Final Performance And Thoughts On The Process

Posted on May 29, 2017 by Morwenna Murray

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The company on show day. (Noble, 2017)

Going into the final performance of our show, I was a little nervous about how it would be received. Because comedy is a genre that is highly dependent on audience response, it was impossible to know whether the show would be a success before the actual performance, since things that made us laugh during rehearsals and the development of the script wouldn’t necessarily amuse an audience who weren’t privy to that process before watching the end product. As with any show, during the development process, the company acquired various “in-jokes” amongst ourselves that inevitably subtly alter performances during the show and can sometimes totally change how an audience will receive it.

Thankfully, the audience responded very positively to the show, laughing and reacting in certain instances where none of us had anticipated receiving any reaction. One instance of this came when I entered with my line “It’s called culture! You’d understand it if you tried!” (Briggs, 2017) while wearing my “final stage” costume (Fig. 1), which during rehearsals hadn’t seemed to be a particularly funny moment but which had much of the audience laughing.

Fig. 1: “It’s called culture!” (Noble, 2017)

As an actor, it was immensely gratifying to feel such a positive energy and response from the audience during the performance, particularly since I’m not really used to playing such a comedic role. However, it was certainly an exciting challenge and one which I feel I managed to achieve successfully. One of the biggest challenges was simply adapting to the size of the stage on which we were performing, since having spent the process rehearsing in smaller spaces, I had become used to “performing softly”, despite the nature of the show being very farcical. However, during the rehearsals on the day, I found I was quickly able to adapt my style to suit the larger space.

Overall, developing this show and the character of Alex has been a long and occasionally tough process, but through plenty of collaboration between the writing team, the director and the other actors – as well as the company becoming very close-knit in general – I feel as though I was successful in overcoming the challenges that I was initially confronted with and was able to develop and create a real and grounded, if somewhat stylised and over-the-top, character.

Works Cited

Briggs, J. (2017) Record ’97. Lincoln.

Noble, R. (2017) Record ’97. [image] Lincoln Performing Arts Centre: Kick A Pigeon Theatre Company

Dramaturgic Process

Posted on May 29, 2017 by Elif Ege Taneri

Record 97’ has two opposite themes.
First I came up with the “home and prison” metaphor. This metaphor gave the shape to the play. The record shop is home to every character. The characters have nowhere else to go other than the record shop. In other words Record ‘97’s characters have no place in modern capitalist society. They are the outsiders. They don’t have important jobs our roles in society. They also do nothing for finding themselves a place in that world. This means they don’t exist in modern capitalist society. The Record shop is the only place where they can be themselves, where they can be exist.
The characters mostly spend their time in the shop and socialise with other characters. They have their own little community apart from everything else. They have music, records, posters, books, wines for this little isolated world.
Is that their own choice to live in this shop or they have to live here because they have nowhere else to go? This was my question to start my dramaturgy journey. Because I wanted to create an ambiguous atmosphere for the retaliation between the shop and the characters. The record shop can also be a prison for all the characters. They stuck in this record shop. They can’t escape from the shop or they can’t have a life out of the shop. Through the play all characters are trying the save the shop from the construction but also they are trying to find new possibilities for their life’s.
Inspiration from Waiting for Godot
“Let’s go.” “We can’t.” “Why not?” “We’re waiting for Godot.”
(Samuel Beckett, 1948)
Apart from this home-prison dilemma our play also needed another theme which could make Record ’97 more ambiguous. For ambiguousness I got this inspiration from Waiting for Godot. The characters in Waiting for Godot are waiting somebody who has never come. They don’t move our do something for their existence. Like Waiting for Godot`s characters our characters also have no aim in their life. They are also part of an endless repetition in the record shop. Not only the vinyl’s are circular but also their time spent in the record shop.

“SEBASTIAN. There’s nothing wrong with innovation. We’ve got to keep up with the times.
VIOLET. No we don’t. Time is just an endless repetition. It’s not about the aesthetic, it’s about the people. People don’t change. This place was going to be destroyed sooner or later, because some person will always want to make their mark, or fill their pocket. That’s what history is.”
(Jack Briggs, 2017)

Works Cited
Beckett, Samuel (1948) Waiting for Godot. Paris
Briggs, J. (2017) Record ’97. Lincoln

Further Fundraising

Posted on May 29, 2017 by Natasha Bailey

To ensure our we could fund the vision we had for our show, we decided we need to further fundraise. Our Kickstarter has already been a massive success and with the followers we had gained on social media, we were confident that we could fundraise further with events that matched our 90’s themed performance.

The first idea a raffle, we knew for this we would need to source a prize that would fit with the theme of our show but also appeal to our target audience of those who were born in the 90’s and those who lived through the 90’s. Fortunately, one of the company member’s parent donated us a brand new vintage styled vinyl player for a prize which saved the company £60. We also knew we needed to consider how long we ran the raffle for and when or where we sold tickets. We decided to run the raffle for two months leading up to the show, this gave us enough time to sell raffle tickets to our friends and family.

We also decided to hold a 90’s themed quiz and a 90’s themed film night. Though the events had great potential we only managed to raise a small amount of money from both events. However, the events were great for marketing as they allowed for us to promote our theatre company and up and coming show, whilst creating a relationship with the general public, so personally I still believe these events were successful. If we were to hold these events again then I would have held these events earlier in the year, as these clashed with the deadline dates, thus the turnout was lower than expected.

Overall, the company managed to fundraise a further £170 taking our total funding, including the university grant, to £551.66 and by the end of the process we had £9.66 left over after taking a contingency of 5%.

Figure 1: The company at the quiz.

Works Cited:

Figure 1: Kick a Pigeon Theatre. 2017. The Company at the Quiz. Lincoln: Univeristy of Lincoln

Record ’97 – Final Blog Post

Posted on May 29, 2017 by Adam Cockerill

Forming the Theatre Company

Out of everything I have done at University, forming a theatre company was overwhelming. However, it was a job that was easier than first expected. Originally, the five of us within the group knew before the semester began that we wanted to collaborate together and the idea of working with artistic people who are on the same wavelength that wished to form a piece of theatre we all had a passion for. However, it was overwhelming due to how many of us there were in the group and we thought we could do with having a few more. When the semester started, five other members joined us after they were searching to be in a theatre company.

(Kick A Pigeon Theatre, 2017)

Research and Development

We sensed that as a theatre company, it was essential to create a type of performance that was set in the 1990s because we loved the music and culture from that decade. We all sensed that we had connected to the 1990s and some of us had recollections from that decade, as we were all born in the 1990’s. As the sound designer, I started to research the different types of music from that decade because I was thinking that we could have some music playing while things were happening on stage to represent that we are basing our show in the 1990s.

Research method adapted from the workshop with Flickbook Theatre Company (Bowe, 2017)

The workshop with Flickbook Theatre Company inspired us to do this research method
(Bowe, 2017)

In terms of research, we learnt a theatrical way of devising. As a lot of things happened during the 1990s, Flickbook Theatre demonstrated to us that it is quicker for us to pick a year out of that decade. We then individually wrote the important facts of that year on post-it notes (music, films, games, politics and technology) and then we presented our research to the rest of the theatre company. We then came to a vote on what the most important and the most memorable year of the 1990s. As a company, we discussed numerous ideas and explored certain actions what happened in 1997 to attempt to discover the basis of our performance.

As there were a lot of serious issues happening in that year which affected a number of people in the United Kingdom, we were thinking about escapism. Where do you go to escape? We individually discussed where we go to escape. I said I listen to music which changes the mood I am in. We finally came to a mutual decision about setting our performance in an outdated record store where eight misfits enter the record store to escape from the outdoors, regarding their current issues. As a group of peers, we established that we make each other laugh. Therefore, we intend to make other people laugh. So we decided to play to our strengths and create a script that reflects our strengths.

“Laughter is desperately needed in a world dominated by the spirit of seriousness, by fanaticism, intolerance, and fear” (Nelson, 1990, 1)

Especially when the characters are going through serious issues in their twenties, an age when they should be having fun.

Putting the Show together

The following choice we faced as a company was how to tell the story of eight misfits in a record store. The year 1997 spanned over twelve months, so fitting all events of that year into one hour would be an impossible task to make. However, a non-naturalistic style of theatre was embraced to incorporate the content and time jumps that would have to be involved in telling the story. We wanted the show the progress of the record store as time went on as the store was outdated and going down under. We did this by choosing one event out of each month and placing the events in the scene changes.

(Kick A Pigeon Theatre, 2017)

“Rehearsal time is when performances are created, an organic growing process when anything can happen, when different things happen in an unpredictable way, when actors make progress at different speeds” (Morrison, 2003, 99).

For the writers to gain an idea of what to write in the script, we as actors improvised some scenes. The director gave us a list of scenarios to act out. This was the director’s way of each character building a type of relationship with each other and them coming together to make a storyline within the context of the plot.

What is your Show title?

It took quite a short while for us to decide what the name the show was going to be. Knowing that the writer was creating a piece based on records in the year 1997, we thought we would make it simple. Therefore, we suggested Record ’97.

(Kick A Pigeon Theatre, 2017)

Being Sebastian Speeds

“Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me” (Michael Gambon)

I was always praised for portraying the comic role so it is necessary to finish my final performance with something the audience is going to enjoy. However, upon reading about comedy, I found that as an actor, it is my job to make the audience laugh and being in the moment. In other words, it is my job to perform the scenario as if it is a real life situation.

(Vin, 2017)

“In order to register these first impressions actors must be in a receptive frame of mind, a proper inner state. They must have the emotional concentration without which no creative process is possible” (Stanislavsky, 1989, 4).

(google, 2017)

In preparation for the role, I discussed with the company my thoughts and my overall objective during rehearsals.

The best part of the process for me was creating a back story for Sebastian. I based my character on David Williams’ portrayal of Sebastian from Little Britain and Michael Crawford’s portrayal of Frank Spencer from Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em. I was influenced by Sebastian’s flirtation skills towards the Prime Minister and Frank Spencer’s use of weeping and the camp reactions. My character of Sebastian was one of the comic characters out of the play, even though he had a dark background because of his sexuality and the feud with his dad. In his reality, his intention was to try and be a mature twenty-two year old and to do right to save everyone from being evicted from the record store. However, he was the opposite.

Sebastian with Sherice (Noble, Rebecca, 2017)

Sebastian with Sherice (Noble, 2017)

He was childish because of how spoilt he acted and he speaks before he thinks. Also being portrayed as a bisexual, Sebastian has a secret crush on his best friend David which he does not like to admit at the beginning because he is “not sure he swings that way” (Briggs, 2017).

Me as Sebastian Speeds (Noble, 2017)

Despite having eight misfits in a rundown record store and serious issues were happening, the show would not be comic without the characters’ personalities. For example, Sebastian made the audience laugh because of his innuendos and him being camp. The cast had very different styles of comedy and the characters created the Theatre of the Absurd. The skill of the straightforward characters to perceive the bizarre characters in a way where they recognize their ridiculousness made the audience burst into laughter.

My Production Role

As well as taking the role as one of the actors on stage, I also took a lead to a backstage role in order for the theatre company to run smoother. I am as well responsible for the technical side. I designed the lighting and sound for our show. I did this by associating the requirements of the script by working with the writers. In terms of what set was on stage, I had to work with the set designer of what ideas she had in mind of how much set there is going to be and what colour the flats are going to be. Furthermore, I had to also work with the director in terms of where the actors are going to be on stage for myself to plan out how the stage can be lit. The lighting was naturalistic as it was set in a record store, apart from the opening of the show as the audience were entering the auditorium which had neon disco lights which were to signify to the members of the audience that we were having a New Year’s Eve rave to start 1997.

The tech script I designed for the technicians to operate the lights and the sound (Cockerill, 2017)

I found this job very overwhelming because I am doing it by myself and I have never done lighting and sound design before which affected the rest of the theatre company’s attitude towards me and it strongly affected my confidence immensely.

Reflections on the Performance

The reaction we received from the members of the audience was completely overwhelming. Personally, I did not know how well we will do on the night of the performance because our rehearsals were not as successful. On performance day, the show ran smoothly, but with some projection and pacing issues. Having spent hours rehearsing until we all knew our lines and getting the timing right, we all knew the show extremely well so we will know what went wrong during the performance. For example, some people got their lines mixed up in a couple of scenes, however, we still kept going and tried to remain as professional as we possibly could.

Sebastian with David (Noble, Rebecca, 2017)

Sebastian with David (Noble, 2017)

I felt that if I could develop anything upon my performance, it would be my backstage role as lighting and sound designer because being an actor as well as a designer proved to be a difficult task for me. The technicians stood in for me as we programmed the lights and sound in and we ran a cue to cue. This was a fascinating experience for me because for the first time I was able to perceive what Record ‘97 looked like from an audience’s perspective. This will be beneficial to me in the future because if I take on a backstage role and be a performer, I will be able to watch some rehearsals before the tech day to see what the performance looks like to better design all the lights and sound in advance.

Works Cited:

BrainyQuote. (2017) Character Actor Quotes – BrainyQuote. [online] Available at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/character_actor.html [Accessed 28 May 2017].

Briggs, J. (2017) Record ’97. 1st ed. Lincoln.

Cockerill, A. (2017) Tech Script. [image] Lincoln Performing Arts Centre: Kick A Pigeon Theatre.

Google. (2017). Frank Spencer – The Master Of Disaster. [image] Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=little+britain+sebastian+and+the+prime+minister&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3lKyDrpXUAhWqI8AKHX_PBDAQ_AUICygC&biw=1422&bih=819#hl=en&tbm=isch&q=Frank+Spencer&imgrc=mkd4mXUOz25ZvM:&spf=1496069725200 [Accessed 29 May 2017].

Kick A Pigeon Theatre. (2017) Cast. [image] Lincoln Performing Arts Centre: Kick A Pigeon Theatre.

Kick A Pigeon Theatre. (2017) Rehearsals. [image] Lincoln Performing Arts Centre: Kick A Pigeon Theatre.

Kick A Pigeon Theatre. (2017) Final Print. [image] Lincoln Performing Arts Centre: Kick A Pigeon Theatre.

Morrison, H. (2003) Acting Skills. 3rd ed. London: Black.

Nelson, T. (1990) Comedy: the theory of comedy in literature, drama, and

Cinema. Oxford University Press.

Noble, R. (2017) Sebastian and David. [image] Lincoln Performing Arts Centre: Kick A Pigeon Theatre.

Noble, R. (2017) Sebastian. [image] Lincoln Performing Arts Centre: Kick A Pigeon Theatre.

Noble, R. (2017) Sebastian and Sherice. [image] Lincoln Performing Arts Centre: Kick A Pigeon Theatre.

Stanislavsky, K. (1989) Creating a role. 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Vin, K. (2017). Little Britain. [image] Available at: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=little+britain+sebastian+and+the+prime+minister&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3lKyDrpXUAhWqI8AKHX_PBDAQ_AUICygC&biw=1422&bih=819#imgrc=Dhw_wQuGTe12tM:&spf=1496069725195 [Accessed 29 May 2017].

Money, Money, Money. 28th February 2017

Posted on May 28, 2017 by Natasha Bailey

With the declining funding and support of the Arts, we (as a collective) new we would have to fund our show Record ’97 ourselves, though fundraising and our own pockets. To give the company a starting point the university granted us £166.66 to our funding.

We knew that we needed roughly £500 to fund out show, as it depended highly on props, costume and set to create an authentic representation of the 90’s, so we had to find ways of fundraising the money needed. Our first initiative was to create a kickstarter project, with 10 members in our theatre company and a following of over 160 people on our Facebook page we thought a kickstarter was a wise form of fundraising. We decided to give as much information as possible on our Kickstarter, to ensure our donators fully understood how their donations would help us and our vision.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

We set our target low and aimed to raise £200 via donation which we managed to do with a few weeks of launching the site. This was reached primarily by sharing the link and our project and vision on every social media platform we had access to be that our personal or our profession one. However, I was are that the company had to be careful of what we posted on our own personal social media platforms as they were now linked to our theatre company reputation and we did not want to tarnish this reputation.

To thank our Kickstarter donators, I decided to give away a few prizes; the first two to donate over £10 won a 90’s themed sweet box and everyone who donated £1 had a personalised thank-you in our program. As this was a larger job myself and our marketing manager, Kim Bowe, decided to split the work, she took on the job of writing the personalized thank-you’s and I sourced the 90’s themed sweet boxes and had them sent to the donators.

Works Cited:

Figure 1: Kickstarter. (2017). Kick A Pigeon Theatre. [online] Available at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1253038669/kick-a-pigeon-theatre?ref=nav_search [Accessed 10 May 2017].

Figure 2: Kickstarter. (2017). Kick A Pigeon Theatre. [online] Available at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1253038669/kick-a-pigeon-theatre?ref=nav_search [Accessed 10 May 2017].

Figure 3: Kickstarter. (2017). Kick A Pigeon Theatre. [online] Available at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1253038669/kick-a-pigeon-theatre?ref=nav_search [Accessed 10 May 2017].

Figure 4: Kickstarter. (2017). Kick A Pigeon Theatre. [online] Available at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1253038669/kick-a-pigeon-theatre?ref=nav_search [Accessed 10 May 2017].

Figure 5: Kickstarter. (2017). Kick A Pigeon Theatre. [online] Available at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1253038669/kick-a-pigeon-theatre?ref=nav_search [Accessed 10 May 2017].