Poncho's and all

Well today we got 80 metres of fabric for Poncho's for the audience to wear. As there are 4 tribes in the play, one colour for each tribe. So we have split the audience up into 50 audience members for each colour as we have only 80 metres we have produced 110 ponchos, 55 of pink and 55 of green. we have produced a 5 poncho contingency plan per colour. We are getting together the milky Magician costume, it is nearly finished. We have also de-barked 5 sticks of wood ready for staffs for some of the characters. We also have thoughts of the Water Nymphs and what they are like and what we can do with them. As the Design team had a little day trip to chiswick house on monday, unfortunately we could not go around all the gardens but we could see them from some points of the cordened off area which went to the house (as it was open). so we had a few ideas from what we saw. We are thinking that the Water Nymph queen could travel across from the island in the middle of the river to the audience on a little raft or boat. Or if possible, walk across the water on a hidden platform under the water. There are lots of ideas coming from our team and we are getting things done. Lets hope it carrys on like this!

Designing the show

We started creating costumes and props today, I am finally feeling like I am doing something for the show. We have gone for a Robin Hood/Lord of the Rings (LOTR) - esque style of costumes. Plus we are really getting a lot of ideas, once we found out the storyline and the first bits of the script. Like the idea that we have The Milky Magician on stilts, but this had proved a problem as we want the Magician to increase in size when he shrinks the audience, as trying to stand up on stilts from sitting in the space of 1 minute is incredibly difficult. So we have decided either that he will climb on top of a ladder when he is shrinking the audience, the other idea is that he will sit on someone else's shoulders and they will stand up when the magician shrinks the audience. There are ideas of the sad caterpillar being about 10 metres long, hopefully we have the budget to get the fabric to cover it all! There are a few ideas of things coming from the Magical tree when the audience succeed the task at the end of the show, for example chocolates! Well, thats all for now, but i will be writing some more tommorow!

"The Help"

I have just got back from watching Carboard Citizen's "The Help" and I had a brilliant time watching it. I have not had the chance, until now to see a forum theatre piece live. I thought that it was really informative and gave me some suprising insights to people who live in hostels and care homes to people who are homeless. I was taken aback by how much it costs to live in a Hostel for the homeless, it surprised me so much! Why does it cost so much to rent a room from the charity? it should really be quite cheap as they are homeless! the show dealt with stories of three people and how they got to get to the hostel. There were a various reasons why they turned up at the home, from being made redundant, running away from home because the character is a stroppy teenager and a woman who came from a different country to work with a family, as a nanny.

The way they used the set (which consisted of cardboard boxes), by moving them around, and placing them in different places, made you feel, as an audience member, you were in a different place. They also used puppets in the performance, which was very effective as they really told the story well. These puppets ranged from an Action Man doll with a stick out the back of his head to puppets, which were human sized, made from just the clothes of the actor, they were impersonating.

Once i left the place i felt invigorated, wanting to help out and also just a chance to help out people in those situations.

Thinking about, problems I think we will face.....

I'm not too sure about how many people want to be doing a big group project, as I would not know where to look for a community project which I will be happy with. As i have been looking at other possibilities for a individual project, thinking maybe at a prison or a young offenders institute, but I am very worried about what they would make of me. This is why I am so hopeful that most of the people on this course want to do a big project, like last year's 'Helios'. As i feel that it would help people if they are working together, as you have people to help you through the whole project. But there are two problems that I foresee in doing in a big project are: 1) People not pulling their own weight in the project and 2) People doing too much and finding themselves behind with their other modules.


I think my best resource for D.I.C would be Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, as the book has sections on his idea of Forum theatre, and that is one of the style's people use in D.I.C. Plus Carboard Citizens use forum theatre in their shows, if people would like to see, their webpage is:

http://www.cardboardcitizens.org.uk/

Looking back at todays lecture of Drama in the Community (D.I.C), it was a fun lecture from my position, as it was looking at the storytelling side of D.I.C. Looking at our own Memories and using specific style memories; we looked at memories of us going out for the night. when i thought of my own memory, i thought is was a really good night out, from my point of view, but when we interviewed each other, it felt my memory of the night out, was not as good too listen to. But I think that was because in my head I think back at that night and sort of 'put it up onto a pedastal'. It was very wierd, because when we got into fours, one of the people i was in a group with, thought that her story was not very good, but i thought that it was a really good memory/story as it could be transferred to all different places around the World and people would be able to relate to it. We also looked at the role of the storyteller, and how they could change the whole feel of the story from the way they tell the story.

Drama in the community - hopes

Well, this is my first ever blog! don't really know exactly what to say here...... i am looking forward to this course, as i really enjoyed taking part in the final bits of last years production of Helios, i really am looking forward to putting together a big show in semester 2! here's hoping that it will be a success!

catch you later!