Devised piece: Set design

One thing I was also assigned to do was to research the style of the buildings and scenery of New York in the 30's.

The first scene we need a set for is our first scene taking place in the speakeasy.

 Of course, due to the budget we are on (nothing!) and the time we have, constructing a set looking like this would be impossible. However, simple things like the style of the chairs or lighting can give us the feel of a hidden bar. As you can see in the pictures, the lighting is very dim, which we should acknowledge.

One thing we could also use to get the feel of a speakeasy is perhaps a sign inside the building of the speakeasy's logo. Then it would be clear to the audience where we are and the context of the situation.

Another set we need to focus on is the actual street itself, as lots of scenes will take place on the secluded streets of New York. One idea we have already spoken about is the idea of hanging a washing line across our performance area and hanging curtains from it. This gives us the ability to carry out our silhouette scenes and option to change the set quickly if we can pull the curtains away.

Also, it would fit nicely into our set as streets in the 30's often attached washing lines to two buildings to hang their washing on.

 Another simple thing we could do is place signs on the walls in the style of the writing in the picture. This would be very easy to do and clearly show that we are in a street without trying to create something to elaborate and too complicated. After all, we don't have a lot of time to waste on a set, we need to make sure our performance is as good as it can be.

One object I think we should try and include is a New York streetlamp. I think it would be brilliant as it is iconic to the time period and we could interact with it. However, it would be difficult to get hold of something like this and                                                                               may get in the way for a set change.

Devised piece: Research

My task for research was to have a look at the dust bowl that took place back in the 30's. This may be useful as we can use this event to create backing stories as to why the gang formed, people being forced to move the affected areas, but as Wall Street was in crisis too, there were very little jobs, so people turned to gangs to survive.

The Dust Bowl of the 1930s lasted about a decade. Essentially, it was a period of extreme drought, the main source of jobs was from agriculture, and without water, the crops died and the ground dried up, turning the land into hard baked dust and sand, leaving thousands if not millions jobless and forcing them to travel over America, in search of a job. Its primary area of impact was on the southern Plains. The northern Plains were not so badly effected, but nonetheless, the drought, windblown dust and agricultural decline were no strangers to the north. In fact the agricultural devastation helped to lengthen the depression whose effects were felt worldwide. The movement of people on the Plains was also profound.

I also found an extact on a website from "The Grapes of Wrath" I think that this piece could be rather useful as we could use it to catalyse some dialogue and give us a base or idea on what to say. Especially for one of the gang members who has moved to New York from the south.

As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Car-loads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land."

Poor agricultural practices and years of sustained drought caused the Dust Bowl. Plains grasslands had been deeply plowed and planted to wheat. During the years when there was adequate rainfall, the land produced bountiful crops. But as the droughts of the early 1930s deepened, the farmers kept plowing and planting and nothing would grow. The ground cover that held the soil in place was gone. The Plains winds whipped across the fields raising billowing clouds of dust to the skys. The skys could darken for days, and even the most well sealed homes could have a thick layer of dust on furniture. In some places the dust would drift like snow, covering farmsteads.

 These pictures could also help act as a stimulus for any monologues we may do. They portray the desperation of the people, the horror of the post apocalyptic world the people had found themselves in.

Devised piece: Day 6/7

The last two lessons we have been working heavily on our next scene which will be our argument scene. We began with brainstorming ideas for where we wanted to go with our arguments and how we wanted to end each alternative ending each time. Our ideas are below.

It took us a while to devise our argument. We went for the story line we created where the gang force Finn to break up with Tess as she is interrupting the way the gang work and is distracting Finn. We wanted to show that the whole idea of someone going against the gang was a serious crime back in the 30's, therefore devised the argument around violence. The gang feels insulted by Finn and let down by him, they begin to tease him and insult him verbally, so he lashes out, leading us into a fight scene.

We worked hard on the fight scene over the two lessons, we didn't want to make it look silly or over do it and we wanted there to be a sense of maturity about it. We didn't want it to look like some kids had just decided to take the easy route and start flailing arms in an inartistic way. We blocked what we wanted to happen at first, so we knew the sequence of events and could go onto create movements and an exciting fight scene.

Once we had blocked the scene and improvised the dialogue, we went back to practising the dance between Finn and Tess to show the rest of the class as it was the only finished piece we had to show. We ran through it and allowed for any pointers or improvements in technique to be offered. We knew we had to slow it down and remember to try and keep the flowing, slow movements throughout. We took this on board and carried on, with the improvements in mind, sadly we haven't had an opportunity to video our improved routine, but hopefully will do in future.

We came back the next lesson knowing that we had to work on the argument scene as it was rough around the edges and we needed more of a backing story to the other gang characters, which we vaguely discussed. We ran through the piece once or twice, tweaking the sequence slightly. Once we were happy with our scene, this took around an hour, we ran through it to the rest of our group and they pointed out what could be better. For example, we needed to make sure that our stage combat looked professional and realistic as, on several occasions, some of the punches were clearly not anywhere the faces of others. We practised this and adjusted where we stood and the angles at which we threw our arms and how we reacted. In addition, one of our tasks is to put in as many theatrical techniques as possible, so this fight scene is a perfect opportunity to use some. We decided that slow motion would be a great addition to the fight as it was all very single paced. We went back through our sequence looking at actions we could make slow. We mainly looked at the parts where a heavy punch goes in or there is a fast bit before to show a real contrast in speeds which will hopefully engage the audience more and give our piece a really sophisticated edge and sense of maturity, to show that we have thought long and hard about this scene and haven't just thrown it together.

For the future I think we really need to focus on a backing story for the other gang members, as we don't really know anything about them, who are they? Where are they from? Do they have any views? We need to think about this as it would help the audience make sense with them and maybe build a connection to the characters, to understand them, and to show that we can create a variety of characters in our piece, all with stories to tell themselves.

Devising: Day 5

We picked up where we left off last lesson, by running through the dance. However, as we ran through it again we began to think up a few more ideas. The dance we had originally was pretty dull and boring, so we tried to come up with a few new lifts. I was a bit nervous about these lifts at first as I have never done something like this before, so we had a good half an hour or so practising and rehearsing and watching where I was meant to hold and so on before eventually being able to do them fluently. Once we had got the dance in place, we ran it through from the beginning and filmed it. We feel that the new lifts we incorporated are much more interesting and allow us, as actors, to show our love more, as the dance seems more intimate than before. Obviously, we have to make sure we are acting whilst dancing and use our facial expressions and eye contact to make this love visible to the audience. This should make the audience feel more towards our characters as they can see our emotions and can begin to build up a connection or relationship with us, by aiming at their heartstrings we are able to create an attachment between audience and characters, so if anything happens it will strike the audience with more effect.

Afterwards, we went back to set the dialogue between the gang members and author in the speakeasy. This was difficult though, as although we set it, dialogue was hard to come by as we hadn't really thought through what was going to be said, so we need to work on this in the next lesson to make sure gaps are filled in the performance before we move on.

When we were setting the dance, we split the group and got the other half to think about ideas on how to go on with the performance.

If its visible our ideas include...

• The gang talking to Finn, expressing their disapproval with Tess.
• Sending Finn away when they rape Tess where she becomes so stressed she takes her life or breaks up with Finn.
• Leads to arguments where Finn drowns his sorrows and cheats on Tess when he is drunk.
• Or he falls out with the gang and turns against them.

Of course, the point of our story us that the author writes various endings, so the likelihood is that all these ideas will feature to give our different endings. We feel that these are good base ideas on which to build upon and allow us to get creative with our techniques. There is a lot of potential for how we can set theses scenes. That may be a more lurid, contemporary scene for the rape. We could use lifts and slow motions. Throughout we could use a split stage with the author and characters, possibly even monologues. Of course, these ideas will be thought about a lot more thoroughly, and hopefully we can come up with some really nice pieces using everything we have learnt so far. 

Devising: Day 4

Today was a rather difficult day as one of our members was not present, so we couldn't actually do any run throughs or create new scenes. Instead, we created and set the dance that Finn and Tess do when they meet. Personally, I found this very difficult as it was the first time I had ever danced a more ballroom style, to be honest I do not really dance at all so I need to put some practice in and seek guidance from Dan Mckay, who is in a dance company and choreographed our little movement piece. I found the dance awkward at the beginning as I need to show how much my character loves Tess, but at the same time have my reasons for why I found it difficult that I will not mention. Eventually, we managed to run through the dance all the way. There were problems in my movement, as I know I am quite rigid, but as time goes on I will loosen up and work on the dance to make it look a lot more natural .

The music we chose to accompany our dance is called "Sentimental Mood" by Duke Ellington, we did spend a good half an hour or so trying to choose music as we needed to build our piece around the music, so we waited until we found the perfect piece. Unfortunately, after looking through the Great Gatsby sound tracks, we couldn't find anything better than what we already had, so settled with "Sentimental Mood". We chose this as it is from the 1930's which fits the time period perfectly and because it is rather relaxed, allowing us to move freely. However, as it has no particular rhythm, creating our movements were hard at first, so we just improvised at first and managed to pick out bits we liked before converting them into our piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR13ECD71xU

In the piece, our characters need to make sure that we really portray the fact that we love each other. If not, it will look awkward and forced, essentially an obvious piece of trying to act. We haven't got as far as lighting or where on the stage we do this, at the moment, we should try and get a whole storyboard finished and set before we focus on lighting, as ideas will spring to us as we continue to think. The progress we have made so far is very good, we have a good block to build upon, but for the next lesson, we have to make sure that we plough onwards and get an idea of how we want the story to progress, where we go from here? What happens next? How are we going to end it? These issues need to be addressed.

Devising: Day 3

Today was another productive day, we managed to set our beginning scene completely which is shown below. We feel it gives a proper sense of fear to the audience as we can not be seen throughout. Obviously it will have a greater affect live than it does on the video. My character, Finn, remains silent for the whole scene, so I wanted to create more tension by responding with slow footsteps and a sniffle before I hit the floor with a whip, giving the scene a break whilst I can manoeuvre into the audience and get close to allow them to feel part if out performance. We also decided to leave a silence before the gun shot is heard to play on the audience more. Possibly getting them to think that everything is fine or maybe feeling a tension build up inside, in order for the shot to have a greater feeling of shock and hopefully making the audience jump out of their seats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8os4jhpC10o

Afterwards, we went on to try and set the scene where Finn and Tess meet and fall in love. This scene was difficult to set as we originally planned for them to meet by a dumpster when disposing a body. But realised that it wouldn't go at all and not fit in the production, it lacked romance so we decided that our characters should meet in a 1930's sleep easy, as the American government had banned alcohol during the prohibition from 1920-33. This made the scene a little more romantic and perhaps allowed us to show off outr knowledge of the time period  more.  Our gang comes to the door of the sleep easy  and enters . Our author will also play the narrator  and be present in the scenes so our story can change as we go along. We  mime out a conversation but Finn is gazing upon the girl at the bar. The men try to shake him off  but he prepares himself  and as he turns around the girl  falls on a spilt  drink into his arms where they meet for the first time.  We found divisingt this scene difficult as we didn't want to  make it cheesy of cringey. But at the moment we are happy with what whe have. We need I cominue on but must make sure we do not rush to get our production finishe and make sure that what we have is quality all the way through.

Devising: Day 2

Today was the first day we began work on our idea that we settled with. The idea we have settled with is the idea of the gangs in 1930's New York, where an author writes alternative endings for a book in which we act out. We have come up with numerous ideas for stories and have decided that at the beginning we will have a silhouette of the author hanging himself. This will be a dramatic and edgy start that will keep the identity of the author hidden, creating more mystery and tension, which we hope will keep the audience engaged. Our second scene would be a complete blackout with the voices of the gang members ringing around from different directions, interrogating an associate, ultimately ending in death where a gunshot is heard. The lights come up to reveal a body with a paper bag over his head, again, to keep the identity hidden of the voices and the victim to add more mystery. In the background we thought we would project some pictures of newspaper articles or graphic pictures displaying the brutality of the gang, to give the story a bit of a spark. It's early days at the moment, but we have some really good ideas. We have toyed with music, which we want to be from the 30's itself as it will give a more realistic edge.We have also used Skyfall as it is dramatic, giving the same sound of the 30's. We will undoubtedly change our music and scenes throughout the next couple of months, but we have made a great start so far.

Devising

Today we started brainstorming and researching potential ideas for our devised piece. We have been assigned groups and together, have to devise a piece from a stimulus. Our stimulus was the song "Chasing Pavements" by Adele. We have done a range of things for ideas today such as looking at lyrics and potential meanings and interpretations, looking at themes throughout her songs. The ideas I managed to note down are below. The first picture was looking at the lyrics of the song and what we can get out of it.

 Below, we researched the story behind the song and linked possible stories to them.

We came up with one idea that we looked at a little more closely as you will see below. It was about 1930's gangs. We got this idea as we thought about a homeless person being taken in by a gang and longing to be in one as she thought that it would mean a better life, therefore chasing that idea of such a life, like Adele, who was chasing only pavements, which is why we linked it back to gang life not being as brilliant as the homeless person once thought, as she ends up being abused. Therefore was chasing pavements in the end and not some luxurious life.

Curious Incident: Day 22/23

Curious Incident is now, sadly, finished. It was a great production to work on and I think it went really well on the night.

We started the week rehearsing as much as we could without our scripts and organising props and making sure we were creating the right scenes at the right time. On Tuesday, we tried a full run through of the play, which went very well, with only a few minor errors of forgotten lines and tiny mistimings of entrances and exits. On the Wednesday, we ran through the whole play, trying to work out our lighting, so we knew where to stand at what time. This was highly beneficial as we got an idea that we actually knew the play very well and could do it all without scripts, which also aided our confidence. There isn't much to say about rehearsals this week, only that we  kept on running the play as much as we could. We didn't change or work on anything else, we concentrated solely on running the play.

Evaluation of Performance

Overall, I think the final performance went amazingly well. We covered up errors effectively, so well that even I did not  notice that a scene was missing, thankfully it was only a small scene. One of the biggest mistakes was that we forgot to create the roundabout in Act 2, we all just wandered around until we realised and managed to slowly, one by one, create our roundabout, we did not panic and simply carried on accordingly. Which I think is a great skill, to be able to remain calm and carry on, convincing the audience that nothing went wrong. Individually, I forgot that we remained standing for a scene and I went to sit down. Fortunately, it was a scene where people were standing still, so I could conceal my mistake by freezing, then slowly making my way back into the scene. If I could change one thing it would certainly be the fact that we had little time to decide where our props went. We had to keep our props under our chairs and as we rehearsed with one more chair than we actually had on the night, we had to do a last minute shuffle around, resulting in me forgetting my sunglasses for a scene and us having to mime a train instead of using the one we had.

Aside from these minor details, I believe we performed very well considering we had to construct the whole play in 4 weeks and create so much with hardly any stage directions, so I think we done incredibly well.

In terms of developing my own skills as an actor, this was the first performance when I have actually messed up a little bit, but I was surprised at the fact that I didn't panic or lose concentration or break character, which I worried I would do. I have shown to myself that I can remain composed in that situation. I feel as if my experience in contributing to ideas will serve me well in the future should I have to create anything again.

Curious Incident: Day 20/21

We are now really close to the performance, with only two rehearsals left after today. These past two days we have been running through Act 1 and 2 and refining out as much as we can to make sure it is as good as it can be. We have tried to do as much as we can without scripts and have found it has ran a lot more easily without them and at the same time helps us get used to thye fact that thgere is no longer the security of a script in front of us.

One thing we have focused on is the very tiny nitty gritty aspects, like making sure that our ensemble pieces have everyone standing in the right position, that everyone knows the lines for lifts to go into slow motion, that we are giving as much energy as possible, that we eneter and exit in the right places and we know our scripts of by heart. Again, we have been running our ensemble pieces, making sure they are as good if not better as the last time we done them. It is really close to looking like a complete and finished article, we need to just keep learing our lines and cues.

My research this week looks into the characteristics of someone with severe autism, like Christopher, possesses, which coincides with my targets as an actor. This will help me give accurate and realsitic portrayals of my characters with Christopher and shows that I am able to research effectively and incorporate my research into my performance.

Very little or no eye contact.

Resistance to being held or touched

Difficulty understanding jokes, figures of speech or sarcasm.

Difficulty reading facial expressions and body language.

Difficulty understanding the rules of conversation.

Difficulty understanding group interactions.

Gives spontaneous comments which seem to have no connection to the current conversation.

Makes honest, but inappropriate observations.

Seems unable to understand another’s feelings.

Prefers to be alone, aloft or overly-friendly.

Finds it easier to socialize with people that are older or younger, rather than peers of their own age. 

Talks excessively about one or two topics (dinosaurs, movies, etc.). 

Minimal acknowledgement of others.

As, Roger, I believe I need to know some of these characteristics such as being unable to understand others feelings, hence why Roger gets angry with Christoper. I believe Roger knows that Christopher has trouble understanding figures of speech and facial expressions, but uses that to his advantage in the fact Roger doesn't care what he says as he passes Christopher off as stupid and knows he won't undertsand him.

As the Duty Sergeant I need to know all of these and perhaps try to gain his eye contact throughout my conversation with him and try to ignore the honest but inappropriate remarks such as "But it was'nt an accident." When he is being questioned. I think the Duty Sergeant would have to use the least amount of facial expressions as he can as he knows Christopher will not understand, therefore has to be as blunt as possible.

Another individual target I have set myslef is to go back through my script, annotating as much as I can, that being subtext or cue lines or reasons, addressing my tone, accents. body language and diction to make sure my annotated script is detailed and to a good standard, whilst giving the best variety in my characters and making them as convincing as possible.

In terms of setting a target that the group needs to do, I would say a run through of everyhtinh without the scripts would bge very beneficial. It would highlight areas that need last minute work and areas we still need to learn. It will help expose our weakest parts in the performance so we can work on refining them the most, leading to the play becoming more solid and interesting as a result.

Curious Incident: Day 17/18/19

Over the last week, we have been running the scenes that we feel weakest on, whilst remembering what walks our characters have and remembering the subtext we wrote about our characters.

The London train station is still the weakest scene in the play. The lines do not come when they should be and the structure is all over the place. We decided to work on this scene over the last week. We added music which helped create an atmosphere and really worked on getting the lines out at the right time to show how overwhelmed Christopher is. In addition, we added music to our opening sequence and completely changed our beginning to fit the music. We were split into 3 groups and each had about twenty minutes to create a piece. We then came together and tried to incorporate all groups ideas into our piece which was done very successfully. We also worked on a new and imporived London train station scene. I think this one really captures the hustle and bustle in a station such as Paddington, but also, helps exaggerate it as much as possible to emphasise Christopher's shock and complete dimay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntaO4litwiI

We also worked on making our London street scene look stronger, we added a street soundscape to our one to make the volume sound louder, we also tried to give as much noise, energy and movement to our scene to make it stand out a little more. In addition, we watched clips from the national theatre online exploring how comedy is used in the play. I thought this was very beneficial as it helped us understand that the play does have elements of comedy and that it wasn't intended to be a sad and depressing play. It helped is liven the play up and make it more interesting and intreaging. 

My research this week looks at the relationship between Judy and Christopher. By watching this clip it is evident that there is a lot of history between the two. As Roger, I watched how their relationship is portrayed and can see how much love and almost worry there is form Judy's point of view. However, through watching Roger, I can see that he is distant from the scenes. He is present but is cast away and not involved, there is a sense of detachment and I need to be able to replicate this myself.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jyt2w

In terms of developing my own skills I think I need to be able to make sure my characters are as convincing as possible. I need to do this by learning my lines and cues so I am not bogged down by thinking about my lines and I can say them without pressure and as relaxed as possible.

For the future I think we need to try and pull the play together. I think it would be a good idea to try and run the play from the beginning without our scripts and try and maintain our performance quality throughout, making sure we know exactly what we are doing and when.

Curious Incident: Day 15/16

Over the last two days we have been running the show from the beginning, without our scripts for as much as possible. We have also been making sure our annotations are all in place and help us know what we are doing and when. This has been beneficial as it shows what areas we need to work on and helps bring the play together.

Yesterday we focused on how our characters would walk, for some people this was easy as they only had one character. I went for my Duty Sergeant walk and decided as him being very upright, with his hands behind his back with a relaxed stroll of authority and confidence, without seeming too casual. We then looked at how other people walked as their character and tried to replicate them. This helped me understand how everybody's walk is different and that our walks determine our character and that they need to be different to show a variety of personalities just in our walk. We also worked on how we would sit in our seats from a neutral perspective, but making sure we were in character as soon as we stood up.

Today, we looked into subtext of our characters and were asked to pick one scene and annotate how our characters really felt, as this would effect our body language and tone, even though our lines may have said otherwise. For example, as Roger, I focused on how he would feel about Christopher arriving and staying, seemingly resulting in him being placed on the back burner with Judy's attention focused on Christopher and Ed. Judy seems to snap at Roger a lot and I feel he is constantly switching from being frustrated and Christopher and Judy to hating Ed and then defending Judy, so it was really quite confusing for me.

In terms of developing my own skills as an actor I think both activities will greatly help as it will allow me to think like my character, to get a deeper understanding of how they would behave and act, this will help to make my characters more believable and hopefully get me a better grade ! I could also use these techniques in future to make my characters as believable as possible.

I think today's lesson was extremely beneficial as we got through the whole play, in the hall, helping us get used to the space we have available. We have identified the areas we need to work on as the areas where we stopped or did not look good and know what we are good at allowing us to focus our efforts into one particular area.

For the future couple of lessons I think I really need to focus on how I am playing my character through body language, walking, thinking about subtext and tone. As does everyone, to get into the habit of playing our characters and getting used to them. Also, we need to work on the London train station scene, as currently it is very slow and quiet, with the lines all over the place. We need to speed this up to make it seem more believable and erradicate our current weakness, if we focus on that, the play will begin to look very strong.

Curious Incident:  Day 14

Today, we carried on with act 1 from page 15 onwards. This all went smoothly and throughout we refined a few parts to our creative scenes. Such as adding more hustle to our London train station scene, which was successfully achieved.

In terms of developing my own skills as an actor, I am starting to think about how I can play my three different characters. By doing these creative scenes I am trying to play different people each time, however this is only physical, but helps me decide the body language of my real characters in the play.

My research this week is on a real London train station scene, to see if we can replicate such a situation and if we are giving an accurate representation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG-meaGqg-M&spfreload=10

I am aware that this video is a great deal busier than that of any London station, but to someone like Christopher, I can imagine it feeling as if all the people in the world are rushing past him, and he'd have to endure such a feeling of panic and anxiety all the time.

I believe today's lesson was very successful again. Every time we run through the play we are getting better and better. We will keep pushing onwards and refining as much as we can possibly refine. The whole play is making sense and running well.All we have to do is get the scripts down as soon as possible so we can carry out lifts without having to read or script or put it down, which will help the speed of the play, making it more encapsulating

To develop the play further I believe I have to play a wider range of characters, as does everybody who has more than one character. For example, Roger would behave differently to the Duty Sergeant. In my eyes the Duty Sergeant would be very kind and understanding as he is trained to deal with people. He would be very relaxed and easy to understand. However, Roger would not know how to deal with Christopher as he has no training or children to use his experiences from. I believe he would be very awkward and almost blunt and insensitive, perhaps just a little confused. I also believe accents will be very beneficial in showing contrasts between characters so my voice isn't the same throughout, however the accent has to be realistic, so I will not pretend to be Chinese as it would look ridiculous, and I also have to be able to convincingly put it on, failure to do so would make me look like a fool and damage the performance.

Curious Incident: Day Thirteen

Today we tried a run through of the first 15 pages without scripts, this went really successfully. After this we continued on with act 1 with our teacher giving us notes on where we could improve. Throughout our pieces where we created things with our bodies, we tried to think of ways of how we could make them run more smoothly and refine ideas, such as making our van a normal size compared to its original off scale size. We carried on running the parts with a physical piece, making sure we knew what our cue lines were and when to go off stage.

In terms of developing my own skills as an actor, I believe the notes our teacher gave us were very beneficial. Her notes are below.

Running the First Few Scenes – Tuesday 21^st October

Company – need to decide whether to watch the action, neutrally or reacting, or to not look at anything.  As you stand, move into your character. If it helps, take a moment once you’ve stood before entering the scene.

Do you want to freeze the action when narration is taking place?  (eg Voices or Siobham reading).  If you are going to keep acting, you need to think about reactions.

Neighbours – remember that they all know the history between the Shears and Christopher’s parents; except for 

Think about props you could use to indicate the location/scenario of each scene – eg.  Mr Gascoyne could have a file, the Police Officer a notebook, Ed a remote control at the start of the scene on p22.

The note I found most helpful was the fact that when watching the performance, that we all have to be doing the same thing, whether that be watching and reacting or staring at the floor. This is the most important note for me as I think it highlights the fact that we all have to be part of a functioning team, that everybody is important and that nobody is above anyone else. I think it helps me appreciate that a performance isnt made by one or two people, but a joint effort of everyone involved.

My research this week also helps put forward my recommendations for working on the play. I feel that in our train station scene we need to try and recreate as much hassle as possible and make sure our noise levels are load and fast, trying to show the audience exactly what Christopher is feeling, that sense of being overwhelmed and wanting to curl up into a ball.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPqpIcCE9t0&spfreload=10%20Message%3A%20Unexpected%20end%20of%20input%20(url%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DiPqpIcCE9t0)

I think today's session was very successful. We refined ideas and started trying to make everything look practiced and almost perfected. As this was all we did in lesson there aren't really any weaknesses in today, perhaps the one weakness is that we aren't completely finalised on our physical pieces and they are yet to ll run smoothly, with the transitions still needing to be smoothed over as currently they look a little scruffy, but all the ideas are there.

Curious Incident Day 12

The main focus of our lesson today was to try and create the noises and rush of a London street. So far, we have only focused on creating places or objects without focusing on sounds or movement to make it look more realistic. We split the class in half and each had around 20 minutes or so to try and replicate a busy London street. My group liked the idea of having our Christopher in the middle and we move around him, embodying various objects you would find in London. For example I pretended to be a taxi, we also had sirens, roadworks, street acts and so on. However, we were finding it hard to create the hassle as we didn't have enough people. However, we had the base of the idea and the beginning of a soundscape.

We watched the other groups performance and they had gone for a similar idea to us. They had a soundscape of shouting, quick moving and so on. But, they did have a nice idea when everyone slows down and goes quite with someone approaching Christopher and asking him a question, before speeding off again. We eventually fused out two ideas together, making noises, running around and so.

Christopher in London - creating the street

In terms of developing my own skills I feel that the soundscape helped us identify weaknesses in our ability to convey realistic scenes and so on. By creating this I have managed to grasp the idea that not just acting goes into a performance, but thinking and believing objects are there, the sounds and sights, reactions to various scenes. As an actor, I have to be able to do all of this to make a scene as realistic as possible as our play requires no props.

I think our final scene was very successful, it looked original and embodied a London street scene perfectly. I believe I behaved professionally, I worked quickly, contributing ideas and helping out whilst listening to others. However, one weakness in the performance is that it isnt particularly revised much. We all know to be running around making noise, but there are no queues or timings for when we slow down or when we go to Christopher to push him over, which was evident when i had to rush over.

In terms of developing the production further I believe we have to give as much energy as we did in this soundscape into the other scenes in which we create things. For example, noises in Swindon or the train station, to not only capture the audience visually, but audibly as well, to bring our performance to life.

Curious Incident: Day Eleven

We began rehearsals today with an exercise. This exercise was to walk around the room, but re living our journey to school for that day, really paying attention to every detail we saw, like how many houses we saw, what was on the houses, how many cars were there or what was the weather like. Trying to remember every detail was particularly difficult as we later discussed that everything we tend to remember normally affects us, and the things our brain doesn't absorb is normally information we do not need nor does it affect us, like how many cars past me this morning, it simply isn't needed. This task was in aid of us being able to understand the details Christopher would take in, for example, he would know how many cars past him, maybe even their colour in order. Where we would give a rough time of leaving our house, he would know the time precisely. This exercise was useful, as when acting out scenes with hardly any props and creating specific places or objects using our bodies, we really need to pay attention to detail to make our performance encapsulate the audience, so that they know exactly what we are creating, whether that be a train station or a car or just acting out a scene in say, a garden or house, we need to make it obvious to the audience where we are. After this, one person was selected to re tell their journey in as much detail as possible. We all sat and listened, trying to picture the journey. This helped us gain a stronger understanding of the detail we should have thought of, but again, shows how much information we miss and how hard it is to remember such detail.

Our second task, again, was focusing on Christopher's logical thinking process. In the play, he admits he has problems understanding metaphors. So, in groups we had to think of a metaphor and explain it in a way Christopher would understand. My group decided on the metaphor, "You're like a bull in a china shop." We found explaining this was very difficult as it was hard to dumb down, we got the base of it, but when explaining it to someone like Christopher, who would always ask why it became difficult. He would ask questions like "Why is there a bull in a china shop?" or "Why is it not a glass shop?" which helped us understand that he simply cannot grasp anything that isn't logical, which we can incorporate into scenes with Christopher, which will affect our tone and actions around him.

Our final task was, in the groups we were already in, to devise a short piece based on the line Ed says... "If you don't tell the truth now, it'll hurt even more when it comes out." We decided to go for a piece based on one of our members previous experiences in a relationship were passionate feelings were said and felt but only felt one way. The relevance to the line was that they both went along with it and one our member found it harder to leave as he felt he had got himself trapped and felt bad when their relationship eventually ended as he went along with it so long. We are due to perform it next lesson. Although, we do not think it is the best piece, we have had to construct it in fifteen minutes, but feel as if it holds relevance and shows a clear message.

Curious Incident: Day 10

Today, we took a break from the script and were placed into groups based on our characters. In these groups we were to devise a scene based on our views on Christopher. I, playing the Duty Sergeant, was placed in the policeman group, discussing our impressions on Christopher. We wanted to divert away from the policeman discussing Christopher professionally and sensitively, and instead, decided to base the scene around what the policeman really thought, without holding back

revolutionarts2016: Improvising off-script - The Police Officers

Afterwards, we carried on with the final part of act 2 before stopping. Our final task was to write a monologue for one of our characters about somebody else. As we had already done Christopher we had to pick someone else close and with a link. As I play Roger, I decided to write about Mrs Shears.

Curious Incident: Day 9

Today was a fairly routine day. We picked up where we left off in act 2 and carried on as normal. Every now and again, we discussed how a particular scene should be staged and how relationships between characters may be portrayed. For example, Christopher and Judy or Roger and Ed. So we could get an idea of the emotions felt in particular scenes.

Curious Incident Day Seven/Eight

Today in rehearsals we worked on more physical theatre. We began to go though act 2, again contributing with ideas of how we could stage certain scenes. One particular scene required us creating Swindon. I suggested to create a roundabout, as there are many roundabouts in Swindon and should anyone from Swindon read this blog, feel free to post a picture of one on here. We made this roundabout by pacing 5 people as a core with other people acting as traffic around the roundabout. We then dispersed into a train station, creating lampposts and clocks by lifting people on shoulders and so on. Then, created a scene on a train where we created a rhythm during the course of the journey to represent the logical thinking of Christopher, before finishing in our London train station created a few days back. We then moved onto considering how characters are portrayed and seen as from the classes perspective. We brainstormed ideas on Christopher, Mr Alexander, Siobhan and Roger, considering their characters and relationships with other characters.

On day eight we began a group discussion on why we felt particular ways about certain characters and really dug deep into possible meanings for characters personalities and why they behave the way they are and relationships they have with others as well as how they would react in certain situations. We then decided to start from where we left off from the day before. This time our main creation was the tube station, where we lined up horizontally, acting as casual as possible, before reacting when Christopher decides to get onto the tacks. To make the scene realistic, we all had to react in a shocked way to bring the scene to life. Before carrying on with the act, making sure we knew what we wee doing and at what time.

Curious Incident: Day Six

Today we took a break from all the strenuous lifting and went on to creating another physical piece for when Christopher searches his house. For example, to create bins we had people leaning down with another persons arms over there shoulders to act as the lid. To create his dads van we had people on their knees to create chairs, people using arms as seatbelts, gear sticks. We had people curled up to act as wheels and people embodying doors. In addition, we had people doing sound effects, such as engine noises and doors slamming. To create the house we had two people being lifted to form the roof, with another as a chimney, and again, people acting as doors. Finally, we created the bedroom, with people on knees with hands out to resemble draws, we also had people crouching to act as support for people to lay on. However, my favourite part happens when we create stairs. We have four people crouching to form stairs and the rest as bannisters to help Christopher up them. Our narrator comes on and pretends to shoot our Christopher so he falls back, before we catch him.

We then ran act 1 through completely, implementing the ideas we have thought of over the last week or so.

Curious Incident: Day Five

Today we carried on with our physical theatre. We wanted to create the panic of a train station scene but also wanted to show it from Christopher's perspective. To do this we all ran around the room, mimicking actions we would see people do at a train station, such as running around, making phone calls and so on. However every so often our Christopher would call a number, indicating we were going to do a lift. My lift was to allow him to run at me and my partner and catch him sidewards. The video can be seen below, eventually, we hope to get it running perfectly.

Christopher: Roger's Perspective

As I am playing Roger I think it is important to understand how Roger views Christopher.

Now, personally, I believe Roger finds talking to Christopher very awkward. Primarily because he had an affair and left his wife for Christopher's mum (Judy). He knows that Christopher's dad (Ed) has brought him up therefore feels a little guilty and perhaps unable to make a proper connection. I always feel as if Roger doesn't actually feel involved or know how to handle Christopher properly, or perhaps doesn't actually care. I get this impression when he greets Christopher with "What the hell is going on !?" indicating his shock at the situation. I also believe he finds talking to Christopher difficult because he knows he has done wrong by having an affair and knows Christopher was directly affected by his actions. In addition, I believe that Roger only tries to make an effort with Christopher because he is with Judy, Christopher's mother.

Curious Incident Day Four

Today we worked on trust. Our fist task was to pair up. Then, in our pairs, we walked around the room. One of us with our eyes closed whilst the other held their partners elbow. Once we were comfortable we let go of the elbow and walked around, but this time staying close to our partner so they could sense us. We then swapped and carried out the same sequence.

After, we were split into two groups. In our groups we had to select on person to stand in the middle of a circle we would form. Then we had to push the person round in a circle without dropping them. This task ended in us doing a lift. We elected a member to go first. We all got a grip of our partner, from the legs, and on the count of 3, we lifted him up. We carried on doing this so many times that we were eventually running in, lifting and dropping.

We, then began acting out where we left off on the last day. In one particular scene we created a maze, to represent Christopher's mind. We created this by linking arms in certain ways and moving as one to make the maze look effective.

Curious Incident: Day Three

Our third day of rehearsals began with us, again, walking around the room, increasing our pace every so often. We then reverted to our pushing away technique with each other before re running our dial pad scene with a different partner. Once this was completed we started our beginning sequence that we had worked on over the last two rehearsals. After we had done this we went straight onto acting out the first few pages of act 1. We were then split into our pairs from the last rehearsal and began working out how to stage our scenes. We all intermingled in different scenes allowing us all to contribute our ideas into the scene.

We then performed our scenes and talked through what we would like to happen in terms of lighting, effects and  staging. Our class was further split into 2 groups where we had to devise a specific scene, however, had to make use of everybody in a quirky way. So we had people embodying doors and draws, whereas the other group used everybody to make the structure of a house, I feel that both groups ideas were very interesting and that we can implement both groups ideas.

Curious Incident: Day 2

Our second day of rehearsals began with a similar to the first. We walked around the room trying not to come into contact with anyone, we then progressed to running and not bumping into anyone, which is very difficult.

After a few minutes we stopped and were made to find a partner. With our partner we had to walk up to one another, with one of us grabbing the others head and throwing them away. Then, we moved onto pushing into each other and turning out, before holding each others arms, leaning back and catapulting ourselves forward. Whilst doing this we had to make our actions as big and violent as possible to portray our hatred towards each other. We then went for a run through, alternating our action each time.

Afterwards, we stood face to face with our partner and one of us had to type in our phone number on a dial pad, but had to make it as big as possible whilst our partner had to mirror the typer.

Finally, we were given our scripts and paired up again. We found all of the scenes we were in and began acting them out, with our partner reading in for different characters. We done this so we, as a class, could work out how to stage things and contribute our own ideas to show that we made the play our own and were not directed the whole time. This helped us show off more than just acting skills, but communication, directing and team work.

Curious Incident: Day 1

Our first day of rehearsals focused strongly upon our opening to the play. Our first task was to wander around the room, saying something related to maths regularly (I chose to say "Pi =3.14") and every time we came face to face with someone me had to raise our arms and turn away very slowly without touching anybody, in a way that someone autistic would behave when coming into contact with people, which I decided to be an "Oh my God, don't touch me" way. After we got to grips with the pace and style of movement we changed our action to burying our heads in our hands and turning away, slowly still, but in a way that indicates our head is overloading and we are in a state of social shut-down. The pace change we used, I believe worked well as we all paced around the room and suddenly froze, before slowly turning, which looked really effective.

We then went for a run through of what we had done. Once we had done our "raised arm" turn 5 times, we moved onto our "head turn" and once we had completed that 5 times each, we curled up into a ball on the floor. Representing the fact the main character in the play, Christopher, is autistic and shuts down in social situations, however, is incredibly talented with maths and numbers, hence the utterance of maths related sentences.

After we had curled up into a ball, we waited for our lead, Christopher, to stand up and type in his phone number in on an imaginary dial pad that was the same size as the user. In a sequence, standing up in fours, we carried out this action, with four people of our group of 13, or so, standing up each time. This took a while or so to perfect without anyone stopping to think of the phone number we were dialling, so once we were clear on what we had to do, we went for a run through, which worked out nicely.

In terms of staging, we decided it would be best to seat the audience in a 3 sided square, almost in the round, but keep the sides very rigid to represent Christopher and his way of thinking, that he likes structure. Also, it will provide a challenge for us as we will be surrounded many times and have to think about staging scenes and really embodying our character(s).  We were given act 1 and our roles by our teacher/director and began to act out the play without any prep at all so we could contribute our own ideas to how the play should run and look.