Managing the Minutes

As producer of Fill In The Blank Theatre one key task I do, is taking minutes during every meeting or rehearsal. This simple yet very important task enables us as a company to keep track of any ideas or suggestions regarding the company, the performance, the set, sound or lighting. With any theatre company, (especially that which consists of a large number in our case ten members) remembering every idea or contribution to the devising process is difficult and therefore often a potentially exciting idea can be missed or forgotten.

Freadman and Reade note that “in the case of all companies, efficient and effective marketing and organisation, as well as your originality and talent, are the keys to longevity” (Fredman and Reade, 1996, p.267). The point they raise re-enforces the importance of keeping minutes and rehearsal notes. It is vital to find the balance between creativity and organisation. By keeping minutes it means I can find this balance by noting everyone’s creative contributions which thus allows us as a company to remain organised.

Seabright notes that “one key purpose of these [production] meetings is to keep the director updated on how the production side of things is going, which can otherwise take a back seat in their priorities when rehearsals are in full swing” (Seabright, 2010, p.272). This is also where the task of taking minutes comes into play. As Seabright notes often the production side of the process can take a ‘back seat’ during the devising process as most of the Directors focus is on the rehearsals and creating the content itself. By myself and often the stage manager taking notes and minutes in rehearsals it enables us to be able to give the in-house technical team at the venue a better idea of our performance from the offset.

Arranging production meetings with the in-house technical team is important as it means we can establish early on our vision and if it is achievable. By taking notes it means I can then feedback to the Director as Seabright notes informing them on how things are going and what the technical team suggest if problems arise.

It is clear that taking minutes and notes throughout the devising process is important for keeping the company on track and as Seabright notes fulfilling “one really important part of a producer’s role is maintaining a view of the ‘big picture’ at all times in the production process” (Seabright, 2010, p.12).

 

Works Cited:

Freadman, R. and Reade, I. (1996) Essential Guide to Making Theatre. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Seabright, J. (2010) So You Want to be a Theatre Producer? London: Nick Hern Books.

 

Dancing and dialogue!

We’re all starting to feel very excited here at Fill In The Blank Theatre. We’ve nearly got a full show and we’re currently developing the new bits. We’re in the process of creating a props scene with Alice D. as the wife and all of the other cast jumping in and out of the scene manipulating the props. At the minute we only have about a minute and a half of this scene so our goal for the next two weeks is to extend that scene as well as re-structuring the second props scene with all of the wives telling different stories and remembering different moments the couple has shared. In this scene we’ve been playing with different ways to have all of the wives on stage without it looking to messy, the strength in this scene is in the simplicity of the moment and so we want to avoid over complicating it.

It was also learned in the past two weeks that in a scene to signify the wife leaving Rachel will perform a dance solo. I think this is a great idea because so far Rachel hasn’t really had the chance to show off her strengths on stage so I feel that as long as all of the character’s intentions are clear having a dance solo is great! So really we’ve just been polishing bits that we already have set in these past two weeks, we also added an ‘argument’ scene onto the end of the ribbon sequence with Michael now speaking over the dialogue. My concern for this scene is that the audience may not understand the ribbon sequence because at the minute we don’t have a transition into the scene, this is because we’re not yet sure where in the piece it would work best so we can’t completely plan the transition. The good news is that our director is fantastic so I’m sure he’s got a plan!

Our tech is in two weeks so the main priority is to make sure we have a fully coherent running order and a finished piece so that Alice S, Naomi and Michael C. can get all of their lighting, sound and projection cues in order before the tech. I know Alice is planning to have all of the sound already programmed to save time in the tech so that there is more time to focus and programme all the lights.

Here is the updated version of my doctor text, there are two here and it just shows you the progression of the text in the last two weeks!

 

The longer file is the final version of the text: during the pauses at the start the various wives stand up an leave the stage.

The second file is the second draft.  You can see how it has changed a lot from the original draft.