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.

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

**attach photocopied notes**

**attach further research notes**

-- 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. 

 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. 

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. 

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. 

To do in future rehearsals: 

 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: 

  Revise paper work. 

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