Performance Blogs- Ghost Light Tour

12/09/23 Today marked our first day returning in the academic year, as we began with a simple introductory day to settle us into the flow of our second year, and what that may look like for us in terms of workload, expectations for our written and practical work, and a brief insight into our journey into higher education- and whilst I am excited for the prospects of my future education, I still feel the anxiety surrounding all the expectation and pressure that gets amplified through this second year of education, however with the guidance of my tutors, I am adamant that it is possible, despite the harshness of the challenges.

13/09/23 During today’s session, we were introduced to the new attendees within the course- the first year students; which seem to be a formidable group of students, albeit having a struggle of focus, although is to be expected whilst settling into a new environment and trying to find people within the course to befriend and network with- however this also led to those between different years quite divided, as the more settled half of our two years seemed to congregate amongst ourselves, admittedly put off by the change of personalities from previous years; in spite of this, I can already tell these students are demonstrably great actors- via the activity we took part in today. This activity was entitled ‘History’s Weirdest Deaths’, which consisted of every member being given a historically accurate fact on how certain figures through time perished, with the exemption of one person, which had a piece of paper that entailed nothing- this person was expected to produce and convincingly deliver an improvised lie on how somebody from history died. Whilst the games seems simple enough on the surface, it was a nice way to refresh past skills, and also analyse each new student and see how this year would work from a team point of view.

14/09/23 During today’s session, we were introduced to a new improvisation game titled ‘World’s Worst—’, with entailed being given a prompt for an occupation, hobby of lifestyle, and the task at hand was to improvise a character in which their one goal was to interpret the prompt and act upon it in the most inconceivably worst way that any person could realistically do that task- which led us to develop our improvisation further, whilst still acting as a way to interact with more first year actors, which was unavoidable due to the room being randomly splintered in half to firm two groups simultaneously performing the same game, which was quite relaxing and overall an enlightening experience that allowed us to bond with our younger counterparts.

18/09/23 For this session, we worked on our collaborative tendencies and used our sharpened improvisation skills to execute yet another improvisation game- that instead of just focusing on one circumstance, it also built along the basis of character; we played ‘Tug of War’, yet there was no rope- the only physical items within the space were the people each side of the rope. The outcome of the game was, in a sense, predetermined- it’s whoever took the leap to have the winning pull firsts (the other team have to accept this and improvise in the same fashion), however the premise led us to have a leader, different circumstances for being present at the competition, and a world was built around this singular game which what was once a lighthearted warm up activity, had transformed into something that critically formed the entire day- which couldn’t have been a more intelligent way to show the process of acting without explicitly stating it.

19/09/23 Today marked the first endeavour into our Christmas performance; the musical adaptation of the beloved children’s story- ‘Peter Pan: The Musical’, which we expanded on a technique that was heavily under-utilised within the previous year, being vocal work, particularly acting through the medium of song. We began as we were routinely expected to last year whilst preparing for our minor role within a much larger Christmas concert; having vocal warm ups which specifically target our diction, anchoring, breath control, pitch and vibrato- through a variety of activities, such as a song titled ‘To Stop the Train’, which forces the vocalist to transition from peaks of notes on different scales very quickly, yet smoothly: this not only helps with general note transitions within songs, this also helps with switching types of voice whilst singing- especially chest voice to head voice, which I believe is one aspect of my vocal ability which I excel- in contrast to my breath control, a part of my ability I would like to work on within this piece, with longer and fuller notes. After this, we began preparations on learning the biggest ensemble number within the entire piece- a vocal piece titled ‘We’re Going Home’, when the Lost Boys defeat the pirates and declare they are leaving Neverland in order to experience the sensation of growing up; a wide range of emotions are present throughout this song, predominantly wonder and excitement about the Darlings home city of London- I portrayed this with higher afflictions within my voice to show my childish optimism for the future and innocence to the harsher parts of life; this has got me immersed within this process, and has given me a sense of excitement about future projects.

20/09/23 To begin today’s session, we were involved in yet another improvisation game, depicting a classical murder mystery, where each role was predetermined and randomly allocated to different students (I was allocated the role of murderer) and using these roles- a small scene was improvised, demonstrating the events leading up to the murder, leaving the scene hanging in a freeze frame, for the detective to spout their guest. This not only elevates skills introduced on the first day, such as the art of deception within acting to create a convincing performance, but also shows the improvement in the technique developed during our previous ‘Tug of War’ warm up activity- the ideology of world building. In spite of this, if we were to repeat this activity, I would hope we would take the activity in a more serious fashion, in contrast to making it a satirical caricature of most other pieces in the genre of murder mystery.

21/09/23 In today’s session, me and a fellow peer- Will- began researching a set of notorious body snatchers from the United Kingdom- a murderous pair called William Burke and William Hare. We utilised the time within this session to allocate ourselves a topic for research to aide with the development of this years interpretation of this years ‘Ghost Light Tour’ project, in which me and my peer discovered a vast array of information which would lead us, our tutor- Kelly- and the Stockton Globe associate- Josh- to discover these two notorious serial killers would best suit the role of the tour guides within the evening additions of this show. These characters have also intrigued both me and Will individually, causing both of us to pique interest in auditions for the role of William Hare.

25/09/23 Within today’s session, we began to look into randomly allocated duologues- which we were encouraged to work with somebody you have never worked with previously (as to encourage the entanglement of both years to strengthen)- which ranged from comedic pieces to pieces covering the topic of grief, such as my piece I was allocated with my second year peer, Freya. Our piece covered a person grieving their recently deceased mother, only before the second person, in this instance being my peer, to come and comfort the previous character, acting as their best friend. Despite the great sustenance within the short extract, Freya and myself were severely struggling to find aspects to reinvent and make an engaging performance- however we believe once in our normal allocated space of the dance studio, we will be able to use the obscure architecture in the midst of the room to our advantage, using it as natural set for the piece.

26/09/23 During today’s session, we continued with our venture through the vast catalogue of songs throughout our Christmas performance: ‘Peter Pan: The Musical’, to begin with. We began the session via vocal activities in order to warm up our vocals, which was then followed by returning to our previously rehearsed song ‘We’re Going Home’, which had significant improvement from last week, from myself personally- having to rely less on trying to focus of following lyrics, leading to me being able to focus on anchoring and breath control further, which already shows substantial improve,net, however, there a4e aspects I would still like to improve, such as my characterisation throughout the song- as of this current state, I feel my character is only half baked through most of the song, which is something I would improve if we get an opportunity to rehearse this song again before auditioning after our current Halloween project. After a brief lunch break, our second year group rejoined to discuss the art of Shakespearean monologues, and our imperative need to learn at least one minimum for future further education endeavours; I have selected a piece from a Shakespearean piece I have selected previously some years ago- from ‘The Taming of the Shrew’- so that I can explore a character (Katherine) that I did not have an opportunity to explore, whom always drew to whilst rehearsing the play previously.

27/09/23 During today’s session, both academic years of our two year course joined together in order to demonstrate and perform our duologues from the session two days prior- in order to expand our confidence and have an opportunity to deliver peer to peer feedback amongst ourselves; a task which we have had independent time to evolve and study the scene together, in order to maximise the performance- unfortunately, me and my partner were unable to utilise this time as we were preoccupied with the previous day’s activities in regards to our further education auditioning process. Regardless, me and my partner adapted using the space, using the architecture of the room to our advantage; I used the large pillar within the centre of our dance studio space in order to creat the impression I was slumped beneath a tree, to emulate absolute defeat and grief- white elevated the performance perfectly with my partner absorbing my energy and projecting it back into the performance, making the experience much more immersive; this led to positive peer to peer feedback, however I wished there were more points of improvement noted so that I can use them to better my craft before auditioning processes begin within the year.

02/10/23 Today’s session brought attention to the most challenging factor any actor from within this region of the country faces; heightened colloquialism and poor diction- leading to the loss of clarity during performance of any kind, including auditions, interviews, and even whilst networking with agencies. In order to address this directly, our tutor focused us onto a selection of riddles- one riddle would then be selected per group of students within the room- which we would have to master within our groups to educate the entirety of the remainder of the class to repeat the phrase with clear diction; whichever group stated the phrase with the most adequate diction would be declared the victor of that round. Whilst this comes off as quite childish, I understand it’s importance for young actors, including myself, to work on the clarity of their words, in order to gain a better network later on in life.

03/10/23 Today within our second year session, we were presented with a new challenge, in order to experiment with our directing skills, as well as our ability to work independently on a project as young adults rather than as students (this is so that us, as actors, can begin to see the art form from the outside looking in), we began researching short segments of popular stage shows to delve into- these including the play I decided to take on within a directing role: titled ‘Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime’, a play from the perspective of an autistic child whom investigates the murder of a neighbour’s local dog; this play would not only cause me as a director to get highly entangled within the project, from my personal experience with autism myself, but I believe it will also challenge peers within our academic class, giving them a large topic to research and involve themselves within.

04/10/23 Through the duration of today’s session, we were involved in yet another task within the name of improvisation, as well as the essence of hooking the audience into a piece; we were again separated into smaller, more intimate groups, in which we were each given an openly interpreted ‘hook’ into a short form piece, which we had a mere 10 minutes to construct into a fully developed piece of coherent theatre literacy- within our group- which dawned the phrase “What have I done?”- it was decided that the piece would be from the perspective of a teenager who has just committed suicide, watching her families reaction to her dead body on her bedroom floor. Despite the rushed nature of this piece, we were able to perform this to our peers; in spite of the second half of the piece being improvised within the moment, rather than roughly planned before- and whilst this strengthened our improvisation skills, this made the piece feel extremely cluttered from my perspective, leaving certain peers falling behind within the piece, which is something I wish was avoided.

05/10/23 Today marked the first audition process of this academic year, for our upcoming promenade immersive piece at our local partner theatre- Stockton Globe- in the spirit of the Halloween season; my first year peer, Charlie, and myself, auditioned for our interpretation of the body snatchers notorious throughout the United Kingdom that would operate the evening segments of the tour- Burke and Hare; we performed a duologue from the perspective of the pairing before the beginning of the show, showing both characters demented, yet differently masked personalities- mainly portrayed through Burke’s aggression towards Hare, which was prevalent throughout the majority of the piece- until the reveal of the ‘audience’, in which we attempted to portray as a charming welcoming. We faced questioning within this auditioning process on our reasoning behind our selection of our characters; I stated that I would like to explore the ideology of insanity without making it a caricature, whilst also being a constant moving threat with the audience, unlike the pre ious years iteration, which just transformed my character as a supporting feminine character who only appeared intimidating towards her employees. We were also questioned on our selection of accents, due to the need of clarity- we had selected the Scottish Edinburgh accent and dialect, as the business partners we were portraying we raised within that area before moving to England to begin their front of a ‘business’. Despite this, I believe there were other areas that could have been focused on, from both me and my peer, including utilising the extent of the audition space (our rehearsal space was a lot more minute than where the auditions took place)- I believe the lack of stagecraft really buckled the audition.

09/10/23 In juxtaposition to the prior days auditions process, today marked the beginning of a set of auditions for my own directed interpretation of the infamous Frantic Assembly piece titled ‘Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime’- a play following the journey of an autistic teenager, and those close to him in his life, and those he encounters on his hunt for a dog killer, and his own mother. In preparations for these auditions, I selected an extract for those going for major characters to best showcase the understanding of the character, that was also succinct enough for those attending the auditions to learn, in addition to their audition pieces from the previous day; an example of this being the opening segment of the play being used for the autistic main character, Christopher, showing his reaction to being overstimulated- this easily distinguished who researched the disability and who didn’t understand the concepts of autism as an entirety. This entire experience has truly elevated my respect for those who are directors full time- the dedication to your own instinct to decide on a definite cast without feeling guilty was the largest challenge I faced today- however I began to shape a cast that I can hopefully develop after the end of this Halloween project.

10/10/23 Within today’s session, we continued our endeavour into the vast song selection of our choice of our next project- that being the ‘Peter Pan: The Musical’, based on the popular novel originally written by J. M. Barrie- despite the impending state of our October performance, I am relieved to still have time designated on focusing on the future of my academic career; we continued to practise our previously rehearsed song, in order for our tutors to distinguish which groups of people have interest in what style of role, or, in some some instances, what specific ole people are competing for- I sang for both Peter Lan and Wendy Darling, as I believe I need a childlike character that experiences a strong relationship with the idea of maturity- in either a positive direction or a negative.

11/10/23 Within today’s session, my peer and I were allocated the roles of the matinee tour guides for our upcoming immersive promenade piece at our local partner theatre; whilst not being the initial part we both auditioned for, I believe this will raise a stronger challenge- this given me the opportunity to engage with younger audiences and how to approach an audience who is more sensitive to the heavy subjects within the show. Currently, we do not have an adapted script that we could rehearse, so we helped to plan the finale of the evening performance- being a live ‘execution’ of all the criminals whose stories had been portrayed throughout the events of the evening show, which was interesting to watch how my peers brains work through their knowledge of devising to create such a disturbing sequence so seamlessly.

12/10/23 During today’s session, myself and my peer began preparations of our matinee performance of our promenade theatre piece, as we had been given an adaptation of the evening show’s script, with both the Burke and Hare caricatures being replaced with two detectives who travel through time to discover history, both being named through the means of puns; our character are called Ineda Clue and Jean Ius respectfully- in correlation to the lighter theming surrounding the matinees targeted towards a younger demographic. Whilst have a brief site read of this updated script, the associate from our partner theatre,  named Josh, requested to see a demonstration of our characters within action- which he highly praised, commenting the take on the tour guides was ‘refreshing’ to see, which eased my anxieties about whether I was capable of accommodating younger audiences- me and my peer can now continue to develop our characters throughout the script, while learning the basis of our lines.

16/10/23 During today’s session, we drew focus to the full company segments of our upcoming Halloween promenade performance experience- we began exercises to promote the ideology of the ensemble moving as one joint mind, rather than separate minds following one rule; this was to prepare us for the finale, when we enclose the live audience as they begin to spectate the live execution of the criminals they had encountered throughout the experiences duration. We began this by synchronising our walking patterns- walking at halting as a collective rather than as individuals, then continuing to sitting and standing, to cement our intertwining as a company- this helped me to connect more to the ensemble aspect of the show, as appose to mindlessly draining all my focus onto my ‘major’ role (despite the fact this aspect of the performance is as imperative as the tour guides).

17/10/23 Within the span of today’s session, we finally felt prepared enough as a company to begin implementing our knowledge of stagecraft into the finale of our Halloween promenade experience: the final execution. This entailed the ensemble incorporating the singular mindset that was developed from yesterday’s previously session, as well as developing their own individual characters, and circumstance to attend the execution; my character, for example, was attending for her own pleasure- as was common for most execution audience members to attend for that precise reasoning, which lead to us creating a soundscape of the excitement surrounding a live execution within an earlier time period- this created a challenge linked to our singular mindset from the previous session, we had only practiced linking movement, therefore we struggled with volume control, especially with the evening tour guides entrances’.

18/10/23 During today’s session, both evening casts began full length run throughs of their versions of our immersive experience at our local partner theatre- in which I acted as an audience member for the finale of the performance; the live execution of British criminals scattered from history- which has been an imperative aspect of my previous sessions within this project. In spite of the extensive research and technique implemented within this section of this performance, I still feel the final project is too sporadic for many audiences members to clearly decipher what our purpose within the scene is outside of us physically enclosing them- individual characters clash, and I feel it makes the piece too satirical and cluttered; an aspect myself am guilty of- however this may be due the acoustics of our rehearsal space that causes the sound to bounce aggressively off of the walls of our rehearsal spaces within college.

19/10/23 Today’s session consisted of another run through of our horror promenade immersive experience that we are hosting in partnership with a local theatre within the heart of our town- Stockton Globe- expect  within this session, we revised the matinee version of the script; this is the original script, with minor adjustments to the personalities of the tour guides, to become more accommodating to younger demographics, such as primary schools. My peer and myself had rehearsed these altered scenes prior to this point, however we were given the challenge of controlling an actual array of students, who  acted as a group of primary school children, and- whilst considerate within concept, to prepare us to handle children who may accidentally ruin the immersion for others through observations they make- I found it difficult to concentrate when half of our allocated audience were purposely distracting from the performance playing in front of them, and intentionally using this opportunity as a way to essentially disrespect our dedication to this project- this may have helped with a rare worst case scenario, however this hasn’t given us the time to utilise and study what a realistic audience would appear as.

23/10/23 Today marked our final opportunity for a fully fledged run thorough of our Halloween promenade immersive performance within our home theatre of the Stockton Globe, including costumes, props and fully operating lighting and ambience; these runs focused on the evening casts, however this didn’t leave me now my peers short on work to develop through the final push through rehearsals- despite our ensemble parts only being utilised during the finale of the event. Issues within our past sessions covering the finale of our immersive performance had inexcusable issues with volume not having a balance- especially seeming too cluttered and overstimulating, however these issues began to dissolve once within the stage area- the seating areas were cleared, leaving a vast space for our characters to experiment within; the larger space also left more room for the tour guides entrance to be recognised, leading for much cleaner transitions in terms of volume, as well as spacing issues- this left an intimidating experience for tour guide and audience alike- however can be simply altered for matinee performances, by using the vast space to not overwhelm the younger demographic as much with the sense of claustrophobia. Polishing is still imperative before our first public version of the show, however the eminence the show is omitting currently leaves me with the impression that we have a product that is suitable for external theatres, such as Stockton Globe, to advertise and sell to the general public.