collaoborative practice: part 2

My apologies about the delay of this blog’s updating. I’ve had everything written out a word document and totally failed to upload it.

After a couple of weeks doing similar workshops to the one mentioned in my last post, our group was given a week to create a 10 minute piece, based on one of three titles (riots, money, trends) during one of the workshops we looked at the links between money and power and gods I.e. how we now create our own gods in the media.

Using the idea of gods and money, I did some research into Greek mythology to see what sort of stories could be useful. After having read the book The complete encyclopaedia of Greek mythology (Houtzager,G 2006 (4^th edition). Rebo international. The Netherlands) I learnt more about King Midas and his golden touch. I looked at the different characters involved in the story and their relationships with each other.

 I then approached the group with the idea and got some feedback. We decided to alter the date in which the piece was set opting for something ultimately more modern. The costume designers liked the 40’s era as the clothing of this period was more interesting to design. So I went back with this new era and thought about what was going on in the 40’s, recalling that this was the time of film noir. I had a think about. I watched the film The Big Sleep (1946) with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to get a flavour of the dialogue used in this era before setting down to write a script. (hopefully, I will remember to attach it.)

Once we had a script we set out to get it blocked and learn the lines. During which time I also set out to find some music for the piece. I had a look around at some smooth jazz as that seemed to me, to be the most popular music of the 40’s in Hollywood. After having a look through some of my own collection I discovered a really nice John Coltrane track called You Leave me Breathless (now although the song is technically from 1958, I think it encapsulates the sound that I was after, so some artist licence was used) here is a link to the song on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4h--YEm8Hk

While the rehearsals were going on, our props team had been working on finding adequate props for the era for example a table; chairs, books etc. and our costume team had created their designs and were working hard on getting them finished in time for the performance. We also had the hair and makeup team creating designs for wigs for the two female characters and makeup designs for them. With our technical rehearsal time we got into the theatre and working with the technical theatre students in our group we managed to plot all the lighting and sound for the piece and got to carry out a few dress rehearsals too.

On the day of the show everything was in place; all the props had been sourced and stored together, the costumes were made, lines were learnt, tech was set and hair and make up was done. For the most part the show went well, the only problem was a major technical mistake occurring where the music didn’t come in at the start of the piece and the stage manager didn’t inform the cast what was going on. But other than that everything ran smoothly and I was happy with it.

Evaluation: I would like to be able to say I got lots of experience with this unit, and I guess to some degree I can. I acted as a director for the group, providing the original idea and directing the action as well as working as primary liaison between the disciplines within our group; an experience, which I enjoyed. It allowed me to gain an understanding of how that would work in a professional atmosphere. I enjoyed the pressure of working to the tight deadline we had been set but at the same time, wish I had delegated some of the workload a little better as I felt that there was no time to note down the process by which I was directing. The main point of the unit was to understand what its like to work with other disciplines and with respect to that however, I didn’t learn much that I hadn’t already gleamed from last year’s devised piece (unit 4). I would like to point out as a footnote that although the main aim was group work, the experience I gained directing the piece was invaluable to my personal development and learning as its something I wish to pursue in life.