Mark M – Depicting real stories in an alternative light, refracting your view

The End.

Mark McCredie / May 21, 2015May 25, 2015 / Mark M

Well that’s it, after all the rehearsals, the build-up and the hard work, When You See It is finally finished. I don’t think any of us could have anticipated the response that we received from many of the audience members after the show. It was both exciting and rewarding to realise that our piece had moved people from laughter to tears as it had us over the past few months. Throughout the process of creating the piece, we have questioned and at times doubted our work but through rehearsal and development we increasingly grew to love all that it represented and therefore it was amazing to see other people loving it too. As the audience entered the auditorium, we sat on the stage and were able to chat amongst ourselves comfortably and happy in the knowledge that there was no turning back – When You See It would now be shared with an audience. It seemed that the experience of the whole show was over in a moment, and yet as we expected, the audience played such a significant role in enhancing the experience. To hear laughter after jokes where in rehearsals there had been silence, and to hear people whispering as they noticed things throughout the show really motivated and spurred us on. Personally, I feel that this energy really shone through in our performance.

Crow, P. (2015)

Forming and performing with the theatre company, Refract has been an invaluable professional experience for me. Not only has it allowed me to work with a great and talented group of people, which I have thoroughly enjoyed, but it has also given me an awareness of what it takes to create a successful theatre company. To work alongside peers taking professional responsibility for directing, lighting, finance and much more, has helped to highlight the effort that is required to produce a high quality company and subsequent performance and yet how rewarding it can be.

Having now had time to stand back and reflect, I am so incredibly proud of the piece that we were able to create and perform. It has truly been an amazing experience on which to end my university life…

Music and Song

Mark McCredie / April 23, 2015May 25, 2015 / Mark M

The performance elements of music and song play a strong part within our piece with the majority of scenes being led by or even narrated through song, music ‘communicates meanings which in some way refer to… actions, emotional states, and character.’ (Meyer, 2008, 1) Some music used within the piece has been chosen by Sam and are purely tracks to accompany a scene. However, as a company, we have been working to adapt covers of songs that we can include in the performance as well as investing time to write our own songs and music. We are fortunate that we have some strong singers within the company and have therefore found that with the addition of music we are able to make scenes funnier or where appropriate, increasingly emotional. Three examples being;

Within the final scene, I sing Robbie Williams’ version of Mister Bojangles which narrates a tap dancing scene in which one of our character’s ‘Billy’ is confronted with the problems that he has experienced through his destructive relationship with alcohol.

Also, the company wrote the lyrics and music for a song about selfies and the surrounding hype they generate. It is through the use of our lyrics and comedy that we highlight and suggest the pointlessness of a selfie.

Following discussion, another point in the performance that we felt would be enhanced through the creation of original music was a scene in which a wedding ceremony takes place. It was decided that the company would create a close harmony acoustic version of Pachelbel’s Canon (below). This specific use of slow, smooth harmonies was chosen in order to evoke further emotion to impact on the audience’s experience as they watched the scene unfold.

Having the responsibility for online marketing, I have found that it was important to share posts about music so that potential audience members were able to see that this was to be a key aspect within our performance. This strategy is intended also to appeal to those members of the community, and therefore potential members of the audience, who are interested in the performance of music and song. To maintain coherence with all our marketing for the show, we planned to busk in the town centre, presenting tasters of the musical aspects of the performance. This event provided us with the opportunity to include music and song within our material marketing strategy. As anticipated, busking this week proved to be a successful marketing approach as it not only assisted us to raise money for the company but also to raise awareness and interest. Members of the public, again our potential audience, were provided with the opportunity to hear us play and sing, read our flyers and ask members of the company any questions about the show.

Photo: S. Whitfield (2015)

Works Cited

Meyer, L. B. (2008) Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

robbiewilliamsvevo (2011) Robbie Williams – Mr Bojangles. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zif1W8fxEJU [Accessed 23 April 2015]

Work in Progress

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

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.

Playing to our Strengths

Mark McCredie / March 17, 2015May 25, 2015 / Mark M

As a company, it is important that we play to our strengths in order to create the strongest piece of theatre that we possibly can, two aspects that seemed to be coherent throughout the performers were movement and music. Some of our performers are dance trained and others strong at singing and playing instruments. Therefore we thought it necessary to utilise these talents in order to form a piece of theatre that achieved what we set out to do.

Physical movement – falling

As the basis of our piece revolves around bringing photos to life, we have been focusing on movement and the body and how we can use them to physicalise aspects of photos. Our director’s aim was to get us to view photos in alternate ways, one such photograph being the falling image from 9/11. When we initially saw the image we just took it as two people trying to escape the horror of the 9/11 attacks. However, upon looking at the image in detail we were challenged to ask the questions, What were they thinking? What was the relationship between the two people? What could have been their last words?

Our choreographer, Tom, created a sequence of simple repetitive, yet amazingly effective movements, influenced by the falling picture (below). Through the repetition of such simple movement, our expression and emotion will hopefully be the focus of the audience’s attention and they will understand the emotion that we saw in the photo. Within the sequence Morgan and I were given a duet in which we were representing the image. Throughout it there were numerous moments in which we reached out, grasping each other aiming to depict the passion and desperation that we think the people would have been experiencing at the moment the picture was taken.

Crow, P. (2015)

Image 2 – Falling, or Flying?

However, one challenge we faced was making the choreographed movement appear spontaneous, natural and emotive. As Alfreds explains, ‘actors, by playing a continuous, seamless flow of actions, should consequently experience a seamless flow of feelings that shift and adapt to the ever-changing circumstance in which they’re evoked.’ (2007, 92). Therefore, in order for the piece to work, the movement must not look rehearsed otherwise it will lose the passion behind it. Consequently, we found that we needed to react rather than ‘act’ to the movement truthfully in order to evoke the emotion that Tom wanted.

Works Cited

Alfreds, M. (2007) Different Every Night: Freeing the Actor. London: Nick Hern Books Limited.

The Death Posture (2013) [Photograph] At: http://timeconsumerrr.tumblr.com/ [Accessed 6 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