This week, I have done a lot of progress on my Designer Project, which I am really happy about.
First of all, I decided to talk to the previous year 12 Theatre students about their previous Designer Project. They both gave me very useful advice, which was exactly what I was looking for. One of them asked me if she wanted to bring in her little portfolio project; I accepted of course, and afterwards she went through it with me during a study hour we had together. We sat down and she talked me through it, she gave me very useful advice which I wrote down in my journal and which I had ignored I should have done. After that, I continued my research and I have now pretty much everything I need. Although, I did struggle with Edward Gordon Craig theories, because I didn't exactly know what it meant by theories. But I have it all now, so it's all good.

I haven't had time to read the play yet which was given to us from our teacher. I have a very organized schedule for these holidays since we have the exams right afterwards, and take them very seriously.

Last Tuesday, I stayed behind school to help out with the play "The Odyssey". With a couple of other people in my class, we helped with tickets, make-up, refreshments... I helped out with all three of them. My favorite one was to check the list of the tickets, and let the people through if they had one. With a friend beside me (we were two for this), I kept screaming to him "Oh my god I feel so professional", "I love doing this","Oh my god this is so much much".  I also loved saying "I am sorry you are not on the list" to random people who tried to sneak in. I was just like a movie!
Anyway, when the play finally started, we had to wait outside and it was the most boring moment ever! I kept asking the backstage people "When is the interval, when is the interval!" I am not a very patient person at all, even though I am trying to work on it and improve my patience. But then I started thinking how things were in a real performance, a professional one, how the backstage people would just have to wait and wait and wait outside while doing nothing. Also, when I kept seeing the children running in and out from the entrances and getting their costumes, I felt so jealous. i wanted to be in that production and I thought it was sooo unfair that only year 7,8 and 9 could be in the cast. I also could see on the expression of some of them that they didn't look very happy to be in it which made me even more angrier and upset!

Anyway, that's about it for this week's blog, nothing special really.
Oh and also, I have absolutely no ideas for what my title can be, everyone else has amazing ones and I can't even come up with one :(

THUNDERBOLTS AND LIGHTNING!!!

As much as the highlight of this week was supposed to be four hours of study, it was overshadowed by the School Production. Richard and Co. (as he put it in his last blog) spent a large amount of time this week on the Production. I was only there for manning the Door, but it was still a lot of work and investment. In some ways my schedule was actually more wonky than theirs, as my Sister was in the Orchestra, any events had to be planned around it.

On Monday, I had to write a History essay overnight. This was because of missing one History lesson due to the TPP(P?). Tuesday was spent finishing the rest of the HW that I had. Fortunately, We are coming up on Easter Break, so the amount of Homework was limited. Wednesday, was when I was actually involved in Production. I first stayed after school for the Afternoon performance, than came back later for the Night time performance. I really wish that I had taken an active role in the performance but at the same time I don't want to have to do all the work required, Sigh. On Thursday, there was only a evening performance.

Overall, I was really unnecessary as we were really overstaffed, but I had to be there to raise money. The only jobs to do behind(literally) the scenes were: set out table with food and drinks, open the doors and check tickets, and cover for the stage mangers(in fetching/dealing with people)and we had around eight people each night. The other annoying thing is that the intermission was seven eighths of the way through the play. This meant that we had to sit and wait for most of the performance. Over the 3 performances though we raised around a hundred euros, which was pretty good considering there was only one full house.

Well... Now to finish the Designer project that we all thought would really easy to finish before the vacation. (Didn't happen that way)

Addition: I finished the play that we had to read over the break, going to annotate some bits later, it feels  more like a fable then a play. There was even a thunderstorm on Friday, which is the last day of school for the year 13s.

You don't have to be mad to work with me. But it helps!

This week (2nd - 6th April) was a dull week class wise.

But me and Georgia were working back stage for the school production also!

New Spotlight!

Tuesday was the day. First day of the school production, everyone stressed and pulling their hair out. We had to be back at school at 5:30PM so that gave us no time at all to do anything but go head get dressed in the crucial backstage black. Before the show whilst Georgia was helping out with make-up I was going through the action plan of the entire play making sure props were in place, the scene was in the right position for the beginning of the play and covering up any areas that were letting light into the hall. Then it began our first show. Georgia and I were sitting backstage (with two other crew members) following the script closely for scene changes and props needed. All went swimmingly except one scene change where the lighting crew didn't put the lights down but it was easily rectified for the next show. Also the new spotlight the school now have is pretty bad-ass it can strobe light, has a vast array of built in colours and its just damn cool. One problem it is MEGA loud (due to two fans keeping it cool). But at least we have one.

Bad-ass Make-up

Wednesday was a long day which started at 8:30 in the morning (normal school with a 2 hour Theatre class) which finished at around 10:30PM due to there being 2 shows. Both went very well, the afternoon one was slightly harder since we had to be 100% sure no light from backstage would pour onto stage but other than that both went really well, and just look at out fancy make-up for the backstage crew!!

Thursday was the last night and the last show. We were all pumped and ready to go since it was the very last one. It went 100% perfect, nothing went wrong and I felt really proud of what the team had managed within 2/3 weeks, sure there were problems backstage (in the sense of forgotten cues by the Orchestra, and some ill actors) but on our part (e.g props and doors) all went well. At the very end the whole crew came on stage, jazz hands and took a bow and it was a really good moment being able to see things you've done come into place (even if we were mean to the kids telling them to be quiet!). Also over the 4 shows Maria, Georgia and Spencer all collected for Theatre Versus Oppression raising around 170 euros in total (give or take). So congrats to you guys too!

As for the lesson side of Theatre we've all been pretty much plodding along with it slowly making progress, I managed to get a rather large chunk of it done just leaving me with influence part of my blog to do and of course check up and polish out areas. Overall this week had been pretty fun in my eyes, since I got to experience a new role that I hadn't done before in theatre which was Stage Manager. It's a pretty stressful job but when it all comes together, it really gives you a sense of achievement! Also whenever everyone is on stage we got up to so much fun, the dance moves I was breaking out! Should've seen them!!!

Thats it for this week but I'll leave you with a picture of Me and the Backstage Crew (well most of us anyway!!)

Me and Some of the Crew

EDIT (11th April) : As of Today, I have now finished my Set Design Investigation into two separate Scenographers - http://ibdesignersproject.wordpress.com/

Richard #1

We saw the Primary Play on Wednesday, which took us the whole 2 hours we had in the morning.One member of our class was helping with the production, she was helping with the make-up. I was really impressed with her job, I didn't realize how good she was at it. Usually, on Tuesdays, she goes to the Primary to help with the play;I didn't expect her to be in such a big production, I thought it would have been smaller and a 10 minute show thing. But I was wrong, and very impressed with it. I thought that overall the play was really good, especially since little children were in it!  I would have thought that they would have been too shy on stage and not loud enough; some of them weren't, which is completely normal for their age and stuff, but we would nearly hear everyone on them, and the story was clear as well. What I really loved in that play was the fact that every time a new character or a group or character came on, there was a little introduction song that suited their character. It was supposed to present it to the audience, and as well, every time they would come on, the audience would know who exactly would come on, whiteout being surprised.


This week, I haven't done much research on my Design Project; I am taking the advantage of using the books I find in the library and during the holidays I will focus more on doing the actual work. Besides, I am that kind of person that can't do something in one hour only and then the other day come back to it; either I take a whole afternoon and do, or I just sit there and stare at the screen while doing nothing. I do know I have to work on since, not just in Theatre but on my other IB subjects as well, since it's important to spread everything out and not just do everything the last minute.


On Tuesday, I will be helping out with the play "The Odyssey" and I will also (finally) be helping out to raise money for TVO; I've been feeling kind of guilty that I haven't been able to attend any of the occasions where the others have been raising money for it. Maths evening, the German play...  But this time I can, so it's all good.


That's about it for this week, nothing much really, hope there will be more the next one!

Startrekking, stage managing and dramaturging.

I've had a very, very busy week (which is partly why my blogging is quite late), and next week is proabably going to be just as busy. Last week we finished off our display, the title still needs to go up but me and Rich think another layer of paint is needed first, began our research projects into set design and had the treat of watching Alexa and Grace's TPPPs, which was exciting and slightly scary. For the design prject I am looking at Appia and Craig and their work/what they believed the role of set design to be. I have changed my mind from working on the laptop to doing it by hand as I find I work better with my hands than on a laptop.
Alexa is a standard student so her TPPP was 7 images and twenty minutes, even though she went over by two and she had to rush to fit everything in showing me how hard it is. Grace is higher, like our drama ensemble, so she had 10 images and half an hour to talk through them. All the way through the presentation she kept talking about how "on reflection..." which is like Mr F's top tip when it comes to the TPPP. She was slightly under on time but I was so surprised she managed to talk for nearly half an hour, she did really well! My big worry is the timing, when I get nervous I tend to speak faster and I'm quite worried that I won't be able to last out for 30 minutes, but I know I just need to go steady.
Me and Richard also spent two of our nights last week collecting money for Theatre Versus Oppression at a german play being held at our school, I was very grateful we were allowed to collect and on the second night we were even allowed to watch the play. While german is not our forte, me and Richard we had a good enough grasp of the storyline and could sort of tell what was going on. What I did enjoy though was the way the stage was set out, with tables placed at a v on stage with the point facing the back of the stage, the actors used the space really well and when they moved into the centre of the v it really helped focus the audiences attention on them. There was also a board to the side of the stage, which at key parts of the piece was graffited with words and pictures and at one point even ripped up with a knife, I couldn't quite understand the significance of it allong with the play, but it looked really good.
My primary play premiered last week and I am so proud of all the children who took part and can't believe how Kate and Liz did it. In rehearsals we had really struggled with getting the children to be quite and with their cues, but they did so well when it came to the performance, being virtually silent backstage, knowing where they had to be and when, their projection was fantatsic and there were few prompts needed. There energy was the best as well, they carried everything off so well, and looked so pleased with themselves at the end of the performaces, they didn't want to stop.
And just as one production ends another begins. This week I'm helping with the year 7 to 9 play. On sunday we had a full day rehearsal which is the first one I went too and so I was just familarizing myself with the script and the scenery and staging. I'm working on the make up with some of the year ten girls, I've been put in charge of the Gods and Goddesses, which I'm slightly nervous about becuase the make up we used for the dress rehearsal wasn't that good and so I wasn't able to do what I wanted, I am also working as a stage manager with Richard and a team of year tens. It is the first time I've worked in the role of stage manager and I am really enjoying it. I delegated out roles so that everyone is in charge of something, Laura L, Ruby, Ella and Anna are on the two doors either side of the stage and making sure actors are ready for their cues, on the night they will need to fetch the children from their rooms and take them to the doors. Eleanor and Laura F are going to be in charge of props and helping moving things on stage. Me and Richard are in charge of scenery and coordinating backstage. On wednesday I annotated my script and then made a table of what happens when and everything that needs to be on stage, who needs to be ready. I photocopied all these so that every member of the team has one. The second rehearsal on the friday went much much better than the first, and I can not wait for teh plays to start!!! And for more oppurtunities to collect for TvO..

Georgia Stanley