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All logs in a word document.

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Aim: Block to page 14, in the next 2 days.

Revise paper work.

Skills:

Imagination

Energy & stamina

Concentration

Sensitive to each others needs

Communication

Started off rehearsals by structuring and timing the rehearsal to ensure a balanced day. This was to prevent things such as spending too long brainstorming and not enough time experimenting and playing with ideas.

Brainstorming section 11:

— Don’t know = frustration

— Reduced interest

— Room temp

— Division in the stage

— Emily sulks during this section because the argument about eyes was broken up

— More individuality

— Opportunities to interact with audience

— Meg and Jamie lecturing the rest of us

Broke down line “We know that sound waves enter the human ear […] this information is converted into what people hear and understand as sound.”

We then played around with props and our bodies to choreograph movement that represented the process of hearing sound.

At first, we struggled to devise because of our lack of knowledge on the working of the ear, so we went on to do more research on 'Dance your PHD".

I learned...

Listening to one another creates natural reactions that you can't fake, cant act.

When feeling unwell it is always better to be present during rehearsals, but you need to have an awareness of your energy levels and know your limit.

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Aim: To recap what we did on Friday and incorporate the new ideas to the piece.

To polish all completed scenes.

Run through analysis
I felt under confident which reduced my energy

Need to be very slick - if you hiccup it takes you aware from the very involving, intense process

Connor as game master worked well but we need to rehearse it.

Even though lines sometimes were misplaced, we carried on nevertheless.

Accessed the sad emotions when Luke said “We don’t know who’s going to die first.” emotional long pause after.

Audience response:

Only Karen and Chris.
“Reasonably disconcerting”

Found themselves answering a lot of the questions, gets them thinking things they don't normally consider.

Evaluation:

When we have the three day break from rehearsals, make sure I look at my script and my lines so when we come back on Tuesday, it hasn't all been forgotten.

Before we run through, refresh our memories so we are re-familiarised and therefore confident. Perhaps, Do this by doing a speed run through before the official run.

Create order for when we come out of freeze.

REMEMBER to place a book on stage and bend to get it.

Take it in turns to watch the opening section, and see how it feels.

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This was the first whole cast rehearsal led by myself and Connor. When taking notes after the run through, we made sure it was a one-person-speaks policy, and if you had a comment to make you put your hand up or waited for an appropriate time to speak. I chaired the discussion and having one person negotiate the talk meant there was limited conflict, until near the end when people had grown bored and fidgety.

In the morning before first break, the energy was very low and the room had a tense atmosphere, but with two very energetic warmups the whole mood of the room changed and there was a communal sense of focus and engagement.

We held the freeze frame at the beginning for 1 minute - really focussed us all.

Connor held the script throughout, taking the role of prompt and note taker. This meant no one else held a script and although there were some lines forgotten, it simply showed the areas we needed most rehearsal (head game, presenting)

Without any audience, it felt more like we were playing around in the rehearsal room which actually encouraged more inter-cast reactions.

To do in future rehearsals:

We want to revise and improve some of the freeze frames that are weak.

Re-establish the tone & temperature of each section

Connor becomes games master on the 'heads' game

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Aim: Progress to page 6 -- reviewed aim of page 8.
PT: Increasing my awareness of and responding to my cast members, by doing an observation warm up and taking time to listen and evaluate their actions and speech.

Improvised dance exercise: Warmed up, observing one another, spontaneous reactions to one another and a stimuli, instilling awareness of audience, spacial awareness

Before we ran through what we've done so far, we held a freeze frame for approx. 5 mins, with the intention of getting us used to freezing whilst an audience enters. The freeze got me into character and brought my focus into the space and my body.

My intentions for the run through were:
-- Differing motivations and emotions behind each section
-- Consistent energy level
-- Responding to my cast mates

Held the opening, confrontational gaze for a very long time - the longer it continued the tenser it became.

Good note: The audience's laughter can be infectious. I'm tackling this by imagining that they are actually laughing at me, and then their laughter triggers feelings of anger and hurt.

Sometimes the games felt planned.

"We don't know so much about you." - we all caught on to the fact that we know nothing of our audience. Each person responded to it differently; anger, vulnerability, confrontational, scared...

Evaluation: Rather than struggling to keep a consistent energy level, I sometimes found myself failing to connect with sections of text. I'm going to target this by, when going over lines and through the script, trying to relive the emotions I felt during rehearsals. Rooting them into my emotion memory means I can access them quickly whenever we work on each section of script.

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PT: To be imaginative, spontaneous, work as a collective, confident.
Personal challenge: Acting as though I don't know whats coming next, so each time my reactions are fresh and strong.

The session started with the exercises; "Yes, Lets", Threesome and Group Shapes. These got me used to taking risks, being spontaneous, working with my cast mates and stretching my imagination. This led us into devising freeze frames that went with the text. I still sometimes found myself reluctant to think outside the box. In the future I'm going to throw myself into it, do anything, because at least then theres something to build from.

Ideas established: Coughing on audience, strip club with warbling song, 'family' image.

Issues of time keeping - as we got overexcited we discussed too much and didn't filter our ideas and thoughts. To combat this I will stay quiet when I notice there is too much noise, and raise my hand to speak.

Evaluation: By doing a warm up in both morning and afternoon session, our energy was rejuvenated for the afternoon.
The target of reaching page 8 was too ambitious, as the script is so new to us and we are still discovering how we are approaching it.
To work on when devising: Having more confidence in my imagination and helping to encourage healthy conversation in the cast by having an awareness of sound levels.

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Evaluate costumes
Evaluate early rehearsals - type casting, quick fire word association etc.

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Aim: To recap on previous rehearsal decisions.

Progress to page 8.

1st run...
-- Low energy, because we didn't approach the games as though we enjoyed them.
-- Very good, long pause at the start which allowed time for us to change from confrontational to stubborn.
-- I learnt that I need to fix my costume, because the broken wings distracted me. I also want to use the prop of a laptop, because miming it means I can't get across the sense of urgency were striving for.

2nd run...
-- I now have a fixed cue from Tom as to when I see the audience.
-- Using laptop much better - I could actually research things, more naturalistic.

3rd run, with an audience..
-- The direct gaze made them feel incredibly uncomfortable, fidgety, and hysterical.
-- "Luke didn't appear to belong, with his back turned to use."
-- The whole thing was very tense, but the games brought some temporary relief for the audience, as our attention wasn't on them so much. However, the mood would always soon shift to be darker again. They are taken on an emotional journey, never comfortable.
-- Requirements as an actor: I received the note that I had a good awareness of the actors around me, and reacted and connected with them on both my and their lines. We all still need to find the balance of reacting to one another, but not 'acting'.

Evaluation:
Having an audience was fantastic - I had peoples energy to bounce off, reactions that fed my own feelings and motivations.
Making note when I get a new cue or if I forgot something, helped me remember these things in the next run through.

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Aim: To experiment with the opening of the play.

1st improvisation:
-- Seated as audience walk in, and continue to hold confrontational eye contact as they got increasingly uncomfortable.
-- Nervous laughter stronger, perhaps because it was the first time they had been so directly confronted by a cast.
-- I found it easier to zone out as there was nothing to engage me. Felt purposeless.
-- Too much 'acting' happening
-- Unused to responding to one another and to the audience, so it lacked energy.

2nd improvisation:
-- Frantically gathering 'knowledge', from loads of different sources. Gradually, organically, we notice the audience seated there, and feel an immense discomfort and confusion at their presence.
-- The focus on the audience felt more powerful with a motivation, a feeling behind it.
-- Keeps them more curious, as they create scenarios in their head as to what is happening.

3rd improvisation:
-- Opens with us hurriedly getting ready for the performance, finding our costume, learning lines, adjusting set etc.

-- We constantly reference the audience, almost apologetic that we are late.

-- Eventually we start to line up downstage, still adjusting our costume and some of us looking at the script, out of breath but ready to address the audience.

-- The concept is that we start off with the intention of putting on a production, but eventually a realisation and stubbornness takes hold of us. By half way through, we get out of our costume, we start talking about what we want, and deconstruct the set.

Evaluation: By approaching the opening section with the intention of simply exploring and playing, not minding the logistics of it, enabled me to be far more inventive and we created exciting moments that we can later adapt.

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Run/ organise warm ups
Structure rehearsals
Chair productions meetings
Prompt
Notes & feedback
Liasing with Karen
Keep record of deadlines

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Aim: To understand the style of the company Forced Entertainment.

We watched the documentary ‘Making Performance’ and made notes on their devising and rehearsal process.

**attach photocopied notes**

**attach further research notes**

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Hair & makeup: Lei-Anne
Costume & props: Luke and Josh
Set: Josh
Light & Sound: Meg and Morgen

Marketing overseen by Emily
Facebook: Jamie
Twitter: Morgen
Instagram: Luke & Emily
Posters & programmes: Emily
Radio: Tom
Photos & trailers: Jamie
Press release: Tom

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Aims: Recap sections and temperatures exercise.

Come to a decision on the direction we want to take the piece.
PT: To stay engaged throughout rehearsals by moving when I lose concentration. Unfortunately I didn’t achieve this target, so I could have benefited from doing a very physical warm up before rehearsals and, instead of ignoring the fact I was disengaging, taken moments to re-energise by doing an exercise like star jumps.

By re-familiarising ourselves and Karen of the newly divided text, and the temperatures that go with each section, we started to break the text up into manageable chunks. The text appears to have no shape, but by assigning the titles and temperatures, its almost like we are creating mini scenes. This makes the play more dynamic and will keep both us and the audience more engaged.

Continuing this idea of making each section individual, Karen introduced the idea that in each section, we find a game to play on stage with each other. So, the rule of the first ‘game’ was to quickly turn your head to look at whoever was speaking. On the line “In some cases, we know your names.”, our attention returned to the audience, the game over.

The second game we played was during Connor’s line, where he lists off things we know about each other, such as “who eats meat and who is a vegetarian”. The rule in this game was that you put your hand up when Connor mentioned something that related to you. This created unplanned comic moments - evidence that when working with a play of this style, some of the best results are happy accidents that arise from us improvising and reacting to one another.

Evaluation: The idea of finding games to play was a new way of approaching the script, that produced interesting material and organic reactions to one another. It encouraged me to have a creative, exploratory mindset.

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How the exercises and direction are preparing me for the final performance

How I go about those tasks as actor - to show I'm learning how I work best

Awareness of my role requirements and how I am achieving them e.g. line learning

Warm ups - when and why they are appropriate

My own ideas about what we are doing

Keep evaluating and analysing the direction.

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Aim
Personal target (PT)
Exercise (brief description)
How & what I learned from it
Evaluation