Category: Katherine Copley

So, it’s happened! The performance is over and I have to say, we got some wonderful feedback! As a performer there were things that I would have changed if I could do it again: firstly I was out of time at the end of the time lapse sequence, this doesn’t sound like a big deal but we rehearsed it for so many hours I really wish I had got that timing right at the end! Another thing is that I moved around a few sections of my speech, I think I acted professionally and didn’t give away the fact that I went wrong (until now) but I was still annoyed with my performance. Over all I was incredibly proud of our performance. Two days ago Naomi and I were talking in a rehearsal about how scared we were to be dancing and performing in this piece because of its physical nature, this was a genuine fear from two performers who have never been totally comfortable with this style performance. I’m proud of us for doing it, and apparently doing it well! I’m proud of the entire cast who have worked so hard together to develop this piece; and proud of our wonderful production team who helped bring everything together. Alice D. has written a post which has a couple of reviews of the show, click on reviews and it should pop up in a new window!

Of course it wasn’t just the 50 minutes on stage that counted, we also had the get in and get out, run by our fearless stage manager. We had all day for a get in so we set up and managed to have two full tech runs and a two hour break before we were called back in at 6pm. During our second run we had Phil Crow taking photographs for the schools Flickr page which are all online!

Reflecting back over the past months working with Fill In The Blank Theatre, I’ve learned a lot about being part of a professional company, both positive and negative things. I know now that change is good, and should be expected. Originally we had said that we would be a collaborative company but as time went on and time was more of a pressure, it became much more direction and actors taking direction. We were still able to give input and ideas but it was less about workshopping and letting ideas grow in the space. This is okay because it ended up being what the company needed, but as a first time company and people working in this context for the first time, this difference was often frustrating. It also became clear that working with people on a project like this and for this length of time brings you closer and I think it was very clear in our piece that we worked really well together through the strength of our ensemble work. Overall this has been an enlightening experience and has altered what I can expect from a career in a theatre company, it has also taught me that although I love being a performer, I also have a strong interest in the administration of it all.

Last of all, a huge thank you for all of the technical support at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre. We couldn’t have made the show we did without your guidance and support.

Works Cited

Crow, P. (2015) Lincoln School of Fine and Performing Arts: The Man Whose Memories Fell Out. [online] Available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/61839232@N02/17713112130/ [Accessed 21 May 2015].

Hello! A lot has been going on in the last couple of weeks, and stress levels are definitely going up with performance day looming. Yesterday was our tech day so I was in from 9am on standby for when Alice S. needed me. A lot of it was staying quiet and letting Naomi, Michael C. and Alice programme everything and make sure the stage was set. We didn’t have the boxes for the set (see Hannah’s blogs for more on these!) so we had bare light bulbs on the stage just to get ideas for spacing and where everything would be. The cast and Michael W. joined us at 11.30 and Verity and I explained that the most important role today was to be quiet and make sure we’re not being disruptive until we are called to the stage. It took a while to get going and as we hadn’t been on stage running the piece all of our spacing was a little different. In terms of the run we did, it was a disappointment to the piece and it actually let down the tech. I think that because it was our first time in the space with the full tech there were a lot of new elements to deal with and the performance wasn’t up to the standard it should have been.

There are some new elements to the performance as well, on Tuesday (the day before yesterday) we got a final running order, which meant a lot of late night editing cue sheet for the production team but at least we had it in time! Michael and Rachel also decided to make the wife leaving scene more ensemble work which is where our strength as a company is, however what it means is that we now all dance! This is not a strength of mine so I’m panicking about it rather a lot. Another thing slightly panicking me is that it’s taking me a long time to pick up the steps, because the way I learn best is by watching it repeatedly (like when we did the office scene) I’ve asked Rachel if she can upload a video so that I can go over it in my own time because we’re running low on rehearsal time now, so fingers crossed that will happen in the next couple of days so I can stop worrying so much!

Another scene that looked a little lacklustre in the tech was the ribbon sequence: I’m unsure as to whether this is because of the new spacing or if it was just a bad run today but it’s definitely something that needs to be prioritised in our rehearsals in the next week!

All in all things are looking very positive for ‘The Man Whose Memories Fell Out’, we just need to make sure all our transitions are smooth and finish off the rough endings to scenes.

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.

So, in these past two weeks we have been working hard and really building up content for the show. In one of our workshops our task as small groups was to look over sources and see how we could develop them into scenes. The text we were given was a story about a couple, one of whom had encephalitis, the disease I talked about in my last blog post. We took this opportunity to work on a scene that emphasised the confusion of the sufferer, for our piece this would be ‘the man’, played by Michael C. The piece we conceptualised in this workshop became known as the time lapse scene. Our aim for the scene was to incorporate all of the performers and have them making contact with ‘the man’ which would trigger him into a number of movements. It was difficult for us to physicalise it fully because there were only three of us but we planned for some basic movements such as Hannah pushing Michael’s head and him falling back. The point is that he is not in control of his own actions. We envisioned the scene to incorporate lifts, as some of the feedback we had from our other material was that it was a bit flat and still, and to be very busy and chaotic, like an organised mess.

In another scene we have developed I am playing the doctor describing the disease, encephalitis. This is the text that I wrote a few weeks ago and it’s finally being integrated into a scene! The layout of the scene is that Michael C. and Alice D. will perform a duet as husband and wife, showing them receiving his diagnosis. Their movements will represent their relationship and the support they have for each other as well as the fear they now both have. My text is read over the movement, and eventually Naomi comes in to take over as the wife to introduce music to the scene. At this stage the idea is that Naomi will start to play the piano and Michael will action the man’s confusion at the words but clarity at the music. I’ve really enjoyed developing this scene because I feel like my strength as a performer is in delivering speech rather than in movement so I definitely feel more comfortable in this scene.

On a very different note we have also developed a ribbon sequence this week. This scene is to represent connections in the brain and how memories are made. Michael W. showed us a video that explained how proteins in the brain are formed when memories are made and how every time you remember something it’s slightly different from the last time you remembered it. We looked at studies into witness of the 9/11 tragedy and how their eye witness accounts from hours after the event, and months after, were significantly different. We wanted the ribbon sequence to show how the connections in the brain can get confused by using ribbons as the connections and physically making them tangle up with us inside. The piece was challenging to choreograph because Rachel needed to be able to see it to advise us on where to go or what we did that looked nice as opposed to what didn’t, but we also couldn’t make anything definite without Rachel performing with us because we needed to have enough connections. Originally we tried the scene with Michael in the centre of us but it just looked messy and like we had just put him there without a purpose, so Michael W. decided that we should just carry on without ‘the man’. Eventually I think we’ve made a very aesthetic piece but it’s going to take a few more rehearsals before it’s ready for the stage!

In the past two weeks our devising process has really hit its stride! We started off by creating a movement piece that was developed in a workshop led by Michael W. This consisted of writing a letter to somebody to tell them something that we couldn’t say, we then put them all together and split off into pairs (I was working with Alice S.). We took one letter between us that neither of us had written and were giving the task of performing the letter. Working with a Frantic Assembly fanatic we quickly decided that we would create a short duet based on ‘tiny hugs’ to represent a mother, daughter relationship that we took from the emotions expressed in the letter. As Alice S. was not going to be in the performance, she then stepped out and helped me to adapt the sequence to perform on my own. It was great for me to have support doing this as I feel very challenged doing physical theatre work. Something I read when doing a different piece of work was very resonant in this moment:

“We are surprisingly unfamiliar with our bodies and many actors are inhibited about using them. Yet the body is the actor’s primary instrument. To be brave and open requires a sentient and responsive body free from the limitations imposed by self-consciousness or fear” (Callery, 2001, p.22).

For me, physical work is daunting anyway, but I was very quickly in a situation where I felt isolated on the stage and this made me feel very awkward in the space. However, this worked in favour of the piece because it highlighted the loneliness of the character. Michael W. pointed out that it looked like it was the tale of one woman remembering different moments of her life. We proceeded to add moments of interaction with other cast members, so they would break away from their pairs and have a moment of interaction. The sequence evolved further by having half of the pairs and me leaving the stage to allow for some of the cast to read some of the letters.

I have also spent time developing a text about encephalitis. A lot of the text came from an online source so my next step is to contact them and get permission to use the text in performance. I also used the source and researched further into the parts of the brain that are affected and what those parts do, so for example the fact that some of the affected parts of the brain are responsible for speech and movement so I tried to incorporate this into the text.  Below is a voice recording of the doctor’s speech, first draft.

Work Cited

Callery, D. (2001) Through the Body: A Practical Guide to Physical Theatre. Kent: Nick Hern Books.