Developing our 1st Scene and Starting the 2nd

In the beginning of todays class we focused on developing and adding to our first scene. Once we finished and were happy with the product we started on our second scene. We faced a lot more difficulties in our second scene because we didn't know how to continue the story. We came up with a short piece and showed it to Mr. Evans, we discussed it and decided we weren't happy with it so we made some changes and played around with it for a while until we were happy. Overall we have completed our first and second scene. However, there is room for improvement so as we move along we'll add or take away different parts. 

In the above picture Truman and Howard were acting and the rest of us stood around and thought of things we could add or change. 

Opening Scene - Setting the Story

In todays lesson we set the foundations of our performance and started on our opening scene. At the beginning of the lesson we went over the story we read and researched in the previous lesson then got to work. We discussed and planed our first scene then started to actually act. Todays lesson was a new and fun experience, I was excited to actually start acting. 

After performing it for Mr. Evans he told us a few thing we could change and improve on and after applying those changes the performance was a lot more serious and conveyed the message a lot more clearly and I think it made our performance much better. However we will continue to develop it as we continue. 

All the changes made our performance more put together 

It also gave the other members more significant roles

Our first idea included a lot of dialogue which took away from the dramatic element, however when Mr. Evan changed it and removed the direct dialogue the performance was a lot more dramatic and sophisticated. 

In todays lesson we did research about a real life story relating to our topic Drug Addiction. We found a story about a girl named Savannah who started using at age 10. It was interesting reading her addiction story and learning about how she started and how and why she stopped. The thing that most got my attention was the fact that she started using at age 10 and that the reason was her parents were also users and they got her into it. Researching helped our group get a more clear idea of the ideas we could use for our performance. We also found so very inspiring quotes. 

"Recovery is a process, it takes time, it takes patients, it takes everything you've got"

Overall, all the research from the lesson will help us in creating our performance, and we will probably use the quotes that we found. 

Group Agreement and Mind Mapping

Yesterday in our lesson we discussed as a group which different things to include in our collaborative working group agreement. When writing our agreement we thought of different possible things someone or everyone could do to make the group and the process better and easier.

Group Agreement:

Group Agreement
Agreement 1	We agree to listen to each others ideas with an open mind
Agreement 2	We agree to always participate in group discussions
Agreement 3	We agree to do the roles given to us by a member of the group on time
Agreement 4	We agree that we need each other in order to create a good outcome
Agreement 5	We agree not to change someone else’s work but to talk to them about it and contribute our ideas
Agreement 6	We agree that we will support each others creativity
Agreement 7	We agree to respect each others rehearsal time and we agree to no disturb one another when rehearsing

These are the different agreements we came up with we all tried hard to contribute to the agreements and while we were writing them we made sure not to have agreements that were written differently but meant the same thing.

After discussing our group agreement we started brainstorming and mapping our different ideas and possible things we could relate to. Our final chosen topic was Drug Addiction.

We all contributed to our mind map and we work really well together while doing it. We wanted to keep in more brief for now and tried to make sure we didn't get into to much detail. We did this so that when we start creating our performance well have a more open mind. 

We then thought of our starting point (Stimulus), we chose four different pictures and added captions to them as to why we choose them

Discussing The Collaborative Creation Of Theatre

Response to "Robert Lepage: MIT Student Workshop, Spring 2012"

It was interesting to see that the start of everything was one stimulus which was cards. Stimulus has to be the starting point of every creation, and thought this video I learnt that the theme is never the starting point of something but you can connect the stimulus to the theme. 

Through playing cards the group cam up with this work of art that you can see in the background of the above picture. Before doing anything they just played cards for a while then they all contributed to the creation of art in the background. Everyone interrupted what they got from the game into picture. Through doing this the pictures drawn could be turned into a performance that includes something from everyone. 

"Allow the process to take you there"

“Robert Lepage: MIT Student Workshop, Spring 2012”. 3 April 2012. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvHMN31u4r8. Accessed September, 10th 2015. 

Response to "Engine 28 - Theatre professionals on 'devised' theatre"

Devised theatre is working with a group, devised theatre is also known as collaborative theatre, in some cases devised theatre is done with only one person. Devised theatre is normally when the script comes from collaborative working. I was interested when the lady said that it is very common in younger years for groups to use this form of theatre, also I found it interesting to hear that Shakespeare also used devised theatre.

“Engine 28 - Theater professionals on ‘devised’ theater”. 15 June 2011. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMOjCW5L3PU. Accessed 11 February 2015.

Arts as Service (AFS-Link)

In this unit we will be planning a drama performance (it will be connected to Theatre in Education). Our performance will be considered a service, as a group we aim to teach our target audience something about the topic we will pick. We aim to convey this lesson through a theatre performance. My aim with this unit is to identify and explore my personal abilities and skills, because this will be our first performance I want to see what my skills are and what I need to improve. This will help me understand what I need to work on in order to improve myself. I also aim to take some responsibilities so while planning to insure that the event runs smoothly. If each person has their own responsibilities then through team work well be able to get everything done. Lastly I also aim to learn about the global issues within local, national and international contexts. Our group aims to choose a issue found in many areas that also fits what we want to teach to our target audience by doing this our performance will be somewhat international. 

 

Identify Our Target Audience

Brainstorming and sharing ideas 

Today we sat down with our groups and discussed our different possible target audiences. We brainstormed different ideas for the different age groups. However I realised that only certain people were the ones giving ideas and I hope that next time we brainstorm ideas we can all communicate as a group and be more comfortable with each other. 

 We had a few problems when deciding on our target market because the boy wanted our target audience to be Grades 2-6 and the girls wanted the target audience to be Grades 10-12. After long discussion and talking about why we wanted that target market we all decided on our target audience being grades 9-12. 

When we were brainstorming we wanted to focus on the lesson we would be teaching our target market, here are some of the ideas we came up with: 

KG 2 - G1 (3-7):

If we were to do ages 3-7 group we wanted to keep our performance sweet and funny and teach them things we learnt when we were that age.

Lessons: 

-Where are you from (international mindedness)?

-Respecting yourself and others

G2 - G6 (8-12)

When brainstorming for this age group we wanted to keep the message simple and we still wanted to the performance to be funny and sweet however more mature than the K2 - G1. 

Lessons: 

-Anti-bullying 

-Being honest with others and yourself

-Stranger Danger (not trusting people you don't know)

G7 - G9 (12-14)

While brainstorming ideas and lessons for this age group we wanted the message to be more serious be cause we thought that it would be a good idea not to only focus and happiness and expand our trail of thought that we were on while brainstorming ideas for the younger kids. 

Lessons :

-Taking responsibility for you mistakes

-Honesty 

-Drug Abuse 

G10 - G12 (15-19)

For this age group a lot of our ideas were similar to the 12-14 year olds however some of the ideas were more mature and would require an older audience. 

Lessons :

-Teenage Pregnancy 

-Substance Abuse 

-Alcohol Abuse 

*For the substance and alcohol abuse we would focus more on what it does to you and its affect after a long period of time* 

Our Target Audience: 

Grades 9-12 

Ideas:

-Substance Abuse 

-Alcohol Abuse

-Teenage Pregnancy 

Working Collaboratively as a Group

Today our main focus of the lesson was team building and working together with our groups collaboratively. Through out the lesson Mr. Evans gave us different tasks that we had to do as a group. The tasks made us get out our comfort zone, I feel like the tasks we did brought our group close together both physically and mentally and made us more comfortable with each other.

Our first task was to tangle our selves into each other and we had to stay attached and get from one side of the room to the other without disconnecting from each each other. After that we had to tangle ourselves again but the second time only one person was allowed to move at a time. 

We were also given the task to go from one side of the room to the other staying physically connected to the rest of the group but the challenge was two of the members weren't allowed to touch the floor and they couldn't were allowed to be touch with arms so we had to figure out a way to carry them without using out hands. 

We were also given the task to cross from one side of the room to the other as a group with an evident leader while acting like chickens. As you can see in the picture above we made a triangular formation and followed Truman. I think the formation we used made us look more like a group than if we would have done it in a straight line. 

At the end of class we sat in a circle and we developed our improvising skills, Mr. Evans played a man at an information desk and each of us had to go up to him and perform like a short act.