Working in The new theatre

The performance space is large and can seat up to 260 audience members. To stand as a performer in the space as a performer it made me feel like I have to largen all of my actions and voices. In order to make my performing skills work in such a large space I must turn my head at a opposite angle to my chest and keep diagonal most of the time as the performance space would be directly ahead and to my left and right so the audience get the maximum benifit. My actors instinct was to make my voice loud too. We did activities such as breathing to fill the space along with sounds such as 'sh, zz, and ss' and speak chants which reach out to the entire audience. Through my instinct i knew that along with the correct body language and vocal use i had to make this realistic without it being crackly or quiet and to instead act assured, sustained and comfortably. The idea of a torch beaming out of our chests and face keeps us to understand where our bodies need to be positioned to keep our audience aware at all times. A performer that captures their audience into the 'alert and aware state' has the audiences attention in the palm of their hands and to do this involves correct body language, spacing as appose to other actors within the space and vocal use. 

Week 2 Questions and answers

What did you do in the lesson today?

During the lesson today we started off with an activity where somebody is turned away from the class and when they turn to face us we all have to freeze, the person who reaches the other actor turned away wins. This tested our ability on how alert we are and able to remain in positions that may not necessarily be comfortable. I think this was a good way to test our bodies as we were able to hold positions for an amount of time and test our effectivness of doing so. 

I missed the rest of the lesson where I was told the group acted out horror stories using noise and no lighting. I would assume this would of been affected by testing the way we speak in certain contexts and how we portray meaning through voice. It helped to have the lights off so that people can just hear the voice and the vocal energy it had instead of physically watching it. 

I was back in the lesson when we started to put together ideas for The tiger who came to tea. This included us being alert and ready to follow instructions given by the teacher. Ideas included using physical theatre to act out objects of the kitchen and ensemble work on knowing when to do voices, actions and movements at specific times as a unison. 

How did it contribute to the performance?

This lesson was very much about testing ideas and concepts we can use to enhance our performing skills. For example when thinking on the spot and being able to freeze and remain in that position for an amount of time tests our ability on how alert we are and able to sustain a position of a character. I think this was useful as we were able to actually use our energy to remain in a certain way, this would help when sustaining a bold character. 

The use of voice without action tested our ability on how we can enhance our voices to hold the attention of a young audience. Perhaps adding humour or scare to our voices would help our young audience keep interacted and intregued. If i was in the lesson this would have been a good way to express motives and emotions through voice without necessarily using paralinguistic features to show our audience true meaning.

The final task was actually putting ideas together that contributed to our performance. We managed to put together our begining of the play which included ensemble work on moving, speaking, doing actions, going into groups and making voices at the correct times. This was useful as we were able to know what we were doing for the play and adjust any ideas that didn't particularly work as well. For future lessons we just need to add onto our core piece and adapt our ideas further to keep our young audience entertained.