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Small section of the poem performed by the actors and actresses.

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Actors beginning piece

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Group photo after the performance.

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The first proper group work we had done was learning improvisation techniques and using them in small scenarios. For example, me and Jamie Crossley were given a character or object and we had to personify that object. So we was told that we were 2 sausages in a pan. Me and him had a conversation about over meats such as bacon and how they are the “cool” kids.

One day we were finishing off with some hot seating  which was part of our improvisation areas this was to help the performers and the audience in understanding the characters we had assigned our self’s. Jamie Crossley was first and he played a character called Maureen. The audience asked questions about the character. Long story short we decided it would be fun for us to use hot seating but in a Jeremy Kyle show scenario. In doing so we had more characters in the middle such as Jessica who was played by Harriet Simpson, the mother who was played by Rosemary, the sister of Jessica who was played by Emily Sear. And by doing that we was able to discover an entire family, their past and their personality. I played Jeremy Kyle and I learned what it is like having to deal with such a dysfunctional family and how he is able to control them.

Before we started these activities we would start with a warm up. Standing up, we would be told to walk around the room normally. At some points Rosemary would change the setting we was walking in. For example, a snowy area  so we would have to act out as if we were having trouble walking because the snow was very thick.

As a group we created a performance out a section of a Shakespearean play. This was a character called Puck, and he had a monologue. We used physical theatre for some of the trees, as Puck was exclaiming that he was in a forest. Some of our movements were very sharp and some were slow and gracious. I believe these movements are called Action Drives. We learned about sound scapes, which were sounds that we made with our physical body and these were to reflect on natural sounds. For example we made car sounds to emulate a car driving on the road.

The day before our performance we had to implement the dancing groups sections into what we had been rehearsing. This was tricky for Helen and the dance group because they also had to change certain aspects of their performance to fit in with ours. As we started to rehearse the full performance we were starting to tweak a few things until we were happy with it and then started to rehearse that. At first i was very put off by the idea of our work being changed but by the time we had finished the changes and we started rehearsing i was happy with our show and was impressed how I and the others handled it and adapted to the changes.

On the day of the performance we started out with voice warm ups by Rosemary. This was to prepare us by waking us up a bit and by letting us project our voice in a room. For a lot of the day we were just going over the performance we had completed the day before, just perfecting it and working on individual sections.

In the beginning of the drama groups performance we all but one person is in an arrow head formation and someone is at the back on a chair, playing as a judge. The judge then accuses the other performers who represent Milton Keynes of being boring and corporate. We thought that after the judge exclaims all the stereotypes about MK, the other performers should turn and proclaims “NOT GUILTY” as it would show Milton Keynes fighting against all the wrongs it is accused of. This was eventually changed to allow the audience get into their seats in the other room. I believe that it was strong start as it would make the audience believe that MK is being accused of something by outsiders.

After that is said the performers in the arrow position were assigned specific words to say, and these words were put in order before hand. The group on the ground starts moving one by one saying their designated words in order. Rosemary planted the idea that while we aren’t doing an action that represents our word we should look around the room as if we are showing tourists all the key points about MK.

We move on to our poem. We used echo in the key parts in each line on the first stanza. But by the third line in stanza 1 we all moved to form an underpass. Moving on from the first stanza we a split up into 2 lines, and with each step closer to each other 1 side says half a line, until we are 1 or 2 steps away from each other. We proceed to turn to the audience and all of us in unison say a couple lines. Near the end of the poem section we have our 2 lines of people form a circle to resemble children playing together and having fun we thought this was striking for the audience as it may bring back good memories of their own.

The next section straight after the poem, was a sketch I at first came up with, which was about the tree in Centre MK. I laid out the idea and key points we would need to mention such as a landmark to show what was the heart of MK. This eventually became a group effort. In the beginning we have 3 businessmen walking around a tree which was created by using physical theatre by the rest of the performers. The business men would talk about making profits with shopping markets and such of that nature. And we would transition to a group of friends talking about how much they loved this tree and what they would wish they would do with the trees oak if it were to be chopped down. We thought this would be a good representation of the people of MK and its history, which MK is said to have none. We had transitions between the businessmen and the public to incorporate the dance group.

Directly after the sketch we had a song which was sparked by Harriet’s idea of changing lyrics of a song from a film called “Nightmare before Christmas”. Harriet had to first change some of the lyrics to fit in with the main theme of the performance, secondly Esther learned some of the music with the guitar. The rest of the group either play as corporate workers or just regular people doing everyday things. By the last chorus, Harriet is in the middle and there are 2 groups, 1 side is a boring, and depressing side and the other side is a happy and fun side. Harriet is singing while facing the fun side and pushing away the boring group. Showing that MK isn’t a corporate and dull place to live in.

The very end of the entire groups performance ends out with Jamie running into the room holding a birthday cake and everyone shouts “HAPPY BIRTHDAY MILTON KEYNES” and proceeds to blow out the candles. The lights go out and come back on and everyone bows to the audience twice.

So through out the past 2 weeks I have grown to like what we had come up with and how we all have bonded that quickly. In all honesty I was very put off the MK 50 presentation as the very first task we got told we were doing was poems and I personally dislike poems as they were never interesting to read or analyse in my English GCSE’s but I learned that it wasn’t just poems, that was just a small section of what we would be doing.

A few days pasts and I was enjoying all the activities such as roleplaying, physical theatre and improvisation. We eventually moved on to creating our own poems which I thought would be interesting as I have never really made a proper poem. By the time we had created our own poem we started forming a choreography and we had to use all the movement and voice techniques we was taught about by Rosemary. We started creating and rehearsing our performance and I was loving it as we was all allowed to put forth our ideas for specific parts of the performance or add completely new additions to the overall performance.

But it was the day before the show was scheduled to be played, we had to implement the dance groups pieces into our own. At the time we had spent at least a couple days rehearsing our main piece and the idea of Helen the dance practitioner changing a lot of the performance we created was not very pleasing. Especially when its going to be performed the next day to a live audience. But by the time we had changed it and rehearsed the whole thing and built a friendship between each other I was not worried about the actual performance because I started to trust the dance group and the rest of the drama group not to mess up and they did not disappoint. I believe this project really worked well for me as I was able to build a bond and a trust with our group and that will really help across the year or 2 and I am happy I stuck through it without any complaints.

Lee Russell