Unit 18 - Auditions

Contemporary audition piece

Danny - Eight

Classical audition piece

Parolles - All's Well That Ends Well

Risk Assessment

Possible hazard	What we would be ideal to prevent it	What we can do	Would this make it safer?
Someone getting hurt due to the creation of the barricade.	Have a bigger space to move about in, keep objects being thrown very light, and make sure the performers are well rehearsed.	Move all unneeded objects out of the area, try to create the biggest space possible, only throw cardboard boxes, and rehearse the scene many times before even going into the church.	We still won’t have a massive amount of space, but we won’t be able to fall over any unneeded objects, no heavy objects will be thrown at all, and the performers should be able to play the scene out perfectly due to rehearsals.
Limited space to dance to ‘People Help the People’.	The barriers are removable and the chairs can be moved out of the way to create a bigger space.	Take the barriers out and put them in unused pews, and move the chairs to another space, creating the biggest possible space for the performers to dance in.	The performers would have a lot more space to perform the dance and there will be very little chance of hitting the choir pews as they would be behind the area in which the dance takes place.
Fire due to lighting.	Use LED lights as they are cold - unlike normal stage lighting.	Use LED lights.	The LED lights are cold and so there is no risk of fire from them.
Performers falling off the window ledge.	Have lots of rehearsals on a similar material to find the best way to make it safe for them, and get a step of sorts to help the performers reach the ledge.	We can cover the ledge in blankets so it keeps with the theme of the performance, this would mean the performers would not be able to slip off the ledge. We can also move part of the barrier next to it, so they can step onto that to get them on the ledge.	The performers would easily be able to get onto the ledge and get down off of it, also the blankets would make them slip less while they are up there.
Fire due to candles.	Use electric candles wherever possible.	We have a lot of electric candle available to us; however we feel we need to use a real candle for the ending scene.	No fire will be unnecessarily used in the performance and the performers will be briefed beforehand - making sure the risk of a fire is minimal.
Performer getting stabbed due to penknife.	Use a fake knife.	We will use a real knife to make it look authentic; however the performers will have many rehearsals before going into the church.	There will still be a little risk, but due to rehearsal beforehand - this will be minimised.
Performers tripping over in the preparation for creating the barricade.	Walk down each isle at the beginning of the day and make sure they are clear, also brief the performers and anyone in the church and keep the isles clear throughout the day.	Walk down each isle multiple times throughout the day, especially before dress rehearsals, tech runs, and the actual performance.	There will be no obstacles in the way of the performers, and they will all be aware of the dangers - making risk of injury minimal.
Steps being a trip hazard for the audience members or performers.	Put up signs and highlight steps.	When ushering the audience through the performance, extra performers must highlight that there are steps that need to be climbed; also brief the performers of where the stairs are.	This will make the trip hazard minimal as everyone will be aware of the steps around the performance space.

Diary: Day 24 - 17/06/13 (Inc. Evaluation)

It was the day of the performance today and we were all getting a little nervous. When we first arrived, we spoke to the reverend of the church and she was very helpful in telling us what we can (and can’t) do with the space provided. So we spent the first few hours moving things in the church to make way for our props and where we will be performing. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) we weren't allowed to do much with the alter, so we spoke to the reverend and moved it out of the way – putting a table in its place. We quickly briefed the last of the extras on what they needed to do and then promptly started a run through. This went surprisingly well and so we sent the extras back to school, so we could sort out the finishing touches. We did a final run through, then were ready for the performance in the evening, so had a break. When the audience arrived, there were more than expected, but we managed to fit them all into the spaces provided – other than that, the performance went ahead with no mistakes, a near perfect performance really. It was quite emotional afterwards due to the fact that this was the last performance we would ever do together as a sixth form group – we started with about twelve people in our class and we finished with six.

What went well?

Most things in the performance process went extremely well. Due to the fact that we only had about four weeks to create the performance, we moved at an incredibly quick pace. This meant that very few ideas didn't make it to the end performance as we didn't have time to sit down and evaluate good/bad scenes and we just put them all in – making them better if we felt they needed work. We had all worked very closely together on previous productions, so we were all very open with ideas to put into the piece. This was extremely helpful as we would have many different ideas for each and every scene for the piece – meaning we could try out each idea and see which we prefer.

We were a little surprised at how accommodating the members of the clergy were when we arrived at the Church. They were happy for us to do almost anything – we had tried to keep our piece away from any blasphemous dialogue or actions due to it being a church. The extras also did extremely well – I feel we chose an extremely talented group of individuals and they managed to settle into their roles very quickly and understand their purpose in the performance extremely well.

What didn't go so well?

In a short answer – not much. If we had a little more time to get the performance ready, I think we would have an extremely good performance, but nowhere near what we actually ended up with. The short time span meant we had to experiment with things quite a lot to see if they worked – meaning our performance had a nice balance of dialogue based scenes and more physical scenes. We did have one or two scenes based around the alter which we couldn't use the same way – but we simply changed the alter for a table and used a window ledge instead. I was also ill during the day of the performance, but that couldn't be helped. Other than that, I feel the performance and rehearsals went extremely well.

If we were to do it again?

To be honest, if we were to do it again, I wouldn't know what I would change really. Maybe spend a little more time looking at venues and different concepts, but I think we talk a lot about things instead of actually doing them – so we could easily spend months on end looking at venues and concepts without actually choosing one. If we had a lot of money, we may have had a deal with Rochester Cathedral and performed in there – that would be an equally as good performance, but in a much grander space. But again, it would be a completely different performance and to be honest, I think the audience would be distracted a little by the sheer size of the rooms. It would also be extremely expensive to light the space and get the correct audio setup to perform effectively – so I still prefer our church setting that we chose.

Early Ideas for St Margret's Church

Before we had come up with an idea to go into St Margret's Church, we took lots of photos of the church. When we got back, we all sat down and wrote down things that came to mind for each part of the church in the photos. Hopefully, these ideas would help us decide on one to perform. These are my notes:

An Idea to Start

Audience walk into the church and it's set in the future where there has been a war and everything is destroyed. Throughout the performance, have characters from throughout history that have done things wrong to teach the audience the right thing to do.

Pews

People sitting motionless in the pews. Staring, creepy, candlelit. This all happens when the audience walk in. We will have to black out the windows to do this. A view from the pulpit - people 'dotted around' the church, all motionless.

Entrance

One person, silent and staring, can encourage the audience to come in and sit down.

Cross

Sitting on the ledge (maybe perform a monologue) with light coming through from behind (creating a silhouette).

Archway

People standing/crouching around the archway, maybe hiding? Someone ushering them in.

Pulpit

People standing on the barrier, each side representing a choice and they can't decide which way to go. Maybe someone watching from the pulpit - making them choose either one.

Statue: immortality.

Hedge Archway: a new world.

Diary: Day 23 - 14/06/13

Today we set up the hall as a rough version of the church and did a run through of the whole performance. This was extremely useful as we could test out all of our scenes and transitions and see how well it ‘flows’. Overall, the rehearsal went well, there were only a few hiccups, but we can all sort these out over the weekend – they were mainly forgotten lines and/or transitions. After this we each allocated one or two extras to each member of the group – this way, on Monday we can each brief the extras on what they have to do for their characters. Overall, an extremely productive lesson and it looks like we are almost ready for Monday. Over the weekend, we will all work on the little parts that went wrong today (such as the odd scripted scene), ready for the performance.

Diary: Day 22 - 12/06/13

We focused on doing a run through today. After quickly looking at some videos of the earlier scenes, we ran through the performance up until Millie’s song where she sings and we grab things around the church for the barricade. This was surprising as we moved pretty easily through the performance and rarely forgot parts that we put in. We have decided to create the barricade out of cardboard boxes, so will need to get as many as possible over the next few days (we used chairs today as they were close to hand) and for each scene we had to quickly make a rough version of the space that we will have in the church. Today was extremely helpful as we went through scenes we hadn't looked at in a few weeks, so we just need to run the whole thing a few more times and we will be ready for Monday. The scenes I am most uncomfortable with at the moment are the first scene and the scene which involves our argument just before we dance to Paramore – ‘We are Broken’. Tomorrow we will most likely continue with the run through until the end and then go over scenes we think aren't strong enough.

Diary: Day 21 - 11/06/13

Yesterday, Joe and I went through our scene and tried out ‘God and Satan’ and managed to get it to a standard that we liked. We will now learn the scene at home and the next time we do it, we should know it enough to perform it properly. This was extremely useful as it was one of the very few scenes we hadn’t quite finished. Today we all discussed the building of the barricade as we had experimented a little with it, but hadn’t finished it entirely. We decided the best course of action would be to get a lot of cardboard boxes to create the barricade out of, so we will have to do this another time. We then moved on to the ending as we desperately needed to decide how we wanted our characters to end up. We finally decided that Dave’s character would get up after the quiet scene where we all talk about what we wanted to do when we were younger, and he would then explain that he wants to fight for his life. One by one we would join him and eventually we would all sing ‘Us Against the World’ by Coldplay as we slowly band together and leave the church. This was extremely good as we left the audience inside the church, while also having an emotional way of ending the show. We then showed some different scenes to year 12 students and got some feedback – this was mainly good, but they didn’t quite understand the relevance of our dances to ‘We are Broken’ but we felt this would be more clear if they had seen the rest of the performance. Today was extremely useful as we went over a lot of different scenes that we hadn’t done in a while, whist also finishing the ending of the performance and showing some scenes to an audience. Tomorrow we will start running through the performance and start making sure the smaller details are being taken care of (such as props and maybe have a look at costumes).