Depicting real stories in an alternative light, refracting your view

Becoming Refract

Whitfield / March 1, 2015May 25, 2015 / Sophie W

The name of our company was something we spent a long time deciding and discussing. We eventually agreed upon the name ‘Refract Theatre Company’. We feel this name directly correlates with what we, as a Theatre Company, intend to achieve through our work: we want to provide alternative perspectives for our audience to consider. Additionally, during the early discussions, we decided to focus upon the idea of true image, perceptions and memory through the medium of photographs. We intend to use both personal and famous images as a stimulus for our piece ‘When you see it’.

In my role as Producer I am in charge of the scheduling and monitoring of the different departments making sure they are all on target and the Company is working cooperatively as a team. As Robert Cohen describes, in my role I am the “final authority” (Cohen, 2010, 54) so communication with the Company is essential in order to monitor all decisions. Each Sunday I post a schedule for the upcoming week detailing the activities and targets to be achieved.

This is the first time in a creative process at University that I have not worked in a collaborative production in which I have performed. I am very much enjoying watching the practical rehearsals and seeing the powerful and dynamic work created by our cast. Additionally, in a week’s time I will also be watching the first scene created by our Directors and Company.

This week we also launched our Twitter and Facebook to engage and update our audience on the progress of our piece. Social media is a valuable tool for many companies and it “can play in building a long-term, meaningful relationship with the audience” (Peter, 2010, 19). This is an important method of marketing to reach our target audience and the whole company is involved in boosting our online presence. “That level of control and that ability to coordinate your message across several media platforms is a profound technological breakthrough for theatre companies” (Peter, 2010, 19).

Works Cited

Cohen, R. (2010) Working together in Theatre: Collaboration and Leadership. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.

Peter, R. (2010) Social Media Marketing Takes Center Stage. Southern Theatre. 51 (4) 8-19

Branding the Company

Thomas Hitchen / March 1, 2015May 25, 2015 / Tom H

“Branding in advertising is on-going, with new visual elements continually added and subtracted” (Phillips, McQuarrie and Griffin, 2014, 318).

As Marketing and Press Manager it is my role to ensure that a cohesive brand identity is established as well as connecting with our target audiences. The first few weeks of my role encompassed translating our manifesto, mission statement and project ideas into a visual brand; that is, creating a logo, a colour scheme and so on. In terms of the logo, difficulties presented themselves when trying to create an image which looked aesthetically pleasing yet successfully interpreted our company name. To aid my process, and to provide inspiration, I set up a Pinterest account and produced a ‘mood board’ based on images which considered words like, ‘refraction’, ‘identity’ and ‘light’. You can view under the Documentation > Marketing

Below you can see some of the original designs I created, along with the finished product.

4. Company Logo

$Refract R Logo New$

5. Logo Icon

The final image combines parts of initial explorations to formulate a strong, clear logo that can easily translate onto posters, flyers, social media accounts and company documentation.

The next step in continuing the establishment of our brand identity is to create and distribute posters and flyers, both across campus and throughout the city and to begin teasing out content of our show. I aim to have two campaigns; the first, a teaser campaign and the second being the main promotional campaign involving the local press and distribution of materials. As our show features the idea of viewing the ‘true image’ in photos and recognising personal experiences in global events, I have asked the company to draw, paint or sketch their own interpretations of global events. In doing so, I intend to use the images and distribute them with our logo and date of the show on the back, to one, hint at the content of the piece and two, tease and stimulate interest in the show and our company. The images used will be integrated into our main poster design; successfully creating visually consistent branding elements and externally facing materials.

Works Cited

Phillips, B., McQuarrie, E. F. and Griffin, W. G (2014) The Face of a Brand: How Art Directors Understand Visual Brand Identity. Journal of Advertising, 43 (4) 318-332.

Whitfield / March 1, 2015 / RTC

A very warm welcome from Refract Theatre Company!

We are very excited to be developing and devising our very first production as the newly formed Refract. The Company is made up of 10 graduating students from the University of Lincoln who are collaborating in the making of our final degree show. It is an opportunity for us to create our own work to be performed on the 17th of May at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre.

Our piece, ‘When you see it’, is based around true image and the documentation of memory through the photographic medium. We are in the process of using photographs, both famous and personal, as a stimulus to develop our piece. The cast have already created some dynamic and powerful work using the stories and imagery of the photographs and we can’t wait to see how it develops further.

Here you can find our latest news, updates and follow our artistic journey in the creation of the brand new piece ‘When you see it’. When searching our site you will find each Company member’s individual blog detailing their personal experience through the process, we hope you enjoy reading.

Sophie Production Manager Refract Theatre Company

Warm Greetings from Refract Theatre Company

Amy Houchin / March 1, 2015May 23, 2015 / Amy H

It has been a turbulent few weeks since our theatre company formed with ideas busily discussed and formulated regarding what to present to an audience. When starting a theatre company, Alison Oddey states its members must first ‘organise a power infrastructure’ (1996, 9). This, she advises, can be achieved through the organisation of a company’s members’ roles and was our first plan of action. We realised the importance of doing this promptly to aid a smoother running devising process. It was decided that my primary role will be as a performer with costume designer my secondary role.

After deliberation, we have also chosen the name of our theatre company; we are ‘Refract Theatre Company’. This decision was made thoughtfully to reflect our mission statement. With our ambition being to depict ‘real stories in an alternative light’ (Refract, 2015), the name ‘Refract’ complements this criterion. We have developed an interest in using widely recognised, iconic images as our stimuli and are beginning to explore how these can be transformed from ‘a global scale to a personal scale’ (Refract 2015). We want to portray alternative narratives to these images, ones that from a first viewing will not be readily conceivable. I am excited by setting ourselves this challenge.

Our finalised company logo. Photo: T. Hitchen (2015)

Works Cited:

Hitchen, T. (2015).

Lancashire, A. (2015).

Oddey, A. (1996) Devising Theatre: A Practical and Theoretical Handbook. London: Routledge.

Refract Theatre Company (2015) Manifesto. [online] Available from https://refracttheatrecompany.dev.lincoln.ac.uk/our-manifesto [Accessed 1 March 2015].

We are ‘Refract’

Mark McCredie / March 1, 2015May 25, 2015 / Mark M

Our theatre company, having now being formed, is starting to take shape. One important aspect that needed to be addressed, before any progression could be made, was the roles that everyone would be taking on. The roles are important in order to establish the sections of the process that each person would partake in. Through discussion with the group it was agreed that I would take on the roles as a performer primarily but I would also deal with online marketing and social media outreach.

As online marketing it will be my job to set up all social media platforms. Social media such as, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram will be used in order to promote both our company and performance, ‘promotion is the element of the marketing mix that… [is] by its very nature the most visible aspect of marketing activity. It plays an extremely important part … in reach[ing] … new audiences.’ (Hill, 2003, 190) In order to generate some form of interest it is vital that we keep sharing information about our work, whether this is through photographs, online status’ or distributing material marketing online.

Social media is a highly effective tool for marketing as it ‘offers… opportunities to reach [audiences] where they work and live.’ (Tuten, 2014, 21) Therefore through setting up pages on platforms such as Facebook, we will be able to reach potential audience members at any point in the day. It is important that I work with Tom (Marketing Manager) to ensure that all the marketing is coherent and represents the theatre company and what we are about. Each week, information and photos of rehearsals and our performance will be regularly updated in order to keep interest high and our potential audience engaged.

Within our meetings we also discussed ideas for our show and one theme that seemed to really interest us all was the ideas of photographs and the truth behind the image. Photographs present us with one frozen image of time and, unless you were present, it is difficult to know exactly the story of what was happening when the picture was taken. Exploring the potential of presenting an audience with alternative views of each photo interested us and therefore will be the basis of our piece. Our potential names were also discussed within the meeting, coming to the conclusion that our company will be called ‘Refract’. Our idea behind this being that we be ‘depicting real stories in an alternative light, refracting [the audiences] view.’ (Refract Theatre Company, 2015)

Throughout the coming weeks we will be ‘[setting] up an initial framework, or structure and experement[ing] with ideas, images, concepts, themes, or specific stimuli’ (Oddey, 2013, 1) under the direction of Laura, progressively forming our final piece.

Works Cited

Hill, E, O’Sullivan, T, & O’Sullivan, C. (2003) Creative Arts Marketing, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Oddey, A. (2013) Devising Theatre: A Practical and Theoretical Handbook. Oxon: Routledge.

Refract Theatre Company. (2015) Manifesto [online]. Available at: https://refracttheatrecompany.dev.lincoln.ac.uk/our-manifesto. [Accessed 1 March 2015]

Tuten, T, & Solomon, M. (2014) Social Media Marketing, London: SAGE