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https://www.waldeneatingdisorders.com/body-shaming-what-is-it-why-do-we-do-it/
This web address lets me see why people may fat shame. It's quite simple. Most people do it to make them self look better or feel better.
People do it out of spite.
Some people do it because they are following the crowd.
The thing that interests me is, in Extremism the only character that actually calls Evan fat is Racheal.
This leads me to think she was once fat herself.

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http://www.menshealth.co.uk/lose-weight/is-fat-shaming-a-bad-thing

This article speaks about is fat shaming a bad thing?
The reason I decided to do this was because it allowed me to see some persons perspective on the matter. It allowed me to know how to react as a fat person in the play while acting as Evan.
You see Evan is self - conscious about his weight but feels like he does not need to change.
I wanted to know that what are the effects of fat shaming and is it the right thing to do?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoTQ3aOEz54

Now as strange as it may seem, I started watching this video on why do people hate fat people? The reason why I choose to watch this was because I wanted to understand the hate people have towards fat people and maybe get an understand why the character Racheal hates Evan so much. It talks about how fat people get discriminated and goes on to rant about the topic itself.

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Youth theatre notes from our first performance notes.

This helped us to see what we could do better and what to work on when we go to the Royal & Derngate Theatre to perform.
It allowed us to get a first insight into what our show looked like from the audiences perspective and it also allowed us to take things that we lacked on and make them better.
Having this feedback for me though, I was able to read the different views on other characters because I noticed that there was no feedback for my character.

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Once we performed at MK College, we had to change the whole staging so it fits The Royal & Derogate Theatre in Northampton. This was because being in the National youth Theatre competition this was the place we would be performing it in the competition.

this is of course a dilemma in itself. Having a performance that had a three way audience didn't help the fact we now need to come up with new staging to fit a front audience. The normal audience. The problems we faced is that we only had a small amount of time to convert the piece and having half term around the corner that took a lot of rehearsal time away.

We felt keeping the rostra but it wouldn't be used like it had been before. We used it still for levels but it meant we had a lot of area to deal with. This is where we choose to go with tables. Easy to sit on and easy to use.

Another thing he had to change is how Suhayla got tripped over. Although having a space that was larger by width we had decided that the space would be brought forward because the stage was deep. In the coming weeks of the show, we decided it was a good idea to go about it by how we had before. To go slow and work out where each table would be and how the tables were used differently in order to portray a better viewing for the audience.

We had discussed about an idea of using a rubix cube to define power in the show but with the time scale it just wasn't enough time to bring in something that needed to be implemented correctly. It was confusing to understand if you wasn't able to make it work in the performance so on this case we just didn't add it.

The lighting used was ever so slightly different in the fact at the start we scrapped the red light and made the whole piece more naturalistic. This was done because of the way we changed the beginning of the play. Instead of marching on to the stage we would watch the video and watch Jamal be taken away in front of us.

Something that worked really well this time around that wasn't as good as using a three way audience was the slap that Darren gives Suha yla. I feel that this is because we only needed the audience to see one side.

My character was changed ever so slightly as well with the fact he no longer ate on stage but still dreamt about food. He was more of a funny character that took the piece from being a massive power hungry and raging performance to having some bits where you could relieve the emotional tensions that are occurring.

I felt that the character fitted well on this stage more then the three way audience because you could see my expressions a lot more and I was finally aloud to go from room acting to stage acting and I felt it worked well.

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This is a little graph I came up with to show where the different characters would be in society.
It's very interesting to see that you can actually put every single character into a category of left wing or ring winged politics and actually a few surprised me because at first when you read Extremism you would think Darren would be more right but later find out that his views change to  understand the left wing a bit more once he feels bad for his actions.

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ITS SHOWTIME!

All this week we obviously rehearsed by doing constant run through of the play and got given feedback to a small degree to allow us to pick up on certain things. My one this week was just hold back certain emotions on my face and to take it back from being on stage acting to being in a room acting.

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The National Youth Theatre - Connections

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The National Youth Theatre - Connections

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The National Youth Theatre of Great Britain is a world leading youth arts organisation.  They were established in 1956 as the first youth theatre in the world and since then they have wanted to nurturer  the talent of hundreds of thousands of young people and help them gain the skills to progress into a better actor

The play we performed was written for this competition and we got the opportunity to take it about and create a version we deemed worthy or performing.

This competition happens once every year and it just so happens that over 250 different organisations took part in the competition.

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Week Nine 13th March 15th March (The week before the show)

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Week Nine 13th March 15th March (The week before the show)

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The ninth week!

It is the week before our show.
This week after hearing about our posters, the higher management wanted to come watch the show to understand what it was about.

Once they saw it they had come to terms it was a powerful piece that allowed them to see what prevent is and how bullying can go on.

They decided they wanted to show the college the play that we had performed so other students can get to an idea of what they should look out for and prevent any issues regarding bullying or radicalisation.

This week of course meant we was all in costume too! we spent all of Monday to Wednesday re-running the show and getting feedback to allow us to make bolder choices to our performance.

My main points of feedback was articulation.

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The second edition of the poster (Week eight explains)

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The first edition of the poster that we had to change (Week eight explains

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Third edition of what the poster had on it and also the leaflet

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The Eighth week!

This week we planned what would be a good idea of what the poster should look like. When we came up with the idea and it came to life, we had some issues with it.

The main issue with it was the fact it had what the Islamic community would say "Sacred writing on it".

The two Muslims we have in the show understood that it was just a show but from an outsiders view they didn't understand why it would be on a poster with the word 'Extremism' on it. Of course we had Nigel Farage on it to as well as Donald Trump but I guess some things was not understood.

So we went back to the drawing board and had to rethink what we could have.

The next poster we came up with was without the words and still the poster wasn't allowed because the audience had an issue with why the woman in a Hijab was on a poster.

In the end we took a group photo of the cast and had the play name and that was it.

These versions can be seen in this padlet.

We also went over our performance trying to work out what is going well and what needs to be improving. On e section was the slap that Darren gave Suhayla and just articulation from every single character so that the audience understood what was being said.

For me I just had to watch out for volume. Sometimes I can be heard and sometimes I was shouting when I didn't have to.

I worked close to all characters this week as having run throughs of the play means all characters are involved.

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The Seventh week!

This week we had just done run through of the play to get what the performance looks like. My character has been decided that I would spend the majority on stage right. This is so from the audience point of view it represents what I was trying to portray in the first place. A guy that doesn't get involved until it's to late.

Some issues we had was just the scenes that required a lot of careful planning like the slaps and trip of certain characters.

The way we managed to overcome this was to ensure we all know what is happening at all times and to not change anything while it is going on.

I make it sound like it was a major thing but of course ensuring the safety of my group at all times is making myself aware to what can go wrong.

The small little details now genuinely are just articulation and making my voice heard.

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The Sixth week!

This week we have came back from half term. Before we went it was told by our director that in half term we would have needed to be off script. So that meant learning your lines and recapping on the scenes that have took place to make sure we haven't forgotten.

When we came into lesson we had a quick brief on our character back stories to make sure we still understood what we was talking about and made us more aware to what others are trying to portray.

We started to discuss how we would come on stage. Our director came up with an idea of having a video explaining some effects of 'Extremism' and it also showed videos of 'Extremism, radicalisation and prevent.

Because at the start of the script a kid called Jamal was introduced, we needed a way to show this and that's the whole reason as to why this whole piece exists.

We decided it would be great to get three of the year ones students to be Jamal and two security guards that take him away.

We finished of the week by running through the play without scripts and stopping at areas we felt needed improving. One area that we was stopping quite regularly was the part when Suhayla was saying "I really need a... What? I can't tell you yet! where are the white space imperialists when you actually need one?"

I believe the reason was purely down to the actors choice of words but at the same time not understanding where the quotes came from.

Another place we went over a couple of times is when we are talking about the "terraced house" and they talk about a
"terrorist house"
here we are talking about a kid got mixed up with the two and how prevent had to check it out.

The reason we had to keep going over it is because the actor had to make it clear what version of the word is used where.

When we had chosen to make a scene where Suhayla gets tripped over and the two girls start to get on top of her we had to make sure that the scene was done safe and securely. In order to do this we had to literally do what we did with the fight/slap scene. By going slowly and assessing what health and safety issues we may face in order to make it convincing.

One thing that we did come across is where Suhayla (played by Asly) kept dropping to the floor after being tripped. Being to near the rostra would make it a risk in that she fools and bangs her head or even worse. so staging it to upstage centre made it more safe.

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The Filth week!

This week I wasn't at two of the rehearsals again due to my auditions I attended but was able to catch with what was going on and recapped on what the group decided.

They had managed to cover the whole script and we was able to see a run through with scripts to see what it looked like.

One of the major things we had to discuss was the fight scene to make sure it was safe and secure but looked effective. In order to do that we went over the scene many, many times to allow the characters involved to understand exactly what was going to happen. also by doing it slow we was able to see what may go wrong and how we can prevent that.

The one thing that actually kept going wrong was the fact the hand slap was never loud enough. we did think about having other people clap at the same time but it didn't look or sound convincing enough to leave it in.

David who played Darren had to just keep practising with it and hopefully in due time it actually works and can make it believable.

My character at this point just needed to know where to go in the play and to get my positioning in the right place.

I actually came up with the idea that for the beginning part I should be eating nuts.

This gave my character when he wasn't speaking the ability to be involved of the piece and it be relatable to what is being said.

I think the only problem I have with my character at the moment is providing actions to last while other people do the speaking. Also I need to make sure my articulation is better to make people hear what is being said.

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The Fourth week!

Something that I struggled with was because the fact that I had auditions to attend which meant I didn't attend a couple of days of rehearsal this week.

The day I was in though we smashed through more of the script and started to see certain sections of script to see how it looked. We started to talk about our characters back story and started to see what other people thought about their characters.

This helped us understand that why certain character reacted the way they do to the performance and why certain characters disliked other ones.

One thing I wanted to know most was what was Olive's character and why does he help Samuel speak Klingon. We actually found out that they are brother and sister and they once was close part felt Olive started to grow apart from her brother Samuel.

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The Third week!

This week we stared to  plan out how to start the production. We just got hold of the scripts and tackled it with just reading it and going to go stand where we thought it was comfortable.

This worked to a certain extent but realised having us stand around the whole piece just wouldn't work.
So the group was told to come together and think what sort of props could we use like tables ect...

Something we didn't want because of our staging was tables. They tend to be only face certain ways and don't really go well with letting the audience see what is going on. also we decided less props would be best.

This is where a rostra was sprung to mind and with its level we could in-cooperate it into the script by using when we are speaking and for when people should be sitting down.

We also used six chairs that ran up and down the staging to allow other ways to use the area to perform.

My character was a character that was so disconnected to what the others were walking about that we decided that he would float the room but mainly up stage left to riht using only the rostra to break certain moments.

Of course this wasn't all plain sailing because we had areas where I would cover other people and not been seen due to my size. At this point we had a third of the script set and was 75% sure that was how it would go down.

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The second week!

This week after leaving last weeks rehearsals, of course being told to start learning lines. we started to discuss how we wanted to the stage to look. we got into groups of 2/3 and came up with what sort of staging we would like.

One idea was of course to go down the normal route of having an audience in front of us at all times.

Another idea that sprung to mind was having an audience that was surrounding us on three different sides and allowing the audience to see the performance different views.

The best thing about having the three way audience is that it was different to the norm and it looked like it would work extremely well with the script because there Is always something going on even if the action isn't on the characters.

So of course we all decided to tackle the three way audience view.

This week I thought that it was a good idea to understand Evans character. He is a fat kid (because we decided it was a bunch of 15/16 year old kids in year 11) who gets bullied by one person called Rachel. But it was more then that. Evan was a kid that tended to just get on with life and only really got involved with things that he was pushed into.

Saying that he does try to join a conversation mid way through the script but with his intelligence he doesn't quite get what the rest of the characters are on about.

Something we did pick up on in our discussions in class is that each character represented a different part of society.

Evan represented people who are oblivious to what is happening around the world, and when it is to late they join in. But of course it is to late. Not that they do anything about it anyway.

This week to sum it up was discussing staging ideas and what is needed to make it work. also understanding our characters in further detail.

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The first week!

We have been given the script about Extremism. I have been given the character Evan.

Today we had a read through of the script to understand what it was about.

We came up with what the themes where of the play and power seemed to crop up a lot.

The people that have been included in the play are:
Jack Stapleton(me) - Evan
George Maycock- Samuel
Georgia Malory - Olive
Estelle Wilkinson - Rachel
Kizzie Bishop - Melina
Connor Sullivan - Chris
Ahmed  - Jordan
Asly Mohammed - Suhayla
David Perkins - Darren
Maggie Tengey - Kirsty

In our second lesson (10th) we started to try and get the characters to look like us, which meant two of the characters names where changed. Ahmed's character was changed from Jordan to Manny a more African - American name that suited him. Also for the change there was a line in the script that didn't make sense to the original name.

The second name changed was Maggie's, which went from Kirsty to Chantelle.

Our homework to undertake for next lesson was to start to look at what sort of character we had to portray and try get some tips on how to play the character.

By the third day we came back and starting to share our ideas.

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Fascism basically means people that have intolerant views or practises like right winged parties. Examples of this are the EDL (English Defence League) or Donald Trump.

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In our production of 'Extremism' we had come together (the ten of us and the director) to decide how we would express this piece. After careful consideration and a lot of planning, it was decided that we would have a three way audience around a rostra in a room that was G50 (Our performance room). The rostra gave us the ability to stand out while we was talking and use it for different levels in the performance for characters. The choice for having it like this is so from the audience perspective you can see how things look from different views and it allows us to make the audience see how powerful this piece is.

The lighting used for our production was quite simple. At the start of the show of course it would be pitch black with only the video playing. Once the characters come onto the rostra we it would switch to a red colour to make it naturalistic and make the audience a tad confused to what is about to come. About 4/5 minutes into the performance the lighting then goes into a naturalistic mutual light of white for the rest of the play.

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This is the sort of tie we choose for the school of 'Lady Leadenhall Academy'

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These are the trainers I wore for the play because I felt that Evan would wear what was comfortable due to his weight.

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This was the trousers I was looking to have for the performance. The reason why I choose to have baggy trousers instead of having normal straight trousers that you would normally where for school is because due to my character being portrayed as a fat kid I felt like he needed to be seen as someone who don't fit in the normal clothes and so the baggy trousers made sense.

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This was the shirt design that I would be wearing on the day for the performance because we are portraying that we are in a school

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Looking into the script more we mention a lot of references to politics etc. One man that has stormed the media by force is Donald Trump.

The way he has gone about his business is actually very clever whether you like him or not he has managed to buy himself into the White house by using tactics that influence different types of people like the frustrated people, or racist people etc. In  Extremism we take a look at racism and how it effects different people. By researching Donald trump I could understand what views he had on racism and a lot of them are of course controversial.

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The English Defence League

The English Defence League is a far-right street protest movement which focuses on opposition to what it considers to be a spread of Islamic and Sharia law in the United Kingdom. It describes itself as an anti-racist and human rights organisation. The ide of forming the EDL was the belief that the religion of Islam challenges an English, Christian way of life. The EDL was until 2013 the most significant counter-jihad movement in Europe and considered by some people to be one of the more intriguing developments on the far right society.

The reason I have researched about the EDL is because in our play we have characters like Melina and Rachel that slander the Islamic religion and I wanted to understand peoples views on the matter. It seeks to amaze me what people tend to follow and how far right people can be when talking about such matters.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mclgeU0lWrs
This is only a short clip on the play because there isn't actually a version to watch on the internet. This only really gives a little introduction to a couple of the characters. It doesn't let us truly understand what the play is about and of course it is their version.

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Something that might interest you on this is, even though my character was set up as a fat person who likes to eat, there's a much deeper meaning to him.

Evan, for the first part of the play tends to ignore what is going on around him. He doesn't like conflict and it's only when things are getting heated he decides to step BUT only when he is forced to.

Evan represents people that have no idea what is going on, or choices to not have an idea what is going on, before it is to late. he only then starts to understand what the group have been talking about but doesn't have a voice because he is shut down at every turn by the girls (Melina, Rachel).

I actually went on social media and watched my fellow friends and asked them their opinions on certain media related topics like: Brexit, Donald Trump, Tories and ISIS. Surprisingly I had a friend that was very much like Evan. He practically ignored everything I asked and it was only when it came to the London attack on  the Westminster he decided to share his opinions on these matters.

I decided to then watch videos on certain matters surrounding fat people. this was just to get an understanding of what it is like to be bullied or what sort of characteristics they have. Ironically I was bullied for being fat so I could also reminisced the times when I was in secondary to get an idea on how to play Evan as a character.
Always feeling shut down. No voice to be heard. No where to turn to. However still happy to get on with life and enjoy the little things, like food.

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Anders decided he wanted to explore in which the way institutions make people act. He writes about 'Power' the power in the room, and the power between students and how the 'Prevent' programme changes that. Anders lets us know how his beliefs in this world is that there are becoming more barriers and that the Left wing associations is more concerned at exclusionary forms of identification. The consequences  of 'Prevent' is entrusting students to identify possible acts of terrorism or radicalisation. The play actually takes this concept and takes things to the extreme by showing us what this could possibly end up like.

The play on the whole is about power like we have discussed and it's interesting to have a girl called Suhayla who is the wittiest and most confident character of the group particularly in the beginning.
We later understand that this power switches and even though at first thought she looks like a victim. The more you look at the script you understand she plays it and actually understands everything she is doing.

We know what the play is about as our teacher  had an opportunity to meet with the director so it made it easier to truly understand what he was trying to put across.

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Extremism is written by a person called Anders Lustgarten that was written in 2016 and  this play tackles fear, friendship, power and the creeping polarisation of our society.

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Contextual research for Extremism - Prevent 

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Contextual research for Extremism - Prevent 

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What is Prevent?
Well we know schools and colleges across United Kingdom now have to enforce it but what is it?

Well it is an act that was passed in 2015 to help educate the citizens on acts of terrorism.
In order to understand a little more on prevent, the whole class had a lesson on it from the Prevent training officer who was part of the police to come in and let us understand the seriousness of what can occur and what sort of things to look out for to stop people getting radicalised (radicalisation simply means the process where someone is lead to adopt extreme political, social and religious ideals and aspirations).

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445977/3799_Revised_Prevent_Duty_Guidance__England_Wales_V2-Interactive.pdf

This goes into full detail what this act is about and what to look out for etc.

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Contextual research for extremism - Equality and Diversity.

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Contextual research for extremism - Equality and Diversity.

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https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/community-and-living/equality-and-diversity/the-nine-protected-characteristics/

There are nine characteristics that come under equality and diversity, however the ones that we used in Extremism were race and religion or belief.

Race is pretty simple. It is a discrimination towards anyone about colour skin they have, what nationality they are, where they are born or there national origins are.

Religion and belief is when someone discriminates due to what people to believe in or lack of belief like an atheist.

In Extremism we are aware that one religion in particular is used and that is the Islamic religion (Muslim). Part of the performance, we as a class had to understand that what we wasn't going to offend our audiences. when acting out this piece. I personally went online to try and get a better understanding of the religion and what sort of things that could offend people.

https://www.islamicity.org/8304/understanding-islam-and-muslims/

This website allowed me to graft an idea of what the religion is about and made me aware of the context of the play was just for the play itself and wasn't to be a way to hate on the culture.

In this script a character called Darren uses the phase "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims."

Of course if this wasn't part of the play it could be taken into further consideration of how serious this statement is, but we as a group understand that it is a play and nothing serious needed to come from it.

I think that because of this play, it makes us actors aware of the discrimination that occurs in every society and allows us to be more educated on the subject matter.

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Actors name: Jack Stapleton
Character's name: Evan Alshaw

Evan is a 16 year old boy attending Lady Leadenhall Academy.

He has been attending school since the beginning of year 7 and has always been a character that has struggled with his weight.

He lives at home with his parents just around the corner in Oldbrook and he has lived there all his life.

He used to be friends with Racheal back in primary school where she used to be fat. They used to walk together when going to school and always used to spend a lot of time together.

I think he actually feels sorry for her because she was bullied for being fat but has managed to lose all the weight, but he does not agree with her bullying him at all. But he accepts it because if it was not him then she would do it to someone else.

In school Evan is a quiet boy who normally keeps himself to himself. The only person that gives him hassle is Racheal.

His relationship with other characters:
Darren - Evan doesn't really get himself involved with him. They only know each other from class but thinks Darren is just a no it all.

Suhayla - Evan feels like she has strong opinions that sometimes go over board. But again doesn't get himself involved with her.

Chantelle - Evan is unsure on Chantelle. He thinks she is a nice girl and although they don't speak to each other he likes her.

Manny - Evan gets along with Manny because of his relaxed attitude towards life. They say hi to each other sometimes but that is as far as the conversation goes.

Chris - Evan is okay with Chris. Even though Evan isn't the brightest spark he understands what Chris stands for and can respect what he says.

Olive - Evan hangs about with Olive outside of the classroom but when it comes classroom time they don't interact with each other because she tends to get on with her work and Evan happily sits in his own world.

Samuel - Out of all people if you would class people as being friends, Evan and Samuel are friends. But again only out of the classroom. They don't speak in class because Samuel is scared of what others would think as well as he needs olive to translate for him.

Melina - Evan hates this girl, he tries to dodge her at every opportunity because he knows it is best to stay out of her way. Even Evan understands that this is the best option.

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This feedback is from my class mates. This allowed me to see things I couldn't. I took on board what everyone had for me and tried to portray the character in this way

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The one thing I got mostly picked up from was my articulation. I needed to make sure I say my lines loud and clear so the audience members were able to understand me

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http://www.whydontyoutrythis.com/2017/02/media-completely-ignores-20-million-muslims-who-march-against-isis.html?m=1

After getting told about prevent and society itself, I decided to have a look at what sort of things are happening in today's world. Strangely enough, just recently there was a terrorist attack in London. Something I couldn't understand is though that news story was covered world wide yet you never hear things like this. This post just shows the double standard in our society today. This is Muslims standing up against other Muslims and because it's widely regarded that 'all muslims are terrorist' (even though we all know that's not true) we don't get to see the good side to the religion. To the ones that have to suffer because we judge them on just small group of small minded people who don't care about the world.

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https://www.theatrefolk.com/blog/projecting-your-voice-without-yelling/

This link is something I've used to try and get a better understanding on how to raise my voice while I'm acting, it has allowed me to see what I need to do and to make sure I don't shout in rehearsals, or even on show days.