Early on in this process the group discovered a common interest in music, we had various people who could sing and various people who could also play instruments. We used these talents to our advantage.
“Knowing, using and reflecting the strengths of people in the company are vital resources for the devising process and product” (Oddey, 1994, 25)
As we are exploring photography, an area we thought would be interesting to cover is ‘selfies’. They are very current ‘craze’ and something we thought could add humour to the performance. It was decided that we would do this in the form of a song.
The first difficulty in doing this was the lyrical process. The song has to translate to an audience so we knew we wanted something simplistic but comical. We started by choosing certain topics within the ‘selfie’ domain that we could cover.
What to do? “The first thing to consider”
What not to do? “Never take from down below”
The different faces. “Duck face, bite the lip”
The time and place for selfies. “You know the time is right”
Displaying selfies. “Twitter gets you trending”
So, that part was easy enough, the most difficult part was finding the first lyric, but once we had found that, we had a pattern to follow which meant the process began to flow and with everyone contributing, we soon found ourselves with the beginnings of a song. It was not easy to create and sometimes the most random suggestions were thought of but it made the process a lot of fun and I think it’ll add a lot of light into the performance.
To make music a theme throughout we have additionally created some instrumental pieces that will accompany specific scenes, we have included vocals to this music but no lyrics. Below is the accompaniment we created for a scene that involves Billy and Dolly’s wedding.
We also decided that it might be nice to use the talents of the group to do some fundraising for the company. We decided we could promote ourselves singing in the street and set up in town to participate in some busking. Not all members of the group sang but those who didn’t used the time to flyer and spread the word of our upcoming performance
Whitfield, S. (2015)The Company. (2015)
Works Cited.
Oddey, A. (1994). Devising theatre. London: Routledge.
During the past week, we have run the show in its entirety. This allowed myself as Stage Manager/Assistant Director to both take technical notes to add to the book and give notes to the cast about the show so far. With some scenes still being devised and developed we are happy with the show’s progress.
For me the work and work ethic of Frantic Assembly has impacted on our piece. In rehearsal we have used script and sound as “the launch pad and inspiration for most of the devising process” (Graham and Hoggett, 2009, 5). Like Frantic Assembly, a lot of the fragments we have now developed started with the “kernel of the idea” and were then tested “to see if it [wa]s interesting enough to us and if ‘it ha[d] got legs’” (Graham and Hoggett, 2009, 6; 6). The product also somewhat resembles that of Frantic Assembly. Whilst we do not use heavy beats or movement that is as physically demanding as Frantic Assembly, much of our show is movement based and could be branded physical theatre in the same way that Scott Graham and Stephen Hoggett’s company are. Although some of our work is more dance based than Frantic, choreography has the same meaning to us: “any formalised movements that become set and can be repeated” (Graham and Hoggett, 2009, 123). This has definitely had a stylistic impact on the direction in which the show has moved.
Works Cited:
Graham, S. and Hoggett, S. (2009) The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre. Oxon: Routledge.
Laura had asked Tom and I to chereograph a tap duet to Mr Bojangles for one of the final scenes of the show. We researched many different tap routines for inspiration including Adam Garcia’s performance on Got to Dance 2011.
As this is going to be ending scene in our performance, we wanted it to be jolly and have a feel good vibe, we wanted to also show the complete contrast between the two characters. I was a drunk, who had no control over my body.
Initially, it was very hard to create a tap dance that showed I was a drunk and not in control of my body without being too erratic and the dance looking ridiculous. Tom’s moves were precise, clear and contained and were a natural part of his movement, I had to characterise myself to be very loose and free so my movements were not very precise I found this very hard, as it is going against everything I have done in tap dancing.
After 3 hours of solid rehearsals and choreographing, we had created a performance that was a story the audience could follow. Alongside the lyrics that tell a story of a drunk man, we created a story through tap dance, dancing together and dancing separately throughout the song, showing the different sides and the journey that Tom has gone on from Drunk to Sober and the fight with himself whether to drink or not.
Got to Dance Sky1, (2011).Got to Dance Series2 Adam Garcia’s performance in full. [online]. Accessed 18 May 2o15. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFlO_3Zaz5M
A production and a performance may to a greater or lesser extent affect us like a dream. But every production has one thing in common with a dream. No one dreams yesterday’s dream: the essence of dreaming, whether by day or by night, is of the moment, images fusing from past and present in a new apprehension.
(Mudford, 2000, 23)
As Mudford states, no one dreams to replicate exactly what has already been achieved. Sure, a company can take elements of previous successes and look at adapting these into new and original projects, but companies must always be aiming to be innovative and provide something novel, however small, to the theatrical world. Mudford’s ideas of fusing the past and the present to form something new is particularly resonant with the way Refract are working. Whilst experimenting primarily with many different famous images, this is simply only the first piece of an unfinished puzzle.
It’s about layering preexisting theatrical elements in new ways.
Building up new and non-conventional combinations of everyday theatrical devices, such as music, projection, text, movement, live feed etc, allows the audience a fresh look at the matter being presented to them. Many productions begin with a pre-written script that acts as a basis, with other devices being considered later on in the process. However, in a similar way to how Tim Etchells, director of theatre company Forced Entertainment, describes his writing as simply becoming “part of the messy group process” (Billingham, 2007, 165), we are also working in a way that allows aspects other than script to become the foundations of a scene. Forced Entertainment devise in such an unstructured manner that written text would only linearize the process and limit the various directions that the work could take. For Etchells, the word ‘text’ has become something else. Forced Entertainment “have come to work with improvised text and speech [presenting] a shift in the work from an interest in writing to an interest in spoken language” (Giannachi et al, 2012, 189) This shift has meant that text has been transformed into other devices of communication, instead transforming ‘texts’ into different ‘textures’ within performance.
Text is used only when appropriate.
Being a company that uses image as it’s springboard to creativity, this often leads to the actors improvising with their bodies first and foremost. In a rehearsal inspired by street artist Banksy, I had pre-selected a series of his various artworks to use within rehearsal. Separately, I had written 5 pieces of short text and selected a playlist of around 8 songs, some lyrical, some instrumental, to use also. The actors were instructed to simply follow my every improvised command for the next 45 minutes.
Directing actors around the space I find is a little bit like conducting an orchestra. You need something gentle to kick start the action, or music. In this Banksy rehearsal, it was a series of easy physical instructions. Then as your orchestra begin to warm up, you add in more and more people, and maybe another layer of meaning to ensure the audience that the company still have more to offer, for example, the introduction of a piece of music. A steadily increasing shift in tempo begins to build up the on-stage image and suddenly you begin to see the full cast functioning as an ensemble, or an orchestra, instead of individuals. It was at this point, as the action was occurring on stage, that I then deprived them once again of that ensemble-feeling. This time, by giving one individual a set of different instructions and some text to read out. Everything that had happened previously was then linked directly to this piece of text; a new instrument was added that was unexpectedly louder than the others. Once the text had been read out, the movement felt emptier. Then, like the end of an orchestral piece, I began to find some harmonious way of rounding-off the workshop. It eventually finished by winding down the high-speed movement, drawing out cast members one-by-one to return to their seats offstage, leaving one sole person at the end with one final piece of text.
Constantly shouting new instructions and gaining an instant response on stage allowed me to envisage exactly where the workshop was heading. In a discussion afterwards we all agreed that we loved the use of attaching seemingly unrelated pieces of text, for example one was about the workings of a pinball machine, to the movement on stage, and how it challenges the audiences to dig deeper into how the text and movement are related. (see image 1)
Image 1, an example of contrasting image and text. (Stencilrevolution, 2015).
Suddenly, it isn’t a pinball machine anymore, its life. You’re the small metallic ball, making its way as successfully as possible down the table with various obstacles and distractions along the way, only to end up in the same place you started.
Refract will be continuing to adopt this layering process of theatre-making, introducing a live video recording and experimenting with live music.
Works Cited
Mudford, P. (2000) Making Theatre: From Text to Performance. London: The Athlone Press.
Billingham, P. (2007) At the Sharp End.London: Methuen Drama.
Giannachi, G., Kaye, N. and Shanks, M. (2012) Archaeologies of Presence.Oxon: Routledge.
Stencilrevolution (2015) Follow Your Dreamsn Cancelled by Banksy. [online] Available from
One element of a performance that is incredibly important and can alter the strength of a performance is the audience. ‘…devised performance… explores the dynamics in the relationship between performer and spectator… developing through process to product. (Oddey, 2013, 19) Over the course of the process we had the opportunity to perform for one of our peer groups from our course, Forefront Theatre Company, in addition our lecturer Diane. As a company, we all agreed that this was a necessity as until that point we had been the only audience that had reviewed and reflected on our developing piece. As the creators of a performance, we were mindful that sometimes it is difficult to objectively identify any flaws as we have all agreed the individual elements of the performance, accepted them and in the main grown to love the aspects that others might identify as needing change or development. During the session, both companies shared their work with the intention to be provided with honest and trusted professional feedback from others that had not seen the performance previously. The feedback we received provided an alternate perspective on our work which allowed us to focus on the identified points that were highlighted for development in order to improve and strengthen the overall impact of the piece.
Throughout the process of developing a theatre company and creating our debut performance, in addition to sharing our work with peers, we are conscious that it is vital to ensure that the public are kept up to date with our progress in order to interest and engage our potential audience members from the wider community. ‘Creation of a dramatic work for public performance obviously makes that work available for selection by potential audiences.’ (Bennett, 2013, 106) Therefore, with the responsibility for online marketing it is vital for me to regularly post pictures taken in rehearsals and tasters of our piece onto social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (see below). This exposure provides us with the opportunity to share individual moments of rehearsal that capture the imagination and leave questions that can only be answered by attending the performance.
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Works Cited
Bennett, S. (2013) Theatre Audiences. London: Routledge.
Oddey, A. (2013) Devising Theatre: A Practical and Theoretical Handbook. Oxon: Routledge.
