - Luke, that’s cruel. 

Luke - Oh, shut up Evan. No need to tell me off is there?

Evan - Continue laughing at abuse Luke, but I won’t be a part of it - I’ve grown up.

Luke - Well you never seemed to mind drug abuse did you? Still on the smack? 

I was trying to keep small talk out of the above text because I see it as unnecessary. I took the ‘going too far’ and wrote the last sentence to show this, but I thought it was too too far. After speaking with Hayden, he encouraged me to rewrite the text keeping in mind the small talk, and subtext of the dog being ill, instead of having the friendship deteriorating as the subtext. After all the dog is a symbolising our friendship. By being ill, our friendship is crumbling. 

The final draft is as follows:   

 Hey!

 Hey!

 Luke - How are you?

 Evan - Not bad, just plodding away trying to let loose a little.

 Luke - Oh, me too, me too, strange seeing you lot again.

 Evan - Well, I'm loving the new hair!

 Luke - Yeah, I stopped caring, now, like a weed, it won't stop growing.

 Evan - You could always get it cut?

 Luke - No, I like the way it is.

 Evan - Me too, it must be a little annoying though? Gets in your eyes? You  should tie it up.

 Luke - let's talk about something else, hey?

 Luke - You still into drugs?

 Evan - What?

 Luke - Just joking! Of course you're not. All mature now aren't you.

 Evan - Oh, well, it was a dark time. I'm glad I came through it in one piece.

 Luke - It was good fun though! Remember when you sat on the floor of Tesco's eating all the chocolate? And I stood there filming it all? Man, that was great.

Evan - Yeah, great.

Luke - I wanted to meet with you, you know? See how you'd bee -

Evan - Busy, I'd been busy studying criminology and making lots of money okay Luke? I lived and live in London so I couldn't really travel because of work commitments.

Luke - So.. you're well off then?

Evan - You could say that, yes. Still a referee? How's the one bedroom flat?

Luke - Comfy. How'd you know I still lived there?

Evan - I took a wild guess. I mean, you clearly haven't changed much!

Luke - No. You have.

With this text, I used the thirty things Gabi had written about her character, and picked a few for the characters to talk about. In a way, that’s what small talk is. I think small talk does have a purpose, and it’s traditional in a party setting. It helped to build up the awkwardness as well.

I’ve tried to show Luke’s insecurities about his hair. 

Luke bringing up the drugs doesn’t seem as out of place now, and I see it as him testing how far he can go, assessing whether his friend is the same person. Her response, bragging about her job, will hopefully demonstrate her desire to fit in and have some control.   

I assisted Hayden today, and clarified for myself also, the plot of our show. At the moment, we’ve been putting things in an order, just to see if they work. We need to question ourselves; why do they work? Tomorrow we’ll be creating transitions, so this’ll be useful to think on. 

I asked Hayden to summarise the plot of our show. What happens? This is what I wrote down: 

Six friends meet up after five years. They want to relive the past, when they were younger and reckless.

They have a  group mascot, George.

They think back to stupid times they’ve shared. 

Mascot turns ill, the glue holding them together is dying. 

Because of this, they have to tackle a problem. 

Because of different life experiences over the past five years, they have different opinions on George’s circumstance.  

These different opinions test friendships and the characters clash. 

At the end of the day, things aren’t the same anymore. 

To save or kill George, that is the question. The decision made will divide them forever, that’s certain.  

After making this summary of events, I asked Hayden if our created content shows the above. I made a tick of what we had, and a cross next to what we didn’t. 

We show the desire to relive old times by taking shots at the start of the show, and with Hayden introducing us and talking of how we’re all back together and ready to get wasted!  

We show our mascot George by creating him in his physical form with rope, passing him round the audience, and in one scene, as Angela. We show his metaphorical purpose through destruction of his dog - rope form, and through the deterioration of our friendship. 

We show the stupid times we once had by performing dares from the past, in the present. 

We show George as ill by performing text written by me which describes the effect the illness has had on him. 

The problem is shown through characters frustrated text and by dropping metaphorical George on the floor and destroying him.

The different opinions are vocalised in the discussion text, we find out who’s for against, and on the fence with whether to kill George or not. 

We show our characters conflicts and clashes through tense duologues which are performed towards the end of the show. 

Likewise, we show things aren’t the same through these duologues. I do think we need a clearer example however, so I’ve suggested to Hayden a repeat of the shot scene at the beginning, however this time we all drop the shots, or spit them out. 

To save or kill the mascot is shown in a piece of text written by Beth, but we need to expand on it. 

Today me and Hayden did some marketing,  putting up posters inside Firstite. The process was simple and we found out they have a community board. We just stuck one on there, and left a couple of leaflets. Tomorrow I will put one up at the arts centre. 

[tomspdp]

Logbook 6/6/2017

I didn't lead my warmup today, instead I suggested people do individual ones. Unfortunately, once again, two people were late and the others weren't physically okay to do my warmup. For tomorrow I will lead a shorter warmup to not put strain on anyone. It does frustrate me because I take the time to create and adapt my warmups, and I truly believe that they play a crucial role in bringing people together. Because we went into rehearsal fragmented and divided, the pace was slow. I showed everyone my text about George being sick and we worked through it despite the sullen atmosphere. The text was well received and just like the other section I wrote, we've staged ourselves in a circle to give the audience surround sound. Because we've already done this with the previous dog related text, I think we could have chosen a fresher way of staging our scene. Now I think of it, maybe it needs movement, a bit if energy to add to the vocal effect. Occasionally, if an idea doesn't come to me on the spot, I've little time to develop one in my head before a creative decision has been made. I do wish Hayden wouldn't be so firm, I wish he'd consider other possibilities before making a decision; I believe us to have sufficient time left to explore a little more, and it's crucial we don't create content which is a product of a pressurised mentality. This is why my warmup would have been useful! It's so hard to motivate people though when their negativity is telling you not to push them too far.. I can't make people do what they don't want to do. I do however understand that it's my responsibility no matter what to get the good vibes flowing, so I will try again tomorrow. I suppose I wasn't as bright and positive as I could have been thus morning. Within the text, Parvovirus and its effects are discussed, however some feel that if we just stated that George was ill and not dying as such, we'd have more freedom on making a choice - the audience wouldn't mostly side with putting George out of his misery, because he could still be saved. If we went down this route, I'll edit the text to make his type of illness open to the imagination. My Nips scene was developed and feedback from Hayden stated that I needed to clearly differentiate fro, being scared and brave/fierce. The change needs to be subtle because when he watches it, Hayden couldn't understand why I was jumping for, two different emotions so quickly - it must have appeared natural at all. I decided to keep the ending of the scene the same as before because I feel as though it returns my character back to the audience well, so they get to see the whole transformation process from my timid character to love guru to my normal self. In order to show the physical differences in character, I looked up dance moves for my love guru phase. Sexy was a key word in mind, and because I'm no great dancer, I kept the moves simple. I spent half an hour practicing body rolls, and the rest in this video. https://youtu.be/mkGWqhM9u5s

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Yesterday's warm - up

Jog around the room. Barn dance when I shout 1. Starfish on the ground on 2. 3. Hi five! Everyone in the room. Bubble work. Shake down and align the spine. Isolation’s. Recognise the breath. Any tension? What does it feel like to breath? Try different patterns. Move around and walk. Hold breath and when you stop, release it. Crouch down and imagine you’re breathing through your bum. Hah, hey, hee, hi, ho. On exhalations. S sound to 10, 15. Chew toffee I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse. Run on spot and root the voice. H, quiet sound. Focus on talking on the breath. Play with projection. Partner up. Would you like a digestive biscuit? The closer you are, the more quiet. Don’t shout, but keep rooted. Resonance Articulation Tongue twister Spend one minute talking positively about our show.

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George is ill text.

Written by me to suggest his illness, and paint a picture of what it’s like.

George is sick.

Once he’d clear a bowl of food in thirty seconds.

Nowadays, he scarcely opens his mouth.  

Once he’d grin like a happy dog.

He would leave muddy paw prints on my lap,

He would yip and yowl for attention.

Nowadays he can only manage a weak growl.

George is shutting down.  

His eyes are sad.

He can't stop crying.

He's doesn't understand what's happening to him.

Why can't he run anymore?

George is dying.  

His stubby legs tremble with each step.

So he sleeps and dreams of old days.

Leftovers of summer barbeques

Shredding furniture and playing the fool.

Being pampered every Tuesday.

Cuddles and TV in the evening.

Nowadays, George wakes up in agony.

We should have taken him to the vets!

We should have looked after our friend, the way he looked after us.

Strange how quickly affection can turn sour.

He sprayed out bloody Diarrhoea onto my silk dress.

Now that’s betrayal George.

That’s something an enemy would do

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Logbook - 5/6/2017

My warm - up today in terms of content, went smoothly. Lack of attendance almost made the first part of it impossible however; only two people joined in. The other person in the room refused to join in because they were tired.

I asked Hayden if he could give me any tips on improvement, he told me to just keep doing what I’m doing.  

I presented the text I’d written yesterday to the group. People didn’t have a bad word to say about it, and we dished out lines - Hayden went though the text line by line and asked who’d like what. It was interesting listening to the people take the Ines which, as I’d written the text, I’d envisioned saying; just shows how people recognise what kind of things their character would say when presented with a dog.

I’m enjoying writing text for my friends because I get to watch as they develop it, knowing that the text is being used as inspiration! The text is a holder of dramatic potential and its up to us to bring these words to life. 

We speak some lines in unison to show that they’re shared thoughts in which we’re all thinking at that time. 

As a group we’ve taken on board Alice’s note to not just stay in one position on stage. We’ve placed ourselves within this scene to surround the audience; they’ll hear our voices in different places, hopefully becoming immersed in the story we’re telling. 

In order to use the text to its maximum effect, Hayden suggested we really picture the dog and our surroundings keeping in mind our character voices. I’ve decided I want my character to have a high pitched tone, gentle, but with sloppy S’s, to give make him seem innocent. 

In terms of costume, I picture my character wearing a floppy woolly jumper, and jeans. I want his hair to be messy and curly - I can make this happen. He should appear gentle and inviting, dishevelled. 

The majority of the day, we were holding a bake-sale which was a success overall. Our tutor, Matt, commented that we’ve been improving each time in terms of presentation. I agree, our homemade sweets and cakes were varied and well placed. We had something for everyone: Carrot Cake and Red Velvet Cake for traditional food seekers, Pop Corn of Salt, Sweet, and Toffee flavours, and Marshmallow Kebabs for the sweet toothed folk, Rice Crispy cakes for those who couldn’t afford higher priced items. 

I supplied a Popcorn machine which looks like a duck.. It attracted people in three different ways. The smell of Popcorn is good, the sound of its creation is unique within the Institute environment, and its design was colourful and quirky.       

 We made a profit of £44, so we now have £130 budget to spend on our show! Fundraising has been really beneficial and even though we’ve a lack of budget from the Institute, I’m glad that we’re encouraged, or forced, to raise our own money, Doing so prepares you for the performance industry in which funding can be difficult. 

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Tech information

Can get blackout Might be able to get pa system and another bass amp Have to arrange richard to go curve bar before 5 Can get 4 blocks At least 1 mic

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Skippy!

Our dog has a name, I’ve written a piece of text explaining how we found him and our first impressions. 

3am.

I was warm and cosy.

Through bonfire smoke he appeared.

I was fucking wasted.

In the middle of nowhere.

An industrial factory, abandoned.

He looked abandoned.

Lost.

Just a dog really, nothing special.

I've never liked dogs.

No way! I love dogs.

He was so happy to see us, came right over

A sausage dog

Skipping over

Everyone wanted a touch

I was attacked by a dog.  

He didn't have a collar,

Maybe we should search for his owner?

I was bitten, I've got scars.

He sat in the middle of our circle,

I kept expecting his owner to turn up

Pull us out of this strange,

Wonderful

Situation.

All eyes on him.

He moves his head, we follow.

He's in charge now.

 We could take him in!

Share him

One day a week between us.. It could work

Yes

No

Perhaps

Yes!

A collective agreement

Logic is boring

Our foster dog.

Our friend.

Skippy.

Welcome to the group.

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Structure of the show for today’s lesson:

Opening music. 

Intro speech. 

Do you remember.

Mesha party text. 

Megan seeing friends 

Salt, Shot, Lemon

Mesha dare

How fucking awkward 

Angela’s party text 

Gabi’s dare

Curse Ridden Monsters 

Gabi song/Pinata scene 

Rope dog one

Tom party text

Audience dares

Angela dare

Beth party text

Nips scene

Rope dog 2

Gabi party text

Meerkat scene

Beth song/closing character text

Epilogue