Brecht!

Monday 8th April:

Today in our hour lesson, we discussed TVO Charity that Mr Fearnehough visited last summer. The school has been involved in raising money by producing different events like TVO fun walk/run and IST got talent, to raise money for the charity. Mr Fearnehough talked to us about the charity and then asked us to be in this years IST's Got Talent. We are in charge of running and creating the event this year and I am really excited to do it!

Wednesday 10th April:
Today we sadly left Commedia and have started our new project which is Brecht! We have heard of Brecht before when listening to year 13's TPPP's and also some of us may have heard about him during TAPS. In Wednesdays lesson, we first discussed what we already knew about Brecht and shared ideas with eachother. We then moved on to his theories instead of his biography. Bretch's purpose was to make the audience think and react! He wanted the audience to instead of feel emotions, he wanted the audience to ask themselves questions like why did this happen, how did this happen... and also relate this to the audiences own experience. His plays were mostly about social & political issues that Brecht believed in.
A main feature of Brecht Theatre is the A-Effect.   The A-effect is to make the audience feel alienated. 
This can be achieved by :

• using a narrator so the story is told before it being watched. This helps the audience to think about the questions like why does this happen and how ?
• uncomfortble seats helps the audience not be comfortble and makes the audience more alert. 
• Having the actors sit in the audience instead of them going offstage helps the audience relate to the actors because it makes them real people. It also suggests equality between the actors and audience. 
• Allowing the audience to see all the lighting, no curtain to hide it behind. This helps the audience know that it is a performance and it is not real. 

We then watched a video about Bretch and his wife. It talked about the play Mother Courage which was Brechts first performance in his style. It discussed teh different features of Brechts theory. 

Today really helped me understand Brecht and why he created this genre of theatre. I sometimes struggled to understand some information about the social & political issues because I don't understand much about politics unlike the history students in the class. I was curious to see how Brecht was performed but I was also a bit worried as it is very different to Commedia which is what we just got used too and it is also very different to Stanislavski which is what I am used to in GCSE. 

Thursday 11th April:

Today we got up and actually did some exercises that were based on Brecht features. 

We learnt about Gestus which is working with gestures and attitude so that the audience can understand the story and emotions without their being any dialogue. This is because Brecht understood that some of his audience would not be able to understand the dialogue as they might not be educated as he performed to middle and lower class people. It was important that they understood the story so they have the same effect as everyone else. 

We did an exercise working with Gestus, we were put into pairs and had 10 seconds to produce a freezeframe that represented the emotions that was given to us. The emotions we were given were love, intimidation, regret and respect. 

How did i feel after the exercise?:

• i did not feel the emotion i was acting out. 
• mine and axel's freeze frames were not precise enough for an audience to understand the emotion
• we needed to communicate a story more
• needed to exaggerate the gestures more for an easier & clearer understanding

I realise that we all understood eachothers freezes because we are from the same culture and understand eachother. 

We then did a group sceanario which was a battlefield and we had to show gesture with attitude. We had different emotions in the battlefield. 

• sounds made the sceanario better and louder
• might want to show the characters and why they did the emotion 
• we had different groupings on stage, fighter at the front, wounded but still fighting behind and then at the back we had the soldiers that gave up in different ways. Next time we would perform the different emotions one by one for focus and emphasis. 

I learnt today that with Brecht you need to be incredibely precise to get the best quality work and I think that this is going to be difficult. 

Week 25: Intro. to Brecht

Monday: Today Mr. Fearnehough told us about a CAS project that the theatre students traditionally do. It was the "IST's got talent" event. It is in association with TvO (theatre versus oppression). 

One of the theatre practices used by TvO

TvO "is a collective of educators, counsellors, theatre workers and artists working with theories of dramatherapy, counselling and the theories of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed. To this end the organization works with educational establishments, health care workers, governments and international human rights organizations, as well as individuals to develop training and provide support for specific situations."-excerpt from TvO mission statement. 

Mr, Fearnehough had gone on a trip to a refugee camp in Uganda with this organization over the summer. He told us stories about how it really was in the refugee camps and how his group and the one before had made a difference, by breaking down social issues or helping provide incomes to some. The way that he talked about how theatre could be used in a real life situation, not to change abstract things like politics or philosophy, but the way people associate with each other, the act of a man and a woman touching, or helping a dying person, was amazing. We had been studying commedia dell'arte which is solely for entertainment, this was a way to use theatre to change the world. Another interesting thing he said was that they would teach the refugees one thing, then they would use it in their own way. e.g. they taught them how to rap, then they rapped in their native language: Swahili. 

Wednesday:  We discussed the TPPP and the PPP a little bit, then we began a new topic, leaving commedia behind! We began Brecht. First we wrote down everything we already knew about Brecht in a mind map. Halley already knew a lot about him because she had learned about him in TaPS. Mr. Fearnehough told us even more about his style of theatre. Its purpose is to make the audience think, about social issues, particularly communist ideals since that was Brecht's ideology. To keep the audience thinking he believed he had to keep them from experiencing the performance emotionally, to achieve this he used the alienation effect (A-Effect). This simply put is continually reminding the audience that this [the play] is not real

Ways the A-Effect can be Achieved

• Having the actors sit in the audience instead of going backstage (even talk to those around them)
• This makes the audience see them as a person not just a character in the story
• Suggests equality between the audience and the actor, no hierarchy with the actor on top
• Use a narrator-whenever the audience is at risk of getting into the story have the narrator interrupt
• Uncomfortable seats
• Allow the audience to see the lighting rig (no tab curtain)
• Don't hide scene changes
• Use character positions as names (e.g. the mother's name would be Mother)
• Have a suggestive set, allow it to be a representative as possible while still portraying the setting.
• Crack jokes at "inappropriate" moments of the performance
• Use the third person between two people (speaking to one another)

We also watched a few videos about his practice, including one about his wife a Mother Courage. Here is one that is very good about his practices and how to uses them in the modern theatre.

Thursday: We experimented with Brecht's acting style today. Mr. Fearnehough told us a story about a servant girl who finds the son of a nobleman during a rebellion/coup/revolution. She takes the baby to keep it safe. She spends the rest of her life running from the soldiers and protecting the child. We performed two scenes from this play. We did them twice, the first time in "normal" dramatic style, and the second in pairs (one person as narrator and the other as the servant girl). The first scene was when the servant girl finds the child (while in the nobleman's house). She is scared and running away. The second is when she is deciding whether or not she will marry an ugly, completely horrible farmer to keep the baby safe, knowing that this will mean she loses her fiance forever. In the first scene I tried to show my fear and nervousness with short, jerky movements, I also borrowed Halley's big entrance (running in loudly). I attempted to talk a lot as well. In the second scene, I played with my ring, as though it were an engagement ring, to show nervousness and indecision. I also meant to take it off and leave it when I left the stage. One thing that we all had difficulty with was miming the baby. I was difficult to hold it natural and not "drop" it roughly when moving it. When me and Mary did the second scene in a Brechtian style, she was the narrator and I was the servant girl. Ideally she would have told the audience what the servant girl's final decision would be. I also tried to use many pros and cons in my dialogue. This was meant to engage the intellectual side of the audience, and not their emotions. One thing I would change, for sure, if I did it again was not refer to the baby as "it". This made the audience laugh, broke my concentration, and took me and the audience away the super objective.

Berty & Kyangwali

Monday 8th April

Today, Mr Fearnehough sat us down and talked to us about IST's got Talent, but more importantly the Theatre Vs Oppression Charity. TVO uses theatre all over the world in special workshops in LEDC's as a tool against oppression and cruelty. In this instance, Mr. Fearnehough talked to us about the refugee camp in Kyangwali and TVO's work, in whichhe participated last summer (2012). Kyangwali is a refugee camp in Uganda, containing 30,000 people. The main reason for this talk was that last year, Year 12 drama students organised a talent show in order to raise monay and awareness for TVO and, in this case, Kyangwali. We aim to do the same this year. I think this is an excellent way of raising money because it puts us as drama students in the position of director and performer for the talent show.

Wednesday 10th April

In a dramatic turn of events, we left Commedia and are now studying Berthold Brecht. Now I've heard this name a lot, especially in TAPS, and I wondered at the time, who the hell is he? Well, as it turns out, Berty was very much the German Don Juan, a ladies man, bit of a player. More importantly however, he started a unique genre of theatre, designed to anger and inflame its spectators into rioting and revolution. You see, Berty was a hardcore communist and happened to live in Germany in the 1930's. Prior to the rise of Nazism, he was desperately hoping for a proletariat revolution and so did his dutiful communist bit and tried to inflame the lower classes through theatre.He therefore made his plays very direct, but he also made sure everybody knew it was a play, that it wasn't real.He wanted the spectators to be opinionated by the end, not for them to float through and forget it. To do so, he constantly broke their concentration and focus, with narrators and a breaking of the fourth wall. This is called the A-effect, or alienation effect. Brecht does this to make sure the audience are thinking hard about the puropse his play, not how tragic the story is (and they often were tragic). He wanted the audience to connect with the characters and to do so he made some of the actors sit in the audience and watch when it wasn't their go. These techniques worked and got is audiences so angry they left the theatre rioting. Brecht moved to America to escape Nazism but returned after the war, before dying in 1956.

Thursday 11th April

Today, we backed up our theoretical work with some practical Brecht. I immediately realised I preferred this type of acting to Commedia as it felt more natural to me. For example, I had to play a servant girl who finds the king's baby whilst she is trying to escape from the castle, which has been taken by the revolutionaries. She has to take the baby and make the decision to save his life, all the while putting herself in danger. I really enjoyed that because I did not find it too hard to simulate that kind of emotion, having seen it so often in films. We each did this and discussed our performances. Lydia frantic looking around made her look scared and vulnerable, which is exactly what was needed for the servant girl character to come through. Halley's fall and slide added greatly to the drama of it all, which is something I need to keep in mind when I act and think about different tension levels.

BRECHT A.K.A. BERTY

April 8, 2013 (Monday) Mr. Fearnehough presented to us about running the IST Got Talent that year 12 last year did it, and i was quite happy to do this and also their is a reason why it exist because Mr. Fearnehough discuss about the refugee camp in africa that they raised money form this show to gave to the people in africa, and Mr. F shared some stories about what's life they have, at first i though that theatre was just like present your talent, learned something that is been part of theatre but then theatre is the other way to help some people, and i will be glad if we do this show to raise money and to give it to the people in africa.

April 10, 2013 (Wednesday) Mr. F discuss about Bertolt Brecht A.K.A BERTY but before that Mr. F told us that we write something about him and i don't know what to write because i never know what he actually do as a part of theatre world, and after that Mr. F started to say about him. We discuss His Epic theatre and the difference to dramatic theatre that been understood.
We also discuss about:

• Left Wing - it suggest inequality
• A-Effect and V-Effect
• Audience must be entairtained
• The play is not realistic, it is not real it is a play
• Breaking the fourth wall
• Lights from the audience that creates the effect
• They don't use real name

After that we watch about BECHT ON STAGE, and we knew how brecht do when performing.

• Challenge to think
• The event on stage somehow unfamiliar, weird, strange to the audience
• Think Critically
• Even though they don't understand what language used in a play they should need to understand it by action
• He is trying to intend that the audience feel that it is happening in areal life
• Expecting a actual performance, theory of drama and the act of being spectator
• They found what is the important in the play
• They upset in themselves because the audience felt too much pity
• He wants the audience understand what is the point of the play

I have learn alot from Brecht theory where it has something different from the past that i have learned and now i know that who is brecht ias part of the theatre world.

April 11, 2013 (Thursday) We started to do work from brecht, first we do a dramatic, which a girl keep the baby safe from the soldiers because they will kill the baby, Mr. F give us a rehearsal just for a minute and present it, when i present i just show my facial expression and i don't know what to do and and when i see the baby i was like hae to protect her and gave away from the soldiers, and we just say the good thing to all of us and the second that we do is the girl thinking that giving a safe life of the baby or choose her fiance where the girl must descided to choose the safety of the baby from the soldiers, and the third thing is we got paired and one of us will become the narrator and the second will act, Abby act as a girl and i narrate it by brecht way, and we didn't get the good thing that we get from the third because we get lack of time to discuss it.

Berty Boy

 Monday 8^th of April:

This week was completely different from what we were used too, for about 3 months we got used to getting up and doing commedia work but since we have now finished our piece ‘Love Wins All’ we have moved to other things. Mr.Fearnehough talked to us about us running the ‘IST’s Got Talent’ which was ran last year by the year 12 students. This is really exciting, I heard so much of how good and fun-filled last years was and I excited to get all the school involved in something.  The main reason why the talent show is being ran is to help raise money to give directly to a refugee camp in Africa which Mr.Fearnehough had the chance to go to so he could really see what the money was used for there. It was really interesting to be told what has been done and how exactly it is there by someone who has actually been, and that it just isn’t someone on the tv telling you to raise money. Mr.Fearnehough shared some stories and told us different ways theatre was used in the refugee camp to help the people who have had terrible lives and are in need of help. After hearing and seeing stories, experiences and photos of Mr.Fearnehough’s trip I think that it is an excellent reason to raise money and I will be really excited to join in and run the talent show with the rest of my ensemble.

Wednesday 10^th of April:

Wednesday Mr.Fearnehough introduced us to Bertolt Brecht or ‘Berty’. I’ve never properly learnt about him and I’ve only heard him mentioned a few times during discussions and presentations. We were told to write down everything we knew about him and because I hadn’t properly studied him I was a bit stuck at first with what to write. We then talked about it together and I found out that he was German and very much a ‘lady’s man’. Brecht aimed to have very direct messages in his work and wanted people to do something about what they had seen and start a revolution. Something else Brecht wanted to do was make the audience aware that the performances they watched were not real and it was shown very clearly that it was actors on stage. He wanted the audience to think and react to what they were watching and have opinions about it. Brecht also created the ‘A –effect’ which was meant to stop the audience from getting ‘too comfy and settled’ with the story, this was done by narrators frequently interrupting the performance, constant breaking of the 4^th wall and even communication with audience. Mr.Fearnehough showed us a documentary made on Brecht and at which point mentioned Mother Courage, me and Lydia have already seen this piece, now thinking back on it I do realise a bit more of Brecht’s concepts involved in the piece and so I hope learning about him this will help me understand more about his concepts and ideas.

Thursday 11^th od April:

Thursday we did more work on Brecht but in a physical way. Mr.Fearnehough told us we had to act out a dramatic moment of a poor but beautiful servant who finds a young  baby and decided to save it from the soldiers but by doing this puts her life in danger. We all had a very quick rehearsal and presented our little short piece to the rest of the ensemble, we then praised each other’s work and said the positives about what we had all done. I think we all managed to portray what Mr. Fearnehough asked us to do in different but effective ways. After this Mr. Fearnehough told us to act out another bit and this was the poor servant girl talking about her worry and disgust about marrying the old farmer so that she could pass the baby off as his own so that she will be safe from the soldiers.  I thought I showed it pretty well when I did it for the other but I didn’t describe how horrible and disgusting the old farmer was.

We then had to do this again but in pairs and with a narrator which was the way Brecht would have done it. We weren’t able to watch them all and discus it in detail because the bell rang therefor interrupting our lesson.

Refugee Camp, Brecht, Servant Girl

This week in theatre was quite a shift from what we’ve been doing lately, because our commedia piece “Love Wins All” is done!!! On Monday Mr. Fearnehough presented us with the idea of running the school show “IST’s Got Talent”, a task which is both daunting and exciting to me. However the main point behind the talent show is actually to raise money that goes directly to a refugee camp in Africa. Mr. Fearnehough took the lesson to show us the direct results of the money raised in the past and its effect on the community at the refugee camp. Additionally he explained the types of theater workshops that were presented in the camp. It was interesting to learn about how theater can be used to rehabilitate people and entire communities, and not purely for entertainment but for healing as well. Sometimes I place theater in a box, and put it away on a shelf full of superfluous things. Sometimes I’m not in the mood to enjoy commedia dell’arte or have a meaningful conversation about drama, because in comparison to the rest of the world it can seem at times to be shallow. However learning that the different exercises and team-building activities that stemmed from work in theater were actually improving these peoples’ lives, it really opened my eyes to the possibilities of theater as a form of healing.

            Wednesday we started learning about the theory of Bertolt Brecht or “Berty”. I’d actually already learned a bit about him with my TAPs ensemble in London. I was familiar with the “alienation” effect, his use of direct address, and his attempts to isolate the audience all with the aim of the audience being aware of the play and thus primed for social change. We discussed how his epic (or dialectical) theatre’s sole purpose was to inspire revolution. His theater was aimed at the lower working classes, and thus had very direct messages and symbols. The point of watching one of his plays was not to connect with the characters and slip into a trance of emotional sympathy, instead Brecht wanted the audience to be fully aware that the character onstage was just an actor and that jolt from the story would force his audiences to think and take their own action. It can even be said that he wanted his audience to have a connection with the actors, in an equal basis (communism) when the actors would literally come and sit in the audience. The whole point of the alienation effect was to stop the audience from getting into the story, which was achieved by unrealistic sets, narrators that frequently interrupted stories, and constant breaking of the 4^th wall. So far I’m very intrigued by Brecht’s theory and from a historical angle his work seems very radical and thus significant. However I’ve yet to see a Brecht production and I have the creeping fear that I will prefer the plush-seated proscenium arch theatres and comfortably watch “One Man Two Guvnors” while I block out the problems of the real world…

            On Thursday we did some studio work to get us involved with some Brechtian techniques. First we had to act out a dramatic moment: a poor (but cute…) servant girl discovers the royal orphaned baby in the midst of a rebellious coup and must decide whether or not to take the baby with her as she flees the castle. After presenting our initial interpretations, and refraining from using baby props, we discussed the positives and negatives of each person’s performance. Axel’s was good because he slowed down his pace and “clocked” the presence of the baby on the groud, so the audience got the chance to notice we he had noticed. Also Lydia looked around frantically as if she didn’t know which way the guards were coming from. I decided to make my entrance dramatic and I started by running/stumbling onto the stage and falling to the ground before discovering the baby. After we were “comfortable” with the dramatic aspects we had to switch it up and add in some Brechtian techniques. We paired up and one partner began the scene by explaining what was going to happen to the audience, in the role of narrator (I played the narrator) and the other was the servant girl (Axel) who, upon discovering the baby, listed out loud the pros and cons of taking the baby. Though we’d just started this section when the bell rang, it already made an impact on me because all of a sudden the audience could tell that my character was not invested in the story and thus unreal.

The PPP and TPPP

March 3, 2013 (Wednesday) Mr; F discuss about the PPP where we will also do this at the end of the year which is im slightly nervous to do this but then i want to experience it, and When ding the PPP we should include the following like:

On Stage Action

• Physically
• Knowing the movement
• Type of dialogue
• Facial Expression

Production Elements

• Performance Concept
• The ideas must be balanced
• Theory then Applied then Results

I have lot of ideas on how can i make my PPP nice because i learned many things

March 4, 2013 (Thursday) Mr. F told us that instead of doing the PPP we should do the TPPP presentation where i got nervous to do this because i never to TPPP or PPP, well this is my experience and i know i can do this and i can make it better, we have some thing that we should know:

• Give some experiences
• Kinds of theory that we used
• Contrast

then we do another pitch which is about our commedia play, MR. F told us to rewrite our pitches because we have a lot of things that is not been include to our pitch.

We should include:

• Performance Concept
• Theory
• Music, why it is choosen?
• Costumes
• what is it all about
• Who will be the audience and why?
• Props that we used

I finished my pitch and i have a lot of things that i want to put but the given word is exaclty 250 so i just make it short and include everything that is miss out.

Wednesday 3rd of April : 
Mr. Fearnehough introduced and talked to us about the PPP (Practical Performance Proposal). We were told we would have to do a mock PPP for the end of year exams after the April holidays. He quickly showed us previous PPP mocks which were extremely detailed and impressive to look at. Whilst i was looking at it i was amazed but i really didn't know how i would be able to put so much detail into one piece of work. As we looked at examples more and more i got more intrigued and wanted to do it more. 
As i was looking the examples i saw that:

- you have to explain everything
- you need to explore everything 
- think about what more can be added or done 
- Different things you should think about : costumes, make-up/masks, characters, lighting, space, props, setting, sound, choreography
- add theory in 
- think about ending and opening 
- think and talk about things that would not work and why
- make lots of notes 
- Performance concept
- show Brainstorm
- Make sure everything works together and that it's relevant
As we made more and more notes on things to do for the PPP i got more excited and actually wanted to do it and just get started on it. 

Thursday 4th of April: 

Thursday we got told we were not going to be doing a mock PPP but a mock TPPP. Mr.Fearnehough explained to us that we would be doing this on our Commedia piece 'Love Wins All' that we have just finished work on. I am a bit nervous to do this because although we have practiced them before i still find my self getting very nervous speaking in front of people and showing my own work, but since we have all worked on the same thing i am less nervous. i am a little bit disappointed like Abby is because we hadn't worked on PPP's before and it would be something new for all of us to do and would show all our 'creative sides'. Mr.Fearnehough then gave us a few things to remember whilst preparing a TPPP. 

- name drop practioners and theories throughout the whole presentation

- concentrate on experiences 

- contrast 

- use 2 experiences 

- use a lot of expamples but only concentrate on a few. 

After this we then talked about our Commedia piece pitches that we had all done quite a while back. We all realized that even if we thought it at the time our pitches were not perfect. Mr.Fearnehough then told us a lot of tips to make it perfect. 

Talk about:

-performance concept 

- mention theories used 

- conventions of commedia de'll arte

- sound used 

- the setting 

- the story line

- the atmosphere 

- and the fact our piece wants to be toured. 

After we talked about this we realized that writing a pitch is much easier after a piece is finished because we all have more knowledge about the piece and we were actually in it so we know exactly what we want to do in the piece. 

Week 24: The Beginning of Something New

Wednesday: Mr. Fearnehough talked to us about the PPP (Practical Performance Proposal). Mr. Fearnehough told us that we would be doing a mock PPP for our summer exam. I was actually really excited to give the PPP a try, because I like to be creative and come up with stories. Mr. Fearnehough gave us a lot of advice on the PPP.

Parts of the PPP

The PPP is supported by theory and and ideas.

• On stage action 
• Movement: type and theory
• Who is on stage
• How are they working together
• Pace
• Contrast
• Climax
• Opening
• Ending
• Production elements
• Technical elements
• Sound
• Lights
• Costume
• Props/Sets

Things to Include in the PPP

• What is success in the piece? e.g. audience is happy, sad, moved, changed,...
• How do you train the actors? (warm-up techniques, classes,...)
• Brainstorms-thought process
• ANNOTATION on everything (e.g. picture, diagram, and list)
• tell why you have decided to use this idea, underpinning it with theory
• Come back to each point and make sure it works with all other points/ideas
• Explanation of how you got each idea
• All whys
• Name dropping (anytime possible)
• Completely outline each point
• Every artistic choice must be justified by the performance concept

Theory that I have learned

• Commedia dell'arte
• Modern commedia- "One Man, Two Guvnors"
• Adolphe Appia
• Edward Gordon Craig
• Stanislavski
• Clowning
• Improvisation
• Acrobatics

But the most helpful piece of advice Mr. Fearnehough was ATFQ (answer the flipping question). This means that even if I use a lot of good stuff I need to make sure it answers the question or fulfills the criterion. I had thought that we had not covered very much material, but looking back at what we have covered, I realized that we have learned a lot. I am super excited to work on this project. 

Thursday: Today Mr. Fearnehough told us that he had changed his mind and that we would be doing a TPPP style presentation about our Commedia piece instead of a mock PPP. This is a little disappointing because I had been kind of excited for the PPP, but it will be  nice to be doing something that we have had practice with already. We also discussed how to write pitches again, and Mr. Fearnehough has told us to rewrite our pitches for the commedia piece. When we looked through our old pitches we realized that a lot of key things were missing, especially since the pitch was written before the piece was finished. Such as...

• Mentioning the setting
• The sounds used in the piece (type of music, sound effects, the sound “punctuates the story” borrows from skiffle band),
• Mentioning the conventions of commedia dell’arte or modern commedia
• range of lazzi, playing with audience
• no fourth wall
• not wearing the masks
• using the names
• Mentioning other theories used
• Clowning/circus (acrobatics maybe examples, interaction with audience, slapstick-violence, take yourself seriously,)
• Stanislavski’s super objectives
• Improvisation
• The intended atmosphere-involving the audience
• The storyline
• Elements of popular culture used
• Using dynamic language and the rule of three
• Explaining that it is aimed at touring therefore we do not need lighting

We also had some in class reflection about the pitches. We realized that it would be easier to write after having devised the piece for the last three months. We now knew everything about the piece and could use more theory in it. Also our performance concept was more solid. One good thing about writing a pitch at the beginning of the devising process was that it helped bring our ideas together. 

Mr. Fearnehough also gave us some tips on the TPPP

• Compare and CONTRAST experiences with other experiences
• Name theories and practioners
• Use 2 cultures
• Keep non-IB experience at the beginning
• Use a lot of examples but only focus on a few (explain how these ideas have worked or failed or could be improved)

I am a little disappointed about not doing the PPP and the TPPP kind of scares me. I hope it works out ok...

Love Wins All is FINISHED :(

Monday 25th March:

Monday was the day we had to hand in set designer research paper, me, Mary and Halley managed to do in time but the others were not able to and theirs in, so they got an extension   for Wednesday. I wasn’t really bothered that they did not complete the research but I thought that it wasn’t fair that they were being ‘told off’ as such in front of the ones that had completed the homework. Mr.F asked us if we wanted the extension too but I decided I did not want to because it was meant to be in on Monday and to be honest I did not want to do more research on the set designers haha. I did think it made the group realise we have to work together to complete homework in time I we shouldn’t ask for an extension in the future.

Tuesday 26th March

We don’t normally have lessons in Tuesday’s but today was a special day we got to watch the Year 13’s TPPP 30 minute presentations. I was so amazed in how much the year above had did in the past 2 years and how many theories they studied and put in to practise. The amount of detail and confidence all 3 students have was astonishing and it was so interesting to see how much they themselves have changed from at the beginning of the course until now. One thing I took away from the presentation was to be confident and interesting so that the audience and the person marking the TPPP do not get bored of your voice. The most important thing I thought was to link everything with the experience I am focusing on and to underpin things with theories so that it shows I have knowledge in every aspects of the course such as theatre in the making and theatre in the world. One key thing I will remember is TAKE NOTES ON EVERYTHING WE DO – so that I am able to quote from my journal or blog during the TPPP.

Wednesday 27th March

Wednesday we started the lesson with a clowning warm up/activity. We had to each stand up in front of the whole class start facing backward to them and placing a clown’s nose on. We then has to listen and obey to Mr. F’s instructions, one very important rule was that we were not able to touch the red nose. Mr.F started the activity off so that we had an idea what to do, it was very strange because of how long he was looking at us for and I actually think I got more uncomfortable looking at him because me and Halley share the same problem and we do not like clowns and we were very unsettled during the whole activity. Even though I found it easier when my class mates did it I felt very strange doing it in fornt of Lydia. Me and Lydia are quite close and when I was up in front or when she was I found it uncomfortable to look at her for a very long time.

When I had to stand up in front of everyone I started giggling the second I got up, I think this was because I am quite an energetic person so I think that side of me took over. I took a deep breath and turned around and listened to Mr. F I thought it was easier than to be started at sitting down because thinking about it now I was at a higher level than everyone else apart from Mr.F who had control over what I did. Being on a higher level made me think it was easier but it was still quite hard looking at Lydia.

After this activity we did the final rehearsals for ‘Love Wins All’ we got most of it nailed for our very special performance for Mr.F the next day :p ahahha

Thursday 28^th March

Finally we properly performed our fantastic commedia piece ‘Love Wins All’ to Mr.F which to be honest I was looking forward to but I was still a bit anxious. I think he did enjoy it and im glad we have done so we can move on to something new but I am upset we have finished with it L.

We are done in our COMMEDIA PLAY

March 25, 2013 (Monday) This day we past our portfolio, some of us didn't finish it, so it is unfair to others but next time we should past it on the deadline given tomake it fair to all of us and After it we talk about our play, to finish it on that day but the costumes is not in so this is also another think that we should bring it on time, and we do alot of disccussion about our play.

March 26, 2013 (Tuesday) We watch the TPPP of year 13 for 30 minutes of presentation, it is about what they learned from 2 years for being a IB theatre student, when they are reporting i was like i cannot do it in 30 minutes by giving a lots of ideas and information in every picture, and they also give a feedback just like saying "As an IB Theatre Student...." and they are so good, they are unbelievable. And i have many thing that i've learned from them:
- Confidence on what you are doing
- Always relate it to you as an IB Theatre Student and relate it to some theory that you used.
- Alwayd take a picture everytime you do something so it can be used it.

March 27, 2013 (Wednesday) We started our morning by having a Clowning Activity, Mr. F discuss about how this rednose mask work as part of our play and he gave us an example being a clown and make us laugh and after that we did it one by one.
For me at first it was like difficult to do to make people laugh but then when i was in the front and make the audience laugh it is easy but when the given expression for a neutral face expression i can't make it im start to laugh and when i give a super happy expression the mask that i used is falling down so the audience gonna laugh and so me too.

March 28, 2013 (Thursday) Finally, after 3 months we already done in our commedia play! We performed it in front of Mr. Fearnehough, we include the audience in our scene, we put some musical, and we so happy that we finish it and ready to perform.
There are some things that we still need to improvise, like:
- always face the front and look to the audience to see the facial expression
-A louder voice

I really like this commedia play, it has a lot of fun because it is interesting more on funny stuff to do.

Finished with the play, just as the Year 13 finish their IB Theatre course!

Monday 25th March

Today we were supposed to hand in our set designer research homework. Unfortunately, I was unable to hand mine in on time and had to ask for an extension for Wednesday. I felt ashamed that my inability to complete a task resulted in a general scolding for everyone else, as it was my fault, along with the others who didn't hand in their work. It's things like that bring teamwork and energy down in an ensemble, as when some people don' put as much effort into their work as the others, the whole thing is ruined. However it has taught me a valuable lesson in work ethics, as I plan never to disappoint the rest of the ensemble like that again. We spent the rest of the lesson discussing our play and blogs.

Tuesday 26th March

Now today really was a learning experience. We watched the Year 13's TPPP, which is basically a 30-minute presentation reflecting on the IB Theatre Drama course. Now, I say basically but it's so much more than that! It's a performance in which you have to showcase yourself to the IB examiners. It's the culmination of two years of hard theatre work. And it's also worth 25% of the mark. What I took away from their presentations, which were frankly amazing, was a set of good ideas to bear in mind when doing my own TPPP.

• Be confident, interesting and natural. Don't read it off a piece of paper and don't monotone.
• Everything MUST be linked with your experiences as a theatre student, and more importantly how they made you grow as a theatre student.
• Show your understanding of what you did wrong, don't just showcase your talents in theatre. IB examiners LOVE a student who can say "Well, I did that wrong, but here's what I would do now, looking back".
• TAKE NOTES OF EVERYTHING. No matter how tedious you find the task, you will need them. All of them.

I am terrified of the thought of doing my own TPPP but also eager to get it done. 

Wednesday 27th March

We started this lesson with a clowning activity. We had to each stand up in front of the class, put a clown nose on and obey Mr Fearnehough's instruction. I was very apprehensive of this as it looked a lot like an earlier activity in which we had to stand up and make people laugh. I utterly failed at that because i was blocking myself from being ludicrous, which is of course what you have to do. However, I was pleased to find that the clown nose, despite being quite small, was in fact a mask. i discovered I am a lot more comfortable acting in mask than out of it. 

That being said, I did have some problems, notably when Mr Fearnehough told me to make a sad face. I already thought my neutral face looked funereal, so pulling a convincing sad face was very hard, as in the end I thought I looked too ridiculous to be sad. I was also nervous and fidgety, so I moved from face to face very quickly, instead of using slow deliberate movements.

Thursday 28th March

Finally, four weeks behind schedule, after many trials and tribulations, "Love wins all" is done! We performed it in front of Mr Fearnehough, and after a few minor tweaks and and bit more audience interaction (of which there is never enough), it will be all ready and polished up.

Commedia has been a very interesting subject but I look forward to working on a different theatre style.

Finished "Love Wins All" & Year 12's TPPP

Monday 25th March

Today the class were meant to hand in their portfolio's on set designers. Some did hand them in and well done to them. I wasn't one of them... We had a warning that this was the final time we could have an extension on projects like this. I had finished the actual project but couldn't finish my sources, this isn't really an excuse because like abby said in her blog below, I also did feel like I let down the group and Mr Fearnehough. It was unfair on other people in the group but I guess we all know for next time to get it done as early as possible and hand it in on time together as a team!
We also discussed "Love Wins All", there had been a confusion as to whether or not we were finishing and performing our piece today to Mr Fearnehough. Mary & I were incharge of costume but did not bring it in. Again, this is something else that needed to be in one time because it lets other people down. I think after experiencing our first technical roles, we have all learnt a lot about how to approach our roles in a way that is better for ourselves and our group.

Tuesday 26th March
We don't have theatre on Tuesdays but today we went to watch the year 13's perform their TPPP's. I admit that all three of them were AMAZING. It really helped me to realise that the TPPP is not just a presentation but it is a performance. We watched all three TPPP's which were 30 mins long each and then we told them what was good about their presentations and asked questions. What I learnt was:

• The TPPP is a performance, be confident and interesting to listen too
• Use key words from the mark scheme which will help you bag those marks when being examined! It also shows drama vocab...
• The TPP doesn't just have to be about what was good and how you did something but it can be about what was bad and how you would change what you did. This shows understanding!
• Link your experiences to theory of theatre.
• Use the mock TPPP well to get helpful advice and corrections for your real TPPP
• Complete your blog/journals to great detail so you can come back and quote during your TPPP

I am really happy we had the chance to watch their TPPP's because I feel that I have a clearer understanding of what exactly they are. Seeing how amazingly year 13 were at them has made me realise how good I have to be as well which is pretty scary. I just hope that I remember theirs this time next year.

Wednesday 27th March

We began this lesson by doing a clowning activity. We each had to stand up infront of our group and wear a red clown nose. We stood in neutral until Mr Fearnehough gave us instructions to change emotion. The aim was to stay completely focused and not laugh if our audience laughed and also maintain direct eye contact with the audience.

My first thoughts:

I was a little nervous about getting up in front of everyone but I knew it was going to be fine!

I liked going last because it was interesting to see how differentely everyone was when being the clown!

As an audience member:

I felt a bit uncomfortble at the beginning because I don't like clowns and also Mr Fearnehough went first and did a really good job of scarily smiling and keeping eye contact with each of us for a long time. But then I think I understood the activity more and relaxed.

I also found that I started copying the emotions and expressions the clown was doing. 

How I felt being the clown:

• I found that at the beginning, I had to take a breath to focus more before turning around to my audience. This did help a lot to be honest and it made me clear my emotions to be neutral.
• i found the nose was a distraction because it kept falling off but in the end I just left it off and continued.
• I did find the nose was helpful though because I realised when I left it off, I felt more like myself. Whereas when I was wearing the nose, it helped me actually become a clown and a different character.
• A lot of people said that they found it more difficult doing the sad emotion but I found it harder! When I was doing the happy emotion, it felt really fake and uncomfortble. Whereas with the sad emotion, I used the eyes more to express sadness which felt more comfortble and i felt this also got across the sadness to the audience more as i was looking at them directly. 
• When we turned around, the first person we looked at, we had to keep eye contact with them for a long time. Some of us chose to look at people we are more comfortble with e.g best friends, closer friends. Bekki looked at me and she said she found it much harder. I can understand this because we always laugh together and spend a lot of time so that we see that person as the way they are.

Reflection:

I did really like this exercise because it helped with focus, concentration and confidence. It would help a lot during our commedia piece because as it is a comedy, audience may laugh at us but we have to maintain focus and stay in character. 

Thursday 28th March:

Today we completed & performed "Love Wins All" to Mr Fearnehough.

I was nervous to perform it the whole way through with no stops but I knew we would all do well.

Mr Fearnehough was taking pictures of our piece whilst we were performing so we had to ignore the camera and carry on, it was quite easy though once we started. 

We reflected on our piece after performing:

• There could have been MORE audience participation & eye contact 
• We needed more songs but we forgot about some whilst performing and have no added in more.

I am happy it is done, I really enjoyed commedia as it is such a fun & interesting type of theatre but I am happy to move on now and learn about a new style.

Week 23: Year 13 TPPP's and the end of commedia

Monday: We were supposed to turn in our designer projects and have our commedia project done today. Half of the class, including me, did not complete the project. Mr. Fearnehough gave us an extension, but I feel as though I have let down half of the class. Half of the class has slack off while half have  done what is expected out of them. This can ruin the teamwork and ensemble feeling that we have achieved. 

Tuesday: The year 13's gave their TPPP's today! and they were amazing! They all had wonderful, insightful experiences that they were able to link to other parts of the course. 

• Make sure to use the "key words" e.g. theatre in performance, reflection,...
• Include ways that you have failed, as an actor, designer,... (be sure to mention how you would have done better if given the chance)
• Use many references to performances that you have seen
• Even if you did not have a particular experience (e.g. going to a performance) you can still refer to it
• Use the pictures to tell a story
• Come full circle-start by telling about how you were at the beginning of the class and end telling how you have changed
• Have extensive notes
• Be practiced and polished so you do not panic and forget your points and so that you sound professional
• Use things from different aspects of theatre to sound well-rounded and hit more points

They were all very good and the experience worries me. I am worried about speaking for twenty minutes, having to plan a speech that will last that long and cover all of those things!





Wednesday:Today the warm-up was more interesting than the actual studio work. The warm-up was more clowning work. It dealt with using the clown nose. Each member of the class was given the clown nose and told to stand (still) in front of the rest of the class and display different emotions while maintaining eye contact with different members of the audience. 




Reflection

• One of the emotions that each of us did was attempt to remain neutral, which was extremely hard. When you are up in front of everyone, making eye contact with them, it is very difficult to remember what a passive expression/posture is. Also a passive/neutral expression is more touching than a forced emotion.
• The audience's response to the actor is also very awkward. 
• Some audience members unintentionally copied the emotion of the actor to alleviate the awkwardness
• Others giggled to alleviate the weirdness
• Some would concentrate/clear mind to control their emotion
• Some tried to stare down the performer
• It was interesting to remember that the audience is almost more embarrassed than you, the audience even sees the performer as vulnerable
• Moving is a way to avoid/hide from the audience
• It can be more difficult to remain still while doing some emotions as opposed to others
• It is very difficult to appear natural while nervous
• Changing posture can help to convey emotion
• It was more difficult to perform for a friend/acquaintance than a complete stranger, you have a connection with them and making eye contact can  ruin your character
• When you go slow the tension level increases, for both sides, performer and audience
• Pauses are very powerful, especially on stage
• Contrast can be very powerful as well, contrast between the emotion and pace
• We, as an audience, are glued to a person standing still
• Some people found the nose to be helpful and some found it to be a distraction
• Me-Personally as a performer and an audience member I felt very uncomfortable, in fact I dreaded my turn in front and when the performer was staring at me. 

This warm-up showed a lot of the aspects of being in an audience and as a performer. 

Thursday: We actually finished the piece today!!! We ran through the entire piece while Mr. Fearnehough took pictures and watched. The piece went smoothly, but it could have been better. We worked together well as a team, but we did not have the stage presence and comedic life. I was surprised by how comfortable I was onstage, not completely comfortable but less awkward than I was expecting. Another thing that is less surprising is that I made a horrible boy, in my part as Jack the male ammorati. While we are improving this performance really makes the point that we will never be perfect, and that theatre is always changing.