Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe – No Added Sugar

Its all out of my hands…

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / June 1, 2014June 2, 2014 / Reflection

Being the stage manager for Three Words was a crazy experience, especially for a first time Stage Manager. It was fun, mad and exciting all at the same time. Watching the company grow over the past few months and seeing how everyone began to work together so quickly was lovely. At the beginning of the process I became the person who pushed everyone to focus as I had a sense of the amount of hard work that would need to be put into the process an thankfully all of our hard work paid off. There were still some aspects that could be adapted with our performance and some scenes could be developed and altered even further but then a performance can never be perfect

On our debut performance night there were some technical aspects that did not go to plan, however this was out of my hands. There was one scene in which the actors were meant to be talking through the microphones but this didn’t happen. When I got in contact with our sound technician Martin, he said that the mics were on and were turned up but I think it as partly to do with the position of the mic in relation to the performer. Thankfully it did not alter the atmosphere of the scene too much. I guess the problem with using all of this technology is that it may have its hitches and not work as it should, that’s the risk you have take when using it. It could either work to help your piece or fail which could hinder your final outcome. Three Words was partly constructed so that if it did have a technological problem then it could still work. Due to most of our performance being live it would have still been a successful (but different) performance if there was a major technical hitch.

BooaHUPIMAAi2Bl — Here’s Becky learning how to use the lighting desk!

Throughout the construction of our production there were several rehearsals in which the equipment we required was not available to us, we were still successful in being able to run through these scenes and rehearse the lines and actions, which were the important parts, the technology just helped to bring another layer to the performance. You could tell where the technology was missing but it was not always possible to have it with us. I regularly set up the equipment for rehearsals, which when in different rooms/buildings provided a challenge but it was always a case of problem solving and utilising what equipment was available to make our equipment beneficial. Such as connecting the camera to a DVD player in order to make it come through the projector. It has been a fun process, building upon skills that I already had.

Throughout this process I have managed to gain the respect of everyone else in the group, allowing me to keep pushing and keeping everyone focused and on task. This was something I was a little bit worried about at the beginning of the process, being quiet and generally shy I was not sure how this whole process would pan out, but it went better than I could have hoped for. I managed to gain the trust of individuals so they would then believe the advice that I was giving them. This was also the case with not only aspect of the rehearsal but also to do with the technical aspect to the production. Having a varied knowledge on technical allowed me to input my suggestions and offer advice as to whether something would not only work but if it would work would it look good, the answer was not always yes… Correct that most things could be produced but it would not have always suited our performance. This was not always the answer people wanted to hear, but providing reasons as to why it would not work helped to back up my point.

I feel this process and No Added Sugar is just the beginning for me, and hopefully everyone else in the company. It has provided me with an insight into an area that I had not yet explored. I feel that Three Words will not (hopefully) be just a one performance thing. There is so much more left that it has to give. It still has plenty of room to grow and develop just like any other show, and I do not think it has a time limit, it is not held down to a certain date as it explores so many different aspects.

We made it onto the LPAC green rooms wall!

We have left our mark here at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre. Our poster made it onto the Green Rooms wall! How exciting… This is the end of our time at this venue but is there a chance we, No Added Sugar, could return one day…

We’re not adding sugar… We’re adding colour…

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / May 22, 2014June 2, 2014 / Technical

Sound script, show script and rehearsal script! So many scripts!

As Stage Manager for the company, it was decided – between myself, Abbi and Tom – that whilst doing our tech in the space for Three Words it would only be necessary for the three of us to be there. We then arranged a space for the other 6 members of our company to rehearse, do line runs and also rehearse harmonies for songs. This was a good plan as during our tech it allowed us to focus and get things moving along quite nicely. Not to offend any of the company but I feel that had they been present things would have been completed at a slower pace, this would mainly have been due to curiosity and wonder as to what was happening. These are things which I felt could be self explanatory when we do a run in the space with tech.

So for our tech session Abbi had created a schedule which allowed for our time to spent wisely, allowing us to communicate effectively with the in house technicians, Alex, Martin and Darren which made for an easier get in for all individuals involved. We utilised our previous skills and made sure that everyone was doing something helpful in order to do tasks as quick, but effectively, as we could.

Abbi, as well as being our Production Manager, is also our lighting designer. So as she explained her vision to the technicians and what lights she wanted to use to create the effects and spaces on stage, we all began to get a clear understanding of the task ahead. It was then time to focus the lights onto the spaces. Today was only a rough focus for us to gain an idea of what it will look like. It shall be focused more on the performance day. Today Abbi made her vision come to life, and it was magical… And as Abbi says We are not adding sugar but we are certainly adding colour. Here is a little sneaky preview of our preset 🙂

Having a acquired a good understanding of QLab it meant that myself and Abbi had put together a QLab file ready for the tech. I then grouped the cue together to allow for easier operation. I had a fun job of colour coding each cue to match what was in my folder. This was a good thing to know how to do so that I can easily tell where we are in the show just by the colours that were with the cue that we would currently be in. This helps me not to panic as much for operating the show. I have operated several shows over my time but never have I operated one on stage whilst performing. This in itself is a challenge so I have grouped the cues into scenes and gave them colours, yellow – lighting, green – AV, pink – sound.

The QLab file just needed a few final adjustments and it was soon performance ready. Martin, was impressed with the standard that it was up to, but this had been made through the training that he himself had taught me over the previous year.

As Abbi was programming the lighting with Alex, me and Tom had the chance to talk about sound with Martin, who will be mixing our sound levels for us live during the show. I had not realised that there would be so much that needed to be done regarding sound. This understanding means I have to alter our performance day schedule that I had created, I am not sure how this will go down with the cast but I am sure they will cope. Talking it through with Martin helped us to know how it was going to work on the day, and how he is going to work and what he needs from us on the performance day.

Overall I feel like today has been a success, we achieved what was set on our schedule. The three of us and the technicians, we all became one team and, worked effectively communicating with one another. I feel now as though it is real and we have a performance. It is amazing how much the technical aspects of a show can bring it to life. So with 5 days to go… I am feel confident with the overall process, as I know I have amazing technicians behind me and also a wonderful cast to perform alongside.

Work In Progress – Review

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / May 6, 2014May 17, 2014 / Development, Work In Progress

Audiences are always collaborators. Without somebody watching, theatre can be no more than a faraway tree falling unheard. (Gardner, 2009)

Work In Progress events are also known as Scratch events, they are something which is becoming more popular to do throughout the development process when creating a performance. This is due to being able to present your work at any stage to an audience which is willing to critique your work and as an audience member ‘we are engaged critically, even creatively; asked to reflect on what we felt worked, what didn’t and what’s missing.‘(Gardner, 2009). This is important throughout the development phase as it gives you a feel of what will work with a larger audience and what possibly needs to be changed or maybe gotten rid of altogether due to it not working or creating the right effect.

It is even the case that theatres are starting to hold Scratch night events in which performers, comedians and dance artists can go along and perform their work to an audience who will then provide feedback afterwards in order to help the production to develop to its best potential.

As a company we felt that we would benefit from holding our own Work-In-Progress event so we carefully selected a group of 8 people to come and watch our performance, whilst it was still raw and a few scenes had only just been developed and some still under construction so that we could get an idea of what was working for the audience and what was missing. We chose the audience and limited the amount of people we invited so that we could get the best possible feedback we could. Even though there was a lot of positive feedback, it was really the negative criticism that we were interested in so we could go ahead and work head to work from the feedback to make the show even better. I believe that with all of the feedback we have been given that the work in progress benefited our company a lot, although we do have a person who has the final say, this is a little hard to do when you have created the work, watched it develop and then know what might need to change. Putting a production in front of an audience, changes it. So it was a positive for us to get really good feedback as well as things to be changed.

Looking at it from the stage managers point of view, things were not perfect, people changed movements and things changed, whether this was down to nerves or just a lack of knowing what they are doing I do not know. But it is now time to make sure everyone is confident in their actions and can show this through their movements. We need to work hard on making sure the transitions are right for the show, as I believe this could make it or break it as it could interrupt the flow of the performance if people are not confident enough when changing scenes around. I know this might seem like a minor thing but it is going to get sorted for the performance. The little details also count. I feel like I need to figure out exactly where the music and sound effects are going to go as this has not yet been clarified but shall be done in the next rehearsal.

Overall I feel proud of the company after the viewing and know that together we will continue to work hard and work together to tighten up the scenes and make all our hard work pay off. We have THREE WEEKS until our performance, that in itself is exciting.

Works Cited:

Gardner, L (2009) Keeping Work-In-Progress theatre up to scratch. Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2009/sep/15/work-in-progress-theatre-scratch [Accessed 6th May 2014]

So its nearly time to show our ideas…

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / May 1, 2014May 4, 2014 / Development

The time is nearing to our second work in progress… Tomorrow in fact!

Do I feel ready? Yes…no… I really don’t know.

I think this is a great time in our process to show it to a selected audience due to the fact that we have been working so long on making it ‘right’ that I am not too sure if we know what right is anymore… We know how we want the scene to feel and the way we want the audience to connect in their own way but we have been spending hours that we no longer know if it is achieving what we want it to achieve. I believe showing it to an audience allows us to get some fresh eyes onto our material.

I feel that because it is a devised piece rather than scripted it is difficult to know if something truly works with an audience until we show it to one. We didn’t want to wait until the performance date it self so now is a good time as it leaves us with just under a month to develop and improve on the feedback we will be given.

As a company we know what still need the greatest improvements but hopefully this work in progress will pick up on aspects that we our selves had not thought of yet. It could be the slightest thing that is not right but this could change the whole feel of the scene. We are lucky enough for this to be our second work in progress so we can see how far our piece has come. We have come so far but know we still have so far left to go.

I feel so far this has been a journey that none of us expected, it has been fun, creative yet challenging. We are bonding more as a company that it is starting to feel like one, we have come so far from when we first formed. We are more comfortable around each other and parts of ourselves are starting to come out, showing hidden talents along the way.

We really are nine different people coming together to create one unique show.

The devising process

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / March 10, 2014June 2, 2014 / Development

As a company we decided to create a unique devised piece instead of taking and performing or possibly adapting a ready-made script. The devising process will allow us to create and recreate ideas into something that we do not even know yet. I feel like this is going to be a tough but exciting process as Stage Manager due to its changing nature, I will have to be organised and note down everything that is important even if it is going to change as then we will have a reference in case there was a previous idea which could work but had been lost through the changes. ‘Devised work is a response and a reaction to the playwright – director relations, to text-based theatre, […] and challenges the prevailing ideology of one person’s text under another person’s direction. (Oddey, 1994, 4).

Throughout our process there will not be one set writer, it will be a case of individuals going away and finding material and then as a company we have a say in the ideas that we liked or what we thought could work. It is a case of collaborating ideas and then an individual of the company will go and write a draft script in which will be read through as a company, suitable actors chosen and then edited to performance standard, even then it shall still be changed as staging takes place.

The devising process has allowed the company to ‘stretch the limits of established practices’ (Govan, 2007, 3) in the sense that there is no linear narrative. As a company we have been able to fragment several techniques and stories together to create our piece. It has allowed us to play with different styles that normally would not be seen in the same performance ranging from puppetry to music.

Works Cited:
Govan, N., Nicholson H., Normington K. (2007) Making a Performance, Devising Histories and Contemporary Practices, Oxford: Routledge
Oddey, A (1994) Devising Theatre: A Practical and Theoretical Handbook, London: Routledge