For the past 5 weeks, Refract had been making great progress, it came to the day where we had to show Forefront Theatre Company and Diane and the fear suddenly overtook. We were going to show something that the 10 of us had cared over and put so much time and effort in, this was a huge moment for us. As much as we were all excited to show off something we were proud of, it was incredibly nerve racking; what if Forefront and Diane sat there with blank looks spread cross their faces?
Fortunately our work in progress was incredibly useful; although we had stood out and watched rehearsals; we had a complete understanding of what we wanted to achieve. Allowing Forefront and Diane to watch without explaining what we were trying achieve, they could tell us exactly what they understood from our performance.
In our feedback, Forefront and Diane stated they understood and recognised the famous images that each scene was re-telling. However, what was unclear was the story that linked all of these images together. We were so happy that the images were coming across clearly to the audience without us showing the image directly or telling the audience outright what image each scene was trying to convey. The images we were presenting are ‘transcending from a global to a personal scale’ (Refract, 2015).
Then we started creating the story that ran though these images and a story that the audience could believe in. This was the beginning of Billy and Dolly.
Refract Theatre Company. (2015) Manifesto. [online] Available at: https://refracttheatrecompany.dev.lincoln.ac.uk/our-manifesto [Accessed 18 March 2015].