Context

I CONFIRM THAT THE WORK ATTACHED ASSESSMENT IS ALL MY OWN WORK AND DOES NOT INCLUDE ANY WORK COMPLETED BY ANYONE OTHER THAN MYSELF AND SOURCES HAVE BEEN APPROPRIATELY REFRENCED

NICOLAS TUFAILE FORSTMAN

Context questions

1) What is the name of the production you are working on and who is the author? When was it written / first produced?

2) Who is directing your production? (full name please). What will be your involvement in this production and why do you think you have been given this role?

3) What are you bringing to this production? (Review your progress and achievements up until this point (including the last show you did), taking into consideration your personality and approach to work, not just your skills.)

4) What do you hope to get out of working on this production? (Opportunities? Skills? Experience? Challenges?) We are looking for you to explore your answers to this question.

5) What work will you personally need to do to make sure you will be best prepared and able to give your all when working on this production? (Do you need to be more organised? Do you need to independently work with more experienced members of the Company or Specialists to develop skills/ learn lines/ learn accents? Do you need to improve your physical fitness? etc.)

6) Who will you be collaborating with on this production? (Think widely, don’t just refer to your immediate Company members and your Director – you could also reference – the Production technicians; any publicist [someone providing social media, posters, programmes, promotional trailers]; photographers; composers; schools tour organiser; Theatre Box Office; bar staff from restaurant etc.)

7) What relevant experience do you and the other cast members have? How will this affect the process of developing this production? (You do not need to go into huge detail about this – we are more concerned that you show that you understand that all levels, years and performing pathways make up your Company and are therefore bringing different levels of experience to the process and that this WILL affect the process. You need to explain this and also suggest positive ways of making the process as efficient and effective as possible.) What genre of entertainment is your production and why do you think this? (e.g. Theatre, Musical Theatre, Circus, Dance, Opera etc.)

8) How will your production be staged? (Proscenium / end on, thrust, in the round, promenade, traverse, site specific, immersive?) What will you as a performer need to be aware of when performing in this kind of staging? What is the theme of your production and who else will be included in your show?

9) What is your production about and who are the key characters? When is your production set and how is this important to the way your production is being developed?

10) What are you, as a Company, aiming to achieve with this production? What is its purpose? (Entertainment? Education? Provocation? Awe inspiring? Shock?)

11) What are the implications, for a performer, of putting on this kind of show? (Here we want you to show that you understand that different types of shows require different kinds of discipline as a performer. E.g. performing as one character who remains on stage throughout the performance would make very different demands on a performer than one who was in a variety show and was in one act in the second half. E.g. performing in a musical would have different demands and pre-show preparation requirements to performing in a dance show with multiple costume changes in quick succession.)

12) What is the time scale over which the show is being produced? How will you manage this time so that you are fully ready to perform to the public? How many performances will you be doing? Will you be doing any matinees or relaxed performances?

13) Where is your show being performed and therefore, what production elements will the show be able to include? (We want you to consider lighting, sound, amplification, costumes, set etc.)

14) What kinds of people are likely to attend your show? How is your show being advertised? What else will you need to do to make sure that your show will sell out?

Answers to the questions

1)

I am performing the play Scuttlers, written by Rona Munro and was published in 2015 Great Britain as a paperback original by, Nick Hern Books Limited. (WHAT INSPIRED HER TO WRITE IT?)

2)

Derek Martin, is the Director of our Scuttlers production, and my role withing the production is of Stage Combat Director and Props Management, as well as contributing to the play as an Actor playing the role of Sean. I have been given Stage Combat Director, as I have the most knowledge and passion of Stage Combat than anyone else within the production. I have been Props Management as the Director of our production, Derek Martin knows that I am a capable individual who can, and will handle the task of identifying and gathering all the props that are needed for this production. I have been given the Acting role of Sean because originally I was an understudy for the role, however the original Actor who played this role gave it to me as he didn’t want it, however I was thrilled to play the part of Sean.

3)

I am bringing a hard work ethic to the production as I have a lot on my plate in terms of actin and written work. Since the start of the production I have been working hard to ensure that I get all my lines learnt which I have done with ease. Once I have gotten all my lines learnt I then started to work on my Character Development coursework page, as well as my Props Management page. I thoroughly went through the whole book, the whole script and identified, and noted down all the props that are used within the production, which then came in handy as I could search the internet, the college, and my own house for the props required. I found links to all the needed props and sent them to Derek Martin, since as our Director he managed the productions budget. We got in a few of the props and bought some others which then I started noting down until I had noted down all of the props we have and their stage direction. I work hard everyday to improve the Stage Combat and choreography of the scenes within the play. I think thoroughly about how to extend a fight and make it look great at the same time. When first making a fight scene, I do a very rough and short blocking of it so I can have an image in my head of what’s doable and what would look amazing on stage and try it out, it’s not all the time that my ideas are used but I don’t mind as it is a creative process and I enjoy playing around with the fights.

The last performance I did was a devised pice of, Narnia: The Lion the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I was given the production role of Stage Combat Director, Sound Design and played the role of Edmund, I wasn’t nearly as hard working as I am now but I still got all my work done. I got all the Sound Design stuff figured out and completed early on within the start of the production and from then onwards stuff got a bit tricky. As a production we did not have a solid director as we kept getting a new director every week pretty much so the style of the play kept changing, it was never solidly blocked. I learnt my lines and had choreographed all of the fights and taught my fellow actors the fights however because of all the work and constant change of Directors I was feeling down and drained so my work wasn’t fully up to standard. However I had gotten everything I needed done by the end of the play.

4)

Personally I hope to get more of a realistic outlook on a real performance and what to expect in the industry, by working on this production, as I’ve got so much to do it’s a sort if good preparation for what to expect in the industry, but also I am acquiring so many new skills I thought I’d never really acquire such as, Leadership, stage management, smarter research skills, and how to work smarter not harder. I have also been facing countless challenges of balancing my social life, and home life with work, I have been managing and dealing with this very well and have been enjoying life and the production with all the mountain of work that I have to get done.

5)

For this production I definitely needed to get more organised, and a more mature way of looking at thing whilst also balancing my work with my life, as I’d hate for work to take over my life but I can also not afford to slack, not even one bit. I’d say that in terms of being more organised and balancing my work and life I have been doing a very good job, I am more organised and mature than I’ve ever been before, and have learnt how to work efficiently and productively without it taking over too much of my life so I still have time to do the things I enjoy outside of college and this production. Because I am in charge of Props and am working alone for 90% of the work, I need to work closely with the people in charge of costume as props also tie in with costume. I’ve had no issues working with the costume team as we mostly don’t get in each others way but when it comes to my characters costume it is frustrating because I always need to bring up my costume for them to find me some good costume pants, but they always try as hard as they can to leave that for absolute last and to not spend a single penny getting it. In terms of learning lines I’d say there’s 2 – 3 of us as I’m writing this (09/05/22) that are fully solid on our lines, me being one of them. The rest of the actors stress me out a lot since they have been leaving learning their lines to the last minute or giving dumb excuses as to why they didn’t learn their lines when we’ve had a good few weeks to learn them. Accents aren’t needed for this play as we live around the area where the play is set anyways so we naturally have the accents needed, however, this does not mean we don’t need to work on our mannerisms, Scuttlers is a very violent play as is all the characters within the play. This means all of us need to be violent. We need to have a dangerous aura about us which takes time to develop as that is a very hard thing to portray, especially if you’ve never portrayed that emotion before. I need to do physical exercise, everyone does for this play, but I can’t do any physical exercise at the moment because I’ve got eczema, which has been flaring up quite a lot lately and sweat makes it flare up more, I just want to be cautious so that I don’t have a serious flare up and can’t come in. However my physique is good and I am in good shape so I don’t exactly need to work out much.

6)

As a production we are collaborating with Ricky which is managing all the tech work such as managing the lighting and the sound/music queues. (WHO ELSE? COSTUME< MAKEUP?)

7)

me and the rest of the cast members have experience of performing and putting on a full production of a theater play. All the cast members also have the experience of having multiple production roles and having many lines to learn and how if we don’t learn them, how that will effect the play and everyone else’s performance. I have previously worked with the Staged Combat production role however I learned how to choreograph and do Staged Combat with swords, sabers to be exact, so it’s much more of a different process and way of fighting in this play, as the primary weapon of choice is fists, Belts, and a knife. I have worked a bit with knife staged combat but by no means was I taught how to do it, I had to teach myself and wing it. Same thing with fist Combat and belt Combat, however I feel like I am doing a really good and solid job even though this is my first time doing Staged Combat without swords.

Our production is a theatre play and its genres are; Violence, Threat, Crime Drama, and Historical fiction. The reason our production is classed as a Theatre play is because it has no singing within it so it cannot be considered a Musical Theatre play, it consists of very little dance and ALOT of lines and runs for 1hr 30min- 2hrs. The reason the plays themes are; Violence, Threat, Crime Drama, and Hirstorical Fiction, is because the play is about two gangs who constantly fight, there is fighting with Belts and the introduction of a knife, threats constantly being made and is set in the 19th century with made up characters.

8)

The performance will be staged in Proscenium, which is the classic staging with the audience being in front of the stage and not around it. We need to be aware of which side to enter and to exit, we cannot, and must not talk or mess around behind the wings, everyone also needs to make sure they are not visible behind the wings, same thing for the props, although the props is more acceptable if it’s not as visible. The theme of our production is crime, and the cast members are; me, Alex Morgan, Alex SG, Ciaran Corrigan, Sadie Booth, Ruben Martin, Saeem Ali, Lily Fang, Sophie Chen. (MENTION HOW IT WAS AN OLD LECTURE THEATRE SO THE SEATS ARE PLACED AT A GRADIENT)

Derek Martin (Director)

Ricky (technician)

9)

Our production is about gang crime and knife crime awareness. The play is set in the year 1880’s, and this is important because it dictates the style and way we dress and how our characters act to the environment around them. The key characters are Sean, Jimmy, Thomas, Theresa, Polly, George, and Joe. There are some smaller characters who still play a big role such as, Margret, Susan and the Policeman who has one scene.

10)

personally I want to achieve the feeling of amazement, fear and awareness out of the audience. Because there are really cool and intense scenes which my goal in making them is to make the audience feel amazed and just think “Whoa?!” And to inspire fear into the hearts of the audience by our characters interactions, and awareness because this is a play that brings awareness to knife crime. But as a Company our collective goal is to achieve the feelings of fear, awareness, amazement, provocation, shock, sorrow and sadness.

11)

This show that we are putting on is a very violent and gritty show, and we as the actors need to keep up that violent persona and attitude of danger throughout the whole play which is challenging for actors who have not played a “violent” character. I have played Bennett Francis in Punk Rock who is a bully, and I portrayed him as psychopath and was able to play him with that same violence throughout the play, of course it didn’t come naturally it took hours upon hours of work for me to build up that violence however if I could do it so can anyone else. Since I have played violent before I can and will just call upon that violence once again and build it up even more so I have the dangerous aura that is required of my character.

I only use one costume throughout the play so I don’t require any costume changes, however I am in most of the play, as my character plays quite a big role as the leader of the Bengal Tigers Gang. It would be smart to do a workout, and a voice warm up before the show so I can truly get across the violent nature of my character.

12)

We have 7 weeks worth of Rehearsals, 2 weeks of holiday which we can use to learn all of our lines, and 1 week of tech run to figure out all the sound queues and lighting queues, coming to 10 weeks of preparation before the actual show day. Our 10 weeks of preparation starts on 21/03/22 and ends on the 25/05/22 as the show will take place on the 26th of May. As this is a huge play we are not doing any relaxed performances or any matinees, we are only doing 1 performance on the 26th of May.

13)

The show is being performed in the Clarendon Sixth form college Theatre, where we have access to; Lighting, Sound, and a smoke machine. From the 16th of May till the 20th of May we are in Tech week, so during this time we will arrange and set up all the lighting we need and the sound and music queues for the play, we will also be setting up a smoke machine to give the stage and the whole play more of an cold and dreary atmosphere that will also help set the time and period we’ll be in.

14)

Our shows main demographic is late teens (16+) and young adults as our play is quite violent and not suitable for younger audiences. Our show is being advertised via social media such as, TikTok, and Instagram as well as posters being made about it, and the Primary way Tickets will sell out is by us, the cast members telling our families and friends about the show so they can come watch