Budget subject to change, as awaiting finalised figure of production costs.
– Verity.
The Final Weeks, A Memorable Experience.
Suddenly in the final weeks the process of devising and creating theatre seems to catch up on you as a theatre company, even more so as a Producer. The deadlines once set months before are days away and the final touches begin to take place.
We started as Fill In The Blank Theatre in January, at the start of our final term at University. The aspect of creating a fully functioning theatre company and producing our premier piece on the 20th May seemed a world away, but before we knew it we were in the venue’s auditorium tech-ing our show and seeing it come to life on the stage, out of the rehearsal space.
Our fantastic Stage Manager (Alice Saxton) and myself liaised to create several documents to ensure that the tech rehearsal and performance day both ran smoothly and we kept to schedule ensuring to make most of the time and space. In order to be productive in the space, Alice made sure that all of our technical requirements had already been created, such as lighting and sound cues and collated into Qlab to save time. Due to this we were able to do a full run in the space which we didn’t expect. It was a great opportunity to try the piece in the space and make necessary changes that we would of otherwise not known, for example certain blocking.
After a smooth productive tech rehearsal it was back to rehearsals to fine tune the piece. During this time it was my job in rehearsals to make notes during run through’s, although admittedly these notes became picky in the end but it was such notes that made the difference in making sure the piece was fluid and polished especially in aspects such as the choreography, where a foot out of place could make the scene look ‘sloppy’. During this fine tuning process, one element that I found vital was the presence of outside eyes. Nearing the end of our process we as a company invited our tutor and peers to come and witness our several ‘work in progresses’ and give us feedback. This is something I will most definitely carry with me from this experience as individuals outside of the company can pick up on things which you would have never thought to question due to being so involved with the project.
Due to our tech rehearsal being so successful thanks to our Stage Manager, Lighting Designer and Sound Designer being on top of things, it enabled us to make small changes on the performance day, such as re-recording voice over’s and changing projections due to our lighting and sound designers being experienced in using Qlab.
Yet again, Myself and Alice S planned our get in for the show day, it followed the below schedule:
9am- SM, ASM, SD, LD, PD and DESIGNER called at this time. Please try to arrive 10 minutes early as this means we can keep to schedule.
9-10.30am – Technical Set-Up. DESIGNER in charge of stage set up:
Hannah and Verity to set up stage boxes and props.
Katherine (and possibly Alice S) to set up hanging boxes.
Naomi to set piano on stage (to help Katherine after)
This time will be used to mark out the 8 chairs and centre stage, make any lighting changes and set up the projector(s).
CAST ON STANDBY FROM 10am – All cast and company members should enter through the back stage door as opposed to the auditorium. The code is 1930. Please stay in the dressing room unless you are called. Be ready in costume for Tech run.
11-11.50am – Full Tech run.
11.50am- 12.15pm – Notes and Lighting edits.
12.15–1.45pm – Lunch break. Everyone needs to return and be ready for no later than 2pm.
2-2.25pm – Cast warm up, DESIGNER to check props.
2.30-3.30pm – Dress Run. Full run of performance as though would be performed on the night. No stopping, if mistakes are made they are to be addressed at the end.
3.30pm–4.00pm – Feedback (Split; Verity = Performers and Alice = Technical)
4pm – 6pm – Dinner. If you leave the building please change out of your costume.
6pm – CALL FOR ALL CAST MEMBERS TO RETURN.
6.15pm – 6.45pm – Physical and vocal warm-up on stage. PR, SM and DR to check set and props. Performers to get in to costume.
6.40pm – HALF HOUR CALL.
6.55pm – 15 MINUTE CALL
7.10pm – BEGINNERS CALL
7.15pm – BEGIN PRESET
7.15pm – DOORS OPEN.
7.30pm – SHOW.
8.20pm – SHOW ENDS.
8.30pm – GET OUT BEGINS.
All in all we stuck closely to the schedule, perhaps being 10 minutes behind there or there abouts in which we shortened our first dinner break as we had notes to adjust technical requirements and some last minute blocking issues. We had quite an early first full run as we wanted to ‘warm up’ and get the cast used to the space whilst checking all the tech to ensure we had time to make changes, as well as the fact that we had Phil Crow, a professional photographer coming in to take pictures of our dress run at 2.30pm.
Following two fantastic dress runs, before we knew it, it was time for beginners call and the doors opened. I couldn’t be prouder of how the show went, all the cast gave it their all and were dedicated to such intense physical sequences. If I had to pick a favourite moment in the performance it would have to be the scene ‘waiting room’. Influenced by Frantic Assembly’s famous Chair Duets the scene was performed solely of movement and in complete silence, these being two reasons why I was particularly fond of it, but also the fact that it was relatable. Everyone at some point has received some sort of bad news and as people often say they have ‘no words’ to describe how they are feeling, thus its shown in the body. Even in reflection I still can’t quite comprehend the feedback we received from tutors, peers, family and friends. For example the response below;
“What a beautiful, haunting show…I admired and was touched by every aspect of the show – the conception, the performances, the soundtrack, the choreography and movement, the ensemble work, the use of the stage space, the overall productions, the artwork, the lighting, sound, projection and design. It was all pulled together so sensitively, fluently, stirringly. Really special” (Jordan, 2015).
The overall experience of being a part of organising, devising and creating a theatrical performance of a professional standard that people spoke of so highly is by far one of the most challenging yet greatest experiences I have been a part of. I have learnt many things throughout that I will carry with me after University.
It is for sure an experience that will go down in the memory book!
Works Cited:
Ficken, V., Saxton, A. (2015) FITB Performance Day Get In.
Jordan, A. (2015)
…And We Are Finished.
Fill In The Blank Theatre debuted their first show at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre on Wednesday the 20 of May 2015 to an audience of 152 people. We successfully sold just over a third of tickets to ‘The Man Whose Memories Fell Out’. 43 of these tickets were on the door sales on the day of performance. I am pleased with the overall sales of the tickets as my goal for ticket sales was 150 and this just exceeded that.
The overall marketing campaign was a success for ‘The Man Whose Memories Fell Out’ and we quickly learnt that the online strategies were more effective than the other ones. Our main target audience was the students within the Lincoln School of Fine and Performing Arts and upon reviewing the sales report from the show it reveals that 98 of these tickets were booked by students from the school. This means we were able to successfully targeted this audience. Our online campaign along with the distribution of marketing materials on campus helped us in achieving this.
Other successful techniques of marketing were the distribution of promotional material in the city centre along with two radio interviews that we took part in with Siren Fm and BBC Radio Lincolnshire.
The final statistics on social media sites were…
Facebook-348
Twitter-174
(Stats recorded 24/05/2015)
We successfully gained an online presence throughout this process. The statistics show that this was mainly at the beginning when the company first formed and slowly increased throughout the weeks.
We pushed the social media sites mainly to LSFPA students which would have aided us in the final ticket sales. We also pushed this with the general public as the links to the sites were on all promotional material.
We found that, although flyering is a great way to get the company into the city centre, it is not always the most beneficial way of drawing attention to an event. The general public do not always react well to flyering and it is a time consuming marketing strategy. Although we did do a lot of distribution, we found that featuring the posters and flyers for the show in shop windows and on counters was a way of constantly having a presence in the city centre without overpowering the general public. This way we reached a larger audience in a less time consuming way.
As previously mention in the blog post titled Creating a ‘Cyber-Community’, social media becomes a places for people to share their opinions on the product showcased by the company. Therefore, after our first performance of ‘The Man Whose Memories Fell Out’, we received via social media lots of feedback. Here is an example of some of the comments we received on Twitter…
Overall, we were very happy with the feedback we gained from the audience. As both a performer and marketing manager, I have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback we have gained and I think being part of Fill In The Blank Theatre has taught me how to work as part of a large company whilst performing and has taught me to have confidence when working independently on marketing work.
-Alice.
Works Cited-
Crow, P, (2015), The Man Whose Memories Fell Out. [electronic print] https://www.flickr.com/photos/61839232@N02/17713112130/ [Accessed 21 of May 2015].
Tuning in…
After sending out our press release for ‘The Man Whose Memories Fell Out’ we were lucky enough to hear back from Siren FM and BBC Radio Lincolnshire who were both interested in Fill In The Blank featuring on one of their shows. This was great news as these were both ways that we could reach a wider audience.
On Saturday the 9th of May our director and stage manager made an appearance on Siren FM in the morning. They confidently spoke about the show and the direction it was heading it.
The second opportunity we got to go on the radio was on Tuesday the 19th of May. The cast were in the studio rehearsing for the following day so we sent our producer and stage manager to visit BBC Radio Lincolnshire. Alice and Verity did a great job of telling the Radio Lincolnshire audience about ‘The Man Whose Memories Fell Out’ and the host of the show Rob Underwood was great and took a picture of the girls to put on his twitter.
This interview was great for bringing in some last minute ticket sales and bringing some attention to the company just before our debut performance.
The Programme…
This is a copy of the programme that I created for ‘The Man Whose Memories Fell Out’.