Timeline washing line

With Jonathan, the company created a washing line with every scene of the piece on a separate piece of paper. This washing line allowed us to see each scene standing alone, allowing us to see if it flows, and change, get rid of, or add scenes. From attaching all the scenes we had so far, we all wrote down either scenes that needed to be added, thoughts of the piece as a whole and/or anything necessary that needed to be spoken about.
We then went round the group, each person speaking with absolutely no interruptions until they had finished. This discussion meant every person had a chance to speak, and more importantly, to be listened to by the whole company. Letting everyone have their opinion meant every voice was heard clearly, and that the whole group was involved with the decision making, not just a number of people. This got the message through that decisions about the piece as a whole needed to be whole company discussions, so everyone is aware of everyone's opinions, and there is no small talk which could misinterpreted or misunderstood.
Decisions that came from the timeline were:
- Transitions need to be made to link scenes together
-The time characters need to be slotted into the piece now the story is there and establish what their characters are
-Intertwining of old and young could increase and more fun to be had with it
- P.O.W dance section is now gone due it not really having a definite point, and using up time that needs to be used for story clarification and what is truly necessary
-The love letters scene has swapped to the first time Alfie is drafted to war, to establish war, and it fitted better than later on in the play
-The first song that originally opened the piece is now gone as it contradicted our message of celebrating old people, and didn't really fit into the rest of the piece, that even though it was humorous and engaging, it didn't fulfil the purpose

As well as this, Jonathan suggested another opening which we all agreed was much stronger and set the message of our piece really clearly, setting up the audience with the right information from the word go to understand what the piece is all about. Originally, it opened with the antagonists song straight into Alfie and Evie, with no real direction of what the audience should be looking for, apart from being told one day they will die. The new opening was that Alfie and Evie are sat on stage with old masks on, doing everyday things alone. The antagonists then come on, describing time and stories, why memories are everything, how they should be cherished, really getting that message directly to the audience, letting them ponder over it as the story begins. The main point was that after this scene, the antagonists ask 'what do you see?' before revealing the people underneath the masks. And at the end, the masks go back onto the people and again the audience are asked 'no tell us, what do you see?' linking the piece altogether, with the message clear as crystal to the audience, that their perceptions of old people should change, that underneath a mask is an extraordinary person. This is visually occurring on stage, so the message is visually there, making it hopefully less complicated and straightforward for the audience to grasp.
The session was extremely helpful, everyone sat listening to each other, accepting what was said and together solving any problems. I felt it got the group together, got rid of tension and problems, and it felt like the whole company were taking control of moving the piece forward in the same direction, instead of different groups trying to take it in different directions. It was a real mark in moving forwards efficiently, knowing exactly what needed to be worked on. Also that we needed to stop splitting into our usual groups, that now material is there, we need to be working on it together as a whole group.

Video Evaluation

Following the video of the 1st stumble through of the first half of the piece, we all sat and watched the footage, making sure we made notes, positive and negative, what weaknesses and strengths were etc.
When watching it, I decided to evaluate it section by section in this order, so when we came to discussing it was very easy to feedback.
The main point we all felt was there was a need for more clarification with the storyline and underlining message. It was still a bit unclear what the antagonists roles were and how we slipped from the past to present, and what there journeys were. What was surprising was the amount of material we actually had, which was a real encouragement for the company, that even though it was very rusty, we had the basic structure in place.
Apart from clarification, it also highlighted where our gaps were in the story. We all agreed a timeline was in need, so we could all visually see the piece with the chapters. That was our aim before we continued, as there were still questions on the order of scenes and how the story developed. To allow us to continue devising, we needed to make sure every member of the company was on exactly the same page.
The video was really helpful to see the material we had so far, also to sit back and watch it from an audience point of view allowed us to see whether we ourselves understood what was going on. If not, clarification and pushing that message further was something we needed to focus on.

Script Writing: Walk home

This scene I wrote after the 2nd stumble through in Jonathans' lesson, which I shall evaluate when I've seen the video.
I asked the group if they would mind me attempting to write a scene that linked the first meeting dance to Alfie being drafted to war.
We had tried to write a scene that morning, yet we kept reaching a block, we knew we wanted the couple to go on a walk home from the dance, and to show time passing, yet we didn't want to make it corny that it was too 'like the films' that would led to possibly pushing the audience away instead of drawing them in.
The walk home was relatively easy to write, keeping it short, punctuated by awkward moments and slick moves by Alfie, leaving his coat with Evie to collect it the following day so he could see her again. There weren't any chick flick movie quotes, but trying to stay as truthful to a real life scenario as this as possible.
Again in Frantic's 'Lovesong' the couple have a scene where they are sitting as if they're underneath a tree, just chatting about life. I took this as inspiration and got the walk home to end with the couple not wanting the night to end and walking to sit underneath a tree. There they paused, and I got the Old Evie to have dialogue where she describes what happened, that they visited that tree every Sunday afternoon, signalling months have passed yet they always came back to the same place. Having Old Evie speak this added in the interlinking of the old and young, as well as keeping with this thinking back to memories and enjoying them, wanting to remember them.
I then got the script from the beginning of the play, where the old couple speak 'when people ask us how we met' dialogue. I thought the young couple could repeat this dialogue, slightly altered, when they are under the tree as months had passed. This dialogue again repeats at the end, so you get to see it spoken three different times, each having a slightly different meaning and intention, in three different time periods, where different events have happened.
At the end I added the lines 'Yes...it is a great story isn't it? 'One we'll never forget.' 'Oh no, one we'll never forget'. To have the audience witness the couple say those lines, almost like a promise to each other, and knowing that for one of them, as much as they want to remember, their body/mind wouldn't let them would hopefully giving them an urgency and empathy for Old Evie to remember her past. It would be nice to have the audience really get that emotional connection with Evie and Alfie, seeing their younger selves completely oblivious to what would happen, yet the audience already knows. Whenever I watched plays or films, knowing what the ending/future was of characters before they did gave you a certain feeling you couldn't otherwise get, you know what is to come, but you have to sit and watch it unfold before you.

1st Stumble Through

The Wednesday rehearsal, Abby suggested we do a stumble through of all the scenes we have devised already, giving us a chance to highlight the gaps that need filling and to give us a first look into how the piece is shaping. It was really handy as some of us had never seen parts of it before, and it was great to see it starting to come together.
Evaluation:
Dances have their basic structure in shape, but now need to be finished and started to polish, this is relatively easy to do which can be done early. They convey the right moods we were aiming for, and whole company dances really lift and heighten the mood!
Opening flows and fits together well, the entrance and first viewings of the younger couple needed to be interlinked and the transitions a lot smoother, yet the introduction to the old couple is concise, laying an understanding of her mental state is there, but when we go into her first memory needs to be a bit clearer.
There are many gaps we need to fill, from the dance to drafting to war no.1, the war to the hospital scene, the prisoner of war ending to no memory, no memory needs to start being devised around and how it links to the ending.

In the later rehearsal, Nick and I chose to devise a movement sequence for when Alfie gets drafted to war for the first time. Yes the young couple have already had a dance sequence together, yet this was a lot less physical and a lot more emotive, but the movement allowed us to convey this sense of sadness and deep frustration that words either couldn't do or wouldn't do as well.
Nick had the thought of 'Lovesong' by Adele, its fairly slow, and how the music swelled and got more emotive fitted the sequence, giving the sequence and the couple a journey through both movement and music.
We chose to have the letter as a main focus. We started devising by finding ways the letter could be passed under, over and around each other, never letting the letter drop and always as a point of contact. Then we travelled it and added levels and moments of stillness where the couple couldn't look at it and just held or embraced each other, the letter in between their hands.
As the sequence developed, we found that there was a point where frustration turned to anger for the young Evie. That the letter became to much, so she scrunched it up and threw it away, turning to Alfie and starting to push him away, yet wanting to hold him but knowing that letter has gotten in their way. The more upset she got, the more desperate Alfie gets to just hold her, and finally wraps his arms around her, and they stay like that till the music fades out.
We got some of the others to watch it, and the feedback was great, that it was nice to see a journey for the couple where it isn't all 'perfect', and having Evie break instead of Alfie they agreed was an effective twist almost. It allowed the couple to really gain sympathy from the audience.
It then became apparent that we needed a scene before this that linked the end of the dance to the letter. A scene where the audience learn that they have been together and their relationship has developed, to gain that audience's respect and feelings, so that when the bad news comes, the audience aren't been demonstrated to that they should feel sad, but they really feel it from how the play has developed.

Script Writing: Re drafting to War

Over the weekend I decided to write a scene for when the young man gets re drafted to war. I thought there needed to be a gritty scene where the young couple seem to argue, with tension building, as it would create their romance to be more 3D, as no relationship is plain sailing.
I started by researching conscription to the army during WW2 to get the facts and figures.

http://www.historyonthenet.com/ww2/conscription.htm
This site was where I got the information of when conscription was introduced to Britain, where young men didn't seem to have a choice, many tried to appeal against it, around 60,000 appealed where among 18,000 was dismissed, which is quite a fairly large percentage, and  your reasoning to not join the army had to be a very good one. Not wanting to, simply wasn't an option. This gave me the reasoning to make Alfie feel compelled to open the OHMS letter, as he knew he had to choice but to go, it was pretty much a law now, and he had to comply, regardless of his feelings.

 http://spartacus-educational.com/FWWconscription.htm
This whole scene was based around the letter that is found in their home, so I wanted the letter to be read out, preferably by an antagonist, to allow reactions from the young couple without dialogue. This letter needed to have a likeness to what would have been written in those days, this website I found a load of primary sources which was based around conscription with the first world war. I knew are based in WW2, yet I  couldn't find an example from that period, and I thought that the letters context wouldn't have altered that much, they would still be about conscription.
The source I took quite a lot of inspiration and wording from was from King George 5th, statement issued on the 25th May 1916.
Its content had encouragement for soldiers, trying to bring higher spirits to the war. I liked that it was very factual, trying to be directly addressing and forming a relationship with its readers, yet everyone knowing what the sub meanings really were.
From there I wrote a letter that managed to capture that factual mood, these letters would have been sent to millions, all exactly the same just with the name at the top and bottom altered per person. I had the vision for it to be said in a very factual tone, nothing emotional, as the person sending it would have no emotion connection to the receiver and probably had more pressing matters on their mind.
The scene I enjoyed writing, it was exciting to add that tension atmosphere, giving the couple a rupture in their romance, a problem they both had to face with no choice. It would probably be in naturalism, because focus on the words would be a key fact.
I showed it to the company and got positive feedback, so its now a case of getting it on its feet and see how we can devise with and around it.

Choreography of Rhythm

After researching and finding the YouTube video Rhythm choreographed by Tom Richardson, a group of us and Rose choreographed a company dance for the meeting scene.
I showed them the routine, and we decided to stick with the same song as it had a good beat to it, it was from that time period, yet seems to have a sort of modern feel. From improvising to the song, it gave the right atmosphere we were looking for, light hearted, exciting, lively.
From improvising, we chose moves that we liked and were simple to teach and learn by people who had never danced before. Repetition was something we included a lot, as it keeps a dance easy to remember, but also it's sometimes nice to watch moves twice to get to appreciate them and enjoy them for longer. We came up with a short routine, and tried it in partners, dancing opposite/around each other. Even though it was exactly the same routine repeated in pairs, it gave another dynamic and again gave us a simple yet effective routine.
We tried a few lifts, the rock and roll lift, shut the box, cartwheel, twist etc, and picked what we liked. Rose also taught us an arm motif that is performed in pairs which we added to the end.
After teaching the whole company, it had a cheeky, playful mood that everyone really enjoyed performing. Visually, it looks great, and the cheekiness in pairs allows for fun character improvisation with the actors, so it isn't just a dance. As well as this, it isn't too long, so the audience get a jam packed routine, and we end it where perhaps they would want to see another section, so it leaves them on the edge of their seat, wanting more so their really watching, where sometimes a long routine can be appreciated for the first half before people sit back and sort of switch off.
This routine is pretty much finished in terms of choreography, so it'll be banked until it needs to be polished and placing's sorted etc.
I loved teaching it, and creating a dance for people who had never danced before was good practice of choreographing for the group you are with, basing it on the group ability so it accompanies everyone.

Monologue

I wrote this with no idea where it could feature in the play, I didn't want to allocate it a place due to its content. My inspiration was the young man's speech he performs in 'Lovesong', he rants on about time and the functions of time before eventually reaching his point that he thought he was becoming boring to his wife. This ranting on of such a big topic I thought was very clever, taking something out of the everyday.
From this, I chose to write about a bigger picture, of space. We have a theme of time, and time passing by and running out, and we live in a world with time, yet in a space where it doesn't exist. I gave myself half an hour to write what came to mind, this was my outcome:


Space,  made up of thousands of universes home to limitless galaxies full of endless stars that shine light for millions of light years no matter how big, small, old or young they are. The part of this never ending mass we know best consists of ten planets surrounded by many moons ceaselessly revolving around a giant ball of gas that can warm your skin from its home millions upon billion of miles away. And yet, among all this, there is you, and there is me. In the midst of an infinity, throughout all the commotion on this planet and space in which it lives are two people, where everything stops. Where time itself is simply forgotten for a moment. The thought of how we could fit into a place that has no edges and keeps on going is replaced by how we can fit into someone else's little infinity. Somehow, it doesn't seem fair, that a place where time doesn't seem to exist, a clock gently ticks. And one day, with that person you found in a never ending place, where everything stopped for a moment, that clock, our clock, will stop ticking.

Devising no memory section

In Abbi's rehearsal, we had brought in scripts/monologues/ we'd written over the previous days and read them out to the company. It gave us a chance to see what scenes now had dialogue and what needed to be filled, as well as this it gave us a sense of what moods and atmospheres scenes would have that we can build on.
From hearing these, we then split into 3 and each took a different piece of dialogue. Karl, Elsa, Megan and I took mine and Megan's monologues and combined them. They were very contrasting, one was a man having an ordinary chat about ordinary things and mine was about the limitless space we live in where our lives are so small. One focused on the bigger picture, and the other the small, so it was interesting to see how they combined.
Karl read through his monologue, but would stop in places where the three of us would interject with my monologue. What was nice was that even though the two contrasted, they fitted together. It got the audience to think more outside the box, and having to listen to two, seemed to create a better focus, instead of giving them an easy ride to just listen to one that flowed on its own.
We banked the idea for now, but ways to develop it would be through adding more everyday gestures, with Karl getting up and doing everyday activities, perhaps integrating the two in space as we stayed further upstage, so intertwining in both space and words.
The others were a scene to do with the P.O.W section, before our movement sequence.

We then focused on how we could devise the no memory section. Abbi got us to each pick a sentence from a monologue of our choice and find gestures we could perform alongside the words. The group was split it half, one doing one watching. The first group had to walk around the space miming their words and gestures, one person was acting as the old woman, searching for a memory. When you were tapped on the shoulder, you then spoke with gestures. They would touch more people at a quicker pace which meant words were flying around the space, overlapping, varying in tones and pitches etc.
This was then developed into adding a book to our sequences, they became doors, steps, hats, birds and others. When you were tapped you performed the sequence spoken with your prop. The old lady would then find one memory which she would try to hug, nurture, hold on to as if clutching to a precious memory before letting go and moving on.
It was then developed into the old lady taking away your book to search, if your book was taken away you stopped where you were and if the wrong book was given to you, you threw it to the floor and started singing, you could only perform your sentence with your book.
Visually, it looked great, the lines would have all featured in the play at a point, so it was like all her memories jumbled into one. The movements layered it, and it was like the sentences were written in the books that were being held. As the pace picked up you had movement, singing, overlapping of speech, where it looked chaotic yet had an organisation to it, messy yet not ugly looking. It provided us with a great starting point to the section, where we were originally struggling. This idea was banked.

Production meeting - casting

A production meeting was set up to discuss castings for both characters and casts. Firstly, we started by deciding what the stock characters were in the play. This decision was fairly easy:
Old woman
Young woman
Old man
Young man
Antagonists
The first problem we faced, was how many antagonists we wanted. There were mixed reviews on 2 or 3. Pros and cons for both were being able to have the good cop/bad cop relationship, more people to manipulate, and sort out the odd number we had having 11 performers with Laura being technician.
The conclusion, after much deliberation, where everyone got their opinion on the table by passing a book around the circle where you could only talk holding it, which was a very effective technique ! , we decided on two antagonists per cast and Lee would stay the old man in both. This was due to most preferences on 2 antagonists and Karl really wanting to play that part, meaning we had a gap in one of the casts. Lee was happy to do both, so we moved on.
We then gave our 1st and 2nd preferences to who we would like to play, from that it became quite obvious and simple to allocate roles to everyone.
The most challenging was deciding on who went in what cast. The main women were split into similar looks, Liv and I both blonde Mandi and Chloe both brown/dark haired. It was the young couples that were the issue to split. We had worked in pairs originally, but didn't get the opportunity to work with the other and test what the outcome was. Therefore, for the remainder of the rehearsal, we went off and learnt the two duets performing them with the opposite partner.
This carried on into the following day, where we still hadn't made a decision. I am first to admit that I didn't voice my opinion strong enough for fear of other people's feelings, as there are some big personalities in the group that I didn't want to upset. The deciding on the casting is still on going, but hopefully resolved asap. Not voicing our opinions early on has made it more difficult and added un needed tension, however, we feel strongly about the right pairings due to having to work in them for the remainder of the project, and the overall feel of each cast should be to the best as it can be. Even though it's been slightly stressful, and probably made the process drag a little, it is teaching me to be bold in my opinions, because skirting round issues makes it far more difficult. So it's been a lesson well taught.