Evaluation of Venue: Millais

Get in:

When we arrived at the venue we signed in at reception then meet with the teacher who had hired us for this performance she took us to the venue where we would be performing and set to work getting all of the equipment and items that where needed out of the van and moved to the hall in what I felt was a quick, orderly and professional manner, placing set to one side and technical equipment to the other. After everything was in place we set to work on our individual tasks, rigging our own light. I was in charge of a light which goes on one of the back truss, using the ladder to get it to where it should go. On reflection of my personal job I need to get used to it, I felt un-eased by having to rig a light at the top of the truss while climbing the ladder hoping not to drop the heavy light, now that I know I can do it in the time provided I am sure I will become more confident with it. I did make sure that it was attached correctly and that the cables were together and had slack when they were taped to the side of the truss. To make everything as efficient as possible we had labelled everything beforehand so I knew without hesitation what dimmer pack I had to connect to and that cable and extension cord was mine this resulted in a concise and efficient way of working where everyone was able to get on with their jobs without hesitation or confusion making it on the whole and easier and calmer environment then it would have been without the labels. During the get in we have to show our professionalism towards our client as it could result in us getting re-hired for more performances, in the get in a Millais it was noted that we were not as professional as we could have been with cases of swearing where people were not aware of the surroundings and that we were in a secondary school. There was also the disorganisation of the tools and where they were in the room, as a result we now have a rule that after you have used the tool it goes back in to a box in the middle of the room so everyone knows it will be there. We need to achieve the same quick and professional conduct as we did in the get out due to the fact that in many cases a venue will only give you a limited time to get everything up and running. Throught out the devising process we were still always thinking about the get in and out on some level, we kenow what transport we had available to use and knew that we couldn’t take the whole world with us so we understood what type of things we could take. This impacted on our piece as we knew we could only have limited set and props and as a result invented different ways to present different objects such as using the big book case as a door and the books as different objects during the family scene. The feedback we received specifically on the family book scene was one of amazement the student couldn’t believe that we were able to get the fact that we could show a baby and a growing family just by using books and that you don’t need to use realistic, this is an idea that they said they will take away from our project.

Not everything went to plan, a sudden realisation had circled around the group that we had forgotten to get out the lighting desk from the minivan, as a result we had to ask rose to go back for it. The group did not fall into disarray or panic due to that fact that we had sorted and alternative of using a desk provided by the venue, even though it would still not have been ideal we did have a viable fall back on giving the group that confidence of knowing that we are capable and able of overcoming such a problem should it happen again (providing we are in a venue where a spare desk is available). However we managed to retrieve it and set it up on time for Laura to focus the lights and to check that everything was working and since losing the desk has happened it is now engrained in everyone to check for it. After we had done our individual jobs we would have gone on to change into costume and put out the set however in this case we were not set to perform for an hour and a half so we carried on sorting out the wires, sticking them to the floor before going out in search of breakfast. After we returned we went straight into costume which I felt was very efficient and then proceeded to help with the placing of the set, props, lighting and tidying the area for the audience while setting out seats. During this section of the get in everyone still had set jobs to do for instance I was in charge of making sure everyone had the correct costume and that everyone was ready before the start of the show0 in order to perform this job efficiently I had labelled everyone costume beforehand and just handed it out to them taking not of those that had gone from the costume rail and those still needed to be put on. Due to the fact that again everyone was organised and absorbed in their own role they had to complete this section of the get in went smoothly, I did however take note that apparently there were some technical difficulties to do with the lighting which I hadn’t noticed until I was told after the show, showing me that the group are able to overcome and sort out any difficulties without having or causing a big deal- keeping calm under pressure and just getting on with your job in hand and once that is finished asking that stage manager or assistant stage manager what you can do to help. 

Performance:

Before the performance we not able to achieve a proper warm up so we only did a little vocal warm up of “my poor bird”. Ideally I would have preferred to do a full physical and vocal warm up beforehand but we ran out of time and the audience had been seated earlier than expected while we were still setting the last bits of set. Next time I shall be sure to do a warm up prior to turning up to the venue even if it is on my own as I feel that I need it in order to focus and prepare my mind on the task in hand, the group must set aside and period of time to achieve a warm up or an alternative would be to perform the vocal warm up on the bus journey their and a physical warm up wither when we get there or before we leave. We were lucky as we only had a small audience, if the audience had been bigger and the space vast then projection would have been a problem especially without the necessary warm up. As a whole I felt that our first performance went well, there were no major hic-ups and I believe the audience grasped what the message was that we were trying to portray. There are only a few things that I think we should go over and re-look at; the putting on of the masks despite Chloe having the mask on upside down which I don’t think the audience noticed, their physicality of the elderly was good but did laps in some parts, I just think practice and getting used to what you have to do will remedy that. I also felt that there was too long a pause after the table dance to when they woke up, it felt like the piece was finished at that point- this has been noted during the rehearsals and we just need to go over and make the waking up transition quicker, despite this all the other transitions into other scenes ran smoothly and even the audience commented on how well we had achieved it without using any black outs. As far as technical aspect where concerned everything started at the right point however some queues where missed, or there were technical issues when a song was still playing when it should either be a background whisper, no sound at all, or a transition into a different piece of music. Regardless of having one light that did not work I felt that everything was light in the right way and that overall the piece looked and worked well. It was clear by the end of the piece that we had made some kind of impact even before we asked them about it as many in the audience were crying or had come close to crying.   

  

Question and answer session:

I realised half way through the question and answer session that I should have pre-set a note pad and pen to write down comments and notes so that I could look back and work on any of the notes we were given, since I did not have and note pad or paper to hand I had to rely on my memory which is not always the best option. Luckily Laura did have a note pad and was writing everything down all of the comment. In future I am going to bring and place a note pad and pen in a reachable area so that I can get to it after the performance in order to take down the notes. We were mostly given good feedback about our piece and they loved how we had incorporated physical theatre amongst the scenes, however we did ask if anything was unclear and one student said that we may need to clarify the passing of time during the oak tree scene as she didn’t quite understand it until the end of the scene, she suggested using the lighting to show the passing of different days. Taking this under consideration however I believe we can use the older Evie to incorporate the passing of time in this scene by here reading from her diary and maybe mentioning different dates. During this session we realised that not only did we get our message out but we helped them to prepare for a gcse performance where they have to create a piece of documentary theatre which is similar to the style which our piece was in, so it ended up being a demonstration of what they will can achieve for their piece, indicating that our piece can be more than what we originally thought and that we can sell it as more if we apply for funding. The importance of knowing the schools exam criteria will help in this, so we are able to supply them with what they need and in turn create and promote more business for ourselves. 

The get out:

The get out was very much different to the get in, everything was down and organised into the middle of the room, I re-organised the costume rack and made sure all the costume were collected and hanging. During the whole get in get out process I realised that taking a clothes rail was not the most efficient way of transporting the costume so instead I shall go in search of a box to place them in for the future. I did not get to take down my light when I went over to do my next job as Dave had already done it for me. After everything was down and in the middle we took everything out of the venue to the van in order of lighting and heavy pieces first followed by the boxes of cables and props as well as costume. On the way out we had to change the organisation of everything in the van then we had done it before to make it more efficient and easy to find and take everything out. Because of this we found that we had performed this task much quicker than expected and so we were ready to leave the venue.