Unit 7 - Theatre in education

Thursday 18^th January

Yesterday I sat with my performing arts teacher, Cara and we wrote an email to the teacher at Lord Scudamore (the primary school which we will be performing to next week). In the email we asked if the children had made their shakers, where to come to find the performance studio where the show was going to be taking place and some information about photography and videoing during and after the performance. We then received an email back this morning. In the email we were given the news that the children had not made their shakers and would not be able to make them in time for the show next week. At first, I was really shocked and upset to hear this news. However, I then began to think about how we could adapt and change the performance now that the children would not have their shakers. This problem occurred due to the old teacher at Lord Scudamore who I met with and agreed to put on this event, recently left and although the new teacher was informed about this event, she was not told that the children had to all make a shaker each. I had some time to think about what we could do to adapt the performance before the rehearsal this afternoon. After some thinking, I released that this problem was only going to affect my dialogue. This meant that I didn’t have to worry about any other members of the cast learning new lines in time for next week.

When all of the cast arrived at the rehearsal this afternoon, Cara broke the news to everyone and then there was some discussion over what the alternative were for the sections at which I mentioned the Fruit Shaped Shakers. Luckily, I also realised that I only mentioned the shakers in scenes 1 and 2 so these were the only scenes which I needed to work on and re-script.

As we only had Lorren for the first hour of the rehearsal today, we ran through the scenes which she is in so that she could practice her lines, entrances and exits. Lorren has been able to learn her lines very quickly and took on the role of Tanzie really well even though she has only had the script since before Christmas. We also added in some last minute song ideas from the feedback which we were given from Sophie (director of Pentabus Theatre Company). These were to sing the last verse of the ‘Healthy Eating song’ altogether. Instead of singing the last verse as a full cast we decided to repeat the first verse at the end of the song and sing that as a full cast. We then also added in a line after the final song which invites the audience to clap along with us whilst we sing the last song.

Once Lorren had left, we made a start on re-wording the pieces of script which were affected by the shakers. The first paragraph that I had to change was:

“Fiona: Hello boys and girls! I’m Fiona the Fruit Fairy and I’m super fruity! Now, have you all brought your fruit shaped shakers? Let me see them. Ooh, aren’t they lovely. I can see a pineapple, I can see a pear and an orange. Now, I think it’s time we set some rules on these fruit shaped shakers. So, when I hold my hand high, you shake your shakers as loud as you can but when I hold my hand low, you shake your shakers as quietly as you can. Let’s try that, shall we? (practices the volumes with the children and their shakers)

Now, let’s practice a rhythm with these fruit shaped shakers shall we? Repeat after me (plays easy rhythm which is then accompanied by Cara on the piano).  Well done everybody! Now we’re going to try something a little bit harder (plays harder rhythm which is then accompanied by Cara on the piano). Give yourselves a round of applause!

Weren’t they good Nancy?”

Which I then changed to:

“Fiona: Hello boys and girls! I’m Fiona the Fruit Fairy and I’m super fruity! Now, before we meet the rest of my fruity friends, I thought we could have a bit of fun with some rhythms. The first rhythm I’d like you to clap with me is ‘Raspberry, strawberry’.

Repeat after me (plays easy rhythm which is then accompanied by Cara on the piano). Fruitastic! Now we’re going to try something a little bit harder, repeat after me ‘Apricot and mango’ (plays harder rhythm which is then accompanied by Cara on the piano). Give yourselves a big round of applause!

Weren’t they good Nancy?”

It took us a while to figure out what I was going to say because although we knew what direction we wanted to go with it, we weren’t quite sure how to word it. As you can see from the text, we changed the rhythm part so that the children are now clapping along instead of shaking their shakers. In a way, I think that this is better than having the shakers because it means that I will probably have more control over the children when taking them through these rhythms.

The next part of the script that we had to change was in scene 2 when talking about the Sweetie Monster. The original script is as follows:

“Fiona: Oh no, not the Sweetie Monster again. Don’t worry about him boys and girls, I send him away on a daily basis. He likes to think he’s a big meanie but inside he’s as soft as a marshmallow.

Do you know what I do? If I see him, I shake my shaker really loudly and that scares him away. So, if you see the sweetie monster, grab your shaker and shake it as loudly as you can.”

“Fiona: Do you see children? All you need to do is shake your shakers and the sweetie monster becomes the scaredy monster! Anyway Sweetie Monster, come on out. We promise we won’t shake our shakers, will we children? Now, what are you doing here in my fruity kingdom? Surely you don’t like it here?”

And I changed these to:

“Fiona: Oh no, not that Sweetie Monster again. Don’t worry about him boys and girls, I send him away on a daily basis. He likes to think he’s a big meanie but inside he’s as soft as a marshmallow.

Do you know what I do? If I see him, I grab my fruity shaker and shake it really loudly and that scares him away. But what I’d like you to do is THIS, SSSSSSSSSSS (raises arms up and does spidery hands)

NOW! If I hold my hand up high, you can hiss as loudly as you can. But, if I hold my hand low, you need to hiss as quietly as you can. Shall we practice that girls and boys? Ready? (goes through the dynamics a couple of times) Brilliant! Oh, and boys and girls, if you see the Sweetie Monster and I’m not here….Nancy’s in charge.”

“Fiona: Do you see children? All you need to do is hiss loudly and the Sweetie Monster becomes the Scaredy Monster! Anyway Sweetie Monster, come on out. We promise we won’t hiss at you, will we children? Now, what are you doing here in my fruity kingdom? Surely you don’t like it here?”

We worked throughout the lesson to change the script and then we videoed what we had come up with. Here are the videos are me practicing through what we had worked on and also receiving feedback from my teacher Cara:

Once we had finished re-wording the parts of the script which were affected by the shakers, we worked on some characterisation of Annie Apple and the Sweetie Monster in scene 6. This is because at the moment Kellyann is very inhibited during this scene. The reaction when Annie Apple nearly gets run over by the Sweetie Monster needs to be a lot bigger than it currently is. At the moment there isn’t much tension and dynamic to the scene. Therefore, we worked on this in the session. Cara was able to give Kellyann some examples of what she could do when she was about to get run over. I was also able to give feedback and suggestions because I’m not in this scene. Something else that we worked on in this scene was the timings of the car noises for Rob when he comes on and drives around the stage in his car. Mark, who is one of the media students here at college, has put together some car sound noises for when Robert is driving around the stage. There are 2 different tracks – the first one being shorter than the second one. When we tried these tracks in the scene, Robert wasn’t making it to the places where he needed to be on time and therefore it took us a while to get the timings right. However, after some work, we finally got the timings right and the scene worked really well when Annie Apple nearly gets ran over. We have asked Paul and Mark if it is possible for us to get a longer car noise for when the Sweetie Monster drives around the stage and exits at the end of scene 6.

After the rehearsal, I worked with Cara to script these paragraphs so that I could start learning the new lines over the weekend and into next week. My homework task was to look through the script and check that everything was now ready and that this script is the final copy.

Although I have found today really stressful and tiring, I think that we have worked really well to make these last minute amendments to the script. I didn’t think that it would be possible to do these changes at the last minute, but I have proved myself wrong. I now need to focus on learning my new lines in time for the dress/tech rehearsal next week on Wednesday and the final performance on Thursday.